The Doctor and his companions wind up stuck on a spaceship as it crash lands in the Late Cretaceous!
For Lyra's first "proper" trip in the TARDIS, she wanted to see one of Equestria's starships. But as the TARDIS crew lands on the ship, they get a not-so warm welcome. What's worse, a temporal distortion hurtles the starship back in time and out-of-control! With less than a day on their hooves, the crew of the starship and the crew of the TARDIS must work together to get the ship working again, or risk being stuck in the Late Cretaceous with flesh-eating dinosaurs!
“Here you are, just as requested: a starship!” the Doctor announced, strolling out of the TARDIS and into a brightly lit white corridor. He felt the tug of artificial gravity, and took in a breath of canned atmosphere. From inside the TARDIS stepped an awestruck Lyra, who had requested the venture in the first place, and a somewhat unfazed Derpy.
After battles with robots and a giant worm from the past, a spaceship could almost seem mundane. The Doctor hadn’t specified what kind of spaceship they had landed on, nor what made it specifically different from the spaceship they already occupied, the TARDIS.
At the moment, the halls were empty and the ship was silent save for their own hoofsteps against a polished floor and the muffled rumble of engines. Derpy noticed that the engines in the background of this new spaceship sounded nothing at all like the TARDIS, though perhaps that was because the TARDIS was really more of a timeship than anything else.
“So who’s ship is this?” Lyra asked, peering at a display inset in the wall, “Aliens?”
The Doctor shook his head.
“No, this is one of your ships,” he said, “A few centuries in your future, Equestria’s space exploration program develops technology allowing travel at speeds beyond light, making interstellar travel not only feasible, but a reality. If I’m correct, we should be sitting in spacedock right now, about a month before launch.”
The Doctor smiled, and let the newest companion lead the way for the group to start exploring the inside of the ship. Lyra made her way to a corridor intersection marked with plating indicating which direction to go in to get to other parts of the ship, which was represented by a diagram on the side. The ship resembled something like a flying saucer, but with a large cylinder protruding from the back of this saucer before flaring out to a wider point at the very end.
Lyra and Derpy marvelled at the labels on the map and directions plate, while the Doctor found himself looking out a thick window looking out into space. He leaned against the side of the wall and grinned; he liked looking into space whenever he got the chance. To see the stars seeming to streak by as they flew through the cosmos....
He blinked. The stars looked like they were streaking, which meant they were travelling at faster-than-light speeds in some kind of warp tunnel. Certainly they were not in spacedock. Derpy was the first to look away from the map, and also the first to notice the Doctor’s error.
“We’re moving?” she blurted out, “I thought you said we were in spacedock!”
“Well, nopony’s perfect,” the Doctor said, “Plus... space travel is cooler than standing still anyways. If you ask me, I think it’s fan-”
“Fantastic,” Derpy and Lyra said in chorus, mocking the Doctor’s emphasis on the second syllable. A strange expression crossed the Doctor’s face, as he didn’t know whether to be irritated or amused.
The corridor was quite suddenly plunged into a state of chaos as the lights flared red and klaxon alarms began to blare around them incessantly. Lyra and Derpy both clasped hooves to their ears at the loud noise, and before the Doctor could try to use his sonic screwdriver to silence the alarms a clicking sound could be heard behind his back, and he turned to see a amber-coated mare dressed in uniform holding them at the point of some futuristic gun.
The alarms faded, and the lighting returned to normal.
“Captain, this is Brimstone,” the mare said aloud to a pony who wasn’t present, “I’ve got three intruders on G deck, near the intersection with engineering. Two of them are mares wearing nothing but keys around their necks, and one is a stallion dressed in a leather coat.”
She had been speaking into a communications unit on her uniform’s collar, and now addressed the group.
“Highest rank among you- who is it?”
The Doctor stepped forward.
“State your name, rank, and intent!” she barked.
“Name.... the Doctor,” he began, “Rank.... er.... Doctor. My intent? Fun I suppose.”
“Are you playing games with me, sir?” said the mare, narrowing her eyes, “You’ve somehow intruded upon our test flight without boarding the ship conventionally, which to me suggests stowaway. As a stowaway, you’ll want to choose your next words very carefully.”
“Alright then: take me to your leader!” the Doctor replied with an ever-growing smile.
The Doctor, Lyra, and Derpy were all corralled into a cell inside of some sort of starship brig, with a glowing orange forcefield replacing the steel bars of years gone by. The mare who had found them, whose name and rank was apparently Lieutenant Commander Brimstone according to the communications they had overheard, and the ship’s Captain was en route to speak with them directly.
They had been told to stay silent until the Captain arrived, but as brimstone had a habit of pacing the three time travelers whispered as she got farther away from them.
“I don’t like this,” the Doctor whispered, “I know this ship class, it’s supposed to be crewed by nearly 400 ponies.”
Brimstone neared them, and they remained silent for about a half minute until she gradually made her way toward the far side of the room again.
“You said they were in space dock,” whispered Derpy, “And then we’re really flying through space. Did you get the year wrong?”
The Doctor shook his head.
“No, it’s six months exactly prior to her maiden voyage... she shouldn’t even be space-worthy at this point... mind you, all I’ve really heard about this ship in particular is that it launched June 6th 2894, none of the specifics of what happened.”
“What year is it now?” Lyra asked.
“December 2893, now stop talking,” Brimstone interjected, and this time stood rather close to the forcefield to dissuade them from resuming conversation. About ten minutes after this, the doors to the brig hissed and opened up to allow the Captain to enter.
The Captain was a middle-aged mare with a darkish blue coat, though still clad in the same maroon uniform as the other officer who had apprehended the Doctor and co. She was followed by a tall-ish stallion with a lighter blue coat, also clad in the standard uniform and wearing insignia near his chest to signify that he was the ship’s First Officer.
The Captain faced the Doctor from across the forcefield, and spoke first.
“I will speak only to the leader of this group,” she said. The Doctor nodded, and stepped forward until he was less than an inch from the edge of the forcefield holding him captive.
“Hello, I’m the Doctor,” he said with a toothy grin, “Pleased by your warm welcome, Captain.....?”
“Captain Starstruck,” she replied, “What are you doing on my ship, and how did you get on board?”
“Well, I’ll tell you, but you’ve got to promise not to laugh,” the Doctor coyly said.
“Let’s hear your excuse.”
“You see,” he began, “I’m an alien from another planet, and I’ve got a blue box called the TARDIS that resembles a police call box from Canterlot and other Equestrian cities around the 1930’s to the 60’s. I’m here by complete accident, since the ship moves primarily by phasing in and out of it’s current position, so if you’d just allow us to be on our way we can let you get back to-”
“No,” the First Officer said, speaking up from behind the Captain, “According to interstellar law in this sector, all unauthorized ship-boarders -that includes accidents, by the way- must be either returned to their own system or face legal action at the planet of the boarded starship’s origin. Which do you prefer? I must warn you, we will have to make contact with your planet’s government to authorize your release before you are set free planetside should you return to your own system.”
The Doctor shook his head. He had no way out of this, they would have to take them to Equestria first.
“If I may ask, how long will it take to reach Equestria at our current speed?” he asked.
“Forty-five minutes,” Captain Starstruck answered, “so sit tight down here until we dock. Brimstone- you watch them.”
****
On the bridge of her ship, Captain Starstruck had her own problems to deal with that dwarfed the threat posed by intruders.
They were nearing the Solar System, home to eight planets including planet Earth. The ship’s name was the Poet, an experimental design and first of the ship’s class. Though launch was still a month away it was crucial to perform a number of tests and shake-downs leading up to that date, and this was one such shake-down.
The Poet had only six crewmembers aboard at the moment- two from command, one who doubled in navigations and tactical, one from the sciences, a communications officer, and the ship’s engineer. All other ship stations were currently being run on automation, which was proving to be a greater drain on ship systems than they had imagined and underlined the importance of a crew of 400 rather than six of the senior officers.
Starstruck sat in her command chair, staring at a navigational course plotted by her first officer, due to Brimstone’s need in the brig. They were in the unfortunate position of having to replace the stone without having any backup available. This gemstone was something of a power converter in the engine room, allowing naturally occurring material in space to be converted into a usable type of matter. The stones rarely needed replacing normally, and the one they had installed during construction had ended up being flawed enough to warrant a replacement that the ship simply didn’t have.
She had given the order to turn around and return to base after the ship had been stressed to FTL speed 7, which is when problems started presenting themselves. The Poet was on it’s way home at a measly FTL 2, as the Captain was worried to push faulty engines too hard.
