Moon and Stars

She filled entire lunar seas with rituals and arcane formulae designed to ferry her back to Equestria. In her darker moments…they were designed to bring about her end. Nothing worked. In the end, she realized her only option was to wait until Celestia would allow her to return from her banishment.

Four hundred years ago, she realized that rescue will never come. She would remain here, alone, for all of eternity. It was, and always had been, her destiny. Once she accepted it, her mind grew quiet and her body stilled. She hasn't moved in a long time.

...A star is moving.

Her eyes unconsciously followed it as it swooped across the sky and turned around. Something in her mind stirred. Is it…supposed to do that? It turned again and stopped, growing brighter, larger…and detailed as it approached her.

The rusty gears of her mind began to turn. Whatever it is, it's not a star at all. If she had to describe it, she would say it looked like three massive, metallic honeycombs glued together, with brilliant fire spewing from it...But there will never be a reason for her to describe it.

Fire shot from the front and the honeycomb slowed down, floating over her at a crawl compared to how fast it had been moving mere moments ago. She didn't bother turning her head to watch it further. If it were closer…maybe she could…

But it's not.

It stayed with her moon as her sister lowered it, circling overhead. Once the moon stopped, fire shot out of the interloper and it began to descend.

Only then did she twist her head to watch it. It was going to crash onto the surface of her moon. She might be able to…Using her knowledge from centuries of stewarding the moon, it took a moment for her to figure out when and where it would land. The newcomer...this is a controlled landing. It's not a crash. It's chosen to land. It can choose. It can think. It wouldn’t land if it couldn’t also…

It will land in Vallis Celestium. That's nearby. If she ran, she could reach it right as it touches the ground.

With great effort, she willed her long-unused muscles to move, her joints popping and cracking as she slowly, shakily stood up. Just standing was enough to make her legs burn. One by one, she tested her muscles, awakening them from their slumber. Dust was shaken from her fur, falling back down to the surface of her prison.

Forcing one hoof in front of the other, she managed to maintain a slow, loping gallop, relying on the weak gravity of her moon to assist her weakened legs. She felt, rather than heard her hoofbeats against the soft ground, the dull beat traveling through her body to reach her ears. It isn't long before her nostrils flared, searching for air that isn't there.

She collapsed at the edge of the valley she had so long ago named after her sister, just in the nick of time. Fire pouring from its belly, the newcomer, which she judged it to be the size of her old castle, floated down, landing almost daintily on a set of metal hooves. Taking a moment to rest her screaming legs, she looked over its sharp, grey angles, its dark, reflective glass on the front, the tubes that belched fire…

It's a vessel of some kind. Vessels are controlled by living, breathing, thinking creatures. Thinking creatures required a way to enter and exit a vessel.

Her heart pounded in her chest, and not just from physical exertion, as she climbed to her hooves once more, and approached the interloper as it extended a drill from its belly to the surface of her moon…

 

 

 

 

~

________________

 

 

 

 

 

 

That damn alarm is set too early.

Eyes glued shut from sleep, Anon dragged himself out of bed, his feet hitting the hardwood floor of his bedroom, and shuffled his way to the blaring alarm clock. Blindly fumbling around, his open hand slapped down over and over, until he found the snooze button. Without any electronic screeching, his ears drank in a deep rumble, the closest to silence he's heard for months. But that’s supposed to change today.

His eyes still caked shut with sleep, he turned and instinctively followed the path to his coffee maker. Grabbing the pot, he sloshed it around. Cold sludge. Of course. It's broken again. He steeled himself and drank the day-old coffee anyway. A shudder of revulsion ran through him but it did the trick. Shocked awake, he peeled his eyes open and gazed out his window, at the brilliant red pillars of hydrogen dust that make up the Horsehead Nebula. Newborn stars filled the sky, shining with brilliant blue light.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Not bothering to change out of yesterday's clothing, he stormed out of his room, his bare feet soon slapping against the metal floor of the corridors of the IST One Bad Date Too Many. With every window he passed, his annoyance grew, a stress headache threatening to start. Reaching octagonal doors, he jabbed at the ‘open’ button as it was personally responsible.

The doors opened, allowing a hellish red light to pour into the hall, heat from infrared lights soon following. Stepping onto soft carpeted floor, he approached the creature towering above the main console. Standing on four spindly legs, it's hard, bulbous abdomen swayed idly in the air. Its four arms, each ending in two clawed digits, worked away on touchscreens. As he neared, it swung its serpentine head around towards him, and screeched.

The device wrapped around Anon's ear wasted no time translating, “Good morning, Captain. Did you sleep well?”

He ignored the question, posing his own, “Rhindi, what are we STILL doing here? We were supposed to be halfway back to civilization by now.”

Rhindi closed whatever program it had been working on and chittered, “We were on the way to the jump point after you went to bed, when the sensors discovered three new anomalies. We couldn't leave without investigating!”

Anon glowered at the alien engineer, “You mean you just found an excuse so you wouldn't have to be the one to shut everything down.”

“Nope!” Rhindi closed its outer pair of eyes, in what is its species equivalent of a smile. “I already did three jumps while you were asleep. I just wanted us to get a little extra for this job.”

With a sigh, Anon ran his fingers through his hair, “...Go on…”

Rhindi pulled up the results, “The first was a natural satellite that accelerated and decelerated on its own. Landed, took scans and samples. Second was an asteroid made up of an unidentifiable metal. I put it in ring three, section forty one. Last was a shell of electromagnetic radiation around a dead world that I believe were cultural in nature. Could you imagine?! Species evolved, invented radio transmission, and went extinct in a nebula? The speed of development-”

Anon put up his hand, cutting Rhindi off. It was too early for him to deal with another Ssthakic tangent. “Alright, alright, I get it. Three wonderful breakthroughs for the Technocracy to justify our ship. Damn good work, Rhindi.” It ‘smiled’ at him again. Jerking his thumb behind him, he said, “I'm gonna go check on Ket. How long until we're ready to go?”

“A little over an hour.”

“Alright. Head on over to Engineering when you're ready.”

His frustration assuaged, Anon set out into his ship. With a quick stop to get ready for the day, he soon made his way to Gunnery Control.

Stepping in, warm air blowing up from floor vents lifted his clothes on him. He looked up at beams and bars crisscrossing below the relatively high ceiling. Clutching to one of the bars with a pair of grey prehensile claws, was a white feathered creature with rust colored quills covering its back and four wings unconsciously flapping in pairs.

Anon let out a quick series of whistles, which his implant decided to translate for him anyway, “We call upon the Ket before us.” It never did get his voice right…

Two black eyes snapped open and the creature whistled back, “This Ket hears you and obeys.” Letting go of its perch, it swooped down, hovering before Anon. With no real feet, the creature could never truly land. In whistled English, it greeted him, “Hello, Anon.”

Aside from a few smattered words, that was the end of their multilingual skill and they both knew it. But it was the effort that mattered to them both. Being able to give Ket his peoples traditional greeting held more weight, now that he's the only one left. Glancing around, Anon asked, “So, it's been a few months. How are the renovations holding up? Is there anything you want me to tell them when we dock?”

“Unless you have a way to replace the floor with molten lava, it's perfect. Thank you, Anon.”

Anon chuckled, “Maybe if we ever get this thing to a capital ship size.”

“Have we returned to Technocracy space?” If he shared Anon's amusement, Ket made no outward sign.

“No, not yet. Rhindi is as easily distracted as always. But we have some time, and a few leftover probes, so if you wanted to cycle the guns…”

Ket’s ears perked up and he let out a trill, “Absolutely!”

The first thing Anon did when he returned to the bridge was to tweak the lighting controls. Deep infrared may be perfect for the ‘alien overlords,’ but he's human, he's the captain, he's going to keep resetting the lights to human normal until Rhindi gets the point. After that, he got to work programming flight paths. Corkscrewing loopdeloops, zigzagging switchbacks with the engines cut to hide from sensors, all the most devilish tricks he could think of.

