Solar Sails: Marooned In Equestria

by Bluecho

03 - Stalking and Tangents

Ch. 3 - Stalking And Tangents

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Sergeant Sarin Miles had a mission. To land upon the newly discovered world and learn what could be learned about it and its inhabitants. Doing so would put the Empire closer to dealing with a planet abundant in resources, both physical and magical, and possessed of no preexisting space travel. Whether the Empire opened up diplomatic ties with the inhabitants or sent an invasion force was immaterial to her. She had her primary objective.

Upon crashing on the planet, Sarin identified a secondary objective that was linked to the first: reestablish contact with the S.S. Docket Lot and arrange rescue for herself. As escaping to Fatae civilization was critical to conveying what she learned on the new world, it was paramount as well. That she could avoid unintentional exile on a wilderness world by completing Objective Two was merely a bonus.

And finally there was a new objective, freshly clarified to Sarin as she witnessed the figure roughly thirty meters ahead: get her hands on the cyan winged pony that caused the crash in the first place and murder the business out of her.

It. Her. Gender was difficult to ascertain, though the voice hinted female. Whatever, murder business.

“Slow down, Rainbow Dash,” came another voice. As Sarin crouched closer to the tree, she saw the business end of the second voice come around the bend into view. It was another pony, purple fur and hair, with a magenta stripe through the mane. Unlike the offending pegasus, this one came endowed with both a set of wings and a horn extending from her forehead. A pegasus...unicorn?

Were these two different species? Or sub-races of the same species? Or was the cyan abomination – the aptly named Rainbow Dash – merely deficient in her species' native head ornamentation? Could it have been removed? Or was she born without it, like some deformity? Was she more like Sarin than she thought possible?

Sarin shook her head. No, I'm too angry to sympathize with the enemy, she thought. Especially one who killed Bidd and what's-his-name. Sorchess. That's right.

“You're sure it was in this area?” asked the pegasus-unicorn, looking around the trees. She carried a bag across her back, seemingly laden with supplies of some kind.

“Positive,” responded the hated Rainbow Dash.

“Even though you only saw the smoke from a distance?”

“When I say I'm sure, Twilight, I'm sure.” Rainbow Dash waved her hoof through the air before turning back to the trail. “Come on, we're almost there.”

“You know if there was anypony in trouble, they're probably long gone by now,” said Twilight, rubbing her chin. She seemed less sure of wing than her cyan counterpart, preferring to merely flap over minor obstacles. “You really should have told somepony about...”

“I know I know!” yelled cyan abomination. “I said I was sorry, okay. So I get a little distracted sometimes. Is that so wrong?”

“It is if ponies lives were in danger because of your Sonic Rainboom,” retorted Twilight.

A Sonic what now?

“How could you even miss a flying machine out here in the middle of nowhere?” continued the purple pony.

“I told you before, I didn't have time to go looking around,” whined Rainbow Dash, looking back again. “When I'm doing a Sonic Rainboom, I need to concentrate. Otherwise I'm going to get hung up on the sound barrier and be sent flying the other direction. I ain't doing that again.

“Besides, we're almost there. Pretty sure.”

As the two equines lapsed into silence, Sarin Miles took in all the new information she just learned. First, that at least one race, possibly two, to inhabit this world were talking flying ponies. This astounded Sarin little; more than a few species that flocked into and around the Fatae Empire were quadrupeds. The Er'thop, the Moanza. There were even six-legged species, mostly insect-like. That a species of intelligent life on this planet was a race of small horses barely registered as overtly strange.

Second, that the culture and species were fixated on themselves. She knew this because they used the words “anypony” and “somepony”. A casual observer would chalk this up to language barriers only. This is not the case because the translation enchantment plate in Sarin's head would have accounted for it.

Translation magic among the stars was basically one of the most important discoveries in interstellar travel in the known universe. Right there alongside the solar sails themselves. The spells did more to foster interactions and connections between disparate species than anything else, simply because it cut through language barriers and let everyone just talk.

The spells were also notoriously finicky.

A straight casting of the spell was complex, time consuming, and temporary. People would need to spend entire hours every day to reapply the spells, usually requiring the use of a trained mage. Or one could take chances with untrained magic use, which usually ended with disaster. Turning that spell into an enchantment was far more efficient and practical. They could be worn like a charm, and only need to be enchanted once.