At that moment, red alert sirens began to blare once more and the brightly lit bridge module was plunged into a deep scarlet light. Starstruck gazed at the viewscreen, and her communications officer began to shout over the sirens.
“Four pirate vessels of unknown origin are moving to intercept us,” he shouted, “and would somepony please shut that alarm off?!”
The alarms quieted, but the bridge remained on red alert and cast in a reddish glow. The screen up front displayed an image of four starships that appeared to be salvaged and thrown together using the parts of several other decommissioned classes as well as alien technology.
They were positioned just beyond the asteroid belt at this point, and were moving towards Mars and then the Earth. She ordered the ship to a halt, and requested to communicate with the pirates.
“Cinder, put me through to whichever ship identifies as the leader. Do not let their scanners detect that we are short 394 crewmembers, whatever you do,” ordered Starstruck, “Let them know that we have little of value aboard worth raiding.”
As the small dragon in charge of communications typed at his own console, Starstruck tapped a button on the side of her Captain’s chair, which put her through to the brig.
“Brimstone, we’ve got a category 3 threat. You’re needed up here on the bridge immediately.”
****
Derpy, Lyra, and the Doctor were left by Brimstone suddenly and without a word, shortly after the Red Alert alarms began to blare. Almost immediately after they were sure that the pony was not coming back, the Doctor set to work with the sonic screwdriver. He ran the glowing end along the length of the forcefield at the base near the floor, and then moved up the right side. Once completing the entire rectangular perimeter he was able to turn the field off with a flick of a switch on the device, granting them freedom from the prison cell.
“Doctor, what’s going on?” Lyra cried over the sound of the alarms. The three had rounded a corner out of the brig by now and the two mares were galloping to keep up with the Doctor.
“I dunno, some kind of serious emergency,” he yelled back, “Whatever it is, it’s none of our concern and we need to get back to the TARDIS now!”
“Because we’re in trouble with them,” Derpy called up, “or because of the emergency that’s going on right now?”
“Both!”
****
“We have nothing of value to give you,” Starstruck repeated, this time directly to the voice of the pirate’s captain, “We are on an exploratory ship, not a freighter, and this is simply a systems test. It would be wise of you to retreat for today, as there is no profit here.”
She waited silently, along with the other ponies on the bridge as they held their breaths for whatever the pirate’s response would be. Brimstone entered through an elevator shaft at the left side of the command center and made a beeline for her station at the tactical officer’s console.
When the pirates responded, their captain didn’t seem at all fazed.
“You are in no position to dictate our actions,” came the grizzled voice over ship-to-ship radio, “Drop shields and prepare to be boarded. If you don’t comply within thirty seconds we will destroy your vessel.”
“Cut the channel,” Starstruck ordered, and the dragon Cinder pressed a button that ended the conversation between ships. Starstruck wheeled about in her chair, facing Brimstone at the tactical console.
“I know we’re on mostly automation, but it it possible for us to get the first shot in? We need to make them think we’re armed and dangerous.”
Brimstone shook her head. They didn’t even have torpedo tubes installed in the ship, and the energy beam defense systems had never been tested once. Without any fire control officers her accuracy would be severely hampered. Plus, using the beam weaponry on automation had never been done before, and she didn’t know what would happen.
“I need a few shots, three at most,” the Captain said, “Can you at least give me that?”
“I don’t know if it’s gonna work or if it’ll tear a hole out of the bottom of the saucer section,” she said honsetly, “but if it actually works....”
“Captain!” interrupted Lt. Clover, the science officer, “They are loading torpedoes and obtaining a target lock on our engines!”
“Brimstone, do it!” Starstruck barked, “and that’s an order! Fire at the most prominent vessels first!”
Brimstone complied, aiming as best she could at her console and engaging the ship’s main guns.
A streak of red shot out of the bottom of the Poet’s saucer and collided with the main hull of the lead Pirate vessel with force enough to tear a hole in their armor and cause debris from inside the ship to be sucked out into the vacuum of space. The second shot struck the same ship slightly higher, shredding apart a metallic dome and causing a thick cloud of chemical waste to spew into space. The affected ship’s lighting flickered once or twice and then was out, and it started to drift away from the others.
The next pirate vessel responded by launching a volley of plasma torpedoes at the Poet, though without a proper target lock the spread was random. The first two zipped past the ship harmlessly, while the third scraped across the top of the saucer and tore part of the outer hull while leaving a burnt streak. The fourth torpedo was set for somewhere around the hangar area, and it was not going to miss.
****
The Doctor paused for a moment when they came to an intersection, the same one they had encountered earlier in their travels. The sign showed that they had come from the direction of the hangar.
At that moment, some sort of mechanism began to whir from within the walls and large bars began to protrude from the walls. Derpy backed away from one, worrying that it was some kind of trap like the spike pits from the Daring Do books.
“Doctor, what’s happening?” she asked in a worried voice.
That’s when they heard it; a deep rumbling from outside the ship that was getting louder with each passing second. The walls began to rattle, and the ship seemed to quake beneath their hooves.
“Everypony grab onto something!” the Doctor yelled, and he lunged out to wrap his front hooves around a pole as Lyra and Derpy did the same.
A loud explosion occurred not far from them, just down the hall in the direction they had been planning on going, and wall of fire rushed through the halls.The sides of that corridor were shredded to pieces, exposing machinery and more rooms on one side and open space on the other.
Just as quickly as the fire had appeared it vanished entirely, leaving behind only blackened walls. A wind began to howl around the three time travellers as the atmosphere was sucked violently out through the hole in the hull caused by the explosion. Lyra felt herself lifted up and stretched thin; the wind was trying to sweep her away and into the blackness of space. She held on tightly, eyes watering in the rush of air.
****
“Hull breach on G Deck!” Clover shouted, “We’re losing life support in the surrounding areas!”
“Seal it off immediately,” Starstruck ordered, “Brimstone, return fire!”
The Poet lashed out at the attacking pirate ship twice, striking at totally different area of the ship as the last one and raking the underbelly of the vessel with the first shot. Like the dome of the downed pirate vessel, something was struck by that shot that released material into space. The second shot collided with the aft end of the pirate ship, causing a substantial explosion of the engine systems and sending the ship spiraling out of control and into another one of the fleet’s ships.
At this point, the lucky shots from the Poet had convinced the pirates not to mess with her, and so without another word the remaining ships sped off toward Mercury and away from the scene of the attack.
****
Derpy, the Doctor, and Lyra all sat panting in the corridor, leaning up against a solid wall that had sprung out between them and the exposed hole in the side of the ship. While they collectively regained their breath and their wits, the Doctor realized that they were now cut off from reaching the hangar of the ship while this barrier was up, leaving them stuck and unable to reach the TARDIS at all.
He swore quietly, and slammed a hoof against the sides of the barrier in frustration.
“Doctor, what was that?” Lyra cried, “The side of the ship suddenly blew up right in front of us!”
“Torpedo attack, I’d wager,” he said, “Only I see that the alarms have stopped wailing, so I suppose the ship scared us off or we scared the ship that attacked us away with some kind of counter attack.... listen, we can’t reach the TARDIS anymore.”
“I kinda figured that,” Derpy said.
“Yeah, only way now is to wait until they patch the hole up, which will happen in space dock, probably not before we’re shipped off planetside,” he admitted, “But first thing they’re gonna do is check on us, and if we’re not there then our chances of getting out of there and trying to find an alternate route to the hangar are quashed. Let’s double back.”
****
“We’re off course by a lot, actually,” Brimstone said, “We’re somewhere between Mercury and the Sun. I’d recommend leaving as soon as possible, though, any closer and we’ll be sucked in by it’s gravitational pull.”
“Noted,” Starstruck replied. She flicked a switch on her captain’s chair, which put her through to the ship’s engineer down in the engine department.
“Commander Cortland,” said the Captain, “What’s your status?”
She next received an earful from an irate sounding mare with a country drawl, yelling over the comm unit.
“I’ll tell you what the status is, Captain!” she yelled, “Whatever in tarnation just happened caused our thrusters to misfire... badly! This place is a total wreck, and I haven’t even started tryin’ to pick up the pieces.”
“Recommended action?”
“Firstly,” Cortland’s voice replied, “Stop tryin’ to use our guns when there’s nopony to manage them properly! As soon as the first shot was fired systems started going up in sparks down here, and the ceiling caved in by the sublight drive. There’s a tangle ‘o wires hangin down not even a meter from the edge of that generator. Secondly, bring us back to starbase right away, before something else blows up in my face down here!”
