Solar Sails: Marooned In Equestria

by Bluecho

08 - Shanghai'd

Ch. 8 - Shanghai'd

---

Go to sleep already!

Sarin Miles locked her telescope over the library from a safe distance. She knew from scattered conversations that the pink menace otherwise occupied herself with another party, meaning Sarin's actions would receive no untoward impediments. Furthermore, the streets of Ponyville blacked out entirely an hour before, bare and dark and lonely. Perfectly free of casual impediments.

Now if only the mare and her assistant would shut off the lights and sleep. Sarin wouldn't have time to visit the Observatory if their wakefulness persisted.

As the Sergeant contemplated abandoning the task and proceeding to the next, the lights in the tree individually winked out. The last one broke, and the house/tree was still. Finally, Sarin thought.

Taking up her satchel – a weathered accessory salvaged from a trash can with not but juice stains marring it – Sarin stalked down to the side of the tree. Testing a ground-floor window, Sarin found it unlocked. She crawled inside, leaving it wide open.

First order of business: make sure the occupants were asleep. Cursory observation of the bedroom confirmed them unconscious. Tip-toeing around wrecked havoc on Sarin's nerves, each marginal squeak of the floorboards eliciting an adrenaline rush, a palpitation of the heart. Her every breath was labored, her every movement carefully, shakily planned.

Second order of business: books. She worked her way to the bookshelves. Realizing she couldn't see, she found a candle and lit it. Shielding the flickering light from the upstairs loft, Sarin sidled to the shelves and began reading their spines. Where no lettering offered clues, she took them out to examine. Only so many tomes could fit in Sarin's satchel, so she needed to prioritize books on Equestrian history, anatomy, magical metaphysics, law, and economics. A tall order, but every little bit could aid the Empire when it came to properly approaching the inhabitants of the planet.

Thankfully the library was organized by subject, or Sarin would have spent all night just choosing books. It was also immaculately dusted and cared for; these were residents who cared for their texts as a parent would their children.

Eventually her bag could contain no more books, so Sarin moved to the third order of business: the evidence. Moving to an apparent magical workbench took Sergeant Miles dangerously close to the sleeping pair, but a stop to listen told her they still slept. The alicorn tossed in her bed briefly, muttering to herself – a moment that drove Sarin near to heart attack – before settling again. Sarin gave a sigh of relief.

She stood before the desk. An aching shoulder protested the weight of several volumes, so Sarin dropped it on the ground. She leafed through pages, struggling to wrap her head around many of the strange, esoteric notes and diagrams. Sarin was a soldier, not a mage or scientist, or one of the many crosses between the two. Eventually, perseverance and focus led to a rough understand of the lavender pony's progress.

The results were worrying. Behind Sarin, the pony's mutterings continued, but Sarin ignored them.

Rudimentary knowledge of Fatae physical structure, including diagrams. A suspicion rose up within her, one that threatened to excite her ire. Did this pony dig up Sorchess and Bidd's bodies, she thought. No, wait, further notation referenced a dust or powder that created a life-like construct when mixed with chemicals, magic, and blood samples. Crisis averted, she thought. Here I was thinking I would need to kill them.

Not that the idea didn't appeal to Sarin anyway, seeing that, if not as punishment for defiling a few graves, then simply for secrecy's sake, it might behoove her to slit their throats and torch the tree. Burying them and any evidence with them. Yet the more Sarin considered it, the more guilty she felt. She imagined cupping her hand around their mouths and slicing through their necks, letting them struggle impotently before the juices seeped out and they stopped moving...

NO!

Sarin wrapped her fingers around her face, doubling over until her forehead gently met the desk. She couldn't commit such a casual slaughter. She wouldn't. Innocent noncombatants shouldn't be so callously executed for convenience sake. Wasn't right...wasn't right...it was terrible...

Another tense bout of muttering from the purple pony brought Sarin back to the present. She steadied herself on the table, wiping beads of sweat from her face. Focus, she told herself, picking up where she left off.

What's this, she thought, reading a passage of personal notes. She shook her head. Looks like they've found the...

“Leucrota!”

Sarin felt her heart freeze. She turned around frantically. There she locked eyes with Twilight Sparkle, huffing heavily from a nightmare. She too became aware of who she saw.

