Where the Heart Is

by Workable Goblin

In Transit

Hyperspace

As the Mothership entered hyperspace, the holoprojector and display screens went blank for a moment, before reverting to a standard ship diagnostics display. Shining slumped in his chair, finally able to relax.

"Fleet Command," he asked a moment later, "how long until we exit hyperspace?"

"About a day," Twilight told him. "The coordinates I generated were almost 300 light years away, in deep space. We'll be safe there."

"Safe," he muttered, under his breath. But she was right, they'd be virtually undetectable in deep space. But, he realized, they needed to figure out what they were going to do next. Almost as importantly, he was just a commodore and in charge of the Mothership's construction and tests; the Admiralty had been aboard the Scaffold or on the surface. At the very least, he would need to work out a permanent command structure with the other watch commanders, before getting agreement on what they to do.

It had been a long day, but it was about to get a lot longer.

A few button presses later, and his communications set was on open circuit, enabling him to address everypony in the room. For a moment, he hesitated, before charging ahead.

"Alright everypony," he started, "it's been a long, hard day, but it's not over yet. We're going to turn over command to--" he checked the time, "team 3, early evening. Then we're going to meet in one of the conference rooms--Twilight will tell you which one--to try to think about what we're going to do next, with the division and command leads and their deputies. See you there at 21:00 sharp."

He closed the channel.

---

Shining glanced around the conference room one last time. Twilight had told him it was the largest on board the ship. Around the lectern and screen sitting at the foot of the room curved two tiers of dark pseudowood tables in tight horseshoes, each backed by rows of deep, plush chairs, making sixty places, every one of them filled. Overhead the ceiling panels were enchanted to glow a soft, even white. A thick carpet lined the floor, dulling every sound, while the walls were lined with more of the psuedowood. Altogether, it was fit for a panel of admirals debating some point of strategy. Almost, though not quite, what he was doing now, in fact.

He stood. Gradually, the sound of conversations elsewhere in the room dimmed, as more and more ponies noticed that he was standing. "This morning," he began, "over the course of several hours an unknown alien species carried out attacks on Equus, the Infinity, and the Mothership. Fleet Command, if you please," he added, directing his voice upwards.

An image of Equus, marked by the scars of whatever weapons had been used against it, appeared on the screen at the base of the room. Gentle blue-green annotations marked out the locations of major landmarks and cities. No trace remained.

Around him, he could hear the same wails, sobs, and choked gasps that had filled the Operations Center when they had seen it. Seeing it again made him flinch. "Equus was destroyed," he continued as the crying died to a manageable level. "The Scaffold was destroyed," and the image switched to the trail of wreckage littering its orbital position. "The Infinity was destroyed," showing the wreckage of the spaceship. "Everything was destroyed, except for us. We are all that remains of ponykind."

There was silence as he paused to recollect his notes. "Our mission now is to survive. To do that, we need to plan ahead, to think beyond finding a warm hole to hide in, and to do that we need to clearly determine who is going to be making decisions, and how he, she, or they are going to do it. As the senior military officer aboard..." He paused, collecting himself, "As the senior officer alive, military law would dictate that I become commander-in-chief, while with no surviving representatives of any civilian government or the Equestrian Union aboard, I would become in effect the civilian government as well. However, I wanted to check whether anypony might have other, better ideas for how to organize our--our government". Sitting down, he waited.

Not for very long, as it turned out. Less than a minute later he was standing back up to unanimous acclamation as the new commander-in-chief of the Equestrian Space Force. "I'll do my best," he promised, voice cracking. "Now then," he continued more levelly, "we should discuss what we are going to do next. First, though, we all need to know what we're up against. Intelligence?" He nodded towards a pony sitting at the lower of the two tables. While he navigated his way through the maze of chairs towards the lectern at the front, Shining Armor sat back down.

As the intelligence officer stepped up behind the podium, his audience could finally get a good look at him. He didn't look like much; a grey coat, matched with a permanently greasy black mane and tail, with soft, unassuming brown eyes. Almost insultingly ordinary, except for his cutie mark: a leg, muffled by rags wrapped around it. He set his tablet into the lectern to read from, then looked up and out at his audience. "Unfortunately," he began, "we don't know very much about our enemy. Even their biology remains a mystery..."

---

Fluttershy sighed, slightly muffled by the surgical mask she was wearing. While the other doctors finished suiting up, she stepped into the examination room. For a moment, she stood in the passageway between the theater and the washroom, looking at the empty tiers of seats rising above the facility, inspecting the stainless sinks and countertops lining its walls, and checking the suite of surgical equipment to make sure it was adequate. Then she focused on the naked body, almost but not quite pony-like, lying on the table in the center. Tentatively, she stepped towards it.

"Just speak, and I'll record everything you say. We can review it later to cut anything you don't want saved," Fleet Command said, voice bright and encouraging.

