The Quest For Iscanter

by eternalsquire

Hay, lo! Statue?

By mutual agreement, Avatar, Rarity, and Twilight decided they would rather warp between stars than straight out into empty space whenever possible. This made excellent sense for a few reasons:

From a navigation standpoint, the gravity shadow provided by the target star should cause the warp to automatically terminate safely. They had discovered this nearly completely by accident when their first warp turned out to be not to Alastor's orbit, but instead to the current center of mass between not just Alastor but also Eris and Palatine creating a shadow larger than all those individual planets combined.

From a logistics standpoint, planets or even chunks of rock orbiting around the star would present opportunities for reprovisioning or even shore leave.

From a military standpoint, the Yamato's power source would be much easier to detect in empty space by the Gallopons, than say, when it was drowned out by something of much greater energy like a local sun.

Rarity decided on a easy target for the Yamato's first interstellar warp. Ancient Equestiran astronomers had called it, The Dog Star. She was also curious as to whether or not it was called thus because dogs actually lived there. Why not find out?

The Yamato emerged just outside that star's calculated habitable zone. Right on target.

However, Twilight used the ship's sensory suite to search for gravitational effects upon the sun by possible orbiting planets, and found nothing. This star was alone. She shrugged. The theories must be right, she guessed, Stopovers in general, never mind ones with air to breathe and food to eat, will likely be far and few between, But at least we fixed the gravity shadow problem!

"Good job, Rarity!", she said. "I think we can turn this completely over to you. Keep us heading Galactic South. You've got the watch for a little while!"

"Thank you, XO!", the seamstress-turned-navigator said, while bumping her right fore-hoof with Twilight's.

Twilight noticed Fluttershy absent from her console. Probably asleep, as I should be, But first, a chore, and one I'm not at all looking forward to. She pressed a switch on the console. "Luna?", she queried, "are you still there?"

"Just about to go off-shift, Twilight!", said Luna through the speakers.

"So am I. Can you meet me in Medical, first, if you please?"

"Of course. Is this about Trixie?"

"Yes, unfortunately. We need to wake her up from her nap now."

"Understood, Twilight. On my way."

As Twilight Sparkle was on her way out, she noticed Rainbow Dash quletly playing some kind of rapidly moving video game using a her console keyboard.. Twilight smirked as she prepared to tease Rainbow for not paying attention. She crept up behind the pegasus. "Haayyy!", she drawled. "What'cha dooo'in?"

"Can't you see I'm working here, Twilight?", Rainbow said in a low yet somewhat irritable voice.

"This is work?"

"You betcha. This is a combat training simulation. Battle chiefs like me need lots of practice."

"Whatever.", Twilight shrugged. "Have fun."

Rainbow Dash continued to slay virtual enemy ships by the bucketful, as Twilight finally left.

. . .

Niether Twilight Sparkle nor Luna had ever visited the sickbay prior to this moment. Luna opened the hatch, then entered first. Twilight followed her.

Luna's sense of smell was immediately assaulted by the combined stench of antiseptics and blood permeating the air. She led Twilight silently past the ward where the more severely wounded lay upon cots unconscious, and where those less so slept standing. At the far end of the sickbay was another hatch. Luna banged on it with a fore-hoof. Hard. Several times.

"ALL RIGHT ALREADY!", a stallion's voice shouted from within. "I'M UP!".

The hatch opened. Throughout it emerged an earth pony. He had a sky blue hide with a white mane and tail. He bore no cutie mark. He walked in a swaying path toward the pair. "I hope you woke me up for a really good reason!", he declared, glaring at them through his bright green eyes. "Your banging has given me an awful headache!".

"Sorry about that, doctor.", Luna apologized. "Twilight, this is our ship's doctor..."

"And resident alcoholic, but I never drink on duty...", interrupted the doctor.

"...whom the ward fondly calls Trapper.", Luna finished.

"Why do they call you Trapper?", Twilight asked the doctor.

"Long story.", he began. "I had been foaled up in Mane, very cold country there. I was raised in a small town that had been one of the rail stops between Manehatten and the Crystal Empire. No matter how hard I tried, I never got my cutie mark, never found my destiny. I tried very hard to drown the shame of that away. I visited a pastural counselor for advice on how to stop drinking all day and night, and she said, perhaps I am one of the few ponies created having the talent to create their own destiny. So, I decided to train in Manehatten to be a veternarian.

I was travelling back there from home when the first rocks fell. The wind from the blast of one of them derailed our train, and there were lots and lots of hurt or dying or dead ponies shaken around in the passenger cars or even flung out through the windows. So, without any medical training whatever, and using only the supplies in my bag meant for animals only, I triaged the ponies. I gave first aid to those most likely to survive. A very cute young mare, shy little thing who wouldn't talk to anypony under normal circumstances, swung immediately into action and gave emotional comfort to the merely hurt. I really hope to meet her again someday. She's probably still back on Equestria, for all I know.

Most of the comfort I gave was ethical. Two I had to put to sleep. We eventually got rescued. The Manehatten Medical Association hauled me before their ethics board and then pressed criminal charges against me for premeditated equicide and for practicing medicine without a license. The prosecutor demanded to know why I felt I had the authority to choose death for those ponies."

He shuddered in horror. "I told her one pony had a compounded rib cage, and the other had a broken spine. They were both conscious and suffering badly. I spoke with each of them alone, explaining what was hurting them and that it was beyond my skill to treat, since I was just a vet and not a doctor. They were in a lot of pain. I had two syringes left of poppy extract after having treated the other patients. I used a full syringe on each of them. After each begged me to kill them!" Then you admit to murder!, the prosecutor had thundered."