Sending off a quick word of warning to Rhindi, he launched a half dozen probes, each with their new instructions. Allowing a minute for them to establish their bizarre flight paths, Anon picked up an ancient CB radio-so low tech, any enemies would never think to look for it in an actual combat situation. “All crew, multiple contacts on sensors, blue alert, six combat drones.”

The radio crackled to life with Ket’s whistling, “Captain, please initiate a four RPM starboard spin.”

It was their secret weapon. Their dorsal and caudal turrets took just less than fifteen seconds to cycle. Tracking targets across the vastness of space and accurately predicting their movements was hard enough with the ship remaining relatively stable. To do that with the ship spinning around to bring another set of guns to bare? It was impossible for most species. But Ket was not most species. He's able to accurately judge minute changes in air current, to accurately fly and hover with two sets of wings, literally in his sleep. The same parts of his brain that allowed him to do that, made him the best damn gunner in the galaxy.

Initiating the spin, Anon watched the dynamic diagram of his ship. Most “Instruments of the Ssthakic Technocracy,” were composed of modular hexagonal sections, and the One Bad Date Too Many was no different. While every ship had the minimum of two sections, one for engineering, and the other for command and sensor suite, Anon was proud to say, his ship possessed a third section, for cargo and a dedicated science lab. They were halfway to being a true deep space exploration vessel. Bigger didn't just mean more room to play with. Each segment came equipped with weapon hardpoints-in this case, with large guns. Guns that Anon watched rotate towards the first probe. Brilliant lines of light on the diagram flashed, lasers firing on the drone, quickly followed by a whip-crack running through the ship as rail guns fired and one of the six probes vanished off the sensors. In four seconds, the work Anon put into the drone had been reduced to molten slag and obliterated by slugs traveling at over ten kilometers a second.

Less than a minute later, the last probe vanished off the screen. “Targets cleared, targets cleared. Rhindi?”

The radio hissed, static filling the air, “Capacitors…I think I finally found a solution!” The clacking of claws on plastic could be heard, as the Ssthaki forgot to let go of the button on the radio, “Yes! They would have held for eighteen more minutes! Sustaining that would scare off a ship thrice our size!”

Reaching down, Anon activated counter thrusters to cancel out the spin, “Damn good job, both of you. It looked like…only one miss, and one grazed, Ket?”

“That graze would have been a hit if they were combat weight.”

Anon pursed his lips. Over the radio, he couldn't tell if Ket was bragging or sulking. But a combat drone would have had enough armor to withstand at LEAST one volley, and they would have been firing back, too.

Deigning not to say anything about it, he looked over the various screens before him, looking for something to change the subject. He eyed their destination, a peculiar spot in space that was only a few minutes away. Close enough to start. He keyed the radio again,

“Alright, looks like we're close enough to start prepping for the jump. Rhindi, I assume the science lab is up and running thanks to your ‘discoveries’ earlier?”

Receiving an affirmative, Anon walked to one of the consoles embedded in the wall of the bridge and began keying in commands, “Alright, shutting down science lab computer banks one, two and three. Shutting down habitation for section three and activating manual controls in Engineering. Rhindi, don't let us freeze.”

He waited for confirmation on the monitor before him before continuing on. “Activating Tunnelers.” The entirety of section one shuddered as heavily armored doors opened on the foremost face of the hexagonal section. Without needing to look, Anon knew five large, crooked spires emerged, exotic energy crackling between them.

No matter how many times Rhindi tried to explain it to him, Anon never quite understood HOW the Tunnelers did what they did, he just knew how to use them. Punching in a string of commands, he finished up with their destination, the planet of Rsska, hit a big red button on the side of the console, and keyed the radio, “Beginning wormhole generation.”

Looking over his shoulder, he looked at a screen keyed to forward facing cameras. Ahead of the ship, multi-colored lightning shot out from the Tunnelers, striking a weak point in the fabric of space-time that he had selected. The stars shifted as light became distorted, bulging outwards as the entrance to their wormhole began to take shape. A whistling came from his radio, “Habitation?”

He snapped back to attention. “Right! Shutting down all habitation systems in sections one and two.” The instant he keyed in the command, the lights on the bridge cut out. A second later, the harsh red light flooded the bridge.

Anon mashed the button in the radio, “Seriously, Rhindi?”

“Sorry, wrong bank!” Once again leaving its radio keyed, there was a shuffling, followed by the bang of heavy switches being thrown. The bridge’s lighting died once more and, after another series of levers being pulled, there was an electrical hum through the radio, and finally, the room returned to human normal.

Muttering under his breath, Anon looked at a handwritten list of computer systems he still needed to shut down. “Damage control, shutting down. Transferring all thruster control to engineering…” His free hand worked to carry out his own orders.

On his end, the job is simple. Type in a command, and turn the computer off. On Rhindi’s? It was having to throw switches to turn on power banks, feed in memory tape, and activate ancient computers that ran on tubes and resistors, instead of microchips and quantum fields. Everything short of getting out of the ship and pushing.

A chime alerted Anon to the display before him. A quick read of the information on it told him Rhindi’s turn is all but over. "Wormhole stabilized. Retracting Tunnelers so we don't have a repeat of last time, and beginning final sensor sweep.” Keying in the order, Anon looks back at the screens around the ‘captain's seat,’ looking for anything out of the ordinary. As he expected, nothing besides the recently created space-time anomaly appeared. They were, after all, in what had been uncharted space before their arrival. “Sensors clear. Looks like we're safe.”

“Good. Shutting down weapons and targeting,” Ket’s voice chirped through the radio. “I’m going back to bed. Wake me up when we’re about to exit.”

Rhindi piped up, “Beginning final burn. Directly ahead, yes?”

Out of habit, Anon nodded as he keyed the radio, “Yep. Standard wormhole burn. I’m shutting down sensors and translation. The computer’s telling me we’ll be in there for about six hours. Looking forward to talking to you guys on the other side.”

With that, he set the radio down, and busied himself in turning off the last of the systems on the ship powered by quantum computers. As with the Tunnlers, and all other things quantum physics related, no matter how many times Rhindi’s tried to explain it to him, he never quite been able to grasp why the laws of physics inside a wormhole differed from the laws of physics in the rest of the universe. However, a few costly mistakes taught him a practical truth. In fact, he had a painful reminder of it when he forgot to turn off the Tunneler's systems before heading home last mission. Quantum computers, while necessary for the complexities of interstellar travel, stop being so quantum and never are again, if they’re turned on within a wormhole.

Finishing his job, he switched off the blank monitors and walked out of the bridge, whistling a tune to himself. With all the systems off, the bridge, safely nestled as close to the center of the ship as possible, was fairly useless. Especially when it came to seeing what he’s particularly interested in. Making his way through the curved hallways, he beelined for the foremost observation room. Rhindi calls it ‘the biggest structural weakness in the ship.’ Ket calls it "the target." He calls it "The room with the best view in the universe."

Stepping in he was, if you asked him, once again proven right. With the exterior wall entirely replaced with one massive window, it was like he had stepped outside of his ship.

Flumpfing into a recliner he had bolted to the floor, he gazed out upon the infinite abyss. Before him was the writhing, screaming hole the Tunnelers had torn into the very fabric of reality itself. A wormhole. The secret to FTL travel. Find a place where the laws of the space and time get a little funny, and tear it wide open.

The wormhole grew larger and larger as the One Bad Date Too Many approached it. His stomach did a flip. While he knows on a conscious level that they'll pass harmlessly into it, his subconscious mind is busy screaming, "What the hell is that?! We're going to hit it, we're all going to die, run, run!" Whether or not he knew it, he gripped the plush arms of the recliner as the hole in time and space filled his window. The wormhole swallowed the ship and the stars shattered. A writhing rainbow of colors, a technicolor hellscape filled his view as the One Bad Date Too Many crossed light-years in the span of seconds. Reclining in his chair, he gazed into the writhing abyss, his thoughts running as wild as his view.

