The Black Between the Stars

by Rambling Writer

16 - Missing Persons

After a single moment of despairing panic, Applejack bolted, scrambling down the hill. She didn’t know what was up with Rainbow Dash and she wasn’t about to stick around and find out, not after… that.

She risked a glance over her shoulder. Rainbow stumbled out of the greenhouse like a puppet with a bad puppeteer. Her good wing was twitching spasmodically. When she looked after Applejack, it was more like her head was getting pulled in that direction than she was actually turning to look. Applejack only barely heard her whimper, “Don’t make me… I don’t wanna do that… ”

It wasn’t much of a forest, but a lot of the grass was tall. Applejack dove in and crawled along the ground, hoping it would hide her from view. She wasn’t aiming for anywhere in particular, just away. Normally, she would’ve relished the scent of life, but not now.

Rainbow’s shaky voice echoed through the arboretum. “I’m over here… I can’t see you… P-please keep moving…”

Applejack’s mind was a blur, her thoughts refusing to come into focus. How in Tartarus was she supposed to handle this? Killing monstrous aliens was one thing, but stopping Rainbow Dash? She knew Rainbow. Shared drinks with her. They worked near each other. And it didn’t even seem like it was Rainbow’s fault. Who knew those telepaths had mind control?

And then it clicked: the telepath. It was controlling Rainbow. Kill it, free Rainbow. Simple. Applejack had already killed one. In space, too. She just needed to get back to the greenhouse and introduce it to Mr. Shotgun. Face-first, enthusiastically, and repeatedly. How hard could it be?

“Shut up… Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP…” Rainbow’s voice was closer.

Right.

Applejack kept crawling. She sort of had an idea: lead Rainbow around the edges of the arboretum. But suppose she failed and Rainbow caught her; what then? Don’t get too close, or we’re both dead. What did that mean? Did she even want to find out? After all the aliens had done, probably not. Could she knock Rainbow out? Movies said a good tap on the head did it just fine, but reality said a good tap on the head gave ponies concussions. Not a good option. What she really needed was some kind of stun gun, but good lu-

She plunged her hooves into her pockets and rooted around. Sure enough, the stun gun that she’d found in that security checkpoint hours ago was still there. Charge? Full. She smacked the clip around her free fetlock and another telepathic trigger appeared in her mind. Apparently, her gun neuromod also included experience for multiple simultaneous guns, because it didn’t feel uncomfortable or confusing in the slightest. Even better, in spite of what it looked like, the stunner (RSV-77 Neuroelectric Disruptor, if she was being technical) actually had a decent range. Granted, three yards would be pretty poor for a shotgun, but for this sort of thing? Just fine.

She just needed to let Rainbow get close.

“I can’t stop myself… Do you understand?”

Yaaaaaaaay.

Applejack peeped through the grass. Rainbow was staggering in her general direction, looking like she was being pulled along by a hook in her nose. Applejack’s throat went dry and she struggled to swallow. But Rainbow didn’t see her. Right?

Rainbow stumbled into the grass and started weaving back and forth in an unsteady search pattern. “You need to run!” sobbed Rainbow. “I have to listen! I HAVE TO!”

Applejack had to bite her tongue to keep from calling out. She wanted to tell Rainbow Dash everything, but, well, that’d be telling the telepath everything, too. She tensed up, waiting for Rainbow to get close enough. Back… forth… back… forth…

Closer. Closer. Soon, Applejack could hear the whisking of grass-on-grass from Rainbow’s passage. She was almost within range. Holding her breath, Applejack pulled the telepathic trigger on the stun gun, holding it “down” to charge it up.

Almost immediately, a high-pitched whine rippled through the air. It was quiet, but Rainbow’s head snapped towards Applejack’s hiding place. Her ears twitched and she began lumbering in Applejack’s direction.

The element of surprise was shot. Nothing for it. Applejack popped out of the grass and raised the leg with the stunner on it, making sure Rainbow and her “passenger” could see it. She immediately came to a stop as her legs locked in place. Applejack released the trigger on the stun gun, sending a prong of magically-conducted lighting lancing outward. It stopped and fizzled out mere inches from Rainbow’s muzzle. Applying the trigger again, Applejack took a step forward as Rainbow took two back. Spluttering, like she was choking on something, Rainbow hacked out, “Can you help me? Can you make me stop?”

“I sure can,” said Applejack. “I’m gonna get you safe, no matter what.” Somehow, it didn’t sound as hollow as she’d expected. “And, that thing wearin’ her face? I bet you’re listenin’. I don’t know what you an’ your friends’re up to, but the second I save her, I’m comin’ for every single one o’y’all.”

