Finding Serenity

Chapters

Suspicion
Deception
Valkyrie
Space Monkeys
Shady Deals
You're Fired
Interlude: Merovingi
Stealing History
Ghost Town
Interlude: Sombra
Bushwhacked
Purplecoat
Interlude: Something Witchy
Interlude: Gilda
Bar Brawl
"Vera"
Getting Pinched
Trust
Interlude: Air Holes
Stealth Mission
Interlude: New Enemies
Interlude: Scalpels
Interlude: Chain Gang
The House of the Rising Sun
Small Comforts
Lynched
Tricked
Unchained
Interlude: Duty Calls
Salvage
Interlude: Baggage Claim
Jetsam

Suspicion

Lyra finished her tour in the cargo hold. “That’s about it,” she said, noting that the grey pegasus had mysteriously rejoined the group since leaving the galley. Somepony would have to keep an eye on that one. “Whatever you need from the kitchen is yours, but we’re going to have to ask you to stay in the living quarters of the ship at all times. The engine room, bridge, infirmary, and pretty much everything else are all off limits.”

“What about our things in the cargo hold?” the brown earth pony asked.

“We’ll be more than happy to let you get whatever you need from here as long as one of the crew is with you. Are there any more questions?”

The Shepherd cleared his throat. “When do we head out?”

“It should be a while yet. Our pilot is out picking up a few things. Once she gets back we’ll have to get a few things taken care of. There are repairs to be made, things to load, so on. We’ll probably take off tonight. If any of you need anything, now would be a good time to get it.” Lyra stepped back and let the passengers have the cargo bay, keeping a close eye on the removable panel in the wall. Nopony even looked at it, let alone tried to mess with it.

Graceful hooves clinked against the walkway above them as another pony entered the room. Her creamy beige coat was mostly hidden beneath her elegant blue dress. Her two-tone blue and pink mane was done up in a fashionable bun that sparkled with the jewels interspersed throughout. Several ponies, including Lyra, stared as she descended the walkway that led to her personal shuttle.

“We have passengers,” the mare noted as she passed the Captain. “I assume that your business deal went well?”

“Nice to see you too, Bon Bon.” Lyra leaned back against the safety rail, weight shifted entirely onto her hind legs. Her odd bipedal posture went completely unnoticed next to the Companion’s beauty. “For your information, I managed to get paid and keep the cargo.” Bon Bon’s horrified expression was tremendously satisfying. “I know I’m amazing. You don’t have to tell me.”

“And I won’t!” Bon Bon hissed. “Do you mean that you’ve hidden stolen cargo on the ship in an area that your passengers are going to have frequent access to?”

Lyra looked down at the ponies milling about below. “Don’t worry. They wouldn’t find our haul if they had a hundred years to look.”

“What could possibly make you say that?” Bon Bon demanded. “How can you be so sure?”

“Well, it’s… because.”

Bon Bon spared the Captain one final glare before trotting down the stairs to greet her new shipmates. She wasn’t technically a member of the crew, but Sereneighty was still her home and she wanted to be a good hostess.

Lyra introduced her to Derpy first. The grey pegasus seemed almost as taken with the Companion’s mane as she was with all the rest of her combined. “It’s so pretty!” she said breathlessly. “Look how it shines. How long does it take to do your mane every morning?”

“What a charming mare!” Bon Bon laughed. “It doesn’t take that long. I can show you later, if you want.” Derpy seemed enchanted with the idea of spending time with such a regal pony.

The brown earth pony introduced himself next with a bow and a few polite words. “A doctor?” Bon Bon asked after he was finished. “That’s very impressive this far from the Core. May I ask what you are a doctor of?”

The doctor pony looked around shyly. “A few things,” he said evasively, and went back to examining a large steel case that he’d brought with his luggage.

Finally, Lyra introduced the Shepherd. She didn’t want to admit it, even to herself, but she was looking forward to seeing how he reacted. “This here’s our very own ambassador,” she said, indicating Bon Bon with something almost like pride. “She comes in handy every now and then.”

Shepherd Mac bowed his head respectfully. “Ah wasn’t aware we had an official on board,” he said. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” Lyra giggled shamelessly, causing him to pause in the act of offering his hoof. “Somethin’ funny? Is it the way Ah talk?”

“The Captain thinks she’s being funny,” Bon Bon explained. “I operate on a more… personal level than most ambassadors.”

“She’s a whore,” Lyra supplied helpfully.

Bon Bon clenched her teeth for a moment before letting out all of her anxiety in a very graceful sigh. “I’m a Companion,” she said. “The Captain finds it amusing to make fun of my profession.”

Mac’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “Reckon Ah understand now. Ah’m sorry for mah rudeness, ma’am.” Lyra turned away, thoroughly disappointed. She didn’t notice the Shepherd’s sly wink or the Companion’s smile.

“Look sharp!” Thunderlane shouted from above them. “Incoming wheeler!”

Lyra motioned for everypony to clear the cargo bay. “Everypony relax! The good news is that our pilot is back. The bad news is that there might be a heaping mess of burning metal down here in a moment, so we should probably clear out.”

Lyra’s trained ears picked up the utility vehicle’s motor soon after Thunderlane’s. She checked to make sure that nothing valuable was about to get crushed, then retreated up the stairs herself. The ATV careened into the cargo hold moments later, skidding across the metal floor and nearly crashing into the staircase. “Like a glove!” Vinyl shouted proudly as she hopped down from her seat. “Hey, we’ve got some passengers! We should throw a party!”

