Homebound

by Retsamoreh

(16) Generosity and Compassion

-Aboard the ESS Homebound K-196
-Immediately after VR Sim termination.
-Navigation room.
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“Ahh God no!” I screamed, not paying attention to the similar scream of pain next to me. The force of the exit left me sprawled on the black tile floor of the device, breathing heavy and retracting into the one corner of my mind that wasn’t on fire. A muffled grey shape rushed to my side, speaking words I couldn’t understand. Hot lava and colder-than-cold ice swirled in my head and demanded I focus on screaming. I did not succumb to them. Scrambling to grab what sense I had left, I pushed down, and for a moment it felt like a bubble inside my brain was going to burst.

“... Can you hear me? Sir? Sir? Jackson, confirm!”

“Mrrg, confirm. It’s me. I’m fine. G’look at Twilight...” I muttered, squirming on the floor. “B-blimey, Aran, where’s TACT? He was going to put us through a S-Shutdown.” I slammed the palm of my hand against the tiles; now that the pain was gone, I had to steady myself as fast as possible.

“I have no idea where he went, sir- Twilight? Twilight, can you hear me? Confirm, Twilight.”

“M-make it s-stop!” the unicorn cried.

“TACT!” I bellowed from the floor, doing my best to tune out the sounds of my only medical officer tending to Twilight. “TACT! Where the heck are you? Ahg!” I twisted, half writhing in agony and half pushing myself off the ground. “TACT you sodding useless piece of junk! I’m going to eject your core into the nearest black hole- ghhah...”

“Don’t push yourself, Jackson,” Aran said, still preoccupied with my fallen companion.

“Mrrrg, you should’ve taken the proper procedures, Aran.”

“Can’t do that without an AI overseeing the specifics, sir, that’s the way you made it.”

“I know, I know,” I grumbled, shuffling over to the control panel. TACT’s symbol was absent from the screen. “TACT, you sunnov-”

“Tactical Advice Contributor System Installation Complete. Rebooting Complete. Returning To Duties. How May I Help You, Captain Amber?”

“Don’t play coy, why did you shut off during the VR sim? I could’a had a lot worse than a headache after being torn out so fast and you know it.”

“Marauder Presence Detected In Data Storage Compartment. Forced Shut-Down To Avoid Data Theft Is Procedure,” the computer said, and for a moment the sounds of Aran doing her best to run Twilight through the steps to recovery faded, and the blood drained from my already pale face.

“Are you one hundred percent certain?” I said, enunciating each word in as controlled a fashion as I could.

“Probability 49% Marauder Onboard. I Did Not Want To Risk It.”

“TACT, don’t alert the crew. If it’s a marauder, we’re all dead anyways,” I muttered, turning to walk towards the door. I ignored Twilight’s crying, Aran’s comforting words, and I ignored TACT’s monotone affirmative. Each step I took pounded against the metal floor and echoed around me. I could see the sound, just barely, almost like it was an aura of color. All I could do was hope the rest of the crew wouldn’t notice any oddities in the ship; like, say, light suddenly becoming a liquid. I made a beeline for the armory.

“No. I just told you, whatever you think about getting ‘dirty’, engineering isn’t just that. Yea, it doesn’t require a lot of finesse when you get down to the basics, but you have to know to stuff, otherwise it’s liable to blow up in your face. Miss Rarity, are you even listening?” a female voice said down the hallway, and I almost instinctively turned around.

“Yes, well, Miss Andres, it doesn’t stop the fact that for the past hour you’ve been working on that behemoth of a vehicle, you haven’t even paused to clean your hands! And you’re touching your face right now! Oh stars above!”

They came into view, positioned just in front of the armory door, and I skidded to a halt. Lilian, muck running up and down her jacket uniform and wearing, what was once a white towel but now soot-black, over her shoulder, was towering over Rarity, wiping her forehead. It turned into a salute as soon as she registered my presence, and Rarity beamed.

“Hello, sir.”

“A pleasure to see you’re doing well, Captain. Lilian has informed me that you were discussing something with Twilight. Is she free right now?”

“No, she’s not. Lilian, if you could move aside so I could get into the armory, please, I need something.”

“Sir,” Lilian started, lowering her hand and stepping to the side of the door. “We came up here to ask what the flickering lights were about. I detected a brief surge in power, but TACT went offline. The boys are down patrolling the hangar and keeping the girls calm, and Evo sent me a message saying everything was fine in the bridge with him and AJ. What’s going on?” she asked, glancing down at Rarity. I followed her gaze, and landed on the unicorn’s horn.