"Um...okay." Fluttershy composed herself before beginning. "Xenozoology Action Team, X-Z Dissection Report One, X-Z Species A. Doctor Fluttershy, Xenozoology Team Chair, supervising. Doctor Keen Eye, Zoology Anatomy Lead, performing. Doctor Sharp Mind, Zoology Anatomy Member, assisting. Doctor Straight Edge, Zoology Anatomy Member, assisting."

That said, she stepped up to the body, walking slowly around it as she narrated. "This evening, at approximately twenty forty-five--"

"Twenty forty-seven, to be exact," Fleet Command interrupted.

"Oh...um, thank you," Fluttershy blushed. "Twenty forty-seven, a military group delivered several corpses to the zoology department, requesting that we autopsy the bodies and return the results as quickly as possible. They claimed the bodies were those of aliens recovered earlier today by SAR teams, although they were not forthcoming about the circumstances that led to alien corpses being recovered by SAR teams."

She glanced at the body. "We selected one of the bodies, henceforth 'Specimen A,' to begin our analysis. A cursory initial examination appears to bear out their statements. Despite having taken severe damage, likely from weapons fire, it is clear that the corpse resembles no known species. Instead, it is a curious hybrid of avian and mammalian features. For example, as you can see in the accompanying images, the forequarters of the being are covered with long grey feathers, while the rear parts are covered with a short, wiry black fur. On the whole, Specimen A's species appears to be some type of hybrid of predatory birds and large cats, with the characteristics of the former visible largely on the forward half of the creature, and those of the latter on its rear."

Stepping up to the body, she began gently poking and prodding it with her hooves, turning it this way and that to examine it in detail. "A more in-depth external examination continues this impression. Structures which appear to be homologous to many of those found on known mammalian species, including ponies, are visible on Specimen A, despite its poor condition, including large wings resembling those of pegasi. Although they appear to have too little wing area to be capable of supporting the individual in flight, it is possible that this species can channel magic through its wings as well and is flight capable, or that it normally lives in a low-gravity or high-pressure environment where less wing area would be necessary for flight. Which hypothesis is correct can only be answered with a living specimen.

"In any case, it is not clear, because of the damage to the corpse, whether it had any injuries prior to death, although there does seem to be some old scarring on the forelegs. It is possible this was inflicted by another member of its species, as each of its forelegs terminate not in a single hoof, as with ponies, but instead a branching structure with four parts, each ending in a long, sharp talon, very similar to the feet of many bird species. In addition, its rear legs terminate in a different branching structure, resembling a cat's paw. As with cat's paws, it is clawed," she added after a brief examination.

Across the table from Fluttershy, Doctor Keen Eye, flanked by his assistants, finally stepped up, fully suited up for the dissection. She nodded at them, and together they rolled the body over. As the other three doctors continued the external examination, Fluttershy narrated. "Examination of the ventral region of Specimen A bears out earlier results. Many structures similar to those found on mammals are visible on the rear part of the body; among other things," she said, glancing at the body's crotch, "this individual appears to be male. Similarly, many avianoid features are present on the front part of the body."

She glanced at Keen Eye, who nodded. "With the external examination complete, we will begin internal examination. Doctor, if you would?"

A glittering array of surgical instruments descended in his aura towards the body. He began his narration, slightly muffled by his surgical mask, "Beginning central incision..."

---

"...however, we have no idea what the motivations, goals, or even, at this point, the biology of the attackers was. While some of these questions can doubtlessly be answered with the material at hoof, others may be more difficult to solve. Thank you." To the sound of silence, Muffled Step stepped down from the podium and walked back to his former seat.

"Thank you for the presentation, Intelligence," Shining Armor spoke up after he sat down. "I believe," he continued, we have two options. First, we can run. We have the hyperdrive; the Mothership is designed to survive indefinitely without support from Equus. It might take us years, but we could travel across or even beyond the galaxy, far past where they could most likely find us. Second, we could fight. Far more dangerous, but we might be able to win enough of a victory that we could get another home, or even our own homeworld."

"We may not have a choice," said a voice he recognized as Cloud Kicker's. She seemed to shrink on herself for a moment as the attention of the conferees turned towards her, before gaining the energy to continue. "Consider the first hostile act that the aliens performed. They attacked the Infinity, an unarmed research vessel at the edge of the system. To find it--that implies powerful sensors, capable of picking out tiny targets at great distance--"

"Or maybe," she was interrupted by a rather sour-looking, lime-green and white-maned unicorn mare, "they simply jumped around the edge until they ran into her. We have no idea how long they spent prowling around the edge of the system."

"--perhaps," Cloud Kicker continued, unperturbed. "But there is a good chance they could find the Mothership, even here. And to destroy a world...I don't see why they would hesitate to destroy a ship, afterwards."

"Well, who knows?" replied her opponent. "Maybe they were...I don't know, children, and now that it's not fun anymore they'll give up. We don't know anything about them!"