While officially part of the Technocracy, humans were still very much second class citizens. "Dumb apes who couldn't escape their primary star" was the unoffical description. He was one of a handful that had been chosen to captain a ship as part of some pilot program-with a Ssthaki chaperone, of course. The phrase they used at the time still rang in his head. 'A new perspective to bring us new knowledge.' While he had been steadily climbing the ranks…the only thing remarkable about his, and every other human captain's, career, has been their species. He suspected that's why there hasn't been a second wave of human-run ships. Why would they bother with a stupid ape when their own species had already proven themselves?

With the ship's Whipple Shields ready to fall apart, he had no choice but to make the call to declare the mission complete and head home. Anon knew what to expect when they returned. That he did well…for a human. That he did a good enough job. He had collected enough raw data to keep the REAL members of the exploration team busy for years. Even Rhindi's last minute discoveries had been just more fuel for the academic fires. Nothing that'd make the Ssthaki say 'Wow, where would we be without humanity?'

With a sigh, he got up. With the ship's Whipple Shields ready to fall apart, he had no choice but to make the call to return back home. Now it was time to leave all this negativity with the stars they're passing. There's work to be done. Turning away from his precious window, he paused for a moment, his hand on the back of his chair. He had been sure THIS was the mission that'd change everything, that they'd make first contact or disprove some theory. But now that they're in the wormhole, it's too late. Nothing foreign can get in or out. Even if the engines died, they'd still drift to the other side. No, nothing exciting ever happens in a wormhole.

 

~

 

 

Anon has seen untold wonders of the universe. He tackled the mysteries of the cosmos. He had born witness to sights that no human would have imagined seeing, a mere generation ago. Yet the sight before him is so incomprehensible, so bizarre that his mind refused to process it. He stood there, flabbergasted, staring at a small pile of dirt in the middle of the bare floor of his spaceship.

How could it have possibly gotten here? It’s not like anyone could have just forgotten to wipe their shoes off. Nobody’s left this ship in months and he’s the only one with shoes big enough to track in dirt! Where did it come from? He’d be tempted to take it down to the science lab and run a full spectrum analysis of the stuff, if they weren’t still in the middle of a wormhole. Maybe Rhindi would know where it came from? It's always around. He’d go ask, but the only question he knows how to say in Ssthakic, thanks to a fun night at a bar, is whether or not they’re old enough to consent. While that would probably get Rhindi's attention, he doubted it would get him the result he wanted. He'd ask Ket, but again, his vocabulary in "whistles" is severely lacking. Until they can turn Translation back on, the three of them are effectively on their own.

Resolving to get to the bottom of this, Anon crouched down. It seems inconsequential, sure, but it’s an anomaly. An anomaly on HIS ship. That won’t stand. Dirt could mean the One Bad Date Too Many’s hurt, she’s sick, there’s some mechanical malfunction somewhere, and it’s going to kill everyone...plus, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do, now that he had finished all his paperwork. Taking a pinch of it in his fingers, he examined it. A light grey...it’s not black, so that means it’s not carbon coming from the air scrubbers. For him, that was a very good sign. It meant they weren’t about to suffocate. He rolled it around between his fingers. Definitely not organic feeling, so it isn't from any of them, it’s not just some random dust that was never picked up by life support…if it's not organic, could it have come from the cargo bay?

Lowering his head to the ground, he squinted. Sure enough, this was not the only bunch of dirt in his ship, he could make out little bits here and there, forming a kind of trail. Staying low to the ground, he worked his way from bit to bit, making his way down the corridors of the One Bad Date Too Many. It’s not a steady trail, and occasionally he finds himself backtracking, or making guesses at where it’s leading. On the third such occasion, Anon cursed under his breath, wishing for a magnifying glass. Those were on the other side of the ship...and with how light the trail is, he doubted it’d last by the time he made it back.

Finally, he followed the trail to the ship’s kitchen...and some moron left the door open. Probably Ket. Anon already knows the excuse he’ll have. ‘I can’t hit the buttons as easily as you two can, I’m just a little space birdy don’t be mad at me chirp chirp.’ That still didn’t explain the trail. With a grumble, Anon turned and walked into the kitchen.

“What the fuck?!”

His jaw hanging freely, Anon looked at the war zone that had become the kitchen. Food covered every available surface, some half eaten, some simply torn apart. Chairs rested on their backs, and flavor packets leaked their contents onto the floors, table and counters. The refrigerator's door had been ripped clean off and rested against the opposite wall. Holding his head up with his hands, he carefully picked his way through the mess, doing his best not to step on any of the debris. Flabbergasted, hurt on a personal level he looked around, as though Ket or Rhindi had left a note for him to know who to blame. “I just...why?!” He shouted into the quiet, still air, letting his shout echo through his ship.

Taking a few, deep breaths, he tried to think rationally. Whoever did this, waited until they knew they were going home...so this isn’t sabotage, this is their horrible idea of a joke. After all, doing something like..this, ruining a huge portion of their food supply would have either doomed them to starvation, or calling the mission early. So an alien prank. Someone is going to get a crash course in what’s a funny joke, and what’s just being an asshole. Time to find out if it’s Ket or Rhindi.

His eyes fall on the fridge door, resting against the wall. That’ll be the key. Making his way over to it, he thinks. There’s no WAY Ket would be able to get the leverage to simply pry that thing off, not without mechanical assistance. He’s always flying! While Rhindi would easily be able to rip the door off, it has big claws at the ends of its fingers. So Anon will be looking for tool or claw marks. Stepping over a mashed block of tofu, he grabs the door and pulls it back.

There’s...nothing. No claw marks, no tool marks. The black paint of the exterior is completely unscuffed. Well, aside from the big gouge from when Rhindi tripped and knocked a chair into it, there were no claw or tool marks. Turning his attention to the metal bit that once connected the door to the fridge, it was clearly twisted, ripped off through brute force. So it couldn't have been Ket simply taking the thing apart. If Rhindi wore gloves, that would hide any claw marks…

"Wonderful. Fucking wonderful." He let the door fall back to its resting place and stood up. "Rhindi, I swear to God, if this is a power play…"

A Ssthaki will always take the word of a Ssthaki over a human. He's just a dumb ape playing with technology his species can barely understand, after all. But why would it pick NOW, of all times, to pull this? Did he do something to upset it? Wracking his brain for any sort of offending incident, he worked his way back through the mess. Was it there that night at the bar or something? Lost in thought, he hit the "door close" button as he walked out of the room.

Instead of sliding shut, a warning buzzer chimed. He stopped and looked back. A little light was saying the door was already closed. Normally this would be something he’d chalk up to yet another convenience breaking, because who has time to get THAT fixed...but with the way the kitchen was destroyed? No. There is no way THAT is a coincidence. The first thing he tried was hitting the door open button, just to see what would happen. There was a loud clicking noise, followed by the grinding of machinery as the mechanisms did their damndest to do as he commanded. Disturbed, he hit the other button. The horrendous noises repeat themselves, but the door refused to budge from its place in the wall.

His eyebrows shot up. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The door would have had to have been pried open with enough force to rip the motor into pieces. With a door built to withstand pressure loss from a hull breach, that’s no easy feat, even for a spider-monster like a Ssthaki. Running his fingers along the only part of the recessed door he could reach, he tried to feel where Rhindi’s claws would have sunk into the metal. He found it perfectly smooth, barely a scratch on it.

Something was not adding up. Ssthaki may get excited, but they don’t rage out like this. He’s worked with Rhindi for years, and it’s NEVER done anything like this. Unless it ate the ‘Ssthakic technology belongs to Ssthaki’ pill and is doing this to try to make him look bad when they return, there’d be no reason for Rhindi to do this. That still doesn’t explain how it did this without damaging anything beyond sheer physical force. There should be claw marks, bent and compressed metal...even if this was a frame job, it should have been made to look like he was the culprit.