“You do magic, right?” I asked, opening the door. Inside were rows of lockers and, lastly, a weapon storage unit. I let my feet shuffle forward, but I kept my eyes trained on her.

“Why of course, darling! I’m certainly not as good at is as Twilight, but I know you fine people cannot use it. Why? Do you need something?”

“Yup, you’ll be good. Twilight’s incapacitated right now. Lilian?” I asked, marching into the room and yanking open a door. It swung open, and hanging on every possible space was the grey, angled shape of the signature KaidenTech assault rifle, looking every bit like someone pasted a couple of metal triangles onto a rectangle and then pasted a bunch of shiny blue bits on it. They weren’t pretty, but when you’re getting shot at you don’t care about how pretty your gun is.

“Yeah?” she replied, staring at the gun in my hand.

I tossed one to her, and she caught it with trained precision. “Boarding party of one. We’ll need Rarity.” She gaped, but brought the weapon into a sling-ready position anyways. I grabbed my own rifle, mimicked her position, and closed the armory door behind me.

“Where’s the target? And why MP-B-Ones? Aren’t those the less stable version?”

“Power core, data storage, and AI core rooms. And because less stable might be what we need for this. TACT?”

“Yes, Sir?” a voice from a screen on the wall asked.

“Where’s he now? Can you tell?” I asked, looking down at another door I knew would open up to the stairwell.

“High Probability It Is In Engine Control-Room B Or Power Core Storage. I Recommend Extreme Caution. I- TACT Emergency Shutdown Engaging.” The screen blinked silent, and the lights didn’t flicker this time. The light shut off, and now I couldn’t just hear Evo’s shouts coming through the bridge door down the hallway, I could see them.

“Jackson, what are we dealing with here?” Lilian whispered, looking at the stair door.

“It’s a marauder, and I have no idea what it’s doing on our ship.” I pursed my lips, and marched over to the door. Looking back through tight eye when I reached the entrance, I saw that Lilian’s face had paled, and she was rooted to the spot. Rarity looked between us.

“What?” the unicorn asked.

“Sir... with all due respect,” Lilian said, shuffling her feet, “I didn’t sign up for this mission to get torn to pieces by a marauder. You really want us, just two of us, to fight one in a cramped data core room? Are you nuts?”

“Yes, and not just the two of us, I’d really like it if Rarity came,” I said, opening the door to the black pit of darkness beyond. A cold chill swept out in a variety of blues and purples, and I lifted my hand past the door and into the staircase beyond. “Soft. Gravity’s not working right past this door.”

“Oh T’los, it is a marauder,” Lilian choked. “S-sir-”

“I’m dreadfully sorry for interrupting,” Rarity said, crossing the distance between Lilian and I, “but whatever’s in there doesn’t exactly sound friendly, and I don’t think I want to follow you until you’ve told me what the hay a ‘marauder’ is and why you’re both so scared of it!”

“Erm,” I mumbled, “it was a lie of omittance, really. Some people can use magic, but we don’t call it that. We call it Psych, and most of the time, it’s bad news.”

“Well what’s so bad about magic?” she retorted.

“Because,” I said, turning towards the dim hallway that was leaking colors, “we can’t control it as well. It’s more like... raw power for us. We can do things like levitation sometimes, those who have the power, but other times.... Other times people get so much of it that they start to leak.”

“It twists them,” Lilian said, taking slow steps toward me.

“Marauders aren’t people, and they’re not monsters,” I continued, taking a step into the hallway. The colors reached out to grab me, and I sank down into them. “They’re somewhere in between. There’s a weakness, though, and that’s when their own stuff is used against them. It’s like two positively charged magnets pointed at each other. That’s why we need you, Rarity, you’d be our magnet.”

“Um, I’m flattered, of course, but this does seem dangerous,” she said, taking a step back. I turned, one or two steps down already, and frowned.

“It’s going to be a heck of a lot more dangerous if we don’t have you with us. I know you’re not here to take orders from me, Miss Rarity, but you’d be saving us from a world of pain by taking this risk. If you don’t take it, there’s no telling what could happen, and if you do... well I’ve already said it’s dangerous. If you don’t want to do it, because putting you in danger is on the last of my priorities, you don’t have to.”

“We wouldn’t have to use her if we had psych infused weaponry,” Lilian grumbled, taking her place behind me. I grunted, and continued sliding effortlessly down the stairs. Peeking back one last time, I saw Rarity look side-to-side for an escape route before sighing, and following after us.