“Noted,” Starstruck replied. She looked to Brimstone, and motioned for her to follow Cortland’s instructions. A new course was set for Earth, and they took off.
Not even seconds after the Poet was put into motion, it misfired. The ship shuddered and swerved uncontrollably to one side, bringing them dangerously close to the Sun. The sublight engines turned over, but were unable to keep them from sliding closer to the massive ball of burning gas.
“Bring us up to maximum sublight speed!” Starstruck ordered, “We must break free!”
The engines whined louder and higher this time, yet despite the ship’s increase in velocity it couldn’t move farther from the Sun. Facing the possibility of being dragged in and fried to a crisp if she did nothing, Starstruck gave the only other available order.
“Jump to FTL!” ordered the Captain, “Cortland, I need FTL or we’re toast!”
“I’M TRYING BUT SHE DOESN’T WANT TO GO!” a tinny voice shouted over the roar of the engines.
The Poet lurched for a moment, and in the struggle it was oriented with its port side facing the Sun directly. The ship began to accelerate not away from the sun but around it, still unable to break away from the celestial object.
“We’re at FTL 5!” Brimstone announced, “and rising!”
“Captain!” Cortland cried, “The gemstones are fusing together down here! We’ll be dead in the water if we keep this up!”
“I’d rather be drifting in open space than dragged into the Sun, we can be rescued if we’re in space,” Starstruck replied, “We need to break away!”
“We’re at FTL 7 now!”
The Poet left a trail of purplish energy behind it now, and the entire vessel shook from within. Walls rattled, and the engines groaned in protest.
“FTL 8! That’s maximum safe speed!”
The ship’s distance from the sun was beginning to increase, but it was still circling it. Around the ship itself space seemed to bend inwards on itself, and consoles let off pops of smoke.
“FTL 9 AND RISING!” Brimstone shouted over the engine’s wailing, “9.3..... 9.4..... 9.5!”
“SHE CAN’T TAKE THIS ABUSE CAPTAIN, SOMETHING’S GONNA GIVE AT ANY MOMENT!” Cortland’s voice yelled.
“I KNOW!” Starstruck yelled back.
“9.8.... 9.9.....”
The Poet was thrown away from the Sun and a rippling vortex appeared around the vessel, throwing it around curves as it hurtled through an this strange void. Parts of the bridge consoles exploded with sparks, and lights were blown out. The main viewing screen cut out and cracked. Sections of the ceiling shattered and tubing was exposed and sliced open, filling the bridge with acrid smoke and plunging it into darkness.
Dappled sunlight hit Derpy’s face, and her eyes fluttered open. She found herself lying on her side in the middle of a hallway beneath a window. She scanned about with her eyes, trying to remember what had happened. She recalled the ship being struck by a torpedo, and the Doctor’s insistence that they get to the brig before the Captain checked on them. Evidently, they hadn’t made it that far.
Looking around, she saw that Lyra and the Doctor were both stirring about, trying to stand up slowly. She tried as well, and upon shifting her legs felt a strong soreness that made her wince. Bit by bit, she was able to stand up entirely.
She was badly bruised from some sort of impact, but otherwise uninjured.
“Doctor?” she said, assisting him up onto all fours, “What happened?”
The Doctor looked out the window before answering her. The sunlight was dappled; something was blocking it partway. The leafy branches of a tree were brushed up not far from the side of the ship and partially blocked the direct sun. He turned to face Derpy once again.
“Oi.... looks like we’ve crash landed on a planet with trees and an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Fantastic luck- we could’ve been left to suffocate in space otherwise.”
Lyra was by this point stretching herself, wincing as she felt the extent of her own bruises. She couldn’t recall the crash, but she could feel it.
“So... we’re on Earth?” she asked, groggily stepping to the Doctor’s side to look out the window herself.
“Possibly,” the Doctor said, “Better find a way to the other crewmembers to see how they’re faring first... and get somepony to unlock that safety door. No sense in holding back a vacuum that’s not even there.”
“Can’t you use that device of yours?” Lyra asked, following the time lord and Derpy as they started walking along the corridor of the crashed ship.
“Nope,” he replied, “That door’s got a deadlock on it. It’d be no use trying to pry it open with the sonic.”
****
The three entered the bridge of the ship to find the equine officers slumped over at their stations in a state of unconsciousness. The Doctor used the sonic screwdriver to check their vital signs. Like Derpy and Lyra, they had suffered bruising from the crash, but had not suffered broken bones or cranial trauma.
“I wonder how they all came to be knocked out like this,” Derpy wondered aloud. The viewscreen at the front of the bridge was cracked and turned off at the moment, and as such it served as a window to the outside and allowed sunlight to pour in.
The outside resembled Earth, if a bit forested and overgrown. The branch of an oak tree rested against the cracked glass, and down toward the front the hull had dug slightly into the dirt. Derpy turned away from the window after a few moments, while Lyra took her spot and looked more closely.
“Here's the problem!” shouted the Doctor, “Tubes! Some kind of tubing to get rid of smoky exhaust was cut- probably by accident. Nonlethal, but it put them right out when it filled the bridge. That’ll make reviving them a piece of cake.”
Lyra peered at the branch of the oak tree on the other side of the glass viewscreen. She could see down toward the dirt a ways below, and small greenish creatures were coming out of burrows and hopping about angrily on the edge of the Poet’s hull.
“Look at those things down there!” she cried, “Are they lizardlike aliens?”
The Doctor joined her, and peered down at the creatures gathered near the edge of the metal. Their skin looked pebbled, and was greenish underneath several layers of dirt. They must have been burrowing critters.
“They look more like featherless green birds to me,” he admitted, “I’m not the best biologist there is... maybe the ship’s computer will tell us.”
He interacted with the science officer’s terminal located on the side of the bridge, which started to make beeping noises. A smaller screen focused in on the creatures and took a snapshot. It then proceeded to search through a database of some sort until it found the closest match.
“What are they, then? Are we on Earth?” Lyra asked. The Doctor stared at the readout and nodded.
Lyra looked at the answer the computer had come up with, and her jaw dropped.
“Orodromeus,” she read, “a burrowing ornithopod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous era. Late Cretaceous?”
“That’s one hell of an unlikely surprise.” the Doctor said, “This whole ship’s gone back in time.”
“So?” Derpy interjected, “The TARDIS does it all the time.”
“Yeah, but the TARDIS is built for time travel- it’s capable of time travel while this ship isn’t. Shouldn’t, in fact. Perhaps it was an anomaly of some sort... I’d need to talk to the officers and find out what was going on.”
The small Dragon was the first to come round, and though he appeared dazed he was easy to communicate with. Derpy sat by his side and talked while the Doctor and Lyra worked on waking up the rest of the crewmembers. Her task was to ask questions and jog his memory.
“What’s your position on this ship, Cinder?” she asked of the dragon.
“Communications, I think,” he replied, “I’m a royal dragon- we can communicate with the princesses in Canterlot even when separated by light years.”
“Why’re you so small?” asked Derpy, “Not to be rude... but I thought dragons were big and scary. Are you a baby?”
“Not exactly....” Cinder replied, “I’m only 107, so that’s pretty young for a dragon. No, we stay little unless our greed gets the better of us in general. I’m starting to remember what happened, now.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes!” he said, “It was terrible! We defeated some pirate raiders, but when our ship got too close to the sun’s gravity it started getting sucked in.”
“Which is bad I assume?” Derpy asked. She imagined so; getting too close to the sun would probably melt she ship down or burn it to a crisp she reasoned.
“Yes, very,” continued Cinder, “We couldn’t escape on sublight speed, so we used FTL.”
“FTL?”
“Faster than Light,” explained the dragon, “You can’t travel faster than the speed of light in normal space, so it sort of ‘warps’ the space around you to shift the ship into a kind of super-space where your ship can travel at speeds in excess of lightspeed with ease. Only the problem is we were still stuck.”
The Doctor’s head shot up at that. He had been listening to Cinder’s words carefully, and that last part seemed very troubling. He was an expert in that sort of model of space/time, and while their concepts weren’t entirely accurate he was starting to get an idea of how this had come to pass.
Captain Starstruck blinked, and sat herself up on her side. Her mind was throbbing, and she felt dizzy. An accented voice called out to her and advised her to rest her head while she came to, and she complied.
While she was recovering, she overheard parts of the conversations between ponies. They were back in time now, apparently, and according to the one called the “Doctor” the ship had accidentally created some kind of wound in space/time, and had wound up in the Late Cretaceous.
Her head really began to ache, and she closed her eyes again.