He thought back to his schooling. If the hypothesis is sound, and the conclusion doesn’t make sense, then he must not have accounted for all variables. Hypothesis: The kitchen did not destroy itself. If it doesn’t make sense for him, Ket or Rhindi to have been the culprit then...He didn’t like where that trail of logic led.

Leaving behind the crime scene, he walked through the corridors of the One Bad Date Too Many, mostly aimlessly, with the goal of eventually working his way to the bridge, with the goal of spotting any other crime scenes that might have appeared on his ship. Despite his noble ambition, his mind was still going too fast to actually pay anything more than a cursory glance. He didn’t even notice Ket approaching until the space-bird clonked him on the head.

“Ow!” He cried, clutching his head in what was more surprise than actual pain. “What the hell?” Turning to glare at his crew member, he glared at Ket, who, holding an empty water jug in his claws the same size as his diminutive body, let out a furious series of whistles. It appeared he found the kitchen, too.

“Yea, I noticed. It wasn’t me, alright?” Had to have been Rhindi.” While still well aware that Ket was completely unable to understand him, Anon found he was far too irritated to care. His words only earned him another bout of angry whistles, a few chirps being added in for emphasis. Ket then flew straight up and shoved the empty water jug in Anon’s face. Grabbing it instinctively, he stumbled back, expecting it to weight a ton...only for him to realize it was completely empty. Wait a second...a glance at the top showed that sure enough, the screw-on lid had simply been torn off. He looked back up, just in time for Ket to grab Anon’s sleeve in his claws. Flapping furiously, he half-lead, half-dragged Anon with him.

Down through the ship, into another section, Anon stumbled, doing his best to stay upright with the meter-tall flying alien pulling him along. Soon, Ket let his sleeve go, in front of...Anon felt a lump in his throat form. The door to water storage and treatment was wide open. The panel beside it said it was closed. Fearing the worst, Anon stepped into the room.

His foot splashed in the standing water that covered the floor. The casks that had been strapped to one wall, had been thrown around the room, each one missing their tops. One of the main tanks had been ruptured, the metal of the tank ripped outwards. Anon’s heart pounded in his chest. All three of them needed water to live. Not just to drink, but electrolyzing water was how they replaced the very air they were breathing. If Rhindi did this, then it might have just committed suicide.

Splashing over to the water tanks, Anon looked over each one. Aside from the one ruptured one, they were all intact, still at the levels they should be...Whatever did this, it focused more on the emergency casks. They had enough to get...wait.

Anon whirled around, staring at the ruptured tank. Its shell was all peeled outwards, as though...whatever had done this, had ripped the tank open from the inside. It couldn’t have been Rhindi, that’s impossible, it must have...His heart almost stopped. They had an intruder.

He looked to find Ket hovering behind the doorway, still holding the jug. It was impossible to read any emotion in those big, black eyes. But Anon had a feeling Ket wanted to know what could have caused this.

Anon put two fingers in his mouth. He whistled back one of the few words he knew in Ket’s native language. “Enemy.”

 

 

~

 

 

They fled through the ship, Anon's soaked shoes squishing with every panicked footfall, Ket leading the way, his talons out. They almost collided as Anon skidded to a halt before the One Bad Date Too Many’s armory. Grabbing hold of the door handle, he fought with the keyring clipped to his belt. He had always thought it was stupid for the most dangerous room in the ship to have the lowest tech level of security. What could happen in a wormhole? Why would we need guns in a wormhole? Why do I have yet another thing for me to lose? As he jammed the key into the simple padlock and threw the door open, he found himself saying thanks that the engineers who built his ship were smarter than he.

Without wasting a moment, Ket swooped in, and they began throwing lockboxes open. Ket snatched up a flechette pistol as Anon looked over a railgun rifle. With shaking hands, he turned it over, sliding bolts, checking displays, making sure it won't jam on him when some monstrous invader is bearing down upon him. Nothing's jumping out at him,it should be good enough. With a metallic clack, he jammed a magazine in.

Slinging a laser cannon over his back for Rhindi, should it prove cooperative, Ket and Anon re-entered the ship at large, weapons clutched tightly. Whatever this thing is, it has gone after their food and their water. Should the pattern hold, life support is next. It wants them dead.

His eyes darting from shadow to shadow, Anon strained his hearing to focus anything other than the pounding of his own heart. Unfortunately, the only thing he could hear was the beat of Ket's wings.

Turning in the direction of Life Support and Engineering, Anon tried to remember what he has been taught to do in the event of a ship incursion.

Step one, covertly alert the crew by making an announcement for a routine ' level three plasma coil diagnostic' …well that's obviously not going to happen. Identify which rooms have crew in them, can't do that in a wormhole, seal rooms, vent every other room, can't do that in a wormhole, scan for-can't do that, change the light-can't do that, can't do that, can't do that…

Anon swore out loud, causing Ket to screech in alarm and whirl around, gun ready. They may have prepped the ship for it, but nobody ever taught him what to DO if something invaded the ship INSIDE a wormhole. Fine. He'll improvise.

Creeping up on the nearest door, their laundry room, Anon pressed against it. He's not hearing anything… he threw the door open and burst in, sweeping his rifle across the room, Ket covering him. The piles of clothing, washer and dryer sat there, as non-threateningly as possible.

Breathing a sigh of relief, they moved on, making their way through the ship in the same fashion. Every room had a monster until confirmed empty, every inch of the halls spent covering each other's back. At one point, Ket let out an ear piercing screech, loud enough to drown out the sound of his flechette pistol firing as he shot through a doorway. Anon, reacting, mag dumped into the room, not registering what exactly he was shooting at. It was only after Ket ran out of ammunition that they realized they had just destroyed their break room. The looks they exchanged afterwards needed no translation software.

Working their way through the ship, they cleared an entire section without encountering their mysterious intruder. For a little bit, they stopped being terrified, and Anon even started to get a little bored. That was, until they got close to the science lab. They stopped dead. The steel of the ship’s bulkhead had been peeled back like the skin of an overripe fruit, debris and a thick coating of dust filled the hall.

Anon, his heart leaping to his throat, poked first his gun in through the floor-to-ceiling hole, and then peered in. One of the cargo bays, holding precious scientific samples from their exploration. The only light in the room was coming from the hall. Of course the lights would be off. Why waste power lighting on a room nobody's going to go in until they get home? Swearing under his breath, Anon scanned the room, looking for anything that could be out of place. There were boxes, storage drives, core and gas samples from different worlds…and lots of shadows anything could be hiding in. Anon glanced back at Ket. After the earlier incident, he didn't think he could trust the space bird in the dark. If he panicked again and shot up the place, he could destroy months of hard work.

Swallowing, he stepped into the dark. His rifle at the ready, it didn't take long to find the devastation. Any semblance of organization had been totally destroyed. Specimens crushed, crates broken into, everything had been thrown around, it was a-

Behind him came a screech. Anon screamed in primal terror and fired. The slug tore screaming out of his rifle, shattering the case of a core sample of an asteroid, sending precious minerals everywhere-a day's work, gone. It continued on, shattering gas samples, detonating through an external hard drive, and continuing deep into the cargo bay, ruining everything unlucky enough to be in its path without any sign of hitting the intruder. Why would it, when it's right behind him? He whirled around to face his impending doom. Rhindi, towering above him, ripped the rifle out of his hands, a parent snatching the toy of their disobedient child. It simultaneously pointed at the hole in the bulkhead, the destruction Anon had just caused, and jabbed an accusatory finger in Anon's face, before letting out another ear piercing screech.

His mind flipped through emotions, trying to catch up to what just happened. Terror, confusion, indignation...after a moment of listening to the ear-splitting language of the Ssthaki, Anon furrowed his brow and shoved Rhindi's claws away. "Don't you even start!" He shouted to be heard, "Don't even pretend like I had anything to do with this! You're the only one who's even capable of doing something like that and you know it!"

