> The Eagle Is Sealed
>  by Cyanblackstone
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue-- An Alicorn's Thoughts
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

These aliens were truly fascinating, Luna thought. It had been just under twenty-four years since she had come to this moon—the wrong one. Obviously something had gone wrong when she had been... been banished. The Elements had driven away the Nightmare and caged it somewhere deep within her soul, and it was supposed to have banished her to Equestria’s moon.
Of course, with her luck, it banished her to a moon—somewhere else. Even she did not know how far—only that it had been farther then she had ever gone before, or indeed anypony had to her knowledge. Many times farther.
Frankly, Luna knew that only the planet below had kept her sane all this time. Watching Equestria, her home, would have driven her back into madness within a few years. But this world was an enigma. The continents were all wrong, the weather relentless and random, and the earth less green.
But it was the cities which fascinated her. At night, the planet lit up, especially the two northern continents. The candles, the torches required to emit such light it was visible from space boggled her. Whoever was down there, there were certainly a lot of them.
Even with the mysterious planet, Luna had felt her sanity slowly, but surely, draining away. There was only so much one could do on a barren, airless rock. She had exhausted any new options about five years ago. To think she could be trapped here for millennia—
No, then it all changed. The vibration in the ground, the strange twinkle in the air, and then the landing. A spider-like object had landed, with a roar she could hear as the vibrations shook the ground and rattled into her skull, not far from her resting spot. It had sat for some time, unmoving.
A hatch had opened near the middle of the device, and a creature, unlike anything like Luna had ever seen, had then climbed out.
It had climbed down a small ladder, pausing, before taking a small step onto the moon. Curious, Luna had wandered a few paces—and then it turned around, and stumbled back. She could feel the creature’s eyes (eye—whatever he used for seeing, anyway; she couldn’t tell with the large helmet Neil had on) on her. First contact (Hah! she thought, Who would’ve thought I would contact a new species—on a airless, waterless, ball of rock in space?) had gone well, she hoped—
Her musing was interrupted by Neil, the creature, gesturing towards the spider-like device. Perhaps he wanted to show it to her? He turned and walked towards it, using the low-gravity gait that the alicorn had become accustomed to. Eagerly, she bounded forwards, wings opening in excitement to push her forwards, though there was no air for them to act upon.
She had not anticipated him turning back around, though, and as he did so, she was already in midair (Or midspace, to be more accurate), and couldn’t stop. They collided, and in embarrassment, Luna watched as he fell backwards.
Whoops.

> Suit Breach
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Neil Armstrong really needed an aspirin.
He had just landed on the moon, become the first man to touch its surface—and then turned around to see an alien. Contact had gone about as well as could have been hoped, but now what was he to do?
“Houston, what do we do now?” he questioned. “We only have seven hours of air left now.”
Charlie sounded distracted. “Um, well, one second,” he said, before Neil could hear a muffled, “Yes, Mr. President?” He waited anxiously for a few minutes, until suddenly Charlie broke back into the line. “We’re going to take you off the air first,” Charlie said, more confident now. “And there’s someone who wants to speak with you.” Giving no explanation, he quieted, and Neil could hear noises of something being adjusted.
He stiffened as an unmistakable voice came over the line. “Mr. Armstrong,” it said.
“Mr. President!” Neil blurted.
“Mr. Armstrong, you have my thanks for dealing with this situation in such a calm and collected way,” President Nixon complimented. “And I can say with confidence a medal is probably already in the works for you, son.”
“I’m honored, sir,” Neil gulped, stiffening even further as he saw the alien watching curiously in the corner of his eye. “May I ask why you are speaking to me?”
“Of course!” Nixon said. “I’m calling because I need to tell you a few important things. First, no risks are to be taken with the alien or your mission. Let me make that absolutely clear. My number one priority is to get you home safely.”
His voice took on a humorous edge. “A very close second priority, however, is to get that alien down here, where we can examine and question it. We have an unprecedented chance here—the Soviets, even if they launched a mission here within the day—which is highly improbable—could not get to the Moon for three days, and they can’t intercept you on the way back home.
“We don’t know if that will be the case if we have to come back. Apollo 12 is being moved up as far as humanly possible, but this chance may never come again. We need you to use any means at your disposal—short of force—to convince the extraterrestrial to come back with the mission. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Neil said shakily. “I understand perfectly.”
“Good, because America is counting on you—even more so then she was before.” The president ended the conversation, and after a few moments, Charlie came back on the line. “Wow,” he said.