“Well I didn’t expect we’d be fighting a psych. I-I, ah, yeah, I get it, mysterious circumstances. Probably should’ve seen it coming. Nobody suggested it,” I sputtered, mentally slamming myself for being blatantly thoughtless. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this, Rarity. Got any spells for light?”

“Of course, Jackson,” she said carefully,her horn lighting up on command. I grinned in the bright light, and made a left when we got back to the bottom. “Where exactly are we going?”

“Up there’s one of the engine rooms, and past it is where we’re headed. All of the core power rooms, data storage, and where TACT’s mainframe is located. Keep silent from here on out,” I replied, shoving the powerless door with my shoulder. It opened to reveal a similarly dark room, wires jutting from the walls and part of the engine located in the back. The engine rooms in the Homebound were special, purely because there were two of them, and they weren’t designed for long-term use. The whole ship was supposed to just be for this one mission, so we had deemed an open engine about as necessary as extra comfortable beds. Rarity entered, and I swallowed at what her light revealed was trailed along the floors and walls.

“Soot?” Rarity asked, Lilian hushed her.

“Don’t touch it,” I hissed back, getting my weapon into a better ready position. We made our way along the room, bulky guns trained on anything that shifted; everything seemed to be doing just that. The walls squirmed, the soot seemed to be moving on its own like a snake in some places, and the colors swam around our legs like rainbow eels. The metal walls creaked with every second, and above us was the terrible sound of stretching metal.

“S-shouldn’t we get more people?” Rarity asked, dancing away from a line of the black stuff that seemed to be crawling towards her.

“Then who’d protect your friends? Now shush, please,” I retorted, moving to the far door. It was wrenched open, and the sides smoldered with the black powder. Carefully, I stepped through it. Here, the colors stopped and the world ceased to be sliding everywhere and nowhere at once. The only sound besides our steps was my gulp; if the world was less real in the room we’d just left, it was more real than normal here.

I had only been in the core room a couple of times. A few to inspect it, one to make sure the designs were right, and once before takeoff. It was simple, really, just a bunch of power cores lined up in two rows, eventually stopping and letting data storage modules take their place. At the far end, which was black as death now, was TACT’s mainframe core. I shivered. Yes, the world was definitely more real here, because I felt like I could hear everything. The tiniest creak, the smallest sound of dust landing on metal, and so many more I couldn’t even place. The walls were black, and when Rarity stepped through with her horn alight, the darkness did not move.

We kept to the middle of the corridor, jerking at every creak and groan of the ship’s stressed hull. I heard the breathing, shuddering, deep, and sounding like its owner wouldn’t think twice about teleporting my arms and legs to one side of the room. I saw it. Slender, impossibly thin arms were reaching out to one of the data consoles, and I couldn’t see their owner.

“Oi! Scumbag!” I shouted. As soon as I did, the arms froze, and a pitch black, faceless head rose from the darkness. It didn’t so much as speak as the words were understood. I doubt we even needed the translator ring. It turned, and the rumbling of the ship’s hull seemed to get louder.

ThIss IsS NoNE oF yOurE ConSSerN.

I winced, and next to me I heard Rarity yelp. “Keep quiet, you sodding freak!” I bellowed, advancing one step at a time. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a Psych capable with me, and I know you’re scared of that.” The rumble turned into an earthquake, and the second before it answered, fully turning to me with its grotesquely thin body, I felt like the ship would split in half under my feet.

THaT unIT ISS of No coNsseQuENcE tO Uss. WE PaRT.

Then it was gone, and with it, the blackness. Sparks of electricity arced from the storage unit it was messing with, and judging from the gaping hole in it, the marauder had gotten what it wanted. We dove for cover.

~=V=~

“And just tell me again, why didn’t you call in for backup? Two people against a marauder is unheard of,” Admiral Uske said, frowning across the meeting table at me. The entire crew had gathered, save Twilight, who was still recuperating according to Aran. Having your brain ripped apart by a simulator doesn’t exactly take an hour to heal. “And frankly stupid,” he finished.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You’d just love to fight one of them, wouldn’t you?” I retorted, absently rubbing at the scratches on my arm. On either side of me sat Rarity and Lilian, both still marred by the black powder we’d all leapt into.

He sniffed. “I’ve done it before.”

“Uh, yeah! Mister ‘Greatest Flyer in the Galaxy’ here does have a point, we could have helped!” Rainbow chided, waving a hoof in the face of my superior. His eyes moved to her, and if there was ever a winner for the title of most condescending smile, he’d be a shoo-in.