Octavia greeted her wife with a kiss and a lecture on reckless behavior. Some things would never change.

*****

Later that evening Shepherd Mac knocked on the door to Bon Bon’s shuttle. “Qing jin!” the Companion called. “It’s unlocked.”

Mac walked inside and immediately walked back out. “Ah’m mighty sorry ma’am!” he called. “Ah can come back later.”

“You don’t need to be embarrassed,” Bon Bon assured him. “You aren’t the first to see me bathing. Do you intend to lecture me, or were you just looking for some conversation?”

"No lecture, ma'am. Ah'm not one for lecturin'."

The sound of dripping water paused. "Is that so?" Bon Bon asked. "May I ask why? Most religious ponies would take offense to having a Companion on board."

"It ain't so much about takin' offense," Mac explained. "Ah'm a Shepherd, so you probably already know what Ah think. Ah won't lie to ya, but there's no need to go botherin' anypony if Ah don't need to. Disagreements don't mean we can't be civil. ‘Course, Ah could still lecture ya if you want. Ah ain't used to lecturin' mares while they wash, though. Right now all that comes to mind is Bathsheba."

"Was that the best pun you could come up with?"

Shepherd Mac hung his head in shame. "Ah can't help it. It's a sickness."

They both chuckled, and Bon Bon quickly tried to finish her washing. "If you don't intend to lecture me, then what do you want? Surely you aren't here to talk business. I think your order would have a few choice lectures of their own for you."

“No ma'am. Ah need to ask a favor.” Mac carefully backed into the room so that they could talk without raising their voices. “You’re a Companion, so there’s gotta be a connection to the Cortex on this shuttle for your clients. Ah’d like to use it.”

Splashing behind him signaled that Bon Bon was climbing out of her bath. “I do have a terminal, yes. It would be illegal to let somepony else use my account. I would have to know who you were contacting.” She noticed that Mac rotated to keep facing away from her as she walked to her closet. “You’re being a bit silly about this. Ponies don’t normally wear clothes.”

Mac chose to answer her question and ignore the rest of what she’d said. “Ah have family to contact. It won’t take long. Ah just want them to know that Ah’m alright and Ah’ll be travelin’ for a while. Ah’d be willin’ to pay for the use of your connection.”

Bon Bon walked in front of him, clad in a silk gown that somehow seemed more suggestive than if she were wearing nothing at all. “There will be no charge,” she said. “You and I are friends. We aren’t the best of friends yet, but even a new friendship is worth more than a few bits. Besides, you are contacting family. Family is important.” She unfolded part of her dresser to reveal the computer terminal hidden inside. Mac supposed that such modern conveniences tended to spoil the atmosphere if left in plain sight.

After turning on her terminal and scanning her IdentCard, Bon Bon left Mac in peace. “Take as much time as you need.” The door closed, and he was finally alone.

*****

Dinner on Sereneighty was often a family affair. Everypony gathered around the big wooden table in the galley to exchange stories, jokes, and general observations about the ‘Verse. Lyra enjoyed eating with her crew, and having new faces around the table made the experience even better.

Shepherd Mac had prepared a fantastic meal with Bon Bon’s help. The crew watched with baited breath as he set the table and began passing around bowls of mashed potatoes, fresh bread, asparagus, and even real cucumbers. Lyra was fairly certain that sompony would faint from excitement before the meal had a chance to begin. “Y’all okay with me sayin’ grace?” the Shepherd asked.

“Not if I have to hear it,” Lyra said. Her happy mood was now tarnished slightly. Mac stared at the table for a while, eyes unfocused as he prayed to a pair of goddesses that she had lost faith in long ago. The rest of the crew followed his example, leaving her feeling a bit left out. Even Thunderlane joined in, though he snuck a roll when nopony was looking.

When the praying was finished the group dug in. “This all looks so good!” Derpy said as she spooned mashed potatoes onto her plate. One spoonful missed, but she didn’t notice. “Where did it all come from?”

“Had a little garden back at the abbey,” Mac said. He continued passing food around, taking a modest portion for himself. “Wasn’t nothin’ like what we had back home. Mah family worked on an apple orchard for generations. Some of them are still there.” He smiled gratefully at Bon Bon.

“That must have been an interesting life,” the third passenger noted. Lyra tried to remember his name, but drew a blank. Maybe he hadn’t given it. “I’m told that worlds on the Rim are far behind the Core planets in terms of technology. Did you harvest the apples by hoof?”

Mac chuckled and flexed his muscles. Lyra heard every other mare in the room gasp. “Eeyup. What about you? Where’d you come from?”

The brown pony shrugged. “I think I’ve already introduced myself. I’m Doctor Clockwork, just in case I haven’t. I grew up on New Equestria. I wanted to make the ‘Verse a better place, but eventually I decided that healthy ponies aren’t the ones that need a doctor. Several years later, here I am.”

“I’ve never even met a real doctor,” Derpy admitted. “Where I come from, most ponies can’t afford to go to a fancy school for that kind of thing. Those that do never think to come back. You really gave up life on a Core world to come and help ponies at the edge of the ‘Verse?”

