Chapter 75
There was an old saying I suddenly remembered, carried over from my genetic donor's 'Special Operations' days. It had gone something like, "Some days, you were the one holding the gun. Other days, you were the one bleeding all over the place. And yet others, you were the one mopping up the mess." I imagined it was told to impatient new recruits complaining about 'cover up' duty, but it had appreciable applications here. Right now, I felt like the mop...
Groaning, I opened my eyes slowly to the voice of a very worried-sounding angel. A slightly blurry vision of Fluttershy hovering in towards where I lay greeted me, and I frowned. Oh, right. The memories of the last thirty seconds or so came rushing back to me all at once, alongside a pissed off throb along my skull, as if my body just tried to smack some sense into me. Damn!
The Sonic Rainboom. Rainbow had saved both Twilight and me from the explosion with her sonic blast. The shock wave had easily overpowered the detonation of my Icarus Effect, and she had shot through the blast and caught both of us! Wait, no, something was wrong. My whole body gave a throb of protest as I rolled over onto my stomach, and I winced. Oh yeah. We crashed.
Unfortunately, the prismatic blast had carried the plume of smoke from the exploding wings quite a ways with it. Under most circumstances, the huge cloud of multicolored smoke might have been quite pretty, but we had dropped out of the bottom of the cloud far too close to the ground. Rainbow had pulled up hard, and I gave her all the energy I could manage in the short amount of time, but it hadn't been enough. My tentacles braced us as we hit, rolled down an embankment, then crashed into a murky pond at the bottom of the hill.
A quick glance showed Twilight wincing as she slowly sat up, leaning against a fallen tree trunk my tentacles had sliced through. Her forelegs had missing fur in spots, burn blisters showing across her skin from the heat the Icarus Effect had produced. Scarily, the inner parts of her forelegs held almost blackened skin, and she hissed through her clenched jaw, sliding back down into a lying position. Dash slowly pulled herself out of the shallow water a meter or so from Twilight, gritting her teeth. Slowly, she limped over to the bank and fell over, holding her back right leg with her forelegs as it shook gently. I saw a bruise on that hip where she’d hit on, and it was no doubt hurting. Still, they were both alive...
"Twilight! Mender! Rainbow! Are you okay?!" Fluttershy called out as she settled into a fast glide and quickly closed the distance to us. The relief of knowing the two mares were alive joined with the effect Fluttershy’s voice usually had on me, and my adrenaline wore off as fatigue caught up to me. Giving her so much energy so quickly had really tired me out. Both mares also had a bit of blood coming from their nostrils, indicating they’d used up a lot of-
My thoughts died as the pain came alongside the fatigue. It was instant, and I froze the second I rotated far enough to feel the two ribbons of pain burn into my back, slamming my teeth together to hold back the scream. The damn energy emitters had fired off while under the skin of my back?! I confirmed, in horror, that there were two blotches of blood in the grass next to me where I had rolled from, and my forelegs gave out, shaking under me. I fell onto my stomach again, wincing hard as I felt the fluid trickling down my sides. Shit! None of us were getting out of this one unscathed, it would seem. I rapidly equated moving with pain, so I just decided to lie there.
There was a very faint screeching noise as well, sounding far off in the distance. A glance in that direction showed not only Fluttershy rapidly landing and running towards us, but the train way up on the cliff braking hard. Its emergency brakes? I couldn't manage to consider it any further as another wave of agony fired through my body and I clamped my eyes shut again. It felt like two burning nails had been driven into my back! No, it more felt like railroad spikes, to take inspiration from the train. Moving the fragmented remains of the Icarus OS aside, and shifting away all the error reports, I finally managed to pull up a damage report. The two wounds along my back had been partially cauterized by the heat, leaving two open holes, each about three centimeters wide, bleeding weakly just below my shoulder blades. Both were almost two centimeters deep, right down where the emitting ports had been before they folded back into subspace. Given the critical errors all over my systems and suggested fixes, I had a suspicion I was safe from unwanted dimensional movement now. Silver lining, anyway.
"Oh no, I... I brought my kit! Just hold on, everypony!" Fluttershy assured, running somewhere in front of me before sounding like she quickly deposited her trauma kit down on the grass. The irony of the discussion we'd had about it just a few minutes prior wasn't lost to me. That was the last time I ever question a single thing Fluttershy did!
Rainbow finally snorted dismissively, muttering, "I just landed hard on my leg. It'll be fine in a few minutes. Help Twilight with those burns." Heh, she was a tough one, that was for sure.
Clearing more of the errors away, I put a permanent lock down on the Icarus OS after returning administrative rights to it to myself. That black box was getting cracked open tonight. It suddenly jumped to the very top of my priority list, because to hell with that. There was no way I was going back there! After it was locked down, I switched priority to my inner systems, managing to only shudder and grit my teeth again as another spike of pain stabbed into my back. Finally sure I wasn't dying, or about to be warped away into a vacuum against my will, priority shifted to pain control as I brought my systems up and dropped the nerves along my back to all of five percent of their normal functioning. The horrible burning sensation immediately fell away into a dull ache instead, and I exhaled softly, feeling a bit dizzy from the sudden contrast. Damn. I might complain, but there were definitely perks to being a cyborg!
I heard Rainbow inhale sharply to my left and opened my eyes again. Her eyes were wide as she stared at me before pulling herself over, gritting her teeth as she limped on her back leg. It gave out after only four steps and she stumbled, landing next to me in a surprisingly soft manner. She was rather unexpectedly light, if I remembered correct. She winced still, and I moved my left foreleg to the side to help lift her up.
"Mender, are you okay?" she immediately asked, drawing Twilight and Fluttershy's attention instantly, the yellow mare looking up from her trauma kit, and the unicorn widening her eyes towards me.
Fluttershy gasped a second later, then rapidly looked back and forth between Twilight and me, hesitating as she grabbed the burn salve. Twilight shook her head and assured, "These are nothing. Mender's really bad. G-Get to his wounds first." The wince of pain she gave while saying it didn't make it look too convincing, and I rolled my eyes at the stubborn mare.
"Rainbow, you tend to Twilight at Fluttershy's instruction. She can help me out," I suggested instead, my left foreleg glowing for a moment as I gestured out the magic. This time I wasn't just being lazy! A line of energy shot across the ground and earned a squeak from Twilight as another flexible, cushiony barrier appeared under her and rapidly slid her over towards me, setting her down just to my right. Setting her down in my blood probably wouldn't improve her mood...