“Thank you, Rainbow Doll. I knew you’d come ar-”

“I was KIDDING!” she yelled, and he collapsed in a heap of laughs and snorts. Patrick, presumably rolling his eyes under his mask, turned my way. Shuddering, raspy breaths sucked in through his breathing apparatus. Everyone else hushed, looking at him as he sighed.

“You endangered the lives of two Admirals, seven highly important ambassadors and civilians, and the crew of your entire ship, Jackson. The least you could’ve done was order an evacuation and give us time to escape while you went about on your childish crusade. Your dropship could’ve escaped and you know it. Marauders are known unknowns and facing one like you did was beyond stupid. There is no excuse, and we all know this isn’t the first time you’ve jumped into a situation that required more reinforcements that you’d brought, ignoring all logic and reason and putting needless lives in danger. Two words, Jut’Firek Incident,” he hissed, and both Uske and I recoiled.

“Uncool, man,” he said, and I pretended to ignore the dreading looks from the more learned members of the crew, and those looks piled on top of the confused but equally dreading looks from the ponies just made me grip the edge of the glass table all the tighter. I looked down.

“That was a completely different scenario, Admiral,” I said through gritted teeth. He glared at me through his mask, but that only made his disappointment more worrying. “I don’t have any excuse for it, but that was different. We were short on men and it was the only viable option to take down a high ranking member of E’s military. The circumstances were-”

“The circumstances do not apply. You flew to that planet with nineteen men and came out with fifteen tags and no bodybags. We never even found them. Each of those losses could have been prevented if you had taken my advice seriously.” He stood up, and I could almost see his disfigured red face beneath the mask’s visor. Slowly, I scooted my chair back, and kept my eyes glued to his and a stern frown etched into my face.

“It was a stealth mission. We could only afford twenty.”

“Oooh, yes, it was a stealth mission. Nevertheless they died because of you. You ignored valuable intelligence that I acquired and people, good people, died. You almost got every single person on this ship killed because of your pride. I hope you’re happy,” the Admiral said, and with a note of finality, marching past me and to the door. It slammed behind him, and I shuddered.

“E-Everybody,” I muttered, shaking, and I took a shuddering breath. Dylan, Roland, and Evo all slid their seats back, and left the room with blank stares. “Everyone leave. Now. You have fifteen s-s... seconds,” I breathed, and something stuck in my throat when Aran shook her head as she passed. Footsteps turned into hoofsteps, and while Applejack focused on dragging Pinkie Pie - who seemed desperate to give me a hug or possibly devour me whole - out of the room, Rainbow Dash didn’t bother to spare me the enraged glare. I fell into one of the seats, burying my head in my arms, and took another deep breath. “You too, Miss Fluttershy.”

“Um... Jackson...” the pegasus said from my left, in a soft kind of voice I hadn’t heard in a long time. The kind of voice only a mother can use to her child. I swallowed. “I-I don’t, um, know much but you look like you could really use a-a-- someone to talk to.” Her voice faded, and for a moment all my world was just labored breathing gasping in and out of my lungs.

“You’re right,” I said, balling my hands into fists and screeching the table back just far enough to get up an inch every second. “You are so, so right,” I repeated, but this time it came out like a guttural snarl. “You don’t know anything. You know absolutely nothing! Because,” I growled turning to face the quivering lump of pink, yellow, and fear, “you are pathetically stupid! I could’ve sworn I ordered everyone, ponies included, to get the hell out of this room! Do I look like I’m in the mood to talk with you? Do I look like I want a hug?! Do I?”

“N-n-no!” she cried, zipping out of her seat and making a beeline for the exit. I made a sound I wasn’t sure I could make any other day, something more like a dying jackal, and slammed my fist against the table. “I’m sorry!”

“It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t fail!” I screamed, slamming my fist against the table once more. Spiderweb cracks spread from the impact, marring the perfect blue tinted surface. Breath coursing in and out of my lungs light lightning. “I hate you, I hate you!” I shouted, spinning to slam my fist into the wall this time. It launched me back into the chair, leaving my knuckles bleeding and pain ripping through my arm for the second time in the day. I hissed, or sobbed, and choked back a foreign substance from leaking out of my eyes. The metal chair had fallen over under my weight, and my body was left sprawled and unmoving with my arms and legs splayed out at awkward angles. I turned my head over to the door, resting it sideways on the crook of my tangled arm. There she was, wide-eyed and open mouthed like I had shot her friend instead of yelled at her, and looking so much like a dead angel.

“I told you to leave, Rarity,” I muttered, closing my eyes with what strength I had left. I couldn’t look at her face anymore, even if it was pretty by pony standards - at least, that was judging by the way Spike kept staring at her during lunch. “I’d r-... I’d really appreciate it if you could all leave me alone right now.”