The two didn't move, too fixed on each other. As seconds passed, Twilight's pupils – those massive pupils – started to dart over Sarin's face, her body, her clothing, hair, and skin. Sarin for her part was too shocked, slowly comprehending the gravity of her situation.

“Ugh, what's going on?” said the green and purple dragon, sitting up in his tiny bed-basket. He rubbed his eyes, then locked onto the intruder in their midst.

Darting sight to the dragon and then back to the pony, Sarin finally ran to the side, vaulting over the railing and onto the first floor. Using every ounce of speed, she covered the distance to the window and dove head first out of it. Rolling over to her feet, she kicked off and started running again.

Bad, she thought. Bad, bad, bad!

“Oh hey, it's the Shy Spy!” called a dreadfully familiar voice from across the street. “Hey Shy Spy, did you come to visit Twilight's house too? Oh! Do you want some cake left over from the party?”

Even worse! A thousand times worse! Sarin buried her heels into the ground, pushing her celerity for all its worth. Forget the evidence! Only the Observatory matters now!

Sitting in his comfy chair, Earth pony Nebula Gazer adhered his eyelids to Equestria's finest optical telescope. The Observatory was his silent domain, and place where he communed with the cosmos. Such was his love of the stars that he developed his cutie mark – a constellation – from a colthood act of stargazing. So obviously he would jump at the chance to be an astronomer. It was fascinating work, he would always say, like the time...

“You! Turn around and freeze!”

Nebula Gazer spun around to see...he didn't know what he was looking at. It wasn't a pony, none such he'd ever met that stood on two legs. The figure wore a cloak, hood slipped down to expose a most unusual head. Off-white mane, pale hairless face, blue blotches around the eyes and forming a downward pointing triangle on her forehead. Criminally short snout. Ghastly and unnerving. It – he or she was quite confusing – held a bizarre object in its/his/her equally bizarrely digited non-hoof, visibly breathing hard.

“Uh...now see here!” he began, pointing a forehoof at the figure. “You're not supposed to be here. Who are you? ...what are you?”

Sarin Miles answered back, “Shut up! Do what I say!” She shook her light pistol in her hand to emphasis her threat.

“...or what? You're going to clock me with a metal pipe?”

The Fatae soldier blinked. Then her mouth formed a disgusted scowl. She drifted her aim towards an ornate vase sitting on a nearby table. She squeezed the trigger, allowing a concentrated packet of energy to shoot forth from the barrel. Lighting the whole room for an instant, the ball of light struck the vase and shattered it to pieces. The astronomer yelped in surprise.

Sarin turned the light pistol back on Nebula Gazer, secretly satisfied that the idiot equine understood his imminent peril. “Do what I say or your head ends up like that.” She trudged forward, hairs falling in front of her sweaty face.

“P-p-please!” Nebula Gazer said, quacking in his swivel chair. “W-what d-do you w-want from m-m-m-me?” She held up his forelegs defensively.

She walked straight up to the pony and held the light pistol a mere meter from his head. She took a moment to brush the hair from her face. “That object in the sky. The purported sailing ship. You found it?”

“Yes! W-we d-did!”

“Find it again!” Sarin yelled, shifting her pistol a fraction closer. She turned her arm over so as to sweep the gun in a circle down at him. “Come on, turn around and look! I don't have all night!”

“Yes! Of course!” Nebula Gazer exclaimed, twisting around and planting an eye on the viewing piece. “B-but I should warn you...we haven't really...”

“No excuses! Just look!” Sarin prodded the pony in the back of the head, causing him to yelp again and cease talking. He bent over and nervously took in the night sky. Normally he would find the cosmos stretched before him supernaturally calming. But his situation, being what it was, left him twitching, dripping sweat that drenched his fur and lab coat.

Slowly minutes went by, the astronomer sweeping the huge telescope across the dome of heaven. Eventually, Sarin said, “Find it yet?”

“N-no,” said the flinching Earth pony, “not yet.”

“Keep looking,” she said, her voice lower, more restrained. Patience, she told herself. This stallion is a professional. He knows his way around the night sky, knows his instrument. Let him take his time.

Unfortunately the will to resist the Id was a finite resource, and after more minutes she repeated, “Find it yet?” She clenched her teeth, catching her slowly building tension.