Dash smirked and nodded, using her forelegs to pull her across in front of me and over to Twilight instead, who just relaxed there in a lying position, looking towards me rather than Rainbow. To my mild surprise, I felt a shaky leg move over and drape over my back right one, letting Twilight pull herself against my side. Thankfully, Fluttershy had already retrieved several towels and a canteen of water from her kit. Wait, towels?
"What happened, Mender? You said that, um, something triggered when you registered Rarity?" the ever curious lavender mare finally asked, snapping me out of my errant thought. I'd predicted questions would be coming, but I had also anticipated they'd be a bit more hostile, given my actions. She was full of surprises today. She winced slightly, however, as Fluttershy zipped up and helped Dash lift the two burned forelegs, sliding a soft towel under them as Rainbow started lightly cleaning the wounds after popping open the water canteen with her teeth.. Fluttershy made sure to mouth feed Twilight several herbs as well, for what I assumed was pain, before quickly moving over to me instead, hauling the whole kit with her.
Instead of immediately answering, I glanced back at Fluttershy and gave her a soft smile. She stopped and hesitated at that for just a moment, seemingly not expecting me to be relaxed, but I watched her sag a little. She set the kit down a moment later, slower and more controlled this time. We didn't need the links to communicate at this point. I had assured her that I was okay and she could calm down now...
Deciding she was less panicked now, I turned back to Twilight before explaining, "Yeah. It was some sort of trigger stuck in my black box to automatically try to return me to the prior dimension once I had 'registered' all six links. In hindsight, let's not do any further untested experiments while in a moving metal box a few hundred meters up a mountain." That one I kinda wished Purdue had warned me about, but no. I had told her to use her powers for herself.
Rainbow snickered while gently wiping down Twilight's burns with the cream and a towel. Then the cyan pegasus gave a start as I reached out and slowly started massaging her injured back right leg. The momentary concern melted away almost immediately as my magic drifted into her muscles, and she sagged for a moment, shivering as I tried to identify the damaged areas.
Twilight relaxed on the towel in the meanwhile, letting the cream slowly sink in. She stirred a second later, however. "Do you think you could re-enable the links, Mender? The others are probably worried, and we need to talk to the conductor," she requested quietly. Oh, right. I'd turned them all off in light of the horrible agony of the Icarus Effect being projected through my back, and when I potentially thought I would be violently imploding in the near future. Nopony needed an empathic link to somepony doing that!
Nodding, I flicked the link system back on, having prior simply killed the entire communication process. Not standard procedure, of course, but I'd been in a hurry! Applejack and Pinkie activated almost instantly, the orange mare answering a bit faster, however. "Rainbow! Mender! Twi! Where are ya?!" she quickly asked, sounding a few steps past 'worried' at this point.
Dash blushed lightly at the concern, but Twilight just smiled weakly as I pulled the ponies who were still up on the train into projection from my left eye while working on Rainbow's leg. Rarity looked momentarily dizzy as she looked around, apparently a bit weirded out at seeing two locations at once, but Applejack didn't even look fazed. Further strange, Rarity wasn't in the cabin of the train, and had to be projected onto a split view. Her surroundings sort of looked like a boiler room of sorts, and I saw an unknown pony near her with a conductor's hat on. Oh. Applejack's eyes widened, however, and she spoke instead before I could ask.
"Ah! Oh, Ponyfeathers! What happened?!" she asked in surprise, quickly looking across our magnitude of wounds from the sojourn out of the cabin. Of course, she also probably didn't know what had happened in the first place. Before I could answer, my display further lit up with about nine different pings, all recorded from Keela apparently in the space that my connection device had been down. Whoa!
Flicking her connection on as well, I assumed whatever she needed was dire and urgent, given her sudden frantic attempts to communicate. Twilight, meanwhile, answered, "We got pretty banged up on our way down. It was a rough ride." Fluttershy nodded in full agreement, of course, quickly cleaning my back, then applying pressure to stop the small amounts of bleeding I still had going on. Whatever she was using to clean was seriously stinging, too!
Keela snapped into place halfway through, her eyes widening as her paws flew up to her mouth. "Mender! You're okay! Wait, rough ride?! What happened?" she quickly asked, drawing every mare's attention at the same time except for Rarity, who appeared to be talking to the conductor.
"To summarize, I finally linked Rarity, too, and when I did, some sort of black box system activated and tried to send me back. I ended up shorting the Icarus Effect out, reversing the energy into myself, then dove out the window of the train and unintentionally over a cliff... Twilight and Rainbow managed to save me, though." Although, admittedly, the cliff saved me a lot of further pain. If my plan had gone smoothly, I would've smashed into the ground instead and probably been in a world of pain at the moment.
Keela's eyes widened even further at that. "That's what happened, then! I suddenly got a huge energy reading from your link, then you didn't answer any of my pings for over five minutes, so naturally, I assumed the worst!" she exclaimed, exhaling softly before looking back over her right shoulder and adding, "You can switch to powering down the FTL drive now!" I blinked and unsuccessfully tried to resist twitching. Wait, she panicked after only five minutes, to the point of ordering the entire mining vessel to power up its jump drives?! Applejack got a smirk as she caught my stray thought, and I suddenly realized that I probably didn't want to know.
Twilight looked curious, however, before inquiring, "Where were you going to go?" Oh, actually that was a good question. It wasn't like I was an afternoon stroll away. I didn't even want to think about the absurd energy requirements to make her entire vessel jump dimensions, let alone the phenomenal amount of collateral damage it would cause when it hit the ground. A spaceship of that size trying to operate in-atmosphere was sort of like pointing the cannon of a tank behind you and hoping it would let you fly.
Keela blinked, then blushed slightly as she explained, “Well, I was going to warp back to the weak spot that links to Equestria and see if I could send a rescue ship through. Mender could have been under attack or in pain or something!” Wait, she was going to send Keldarians into Equestria just because she didn’t hear from me for five minutes after she detected high levels of energy? While I admittedly agree that the high levels of energy bit was rather suspicious from my end, that seemed really, really reckless.