Clover and Brimstone were quicker to recover. Both young and athletically built, they were as quick to come to their senses as Derpy and Lyra had been. The stallion who they had seen earlier as the first officer was still unconscious, and attempts to wake him were so far unsuccessful. Brimstone was therefore the highest ranking officer until the captain had recovered, and she took matters into her own hooves.
“It’s a real coincidence, isn’t it?” she said, pacing in front of the viewscreen, “The moment you three show up, we start having pirates attacking us out of nowhere, and then when we get thrown off course toward the sun? Why are you here, Doctor? Are you a spy/!"
"Oi!" the Doctor replied, "I've got nothing to do with any of that, it was pure happenstance. I'll have you know that-"
"The Doctor's just here because-" Derpy began to angrily interject, but she was cut off by Captain Starstruck as she sat up.
"Alright everypony, that's enough!" the Captain said, "I've heard enough for now."
She faced the Doctor first, addressing him.
"Doctor, I heard you mention time travel. Can you please explain?"
The Doctor paused, backing up from the Captain and licking his lips. He had decided that at this point, keeping who he was and how he travelled a secret was not an option. Them being here in this ship had just ruined the proper timeline: if the Poet didn't launch and everypony on board vanished, one of Equestria's finest pioneers of space exploration and one of her best space captains would never have existed. While not a fixed point in time, he did not want to see all of that dashed to bits. He had to confess a little of who he was.
"I'm a pony called 'The Doctor'," he began. Brimstone interrupted him this time, pressing him with questions.
"Doctor? Doctor Who?"
"No," he continued, "It's just 'the Doctor'. That's all. I've got a time machine in the shape of a blue police box from 20th century Canterlot stored somewhere inside this ship- it travels in time and space. These two ponies are my companions Derpy Hooves and Lyra Heartstrings. We've come all the way from 1999 to see what their future looks like, and we honestly didn't mean to interfere with anything here."
Starstruck blinked, and slowly lowered herself into the Captain's chair.
"As for where we are, I can't pinpoint exactly. I believe we are several million years in your planet's past due to a temporal imbalance. Think of it like ripping a hole in something, and then being dragged into that hole and pushed out the other side. This ship here was dragged into a time vortex completely by accident and wound up here, but it's not the same kind of time vortex like the kind I use. The ship went through something more like an time wound if you will..."
"How are we supposed to get back?" she asked. It was now the Doctor's turn to pace. He had an idea starting to form in his mind, but in order to make any kind of accurate guess as to their best options he would need to use the TARDIS' scanners.
"I need to get to my ship," he replied, "and to do so I'm going to need you to open the blast doors in that hallway that was torn open in the pirate attack. In the meantime, I would try to contact your head engineer and figure out how quickly you can get the ship started again. She needs to be space-worthy for any of this to work."
Starstruck nodded. She understood now that the situation was serious: if they weren't careful or weren't able to get the Poet up into space then everypony was trapped here in the past for the rest of their lives.
Lyra and the Doctor neared the corridor where they had awoken just after the ship had crashed on Earth; the same corridor that had been struck by a torpedo during the space battle with pirates. The blast doors had shifted aside to reveal a scorched hallway and a torn-open hull. Parts of the jungle were exposed, including tree branches that threatened to join them inside the ship.
“This is the Doctor, Lyra and I are through,” he said over the intercom, “Have you reached the engineer yet?” The line crackled for a moment, and then another voice spoke. Cortland’s tinny yell made the Doctor recoil in surprise.
“You bet your wooden outhouse I’m up,” she said, “and while I’m at it, let me just say that this place is trashed down here. The gemstones are worthless now- just a hunk of melted garbage. The ship’s got a smashed hull all over the place, and without those gemstones we can’t even fly, say nothing about keeping this wreck from comin’ apart at the seams!”
“We’ll clear that hurdle when we come to it,” the Captains voice replied, “Doctor, are you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m about to leave.”
“Clover indicates that there are several life form readings in your vicinity, be advised. Non-equine by the looks of them,” the Captain said.
“Fantastic,” grumbled the Doctor.
****
Derpy looked over the form of the ship’s first officer as he began to come to, and his expression quickly shifted from one of consternation. He sat himself up, glancing around angrily.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded, “What’s she doing out of the brig?!”
“Commander Moonshine,” Brimstone said, “I think we owe these ponies an apology for stashing them in the brig. As it is, we’re stuck back in time. Cortland’s assessing the situation with Lt. Cinder and determining what needs repair, the Captain and Clover are both talking to the Doctor via intercom, and Derpy and I are tending to you.”
“B-back in time?”
“Please just try to breathe, and remain cam,” Derpy advised, “We’ll explain later.”
****
Lyra and the Doctor slowly trotted down a darker corridor. Somehow the damage must’ve knocked out the lighting circuitry, as the only lights came from the occasional space porthole and partially-working panels. The two made their way to a sign that read “to hangar” with an arrow pointing right down a branched hall. The TARDIS was somewhere to the left according to the Doctor.
They stopped. Lyra heard a noise down the corridor they were to traverse, and the Doctor could make out darkish forms moving about in the shadows.
“What is it?” whispered Lyra, “is it a dinosaur?”
“Probably,” the Doctor replied. He withdrew the sonic screwdriver, and held the tip up to spread light into the corridor and allow them to see clearly.
As soon as he turned the device on, a terrified shriek erupted from the startled creature within. For only seconds he and Lyra caught a glimpse of a blueish gray biped dinosaur with a thick bony forehead. The creature was about as tall standing on it’s hind legs as either pony. It howled at them again, and bowed its head.
“Lyra, that thing’s gonna charge us,” the Doctor cried, “Run!”
The Doctor and Lyra galloped down the adjacent hall, pursued by the dinosaur. It had it's head lowered, bony plate trained on Lyra's hindquarters. The Doctor and Lyra were losing hallway to run down, and had to skid around a sharp corner to avoid crashing into a panel. They took off running down the next corridor, and the dinosaur smashed his head into the panel. He had narrowly missed Lyra, and fell onto the floor.
The creature came to his senses, picked himself up off the ground, and snorted at the retreating ponies. Lyra and the Doctor were far enough away by now for it to disengage the chase, and it returned to the hallway it previously occupied. The Doctor and Lyra watched from a safe distance, catching their breaths.
"I'm.... I'm glad he wasn't too..... hungry," Lyra gasped between breaths. The Doctor seemed confused.
"Hungry?" he said, "No... that was a plant eater Lyra. Pachycephalosaurus, if my history is correct."
"If it didn't want to eat us," reasoned Lyra, "then it wouldn't have tried chasing us down, right?"
"No," replied the Doctor, "We probably just startled him, and it tried headbutting you in self defense. Fantastic little dinosaur though, it's skull is like a built-in battering ram."
"Real, living dinosaurs," Lyra said to herself, "if only the club could see this now. If I told any of them when I got back what I've seen they'd never believe me, you know. Most ponies think time travel is totally impossible."
"Good," the Doctor said, "I'm not too fond of amateur time travelers myself, they've got no idea what they're doing."
"What about Derpy and me?"
"That's different," he said, "You're my assistants, and I'm an expert in temporal science. Say, you know what I just noticed: this corridor branches off to the same platform where I left the TARDIS. This is fantastic!"
"Better than getting headbutted by a big lizard."
****
"Doctor, can you hear me?" Derpy said over the intercom. With Moonshine the ship's first officer up and alert, she had joined the Captain and the science officer in listening in on the Doctor's progress.
"Yeah," a voice came through, "Just had a bit of a run-in with a dino down here- they've started crawling in through that hull breach. It went right after Lyra, but she's unhurt. We're lucky it was a plant eater this time."
"Where are you now?" the Captain interjected, "We're showing you just above a ladder system that goes down to the deck containing this TARDIS of yours."
"Yeah," he replied, "I was gonna go down first and have Lyra follow above me. There's not anything nasty waiting for me down there, right? Girl with the scanner?"
Clover frowned. She was receiving a very large patch of static on her intra-ship scanner right where the Doctor's TARDIS was supposed to be. It made lifeform, hull integrity, and hazardous material scans impossible.
"I can't see anything," she admitted, "Maybe your ship's making interference to block my signal."
The Doctor was silent for a moment.
"I'm going down now," he said, "I'll make radio contact once we've both reached the lower deck."
The Doctor's signal faded out, and as they waited to hear from him the side doors to the bridge whooshed open. A reddish coated mare stepped out, and was not dressed in her standard uniform unlike the other ship officers. This was the ship's engineer, Commander Cortland.