“Yep,”Neil agreed, before shaing his head. He winced at the headache starting to throb in his temples. “Back to business,” he stated.
Turning to the alien, he waved one arm in a beckoning motion, then pointed to the Lunar Module. He turned and took a few of the peculiar hopping steps preferred in low gravity, then turned to see if she had followed.
She had, but certainly not in the way he had expected. Large, feathered wings extended behind her, instinctively flaring with each bounding stride. Neil took a step back in instinctive surprise, putting himself off-balance. How had he not noticed those?
Unfortunately, she overshot her target by a few feet, and slammed directly into Neil.
“Falling, falling!” he cried in panic, flailing his arms to no avail. He fell slowly, taking in the embarrassed and anxious face of the unicorn (It really was amazing how expressive those huge eyes could be, he thought) even as he came into contact with the surface of the Moon fully. He felt a rock dig into the left forearm of his suit, tearing a rip, two inches long, in the tough surface. ‘I’m probably dead,’ he realized with sickening clarity as air began to hiss out of the puncture in his suit. Space countenanced no mistakes.
“Neil!” Both Charlie and Buzz yelled in concern. “What happened?”
“An accidental collision,” he reported as he twisted the heating elements to full, and then slapped a hand over the puncture in his suit, trying to stem the rush of escaping gas. “I’ve got a suit rupture.” He could almost see the air begin to condense and then freeze in a small, but growing plume by his arm. He could also tell instantly both Charlie and Buzz’s faces had blanched.
Charlie cursed, and Buzz said hurriedly, “I’m going to repressurize the LM. Get in here now—if we have to, we may be able to share oxygen for a little bit.”
His arm was already beginning to feel a little colder—the vacuum of space was leaching heat straight out of his suit now. “Coming, coming,” he said, stumbling to his feet as best as he could. He spared a glance towards the—what did you call a unicorn with wings anyway?—alien, who had an expression of shock on its face. It was quickly replaced by fear.
Obviously it at least realized something had gone wrong. Neil turned away fully and made his best time to the lander. He had to let go of the tear to grasp the ladder, and his arm now felt genuinely cool.
As he slipped through the hatch and into the LM, Buzz gave him a once-over. “Houston, it’s going to be close,” he said. “A patch isn’t quite big enough to cover the tear.” He grabbed the handle on the door, ready to close it and immediately jumped back in surprise, swearing, as the alien jumped through the hatch and into the LM. The already-tight space became stiflingly close.
Buzz shut the hatch, and spun to the controls, pushing the buttons that started repressurization. Slowly, air started to hiss into the chamber. Too slowly.
Neil checked his air gauge. Already, it had dropped a notch, and the needle was moving steadily downwards. It wasn’t much above half now.
Of more concern, however, was the fact that the relentless, near-absolute-zero temperature of outer space was systematically stealing all the heat from his body. He couldn’t feel his arm at this point, and his left side was cold now.
The heating elements in the LM were worthless until it was pressurized. He may not asphyxiate, Neil realized, but it seemed much more likely he would simply freeze to death before the air warmed up sufficiently.
Neither of the humans had paid attention to the alicorn—pegasus—being, but it had been paying rapt attention to the silent drama unfolding in front of it.
Something changed in its expression, Neil noted absently, as the air spewing out of the tear in the spacesuit began to slacken and he started shivering. It had gone from fascinated and worried to determined.
Then, its horn glowed with a strange, shimmering blue light. Buzz lurched away from it as best as he was able, but there wasn’t much room in the capsule and Neil couldn’t move at all. Something was going to happen.
Neither even realized that Charlie had been frantically calling to them for at least a minute. “Tranquility! What’s going on?” he demanded, but still they refused to respond.
Down on Earth, he threw his headset down in frustration.
On the moon, Neil watched with alarm as the glowing horn touched the rip in his suit. The nimbus of energy surrounding it was hot—he could feel just a little bit of it with numbed nerves, but he supposed it would have been a little painful had they been fully functional.
With a burst of heat, the light flashed painfully bright, blinding Neil even through his polarized faceplate. He was too cold now to do much than blink (he couldn’t feel very above his hips or below his chin now—it was at the least a moderate to severe case of hypothermia), but he heard Aldrin gasp. “It’s fixed!” he cried in bewilderment and elation.