Applejack chuckled lightly, and then totally disregarded it and informed, “Rarity’s gone ta talk ta tha conductor after we pulled tha emergency brakes. Is there any way ya can get back up ta tha train?” Oh, that was a good question. It was, like, four hundred meters up the cliff… Twilight winced, and then slowly shook her head, however.
“I used a lot of magic to stop Mender’s teleportation. I don’t think it would be wise for me to cast another spell for at least a few minutes. Mender’s hurt and in no shape to walk yet, and Rainbow and I both have hurt legs,” she warned. Keela almost choked on her tongue by the looks of it, however.
“Wait, you stopped an FTL jump with just raw magic?!” she immediately asked, eyes still bugging out.
Applejack cleared her throat sharply and shook her head, interrupting with, “Now ain’t the time ta talk about that. How are tha injuries, guys? Do ya need medical attention?” I smiled gently at the orange mare, kinda glad she was more intent on making sure we were all okay first.
Fluttershy answered instead, thankfully. "Um, Rainbow's back right leg is injured. It looks like a pulled muscle from landing wrong on it. Twilight's forelegs got burned though from where she grabbed Mender. She's going to need medical attention, um, from an actual nurse. I'm better with animals, but I can apply ointment and wrap them. Mender has two really, really bad burns on his back. They're deep, and partially cauterized," she relayed, shifting to a low whine when she got to me. Oddly, I could almost hear Pinkie bounce once over the links, which shouldn't have been picked up. It didn't surprise me at all.
"Oooh, but what about his nifty regeneration?! Oh, wait! Don't we all have super cool regeneration now, too?!" she quickly asked through her link, sounding very much not bothered by any of what just happened. I might be a bit miffed if I didn't just guess that she knew we were all fine so there was nothing to worry about. That sounded more like Pinkie logic.
Regardless, I softly explained, "My regeneration, and probably yours, too, as it comes from the same source, works off energy consumption. The more I eat, the more it grabs the extra mass and energy from the food and uses it to repair me. Alternatively, I can just have it eat from my energy directly to repair, but that would make me really, really tired." I think I'd already explained it once to Twilight, but this was for the added benefit of everypony else here, as it technically involved all of them. Actually, now that I thought about it, I probably should have told them all a lot sooner...
Rainbow perked at the information regardless, looking towards me before exclaiming, "Oh! That's why I totally slept for, like, ten hours and then woke up to eat three times my normal breakfast! That was the night after you punted me at the lake!" I glared at her for a moment for her wording, very much remembering that moment and the fight we'd had prior. Fluttershy looked momentarily confused, but Twilight simply nodded to that.
"Yeah, to heal the damage his attack caused, the nanites probably resorted to taking your own personal energy reserves. It was 'nanites', right?" she inquired, glancing back over towards me for confirmation. I gave her a nod and soft smile, and she grinned. Heh, clever mare, as usual.
Suddenly, I stopped and simply stared instead. Clever, but oh so foolish at the same time. Why had she done that? I hadn't really had a chance to consider it since the event. She had teleported outside of the safety of the train cabin and grabbed onto a falling pony with the effective equivalent of burning wings, then used up almost all of her magical stamina to break physics and stop my FTL jump. That left her with nothing left to actually teleport us away again. If Dash hadn't been right there to catch us, all she would have accomplished was killing both of us instead.
Of course, if she hadn't, Dash would have caught me, and then both of us would have exploded. A similar scenario, I suppose, but still with less exploding on Twilight's part. But she was friends with Rainbow, too. If she knew I was going to explode, which was likely as I told them all before jumping, she might have acted in order to save Rainbow from that exact fate.
But that didn't add up. If she was only worried about Rainbow, it would have been far easier to teleport next to her instead, grab her, and then simply teleport away. She had the added benefit of not even being on fire! But no, she targeted me instead and put the goal of keeping me here above and beyond us both dying, presumably relying on Rainbow to save us both afterwards. Conclusion: they were both crazy. I couldn't help but smile at that, at least.
In retrospect, I was probably a little crazy, too, having spent the last thirty seconds blankly staring at Twilight in as creepily a manner as possible, and then suddenly starting to smile. She looked slightly concerned at this point, which was probably a fitting reaction. Still, that also came with another conclusion. She valued me a lot more than what I gave her credit for prior. She cared about me.
Probably confusing her even more, I then leaned forwards gently and kissed her on the lips. Her eyes widened for a moment, then she relaxed a bit once her brain caught up with what was happening, then pushed back into my mouth, a hinting of affection in her nuzzle adding to what we shared. I broke it off a moment later, and then nuzzled her along the side of her muzzle, earning a soft blush.
"Um, not that I'm complaining or anything, but what's this about?" she asked quietly. Rainbow and Keela also looked surprised, but I felt Fluttershy smile above me. She was both closer, and far better at reading the empathy links than the rest, so she probably knew exactly what conclusion I'd just gotten. Applejack also smiled softly through the link, and Pinkie started rapidly giggling.
"Even I can answer that, Silly! You just totally went crazy and almost died trying to rescue him! That's his way of saying, ‘I Love You!’" she cheered instantly, with predictably little tact, as usual. L-Love?!
Twilight blushed, too, then stammered out, "It... It wasn't that big of a deal! I was just going to teleport us back if Dash couldn't-" Rainbow held her hoof up at that and shook her head.
"Twi, you can't teleport us now, even after resting for five minutes. Do you really think you could have pulled off teleporting us back then, immediately after doing that crazy stuff with Mender's wings?" the cyan pegasus pointed out skeptically.
The lavender mare blinked after that and frowned, sliding a little closer against me while hesitating. The gesture almost seemed subconscious on her part. "Well, it might have... You caught us anyway! We were fine," she replied, switching tactics.
"Um, Twilight... I don't mean to sound negative, and, um, definitely no offense to Rainbow, but she barely managed to pull up in time, and got hurt doing it. If it had been any other pegasus..." Fluttershy murmured, sounding worried anyway. I imagine that had been very stressful to watch, and I shot her soothing feelings down our link. She blushed softly at that, but smiled down at me and nodded.
Twilight looked more fussed than assured, swallowing uneasily and looking back to me instead. Applejack interrupted her before she could even start talking this time, concluding, "Ya risked ah ton ta go get him, Twi. Maybe ya should consider that?"