"I've checked over just about everything I can down there," she reported to Starstruck and Moonshine, "The place is a total mess all over. You're gonna have a hard time flying her anywhere without gemstones, and I doubt she's got enough left in her to make it to space. Gimme a day and a half and I can patch up hull damage and some other stuff to make her safe to take into the vacuum, but you've got to come up with a way of getting new gemstones."
Starstruck sighed, and buried her hooves in her face. Noticing his superior officer’s frustration, Moonshine stepped in to respond to the engineer.
“Thank you, Commander,” he said, “We’ll have to come up with a strategy to find more gemstones. In the meantime, have you checked on the status of the life support systems and food reconstitution?”
“Both down at the moment,” Cortland replied, “The life support system’s one of the first things on my list, actually. We’re lucky we’re on Earth- if we were in this state but in space we’d be deader than a dogbone. The food stuff is down, and I’d have to get supplies from the space station to fix that, unfortunately.”
“We’ll have to find food here,” Moonshine said, “We’re going to need two scouting parties, one to find gemstone deposits and another to gather food. If what the Doctor says is true and his ship can travel in space and time, neither task should be incredibly difficult.”
“Yes,” the Captain agreed, seating herself in the Captain’s chair, “He could just go forward to our time, get a spare gemstone core, and bring it back in time to us.”
The radio crackled, and the Doctor’s voice came through.
“It’s not going to be that easy,” he said.
“Doctor!” Derpy responded, “Where are you now, what’s down there?”
“Well, I’ve discovered a second hull breach,” he said, “And it looks like part of the Poet is stuck in the water. I’d wager we crashed on the edge of a deep lake, as this smells like fresh water. This end of the ship is dipping into the lake a bit, and your end is all the way up on the edge of the forest.”
“Good to know,” Starstruck said, “What about your spaceship?”
“Well,” the Doctor’s voice admitted, “There’s where we have a bit of a problem. The hull breach down here is pretty large, and since I can’t seem to find the TARDIS right where it’s supposed to be I’m assuming it fell out at some point, either before we crashed or during the crash itself.”
“So it’s at the bottom of a lake?” Derpy asked.
“That’s my guess. I’m on my way back up there now.”
A small improvised device bounced off Lyra’s chest while she walked, but made no other noise. She wore it around her neck like a necklace, similar to the TARDIS key beneath it. She followed Clover and Brimstone, who in turn were following Commander Moonshine. Their task was to gather food for the group before night fell. It was currently sunset.
The Doctor had theorized that the wound they had created in space-time still existed somewhere between the Earth and the Sun, and like any other wound it would take time to heal completely. His plan was to fly the Poet back to that spot, use the TARDIS to aggravate the temporal anomaly, and then fly the Poet back home to the moment it had left.
The ship’s Captain had agreed to the idea, and teams were formed. One team, the team she was on, had been tasked with obtaining food. The device Lyra wore was supposed to detect traces of a certain chemical compound found in the type of gemstones Cortland needed to fix the ship. She wore a bag over her back to collect any they could find.
Derpy and the Doctor were both searching the jungle on the other side of the lake in an attempt to find the TARDIS. They hoped that they would be lucky and find it in the woods rather than be forced to conduct a dive.
The other three members of the Poet crew were all working on ship repairs. The Doctor had estimated that the time wound would take 27 hours to heal entirely, meaning the ship had to be ready to go by the following afternoon or they were stuck. Everypony working on things was under a lot of pressure as they raced against the clock to get ready.
Lyra gasped, and all of the ponies in her group froze. They had heard the sound too: something large was moving through the forest towards them. The ground began to quake beneath their hooves, and tree limbs were being trampled and snapped. A grumbling sound was heard to their left, and a gigantic body broke through the underbrush.
Everypony dove for cover to get out of the way of the dinosaur, hiding behind bushes and large boulders in the woods to avoid being seen or stepped on by accident.
The dinosaur had pebbled skin that looked brownish on its underbelly and gradually turned to a blueish gray on its back. The creature’s head was adorned with two large horns jutting out above the eyes, and a third on the nose above a beaked jaw. The back of its head formed a large frill that seemed to divot inwards at the highest point, and in the very center of this divot was another pair of hooked horns.
The dinosaur seemed to be in some kind of hurry. Once it had burst into the area previously occupied by the ponies they could see that it was injured; a fresh laceration extended from one of its hips to the top of its back.
“Looks like a Triceratops!” Lyra whispered excitedly. She was ducked behind a large log along with Clover, who despite the adrenaline pumping found it in herself to correct Lyra’s error.
“It’s got two more horns on it’s frill, that makes it a Pentaceratops actually,” she whispered, “It looks hurt.”
The Pentaceratops stopped itself, and turned around to face in the direction it had come. Several smaller creatures were in pursuit, snarling to each other. These were lightweight, bipedal, and about as tall as a pony. Their pebbled skin was brownish orange on top of their bodies, and faded as it went down to a whitish color on their underbellies. Each creature possessed rows of sharp teeth inside their snouts, and each clawed foot was outfitted with a retractable claw that was bigger than all of the others.
"Velociraptors!" Lyra whispered, stunned. She had for a long time considered dinosaurs to be one of the coolest things ever and had always wanted to see one up close, but now that she was faced with a wild pack of dromaeosaurs she was reconsidering that wish. They were downright terrifying.
"Too tall for Velociraptors, and wrong continent," Clover once again corrected her, "My guess is Deinonychus."
The Deinonychus pack lashed out at the lost Pentaceratops they had chased into the woods. Separated from its herd, this lone dinosaur stood little chance against five to six pack hunters armed with killer claws. The horned dinosaur swung its head at the nearest Deinonychus, but the raptor ducked out of the way to avoid the blow. A second leaped up at the face of the Pentaceratops, claws poised to kill. It swung its head again, bashing the raptor's side and sending it sprawling onto the ground.
Sensing that it couldn't frighten the Deinonychus pack off, the Pentaceratops turned tail and ran again, kicking up dirt in an attempt to confuse the pack hunters. They took chase after it unimpaired and disappeared into the underbrush.
"Stay on the lookout for any more dinosaurs," Moonshine warned, standing up from his position behind a cluster of tall ferns, "Clover, I'd like you to take a look at this species of fern to see if it's edible. Lyra, have you found anything on the gemstone detector?"
Lyra glanced at the device. It contained a small screen that had been cannibalized from the item selector on a food processor inside the Poet. The device the Doctor had thrown together appeared to be working and indicated a gemstone deposit to the northwest, near the base of a large mountain.
"Northwest," she said, "It's showing a yellowish blob on this screen."
Moonshine shook his head.
"Yellow's no good," he said, "That means they're relatively weak, and wouldn't last us very long. We're looking for something that's dense and packed with energy. It'll show up as being a bright red on that, so keep your eyes peeled."
****
Derpy flew above the Doctor, rising above the trees to try to locate the TARDIS from above. So far she had seen nothing but the tops of conifers and a rocky cliff face, and a river that ran on the edge of a clearing and towards the freshwater lake. The clearing was full of dinosaurs, including a group of Pentaceratops and a flock of the ostrich-like Ornithomimus. There was no sign of the blue police box.
Derpy swooped back down toward the Doctor and landed at his side with nothing new to report.
“Doctor,” she said, “Couldn’t you do the thing you did with the keys like back in Ponyville?”
The Doctor nodded. He hadn’t thought of doing that, and quickly set about activating the homing sequence of the key strung around Derpy’s neck.
As before, it started pulsating slowly a first.
“Stand over there,” the Doctor said, pointing to a spot deeper into the forest. Derpy obliged, and trotted over in that direction until she could barely see the Doctor.
The Doctor dug at the ground with his hooves, making an “X” in the pine needles on the forest floor. He then followed after Derpy, bounding over a large vertebrae bone lying in his path. Upon reaching his companion, the Doctor examined the pattern of the key’s pulsating.
It was slower.
That confirmed what he had feared: the TARDIS was most likely at the bottom of the lake.
“What’s the matter, Doctor?” asked Derpy, “It’s in the lake?”
“Yeah,” he replied, “I was kinda hoping to avoid diving down there.”
“You pulled that thing out of the belly of some land eel, what’s the worst that can happen in the water?” she asked, “It’s not even salt water, so no sea monsters, right?”
The Doctor shook his head. The water was very deep, and the lake was large enough to host either a significant group of small predatory creatures or one very large predator.
He made eye contact with Derpy, and turned his concerned frown into one of his usual grins.
“C’mon, we’ve got to get back to the Poet for tonight. It’s starting to get dark.”
Something was moving through the trees not far from them. With each step, the ground shook. It was massive, and it was heading toward them. The Doctor raised his head, narrowing his eyes to see into the distance, discerning a large bipedal creature walking toward them in the shadows.