“Jackson,” she tsked, hoofsteps coming closer with each clip and clop. “I... know you’re angry, I can’t say I know at what, but you certainly don’t look like the brave, selfless man who threw himself against a supposedly deadly creature to save his dear friends. What good does getting mad do? Especially when all that was mentioned was some... mistake in the past.” She stopped, and I opened my eyes to see her solemn visage. I blinked, trying to replace her face with the glitzy, feminine pony I had seen get on my ship. Nothing happened, and I slid from the chair’s wreck with agonizing slowness.

“It was a dumb mistake. We almost failed the mission because of it. P-people died, my friends, Miss Rarity. It wasn’t just a mistake. It won’t ever be just a mistake. Everything I did there is on me, one hundred percent, and I can’t ever just shrug that off because... no matter what, it’s always going to be there. Things just... they happen and I keep getting reminded that I screwed up, and I can’t... I just can’t.” I took another breath, and from my crumbled form I got on my knees, arms shaking. Rarity just stared at me; with that horrible face that was a mixture of pity and something else that added a little extra twinkle to her eye, she just stared.

“Everypo- one, makes mistakes, Jackson,” she said kneeling down to get eye level with me. “I know I have most definitely made mistakes in my past, and there’s nothing I can do to take them back. I don’t have the guilt of... of whatever terrible things you’ve done,” she gulped, but I could see the faintest of smiles forming on her face. “But life is full of mistakes, Captain. We make them each and every day and so far, I’ve never seen anyone capable of taking them back, so instead we learn from them. Accept you can’t change what’s already past you, and learn from it. I can’t say anything about soldiers, but I know your friends wouldn’t want you grieving over them for so long. They’d want you to be stronger... so if you can’t do it for yourself, do it for them.” She took a deep breath, and inched backwards as if I were a bomb and she was the one ordered to disarm me. “I want the Jackson back who was willing to risk his life for his friends. I think I understand him better.”

“Y-you have no idea...” I sputtered, forcing down a lump that had formed in my throat. My words stung her, judging from the fear that flashed across her face, so I continued on, “... what t-this means to me...”

“You’re welcome, Mister Amber,” she said, bowing, and without a second’s pause, one of her pearl hoofs smacked me across the face and back into the chair. “I’m afraid that was for making Fluttershy cry, my dear, and I know the others would do worse. You’re the Captain, maybe, but I am ordering you to apologize to her as soon as you’ve cleaned yourself up. And please, don’t do it again.”

The echoes of her leaving pierced my ears, only adding to the lancing pain on my cheek. Heavy breathing turned into shallow panting, and I laid against the chair like a ragdoll. Carefully, like I had just woken up from a nap, I reached a shaky hand to my face, and felt the redness that had formed in the shape of the strike. Pain vibrated outwards at the touch, and I recoiled. “I... TACT?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Please... correct my order to Evo earlier. I w-want to arrive in Gantoris tomorrow.”

“Yes Sir.”

“And TACT?”

“Yes Sir?”

“Make sure the medicine is in my desk when w-we get there. It’s starting to s-screw with my emotions, now, and it’s only a matter of time ‘til worse happens.”

“Yes Sir. Also, As A Matter Of Advice, I Would Suggest Avoiding The Other Ponies And Spike Until You Have Apologized To Fluttershy And Made Reparations.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I choked, pushing myself off the ground, “I’ll get... on it as soon as I can. Just take me to her.”

~=V=~

Comments

[Retsamoreh]

Also known as "the half-assed chapter where Jackson yells at Fluttershy and doesn't even begin to face the karmatic consequences".
AKA: "I'm lazy and need people to hate Jackson so I can do terrible things to him without you feeling sorry mu hahahahah"

Well, it's another writing project that trumps Homebound in quality and importance, but whatever. You guys'll still be getting Homebound, it'll just be on second priority.

[Piquo Pie]

So much for working on my own stuff.

[Retsamoreh]

1424618
>wants rainbow dash to be viciously murdered by the protagonist
>has rainbow dash for an avatar

Okay, good to know what kind of RD fan you are.

But that's okay. You just can never tell how people will react to anything Fluttershy-gets-hurt. Just covering the bases. :u

[Laichonious the Grey]

Dropping in to say I was here. And yes, Fluttershy does cry, but in the end I hope it works out well... for Jackson....

[shira]

1422871

Meh, still like Jackson. Too bad about your other project; yours is the rare 'sad' fic that I actually follow.

[MiiaTheLamia]

1427000 I second this motion.