That oh so familiar panicked look started to dance through her eyes, and Twilight almost started to back away before I slipped forwards again and kissed her once more. She froze again, this time in hesitation before shivering and pushing back against my lips quite a bit harder. It was my turn to widen my eyes a bit as she slammed hers shut, actually moving me over sideways with her sudden affectionate press.
Fluttershy helped stabilize me as Twilight broke off finally, eyes wet now before she buried her face in my neck. "It was horrible! Please, don't ever do that again, Mender!" the lavender mare shouted into my fur. Softening my expression, I wrapped my right foreleg around her neck and held her against me, not used to seeing Twilight cry. She didn't even seem to care about her own forelegs, which probably hurt quite a bit, too.
Fluttershy slipped around and lightly hugged her back, placing a soft kiss onto her shoulder blades. The unicorn just continued to cry against me, and I lightly kissed the top of her head as I held her. Love? It was probably too soon to use that word. Or maybe I was just afraid to? He had said that to Keela after three times as much time as I had been with Fluttershy and Twilight, and look at what happened to him. Scared or not, however, this was the first time since the Estrus incident that I had felt like a part of the herd, rather than just some tag along. That sensation I held on to for all it was worth! There were so many instincts and memories from the Keldarian that donated DNA to me that I treasured any sensation I could call my own. This was mine. I belonged here...
That meant being responsible for my own mistakes, however. "I'm sorry, Twilight. I wasn't trying to leave you. I thought we were over flat ground and was only trying to get away from the train and you guys before I exploded," I quietly apologized, realizing how weird that sounded a second after I said it.
Twilight lifted her head for a moment to stare at me before nodding twice and resting on my chest again. “I… I know. Things will change now. Everything will be better, Mender. Just, well, please trust in us. Don’t try to do everything by yourself, okay?” she requested quietly, keeping her face buried.
Smiling, I just nodded and held her against me, enjoying the sensation of her fur as Fluttershy smiled above me, kissing the top of my forehead before shifting to my back again. Keela smiled happily as well, looking like she was relaxing again finally. I turned towards her instead and nodded, exhaling softly. It felt like I could finally breathe less tensely since that whole incident.
She nodded slowly to me, stretching gently in front of my ‘camera’ that drifted slowly next to her, which was actually just an extent of awareness around her body from the link. Beeping went off behind her an instant later, and I watched her ears perk up, her head turning to look back over her shoulder at the large array of consoles under the viewing screens.
One of the male Keldarians frowned and pulled up a different display, tilting his head at it. “Weird. Um, Miss Keela? Our sensors are picking up additional FTL static, even though our engine has entered its first ten percent powered down state. Shouldn’t they be decreasing?” he suggested, looking up at her. Wait, FTL discharge was produced both by the engines themselves, and a ‘straight shot’ FTL tether’s other end. Our allies used their ‘Warp’ FTL, which produced that, if I remembered right. The only other race to use a point-to-point FTL system was…
The small explosion of energy radiated out like a small starburst on the viewing screen, the dark purple and red ‘bloom’ of light expanding out into a rough circle as the dark object slid out almost effortlessly. Row after row of organic looking sleekness complimented the warp colors with the dark gray metals. My eyes widened at the rough triangle-shaped front of the ship as the rest of the body exited, easily larger than the broken moon Keela’s ship drifted next to, probably three times the size of the old mining rig. Oh. Oh shit.
No hails were given as the screen blared up red and alarms went off, reporting twelve of the thirty banks of eight-cluster particle cannons warming up along the portside of the vessel. Twenty micro-missile slots opened up to compliment, and one of the Keldarians somewhere to the right screamed in panic. Rainbow’s eyes shot open as well, undoubtedly recognizing the ship as readily as I did.
“Get the shields up! Move us around the moon for cover!” Keela shouted out over the blaring warnings. No, that wasn’t…!
“No, drop the energy from the shields and leave just enough to block the alpha strike!” I warned instead, giving Keela a start. She looked back at me in surprise, eyes widening before they flicked to the side instead.
I could see her mind whirling and she knew what I was going for. “He… He’s right! Do it! Put the energy into the empty ten percent of the FTL drives! Get us out of here fast!” she corrected, changing her order almost instantly.
“R-Right! Where are our exit coordinates?!” the male within view asked quickly, vectoring the energy from the shield into the engines instead and getting the target trajectories of the cannons.
“W-What’s that?!” Twilight shouted, eyes wide like the rest of us and drawing fully the attention of Pinkie and Applejack.
Rainbow’s eyes narrow at the ship, though, and she hissed out, “Grosh!” There was no hesitation, and I knew she remembered exactly what those monsters were capable of. The lavender mare gasped at that, turning her attention back to my projection as Keela shouted out trajectory, then told the navigator to just pick a random straight line to go down.
The readings popped up on the display a second later as fiery light expanded from each cannon barrel, and the rest of the cannon banks started to glow, too. There was more than enough energy to totally fill the FTL up again, if the readings were right. “Use the extra energy to burn retrograde! If you drop closer to the moon, the gravity will throw the missiles off!” I suggested, tensing as I sat up, even though I knew it wouldn’t actually do anything. I couldn’t do anything except for move, though! Hopefully the missiles were tuned for no-gravity conditions…
“Do it!” Keela shouted instantly, and the ship rocked as they suddenly flared backwards, slowing their rotation around the shattered moon and lowering almost instantly, the huge Grosh ship sinking upwards towards the top left of the screen.
“Ten seconds until Icarus Launch!” was shouted out to the right, as the cannons finally fired. Dozens of searing streaks shot across the thin atmosphere of the moon, sending expanding waves of flame along their wake. The shield flared up and focused into the points of impact, exploding out with burning blasts before fading entirely, just as the streaking clusters of missiles were released.
It all happened far too fast. Keela shouted out, "Jump now! We can't be hit by those-" She was cut off as the clusters of missiles streaked out across the horizon, splitting into a dozen warheads each. Being small, they lacked the mass driven momentum and at least eighty percent of them fell far below the trajectory of the mining vessel. Half a dozen scored against the hull, however, and a scream sounded to Keela's left in panic as the command center shook. Another two-dozen missiles were fired off at a higher angle an instant later, followed by the second volley of particle shots. The hull distorted, however, as six massive wings of golden light expanded out and folded down over the ship. Yes!