“Not again,” he groaned.
“What is it?!” cried Derpy, backing up slowly.
“Tyrannosaur,” he said, “We have to go.... now!”
The two ponies raced away from the predator’s shadow, weaving through the tall trunks of conifer trees and over scattered vertebrae bones lying on the forest floor. The tyrannosaur looked identical to the one that had pursued them in Starswirl’s time; mottled red skin with black patches and a squarish face lined with rows of long teeth.
The dinosaur hadn’t initially noticed the ponies, and had been lumbering toward the edge of the forest intent on watching and waiting for more of the night grazers to come out, but the two equines caught her attention.
The footsteps following behind the Doctor and Derpy grew louder and quicker. The dinosaur was shifting its course, fixated on these strange creatures. An angry bellow erupted from its lungs, slicing through the darkened woods and drowning out Derpy’s terrified scream.
They came to a rocky hillside with a sharp incline, leading down roughly a quarter-mile. The Doctor skidded to a stop and looked over the edge to the ground far below, just as Derpy burst from the woods behind him. Another angered scream from the female rex sounded, and birds flew up from the swaying trunks of the trees displaced by the huge creature.
“Over the edge, move!” the Doctor cried, jumping off the last bit of earth hanging over the slope and tumbling down the rocky hillside. Derpy followed, landing in a heap of rock and mud and sliding. The tyrannosaur looked out over the edge at them both, stopping herself from going any farther in fear of falling. She roared at the tumbling equines a number of times, warning them to stay away before retreating back into the dark grove of conifer trees.
Derpy and the Doctor slid to a halt far below on a soft ring of soil that cushioned their fall. The pair sat for a moment, wheezing and attempting to catch their breath. Derpy had gotten her lower leg cut on a sharp rock, and it was starting to bleed. The Doctor reached into his jacket in search of a bandage or something to help her, but instead produced a blueish bandana. He tied this around Derpy’s leg just over the cut, and knotted it in the back so that it would remain on her leg with a reasonable amount of pressure still applied.
“You ok?” he asked, “Any other injuries? Anything broken?”
“No,” Derpy wheezed. She coughed, and turned her head to the side to spit out a buildup of saliva. They sat like this for a few minutes, catching their breaths before trying to talk any more.
“So...” Derpy said, “this is the second time travelling with you that a T. Rex has tried to eat me.”
“Eat you?” the Doctor replied, raising an eyebrow, “What makes you say that?”
“Didn’t you see it?” she cried, “The thing was right on our tails ready to gobble us both up!”
“No,” the Doctor said, “That wasn’t hunting behavior- neither was the one we saw in Starswirl’s time. Did you hear her roaring just now?”
“Yeah,” Derpy admitted, “It was louder than a train.”
“Exactly,” he said, “That kind of behavior- and I suppose the fact that she gave up when we were rolling down that steep hill back there- makes me think she was only trying to scare us off.”
“Well, she succeeded in that,” Derpy said, “I’m frightened out of my wits!”
A deep, resonating cry sounded from just over the large ring of mud, and a colossal head peered down at the time lord and the pony from above. It sniffed the air, and nuzzled the Doctor’s jacket with a large snout. The dinosaur's head was a light blueish green, and its mouth flat and bill-like. A small crest adorned it's face between a set of dull eyes that stared at the Doctor and Derpy stupidly
Derpy gasped and fell backwards away from the large face. She could see the bulk of the body stretched out behind it, a massive creature compared to them.
"Get away!" she wailed, causing the dinosaur to rear its head back and trumpet in alarm. The Doctor clapped a hoof to Derpy's mouth, silencing the frightened pony and keeping the pair of them huddled together. They kept still as no less than twelve separate heads rose up over different mounds of dirt, peering about cautiously.
"They're not gonna eat you," the Doctor whispered, trying to calm Derpy, "See those mounds? I think they're caring for eggs or infants. Watch the adult's behavior." He let his hoof drop from Derpy's mouth, and kept it hung over her shoulder. The two sat on their hindquarters rather than sideways and watched the dinosaurs get back to work.
The dinosaur that had sounded the initial alarm lowered her head after a few minutes, signaling that the coast was clear. Other mothers continued working, grabbing tufts of plants and ferns growing up between the mounds and chewing them up. A dinosaur that did this then ducked her head down into the mound, and let out a gurgling sound. Small squeaks came from that same mound, and Derpy caught sight of a small tail flopping up over the edge.
"They're feeding their babies plants," she murmured, "so that means they're plant eaters, right?"
"Yep," the Doctor said, "some kind of Hadrosaur by the looks of them. My guess is this is a herd of nesting Maiasaurs, the 'good mother lizard'."
Using the cover of darkness, the two slipped unseen into the edge of the woods again, heading back toward the wreck of the Poet.
In the brisk morning’s light, the two groups had split up once more. Lyra was once again accompanying a portion of the Poet’s crew, but this time their focus wasn’t on food. They needed to find the gemstones.
Fog rolled over a field of grass that grew up taller than any of the ponies themselves. The group marched through the long grass in separate paths; Clover had suggested that they create different trails in case an animal decided to follow them. Needless to say, this made Lyra uncomfortable.
Each pony was using some kind of scanner to attempt to find geologic deposits of gemstones. They weren’t as precise as the one the Doctor had constructed, but they were a start.
The groups had swelled in number since the previous night. Brimstone, Clover, and Moonshine had been joined by Cortland. Elsewhere, the Doctor and Derpy were assisted by Starstruck herself and Cinder the dragon. The repairs on the Poet were as complete as they could be given their resources.
Cortland was a reddish pony, and her country dialect stuck out more in person than it had over the speakers. She reminded Lyra of the Apple family from Ponyville, and so she felt that she had to ask.
“Excuse me,” Lyra asked, “are you a member of the apple family? Out of Ponyville?”
“Yup,” Cortland replied, stepping out of the long grass to make eye contact with Lyra by the forest’s edge. Others were still trickling out of the field.
“Would you happen to know the name of your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents by any chance?” Lyra followed up. She only received a blank stare in return.
Each pony took out their instruments, and started making adjustments in an attempt to zero in on gemstone deposits. They sat quietly for a few minutes working with their gear before Brimstone spoke.
“I’ve got mine set to look for caverns, and it looks like there’s a system of caves about four miles toward the mountain,” she said.
“Is anypony detecting valuable gemstone deposits coming from that area?”
“It’s out of range,” Cortland replied, “If y’ask me, I think we oughta go in that direction and get a better reading sir. It’d make sense for the stones to be in that kind of place.”
“Excellent,” Moonshine said, “Keep together, and keep monitoring those devices.”
****
The Doctor sat on a stump by the edge of the water, fitting a wetsuit on. Derpy had thought he looked weird without his leather coat when he had taken it off to get changed, and in a bright orange wetsuit he looked totally unnatural.
She, Moonshine, and Cinder were already suited up and ready to go. The Doctor was the last one, and once he had prepared himself he strapped a rebreather tank over his back and waded into the waters with them. He fit a mask over his face, and dunked his head in the water for good measure.
“Everything working?” Starstruck asked.
“It’s just fantastic,” he assured the Captain, “Now, the TARDIS resembles a blue box, a police box from the 20th century. They had them all over Canterlot and some of the bigger cities. Anyways, it’s not actually made of wood, so it’ll be sunk down to the very bottom of this lake. Do these suits have lights?”
“It’s built into the mask,” said Cinder the dragon, “Haven’t you ever used a suit like this before?”
“No,” the Doctor said, “How do I turn it on?”
“You say ‘lights please’ into the comm unit built into the mask,” Cinder explained, “We can also talk to each other that way. I’ve set us up on a short range radio network.”
“Well, it’s not like anypony else is gonna eavesdrop,” Derpy said. She waded in farther up to her chin, and ducked her head under the water. The others soon followed. The group went in deeper until they were over their heads, and then started to descend into the depths of the lake.
Aquatic plant life wavered in the cool wetness. A small fish zipped in an out of the tangles of seaweed sticking out of an underwater rock cliff, nipping at even smaller organisms trying to hide in the plants.
Derpy's key started pulsating again, growing faster the deeper they descended.
"This lake feeds out into a river, which must go all the way to the ocean," the captain noted, using the radio to communicate, "and that means we're looking at some saltwater species that have adapted to freshwater."
"I'd say so, yeah," the Doctor replied through his radio, "This is just a single corner of the lake. From what I can tell, it bends around like a sickle to the west and stretches out for at least another fifteen to twenty miles."