Cloud Kicker grunted in exasperation. "Children? Really?"

"Yes, like in one of those science fiction stories. From an advanced civilization with technology far beyond ours, so that even their children have enormous power. What?" she demanded at the sniggers that followed. "I'm not seriously suggesting it, I'm just making the point that we have no idea what we're up against. We can't make any assumptions."

"And I'm saying that we can't assume that we can run," Cloud Kicker sharply replied. "The little we do know says that they can find ships in deep space, far away from any stars. Whatever we do, we need to be ready to fight--"

"Enough," Shining Armor calmly interrupted. "You're both right, and we do at least need to build a fleet that can defend us, like Cloud Kicker said." Everypony else nodded their heads, even the mare Cloud Kicker had been arguing against. "Personnel, Production, Life Support, what can we do?"

"Production is at 100% capacity, sir," an electric blue stallion in the first row said, turning to face him. "All we need is the blueprints, and we can build it."

"We were scheduled to carry a complement of Space Force personnel in the cryo trays," a plump, sandy-colored mare in the upper ranks added. "We could dethaw them, and needed civilian specialists, and recruit from the staff. There should be no problem crewing the ships or supplying the Mothership-side personnel."

"There won't be any problems feeding them, either," Applejack added quietly from the first row. "We're sized to accommodate three times as many as are active now."

"Alright," Shining nodded to himself. "Production, Design, Research, Personnel, tomorrow we're going to discuss building up the fleet. Fleet Command will tell you the time and the room, bring the staff you think most relevant. Public Affairs, stay with me. Everypony else, dismissed."

---

"There, sir." The public affairs chief clicked on his tablet, sending a copy of the revised speech winging through the air to Shining's display. "I don't think we're going to get much better."

Shining sped through the updated draft, skimming over the firmly established phrases to see what had been changed. A moment later, he tilted his head back and sighed. "Probably not," he agreed. "Thank you," he added a moment later.

"Of course. It is my job, after all." As he stood, the door slid aside, allowing him to step out.

Shining slumped in his seat and sighed, again.

"It's not that bad, you know," his sister told him.

"I know, it's just..."

"You did fine earlier, big brother."

"I know all those ponies."

"Look," she told him, "just talk to me. Don't think of everypony. Just speak."

"Okay." He sucked a breath in, reaching as deep as he could, filling himself with air, before exhaling with a long sigh. "This morning..."

---

"Only we survived..."

Doctor Keen Eye was looking at her, eyes grave. "Do you want to stop the autopsy, Doctor?"

With a start, Fluttershy realized that she had just been frozen in place, listening to Shining Armor's words, midway through the dissection. What had she been doing...? She looked, side-to-side. There! Wrapped in her gloved wing, a liver. No, the liver. She carefully lifted it up onto one of the study trays before turning to look the unicorn in the eye.

"No," she heard herself say. "No." She shook her head. "We need to finish."

Keen Eye studied her for a moment. "As you say, Fluttershy," he finally said, before returning to his work.

---

Fluttershy was lying on her mat, legs tucked neatly under her, wings folded tightly by her side, eyes closed. Her breaths came slow, deep, steady, matching the pace of her heart as she plunged into the meditation.

That, like the mat, had been a gift, she thought, allowing her mind to wander freely. From one of her first professors in biology, the one she had worked for as a student before going on to advanced studies, the one who had encouraged her to pursue research instead of her vague ideas of veterinary study.

"Take it," she had said, Fluttershy could remember, when she had levitated it over to her. "Oh, and this," she said, turning slightly, slipping a book out from under her desk and floating it into Fluttershy's saddlebags with the rolled-up mat.

"What is it?" Fluttershy had asked, confused. "And why are you giving it to me?"

"It's for meditation. The book describes some techniques. If you're confused about anything, just come talk to me," she had said. For a moment...Fluttershy wasn't sure what she had done, but Fluttershy knew she had paused before pressing onwards. "As for why...Fluttershy, you've been working with us for a year. What's your latest project, and how's it going?"

She had gulped, trying to swallow the stinging taste of fear that had polluted her mouth, she remembered. "Um, well.."

She had stopped at her professor's raised hoof. "That. That is why. You hesitate here, when it's just the two of us, when you know I'm not going to chew you out, and when you know I know the answer to the question already. I've seen you with other ponies, Fluttershy. You vanish into corners to avoid being seen."

She had tapped her hoof against the desk. "I know you prefer field time, Fluttershy, but talking to other ponies, presenting your research and convincing them it's worthwhile, is just as important as having bulletproof results. I thought meditation could help you deal with your social anxiety." A moment later she had muttered, almost too low for Fluttershy to hear, "It did for me."

She had been right, Fluttershy remembered. It had helped. She had been more than just a teacher or a supervisor, but a friend, one of Fluttershy's first.