The alien withdrew its head, smiling broadly, and Neil examined his spacesuit in fascination. It was indeed fixed—there was no sign it had ever been torn in the first place. It huffed broadly, a cloud of condensed water vapor puffing from its mouth.
As the heating coils in his suit began to make slow progress on warming him back up, Neil finally noticed the yelling of Charlie. “What is going on up there?” he was screaming in perplexity.
“Houston, this is Tranquility,” Neil said tiredly. “I’m going to be fine. The alien did... something, and it fixed the tear in my suit. I’ll live.” He could hear cheering erupt behind him. “Also, did I mention the unicorn has wings, too?”
“Right, copy,” Charlie said, too relieved to even really listen.
Neil said halfheartedly, “Well, I guess I got the alien in the LM, right? Perhaps not in the way we wanted, but it’s done now.”
Buzz said, “Your attempts at humor are really bad today, Neil,” in an equally bad attempt at some kind of humor. The irony was not lost on either of them.
The click of a phone came over the line, “Mr. Armstrong, you are one lucky man,” Richard Nixon said. “I thought I said that not endangering yourself or the mission was the first priority!”
“With all due respect, I didn’t exactly plan for a suit breach, sir,” Neil replied. “It just happened. Luckily, it turned out well and everybody is alive.”
“Again, son, you’re lucky,” Nixon reaffirmed. “But good work. And God be with you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Neil said, and then leaned back with a sigh. There was no removing the suits until the LM warmed up, and that would be a matter of quite some time. The alien appeared to be content to wait, perhaps knowing the situation, and Buzz was busy monitoring both him and the LM’s status.
Neil needed a few more aspirins than he had previously, but everything was fine.
For now, at least.

> Intermission-- Instant Xenologist, Just Add Alien
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As Charlie took a big gulp from his glass of water, his nerves began to calm. He was still plenty nervous, but his frazzled mind was returning to rational thought. Now that that particular ordeal was over, it was probably time—Time to talk to the higher-ups. Shoot.
One of the aides came in with a telephone. “It’s the President, Mr. Duke,” he said calmly, probably used to taking calls from the rich and powerful to direct them to others.
“Yes, right, give me the phone,” Charlie said numbly. He put the proffered device up to his ear and stammered, “Yes, Mr. President?”
“Mr. Duke,” President Nixon said calmly. “I’ve been informed there’s an unusual situation with Apollo 11. Would you care to inform me in greater detail then I could get from the television networks?”
“Of course!” Charlie exclaimed, before filling him in on the current situation as best he could. “—Now, if you were to talk to Neil, he could probably tell you exactly what’s going on up there,” Charlie finished.
“Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Duke, I’ll do just that in a moment,” the President said. “Before I do, however, there’s something I need to tell you. When Apollo 11 splashes down, I’m going to be going to meet them—though I won’t tell you what ship, in case the line is tapped.” His voice was humorous, but the possibility was very real. “After the Eagle gets off the Moon and meets with Columbia, I’m bringing you to me. As of now, you and Neil are the two xenologists with real-life experience. I want one of you with me, and, well, Mr. Armstrong certainly can’t be here for his own landing!”
“Ah... xenologists?” Charlie questioned.
“Oh! A scientist or person who studies or interacts with extraterrestrials, Mr. Duke. It’s not exactly a large field—before today, no one had actually met an alien and had proof of it. I expect the field will grow tremendously in the next few months—but I digress. You are currently the only person on Earth with any experience with real-life alien contact.
“There will be a car waiting outside for you after you’re done. It will take you to the airport, where a flight will take you to Los Angeles and a second will bring you to Hawaii. You’ll be met there and taken to the ship I will be traveling on as well. All your needs will be provided for, and you’ll be compensated for your work. Any questions or complaints?”
“No, sir!” Charlie said excitedly. “I’m happy to help.”
Neil’s voice came over the line, and Charlie diverted his attention back to the camera for a second. “Houston, what do we do now? We have only seven hours of air left now.”
“Um, well, one second,” Charlie stalled, returning to his phone call.
“One more thing, Mr. Duke,” Nixon said.
“Yes, Mr. President?”
“I want you to take the cameras off the air; let the news networks stew over this for a bit while we get some real work done. Then, I want you to put me on the line with Mr. Armstrong. Can you do that?”
“Yes sir, I can,” Charlie affirmed. He took off his headset, setting it on the desk. “We’re going to take you off the air first,” He said to Neil. “And there’s someone who wants to speak with you.” He placed the phone next to the headset, turning it on speakerphone, and then turned to go take the mission off live television.
