Under Free Flag

by twillale

Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII

All things I thought I knew; but now confess
The more I know, I know, I know the less.

—John Owen, The Works of John Owen

”This is it, ladies. The edge of the bog is right ahead, after that we'll be crossing open ground to reach our goal.”

”Sergeant Gale, you mentioned earlier that the hurt pony was wounded when the aliens were startled. Should we send somepony ahead, so we won't seem hostile to them?”

”Good thinking, miss Sparkle, but I'm rather sure they already know we're coming.”

”Why would you think that?”

”Remember my description of the flying machine? I think it's meant for observation, for gathering information in uncertain areas without having to put anypony in harm's way.”

”Like a scrying spell?”

”Something to that effect, yes. That flying thing has been spotted several times since the incident with Chaser, high in the sky. I think they've been observing us just as we've been observing them.”

”Oh.”

”Eyes front, we're here,” calls Plate Mail.

Trees thinning out, the group reaches the edge of Froggy Bottom Bog and stops, blinking in the sunlight. The sergeants quickly walk through the two columns of guardsponies, calmly inspecting equipment and dealing out reminders on behaviour and maneuvers. The six diplomatic envoys and several of the guardsponies openly stare in wonder at the strange colossus now visible across the small, muddy bay that they've paused at, dwarfing the surrounding trees with its dark bulk. True to the sergeant's report, the huge construct is painted with a facsimile of the bog's vegetation, patterns and shadows mimicking the greens, browns and yellows of the surrounding forest, down to branches slowly moving in the wind. This close the overall shape of the strange craft is more readily visible, however, and the assembled ponies' eyes track a long, knife-shaped silhouette, broken here and there by bulky protrusions the size of small houses, the monstrous construction topped by a huge, curved window, staring into the horizon like a giant cyclopean eye.

”Celestia, that thing is enormous!”

”That thing was flying last night?”

”It doesn't look like a balloon of any kind...”

”Wow, they must have a huge kitchen in there!”

Ignoring Pinkie, the detachment starts off anew, trudging trough the soft earth on the edge of the bog, dense forest finally giving way to the lone, heavy-rooted Everfree mangroves. Soon enough they reach the first of the fallen trees.

”What in tarnation's happened here?”

”Whoa, all the trees have been pulled out of the ground!”

”Not pulled... pushed. Remember that big boom we heard last night? That huge thing crashing into the ground must've caused quite a shock wave... Look, the ground is all charred closer to it.”

”Sergeant! Look over there!”

”Seems you were right, Gale,” mutters Plate Mail.

The ponies fall silent as they begin the approach of the craft. In front of a gigantic ramp leading into the innards of the hulking vessel’s hull stands a group of the strange interlopers, huge glassy eyes and bubble helmets glittering in the sunlight. Around the group, unicorns look around the gargantuan object curiously, heads and horns twitching like dowsing rods looking for an elusive source of water.

“There’s... some sort of scrying magic being cast on us. It’s of a strange kind, though,” Twilight whispers.

The guardsponies fan out into a protective wall around the six friends in the middle before stopping a careful distance away.

All of the group, however, does not stop.

“Shove the sun up my— stop, for Celestia’s sake,” hisses sergeant Plate Mail, too late in making a grab for the pink tail that disappears between two armoured guardsponies in front.

*

We’re waiting at the bottom end of the port side loading ramp. Julianne is wearing her hostile environment field research suit, the bizarre lovechild of a steampunk art installation and a physics lab, while Xavier has donned his worn and battered standard issue light armour. Having rid myself of the bulky and uncomfortable quick-lock suit, I flex my hands in the skin-tight datalink gloves, enjoying the high-accuracy simulation of the outside air on my skin. Cost me a fortune to have tailored on New Alexandria, but damn was it worth it. I thoughtfully stroke the protruding chin of the helmet, watching the group of guards similar to the ones we met earlier form up around the pastel group in the middle. Hey look, Grumpy’s here, too! Makes sense, that they’d send someone who’s seen us before. None of us is carrying any weapons—well, visible ones—but though the outside of the ship looks monolithic, I know that a lot of firepower is thrumming under the hull, ready to be released on less than a seconds notice.

So no, I’m not particularly nervous. Honestly I’m really rather curious about the equines, and if I have a healthy interest in new discoveries, I know that Julianne is about to blow a fuse right next to me. Quickly flipping over to the internal channel of the science team, I wince and quickly cut the transmission at the onslaught of insane radio chatter and data streams spewing over my visor.

“Average body heat is thirty-five degrees centigrade, give or take a few tenths...”