“It isn’t all that unusual,” Clockwork said. “Lots of ponies have money for an education on the Core worlds.”

Derpy hadn’t touched her food, and as such she risked losing it. Bon Bon had to slap Thunderlane’s hooves away when he reached for something on her plate. “But it is!” Derpy insisted. “You gave up a life of privilege just to help ponies that couldn’t afford it. That’s something special.”

Clockwork smiled nervously and picked at his plate. Lyra watched him carefully, taking in his shaking hooves and twitchy eye. She noticed a small band around one of his ankles with a digital display on it. He checked it nervously every few minutes. “Do you have family?” Spud asked. “Any brothers or sisters?

“A sister,” Clockwork said. He went back to his plate and tried to make it as obvious as possible that he was done talking.

Spud seemed annoyed at the terse response, but quickly moved on. “What about Derpy?” He asked. Lyra detected suspicion in his voice and made a mental note to ask him about it later. “Let’s hear about her.”

“My family owned a farm,” Derpy said. Her voice died the moment everypony looked at her. She shrank back into her seat and tried to stare at the table, but one eye stubbornly wandered along the ceiling. “Thought I should travel,” she murmured. It was barely more than a whisper, and only those sitting next to her could hear anything at all.

Fortunately, Vinyl was one of those ponies. “That’s pretty much why I started flying!” she exclaimed. “How about that? We’re kindred spirits!” She threw her foreleg around Derpy’s shoulder. “You and me, we were both overcome with wanderlust!”

“L-lust?” Derpy stuttered. She glanced briefly at Clockwork.

“Yeah, wanderlust!” Vinyl continued. “We had to get out and see the ‘Verse for ourselves. On my home planet, things were so nasty and polluted that you couldn’t even see the stars at night. You never saw anything but smog, even when the sun was shining. Sometimes I think I became a pilot just to see what the big deal was.”

Spud nudged Clockwork and tipped his horn in Derpy’s direction. “It looks like somepony was thinking about an entirely different kind of lust!” he laughed.

“I’d take what you can get,” Thunderlane advised. They were talking quietly, but rest of the table had fallen silent. “Not much tail to chase around here anyway, right? They’re all either charging for it or prancin’ for the other team.”

“Watch your mouth!” Lyra hissed. Poor Derpy was using her wings to hide herself, embarrassed almost to the point of tears.

Spud noticed and tried to get Thunderlane’s attention, but the pegasus continued anyway. “Hey, you’re welcome to her. It ain’t every day that a mare gets herself all hot and bothered for a scrawny earth pony, even if she does look a little-”

Lyra stood up, once again reverting to two hooves. The room went deathly quiet. “Leave this table,” she ordered. “Don’t let me see you at it again until you’ve learned some common Gorram courtesy. Spud, you’re going too.”

The mechanic began to argue, but Lyra yanked his chair out from under him with her magic and gave him a hard push away from the table. “I said leave, you liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze! Get out of here before I knock out every one of those perfect teeth and take away the one redeeming feature you have left!” Spud sullenly grabbed his plate and stormed away. Thunderlane followed, but he at least had the decency to look embarrassed.

Lyra sat down and went back to eating while the rest of the crew watched the shamed ponies leave. Derpy remained in her chair, though she probably wanted to leave more than anypony. She hid them well, but a few tears had trickled down her cheeks. “I’ll go start the preflight checklist,” Vinyl said, and politely excused herself from the table.

*****

Less than ten minutes passed before Lyra and Octavia were called to the bridge. Vinyl was anxious about something, but for a long time they couldn’t make her calm down and explain the problem. She only settled down when Octavia forced her into the pilot’s chair and held her still. Vinyl pointed to a garbled waveform being transmitted from the ship’s antenna. “Somepony sent out a signal to the Empire’s forces. I think I stopped the signal before they could get too much information, but they definitely know where to find us.”

“That’s our cue to leave,” Lyra said. “Octavia, go tell the passengers that we’re about to take off. Don’t tell them why, just let them know that we’re ready to go. Vinyl, how much do they know?”

“I’m working on that, but it’s hard to say.” Vinyl removed her goggles to study the ship’s display screens. “They might just know a general location, or they could have personal files on all of us. I only noticed it was happening when the system’s shakedown procedures pulled apart the antenna’s coded signal. It’s a hidden message. It’s been transmitting for hours, but the bandwidth is crazy low. You can hardly send anything at all.”

Lyra stared at the screen for a while, tracing the waveform with her eyes even though she didn’t have the faintest idea what it meant. “Warn Thunderlane and Spud. I want to be in the air as soon as possible.”

“Should we tell Bonny?”

“Nah, she doesn’t need to know. Just make it seem like everything’s running perfectly so we don’t worry our guests.”

“You got it, boss.” Vinyl began warming up the engines and skimmed through a playlist she had created on the ship’s computer. “I’m thinking dubtrot. What about you?”

“Doesn’t much matter,” Lyra said. “Just take us out of the world as soon as you can.”

Sereneighty’s atmospheric propulsion engines flared to life and lifted the ship into the air. Lyra watched as the ground fell away beneath her ship and allowed herself to relax. She never felt comfortable on the ground, preferring instead to keep to her ship and roam the ‘Verse like a nomad from the Times-That-Were. The ground, no matter what planet it belonged to, was no longer her home.