"I screamed out in the courtroom," the doctor said, "What in Tartarus did you expect me to do, just let them die in agony? I was trapped out there, and I was in over my head! . And so, after the prosecution and defense attorneys rested their cases, the judge instructed the jury to consider that the conscious decision to take a pony's life was the definition of premeditated equicide."

"The verdict came in.", he breathed. "Twelve to zero: innocent. The jury had nullified the verdict."

"I remember that!", Twilight Sparkle exclaimed.

"As well you should", he said. "It made the headlines that week: 'Trapper' gets away free and clear! Manehatten decided to appeal the verdict to Celestia. She invited me to a private audience first.

"What did she say to you?", Luna asked.

Trapper answered: " 'The rest of my realm might never forgive you. But the jurors did, and so shall I. ' "

The two alicorns nodded at him, recognizing Celestia's penchant for acting at her very best.

Trapper took another breath. "Celestia announced she was refusing to hear the case. So Manehatten takes its revenge by expelling me from vet school. Worse than that, Celestia was right. The majority of Equestria considered me not welcome for employment, shelter, or even food anywhere. I decided to emigrate to The Crysanthemum Empire. Celestia did me the great honor of making an application of asylum to the Emperor himself on my behalf."

He stared off with a look of amazement on his face.. "They invited me to study at their medical school, no less! They have surgical procedures here that work at the molecular level which make Equestrian physicians look positively crude in comparison with their scalpels, sewing thread, and healing spells. They even design new medicines using information artisanship alone!"

Tears welled up in his eyes. "I'm forever grateful to these people. They have a far different ethic regarding life and death, and because of that, they welcomed me into their land and into their lives."

"No offense, doctor...", Twilight Sparkle began.

" 'Trapper' to my friends.", the physician replied, wiping his eyes with his foreleg.

"Trapper, then", she said. "Why are you here rather than some other?"

"I was the only Crysanthemum board-certified general surgeon who volunteered.", Trapper said. "Simple as that. None of the Equestrian physicians would even consider shipping out with me once they heard I was going. The nerve."

Twilight grinned at him. "Don't worry. I think they're insane. You, of course, are anything but. So you must be our 'Doctor Sane' .", she teased.

"I prefer 'Trapper', thank you very much!", he said, grinning back at her.

. . .

Trapper welcomed the two alicorns into his quarters, which also doubled as his office. The place was a literal mare's nest of papers and books... except for one single corner, always kept neat. There, resided a statue. It was full size, of a mare unicorn. The statue had a metallic sheen to it, but nothing could even scratch it.

The mares both were fully aware whose statue it was: Trixie, Twlight Sparkle's frequent rival and occasional friend. But it was no statue. It really was Trixie. However, it was Trixie, trapped in a spell which Luna had cast which stopped time just for her. The side effect of the spell was that it rendered her indestructable relative to the outside world. The downside of the spell was that it took a large enough amount of power that Luna could only immobilize one creature this way at any given time.

"So, Luna, what do we need to do?", Twilight asked.

"She was quite distraught at the time.", Luna replied. "I think we should have her in an empty room, and in restraints, when I take my stasis field off from her."

"Let's get her into an isolation ward.", Trapper suggested, as he put on his white halter. The three of them carried the statue into a place which he had given the more clinical and polite name for, a soundproofed padded cell where a pony could be rendered incapable of harming self or others.

In each of the corners at the floor and ceiling were hooks. Trapper threaded soft linen ropes through the hooks and wound them around the statue's legs, body, and neck. to guarantee immobility. He then closed the hatch, leaving himself and the two alicorns locked inside with the statue. "Ready, Luna?", he asked.

Luna nodded at him.

"Go.", he told her.

The silvery coating covering Trixie completely disappeared. She had been alive all along, but for her no time at all at passed. Her eyes were closed. She now took back up where she left off, which was to scream incoherently at the top of her lungs. Both Twilight and Luna were covering their ears from it.

Trapper did not react to this at all. Instead, he took a syringe out of his pocket, added a needle to it, filled the syringe from a vial filled with fluid, drew the syringe out, then squirted a small amount into the air. He nodded at his helpers. Twilight and Luna each held a hindquarter of Trixie so that her rump would not shake off the needle which Trapper was about to inject her with.

Trixie inhaled more air to continue screaming, but then her body went slack and her neck slumped downward as the powerful tranquilizer took effect on her. She brought her neck back up. Her eyes were glazed and here pupils were completely dilated from the effects of the drug. Then, she recognized her friend.

"Shwilight Shhparhhkle.", Trixie's voice slurred. "Issh that you?"

The object of Trixie's attention knelt in front of her. "Yes, it's me. I'm here."

"Thasshh nisshee", Trixie smiled. Then she yawned, closed her eyes, and started snorring.

"Trapper," Twilight said, "I think she's going to need me really close by for the next few days, I don't want to leave her side unless it's battlestations. I'm the only pony she genuinely likes and respects. I'm going to need meals for us both, too. Can you relay those as doctor's orders to the captain, please?"

"I'd have absolutely no problem doing that.", Trapper replied.

"We'll see you later.", Luna said. "I'll tell Pinkie you're here."

"Bring me some books, please, too!", Twilight begged.

The others left.

Twilight was now alone, watching over a sleeping Trixie.

Life especially hasn't been fair to her, Twilight thought.