"Is that significant?" Starstruck asked.
"Yeah," replied the Doctor, "A lake that big can support an extensive ecosystem, and some sizeable creatures. Big pond, bigger fish."
"Like dinosaurs?" asked a voice. The Doctor couldn't tell if it was Derpy asking the question or Cinder the dragon.
"No, more like 'marine reptiles'. Think of Ichthyosaurs, though it's a little too late in the game for many of those to be around."
A very large shadow loomed in the distance, gliding through the water and disappearing deeper into the darkness.
****
Cortland was the first to reach the edge of the rocky hillside on the edge of the mountain. The others were still catching up one at a time due to the strenuous conditions of the trip. They had climbed up a steep incline with little more than loose gravel to plant a hoof on to get this far, and a muddy streambed lay between them and the gemstone deposits still.
Lyra’s device was showing signs of the kind of gemstones they needed, making the tiresome trip worth it. Moonshine, Clover, Brimstone and Lyra made it up the rest of the hill and paused for a breath, and a drink from the canteen.
Lyra tried her own canteen, and discovered it to be empty. She looked around at the others finishing theirs off, feeling a dryness in her throat. Moonshine noticed that she was without water, and beckoned for Lyra to follow him toward the stream.
“You see, these canteens are smart,” he said, “It’s not just there to fill up with water, it actually can purify and sterilize just about anything. It’s designed to make the nastiest of swamp water safe to drink in a survival setting.”
He waded into the stream, and motioned for Lyra to toss him the canteen she had been given. She complied, and in a moment the commander had her canteen filled with water from the gurgling brook. He pressed something on the side of it, and the container vibrated for about five seconds before becoming still again.
“There we go, all clean,” he said.
Moonshine then went to wade back out of the muddy stream when something caught his eye, making him freeze in place. Lyra felt the ground shake, and the sun’s rays were quickly stifled around her, and she was cast in the shadow of something much larger than herself.
The creature stood as still as the pony herself, sniffing the air. Lyra couldn’t help but notice the odor of the creature, a foul smell worse than the likes of rotting garbage. The creature hadn’t noticed her and continued to walk past after a moment, approaching the stream’s edge.
It hadn’t seen Moonshine, either.
The creature was gargantuan in size; to Lyra it looked like a moving building with pebbled red skin. The reason it stank was now clear to her: this was a carnivore. Rows of long teeth jutted out from the top of the dinosaurs mouth and over the closed lower jaw.
It looked like a Tyrannosaur to her, and she found herself trying to imagine the skeletons she had seen in museums and the pictures scribbled in old books juxtaposed upon the creature before her. She couldn’t focus on it enough; no amount of romantic nostalgia about the dinosaurs could lessen the terror she felt. This thing was a killing machine, and one false move could make herself its next meal.
The great head of the T. Rex dipped down to lap at the stream’s water, meters away from the frozen Moonshine. He, like Lyra, found himself unable to move an inch for fear of being seen.
The most inopportune thing happened to Moonshine at that moment. A snapping turtle that had been lurking in the waters of the stream near to him decided to lash out in an attempt to defend itself against his intruding hooves. The sudden pain of the creature biting into his leg cause Moonshine to cry out.
The Tyrannosaur’s head snapped up, and it roared at the creature it had been startled by. Out of reflex, Moonshine did the only thing he could and took off running down the streambed, dragging a snapping turtle on the back of his left hind leg.
The Tyrannosaur gave chase, following Moonshine after he ducked under a low-hanging branch. The dinosaur broke through it, and the next thing all of the ponies watching saw was the giant head sweeping down as a gargled scream erupted from Moonshine’s lungs.
Looking both ways furtively, the Rex bent over its kill. It sniffed at the air, trying to seek out other predators that might try to steal its prize. It caught the scent of the ponies, and its head snapped up to stare right at them.
The beast snarled.
“Everypony, run!” shouted Brimstone’s voice.
The remaining group bolted for the nearest cover they could find- a crop of boulders at the base of the rock wall. Lyra sloshed through the stream and launched herself over one of the large rocks, ducking behind it to avoid being seen by the dinosaur.
Clover was at her side, and the two watched over the top of a large boulder while the Tyrannosaurus lumbered nearer. It paused every few steps to sniff at the air, and growled at them.
“She’s trying to scare us off, so we won’t steal her kill,” Clover whispered, “Look, she’s retreating.”
The T. Rex went back, scooped up the limp form that was once Moonshine, and stomped back into the treeline.
Lyra let out a breath. She felt sick to her stomach, and not from the dinosaur’s stench. Brimstone motioned for them all to regroup against the rock wall, near a dark opening to a system of caves.
“Everypony else unhurt?” she asked. The response was mixed. Nopony was seriously injured, but all were visibly shaken.
“Commander Moonshine is dead, that leaves me in charge of this group,” she continued, “I wish I could say something fitting, but I’m really at a loss for words. For now, we must accomplish the task at hoof.”
The ponies continued into the caves.
****
Derpy could tell that something was stalking them. Every time she looked over her shoulder, something disappeared back into the shadows too quickly for her to get a good look. It didn’t want to be seen by them.
“Doctor,” she said over the comm, “Do you see that?”
“Mosasaur,” he answered, “It’s following us.”
“Sweet Celestia.....” Starstruck whispered, “What’s a Mosasaur?”
“No time,” the Doctor replied, suddenly speaking very deliberately, “All of you, slowly lower yourself and find the edge of the rocks. Get down into a crevice, now.”
“What’s going on?”
“Quickly, but without any sudden movement....”
The attack came quite suddenly. One of the divers was struck by a large animal swooping in out of the darkness, caught in a snout full of teeth. The Mosasaur stole away with its prey as quickly as it had appeared, disappearing into the darkness and leaving nothing but a trail of bubbles and screaming over the comm system.
Derpy found herself backed up against something slimy on the bottom. She turned to find that she had backed herself up against a rock pillar jutting out from the lakebed, which was covered in algae and slime. She dove down deeper, trying to make out features on the bottom of the lake from the darkness.
The Mosasaur wheeled about, catching her scent.
Derpy sensed the lake monster gliding toward her, preparing to strike her with it’s jaws and carry her away. Just a few more strokes downward and she would be able to hide in the rocks on the bottom.
She saw it! A blue box marked with “Police Public Call Box” above the windows! Derpy frantically grasped for the key, which was tucked inside the neck of her wetsuit. The Mosasaur sat above her, very still and clutching a struggling Cinder in its jaws
Extricating the key, Derpy fumbled to try to fit it into the TARDIS doors, just as the Mosasaur sprung into action. The doors opened, and Derpy was sucked inside with a rush of lakewater!
The doors slammed shut, and a loud thump signalled the Mosasaur striking them. The creature frustratedly struck at the sides, screeching through the water and sending bubbles floating skyward.
Derpy sat on the grated floor, wet and weary. She went to peel the wetsuit off, tossing it in a heap on the floor. Her leg muscles ached, and all she could do was lay on the floor and breath.
The thumping continued against the door. A tinny voice from inside the discarded wetsuit heap cried out to her.
“Open the doors!”
Derpy stood up, and reached for the door’s handles to open them. As soon as she pulled, more lakewater rushed in and three more forms flopped onto the grated floor. Something below did not like the water, and crackled angrily.
The doors shut, but the thumping continued. The Mosasaur had lost another meal, and it was frustrated.
The Doctor removed his wetsuit and was breathing just as heavily as Derpy had been. His maroon jumper was soaked through, and he shook himself off like a dog.
Starstruck and Cinder had made it in as well. Cinder had a nasty-looking leg which had been torn open by the Mosasaur attack. Captain Starstruck was busy tending to her crewmember’s injury.
The Doctor circled the TARDIS console, grinning ear to ear again.
“That was Fantastic!” he cried, “I feel so alive! Full of energy and adrenaline!”
“Do you have any medkits?”
“What?”
“Medkits,” repeated Starstruck, “Cinder’s hurt.”
****
A snarling raptor snapped at Lyra’s hoof, but she pulled it away with a scream of terror.
The group was crawling faster through a system of rocky caves in an attempt to lose the pack of flesh-eating dinosaurs in pursuit.
The Deinonychus had moved in after them not long after the Tyrannosaur’s departure, having picked up their scent. Perhaps the pack had been carefully trailing them for some time.
Brimstone was the last one to ascend a vertical crack in the rock just wide enough to fit a pony. One of the dinosaurs squatted down on its knees for a moment and sprang up at her, jaws snapping less than centimeters away from her back legs.