Of course, with the translation software down, neither one of the pair's well-spoken and highly intelligent arguments were understood by the other. But that little fact didn't stop them from attempting, until Ket let out a high pitched whistle, cutting through the shouting and straight to the bone...or through the exoskeleton, in Rhindi's case. They both stopped and looked at the bird, who was doing his best to perch on the bent remains of the bulkhead. He pointed a claw at the dirt spilling out into the hallway. There were broad, semi-circular tracks leading out and down the hall. Tracks nobody on board should have been capable of making.

Right. What they were supposed to be dealing with. Anon took a deep, steadying breath before he unslung the laser cannon from behind his back and shoved into Rhindi's upper thorax, who clutched it in reflex. Snatching his rifle back, he made his way back into the hall, his two crew members following him. They still had a job to do.

With the three of them together, and especially the heavy ordinance in Rhindi's claws, the three of them swept through the ship, no longer terrified, but ready for whatever might attack them. There were no more misfires, no more jumping at shadows. They may not be able to communicate, Rhindi might not have any idea what they're searching for or why, but it was able to pick up some context clues...enough to cover the smaller two crew members as they searched room to room. It took time, but they were able to clear through two of the three honeycomb-sections that made up the One Bad Date Too Many without any sign of their mysterious guest. Engineering and life support, to Anon's great relief, were safe. Anon had been stuck sitting on the floor while Rhindi and Ket explored the upper reaches of Ket's room...but it was better than him trying to climb up on all the cross beams. Finally, all that was left was the foremost segment. To everyone's great relief, the bridge had been empty. The idea of a firefight in there was not something anyone wanted to imagine. Finally, they opened the door to Anon's room. That's when they froze.

It's there. In his BED! The monster they've been hunting! Flopped on his sheets, there was some six limbed creature, its skin-no, fur- so inky black that Anon's eyes began to sting just looking at it. There was some blue shell on its large head, torso and four of its limbs-Anon's eyes locked onto the long, pointed horn sticking straight out from the creature's head plating. His grip tightened on his gun. He could already envision himself skewered on that thing. But his eyes were drawn away by movement. Not from the creature itself, but almost...behind it. There was a shifting field of stars, like he was looking out the window of his ship...or like this creature simply plucked a piece of space out of reality and brought it with. If it noticed them, it didn't make any indication.

Rhindi lowered its gun and stepped forward. Anon hissed, "Rhindi, what the fuck are you doing?" This was the creature that tore pieces of the ship apart like it was peeling a fruit. If it could do that to titanium, what could it do to chitin?! Rhindi holstered its gun, and clapped all four of its upper mandibles together.

The intruder twisted around on the bed. Massive blue eyes, with pupils slitted like a snake's, open. It leapt out of the bed, and Anon took aim. This is it, it's going to attack-Ket shoved the barrel down as the creature landed on...four of its limbs, the four with the blue casing. It was quadrupedal. The other two limbs quickly became obvious, a pair of wings spread in some threat display. With a long neck and thin legs, the creature looked almost dainty, delicate...but the damage to the One Bad Date Too Many was testament to the strength it held.

Anon had never seen any creature like this. It certainly wasn't part of the Technocracy, or any other space-faring nation that he knew of. If anything, it looked closer to a small horse or deer from Earth…It had to be a native of the Horsehead Nebula. Which meant, given the lack of civilizations they've encountered…this was not something that should be here. Anon began to wrestle with Ket to bring his gun to bare when Rhindi made the next move.

It tapped a leg against the floor, a hard knock ringing out. Everyone froze. Rhindi tapped its leg again, two times, this time. Still nothing. Rhindi repeated the gesture again, this time three taps ringing out. The creature's eyes darted around, looking at each of them in turn. Anon squinted. An intelligence test? What is Rhindi thinking, this thing couldn't possibly… Rhindi repeated the sequence. First tapping once, then twice, then three times. The intruder raised a foreleg and tapped it against the wooden ground four times.

Anon's jaw dropped. So did his rifle. The creature understood the pattern...it's intelligent. The xenobiologists in the Ssthakic Technocracy agreed that if an unknown creature can understand and continue a simple incrementing pattern, it's most likely sapient, and thus subject to all the protections all saptients in the Milky Way are allowed. That's when Anon saw it. The crescent moon symbol on the blue plating resting on the creature's chest. That was a breastplate. The blue stuff wasn't a shell on some monster, it was an outfit! That's what Ket and Rhindi had noticed!

His mind raced. This was a first contact scenario, isn't it? And it's happening on his ship! As captain, he knew what he needed to do. He glanced out the window. They've spent so much time searching through the ship, they were almost out of the wormhole...by the time he got everything, they might be able to… "Hang on guys, I'll be right back," He said, mostly out of habit, as he turned and ran out.

 

 

~

 

 

 

Nightmare Moon looked between the three horrors before her, beings ripped straight from the darkest night terrors her people could fathom. She would think she's still dreaming, if she hadn't just been woken by the killing machine before her. It was as if a god, madder than even she, had taken the head of a massive cobra, and attached it to the body of a spider even larger than her- a being practically dripping venom. Behind it, was a red raven with too many sets of wings, simply slapped on without a care. They flapped seemingly out of sync, and the bird hovered with some metal device in its talons. The third was almost a joke. A shaved ape, dressed up in fine clothing like it was attending a wedding. They must be the creatures that crew this bizarre sky-vessel.

The Ape and Bird were seemingly fighting over a metal tube in the ape's clutches. She wasn't sure of its true purpose-but it positively buzzed with the magical charge within. All the creatures held some metallic device on them, and none of them looked friendly. She had tried to find the crew, after she made it on board. She knew she had made it into some sort of storage room...though what anyone would want with the dirt and garbage in there, she hadn't the slightest clue. She spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how to open the doors...but when desperation set in, she made her own exit. She had wandered the halls, trying to find the inhabitants of the strange, metal craft.

Metal, everything was metal in this place! The floor, the walls, the ceilings, even the doors, she had never seen so much steel in one place! How this vessel could fly was baffling to her. It made every step she took a tremendous clatter, assaulting her long unused ears. When she couldn't find any other living creature, she, having stirred from her catatonia, had sought out water and food. Ooohh, how she feasted!

But now, it seems they've found her…and judging by their chosen representative, they're none too happy with her impromptu meal and bath. The monster of nightmares lifted a clawed, arachnid leg and brought it crashing down to the floor with a clack. She clenched her teeth, ready for it to charge. She knows she's a stowaway…but she's not about to let herself be CONSUMED by this abomination! The creature lifts its leg again, banging twice now. It must be some dominance display. Well, she will not yield! She stood firm as it pawed at the ground again, this time thrice. Waiting for it to charge, to attack.

But it never did. It sat there, waiting for a response from her. When she offered none, it started again, tapping but once. It started going through the pattern again. What game is it playing? Is it a challenge? Then she will rise to the occasion. When the third repetition came, she stomped her hoof, once more than the horror.

The effect was immediate. The ape gawked at her, lowering its metal rod. It babbled something in a language she didn't understand, before running out on its hind legs. It would almost be comical were it not for the other two beings before her. The misshapen bird flew over to what was clearly a writing desk, pulling open a drawer with its beak. The creature from Tartarus itself stepped back, looking over at the bird, making some motion with its foremost set of claws.

She glanced around, making sure not to show a single hint of fear, of weakness. Her legs still burned from the exertion of making it to this...craft. Her search for food and water had not helped them, one bit. Of course, with magic she was unparalleled...or she was, before her defeat. Who knows what those strange artifacts they held could do? Not her.

The bird pulled from the desk a sheaf of parchment...no...papyrus? It was the highest quality papyrus she had ever seen...and cut into rectangles! They had ruined a perfectly good scroll! Retrieving a small black tube from the desk, the bird flew its burden over to the venom creature. Perhaps the bird was the creature's pet? Yes, she thought. That had to be it.