His mind, meanwhile, reeled at the fact that the President was taking him off the mission to confer with him—personally. That and the fact, apparently, he was the second qualified xenologist in the history of the human race. Lots of records, tons of precedent—and piles of regulations, Charlie suspected—no, knew—were being broken today.
Today was just one of those days.

> Sealed
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It had been an hour since Neil’s suit had been fixed by the alien, and the air was finally warming up to tolerable, if still a bit chilly, temperatures. Neil had, by this time, also warmed up significantly and was feeling generally better.
Except in one area. He would’ve never thought it, but waiting, even on the Moon, was the same thing as it had been everywhere else since the beginning of history: boring. Mind-numbingly, incredibly, boring. The two astronauts gave occasional status reports to Charlie, infrequently checked the various gauges and meters, and awkwardly stared at Luna as the alien stared right back in turn. Two hours of such busywork and lack of activity, plus the stress of having an alien in the LM, was enough to grate on anyone’s nerves, and seasoned astronauts were no exception.
Finally, however, the air had warmed enough for Neil to feel safe unsealing his helmet. He did so with a sigh, setting the dome off to one side. Buzz followed suit, and the two grinned tiredly at one another.
“Some day, huh?” Buzz asked, and Neil nodded in agreement. “Twice as exciting as we thought it was going to be,” he continued, “And it was already incredible enough as it was. I’m surprised our hearts didn’t simply quit on us.” He grinned.
Neil shot back, “Maybe yours, old geezer, but I’m a tougher man.”
“Old man?” Buzz retorted. “I’m four years younger than you!”
“Old man in spirit, then,” Neil laughed, and Buzz chuckled. “My spirit’s still twenty-five!”
“Maybe twenty-five hundred!” Aldrin countered.
Luna had been watching this in bemusement. She said something, the smooth syllables lending the sentence unusual grace. It sounded like a question to the humans, but neither knew if that was true.
Buzz glanced at Neil and met his eyes. With a simultaneous shrug, Buzz waved hello as Neil gave a smile and offered a hand slowly.
“Shouldn’t we be reporting all of this to Mission Control?” Buzz asked out of the corner of his mouth, smile never wavering.
“In a second,” Neil replied, smile equally fixed.
Luna sighed, rolling her large eyes, her expression clearly showing exasperation more plainly than any human face. However, she took off the helmet Neil had noticed was part of her ensemble, setting it on one of the consoles, and stuck out a hand—hoof, Neil corrected internally—in imitation of Armstrong.
The two shook, awkwardly at first as Neil made sure that they were on the same page as to the gesture—you never knew, and it would be embarrassing if in this extraordinary situation the two badly misunderstood each other’s intentions and ended up smacking each other in the face.
Not to mention that Neil still wasn’t quite sure that something like that wouldn’t result in violence. There couldn’t be any taking chances here—or at least not more than necessary.
After the handshake continued a few more seconds than was comfortable, Buzz asked, “Now what? Didn’t the President say something about getting her back to Earth?”
“Yes,” Neil said, diverting his attention to Aldrin, “But if we can’t talk I’m at a loss as to how to convince her to come along. And I really don’t want to anger her because she can obviously get along just fine in vacuum, unlike us.” He rapped on the wall of the LM for emphasis.
“Right,” Buzz agreed. “Best to be careful.”
Neil turned his attention to Luna to find her a few inches away from his face. He started and jerked backwards, but in the heavy spacesuit (which he was still wearing most of), all he accomplished was to fall on his backside and look like an idiot.
Buzz gave a sarcastic thumbs up, and the winged unicorn (Neil really needed to find out what those were called) crinkled her eyes in amusement.
“You sure impressed her,” Buzz called good-naturedly.
“Oh, shut up,” Neil retorted as he got back to his feet. Again, Luna was just a bit too close for comfort, but this time he was expecting it and kept his composure.
She spoke again, another question if Neil read it right, and waited for an answer. Neil shrugged in response. She sighed, and repeated the same syllables. Neil scrunched his forehead in confusion. “I don’t understand you,” he said helplessly, bringing his arms up.
She wasn’t impressed, Neil could tell. Those eyes were incredibly expressive.
Then, her horn began to glow again, and Buzz stiffened. “Careful!” he warned, backing up a pace—which in this module, was the farthest back he could really go.
“Trying,” Neil said, remaining still as his eyes widened in anxiety.