“A fair bit below the human baseline.”

“Yeah, except for the winged ones, those are a bit higher, instead.”

“Higher metabolism, flying is probably energy-consuming. FLIR shows almost double values around the wings.”

“Those horns read strangely, they get all fuzzy on the NEFSCAN readings.”

“Maybe they’re hard-neuron tissue. Like the rats on Argos?”

“Can’t be, biomass resonance scans come up negative on that—”

Holy shit, the girls are about to explode with all the Science. Leaving the lab rats to do their job without my arguably worthless input, I focus instead on the six envoys.

Okay, now we’re firmly in ‘plush toy’ territory, there’s even a pink one! Apparently they do come in other colours than grey and white. I wonder if those colours denote some kind of rank or station in society...? Huh, now that I look at it, not all of those have wings. Actually, most of the military types don’t, either. Some of the pegasi have... horns? No, wait, that’s called a... an unicorn. Some have neither horn nor wings, like the bouncy pink one. I’m going to call those ‘normal ponies’.

The detachment slowly approaches the Trickster over the scorched earth left in the wake of our decidedly suboptimal landing, taking in the huge size of the streamship. I grin under my helmet at their expressions as the group comes to a halt some distance away.

Well, most of it.

Without preamble, the bouncing pink plush toy clears the ring of armoured guards, heading straight towards me in a completely relaxed albeit alarmingly fast manner. I catch a glimpse of the others craning to grab the swinging tail of the colourful normal pony and missing with a hair’s breadth.

They look surprised, and fucking terrified.

I feel a familiar buzzing sensation at the back of my head at the same second that my visor comes alive with red target markers, everything from the snipers in the dark of the open airlock at the top of the ramp to high-energy particle beams drawing a bead on the approaching equine.

Cold, clammy fear grips my innards as I simultaneously realise what the buzzing means, and what is going to happen in exactly five seconds to the happily oblivious pony if I don’t act fast as hell.

“Hold you fire,” I bark into the comm net, simultaneously pressing my palm against my cheek to broadcast on all channels, gesturing with my free hand to keep both Xavier and the ship in general from doing anything stupid, and furiously overriding ship systems with my own access codes, “if any one of you fuckers opens fire I will string you from the fucking ship myself!”

For two very tense seconds, It’s just me yelling obscenities on all tactical channels, and then, to the angelic honks of the weapons systems dropping a lock, the red diamonds blink out of existence one by one. Releasing a long breath, I feel the jitters of adrenaline surging in my blood stream, the pink creature miraculously still alive.

“Okay, everybody listen. That thing is not hostile, I can sense it strong,” I carefully enunciate into my mic.

I refocus on the pony now neatly coming to a stop in front of me, feeling the buzzing of happy, expectant emotions tingle across my consciousness.

“...it’s a Sympath. I want everyone to stand down unless the damn thing explodes.”

Releasing the global broadcast, I turn my attention back to the fluffy creature at my feet, looking up at me with those sickeningly cute puppy eyes.

Uh, damn, I suddenly feel very self-conscious. What do I do now, give it a treat?

Okay, I’m going to wave. That’s what they do in the movies, right?

“Hello there, little pink... thing?”

It lets out an adorable squeal at the sound of my voice, before launching into a rampant exposition in the same gibberish that Grumpy spoke earlier, although in frequencies about two octaves higher. I stare at the hyperactive envoy in amusement for a few seconds, until it apparently realises that I can’t understand a word it’s saying. Shutting up, it tilts its head at me curiously before reaching into its backpack in an impressive show of flexibility, pulling something out and offering it to me. I stare at the colourful wrapper and its contents, jarred by the sheer absurdity of the situation.

“Is that a... cupcake?” Xavier leans in to see the object in my hand better. One of Julianne’s sensor shafts snakes over my left shoulder, bathing the frosting of the cake in flickering red light.

I nod, since I can’t think of a damn thing to say.

“Seems perfectly edible, too,” decides Julianne, her voice as confused as I feel.

The pony that just offered me a perfectly ordinary dessert looks at me expectantly—they really do share a lot of our body language, I realise with a start—and I give her a tiny bow in thanks.

“I can’t eat this, I’m afraid... but thank you, oh pink envoy of your insane species.”

I can’t help but chuckle, this whole situation is just going so far off the rails that I don’t know what to do but laugh anymore. The deranged pink one squeals again with ridiculously huge smile, suddenly jumping into the air and biting a small handle on its chest strap.

Then it explodes.