No wonder why the Fatae Empire made such enchanted charms standard issue amongst its soldiers. Entire factories existed of "mages" who knew only the one spell, cast repeatedly to supply the needs of the common grunt. In the case of the Modified Soldiers (and assorted officers), this took the form of a charm plate inserted into the brain. Thankfully the procedure was easy – more magic combined with good surgeons – and it cut the total mana costs down by being able to influence the language center of the brain directly rather than doing it over the whole body.

In Sarin's situation, the charm allowed her to understand the ponies' language. If she were so inclined, she could also step around the tree and converse with them, as the enchantment modified her speech when speaking to listeners of another language. It made certain situations tedious, say if the speaker is speaking to two people at a time with different language requirements, making one repeat the same message for both depending on the target of speech.

Sarin noted that this race's language was strictly pony-centric because had they meant to say their equivalent of “anybody” or “somebody”, it would have translated as that. Their words were particular to their species – assuming they were the same species called “pony” - and they took only ponies into account. In the event a speaker uses a word that has no direct parallel, the magic would either give up and use the original word itself, or attempt to cobble a new word together that approximates the intended meaning.

In this case, anypony and somepony. This annoyed Sarin immensely, because while the bug fix in the magic was elegant in and of itself, it was still inefficient. Saying anybody can include every being with a body. Anypony is just exclusive.

So wrapped up in the nuances of magic and speech was Sarin that she almost missed the two equines heading out of sight. Very quietly, the soldier followed, ducking from tree to tree to maintain cover. Eventually she peered around and saw the two targets scoping out the clearing that previously hosted the crash site.

You won't find any bits of the dory there, thought Sarin Miles. I cleared the place thoroughly of wreckage.

What she couldn't clear were the many broken branches, their absence on the trees noticeable enough on their own. The purple pegasus-unicorn (pegicorn?) looked up and saw the evidence, saying, “You think this is it, Dash? It looks like something came through and cleared a hole.” She considered a moment, before adding, “I bet if I studied the angle of broken branch stumps, I could plot the angle at which the mystery object fell!” She hopped on the spot with glee.

While the two ponies were deep in thought, Sarin considered her options. She wanted nothing more than to sneak up from behind the trees and impale the cyan pony with her spear for what she'd done. But then that would leave the other pony. To kill her companion would leave the one called Twilight as a witness. Not only to a slaying, but to a slaying by an unfamiliar creature. This would leave Sarin exposed, her mission in jeopardy.

The obvious retort from there would be to kill the purple one too. But Sarin admitted to herself that Twilight hadn't done anything to deserve the killing. Sarin remembered Glencost, and her heart sank with guilt.

Besides, Sarin wasn't even sure she had what it took to kill both in rapid succession. Kill one, and the other would likely be alerted and flee. And they could both fly in seems, so she had no hope of catching the other if she took to the air. Unless Sarin implemented stealth enough to kill one without the other noticing. But that was a long shot at best.

Nothing to bet her anonymity on. Revenge comes after the mission.

Slowly, reluctantly, Sarin lowered her spear. The spear she hadn't even realized she'd readied for an attack. Her breath steadied, though her body remained coil. She was, after all, still hiding.

For a while the purple one examined the scene. Sarin was confident though. The only thing left to find were the graves of Sorchess and Bidd. Indeed she had turned over dirt to inter them, but that hadn't been the only topsoil she'd turned over in this area. The impact of the crash had created a dent in the ground. Once the remains of the dory had been cleared away, Sarin used the shovel to fill the dent. She also turned up dirt around it to dispose of the blood spots. Between all her diligent work, the whole clearing barely had any patches of undisturbed ground. Of course people – or rather ponies she supposed – would notice the disparity. But over such a large area, few obvious conclusions could be had. If the site had avoided detection for a season, new plant growth and occasional rains would have rendered the ground just as inconspicuous as the rest of the forest floor.

Evidently the one called Twilight was stumped about the ground, scratching her head with her hoof. The amount of time passed also seemed to work on Rainbow Dash's last nerve. “Come on, Twilight! We're not going to learn anything here. Let's go.”

“We could learn plenty from this, Rainbow Dash,” retorted Twilight, looking at her companion for the first time in several minutes. “Something crashed here, and this disturbed dirt has something to do with it.”