And now she was dead. A whole new world opened up to her as she forced her mind to hold onto it, even as it tried to wriggle away. She wasn't the only one who was dead. There were Fluttershy's parents, her friends, her colleagues. Dead, dead, dead, each and every one of them. She felt as if she should--

Before she could finish that thought, the door to her cabin crashed open, and the trance state was shattered. Her eyes sprang open of their own volition, before she could stop them, and her steady breathing paused, the rhythm broken.

In front of her, she saw an orange-coated, blonde-maned mare. Applejack. Her friend. But not as she had ever seen her before. This Applejack was leaning against the doorframe, apparently having trouble standing up. One of her front legs was curled up around a bottle of some kind.

Before she could say anything, Applejack spoke. "F'uttershy?" she asked, squinting at the pegasus on the floor as if having trouble seeing. "Izzat you?"

Fluttershy unfolded her legs, coming to her full height in a single step. "Yes," she said as she walked over to her. "What's wrong?" she asked as she drew near enough to see the blood in her friend's eyes, the trails of tears down her cheeks, her unsteady posture.

"Wha's wrong?" Applejack asked, hoisting the bottle. As she lifted it, Fluttershy slipped her wing around it, tugging. For a moment, Applejack resisted, but her drunken strength was no match for Fluttershy's sober coordination, and she tucked it firmly under her wing. "Every'thin. Every'thin's wrong," she sadly answered, lowering the leg that had been holding the bottle back to the ground.

"Well, why don't you come in and we can talk about it?" Fluttershy suggested.

For a moment Applejack hesitated. "A'right," she finally answered, lurching past Fluttershy into the room.

Fluttershy slipped the bottle out from under her wing, lifting it so she could read the label. Applejack, it said. From the Sweet Apple Acres Reserve.

It was half-empty.

She tucked it back under her wing, and turned back to the room. Applejack was lying sprawled on the floor, covering her meditation mat. She stepped over to her and sat down, face-to-face.

To Fluttershy's great surprise, Applejack immediately pitched forwards, plunging her face into Fluttershy's chest, followed by the muffled sounds of sobs, felt as much as heard. Automatically, she reached down and began stroking Applejack, soothing her as if she were a child. Her left wing--the one not gripping the bottle of alcohol--swept forwards, embracing her friend.

A minute passed before she spoke. "Mah family," she moaned, head still buried in Fluttershy's chest. "They're all..." she said, turning her face upwards to look at Fluttershy. Rivulets of tears poured from her cheeks as she looked into Fluttershy's eyes. "They were supposed to be safe..."

Fluttershy didn't know what to say to that. So she didn't say anything, pulling her friend into a tight embrace. Applejack poured her grief out, draining herself dry, while her friend did what she could. Occasionally, she could hear her faintly muttering names, places, things Fluttershy couldn't even guess at.

A timeless infinity later, she let go. As Applejack fell away from her chest, she could hear her snoring, fast asleep. She started to stand, only to feel something pulling at her wing. Looking down, she saw that Applejack had grabbed at it, trying to pull it down to be her blanket. She was smiling. A happy dream.

Fluttershy smiled down at her, and sat. Curling up next to her friend, she slept.

---

"I believe that's all, sir," Triplicate Forms told Shining as they stopped outside of his room. An array of paperwork snapped together and slid into his saddlebags under the unicorn's careful telekinetic guidance.

"Thank you, Triplicate," Shining nodded, and without another word the captain pirouetted and walked away.

For a moment, Shining watched him go, before turning to his own door. A simple touch of his hoof, and it snapped open; a few steps inside, and it just as quickly snapped shut. He was, for the first time since waking up that morning, entirely free of immediate duties. Over the horizon of the night new duties loomed, but for the moment they were far off.

Shining sagged against the cold metal wall. Ragged magenta telekinesis picked at his uniform, pulling it off and dropping it in a crumpled pile in the center of the room.

Shining's eyes lingered on the night-black lump of fabric for a moment before traveling upwards and outwards to encompass the rest of the room. It was plain, a metal box with the ubiquitous composite floor paneling. It did, however, have three luxuries, not quite unique but not present in the sleeping spaces of most of the crew; his private bathroom; his personal workstatio; and, finally, the fact that this room was his, not his and his roommates, his alone. In here, he was as completely private as anypony could be on board.

He was tired; his eyes stung from a too-long day of looking too hard at too many screens, his entire head was prickling and aching, almost uniformly. He yawned. Yes, physically he was tired, but mentally...every time he closed his eyes, his mind churned, examining and addressing the problems he--no, the fleet--no, the species--was facing. Some part of him, and not a small part, either, was insisting that he sit down at that desk, pull up a display, and work on every single one, straight through the night if necessary. Rationally, he knew that this was a bad idea--that, among other things, he needed to sleep to be even minimally competent as a leader--but...