*

Preoccupied with trying to make sense of the strange spells radiating from the alien vessel, Twilight doesn’t realise that Pinkie is gone before the panicky tones of the sergeant reach her conscious mind.

“—oh dear Luna and Celestia that crazy pony is going to get hurt or worse!”

Eyes snapping to the front, Twilight realises in horror that Pinkie has almost crossed the distance to the group of bipeds, the apparent leader of which is gesticulating behind it with urgency. In panic, Twilight concentrates, about to lash out with her magic, when Pinkie stops in front of the foremost creature. With nothing terrible immediately occurring, Twilight gives a seconds pause in her casting.

Pinkie and the large alien stare at each other for a few seconds. Then the latter tentatively raises a foreleg, giving a small wave and voicing what is unmistakeably a greeting. The rogue pony diplomat draws a breath, as if surprised and delighted that the thing can speak, immediately launching into one of her rampant stream-of-consciousness rants about meeting new friends and arranging welcome parties for them, quickly branching off into apparently rhetorical queries about the alien’s favourite foods. Twilight feels a headache coming on as the possibly mad pony stops, reaches into her saddlebag and offers the opposing party a cupcake.

“Did she just—” begins Mountain Gale.

“Yup, that’s Pinkie for ya’,” quips Rainbow Dash, hovering in the air. Twilight turns to her friend with disbelief.

“Rainbow, how can you be so calm? Those things could hurt Pinkie!”

The colourful pegasus casts a sceptical eye on her nervously moving friend before returning her attention to the exchange taking place in front of the ramp.

“Nah, there isn’t anypony that Pinkie hasn’t been able to befriend, ever. She’ll pull through.”

Leaving Twilight sputtering with a number of conflicting emotions fighting to get out of her mouth, Rainbow lazily flips around in place, striking a pose in the air.

“—and besides, if there’s trouble I’ll get her out of there faster than you can say ‘Loyalty’.”

Giving up on her apparently also crazy friend, Twilight returns to the earlier exchange just as the visitor, delicately holding the baked good in one hand, gives a small bow and expresses another impossible-to-understand sentence.

“Yes! She likes it! Then I Pinkie-wish you—”

Her brain no longer co-operating, Twilight watches in numb horror as the pink party pony bites down on the handle attached to her saddlebags, which promptly cover the three aliens and Pinkie in confetti and streamers with a loud bang.

“—Welcome to Equestria!”

Sergeant Plate Mail lets out a strangled sound, somewhere between food lodging in a throat and an imploding bagpipe, as the leader of the opposing group staggers backwards from the explosion, dropping the cupcake onto the ground.

For a few seconds, the air is very still. The biped in the bizarre suit decked with little boxes, lenses, wires and other trinkets cowers back, halfway into a crouch with its forelegs shielding its head. The black-clad one, most similar to the ones described by Mountain Gale, has fallen into a hunched stance, looking ready to pounce at the slightest provocation. Finally, the central alien, having taken the brunt of the streamer-based assault, very slowly moves its stare from the pink attacker to its arms, taking in the glittering bits of paper covering it like decorations on a cake.

A breeze blows through the clearing, the colourful streamers fluttering in the wind.

Then there’s a chortle, which quickly grows into a hacking chuckle. Then a full laugh.

The ponies watch, frozen, as the sitting creature throws its head back, roaring with laughter. With it’s whole body shaking the tall biped holds its midsection with both free appendages, Pinkie maniacally bouncing around and matching if not surpassing the mirth of the confetti-covered alien. A tangible wave of relief passes through the rest of the pony detachment, as the two beings from universes apart collapse on the burnt ground, leaning on each other for support as they howl with glee.

*

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Legal disclaimer: I obviously don't own My Little Pony (trademark of Hasbro) or this would be canon. All likeness to real people or characters created by other authors is entirely unintentional.

Comments

[twillale]

1529584

Sorry, I have a thing for cliffhangers.

Don't worry, though, I've still got a buffer of a few chapters unpublished. I'm basically editing myself, though, so it's taking a fair amount of time to get a chapter from the point where I vomit ten thousand adjectives onto the page to where it's trimmed down enough to be palatable.

[hitro666]

i was thinking when pinkie pulled that cord that she was going to get her head blow off
thanks for the chapter

[DarthPony]

1538405 Thsi fic is awesome... for that I love you. You love clifhangers... clifhangers are my ach-nemesis.... I hate you. Now I'm confused

[Sesquame]

You need to cool off on the Pinkie craziness. Seriously, I know everyone on Fimfiction does it, but Pinkie isnt that spotlight stealing. It detracts from the rest of the story.