One wing lucked out and scraped across the incoming cluster of missiles, causing a chain of explosions that cascaded in front of the view screen. Keela braced for impact, then shouted out, "Now! Go!" Flak shots were fired from her ship, exploding into a miasma of sensor-disruptive heat and radiation as the ship flickered and melted away into distorted views and perspectives. In the last instant before the ship stretched out beyond the distant stars, a single particle shot whipped into the right side of the vessel's wing assembly.
Everything jarred sideways as Keela hit the floor and red warnings lit up across the console. An instant later, the ship warped away, and the connection shut down...
* * * * *
We rode along quietly, the train slowly moving ever closer to Ponyville. I lay on my side in our newly assigned cabin, given that our first one was more than a little damaged. Turns out that superheated metal was a fire hazard and had seriously burned the floor and left bench before they got it put out. Thankfully the conductor had totally bought Rarity's quickly conceived excuse of the accident being an experimental wing spell gone terribly, terribly wrong. Well, it helped that the Elements of Harmony apparently had a reputation for disaster risk, and I did have brutal looking wounds on my back that matches precisely where wings would be connected.
Twilight rested in front of me with her eyes closed and her two forelegs bandaged. Rainbow was lying on her side on the floor next to me, also with her eyes shut gently. I was carefully feeding both of them energy from my reserves and directing the nanites inside of them on the repairs they needed. Fluttershy was pressed tightly into my chest with her back, apparently deciding that I'd probably maim myself if she broke physical contact. Applejack rested on the other bench across from us, looking fatigued from having helped put the fire out. Rarity and Spike sat next to her, Spike trying to brush down Rarity's coat where stray tufts poked out, and the pearly mare herself looking beyond stressed. Pinkie chilled on the floor next to Rainbow, looking over the various pieces of Fluttershy's trauma kit and trying to put it back together again. Of course, it would need major re-supplying once we got back to Ponyville...
Rarity fidgeted against her seat and I saw it coming, just like the last four times. "Um, is there any signal yet from Keela?" she inquired politely, but I could feel the tension in her voice as well as from the newly formed link.
"Nothing yet, Rarity. Although they might have to do damage control first, and the actual link is still there, so Keela is okay," I assured tiredly.
Fluttershy gave a tiny sigh and restated, "None of this is your fault, Rarity." That was true, but I didn't want to say any more than that. There were very select few ways the Grosh could have found their mining ship far into dark space around the remnants of a burnt-out star. Ignoring the astronomically low probability of the ship just happening to blunder into their location at random with weapons hot, that left either a very specific tracking beacon, or the patrol happening to be within a few hundred light-years in order to pick up the quantum flare of the FTL engine humming on standby. There were only a few beacons that could manage similar broadcasting distances, and those were really, really noticeable. Ruling out a magic spell to try to make contact with patrols, which the Grosh wouldn't be able to intercept anyway, that left them being close enough to see the quantum flare. Admittedly, it was Keela's fault for pulling the FTL engine out of standby before ready to use it, but I highly doubted Rarity would share that evaluation, probably concluding that Keela was only worried and doing so because of my little energy display, which was brought about by her 'insistence' on being linked. Although something still didn't add up. Why was Keela so panicked when she got quantum energy readings from me? Did she know something I didn't?
Rarity fussed a bit more before sighing and dropping her head again, feeling unwilling to dance around the issue in circles. Pity. I was getting so good at it with Twilight. Resisting the snicker, I carefully kept that thought to myself as I relaxed there. It was almost impossible to stay disgruntled with Fluttershy there. The yellow mare positively ruined any hope of having a grumpy mood. Of course, Twilight had gone a long way in showing me what her true feelings were, and admitted to making a mistake by forcing me to tell everypony all that. Exhaling softly, I decided I didn't want to hold it against the mare any longer.
At this point, Rainbow's repairs were done, the inflamed tendon and muscle bunching having been healed rather easily. Sadly, she was asleep, so I'd have to wait until later to get a confirmation on the 'no pain' status. Regardless, my slightly invasive code reported her having a dream about some sort of cloud race and blasting in between various cloud shapes, so I assumed Nirru was leaving her alone. Either that or she'd gotten wickedly subtle, which probably would have little to no effect on Dash of all mares.
Twilight was a bit more complicated, having multiple layers of skin to heal and restore, then fur to grow back. I worked on her lowest layers first in order to avoid scarring while doing the same for me. My twin wounds were healed at this point, thankfully, but my back itself required extensive damage repair from the burns. Thankfully, blood loss was minimal, as the wounds had almost instantly cauterized most of the damaged area from the high heat level. I guess I'm lucky that my cybernetic skin was highly fire resistant, or I might have just burned up instead...
The lavender mare was looking right at me when I opened my eyes again, mildly surprising me. I'd felt her attention from the link but hadn't expected her to open her own eyes again. "Remember, Mender. If you start getting tired, please stop. They're feeling a lot better already and I can wait to get the rest restored, okay?" she reminded quietly, earning a sigh as I averted my eyes. I knew how Applejack felt now, with wanting to 'fix' what I'd caused but getting constantly turned down for it. The orange mare smirked across the way, picking up on my inner plight as fast as Twilight did, who giggled.
"I'm willing to let you help me, but even you have to admit that this was hardly your fault. The only thing you technically 'did' during the whole situation was jump out of the window. I'm not sure if that was the right call, and we'll never find out, but you didn't put that code in your black box," she quickly pointed out, picking up the terminology from my explanation earlier amazingly fast. I'd fully explained what had happened once she recovered enough to teleport the four of us back up to the train. The conductor and passengers had surprisingly agreed to wait there for fifteen minutes until we could get back inside, and were readily sympathetic when Applejack carried me through the two cabins to the end one. I still couldn't walk, which reminded me of the hospital and all the frustrations therein.
Twilight, in turn, explained that she wasn't able to cast her healing spells on herself, which is why I volunteered to help restore her forelegs rather than her go through with the, well, somewhat risky plan of trying to teach Rarity the advanced healing magic to cast. Twi had furthered that most forms of magic and spells from a unicorn were really hard to cast on oneself, requiring an advanced understanding of the technique and a larger amount of energy. That did explain why I never saw any unicorns floating around with self-levitation. She'd only recently picked up healing magic for, uh, totally unknown reasons... She didn't know enough about them to risk trying to target herself, which I could understand. A spell created to manipulate your biological functions would be disastrous if miscast.