*****

Octavia had just reached the galley when she felt the ship's engines activate. The passengers didn't seem troubled by the noise, but she thought it best to reassure them anyway. "We will be lifting off much sooner than we expected," she announced. "You may feel some turbulence."

The entire ship jolted and one of the engines made an unpleasant groaning noise. Octavia had to grab the table to keep from losing her balance. Vinyl's voice blasted out of the ship's intercom, accompanied by the throbbing bass beat that often tormented her wife. "Spud! Keep those Gorram couplings engaged, you idiot!"

"I'm doing the best I can down here!" the mechanic yelled. "Fly straight! This isn't amateur hour!"

"I'll show you amateur hour, you go tsao de son of a—"

"Both of you, shut up!" Lyra thundered. "Stop yelling or you'll spook the passengers!"

Octavia quickly shut off the intercom. Bon Bon cleared her throat awkwardly. "The crew is very, um, passionate. Lots of love on this ship."

Lyra galloped down the stairs and glared at Octavia. "What are you doing?" she demanded. "I need you up here! Get a move on!"

"I turned off the intercom," Octavia said as she followed her captain. "Your yelling was spooking the passengers."

Lyra's ears laid back and she winced. "They heard that, huh?" Octavia nodded. "Sorry. At least they won't hear us talking now. We’ve got a real problem; somepony mucked up our engines before takeoff. Spud should have caught it, but whoever it was really knew what they were doing."

Lyra keyed the intercom and addressed her crew. "Everypony listen up," she said grimly. "We've got a spy onboard. Pretty sure it isn't any of us. We aren't exactly the Solar Empire's most wanted fugitives, but we'd all wind up in a jail cell just the same if we got captured. It has to be one of the passengers."

"I sure hope so," Vinyl sighed. "The question is, who? My vote is the doctor pony. He seems smart enough, and that big case he had was awfully suspicious."

Spud's voice crackled through the intercom. "I caught Derpy sneaking around in the engine room. She had the place to herself for a bit while I checked the fuel lines and she somehow got the thermal couplings turned around. She might be smarter than she looks."

"Bon Bon mentioned letting the Shepherd use her connection to the Cortex," Thunderlane said. "He told her he was contacting family. She was goin' on about how sweet it was, but he might have been the one to send out that secret message."

Lyra collapsed into the copilot's chair and sighed irritably. "How bad are the engines?"

"They'll just give up power," Spud said. "You can forget about going anywhere in a hurry. We won't freeze to death, but if we don't turn around or get this fixed we’re going to have a very long trip ahead of us. It’ll be at least three weeks before we make it to the next inhabited planet.”

The crew was silent while each contemplated the thought of being trapped on a ship with a traitor for a whole month. "Want me to shoot somepony?" Thunderlane asked. "I could wing one and scare the others. They'd behave better."

"We aren't shooting anypony just yet," Lyra said. "We might want to go through their luggage to see if any of them have a transmitter that could send out that signal. How long until the engines are fixed?"

"I'm doing my best," Spud assured her. "Whoever did this was exceedingly intelligent, so this could take a while. I'll have a better idea of how long it'll be in a few minutes."

Lyra groaned. "The Empire’s closing in on us," she said. "Hurry up and get us out of here; they’re only a few hours out."

The intercom went silent, and Lyra turned to Octavia. "Get the passengers into the cargo hold," she ordered. "Keep an eye on Derpy; I'd put money on her being our spy. Vinyl, see if you can figure out what that coded message was saying."

"Just did," Vinyl said. "I'd act all proud and stuff, but the news is sort of depressing. It just says 'found them'."

"That's plenty helpful," Lyra grumbled. "Tell Thunderlane to meet me in the hold. We're going to sweep for anything that could hijack Sereneighty's antenna and send out that signal." She trotted off in the direction of the cargo hold, but stopped at her room to retrieve her pistol.

Trouble on my own ship, she thought bitterly as she fastened the belt around her stomach. My own home isn't even safe anymore. A hollow ache in her heart reminded her of her home before Sereneighty. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

Author's Note

On an unrelated note, I totally met Adam Baldwin once. I got his autograph… on a pistol holster. I wonder if that’s the strangest thing he’s ever been asked to sign? Probably not. The strangest thing was probably a body part.

Deception

Octavia had herded most of the passengers into the cargo hold by the time Lyra arrived. Derpy had gone missing, and nopony knew exactly when she had disappeared. Bon Bon had gone to look for her. Guess we've found our spy, Lyra thought. That wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Still, best to be thorough. I wouldn't want to shoot her just because she took a bathroom break at the wrong time.

Of the remaining two passengers, only one looked nervous. Clockwork was wringing his hooves with worry, while Mac seemed only mildly annoyed to be pulled away from his meal. I guess it could still be the doctor. When in doubt, blame the twitchy pony.

Lyra held a small device with her magic that looked a bit like a hoof-held communicator. "This here's an RF scanner," she announced. "We're going to scan your luggage for anything that sends out a wireless signal. You'll keep your privacy, but somepony on board has been messing with our equipment and I intend to find out who."

Lyra examined Mac's luggage first. The scanner remained silent when she passed it over his suitcase and blanket. No surprise there, she thought. I guess Bon Bon was right; he's just a big sweetheart. She scanned Derpy's suitcase next and, again, heard nothing. Well, I'll be a diamond dog’s cousin. It was the city colt after all.