Taking the burden, the spider-snake monster laid itself out on the ground, the papyrus before it. Nightmare took a step back, tensing. This is the atack, isn't it? But no, the creature simply fought with the new black tube, popping off one end and...oh! It used the tube to draw a few simple shapes, like charcoal. An idea began to form in her mind.

She tested her voice, unused for so long, "Are you perchance able to speak proper Equish?" The two creatures there stopped and stared at her for a moment. The bird tweeted some little tune, but she didn't get any sort of real response. The creature of death finished whatever it was drawing, and thrust the page before her, the charcoal resting upon it. It tapped the paper before stepping well back, giving her a wide berth.

Nightmare felt a twinge of annoyance, of frustration. These were the first living beings she's encountered in decades-nay, centuries!- and they weren't even capable of taLking to her! Huffing a sigh, she glanced down at the creature's work. A few simple shapes arranged in a line, with one below half copied. It was like a foal's lesson in writing! She had written hundreds of manuscripts, songs that felled kingdoms, poetry that made the mightiest warriors weep! She didn't need this!

But she paused. She's a stowaway on THEIR vessel. If she didn't play along, at least for a bit...they might turn it around. They might put her back. Keeping one eye on them, she lowered her head, taking one end of the strange charcoal stick in her mouth. Yes, she COULD use magic to move it for her...but she may need it to defend herself. Or to prevent them from trying to bring her back. In but a few seconds, she dutifully copied the shapes the monster had started.

It did a little jig before her, giving an unsettling chitter. It got back to work on making another set of shapes, this time basic polygons, a triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon...when it was passed to her, she took her turn copying them...and then had a bit of a thought. No, she's going to show them she's more than a mindless child. She added an octagon to her copy, a nonagon, and a decagon before she ran out of room to continue. Of COURSE she, of anypony, would know the highest form of mathematics, Geometry.

The creature positively danced when it saw what she was doing. They continued on, working between shapes, a few simplistic problems. Before too long, they started using a series of dots to represent numbers. At some point, the lights changed, and she saw...oh, was that her night through windows? It was as gorgeous as always...but something was off. Her stars weren't quite right...Well. They were in some sort of sky vessel. She must simply be seeing them from a different angle. They must have moved what, a hundred, maybe even two hundred miles? An unfathomable distance in such a short time. She focused on the task at hoof, even as the bird began chirping more, and the nightmare creature chittering, growing, even occasionally giving a screech of what she assumed was joy.

As she finished up a simple demonstration of the pythagorean theorem, the ape skidded back in the room, carrying some new device. It was like a block with a sort of grate on one side. He babbled to the two creatures that had stayed with her, and they responded, as though they could understand each other. In response, the creature of death drew a large equilateral triangle. It held a digit to it and gave a hiss. The Bird tweeted, the ape babbled. They then stopped and stared at her. What are they…? "It is but a triangle."

Seemingly satisfied, they moved through the various shapes she had drawn, her exasperation growing. She was tired, her legs were getting ready to give out from under her, and, frankly, after centuries of inactivity, everything was just moving so FAST she could barely keep up. After they had moved from shapes to various objects, she finally lost her temper.

"What is the purpose of all this?! For what reason are you attempting to probe my mind of the most basic of facts?! Yes, I stowed away in your vessel-but you must understand, I had no choice! Had you been available to beg for passage, I would have groveled! But this? This is ludicrous! What purpose could any of this possibly have?!" Her sides heaved as he panted from the exertion of the longest speech she made since her exile began.

The creatures crowded together, babbling to each other. She got her response, not from any of them, but from the box the ape held, "We-want-learn-you-language. We-want-talk-with-you. Learn-with-you. Want-you-stay-if-you-want."

Nightmare's legs fell out from under her. She fell to the ground as relief broke upon her like the waves. Tears filled her vision as her throat tightened. They'll let her stay..she's free. Fighting, she barely managed to choke out two words. "Thank…you!" Before she dissolved into sobbing, tears of pure happiness. She's finally free!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The translation software took a good half hour before they were able to get a name, species, and homeworld out of the creature. "Princess Nightmare Moon, a pony of Equestria" she declared herself. It seemed to Anon like the translator didn't like the name, but he couldn't figure out why. The title was translated properly-wherever their passenger was from, she says she's considered royalty.

They had tried to leave Rhindi in charge of both calibrating the translation and introducing themselves to this 'Nightmare Moon.' As much as they all wanted to stay, now that they were out of the wormhole, someone needed to fly the ship. However, when Ket and Anon got up to leave, Nightmare Moon's reaction didn't need a proper translation-she would NOT be left alone with Rhindi. The trio's best guess is that a Ssthaki must resemble some super-predator on her home world. After a little ritual, which Anon had a sneaking suspicion was essentially 'eenie meenie minie mo,' Nightmare Moon chose him as the person she wanted to work with. "Clothing ape," she had called him.

"Alright, it should be good enough for us to talk normally now," Anon said, trying to ignore the machine speaking what he swears is not quite his voice, in a different language. "Now then. Did it translate this properly before? My name is Anonymous, and I'm the captain of this vessel."

"Indeed it did, Captain. If I may say, this is a most wondrous vessel, a kind of which my people could only dream of creating." Anon suppressed the urge to frown as he fiddled with the controls on the universal translator. It's still sounding really archaic...at least he got it to stop spitting out 'thee's and 'thou's at him.

She fidgeted for a moment, still sitting on the floor where she sat down, following their first successful translation. "I recognize that you must see me as a mere stowaway, regardless of my title. You must understand that I only did so through desperation, I would have bartered passage, had I means of contacting your crew."

Without thinking, Anon blurted out, "You trashed half my ship, terrified me and Ket, and you think I'm upset about you being a stowaway?!"

She reared her neck up as the strange, starry field around her head began to writhe. "Clap me in irons if you must, but I will not allow you to return me to perdition. If it is payment for damages you seek, you will be compensated in due time."

Anon held his hands up, "Calm down, calm down. Nobody's planning on arresting you. And even if I knew WHERE to bring you back to, you don't want to go, so I'm not going to make you." That was enough to mollify her, the strange aura slowing back to its usual pulsing. As if he'd toss out his only evidence that he made first contact with another species. He may get yelled at for just bringing her back, cultural contamination and all that, but…Well, a lecture is a small price to pay, for what's in store. He could see it now…a fourth section to his ship, turning it into a true dedicated exploration vessel, he could…

Nightmare Moon looked at him, raising an eyebrow in an almost human gesture. It seemed she had been waiting for him to continue/ Oops. He's letting his mind wander. "If I am not under arrest, then why does it seem as though I am not free to go about my business? You still have that artifact that buzzes with power."

Artifact, what is she-? Oh, wait. Anon glanced back at the railgun still slung across his back. Sapient or no…

He spoke up, "Frankly, I still don't know if you're dangerous. You still haven't given me an explanation for why, and HOW, you tore apart our food and water stores. And it'd better be a good one."

The ears poking through her helmet sank down. She looked away as she said, "I…it had been far, far too long since I had any food or drink. When I found your stores, desperation seized me. I was not…when the means of accessing them were not obvious, I got a bit carried away."

Anon shook his head. "No. No, no, no. A bit carried away, that's not good enough. You tore things apart from the inside out. How the hell did you do that?"

She stared at him in bewilderment. "I used magic, of course."

"Oh…right. Of course, how silly of me. Magic." Not even attempting to hide his displeasure, he started playing with the controls on the translator. He had to have screwed something up. 'Magic.' This was precisely why he wanted Rhindi doing this.

"Is something wrong?"

He opened his mouth, about to tell her what was going through his mind when he paused. He's spent enough time fighting with the computer…he needs to move on. "No, forget it.You said you were desperate? Fine. In retrospect…yea, you took a lot of it, but you only took food and water. But the big question, the one we're all trying to figure out, is precisely HOW, and WHEN did you manage to sneak on board? How long were you in our cargo bay? The uh," he fought to clarify, when the translator flashed an error prompt, "the room with all the random, uh, stuff, in it. You tore a hole in the wall to get out."