For the first time, Applejack realized just how angry she was. She wasn’t the biggest fan of working on Golden Oaks. It was in, well, space. She had to keep going through the same hallways, day after day after day, over and over and over. But she’d met ponies, made friends. She’d been made to try a thing or two she never would’ve looked at on Equus. And, in an age of industrial automation, she had her own little garden she could tend to by hoof. She could grow some pretty neat things in that garden, thanks to Golden Oaks’ resources. Juicer apples, bigger apples, more colorful flowers… She’d love being back on Equus, but there were some things up here she’d miss.

And now, these aliens had swept through the place, taking what little pleasures she had. They’d killed her friends and colleagues. They’d taken her memory. And now they were taking over ponies’ bodies. Applejack was scared, true. Nearly petrified. But all that was buried beneath a sudden outburst of rage. They shouldn’t do that. This shouldn’t happen. It just wasn’t right in the world, like growing corn in an orchard. Just as weeds didn’t belong on a farm, the changelings didn’t belong here.

So she was going to do to the changelings what Apples always did to weeds, whether with automated trimming drones now or by hoof and mouth millennia ago.

“I swear, I’m gonna kill y’all so hard the Pale Horse herself ain’t gonna recognize you,” Applejack continued. She stepped forward, Rainbow stepped back. “This is our station. You ain’t gonna keep us down, no matter how hard you try. Nothin’ thrown at me has hurt me, not one bit. You can’t stop-”

Rainbow’s eyes twitched slightly to the side. “B-behind you…”

Applejack whirled around. Lyra, her sclerae green just like Rainbow’s, had been inching through the grass behind her and was only a few yards away. Lyra, the pony whose name Rainbow had screamed out barely a minute ago. The two froze when they locked eyes, like they’d collided when going opposite ways around a corner, as their brains tried to catch up with reality. But just as Lyra raised a hoof, Applejack’s reflexes kicked on; she whipped her hoof up and released the trigger. The stun shot caught Lyra full in the chest; she crumpled without a sound.

Something rustled behind Applejack and she threw herself to the side, awkwardly tumbling over a rock and knocking herself breathless. Rainbow landed right where she’d been. As she got to her hooves, Rainbow choked out, “Don’t let me die like this…” Her good wing twitched open, closed, open, closed as she crouched.

Applejack struggled to get air into her lungs as she staggered back to her feet. Focus. She needed to focus, find that telepathic trigger. But reflex told her to keep breathing-

Rainbow lunged, tackled Applejack; they rolled over through the grass. When Rainbow started shaking and screaming, it was like a kick in the face to Applejack’s unconscious: she and Rainbow were not going to die. Even as she fought for breath, she located the trigger in her thoughts, jammed the stun gun into Rainbow’s jaw, and fired.

Rainbow spasmed all over and blinked twice. Her eyes cleared, then rolled back in her head and she went limp, collapsing on top of Applejack. Applejack delicately pushed her off, careful to keep her on her good wing. Her eyelids were fluttering and foam had gathered around her mouth, but her breathing was steady. Paranoia made Applejack put a hoof on her neck; Rainbow’s pulse felt a little bit weak, but only a little.

Applejack looked up toward the greenhouse and her jaw tightened. The telepath was still in there and she had a shotgun. Dirt was coating her from her tumble; it made her feel at home. She stood up and marched up the hill, her gaze flicking back and forth in case any other ponies were about. Nothing.

Deep breath. She set off up the hill to the greenhouse. She looked every which way and her ears pivoted around this way and that. She wasn’t totally sure what she was listening for; the telepath floated, it didn’t make noise. Maybe it was just to give her racing mind something to do, because otherwise, it kept conjuring up terrible images of things like her brain melting out of her ears. Delightful.

She reached the greenhouse with no problem, if you didn’t count the way her heart pounded so hard it was battering her ribcage apart as a problem. She crept to the doorway and peeked around. The telepath was floating in the center, its tentacles twitching in something that registered as agitation. Was it thinking about what to do, with its puppets down? Whatever the case, it wasn’t looking at the door. Applejack dove from the doorway and scrambled under a table.

She thought she’d been quiet, but dirt crunched. The telepath moved; even though it wasn’t pushing against anything, its sheer size meant Applejack could hear dozens upon dozens of its pulsating strands rubbing against each other and the normally-still air rustled. She held her breath and cradled her gun close. Maybe she’d gotten lucky. Maybe it hadn’t heard her well enough to find her.

Then the table was wrenched away and Applejack was face-to-eye with the telepath.

She screamed and brought up her shotgun, but with a single tentacle, the telepath pushed it away as casually as she would a feather. Another tendril pressed down on Applejack’s nose and mouth, so securely she couldn’t breathe. She battered at it with her free leg, but it squished and refused to give. The telepath scrutinized her with its eye like she was some pristine artifact ready to go in a collection.

An invasive little thought began worming its way into her mind. Well, no, it wasn’t invasive, was it? It was welcome. Yes. Not like her so-called friends. (Her vision began swimming.) No. They were terrible. She needed to find them, to rend them limb fr-

“HEY, ASSHOLE!”