Gently, a hoof pushed him to his seat and sat him down. Luna said something else, and then her horn flashed again. Bracing himself, Neil stopped as nothing happened. “I think it’s fine—“ he started, and then stiffened suddenly.
“Neil? Neil!” Buzz yelled, but Neil never even heard him.
Neil felt with curiosity his attention sucked inwards, to his thoughts. Then, a presence intruded on his frenzied hypotheses. His mind... was no longer his alone. His thoughts were no longer the only thing within it. He could feel the alien, at the edge of his brain, and he felt Luna was looking about curiously. There was a sense of deep fascination emanating from her. It was by far the strangest thing he had ever felt. One mind was not meant to share two people—or beings, or creatures of any kind.
Then, something even stranger happened. It felt like his memories were a book, and something had just flipped through it with blinding speed, skimming them for... something. In turn, he saw (there was no better word for it) Luna’s mind in turn. The impressions flashed by faster than he could process them, but he caught glimpses of a white castle, a great field of grass, and other quadrupeds much like her.
Then, the book slammed shut with startling finality as Luna noticed his peeking, and his mind was closed with equal suddenness. And then the experience was over, his consciousness rushing back outwards.
Neil returned to awareness with a blinding headache. “Ow,” he muttered.
“What was that?” Buzz barked. “You and the alien just froze and stared at each other for an entire minute!”
“I can’t... exactly explain it,” Neil said, cradling his aching head in his hands, “But it felt an awful lot like telepathy—like from the comics.”
“What.” Buzz’s voice was flat.
“It was looking for something,” Neil explained, “And it kind of riffled through my head like it was a book.” He hesitated. “It wasn’t exactly like that, but it’s the best I can come up with. In turn I saw a bit of her head, I suppose. There was a castle... a field... and a bunch of other aliens. That was all I caught. Then it was over.”
“Right, I’m reporting this,” Buzz said, reaching to activate his mike. “This is getting ridiculous. Aliens with telepathy; what next? Is Spock going to appear out of nowhere?” He shook his head.
“Wait a second,” Neil said. “She obviously wasn’t trying to kill me or make me a zombie or something strange like that...” He paused. “I think. Let’s see what she does next.”
They turned to Luna, only to find her wearing a wide, satisfied grin and chuckling. Buzz ventured, “Maybe whatever she found in her head is funny?” Breaking the serious mood, he cracked, “Of course, looking in your head would probably be hilarious for anyone.”
“Very funny—“ Neil stated.
“Indeed! I am most amused!” came a third voice, stopping both humans dead. “I am glad to see my translation spell worked properly.” Luna smiled, but the smile faltered as both stared mutely at her. “Or did it?” she muttered, humor fading entirely. “Can you understand me?”
For a few more seconds, neither Neil nor Buzz could say anything, flabbergasted. “Right,” Neil said surprisingly calmly. “We should probably call this in.” Then his eyes rolled up and he passed out for a moment.
Jerked out of his shock, Buzz leapt as best as he could to Neil and shook him back awake. “Neil!” he hissed. “You can’t pass out now!”
“Sorry,” Neil said weakly. “But I can’t blame my brain. Can you?”
“Well, no,” Buzz admitted. “I’ll call it in.” He turned slowly to Luna. “Well, um... now that you can apparently speak English somehow, nice to meet you.” He scratched his head, at a loss, as Neil watched him put in a strange situation for the first time today. ‘It really was his turn,’ Neil thought.
“Name’s Buzz Aldrin. I take it your name’s Luna?”
“Correct,” she stated. “I am Luna. I am sorry for that, Neil,” she said, turning to him as he looked on, “But I was quickly becoming frustrated and I remedied the situation as best as I could.”
Neil held his head in his hands. “Right,” he mumbled, in pain as the migraine stabbed at his brain, “Nice to meet you too.”
Buzz activated his microphone. “We have a development,” he reported with forced composure.
“Yes, Tranquility, what is it?” Charlie’s exhausted voice came.
“Apparently, the alien, Luna, can do some freaky superhero-style telepathy stuff. And now she, um, sorta can speak English, I guess.” His stumbling description was unprofessional; the strangeness of this whole day was finally breaking through his training. It got the point across nonetheless.
“What.” Charlie’s reply was equally as flat as Buzz’s had been just a few minutes earlier. In the background, Buzz would swear later he could hear President Nixon’s voice on the phone repeating the exact same word.
Today was just one of those days, Neil mused.