Clockwork fidgeted nervously as she neared his pile of belongings. A stainless steel case big enough for all kinds of troublesome equipment was sitting beneath his two suitcases. "Looks awfully suspicious, doesn't it?" Lyra asked. “Do you feel a powerful need to confess something before I scan it?" Clockwork remained silent, but he was starting to sweat. "No? Alright, have it your way."

The scanner emitted a loud buzz as she brought it close to the case. "That just about settles it," Lyra said. "I gotta say that I'm a bit insulted. You could have tried a bit harder to seem innocent."

"Th-this isn't what it looks like," Clockwork stammered. "Please, I know it seems bad, but you have to believe me!"

Lyra chuckled dryly. "I don’t think so. Octavia, get me a crowbar. Let's see what he's so worried about."

"You can't open that!" Clockwork shouted. He managed to take half a step forward before Thunderlane grabbed him in a chokehold. The scrawny earth pony tried to break free, but he was tremendously outmatched and could only grasp at the pegasus’s foreleg. "Please," he begged, "Don’t open it. It's too soon!"

Lyra began looking for a way to open the crate. "Why?” she asked. “What’s in here? Is it booze? Please tell me it’s booze."

Heavy hoofsteps rang out on the catwalk above them. “I’m afraid that it’s quite a bit more complicated than that,” Spud said as he ambled down the stairs at a leisurely pace, a pistol held in the grip of his magic.

The weapon looked more sophisticated than anything Lyra had ever seen in person; it was polished to a brilliant shine and thrummed with magical power. "That's one fine piece of weaponry you've got there," she noted. "That looks like Newtech. It would take a hundred ponies from the Rim planets a hundred years to save up enough money to buy that thing. How'd you afford it on a mechanic's salary?"

"I didn't," Spud said. "I've had Aunt Celly for years. I kept her hidden in my bunk. She's my only reminder of the life I had before the war, but hopefully I'll be returning to that life very soon. I recognized the good doctor the moment I saw him; he and his precious case are my ticket home."

Lyra scratched her head. "They’re your ticket back to working on a potato farm?"

Spud rolled his eyes and spat on his hoof, then rubbed it against his flank. The brown paint covering his cutie mark rubbed away. The relatively clean patch he created revealed a purple-and-gold design resembling a compass rose. "I spent the last six years living in filth," he said. "Do you have any idea what that feels like after living the kind of life I had? I had to hide in the lowliest reaches of the 'Verse, crawling around with the vermin, just to avoid being killed! I had to cut off half of my own horn so that I could blend in better!"

"I don't think I follow," Lyra interrupted. "Were you some kind of war criminal or something?"

"W-war criminal?" Spud's pupils contracted and his eye began to twitch. "War criminal? I was royalty, you pathetic excuse for a mule! I was the most eligible bachelor on New Equestria! I had scores of mares willing to kiss the ground where I walked.”

Doctor Clockwork gently pulled out of Thunderlane’s grip. The pegasus didn’t try to stop him. "I believe I recognize you now," he said. "There was a big commotion in the media a few years ago about a noble being disowned by the royal family. Apparently he was selling secrets to the Lunar Republic, and he had to flee the planet after being sentenced to death by parasprites. You're Prince Blueblood, aren't you?"

"You are right in exactly every detail," Blueblood said. He scratched his nose and made a disgusted face. "I can't wait to go home. I'm going to crawl into a hot bath with a nice mare and stay there for a week." His pistol emitted a high-pitched whine as he aimed it at Lyra. "Please step away from the case, captain. The doctor is quite right; opening it now could potentially damage the goods inside. Throw your gun away and stand over there with your crew."

"Where do you plan to go?" Lyra asked. She pulled her revolver out of its holster, using her mouth so that Blueblood wouldn’t think she was about to attack him, and threw it away. She tried to make sure that it landed on Mac’s blanket so that it wouldn’t be damaged. "We're in space, you yu bun duh inbred aristocrat. You can’t just open the airlock and walk home."

Blueblood levitated Clockwork’s case out of Lyra's reach while she was talking. She was tempted to wrestle it away with her own magic, but his abilities almost certainly dwarfed her own. If he was actually a member of the royal family then he was probably descended from a goddess. "You don't need to worry your homely little head about that," he assured her. "I called for a ride earlier today. It should be here soon. Just stay back and you won't get hurt."

Lyra noticed Octavia sneaking up on Blueblood from behind. She needed to stall for time, but one wrong word could have disastrous consequences. Blueblood was already beginning to lose his temper and the last thing they needed was for him to get twitchy. "You don't want to shoot me, Spud. We're the only friends you’ve got in the ‘Verse right now."

"We were never friends!" Blueblood snarled. Lyra immediately began to regret her choice of words when his gun started shaking. "You spent the last six years dragging me from one horrible end of the 'Verse to the other. I've been miserable every step of the way and I want out! I am going home, Lyra. I'm finally ready to leave this wreck of a ship behind. You and the rest of your misfit crew can continue gallivanting across space and wasting your lives if you want, but I am meant for better things. I'm not your lackey anymore."

Lyra shrugged. "Suit yourself. I've got plenty of others." Octavia tackled Blueblood from behind and she quickly snatched away his weapon. She wanted to shoot him, but Octavia was tangled up with the grimy unicorn and she wasn’t sure of her aim with an unfamiliar gun.