And when the telepath turned to look at the voice, an I-beam buried itself in its body like a javelin.

The thing’s screech was half an auditory hooves-on-a-chalkboard wail, half knives lancing through Applejack’s mind. It pulled away, floating up into the air, and Applejack’s thoughts fell back under her control as she gasped for air. She crawled under one of the nearby tables and rolled over to the next aisle.

“HOLD STILL, YOU SCUMBAG!” Unusually heavy footsteps pounded into the greenhouse; a grunt, and the telepath was screaming again. Applejack peeked above the table.

Spike, Twilight’s dragon bodyguard, was hanging onto the telepath and tearing into it with his claws as it thrashed around in a vain attempt to throw him off. Oily black fluid coursing from its wound spurted everywhere, coating everything in sight. A particularly large gouge made him lose his grip, but as he fell, he grabbed the I-beam that was still embedded in it. He yanked the six-foot-long beam out with a sweep of his wings, twirled it like a baseball bat, and smashed the telepath hard enough that the sound echoed through the arboretum. Even though it was capable of flight, the telepath was knocked ten feet back through the air. It came to a halt and hovered up out of reach, staring down at Spike; whatever it was thinking, Applejack couldn’t tell.

“That’s right,” snapped Spike. Smoke curled from his nostrils. “And there’s more where that came from.” He held the beam in a swordfighting pose. “I’d say pick on someone your own size, but you can’t even handle me! Come on, you coward! Get got!”

The telepath moved tentatively forward; Spike grinned rakishly and wiggled the beam. “Come a little closer, why don’tcha? I’ve got you a present: pain!”

It was like some bizarre version of a medieval duel. Two people facing off against each other, all focus on their opponent. Except the people were Spike, a sunblasted dragon who was handling an I-beam bigger than claymore as easily as he would a saber, and a telepathic, mind-controlling alien mass of tentacles. The station was quiet as they stared at each other. Neither one moved. Applejack found herself holding her breath.

Eventually, Spike chuckled. “Too chicken to make a move? I can work with that.” He stepped forward. The telepath inched back. Spike moved forward. The telepath moved backward. Spike moved forward-

No less than three flower pots on a nearby shelf exploded into changelings and latched onto him.

Spike roared in surprise and whirled around, blindly swinging his “sword”, but the changelings held on tight. One wrapped itself around his legs, another clung masklike over his eyes and mouth, and the last apparently tangled around his wings. He dropped the beam and dug his claws into the changeling on his face. Squealing, it did its best to hold on, but Spike had strength and sharpness on his side; he quickly and literally ripped the changeling apart.

But in the few seconds he was stalled, the telepath advanced on him. By the time Spike had freed his head, it was already extending several tentacles. He only managed a single breath before he was constricted again, his limbs all pinned and his head wrenched forward. As he fought to breathe, one of the tentacles stroked his head. And his eyes began turning green.

Nothing to it. Applejack broke from her hiding place and charged the telepath. Much as she wanted to, she didn’t roar; she needed surprise on her side. At point-blank range, still unnoticed, she whipped her shotgun up and blasted the telepath. It roared out in shock, twisting away from the impact. Applejack fired twice more; the telepath recoiled, its tentacles going limp, then whipped around to glare at her with that ghastly eye.

It didn’t notice that Spike was free.

He was on his hands and knees, wobbling, sucking in massive breaths. Shakily, Spike shoved his hand in his mouth and bit. Hard. A few droplets of steaming red leaked out from around his teeth, which meant he had to be piercing through dragon scales. As he blinked, the green in his eyes dimmed and he stood up straight again.

The telepath didn’t notice, concentrating as it was on Applejack. A tentacle whiplashed out and caught her in the chest; she smashed into the outer wall and fell onto a row of tables and plants. As she struggled to get up, dirt sliding beneath her hooves, another tentacle wrapped around one of her legs and squeezed, as strong as a vise. Applejack screamed as her leg burned more and more, never quite breaking. The telepath hoisted her upside-down into the air and turned her around to face it. Unstoppable fear was pushed into her head as a tentacle slithered out. She tried to aim her gun, but her own mind wouldn’t let her. She needed to keep still. She needed to keep still. She ne-

And then the telepath was engulfed in green flame.

It twisted, writhed, and shrieked, but the fire stayed on it, even as the sprinklers kicked on. Applejack shuffled across the planting tables, one leg up to keep the heat of the fire from drying her eyeballs out. The telepath whipped blindly around, hurling tables through the air as it flailed; Applejack ducked and one shattered against the wall above her head. She breathed in and promptly gagged at the grotesque scent of frying alien. She blinked through the rain, the smoke, and the blinding light.