“Sorry, afraid not,” answered the pony, wincing in case the crazy painted biped lost her temper and reacted with a squeeze of her trigger. When Sarin only grunted in reply, Nebula Gazer continued his sweeping look. He then ventured the question, “Sorry, but why do you want to find that ship so badly? If it's not too much to ask. What's your connection?”

Sarin chose her words carefully, then replied, “You're a scientist. Make an educated guess.”

The pony seemed to think on the matter, then said, “You want to find it because you came from it. And you want to go back?” When the soldier took too long answering, he added, “What by chance are you planning to do if you found it?” He shifted in his seat, resisting the urge to turn back towards the alien visitor.

Sergeant Miles rested her eyes, tight shut, turning focus inwardly to master her mounting agitation. “No comment,” she said, drumming the fingers of her free hand against her leg.

In truth she felt her plan was...insufficient. A long shot. It amounted to pointing her light pistol at the sky in the same direction as the ship – preferably over its nose rather than directly at it – and discharging her entire supply of ammunition. Her forlorn hope being that the ship would see the shots, fired every thirty seconds, and track her down from there. Or at the very least, they would see that their wayward passenger was still alive, and endeavor to return with more supplies and a search party later. At the moment she had five shots with which to deliver her signal.

Scratch that, four shots. Costly blunder.

Her foot was now tapping on the ground anxiously. She brushed more hair from her face. It was starting to stick together from all the sweat on her blue brow. Sarin consulted her watch; allowed another five minutes to pass. “Have you found it yet?”

“No I haven't,” responded Nebula Gazer. His attitude was growing harder. He'd allowed the calming effects of the star above to center him. The threat of death or injury still kept him to the grindstone, but that fear diminished. Nebula Gazer was starting to get annoyed.

As was Sarin Miles. “Well why not?” she said petulantly.

“Because I can't find it out there.”

“Why not?” Sarin said, raising her voice. She gripped the pistol harder.

“Because it's not bloody there!” Nebula Gazer yelled, turning around to shoot his captor a glare.

Sarin paused. “What?”

“That's what I tried to tell you at the beginning,” said Nebula Gazer, irate. He turned fully to face the pistol pointed at him. “The ship we saw isn't to be found anywhere in the sky anymore. I can't bloody find it because it's gone!”

“No...no it can't be gone!” Sarin yelled, waving her pistol around angrily. “The paper said-”

“That we spotted a ship in the sky,” finished Gazer, ignoring the instrument of death waving in his direction. “Spotted. Past tense. We saw it in the sky for a few nights, then it disappeared and we never saw it again.”

The soldier shook, rage building only to flounder. She felt sick. Gone? The Docket Lot was just gone? “When did this happen?”

“We decided to wait to tell the press about our findings until we could spot the thing again,” explained the pony. “When it didn't show back up, we decided to finally report it as is. Problem is papers didn't do a good job conveying that message, only being sensationalist as always.”

“When?”

“When? When what?”

“When did you last see it?!” Sarin screamed, extending her arm fully in order to bring the pistol within a half meter of the pony's snout.

It was perhaps only then that Nebula Gazer realized he'd dug himself into a potentially certain grave. His bravado, his anger, dispelled in an instant. But almost without thinking, he went ahead anyway with the truth, regretting it as it left his mouth. “Almost a month ago.”

All the tension in Sarin's body came undone. Her eyes went wide, her grip on the gun slack. A second later her legs felt like gelatin, and she staggered. Blood left her face, an effect that would leave another Fatae pale, and which only left Sarin's skin cold.

Nebula Gazer sat still, afraid to do anything to set the biped off. Finally he said, “Um, are you okay?”

“No,” said Sarin, weakly. She stared into space rather than at the pony. Her weapon swung limp at her side.

“I'm sorry, I-”

“No. No. No, no, no,” chanted MS G7-H3, clutching her head while doubled over. “No no no no no no No No No No NO!”

“Uh, miss? What's...”

“Aaaah!” Sarin screamed, full-bellied and loud. She shrieked, rocking up and down with hands still clasped on her head. “Aaaah! Aaah!” she continued, stamping her foot on the ground.

No, can't be happening. No. No. Can't have left me. No, why would they leave? A whole month?