A moment later, he pushed against the wall, standing back upright before quickly trotting the short distance to his desk. A wave of his hoof over the surface later, and an array of displays deployed from the construct's upper surface while he was lay down on the expansive chair lying behind the desk's arc, magic reaching out to the workstation's user interface devices. He reached forwards with his hooves, resting one on the broad sweep of the keyboard and gripping the tactile navigator with the other. His magic lifted a slim, wireless collar from where it had been resting besides the others, sliding it quickly over his horn. A tingle shivered down its length for a moment as the magical interface unit aligned itself with his field.

Shining authenticated himself and logged in to the workstation, then pulled up every scrap of data and every bit of discussion on all of the currently outstanding problems he was facing. Screens filled with overlapping windows, holoprojectors were crowded by 3-D models, and the desk was left a chaotic mess, the sum total of all the data available little more than noise. He went to work, dismissing files of less than immediate importance, shutting down the holo units, and minimizing everything until just the fleet's task management software was open, giving him a complete overview of every open issue and what was needed to solve them. He set to work, categorizing the problems he faced, sorting them into priority order, examining what needed to be done for each, and, where possible, beginning his own efforts. Minutes flew by in great chunks, five, ten, fifteen at a time, lost in work.

There was only one possible thing that could break him out of this fugue before he dropped from sheer exhaustion.

"Shiny?" asked a voice as quiet and as tremulous as that of a foal asking about death, more than an hour after he started. "Can we talk?"

The clicking of the keyboard paused, his hooves rose, and the magical field that had been limning his horn since he had started dimmed and died out. "Of course, Twily," he reassured her. "Anytime."

He had the distinct impression of her drawing a deep breath before she could continue. "I--that is to say--why?"

Now it was his turn to breathe deeply. He had been expecting this; for all the coolness others saw in her, his sister had a tremendous and caring heart, and, for all the detachment she had shown during the battle, that she was no soldier, and could never have been expected to simply accept the suffering and death she had been forced to bear witness to. No, Twilight was no soldier, and he knew she was not just asking "Why would aliens massacre us without even talking?"

"Twilight--" he started. He stopped abruptly before he could say any more. She needed, she deserved, more than just empty platitudes and polished comforts. "I don't know," he admitted. "I just don't know."

"I mean," she continued, running over the end of his sentence in a rapid and rapidly rising voice, "I just can't see it. Maybe if--no, neither of them would stand for it, and together--what possible reason could they have for not intervening? Just--just--why!?" she shrieked.

Shining froze. He himself had never been very religious, but he knew that whatever fervor he lacked his sister made up for, and more. If she was questioning her faith...he needed her, he needed her doing her best as Fleet Command, he needed her focused on the fleet and not theology. And, above and beyond all that, she was his sister.

Carefully, each word tested for hidden pitfalls, he said, "Well, why don't we try thinking about it together?"

A moment passed. Then two. Then she answered, "Okay," voice calm and flat, as if they had just come to an agreement about the value of pi.

He sucked in a deep breath, mind churning as he tried to chart a path forwards. He was aware, vaguely, that there was a term for this sort of problem, but he didn't know what it was, let alone how smarter, or at least older, ponies had addressed it. He was just going to have to figure things out as he went along.

"Maybe there's some higher purpose," he reasoned. "Something so good that it's worth...well, that."

"But what could it be, Shining?" she demanded almost before the words left his mouth. "There were over a billion ponies on Equus," she reminded him. "That had better be a very good reason."

"I...maybe we can't know what their reason is," he argued. "After all, they're omniscient; they know everything. We don't, we can't. If they didn't stop it, they must have a good reason," he insisted.

"I thought of that," she admitted. "It's a very...old response." She paused. "But it's not one I can believe in. Maybe if it was smaller," she admitted. "Just a case of a skinned knee or even a single murder, however brutal. But to nearly wipe out a species...my species...I need something more concrete, something I can--well, not touch, really, but--"

"But there has to be something," he responded, after a moment of thought. "Some greater good...perhaps intervening here would have just caused something worse to happen elsewhere? Maybe if the Sisters had swallowed up the fleet of whoever attacked us, they would be attacked themselves and exterminated."

"The Airship Problem?" she asked in a light, almost mocking tone. "It's...plausible," she admitted, more seriously. "With us in the position of the hapless envelope worker--but still," she quickly added, "it's--well, maybe it's wrong of me, but I have a hard time caring about hypothetical third-party aliens and what they might do."

A thought struck him. "If they made a habit of intervening whenever anything bad went wrong..." He hesitated. It was like he had been looking at one of those funny pictures where besides the obvious picture, the one you saw the moment you looked at it, there was something hidden, something that made you go "Oh!" when your brain finally worked it out. Celestia and Luna were goddesses, weren't they? They could see everything, hear everything, know everything. So why didn't they intervene?