Spike was a flamethrower, his jaws open wide and exhaling more flame faster than fire hoses did water. He didn’t have the slightest bit of trouble keeping the telepath in his sights, not even with that much smoke in his eyes and that close to the fire. But then, what sort of dragon was bothered by measly fire? Just when Applejack thought he couldn’t breathe out any more, he stopped and slouched forward, his hands on his knees, panting like a bellows. But even though the fire had stopped, the telepath was still aflame, the sprinklers barely helping put it out at all.

Although the telepath’s mindless thrashing wrecked everything around it, it began slowing as the fire spread, its position in the air more and more unsteady. It reeled around like a drunkard, more reflex than aim. It bobbed downward, brushing against the floor, dragging against the floor.

Another breath from Spike, another burst of flame. The telepath dropped out of the air completely, didn’t even move as fire at it up. Spike didn’t stop, advancing on it through the smoke and keeping the flame full blast. After what felt like forever, he stopped his assault. His chest heaved as he breathed like a piston, loud and steady. He stared at the telepath’s body, but it didn’t move. One moment, two, then he said, “And stay down.” He snorted and hocked a loogie on the corpse.

Applejack clambered off the table and walked up to it. It was shriveled, charred, and bubbling. “I don’t think it’s gettin’ up.”

“Can’t be too careful,” Spike grunted. He picked up his I-beam from the floor and brought it down on the telepath, clublike. Applejack only barely managed to get her hoof up before smoldering ichor splattered everywhere, including almost her face. He gave a few more smacks before stopping. “Sorry about that. Uh… you’re Applejack, right?”

“Yep. And you’re Spike?”

“I sure am.” He flexed his wings in a way Applejack recognized from pegasi as self-satisfaction. “Thanks for your help. That thing’s been hanging around here for… whoof. I don’t know, an hour. Really messed with our rescue efforts.”

That last sentence rang through Applejack’s head like a bell. Had she heard it right? “Rescue efforts?”

Spike noticed the look in her eyes and quickly said, “It’s not shuttles, sorry, we’re still working on that. But we’re getting any survivors we can find to the main cargo bay to hole up. It’s going…” He looked off at nothing for a bit. “It’s going,” he said quietly.

Even if it wasn’t shuttles, an entire group of survivors was a lot to hope for. Applejack had been shocked to just see a few ponies in the arboretum. Maybe they had some guards to help keep it secure? Just having a place to stop and rest for a few minutes would be a boon. Trixie would have a nice computer lab to work in, Zecora could rest, maybe even get some medical help, and Blueblood could… Applejack almost thought “get foisted onto somepony else”, but by the airlock, he’d been tolerable. Blueblood could work on his people skills, then. “Y’all got room for four more?” she asked.

Spike’s frills (ears? Who knew) twitched. “Four…?” he asked quietly.

“Me, and there’s three others near the airlock.” Applejack pointed. “We, uh, had some… problems.”

Spike stared at her, then grinned; in spite of his many very sharp teeth, it seemed friendly. “Space isn’t a problem,” he said, almost chuckling. “It’s just… wow, we thought we’d never be able to find anyone else. Things are just crazy, and… Yeah. Just- feels good. Say, uh…” His voice dropped slightly and his grin vanished. “You… didn’t happen to see Rainbow Dash and Lyra, did you? They-”

“They should be alright. It’s…” Applejack’s throat suddenly closed up. She didn’t feel right saying everything just yet. “It’s complicated, but last I checked, they were out cold, but alive. Down at the bottom of the hill.”

And Spike’s grin was back. “Good. Good. You’re a miracle, aren’t you?”

“I guess.”

“You go get your friends, I’ll see if I can find Rainbow and Lyra.”

“Sounds good.”

Applejack trotted down the hill, her heart feeling ten times lighter. She didn’t know how many other ponies survived, but the fact that there was any pony alive at all made her feel great. Finally, she was going to get a chance to rest. She stepped into the airlock room almost whistling. Everyone inside seemed alright; they all looked up as she opened the door. “Applejack?” asked Trixie. “Is… something wrong?”

Applejack grinned. “Not at all. C’mon. We’re all about to get a whole lot safer.”

Comments

[KathAud]

Fantastic chapter, so exciting! Spike was awesome.

[Level Dasher]

Jesus Christ, are you trying to give me a heart attack?

[Earth Pony + stun gun + shotgun] + [Dragon + light saber] = No more mind control. Very nice.

[EatenbyaGrue]

She could grow some pretty neat things in that garden, thanks to Golden Oaks’ resources. Juicer apples, bigger apples, more colorful flowers…

"Scrape the experiment, load next one"
"But, Doctor, why?"
"This one is obviously too corrupted, no point continuing"
"Uh, what?"
"'Juicer apples, bigger apples, more colorful flowers'. 'Flowers'. If it was Applejack that would be 'apples'. It has deviated too far from the template."
"Oh. Right. Loading next instance now..."