That left me where I found myself now. Dash had been healed rather easily by Twilight, and had promptly fallen asleep during the procedure. Now I was healing Twilight, hopefully until I passed out. Of course, I had kept that last part to myself. In the meantime, all effort had been redirected to cracking the encryption protocols on that black box embedded into me. What was the point of having everything hooked up to me as the 'administrator' if there was an entire secondary system I didn't have access to?!
Midway through my irate chain of thoughts, a light beep went off in my inner ear, and I just about had a heart attack before realizing that it was my own programmed-in ping system. Wait, ping?! I activated it instantly, switching it over to my external speaker as a bit of static shifted over the link and I fully patched Keela through, turning my projector on.
In hindsight, I probably should have asked her before streaming the video, as she looked like a truck had run her over. There were three bands of wrapping around her head, a large bandage across her left cheek, and thick one doubled over her left shoulder. A female Keldarian I didn't recognize was casting what looked like a healing spell on her stomach as well, directly on the bloody fur there. To top it off, she was decorated in various smaller bruises and her left eye was blackened on one side. My analysis system pieced the damage together and predicted she'd suffered an upper body impact on the left side of significant velocity. Yikes.
Everypony near me, as well as Spike, perked up at the sudden noise, then drew their attention to the projected image largely at the same time. Fluttershy gasped immediately after rolling around in my forelegs, holding her right hoof up to her muzzle as she took in all the wounds. I gave Keela a soft smile, sadly knowing exactly how she probably felt. To my amusement, she returned one as her eyes locked with mine and she relaxed visibly.
"Uh, hey, Mender. We finally got stabilized enough where I could call you back. Sorry for not getting in touch faster," she apologized weakly, sounding as tired as I felt. Taking in her surroundings, I noted sparking damage all over the control room, with her leaning against the back of what looked like a rotating command chair.
Tym, not visible in her immediately vicinity, snorted somewhere to the left. "Don't kid yourself, brat. We barely got life support back online, and you're still bleedin' in the gut. You were the one going on and on about getting back a hold of 'Mender'," he chirped, switching to a significantly higher octave to accentuate my name with and sounding far more amused than one should after surviving an encounter with the Grosh.
Predictably, she flushed and glared over in the direction his voice came in, spitting out, "It's not like that, Tym! Gah!" Twilight blinked next to me, then raised a skeptical eyebrow towards the Keldarian, but surprisingly enough, Applejack rolled her eyes instead.
"Are ya okay, Keela? What happened after we lost signal?" she asked a moment later, probably annoyed at the lack of a serious attitude from the older Keldarian. Sadly, I'd never seen Tym ever get serious, even in the thick of combat. That's just how he was, really.
Keela sighed at that and slowly turned back to the 'camera' with a slight wince before looking up at me again and explaining, "Yeah. I'll live, and the ship is still functional. We took a colossal amount of damage, mainly from our own FTL jump. They grazed us just as we warped out with one absurdly lucky, or very well timed, hit. We're lucky we didn't disintegrate in transit, but they apparently make these mining vessels to take a beating." Well, they were, obviously. Given the nature of asteroid mining, it was expected that a few chunks here and there would blow off and smack into the hull. That's why they technically had military grade armor.
At hearing the full explanation, Rarity finally breathed out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank goodness. I'm terribly sorry about everything, Miss Keela. It was at my insistence that Mender finished the final link, which is what caused all of this. We should have, I don't know, warned you first or something so you knew what to expect!" she quickly apologized. Twilight lifted an eyebrow towards her through the faintly translucent image of Keela.
"Uh, Rarity, we didn't know what to expect. How would we have known to alert her that something might have happened?" she inquired skeptically. That was a very good point...
The pearly mare shot her a frustrated glare back, but Keela snickered at that, surprising Rarity instead, with, "Just call me Keela, Rarity. It's true, though. It was my bad call to charge the FTL drive. That's probably how they found us to begin with. I shouldn't have tried acting with so little information to go off of, but all I knew was there was an FTL signature coming from Mender's side. If something was trying to get into Equestria again and I was only picking up the aftershocks... I wanted to get the ship over to the weak spot to try to interrupt anyone who was potentially attempting to get through." Oh! So that's why she immediately attempted to activate the FTL.
Twilight frowned at that before interrupting with, "What are the odds of somepony actually managing to get through to Equus?" I noticed she must have totally smoothed over the 'anyone' nomenclature. Of course, they were similar enough, I guessed. Still, this I could answer.
"The weak spot into Equus is ridiculously small. Compared to all of space around it, the odds of actually finding the exact spot without knowing ahead of time right where to look is... Actually, no, there's no probability I could even use to represent it, it's so small. Like finding a single marble in a cluster of identical marbles larger than the entire planet, and that's not even a noticeable fraction of the actual value," I reasoned. To even try to put odds to it was laughable.
Twilight relaxed a bit at that and finally nodded, easing into my chest and Fluttershy's head. Keela smiled at the display, then perked and turned to her left as another female ran up and handed her a thin data pad. I waited patiently for her to finish looking it over, then watched as her expression fell, swallowing weakly.
"Damage is immense. One of our males that was on engineering duty below deck got injured badly and is in Medical. We also... We lost segments seven and eight off the right wing, and six suffered critical levels of destruction. Oh no..." she whispered, lifting her paw up to her muzzle, her eyes getting wet.
The room fell silent on my end, and I lowered my ears, taking a guess that one of those three segments hadn't been empty. Her crew was well past bare bones as it was. She stared at the data pad for another long second before tears actually slipped down her cheeks finally. She let out an angry sounding scream a second later, sounding almost feral as she whipped the data pad sideways and against the floor.
The pain was tangible, and nopony said anything as we just watched. The green haired female next to Keela tried to put an assuring paw on her commander's shoulder, but it didn't even seem to register. Instead, Keela let out another howl and smashed the metal grating under her with her right paw, making it ring out and opening up her stomach wound again.
"Keela, please! You're injured!" The other, teal haired medic warned, trying to hold her still again as she healed her stomach.
Frowning, I finally whispered, "Keela, stop." She froze for a second before shakily looking up at me, her eyes searching mine as they tinted pink from her tears.