Well, why didn't--or, better, why shouldn't--he try to solve every problem the Mothership faced himself? It wasn't just that he might not have the necessary skills. It wasn't even just because he was only one pony. It was at least as much because if he did, then when he couldn't solve every problem, nopony else would even know where to start. The paradox of responsibility; he had a responsibility for everything, meaning he could actually do almost nothing.

Something he had been failing to recognize, he saw quite clearly--

"Shiny?" His sister's inquiry snapped him out of his state of self-reflection. He blinked, the feeling of it sloughing off even as he tried to recall it. "Yes," he answered, abandoning his self-reflection to try to return to his earlier line of thought. "Yes, if they had a habit of intervening whenever anything bad went wrong, what would it mean for the predictability of the universe? It would destroy it. Nopony could ever know what was going to happen next, because at any time, if there was going to be some bad outcome, the Sisters might change the rules. Science would be impossible, planning for the future would be impossible, life would be meaningless. What kind of goddess could create a world like that?" He shook his head.

Twilight was silent for a long time. Before Shining Armor could ask whether she was still on, she slowly responded.

"I...think I can see it. I'm not comfortable with it, not entirely. Intellectually, yes, but emotionally...But I'll think about it, Shiny," she promised.

The speakers clicked once, then went dead. Shining glanced back at his workstation. With a wave of his hoof, the setup began powering down, folding away displays and interface units, while he stood up and staggered over to his bed. He was fast asleep in minutes.

---

Rarity jolted awake at the blast of white noise that erupted from her cell's speakers. She frowned. She had just been having a dream...one with Sweetie...it had seemed important, but she couldn't remember what had happened. Even what Sweetie had looked like...she thought it was different from normal, but couldn't quite recall how, exactly.

She shook her head. She had a job to do, and sitting in her cell thinking about some dream she had had wouldn't get her any closer to getting it done. Quietly, she slid her cell door open, stretching out into the dimly-lit room with all the grace of a cat on the prowl. A quick flick of her telekinesis later, and her uniform had floated off the rack and into a neat package hanging behind her, ready for her to wear just as soon as she finished her shower.

She paused, hoof almost at the door. Since last night...she looked back, towards the sleep cells. Slowly, she tiptoed over, eliminating the slightest hint of noise from her hooves as she moved towards Pinkie's cell, uniform trailing half-forgotten behind her. As quietly as she could, a trace of embarrassment hanging around her, she slid Pinkie's door open in her magic's grip. In front of her, the pink mare was gently snoring, wrapped up in her own mane.

Rarity sat. Pinkie was...asleep? Pinkie's shift started before Rarity was even supposed to wake up. And she never, ever, ever missed the opportunity to make everypony on the floor smile with some new creation. If she hadn't gone to work...

"Pinkie!" she hissed under her breath.

Pinkie turned, mumbling some incomprehensible nonsense, but otherwise showed no sign of waking.

"Pinkie!" she repeated, slightly louder. Her eyes popped open, instantly locking onto Rarity's. "Pinkie," she whispered, slightly more quietly, "aren't you supposed to be at work?"

"...don't want to talk about it," she mumbled before turning and trying to squirm away from Rarity.

"You can't just quit!" Rarity hissed at the back of her friend's neck. "Or lay in bed all day!"

Pinkie gave no sign of hearing her, as she crammed herself into the quarter of her bed farthest away from the entrance.

"At the very least, you shouldn't," Rarity hectored her in the same hissing whisper. "If nothing else, shower and dress!" Pinkie continued to ignore her, and in desperation Rarity blurted out the first idea that came to mind. "I'll give you a makeover!"

Pinkie rolled over and faced Rarity. "Will you leave me alone then?"

Relieved by the fact that Pinkie was talking to her, even if it was with an unusual tone of annoyance, Rarity nodded. "Of course!" she added, just in case Pinkie couldn't see her. "Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye," she swore, miming the hoof motions everypony around Pinkie learned sooner or later. She didn't seem to notice.

Pinkie slid out of bed, displaying none of Rarity's grace or care as she pulled herself upright. Rarity floated one of her friend's uniforms over from the rack, folding it into a bundle to float beside her own even as she grabbed at her bundle of beauty equipment. She nodded to Pinkie, who followed her out the door and in to the brightly lit corridor, crowded with ponies. Some were returning from night shifts, others were headed to the bathroom or cafeteria before work, and for some it was their leisure period, and they were just wandering. Almost all looked like zombies, faces blank and tails drooping.

The whole way to the bathrooms, Rarity worried at the problem of what, exactly, she was going to do. It was obvious that something was badly wrong with Pinkie, but how she could help her with it were complete mysteries. She could hardly do anything without getting her to open up about it, but the battle she had had to fight just to get her to take a shower indicated that that would be no easy task. Finally, as they stepped into the bathroom, she decided that she simply had to do something, even if she still couldn't figure out exactly what that was. She ushered Pinkie into the main shower chamber after depositing their uniforms in a locker just outside. It was relatively empty, with only a few other mares presently using it, private enough for her purposes.