Nightmare Moon gave Anon a look as alien as the creature before him as she spoke, "My relationship with the passage of time has been sprained. Your vessel landed on my…" She stopped for a moment. "On something that was once precious to me. As you dug into the rock, I used the last of my strength to climb aboard. I waited until I felt movement…but…"

She opened her eyes wide, her pupils dilating. Anon could see the reflection of his face in them, staring back at him, "I've never felt anything like it before. The very fabric of the aether was twisted and stretched, pulled beyond anything I had ever felt…and then I, the vessel, we, were hurtling away, faster than anything I had ever felt. It's stopped now, but…That strange feeling is what brought me back to the present. To the now."

He furrowed his brow, trying to think. He had part of a puzzle, but he knew he was still missing some very important pieces. Her descriptions sounded like she was from a primitive culture, but that was impossible. They hadn't landed anywhere inhabited! In fact, not once, in their entire time in the Horsehead Nebula had they found any life more complex than bacteria. There was no way they would have missed landing on an inhabited planet, scooping up a native…that was it. That's the piece he was missing, something so terrifying he didn't want to see it.

Anon slapped the armrest of his char as the pieces fell into place and sat back in horror. "Nightmare Moon…are you a castaway? Were you from another world and accidentally left behind?"

Nightmare Moon tensed before him, her slit pupils shrinking to thin lines, before she gave a slight nod, her voice a whisper, "Yes…

 

 

Anon had to fight the rather human urge to hug her, regardless of how she'd react. The idea of looking up to see his ship soaring off through the atmosphere without him… "Well, thank god we found you. Where you were stranded, did you even have a breathable atmosphere, or were you stuck breathing the same air, watching your oxygen scrubbers slowly decay as…" He realized, too late, that he may be projecting.

Nightmare Moon's brow furrowed behind her helmet. "Thank…myself…? No, there was no air to be had." With that, she stood up and stretched, audible popping sounds coming from her back. "I have no desire to speak on my imprisonment further. Are you satisfied that I have no desire to nonsensically slaughter you or your crew, and thus damn myself back to oblivion?"

Ignoring the translation issue, Anon threw his hands up before getting to his feet as well. "Alright, yea, you got me, I don't have to worry about you killing and eating us. But," He held up his hand, "There IS one more thing we need to discuss. Now that you're no longer marooned, what do you want to do now?"

The words had barely left Anon's mouth before Nightmare spoke, "I will return to Equestria, my home. I must reclaim what is rightfully MINE, and my sister…" Trailing off, she met Anon's eyes, a mischievous glint in those slit pupils, "Actually…would you be willing to assist me?"

Well, he knew that was coming, the moment he figured out what happened. As nice as it would be to be able to present a member of a previously unknown alien species to the heads of government and shout 'tada!' he knew he had a duty to do the right thing. Plus, being able to point at an unknown, space-faring civilization, a potential trading partner would still get jaws to hit the floor. But…he had an idea of his own. He let his considerations show, before he said, "Of course we can bring you home. It shouldn't be too hard, you said you can feel wormholes, and you hadn't felt it before, so your planet should be close by…one of our stops. But we have a bit of an issue. Even before…you know…we were headed home for repairs. Now we REALLY can't go anywhere until we've stocked back up on food and water. Are you alright waiting a few weeks while our ship gets fixed?"

Nightmare Moon shrugged her wings, "It seems I do not have a choice. A paltry few weeks is nothing compared to how long I have waited…and…it would be prudent to take time to recover my strength… "

"Glad to hear. We should be coming up on an outpost soon, we can figure out quarters for you once we get there. I'm going to head up to the bridge and see what's going on. You're welcome to come if you'd like, otherwise uh…you can stay here, or I can uh…well, have Rhindi or Ket give you a proper tour of the ship if you want." With that, Anon scooped up the laptop that was still diligently translating his voice into Nightmare Moon's language.

A smirk flickered across her lips before vanishing. "A formal invitation to the bridge? Such an honor cannot be refused. Pray, lead the way, Captain."

They didn't make it all the way there, before Anon realized he had lost his passenger. Backtracking around a corner, he found her stopped before a window, staring out of it, her expression inescrutable. Leaning against the wall, he watched her for a moment, his eyes drawn to the rippling of the weird star field that hovered behind her head. He HAD meant to ask about it earlier…but, like now, there's more pressing concerns. "Is something wrong?"

She spoke without looking away, her voice as far off as she must have felt, "I know every star in the sky. Their names, their movements, and every story they tell with the help of their siblings…I should not be able to see these children without the aid of a telescope. There are others still, that have escaped my notice. They've gone forgotten, unnamed for so long…"

"If it makes you feel better, we've named them," said Anon with a grin.

Nightmare Moon whipped her head around, that same strange look now focused on Anon. "What are they." It was a demand, not a question.

Anon shrugged, "I couldn't tell you off the top of my head. I could pull up the star charts in the bridge if you really want to know…but I DO know we're in orbit around Gamma Caeli. It's about one hundred and eighty five light years from my homeworld, and about…I wanna say fifteen hundred from where we picked you up, but I'd have to double check."

Nightmare seemed to think on that for a moment, before she said, "If they are insufficient or inappropriate, I will correct them.This 'Gamma' of the Caeli family was a notable figure, yes?"

Already thinking of how much fun the Ssthaki researchers were going to have with her, Anon tapped the laptop in his hands, "How about we chalk that one up to another translation error for now?"

The moment the door began sliding open, the screech of the Ssthakic language poured out, the poor speaker on Nightmare's translator straining to be overheard. "-how many could die, I'm telling you that our shields are about to fall apart! One micrometeorite at the wrong angle could split this ship in half, we are NOT going," said Ssthaki, banging one of its hands on the console for emphasis. It was glaring at the stretched out visage of another member of its species. It-no, she, had a web of fine metal chain running between her two pairs of arms, a symbol that she was St'thar'tk, the head of research at-and thus, in charge of the facility.

The chain rattled as she gestured just as wildly, her picture shaking as it looked like a pair of arms was shaking the camera. She didn't even wait for Rhindi to finish before countering, "Oh, oh! THREE sapients and a SMALL research craft could MAYBE be at risk of injury and have to scramble for escape pods, versus the lives of MILLIONS of sapients that have only just just crawled out of the mud! You have a human, just tell it this is a suicide mission, they LOVE going on those!"

Anon glanced at Nightmare, who stood with her muscles tensed, in, if he had to guess, some sort of flight or fight ready position, and his cheeks burned. He couldn't think of a worse introduction for her to the Ssthaki than this. His jaw clenched as he strode in, listening as Rhindi once more started shouting, "Of all the speciest things to say tha-"

"Shut up, both of you!" Shouted Anon, before he slammed the hotkeys to both mute and deafen the line. He looked back at Rhindi and tapped a finger against his chest. "My ship. Not yours."

All four of Rhindi's eyes fluttered as it tried to find its composure, deflatedly saying, "I'm sorry Captain, I got a bit carried away." It began fidgeting with its claws.

Anon held up a hand and said, "It's fine, you don't need to apologize. We've all had more than enough stress for one day, and you saved my ass earlier. Can you see about making Nightmare Moon an ear piece or a necklace or something? She said she's willing to wait for repairs before we bring her home. Uh-space flight, no FTL, I have no idea what we're supposed to do about diplomacy."

Rhindi bobbed its head in acknowledgement, "Depends. Are they pre-fission, fusion, where are they technologically?"

With a heavy sigh, Anon said, "I…could you look at the program? I thought I had it right, but it said magic. Not like, primitive, 'what else could it be,' wonderment, but like how you explaining how the Tunnelers work to a human sounds."

Rhindi closed its outer pair of eyes, "That's not magic either, but I'll see what I can do." With a word of thanks from Anon, it skittered past Nightmare Moon, who had, at some point, followed them onto the bridge.