A burst of magic sent Octavia flying across the cargo hold and into the side of the ship’s utility vehicle. Lyra took the opportunity to finally pull the trigger, but nothing happened. She tried again, but Blueblood’s pistol only clicked uselessly. She realized too late that the weapon was tuned to his magical aura and wouldn’t fire for anypony else.

Blueblood noticed Lyra holding his pistol and sneered. "You shouldn’t play with guns,” he said. He reached for it with his magic, and Lyra felt his power immediately overwhelm her own. She tried to hang on, but Blueblood pried the pistol right out of her grasp with almost no effort at all. She gulped and stepped back when the weapon spun around to point at her. "I did warn you to stay back, Captain," he taunted. “I’m afraid that our business relationship is at its end.”

Lyra heard dainty hooves gallop into the cargo hold and swore. Just what we need, she thought. Another hostage. Derpy soared down from the second level as Bon Bon hurried to keep up. "Captain Heartstrings!" the pegasus exclaimed.

Blueblood fired blindly in the direction of Derpy’s voice, obviously expecting another surprise attack. Plasma charges sizzled through the air and struck the bulkhead on the other side of the bay, one of them nearly taking Octavia’s head off.

Derpy went limp and dropped like a stone as a stray shot hit her square in the chest. She hit the floor and rolled to a stop, smoke rising from her alarmingly still form. Blueblood gawked at the motionless pegasus and stuttered something unintelligible. His pistol clattered to the ground, forgotten, as he tried to explain that this wasn’t his fault.

The former prince noticed something large and red out of the corner of his eye, but by the time his stunned mind registered it as a threat Mac's rear hooves had already connected with his face. He reared back, already unconscious or dead, and collapsed without a sound.

With Blueblood out of commission the crew was able to focus on Derpy. "I was having a really nice day,” she whispered, shivering as she tried to breathe with a piece of her lung burned away. She was alive for the moment, but Lyra doubted very much that they would be able to help her.

"Get out of the way!" Lyra ordered. "Octavia, you’ve treated bullet wounds before. Get to the infirmary and get ready to operate. Thunderlane, secure Spud so he doesn't shoot us in the back." Shepherd Mac helped Thunderlane lift Blueblood's limp form. He was still breathing, but his muzzle looked broken.

Doctor Clockwork rushed to the front of the group and began examining Derpy's injuries. "Can she move her hooves?" he asked. "Derpy, I need you to try to move your hooves. Can you do that for me?" One of the pegasus' hooves twitched and she whimpered in pain.

"Captain!" Vinyl shouted over the intercom. "The Empire is getting closer! We can't outrun them, but we're passing one of Persepony's moons now. We could try to hide on the surface and wait them out."

"Do it!" Clockwork said.

Lyra snatched him up with her magic and lifted him into the air. "I really hope that you aren’t trying to give orders on my ship," she growled. "The way I see it, you're mostly to blame for this. You have something they want, something that was important enough to make one of my crew turn on me. You're part of the reason we're in this mess." She pressed the button on the intercom. "Let me know when they arrive," she ordered. "They've got better medical facilities than we do."

Clockwork struggled against Lyra's magic, but he was as helpless as the lesser unicorn had been against Blueblood. "You can't do that!"

"I can and I will." Lyra constructed a hardened magical field around Derpy, ensuring that she wouldn't be jostled on the way to the infirmary. "You never should have come here, Doctor. You brought the Empire right to my front door. I can get awfully cross when that happens."

"She'll never make it!" Clockwork said quickly. "If you let me, I can save her. Otherwise she'll be dead in ten minutes. The Empire won't be here for at least another hour. I'll help her, but only if you turn the ship toward Persepony's moon and hide."

Derpy shut her eyes and tried to cover her ears. "Everypony's being so mean," she whispered. "Why are they always so mean?"Bon Bon stroked her cheek, trying to comfort her. It didn't seem to be working.

Lyra knew that she was wasting precious time considering her options. In the end she swallowed her pride and hit the intercom again. The doctor had already started pushing Derpy toward the infirmary by the time she spoke. "Turn toward the moon and take us down," she ordered. “When we land, shut everything down that we don’t need. Keep the infirmary running while the doctor does his work."

Clockwork began to thank her as they ran, but Lyra shot him down with a glare. "Shut up!" she barked. "This isn’t for you. You and I are going to have a long, uncomfortable talk after you save Derpy."

Lyra and the doctor galloped into the infirmary and gently placed Derpy on the operating table. It looked more like a dentist’s chair, really, but beggars could not be choosers. The doctor immediately began snipping away at Derpy's wound, cutting dead flesh and rinsing the area with a sterilization potion. "I need a null spell," he said. "Where are they?"

Octavia wisely stood out of his way. "Bottom cabinet," she said, and sat in a corner where she wouldn't distract anypony.

Lyra anxiously watched the Doctor work. He removed a plastic package from the cabinet and ripped it open, taking out a thin length of wood. "Hold her still," he said. "Derpy, this is going to hurt."

The pegasus didn't respond. Clockwork gritted his teeth and plunged the wooden rod into the wound, causing his patient to sob and buck weakly. Lyra held her down until the spell activated, numbing the area and negating any harmful magic still in effect. Derpy’s pupils dilated and she stared up at the Doctor with a dreamy smile.