Instinctively, she knew better than to launch an all-out attempt to liberate the truth from her friend right away. Instead, she led Pinkie to a tap in one corner of the room, isolated from the others, and lowered her bag of instruments onto a shelf next to it, intended for just that purpose. A flick of her magic, and the tap began spraying a warm, comforting spray over her head, drenching her in moments, while she floated out the most critical instruments she had--basic shampoo, body lotion, brush and comb--to begin her work, focusing for the moment on her own appearance. Nothing complicated today, with her work, but enough to make her feel fresh, revitalized, and beautiful.

Herself cleaned and ready, she began Pinkie's makeover. She stepped around her friend, critically examining every inch of her coat, her mane, her tail. She noted, not without some surprise, the extreme straightness of the latter two, their length, how oily they were. Her tongue clicked and her horn glowed, pulling more and more and more out of her bag. Special shampoos, coat scents--those she reluctantly sent back, they could interfere with Pinkie's job--and tools. Not just a brush and comb, but things to exfoliate, to file, to make coat gleam and mane shine. An array of instruments hovered around her like a fashion halo, ready to descend on her friend in the name of beauty.

She started with the shampoo, working it into Pinkie's mane and tail, closely followed by specialized body washes for the shorter, coarser, and body-hugging hair of her coat. As she worked the soaps and shampoos into her friend's coat, mane, and tail, Rarity was silent, only occasionally murmuring instructions to her friend on where to move, whether to lift or lower her head, a leg, her tail. For her opening gambit, she had decided to simply be there in case Pinkie decided to talk on her own. Simple, and not, she admitted, too likely to succeed, but if it worked, it worked.

As she finished lathering Pinkie up, she was forced to admit that it had not, after all, worked, and as she played the shower tap over her friend, rinsing her soap-free, she readied her second stratagem. As her array of brushes and combs, each specialized to a different part of the body, descended, she spoke. "So, um...any ideas for new breakfast goodies?" Even to her that sounded slightly fake, so she hurriedly added, "Because I know you like coming up with them, and I know I like eating them, ha ha!"

Pinkie was silent under Rarity's ministrations. That was her second bolt, fired and missed, and out of Pinkie's sight Rarity frowned. She somehow doubted that any other indirect approach would fare any better; normally, Pinkie was voluble, to say the least, about whatever new ideas popped into her head, and she had "six a minute, twice that on Sundays," as her father sometimes said about his more...scatter-brained friends. If she wouldn't talk about pastries, there probably wasn't much she would talk about. She really hadn't wanted to do this, but it looked like she would have to directly confront the problem.

"Pinkie, dear," she said, putting the last touches on her combing job, "I know something's wrong. As a friend please, please let me know what's wrong. Does it have to do with the announcement yesterday?"

"Yes," she mumbled.

"Well, what about it?" she asked. "Surely you don't, well, it can't be true?" Rarity started to summon her little laugh, the one that said "oh, how silly that idea is!"

Pinkie whipped her head around, tearing her comb from Rarity's telekinetic grip, anger erupting through her stony countenance. Rarity's little laugh died in her throat.

"No!" she shouted, startlingly loud in the confined space. "No, I know you're not right," she continued at a more normal tone, pushing into Rarity's face. "I know Shining Armor is telling the truth. I know some kind of--some aliens blew it all up and killed everypony. Everypony! And do you know what that means!? Well, do you!?"

With every word she spoke, she took a step forward, forcing Rarity backwards. She backed up to the room's walls, feeling the slick tile push back against her rump, tail compressed beneath. With Pinkie still advancing, she was forced to slide to the floor, pressing her whole back against the wall, her rear half-immersed in the flow of warm water from the shower tap as Pinkie pressed her face into Rarity's.

"W-What?" she asked.

"This is a war!" Pinkie roared in answer "And do you know what no soldier fighting a war ever needed!?" Before Rarity could muster an answer, Pinkie supplied it. "Pastries! Too elaborate, too wasteful, too...unnecessary. Pastries...oatmeal is better. More nutritious. Easier to prepare. Cheaper ingredients. Life Support can only churn out so much algal paste and raw ingredients! Better not to waste them on pastries, not when there's more mouths to feed and less to feed them on.

"And parties! What use are parties? They consume, and consume--cake, streamers, party favors, gifts, maybe drinks for the adults--and what do they give back? Nothing! A few moments of pleasure, not anything you can fight with. Not weapons or nutrition or, or, or, or anything!"

"And if pastries are worthless, and parties are worthless, what am I...?

"I am worthless."

For a moment, the only sound in the room was the rushing spray of the shower-heads. Every other pony had fled, leaving them alone. Rarity could feel her mouth flopping open and shut, unable to think of anything to say.