Sarin stopped thrashing, standing uneasily on her feet. She suddenly felt weak at the knees, wanting desperately to just crash down. Still, she held her head and thought.

A month. They left a month ago. A couple nights only. The crew left only immediately after the crash happened. Didn't wait around to see if I was okay. If Sorchess and Bidd and I were okay. They just left. Left me behind. Left me here. Left me on this God-forsaken backwater mud ball. Left me here. Alone.

“Left me here. Alone,” she said, finally dropping her hands from her head. Her hair clumped where sweat and the vigorous rubbing had jostled it. She stared down to her feet. To those scuffed, muddied, well-traveled, needs-polish-and-a-shine army boots. “What...what...what do I do now?”

Almost as if taking the statement as cue, the doors of the room slammed open.

Sarin turned frantically around to see two, four, six, eight, ten royal guards rush into the room. All wore either polished bright white armor, or a gray understated set, depending on the color of their coats and the feathered or leathered wings. They each carried a spear, either hooked into a hoof or levitated in the air in front of them.

Not even having fully taken in that sight, Sarin heard another door slam open on the other side of the room. A look in that direction revealed yet more guards filing in with similar accessories. And finally, the flapping of wings drew Sarin's attention upwards to the telescope. Half a dozen pegasus guards flew in through the massive hole where the telescope ran through. Even the remote possibility of escape in that direction was accounted for.

How did they know I was here, Sarin thought, the only coherent question she could think to ask. She checked her side, only to finally realize. My bag. I left it...back in the library.

…

One hour earlier...

Twilight looked out the open window, seeing the escaping figure run out of sight. Reminded her vaguely of Trixie, who on more than one occasion absconded from the town like that. Except this figure...

“Shy Spy!”

Yes, this Shy Spy...wait what?

“Pinkie Pie?” Twilight said, looking over to see her party loving friend bouncing up and down with half a cake balanced on a head plate. “What are you doing here? And wait, you know that...thing?”

“Oh Shy Spy? Totally!” gleefully said Pinkie Pie. She gave one last look to the horizon where the intruder had run before bounding over to the window. “I've been chasing that silly willy all month. She's really fast, and really good at hide and seek!”

“Pinkie!” said Twilight, raising her voice. “She just tried to...and she's...you knew about these creatures the whole time and didn't tell me?!” She was sputtering now, barely wrapping her head around her friend's behavior.

“Well sure! It's not like I thought she was dangerous...until earlier I guess...” Pinkie frowned, then added, “But come on, Twilight. You know how we need to give everypony a chance. I'll bet when the Shy Spy finally comes around, she'll...”

“The 'Shy Spy' already came around!” shouted Twilight. “She just broke into my house and started going through our stuff! We need to get the royal guard looking for her.” The alicorn thumped her chin with her hoof, deep in thought. “Now how are we going to find her?”

“Hey Twilight!” came the voice of Spike, coming behind his boss. “Look what I found!” He displayed his find, an old satchel that had lain on the ground by the work bench. “It's full of books from the library.”

Twilight took the bag and reached into it, pulling volumes from it using her magic. “All these are reference books. Why would the creature need...?” The last thing she removed was a bent and scrawled on newspaper. “A newspaper?”

“Well to read about the news of course!” shouted Pinkie Pie, as if the supposedly intelligent Twilight had missed the blatantly obvious. “What else is it for?”

Twilight's eyes grew two sizes looking at the paper. “Maybe to note down one's plans to visit the Canterlot Observatory!” She showed off the find to both her friends. “Spike, take a letter!”

…

Sarin Miles' mouth fell agape. She lifted her hands up, including the light pistol, and issued a gutteral scream. When that failed to properly vent the inwardly directed outrage, she slammed her free fist against her head.

Despicable blunder! Asinine blunder! Inexcusable blunder!

“Drop your weapon and surrender!” a guard shouted, drawing Sarin's attention back to the matter at hand.

For the first time in minutes, Sarin started to think clearly. She was back in familiar territory: facing off against obvious enemies. Thinking quickly, she tightened her grip on the light pistol and swung it towards Nebula Gazer. “Nobody move! I got a...”