Seconds passed, and she swallowed again and shook her head slowly, looking a mixture of horrified and hysterical. "I'm... I'm so, so stupid. I can't... I can't keep doing this! I'm not meant to be a leader and now, because of my own foolish, ill-considered, reckless decision... They're gone. They're all gone," she rapidly started spewing out, voice collapsing to barely a whisper before falling away completely, fresh tears joining the others. Keela...
She just tucked her knees up and let herself cry, the healer slowly restoring her stomach now that she stopped moving. I wanted to ask, but couldn't at the same time. My memories from him seemed so fresh suddenly. He'd known this moment hundreds of times. Those friends and buddies he knew and lived with... So many died right in front of him. I knew this sensation, having lived through it a hundred times over in what felt like a past life.
I barely realized she was talking again. "She... She's gone. She's d-dead. I know. I know, you probably don't care. You hated her, but... She was my sister and now I didn't even get to see her one last time before... Both of her guards, too. Three lives just... It happened so fast. It's not fair. It's not fair!" she cried out into her knees. I had already known on some level. Nirru. I didn't feel happy or sad, really. There was nothing there at all. If anything, realizing I felt nothing hearing about her death was sad enough on its own.
But that's how it worked. "It's never fair. Sometimes it's some... Someone that you didn't like at all, and sometimes it was the guy you listened to snore for the past two years. It might be your best friend, or maybe you didn't even know their name. It's still the same regardless, though. It happens so fast, and in that instant, everything that they had been, were, or could be is gone. It's not fair and death takes everything, indiscriminately," I explained quietly, causing her eyes to drift up to me as she listened. The longer I spoke, the wetter hers got again, but I knew she couldn't look away.
"Even if I hated her. Even if she did horrible things to me and wanted to hurt me and those I love... It's still the same. Everything she could have done, and everything she was is gone. The sensation of that loss is felt regardless, and I can feel it for you, too," I finished, trying to get her to realize that even if I hated Nirru, I didn't hate her.
Keela stared at me for another long moment before getting a weak half smile and curling up again, resting her forehead against her knees. I felt my foreleg get wet as Fluttershy buried her face in my fur, not wanting to look anymore. She even cried for the ones she didn't know. I held her close and she relaxed again, easing me as well because of it.
The Keldarian finally nodded against her knees and slowly spoke up with, "Mender, I can't do this anymore. You're so much better at leading soldiers than I am. P-Please. I just want to leave. If I could, I'd take the whole ship and haul us all to Equestria. Our race is doomed, so why bother having any regrets?" She hurt, and everypony could feel it just by looking at her. But she knew as much as we did that we didn't have anything capable of producing the energy required to haul that whole ship into Equestria. No object larger than bus-sized had been experimented with for crossing dimensions. If she had a drop ship with a powerful enough FTL drive, maybe. That would be pushing it, though.
"Keela, you know I can't make that call. Even if we had the ability, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna rule here and obviously have the final say," I reminded softly.
She shivered but nodded a second later, face still buried in her knees. "I... I know that! Please, Mender. I don't want to do this anymore. You're so much better at leading than I am. You actually have experience," she muttered, looking up at me again slowly. Her eyes were entirely red at that point, but I forced myself to look away.
Twilight stared at me for a good five or six seconds before glancing back to Keela and answering, "That's not a good idea, Keela. While Mender does have experience with that sort of thing, these are your crew members we're talking about. You've done an admirable job so far anyway and-"
She was interrupted by another shiver from Keela almost instantly. "Admirable?! I just got two members of my crew killed alongside my sister! All because I was an idiot!" she shouted. Even though she was staring right at Twilight, the words dripped with self-loathing rather than anger towards my fillyfriend. In a rather disturbing, twisted moment, I suddenly realized Keela was heading down the same path as Applejack had.
"Keela, stop it. You know as well as any of us that you aren't to be blamed for the actions of the Grosh. Sure, you gave them a slight signal to look for, but they would have had to already be fairly close in order to pick up on even that. Trying to blame yourself for bad luck having gone terribly wrong is foolish. You can't take responsibility for somepony else's acts," I warned her, shifting to a frown as I stared at her.
She looked surprised for a few seconds before hesitating and looking away from me instead. I exhaled softly, noticing Applejack's focus on me as well, probably having guessed at my dual meaning there. Both her and Keela were trying to blame themselves for horrible acts that somepony else did. Just being in a position to potentially have prevented the situation doesn't mean much, especially considering they didn't have the benefit of hindsight. We never know how things are going to turn out.
I was a bit surprised when Tym suddenly leaned down next to Keela, fully shifting into the picture as the Keldarian looked over at him in surprise. He gave her a warm yet tense smile before patting her on the head slowly. "Relax, kiddo. This ain't over by a long shot. We're going to pull this ship back together again, then do an FTL jump right back to where we were before," he explained quickly.
Her eyes widened, a bolt of fear shooting through them, and I quickly shook my head, adding in, "He's right, Keela. It would actually be fairly safe. That was a scouting patrol. They would have attempted to chase after you and pick up your trail. Going right back to where you were before isn't something they'd have anticipated, and they're probably a few hundred light-years away from that point now." Of course, they had no reason to go back there, but I had a sneaking suspicion Tym found something.
"Oh dear. Why would you want to go back to that horrible place?" Rarity asked almost instantly, frowning in concern. Keela looked over at her before nodding and turning back to Tym, searching his eyes for answers.
He smirked, of course, and slid the tablet back over towards Keela. "The Princess didn't read the entire report, did she?" he inquired pointedly yet in great amusement towards Keela.
She tilted her head towards him for just a moment before reaching down and picking up the now slightly dented data pad. He rolled his eyes and continued with, "I'll save you some time. The damage report is severe, given that two sections are missing, and the third is destroyed. But this printout is done by a computer, Keela. Those sections are listed as one hundred percent destroyed because they're not there anymore, not because they actually got destroyed." Ah, right. If the section they were connected to got hit hard enough to total it completely, it probably fired off the safety decoupling. The other two sections probably suffered damage, but it would have been reduced if that happened, possibly keeping the two guards alive. Of course, that would mean Nirru lived, too, but I wasn't going to damn two innocent guards just so she wouldn't make it. Well, reasonably innocent? Eh, at least innocent until proven not so.
