Equus' Unexpected Future

by Robert Emerald Fountain

Introductions

The morning after the Inkstar’s repairs were finished, her crew met up with the other two ships’ crews to properly introduce themselves.

“My name’s Callie. This is my cousin, Marie.”, said Callie as they shook hands with Mickey and Ryder.

“We’re Callie’s parents.”, said Sally and Jerome.

“Marie is our daughter.”, said Michael and Iris.

“Twilight showed us the crew manifest for your ship. It said that you two were married to Callie and Marie. Which of you is paired with who?”, Mickey asked Andrew and Mike.

“Callie’s my wife, and Marie is Andrew’s wife.”, said Mike.

After getting this confirmation, Ryder turned to the Agents. He was curious why they didn’t have their actual names on the list.

“Where we come from, there exists a group of soldiers which includes us, along with the Squid Sisters. Callie is Agent 1 and Marie is Agent 2. It is easier for us to memorize each other’s Agent numbers than our names.”, said Agent 4.

“What relation do Taylor and Lizzie have with you and Callie? I ask because they look much younger than you.”, Ryder asked Marie.

“That’s because they’re our children. Lizzie is my daughter and Taylor is Callie’s son.”, answered Marie.

Both of the other two crews were speechless for a moment, but then they were impressed.

“Mickey, how did you and your crew reach Equus?”, asked Taylor.

“I’ll let Minnie’s nieces answer that.”, said Mickey as he motioned for Millie and Melody.

The twins came up in a flash and quickly explained how they reached Equus.

“We were doing a test flight of our ship, the Disney Cruiser, to make sure she was ready for long space voyages. Unfortunately, our systems got shorted out by a solar flare.”, said Millie.

“In contrast to you and Ryder, our ship didn’t crash. We were rescued in space and our ship was towed to the ground.”, added Melody.

After shaking hands with the Disney crew, everyone turned to face Ryder and his pups.

“How did you guys get here?”, asked Sally.

“Melody says you guys crashed just like we did.”, added Iris.

“We ended up here by accident, and we were knocked out of orbit.”, said Ryder shakily.

“WAIT, WHAT? You were knocked out of orbit?”, asked Mike in a confused voice.

“How could you possibly end up somewhere by accident?”, asked Andrew in a similar tone.

“We were chased here.”, screeched Skye.

“WHAT?”, screeched Flurry Heart as she dropped her glass of water.

“Ryder and Skye’s reports are accurate.”, said Chase shakily as he started sweating.

Suddenly, as if a record scratch had occurred, everyone fell completely silent and their mouths dropped open for a moment. Minnie even ended up doing a spit-take.