She looked back to where Nebula Gazer had been sitting, only to find the swivel chair spinning to a stop. Motion in her peripheral vision told her the astronomer already sought and obtained shelter behind an angry wall of meat and metal. His sounds of whimpering could be heard over the clangs of steel.

“...hostage...”

She shook off her dismay and summoned more anger. She swept the gun around at the circle of guards surrounding her. “Back! Back or I'll shoot!”

This halted their advance a moment, then they began moving forward. Sarin tried to direct the weapon around, but it only halted the guards when it was over them, before beginning again when she tried to cover the rest. Moreover a number of them were floating above the line, circling around with eyes fixed on her.

When the line of guards came in until they were shoulder to shoulder, they finally stopped. Not even pointing the pistol at them caused them to retreat, Sarin saw.

Looking around in circles, Sarin's anger turned desperate, halting, before finally dropping away. She stared at them. They had their spears forward, towards her. A shudder went through her back. She blinked. They were waiting for her move.

What are my options here, she thought. Five shots. No, four. Four shots. And my combat knife. If I discharge the whole volley into one side, I could run forward and try to squeeze through...

Whereupon the half dozen pegasi will swoop in to cover the gap, running me through, her thoughts continued. Even if I do slip by, run out the door, whose to say there aren't more guards waiting at the exit?

And assuming I get by them, then what? Keep running? Just keep running? Run away and hide in a cave somewhere? Duck in that Everfree forest the Ponyville locals speak about and contend with ferocious beasts ten times worse than the Leucrota on a daily basis? Or just keep running?

Slowly, Sarin's arms fell. Her grip on the gun gave out entirely. She was breathing quickly, but she forced it to deepen. Forced her heart to slow. She kicked the pistol, letting it skid across the floor away. The guards tensed as she pulled her knife out, but relaxed when she let that clatter to the floor as well, out of reach.

Her knees gave out, causing her to fall to them. She raised her hands, palms splayed.

They left her there on the planet. The crew of the Docket Lot. Lieutenant Jons. Left her there almost immediately after she turned out lost. They likely didn't believe she was even alive. Or if they believed she was, they didn't care. They abandoned her. Marooned her on a planet of ponies.

The guards, seeing their enemy's complete surrender, moved forward and laid hooves upon her. Some called for chains to be brought in. Soon enough, they were.

Sergeant Sarin Miles was left marooned. Marooned, and now captured.

Comments

[Dubious]

Okay, good chapter, but what sort of military makes standard a sidearm that only holds five rounds, and has to undergo a lengthy recharging for every reload?

[Bluecho]

3760033 One that's working with delicate, very advanced light-based laser weaponry in a society whose tech levels are heavily inconsistent. Five shots is about how much they could fit into it. The entire motif I was going for for basically an advanced flintlock pistol rather than a blaster or something. Really, the sidearm ISN'T standard; most troops would have brought out the pnuematic crossbows or taken to a sword. That's the kind of universe it is. Space faring, but basically renaissance Europe when every is said and done.

I could have given the Fatae effective guns, given them to everybody, but then that would have widened the disconnect between their society and pony society.

They had extra battery packs that could have recharged the gun, but that was on the dory when it crashed. Smashed to bits.

[Dubious]

3760549 But still, I mean it's not one of my more obscnely overpowered weapons, but couldn't she at least been given an assault rifle with subspace ammo storage and generation? Or maybe that's because my universe tend to be incredibly advanced?

[Bluecho]

3760567 They have assault rifles - or rather the equivalent of powder fired round shot rifles - but there aren't in wide use. Only one regiment of the military uses such things. They cost a fortune and take a lot of work to maintain. Moreover, Sarin's mission was never meant as an assault mission. It was meant as an information gathering one. The pistol was grudgingly given to her because they figured they might encounter a wild animal or something, or need to use the gun as an emergency flare in case the three on the ground got separated.

[Dubious]

3760751 Gun powder weapons are expensive to maintain? What about freaking light pistols? But regardless, don't they have blades that can oscillate at twenty thousand hertz?

[Bluecho]

3763788 Nope, they do not. They just have regular swords. Well perhaps some of the R&D people in the Empire have developed super blades, but those are hardly issued to the grunts. And I meant the light rifles were difficult to maintain, they being charged particle weapons. Gun powder weapons were merely a metaphor.