"Oh, they could be alive, then?" Twilight asked, perking up at that bit of news, having eavesdropped on my little mental tangent as well.
Keela's eyes widened and she stood almost immediately, causing her nurse to yelp again. "That... We have to hurry, then! If they're still alive, they're free-floating and need rescue immediately! They should have enough air to last at least a few hours, but we have to prepare, then get ready to move!" she ordered, switching quickly back to analytical mode. Tym smirked and nodded as he stood up next to her, and I exhaled gently. The odds were still not wonderful, but at least it gave her something to focus on. Still…
“Keela…” I warned, locking eyes with her again as she turned back to me. The shaky look to her eyes softened, and I saw her relax somewhat.
Composing herself, she nodded to me and assured, “I know. The probability is small, but… I’ll be careful regardless. We can’t screw up again like that. Um, thank you as well, Mender. You helped us out majorly back there and… you’re the anchor for my sanity sometimes. Heh.” Oh, well that I could understand.
Smiling at that, I nodded to her and surprised Fluttershy into a squeak by hugging her softly under the forelegs. “My herd is mine, so I know how you feel,” I replied, kissing the back of the mare’s neck as she smiled back at me and blushed softly. Twilight grinned at that and nestled herself further into the top of my head. Now I didn’t feel that urge to just pass out so badly, I noticed.
Keela smiled towards me, nodding, then nodding again to Tym, who still stood next to her. He turned and whistled, waving his arm around in a circle in the air, and everyone in the command area broke into movement, reinitializing the systems and quickly repairing crucial operations. The Keldarian turned back to me after watching for a moment and added, “I’ll contact you again as soon as we get there. For now, though, I’ll have to ‘hang up’, so to speak. The FTL jump will disconnect us for a moment anyway.”
I nodded to her, and she smiled again before returning it, then vanishing in the same instant. Well, at least they were okay. Err, reasonably okay. Okay, so she was a little banged up and three Keldarians might have gotten blown up by the Grosh attack, but at least she was still alive, along with most of her crew.
Rarity exhaled softly after the image flickered away, looking tense but a little better off than she had been. Settling back down into a lying position, I just relaxed against Fluttershy as the train rolled on. That made a good metaphor for life, really. Although at some point I wouldn’t mind hitting the emergency brakes for a while and taking a good week-long vacation at least.
After a long moment, Twilight lay down against the back of my neck, too, gently kissing my shoulder before resting against me. Yeah, a vacation would be nice. She felt my sentiment through the link, and apparently decided that now wouldn’t be a bad time to start. Wait, could we do that? Was it okay to just say to hell with everything, I’m going on vacation? Relaxing, I decided I might as well give it a try. At least we could for the remainder of the train ride home, which would have to do…
I listened to the vibrations through the seat and resumed healing Twilight while we headed ever closer to Ponyville again…
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...Yeah. We haven't seen Nirru's corpse, so she's classified as "not dead". She's also psychotic, likely unguarded due to injury or distraction on the guards' parts, and the Grosh probably didn't bugger off immediately if there's a big chunk of ship floating around. She also knows where the breach is. This could get ugly fast.
quickmeme.com/img/aa/aa1931242825b1b6e3b2c91c80cf47cfed72d99200065cb64509a3847dfff9b8.jpg <------How the universe feels toward Mender.
Finally, Moar! Now Moar Again!
Hey hey hey look who just got featured!
Coincidences are piling up far too quickly for my liking. I would suspect Nirru of trying to set something up with the Groche, given she is now available for pickup by them and has information of extreme intrest.
Also, mining ships have to be hard, they are in a battlefield constantly, far more than all but teh most psychotic of warships. Most warships also tend to try and disable drives, weapons etc, where a mining ship tends to start with vapourising kilotons of metal and rock, and works up.
Good stuff, I'm willing to bet Keela and her crew will end up in Equestria eventually. I can't wait for the next chapter.
wait. Did Twilight or Mender heal Dash? It says he finished healing her then says that she already healed her.
Everything turned out better than expected.
4862532 Twilight healed Dash. Mended healed Twilight.
Everytime I think back on the wings of the Icarus, I can picture how they've been described but my mind first jumps to the energy-ribbon "wings" of the original Second Impact in Eva, wailing and all.
Huh, I never expected to kill off Nirru without anything from her beforehand.
I was fully expecting partway through Keela's tears that a second projection would form, virusNirru forcing her way up through use of her last trump card, but only to address her sister. Would have been a curious scene, Mender probably letting her do it and the others in Equestria reacting in their own ways as she talks only to Keela. If that had happened, I would have expected it to close out Nirru and virusNirru once and for all, potentially in a very amending tone.
But Nirru may yet live, and I suspect we will now get something more of the real Nirru. Interested in what that will be...
oh boy. I have a feeling the Grosh captures Nirru and gets some info out of her on how to get to Equestria. Mender will finally have a reason to use his sword
img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130102165457/mlpfanart/images/c/c5/Twilight_tank.jpg
4862958 4862532
you can say they were both healing Dash
Oh no...
The Grosh found Nirru didn't they?!!?
Oh god she's gonna tell them everything!!!!
O_o
I'm wondering when Mender's going to fix his gravity issue. Y'know, that thing that stops the density of all the stuff inside him from projecting a gravitational field, which is currently not working properly?
4867271
Didn't your mother ever tell you not to tempt fate!?
I love this story bro cant wait for the next one keep up the awesome work man!!!!!!!!!!!
I really do hope you finish this story man. It is one of the best stories I ever read!!!!!!!!
Sections of the ship gone... was Keela's ship near the hole? Because I've got the feeling that those sections aren't in that dimension any more...
Dang it! And here I was hoping Neru had slowly died in the vacuum of space.
Send Keela to Equestria!
Ok. Just have to say it. I know he has a lot of doubts, but now it's slightly tiring. Almost every fifteen chapters he's totally surprised that he's cared for. I mean the mares around him have in one paragraph or another proven that to the point of exhasperation, but he's still shocked. So right now, even I'm getting a bit tired of it. Yes Mender, they care about you! Enjoy it, love it, move on!
7285042 Remember: He's got mental trauma out the friggen wazoo. You HAVE to be reminded of these things or your own mental demons will hide it and make it insignificant.
4904562
You fucking jinxed us aLL