At least the doctor knows his stuff, Lyra thought as she directed him to the merging spells. Plenty of ponies die from plasma necrosis because the doctors only treat the physical injury. She just might live through this. Clockwork began working with another wooden rod, fishing around inside the injury like he was building a ship in a bottle.

The operation seemed to last forever. Lyra kept a close eye on Derpy, who was looking around the room with the kind of detached curiosity that only powerful sedation could cause. "If she dies, you die." The doctor pulled his instrument free of the wound and stared at the captain. "That's the rule," she said. "If she doesn't make it, you’re going to take a stroll out an airlock."

Clockwork went back to his patient without a word.

*****

Nearly an hour passed before the operation was finished. Lyra felt exhausted, but she couldn't let herself rest. Her ship and crew were in danger, and there was a pony lying in the infirmary that was only clinging to life by the most fragile of threads. It didn’t feel appropriate to disappear into her cabin, and she was too anxious to sleep anyway.

She ran into Thunderlane in the galley. He was sitting at the table and staring numbly at the chair that Derpy had used at dinner, toying absently with his knife. "Doc says she's stable now," she said as she took a seat across the table. "Not sure what her chances are, but he knows what he's doing. You alright?"

"No,” Thunderlane said dully. “Blueblood came to after I tied him up. The Shepherd's still with him. He didn't seem to think he was safe alone with me.” His knife slipped out of his hoof and clattered against the table, but he didn’t try to pick it up. “He didn't ask about her, Lyra. Didn't even ask if she was dead."

"We thought we knew him and we were wrong," Lyra said. "Spud fooled us. Sometimes a pony just doesn’t care. That's all there is to it."

"She was a nice pony. He ought to care a little," Thunderlane said quietly. Lyra pretended not to notice as he wiped his eyes. "He ought to. It don't make sense for a pony to be that way."

"You're right. It doesn't." They sat quietly for a while until Lyra stood up and trotted out of the room. "Come on. Let's see what was important enough to get Derpy shot."

Clockwork was already in the cargo hold when they arrived. "Howdy!" Lyra called as she walked down the stairs. "Nice to see that you're so dedicated to your patient."

"I just had to check on my things," the doctor said. "Derpy is stable for the moment. I'm going right back to the infirmary."

"No you aren't. Like you said, she's stable. You're staying here for a bit." Lyra walked to the intercom and addressed the rest of the ship. "Everypony needs to come to the cargo hold. The good doctor has something he'd like to share with us."

The device strapped to the doctor's leg began to beep. Lyra drew her pistol and held it at the ready, but didn't point it at anypony. "I think it's time you told us why we're all in this heap of trouble," she said. "Start talking. What is that thing?"

Clockwork opened one of his bags and pulled out a small air tank. He moved very slowly to avoid startling anypony. Luna knows there's been enough of that lately, Lyra thought. She watched as he screwed the tank into a small opening on his metal case. The beeping stopped just as four sets of hooves rattled down the stairs.

"Perfect timing!" Lyra exclaimed. "I wanted everypony to see this. The doctor is about to show us why we're all in danger."

"I most certainly will not!" Clockwork argued. "You can't make me. You also can't shoot me with Derpy still injured."

"Ain't that just like a New Equestria aristocrat?" Thunderlane asked. "Nopony matters as much as you, do they?" He grabbed a tool chest from the supply closet and kicked it open, then offered Lyra a crowbar. "I say we dispense with the formal tsway-niou and pry it open ourselves, Captain."

Lyra put away her pistol and accepted the crowbar. "That's some mighty fine thinking. Step aside, Doc. We'd hate for you to chip a hoof trying to stop us."

Clockwork sighed in defeat. "I'll open it," he said. "Please put that away." Lyra tossed her crowbar to Thunderlane, who dropped it back into the tool box. She waited while the doctor opened a small panel on the container, revealing a keypad underneath. He punched in a long string of numbers, then pressed a green button on the crate's side.

A loud hiss filled the cargo hold as pressurized air escaped from the container. Lyra used her magic to simultaneously shove Clockwork aside and pull open the lid. White vapor rolled over the edges of the container and obscured its contents from view.

Lyra stepped closer to take a look once the vapor cleared. A thin little mare was sleeping inside, curled into a ball and shivering from the sudden change in temperature. Two small strips of her mane had been shaved away for some unknown purpose. Strangest of all, her flank was blank even though she was clearly an adult.

For a while Lyra just stared at the strange pony. "Well, that's a new one on me," she admitted.
It took a long time for her to fully grasp what she was seeing. Everypony else seemed just as surprised, and the cargo hold fell eerily silent.

Clockwork watched everypony anxiously, trying to judge how they would react. "This... this is a very dangerous time for her," he began. "She wasn't supposed to wake up yet."

"No, I bet not!" Lyra said. She levitated her pistol out of its holster and aimed at the doctor. "I’d say she probably wasn't supposed to wake up until her wedding night."

Vinyl prodded her wife's shoulder. "What's going on?" she asked. "Who is that mare?"

"She could be anypony," Octavia said. "Were I to guess, I would say that the doctor does not care. He bought her for her pretty face, not her personality."