With a grunt, she used her upper-body strength to pull her own weight up the rest of the way, and onto the ledge with the rest of the ponies.
They were stuck up there with nowhere to go, but at least the Deinonychus were at bay. The dinosaurs didn’t seem to mind waiting. They paced back and forth near the mouth of the cave, calling to each other and hissing.
The hissing grew more and more irritated, and dirt began to fly about as if caught up in the breeze. A raptor cried out to the others, and started backing away from the cave entrance. Other followed suit, and a loud groaning filled the cavern.
A blue light flashed, and a box faded into view from nothingness. The Deinonychus snarled and scratched at the back of the newly-rematerialized TARDIS now blocking the cave entrance, but were unable to get past it.
The Doctor bounded out first, and the inside of the TARDIS cast a blueish light on the rock walls of the caves. Derpy exited next along with Starstruck and Cinder, whose leg was done up in bandages.
“What’re you all doing up there for?” the Doctor said, smiling up at the group of ponies, “Found you lot on the scanners.”
One by one, each pony descended the makeshift hole in the ceiling they had been hiding in. Lyra threw herself at the Doctor and hugged him tightly.
“We were being hunted by those Velociraptors out there,” she said.
“You mean Deinonychus,” corrected Clover, “That ship of yours is what’s keeping them out.”
“Fantastic,” the Doctor said, “And the gemstones?”
“We weren’t able to get to work because of the dinosaurs,” Brimstone replied, “but now that we’re somewhat safe, we can cut them out with hoof tools. There’s a deposit of the kind we’re looking for just in a bit more.”
Starstruck looked at each of her crewmembers in turn, noticing who was missing. Without drawing much attention, she pulled Brimstone aside while the others got to work extracting the gemstones.
“Where’s Moonshine?” she asked.
“He didn’t make it,” answered the security officer calmly, “We... we were by the streambed stopping to refill water canisters, and a Tyrannosaurus came to visit. It got him first, but the rest of us escaped.”
Starstruck’s lower jaw tightened.
“Very well,” she said, “We will have to move on. Is there any chance of us recovering a body?”
“No,” Brimstone said, “The.... uh... the Tyrannosaur finished her meal, to put it bluntly.”
Starstruck sighed. She hadn’t lost a crewmember before, and this was her first officer they were talking about. They had both worked together in the Star Navy for years, and he was one of the ponies she had trusted the most.
His loss hurt her, but now was not the time for mourning.
Elsewhere, Cortland held aloft a chunk of clear crystalline gemstone, grinning from ear to ear. This was the exact type she needed to get the Poet’s engines turning again. They would be going home after all.
The ponies filed into the TARDIS at this point, and most of the Poet’s crew marveled at the vessel, and its interior dimensions and the advanced technology. Lyra leaned against the console, repeating the spiel that the Doctor often recited to newcomers while the Doctor left the box one more time to see where Derpy was.
She was staring at the rock wall, jaw open.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, looking into her eyes, “What are you staring at?”
“Look for yourself!” she cried, pointing at the stone wall. The Doctor followed her hoof, and his eyes widened.
Two words were scrawled on the stone wall in very large black letters seemingly burned into the rock.
BAD WOLF
“This is no coincidence,” the Doctor muttered.
“Bad Wolf.... I’ve heard those words before,” said Derpy, “That’s what was written onto the side of your TARDIS before you painted over the words!”
“Two words, following us wherever we go,” the Doctor said, “Bad Wolf. It means something, Derpy. It has to have some sort of meaning.”
“How did it get there?” she wondered, “Nopony has anything to go and write on the walls, let alone burn words in. There’s nothing sentient around that could make cave drawings, is there?”
“No,” the Doctor replied, “The closest thing I can think of is the Silurians, and they’re a few million years yet.”
“Hey!” Lyra called from within the TARDIS, “You two? Everypony’s ready to get back to the Poet and get out of here!”
****
The Poet groaned to life, lifting itself off of the ground. The tree branches whipped across the saucer of the ship as it rose above the treetops and above the forest. The ship began forward motion, zooming over the mountain and the jungle-filled valley on the other side. Sauropod heads poked out through the treetops, disturbed by the large metal object flying through the skies.
“We’ve got to build up momentum by circling the entire planet at low altitude like this,” Cortland explained, “It’s not designed for atmosphere travel, and we’ve got to break through gently.”
Accelerating through clouds and over the diminished oceans of the time, the ship was soon zooming over the forests and the wetlands of what would become Zebrica. Somewhere far below, a gigantic Spinosaur halted its fishing and surfaced to witness the colossal spacecraft streaking across the sky.
They flew over mountainous regions, cold regions, and arid regions. The ship gained altitude with its velocity, and gradually the air around the ship’s exterior grew thinner and thinner. The horizon bent and became curved, and the spherical planet grew smaller and smaller in perspective.
The Poet was in space now, calmly flying away from planet Earth.
The Doctor and his two companions stood near the window to space, peering out at the stars. Both Lyra and Derpy oohed and ahhed at the expanse of the stars outstretched before them. The Doctor simply stood on his hind legs and leaned against an unused console with his front legs tucked into the pockets of his leather jacket.
Suddenly, the ship swerved violently. The standing ponies were thrown to the ground, and sirens began to go off all over the ship. Something loud rumbled in the distance, before fading back to silence. The alarms gradually grew quieter.
“What in Celestia’s name was that?” Starstruck sputtered, “Clover?”
“We narrowly missed it, Captain,” Clover said, “It was a very large asteroid.”
“Asteroid? This far from the asteroid belt?””
“Look at the planet, Starstruck,” advised the Doctor.
The screen shifted to show planet Earth once again, this time with an asteroid rocketing toward it. The asteroid was bound for the planet, and tore through the atmosphere as if it wasn’t even there. It shrank in perspective to them, until the planet was suddenly aglow.
A humongous fireball engulfed part of the Earth’s surface, and smaller explosions appeared scattered throughout the planet. A shockwave ripped through the oceans, and dust filled the skies. Soon the planet was engulfed by this cloud of dust entirely.
“What you’re witnessing is the end of the Cretaceous era,” the Doctor said, “This asteroid spells doom for all of the Dinosaurs. With the exception of select clones brought back by the Silurians, all non-avian dinosaurs have effectively just died right before your eyes.”
The others on the bridge were silent, watching the planet burn over the viewscreen.
“It’s not as bad as you think, though,” he continued, “As I just said, the Silurians evolve from reptiles, and then millions of years later we get you lot! Sentient mammals like equines and all sorts of other beasts to walk the Earth come out of this disaster.”
“Doesn’t it bother you, though?” Starstruck asked, “Seeing the planet burn like that? Doesn’t it make your stomach turn over inside?”
The Doctor’s grin faded, and he shook his head slowly.
“I’ve seen other planets burn worse than this,” he said quietly.
They sat in silence for a moment until clover flicked the display off, and the window instead showed what was ahead of them. The sun’s light was dimmed to the point of being easy to look at with the naked eye by the screen.
“This is the spot,” the Doctor said, leaning over Clover’s shoulder to peer at the screen, “You’re going to want to align yourself there and punch through there. Entering the time tunnel should take you out to the other side, the same temporal point you entered it through initially.”
“Cortland, bring us to FTL,” ordered the Captain.
“You got it.”
The ship seemed to stretch, and when it snapped back it was hurtling forward in slightly warped space faster than the speed of light. The jury-rigged engines protested, but it was enough to break through the half-healed temporal wound and send the ship through the vortex once more.
By this point they were out of control, as if the vortex were sucking them in and sending them along of its own accord. Brimstone did the best she could from the navigation console given the automation running everything on the ship. She kept the Poet steady in the center of the vortex and kept it from scraping against the sides.
It all disappeared as quickly as the distortion had appeared. The ship was once again floating in regular space, and the course was modified to send them back toward Earth. The planet was blue, and covered in wispy white clouds.
****
“Doctor, I really appreciate the help,” Starstruck said. They were gathered in front of the TARDIS. Each pony had already said their goodbyes, and the two companions were entering the blue box.
“It’s nothing, really,” the Doctor said, “Good luck to you once you get your ship repaired. I’m sure you’re going to make a fantastic Captain. Go out there and explore the stars!”
He went to close the door of the TARDIS, but Starstruck’s hoof prevented him from closing it all the way.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, poking his head out again.
“It’s just that.... well, you never really told me your name,” she said, “We’ve all been calling you ‘Doctor’.... Doctor Who?”
The Doctor gave her a wide-eyed smile and backed himself into the TARDIS once again, closing the doors. A blue light flashed from on top. Engines began to groan once more, and the blue box began to fade from view