"You know," Pinkie added quietly before Rarity could compose herself, bowing her head and letting her mane flow down around her head like a veil, "you know, you're a machinist. None of this applies to you. You're going to help build--I don't know--machines, ships, weapons, everything and anything we need to survive. You're essential. I am not."

Rarity closed her mouth and swallowed. Suddenly, this didn't seem like such a good idea. "W-Well...um...wait, you said you knew Equus had been destroyed...how?"

"I just did," she quietly answered. "And you know it too, or would if you thought about it instead of trying to pretend it wasn't true. What reason would they have for lying about it?" she demanded. "Why would they lie about something like that?"

"I--I" Rarity was shaking, trembling on a flood of self-doubt. Pinkie was completely certain, she could see. Trying to hold on to her denial in the face of her confidence was like trying to hold back the dawn; the rising sun banished all signs that it had even been attempted. Her sister--her father--her mother--!

A pink hoof intruded into her consciousness. She grasped it with all the desperation of a drowning mare and was pulled to her hooves, blinking and shaking. She felt a leg reach up and back, around her, pulling her into a hug. A moment later, Rarity leaned out of it, and Pinkie let go, leaving her to stand on her own.

"But you--you--you're wrong," Rarity asserted. "You're not worthless. What you just did--"

"Of limited value," Pinkie insisted, the sharp edge of her terrible certainity lying just beneath the surface of her speech. "You, you're my friend. Not everypony on board. And how useful is it, anyway? You wouldn't have needed reassurance if I hadn't broken you to begin with."

"But morale--"

"If soldiers aren't encouraged by fighting genocidal aliens, no party could help," she replied before Rarity could even finish. "And..." As Rarity hung on that pause, waiting for her to continue, Pinkie's face twisted into an expression of sadness.

"And I don't feel like parties," she whispered, almost too quietly for Rarity to hear.

Rarity stood, transfixed. She struggled to come up with something that expressed just how wrong this world she was in was, and failed. But it was what she had to work with. She--and the facts clicked together, and Rarity knew what she had to say.

"Your problem is that you feel you can't make a contribution," she told her, gently, like a mother to her foal. It was nothing more than a restatement of what she herself had said, but it was the heart of the problem, and worth restating.

"But you can," she asserted, trying to inject the same amount of confidence in her own words as Pinkie had in hers. "The military. If this is a war, they will be wanting recruits. And even if you can't fly a fighter or steer a missile, they need cooks, janitors, technicians as well. Things you can do.

"You can contribute," she said, in the firmest voice she could muster up. "You are not worthless. Enlist. They will find something for you to do."

The only sound was that of rushing water. Rarity gathered up her instruments, packed them away, and started to step out of the shower. As she stepped over the threshold, she paused, turning. "And Pinkie--" she spent a moment examining her work "--you look fabulous."

---

"Second cousin twice removed..." She muttered, her hoof sliding down the slick clear plastic barrier in front of her.

The mare before her didn't respond, of course. The doctors were keeping her unconscious, for her own good they had said. Looking at her, the halo of shed hair and feathers littering the bed around her body, the arrays of pinprick purple bruises filling the patches of naked skin, the masses of machines crowded around her like priests trying to ease her into the afterlife, she understood.

She'd have wanted to be unconscious too.

The machines keeping Rainbow Dash alive hummed softly, almost too quietly for Applejack to hear through the muffling of the isolation curtain. Without it, she would quickly die of infection. But it also meant Applejack couldn't touch her. Her last living relative. She had checked. The only relation she had on board.

She let her hoof fall, leaving it to dangle from the edge of the chair. She wasn't sure why she had come in the first place, anymore. Rainbow was too sick to talk, and she didn't even have that much time to visit her in the first place.

She stood. Reaching almost unconsciously for a non-existent hat, she oriented herself and began to walk away.

She had work to do.

Comments

[aduck]

Yes, yes this is still going and awesome!

Homeworld was my first RTS, and one of the best, up there with Warcraft and StarCraft. I can't wait to see where you go with this!

[Tonto the Trotter]

4518248 Those were some of my first RTS games too, alongside Total Annihilation, Medieval: Total War, Age of Empires, MechCommander, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun & Red Alert 2 + their expansions.

[Wade]

Great chapter.

Haven't had much time to read, but this went a long way toward developing the cast, and I enjoyed every scene. In particular, Twilight and Shiny. I also quite liked Rarity cleaning up Pinkie, just to DO something helpful while she tried to imagine some way to get through to her.

And the Taiidan are griffons! Was wondering how you'd handle that.

Still holding out hope Gilda gets cast as the captain of the renegade vessel Kapella.

[Pen Expers]

Fluttershy smiled down at her, and sat. Curling up next to her friend, she slept.

mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw8312-1350572536277626.gif

THAT WAS SO ADORABLE!

Though the whole chapter was great! Every conversation was very well done.