Anon rubbed his face in both hands and said, "Sorry. I hope you don't mind, but I don't want to have to make you carry that stupid computer around everywhere just to understand us."

He looked up to see Nightmare staring at the still-muted video feed of St'thar'tk, who, for her part, was looking much less annoyed despite being on hold. Cocking an ear towards the abandoned laptop, Nightmare said, "I had hoped there was but one of these creatures. They are unsettling to behold."

"What, the Ssthaki?" He paused, remembering the panicked newscasts from when he was a kid, talking about alien monsters. "Yea, I guess they can be. I grew up with them, so they're not that weird to me. Better get used to them, though, they're in charge of my entire species.Speaking of, I left her waiting." He reached out and retapped the keys he hit on his entrance. "Head researcher Sthartak," He said with a grin, not even trying to pronounce her name correctly, "Sorry about that, it's been a long day. Nice to see you again, by the way. Why are you trying to get us killed THIS time?"

"Captain Anonymous! I tried to look up your new companion while you kept me waiting," She clapsed a pair of hands together and closed her inner eyes. Still a smile, but not the good kind. "I was trying to come up with one of your human jokes while you kept me waiting. Something about not picking up every sapient alien you run across and our vessels not being a daycare? But I'm not getting any results! Surely it IS sapient, correct?"

Oh. Oh this was the moment Anon's dreamed of. She's a Ssthaki, it doesn't take much to get them going, she's going to lose her mind. Is she going to scream, or jump up from the computer? Is she going to flail around in front of the camera, and ask Nightmare a million questions? Oohhh, here it is…"I wouldn't have expected you to. After all, this is Princess Nightmare Moon, the first pony of Equestria we've ever made contact with!" This is it, this is it, this is it!

St'thar'tk's smile changed to be genuine, and she said, "Oh, I'm glad to hear a human finally made a proper contribution to the galaxy at large."

Oh, that bitch. He did his best to keep the smile plastered on his face, not to let a hint of his feelings make it onto his face as she turned her attention to the pony in question. "Welcome to the Technocracy, your majesty, said St'thar'tk, oblivious to Anon's rising anger. "You'll have to forgive any lack of decorum or ceremony on our part. We've long since abandoned the rule of royalty or politicians in our society."

"After the ordeal I have been through, a warm meal, a proper bed and conversation is all I ask, of which, this crew has most generously provided," said Nightmare, gesturing towards Anon with her wing.

"Alright," said Anon, already sick of dealing with the researcher on the other side of the screen. He had thought Rhindi was simply doing the typical Ssthaki thing of getting overly excited with its accusation of specism, but now he's wondering if it was right. "What exactly were you and Rhindi arguing about? If you looked up my record, you'd know I don't DO suicide missions."

"If that were true, you wouldn't have the Ket aboard," hissed St'thar'tk's, the translated voice almost conversational.

Anon's mind reeled as though he had been slapped. She's going to bring THAT up?! Now?! As if she, or any other Ssthaki had any right to speak on Ket. His voice barely above a whisper, he stammed out, "H…how fucking dare you…"

St'thar'tk continued on as though Anon hadn't reacted. Her face disappeared from the screen, replaced with a picture of a planet orbiting a star. Seventy Nine-Tauri, on the outskirts of the Hyades star cluster, is home to the Urundunum species, located on the fifth planet from the star. They are sapient, global, iron usage has only just begun wide-spread adoption. Against all predictive models of their world, a supervolcano on a southern continent is showing signs of imminent eruption. Simulations show an eruption will be catastrophic to Urundunum culture, potentially wiping them out before they've had a chance to get started. We have developed seismic charges that will safely alleviate the pressure and prevent an eruption, however, we need you and your crew to place them within the volcano."

Anon spat, "Do it yourself. You don't need us."

"Unfortunately for everyone, we do," said St'thar'tk, her face reappearing. "Our ship is down for repairs. The idiot who flew it last, left the computers on when he entered the return wormhole. We won't have replacements for a month, and the Directors…have deemed it not a priority. They're not sending anyone else. If you don't go, nobody goes."

The words were incinerated by the flames of Anon's temper. He didn't miss a beat as he said, "Our water system's fucked. We'll be lucky if life support lasts another day. Not happening."

"Then dock with the station, and we'll cannibalize what you need off our ship!" St'thar'tk roared, getting as heated as she was with Rhindi, "We have two days before the window closes, we can take one to fix what we can!"

"Look," Anon said as he jerked his thumb at Nightmare Moon, "I just got through telling her that we cannot bring her back to her own planet until we fix our ship up. Even IF we don't get killed on this one, you cannot ask me to make her wait even longer because of every crisis that pops up!"

Nightmare Moon opened a wing before Anon, blocking his view of the monitor. He looked over to find her glaring at him with her large, reptilian eyes. "Perhaps," she spoke, her voice as cold as ice, "You should ASK your passenger if she would be comfortable with a delay, due to an emergency." Without waiting for Anon's reply, she turned her attention to the monitor. The strange field of stars around her head writhed as she said to St'thar'tk, "What is the expected death toll? Best and worst case scenario."

"Worst case scenario, total extinction of all planetary life. Best case…," St'thar'tk tapped the claws of all four of her hands together, the Ssthakic idea of a shrug, "There's a hundred million of them worldwide. Maybe a couple thousand survive somewhere. Genetic bottleneck and they're back to banging rocks together and painting on cave walls."

"It would be Discord all over again…" Nightmare Moon muttered, seemingly to herself. The field around her slowed, and she dropped her wing, seeming to contemplate the sitation.

With a lull in the conversation, Anon said, "Fine. You want me to ask you, I'll ask. Do you want to risk your life, my life, Rhindi's life, Ket's life, and this ship, and probably spend months stuck on yet another alien world while we sit in drydock, being patched up?"

Nightmare turned to face him properly, a scowl on her snout, "You have a duty to those powerless before you, yet would see millions dead simply due to the inconvenience it may cause us? You are der-"

"Inconvenience my ass, you have no idea wh-"

"Be silent!" Nightmare Moon roared, the lights on the bridge dimming seemingly from the power of her voice. "Were you under my command, I would have you executed for cowardice! If there is some unknown danger in the travel itself, then I will protect you, as you should them!"

Anon's shock and confusion was enough to overwhelm his temper. This cast-away that had just been begging for his help a little while ago, was practically threatening him already? "Look. The armor on our hull is ready to fall apart. That's not something that gets fixed in a day. If we hit a meteor the size of my thumb, it could tear right through the ship."

With the tone of a mother on the verge of losing patience with her child, Nightmare said, "Then fly around them."

 

 

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

 

 

 

The moment the One Bad Date Too Many sailed out of a wormhole and into normal space, Anon ran through the bridge, starting up the ship's computer systems without waiting for Engineering to relinquish control. He held the CB radio to his lips as he waited for the translation software to finish loading, while staring at the sensor screen, looking for any sign of a ship-killing rock. Sensors were always the last one off, and the first one back on. Playing with the settings a bit, he didn't SEE anything coming their way…but that didn't mean there wasn't. Just that there was nothing his ship could see, either. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the translation software had started. He thumbed the radio, "All crew, all crew report in."

"Aye," Whistled Ket, "Lasers on manual, ready for point defense."

"Here," Rhindi screeched, "Transfering control back to the bridge,"

There was a moment's pause before the radio crackled to life, "Does that include me?," whinnied Nightmare Moon, "What task should I be performing?"

"I'd say keep standing by to execute the Captain for cowardice. He makes better decisions when you do., " Ket laughed.

"Ha, ha. Ha. And a bonus ha. Rhindi, do I have helm control yet?" Anon said, scowling at the screen.

"Still working on it, Captain."

Rhindi had been less than enthused to hear Anon's announcement of "Looks like we're doing the suicide mission!" It skittered around the ship, complaining loudly about 'overly emotional aliens.'