“Oh who cares about dirt! I'm bored! Let's just go back to Ponyville!” Rainbow Dash crossed her forelegs indignantly and began hovering higher in the air.

Ponyville?

“Ugh, fine,” sighed Twilight, shaking her head. She began flapping her wings in earnest, and ascended several feet in the air. Sarin began to let out a breath of relief. But just then, a raised Twilight fixed on something in a nearby tree's branches. “Hang on, what's this?”

To Sarin's shock, the pegicorn's horn began to glow purple. Following Twilight's line of sight, Sarin saw a similar glow enveloping some kind of object. At first Sarin thought it was another broken section of tree, but then the object slid out of the leaves and into full view. It hovered – really hovered – in the middle of the air, wrapped in the glittery aura of what Sarin could only assume was magic. And the object it revealed was no broken branch, but a broken slab of cut wood.

A slab of cut wood stained openly with dried blood.

I really should have killed her too, Sarin thought, mouth agape. So paralyzed was she that she couldn't move as Twilight examined the wood closely, a mixture of squeamish horror and curious fascination plastered on her face. “Hay Rainbow Dash, you've got to see this!”

But the cyan pony had already cleared the canopy and impatiently shouted, “Later! We're going home already!”

“Ugh, fine! I'm coming” shouted the purple one, tucking the critical evidence into her bag and flapping wings up to follow her companion. “Maybe I can see what this belongs to later” she muttered.

It came to Sarin's attention that a very important clue to her existence was about to leave in the hooves of a pony with an investigative bent. It also occurred to Sarin that she had at least one means of attacking even from below.

Reaching behind to her holster, Sarin Miles the soldier removed the light pistol. Stepping forward, she took aim at the purple creature. I could end her right now, she thought. Take her down, and then disappear before the Rainbow Dash knew what's what. She'd maybe even investigate the kill, leaving her open to attack. Two birds, one stone. If I just kill this one, everything could be fine.

If she just killed a civilian noncombatant. If she executed the creature in cold blood.

It was a single moment of hesitation, but it was enough. Sarin looked up at the pony who could expose her existence, and froze. Couldn't pull the trigger. It felt like an immovable object under her finger. The pistol felt damp in her hands, and she realized they were caked in sweat. More beads of sweat slid down her skin, over the blue-stained patches that marred her face.

The pegicorn – alicorn, whatever – flew out of view behind the leaves of the canopy. Sarin exhaled, an exhalation that seemed to deflate her entire body. She sank to her knees, dropping the pistol to the ground with her limp hands still clutched around it. Her breath came out shaky, and she realized her entire body shook. Furthermore, every muscle in her body ached. She'd been like a coiled spring, and when the pressure subsided, she realized just how tight she'd held there. Waiting.

How close had she been to Glencost in that instant? How close had Sarin been to going back to that place?

Ponyville. It sounded like another place. A place those two were going.

Sarin Miles looked back up at the sky. The two had come and taken off to the south. Flying creatures had no concern for obstacles or terrain; they moved directly. The shortest path between two points is a straight line. If they flew south, going south from her location would take Sarin straight to where they were going. To Ponyville.

Sarin stood up shakily. She holstered the pistol, easing it in for fear of herself. Then she took up the spear she'd dropped and looked south.

She still had her mission. Objectives to complete. In a pony community, she could learn everything she'd want to know about pony society. Its values, its structure, its hopes and dreams. And if there were means of attracting the Docket Lot's attention, a town would be a good place to start looking. She could even sneak into wherever the purple one lived, and steal back the bloody block of wood. Assuming they lived in that town. But if they did, it might give her access to the Rainbow Dash, including where she slept. It was a personal, noncritical objective, but it was in the same area. Convenient. If she was to continue her mission, she couldn't wallow in the wilderness forever. She had to infiltrate the civilization. She had to go to where the enemy lived. Sarin had to go south.

To Ponyville.

It's business time.

Author's Note:

Post any typos, grammatical errors, or story hiccups in the comments section, if someone else hasn't already pointed it out.

Like I promised, here's a more pony-full chapter. One that involved near murder of one or more main characters. Hope that seems better!

I don't know about you all, but I feel pretty good about this chapter. Finally got into the zone. Kind of don't want to sleep now, because I'm so in the mood for writing.