"I wouldn't go that far," Lyra said. "Something tells me these two have a deep, meaningful connection. It’s a connection that smells like chloroform, but still. Am I right, Doc? Was–"

The mare in the box sat up and screamed, causing Lyra made a similar noise that she hoped was hidden by the sudden barrage of gibberish and panicked shouting. Clockwork ran to her, ducking around Thunderlane when the pegasus tried to block his way.

"Ticky?" the poor mare whispered.

Clockwork knelt next to her and put his front hooves on her shoulders. "Hello, Vision."

"T-Ticky, they...they hurt! Everything hurts!" 'Vision' became even more distraught as she ran her hooves through her mane, feeling the empty patches. "My thoughts hurt and they cut my mane and...and they took me all out. I don't remember me! They cut me!"

"I know." Clockwork pulled her into a protective hug and let her cry into his chest. "I know, mei-mei. It’s over. You're safe now." It took a long time, but eventually Vision stopped trying to pull out her own mane and lapsed into a relatively calm silence. She glared at the crew distrustfully and tried to hide behind one of Clockwork's legs.

"My real name is Tick Tock," Clockwork said. "This is my sister, Pretty Vision. I've been looking for her for a very, very long time."

Lyra watched as the doctor to comfort his sister. This trip just gets better and better, she thought gloomily. "Take her to the infirmary and get her checked out. After that I think you'd better do some explaining."

Tick Tock gently pushed his sister up onto her hooves. She wobbled and nearly fell over, her legs shaking like a newborn foal. "The unfreezing process sometimes affects motor functions," Tick Tock explained. "Let’s go; I can talk while I work. I need to check on Derpy anyway."

*****

Dr. Tock managed to convince his sister to take a sedative, but only after several minutes of pleading. She lay down on a countertop and went to sleep, occasionally stirring and muttering something under her breath. Tick Tock checked on Derpy's condition while he told their story. The crew, the passengers, and Bon Bon gathered around to listen.

"I'm a very intelligent pony," he began. "I'm not a certifiable genius, but I'm very close. I'm qualified to operate on four different species, and I could probably handle another two in a pinch. I graduated at the top of my class from a very prestigious medical academy. I build clockwork clocks in my free time.”

"That's real nice," Thunderlane interrupted. "Y'all are so special. You're a wonderful little snowflake, blah blah blah. Skip to the part that matters."

Tick Tock paused in his examination to give Thunderlane a dirty look. "I am not trying to brag. My point is that my sister could master all of that in about three months. She makes a pony with a borderline genius IQ look like a bumbling fool that can’t recite the alphabet.

"She went to a special school funded by the Empire," Tick Tock continued. He looked up from Derpy to make sure that his sister was still asleep. "She disappeared. She promised to write to me, but it was five years before I got a letter." He reached for Derpy’s bandages, and Lyra saw his hooves shaking badly. She wanted to say something about the dangers of unsteady hooves in operating rooms, but she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"The letter was coded. We used to make up secret codes so that we could send each other messages in church." He broke into a fit of giggles and tried to hide them from the crew. "She hacked my pocket terminal once and made it read messages out loud.”

Tick Tock paused in his story and began cleaning Derpy's injury again. The merging spell had closed the hole, but now he had to make sure that it would stay closed long enough to scab over. There was also the constant risk of internal bleeding.

"The code wasn’t hard to break," he said when he was finished. "It said 'help me'. That was all. I spent the next two years looking for her, but I couldn't find a single trace of her in the entire 'Verse. It was like she didn't exist anymore.

"Last month a small group of soldiers contacted me. The planet she was being held on was going through a minor civil war, and they said they could rescue her in the confusion. They would bring her to me in stasis and I could take her far away from the ponies that did this to her."

The crew lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Lyra was the first to speak. "That's a great story,” she said. “It doesn't change the fact that you've brought a big pile of trouble down on us. Pretty soon that imperial ship is going to be here, and in case you haven't noticed, Sereneighty has no guns. We can't hide on this moon forever."

Tick Tock looked at his sleeping sister and sighed. "I'm very sorry about that, but I can't let them take her again. I'll give you whatever you want, but I only have what I could bring with me. It isn't much."

"Keep your money," Lyra said. "We're in a tight spot right now; the Empire wants your sister so bad that Bluespud thought he could trade her life for his own. They aren't going to give up on her easy, and pretty soon they'll have us cornered."

Bon Bon gasped. "You aren't going to abandon them, are you?" she asked. "The Empire did horrible things to that poor filly. You can't let them get their hooves on her again!"

"You don't have a say in this!" Lyra snapped. "You aren't a member of my crew, as you're so fond of pointing out. This is my ship, not ruttin' Parliament. We aren't voting, we aren't bargaining, and we certainly aren't second guessing my orders. They’re off this boat just as soon as we get out of this mess they’ve gotten us into. In the meantime, we need a quick way to anywhere that isn’t here."

Thunderlane stood up and stretched his wings. "Now we're talkin'. What's our next move?"

Lyra pointed to the knife on his belt. "Scare Spudblood into talking. We need to know what the Empire wants with Tick Tock’s sister. He's also the only one that knows how to get us moving again."

A tiny, nervous voice piped up from the other side of the room. "I could do it," Derpy whispered. She winced as everypony stared at her. "I mean, I think I could."

Tick Tock quickly began checking her vitals. "You should be resting," he warned. "The medication and sedation spells are confusing you." He tried to smile reassuringly. "Lie down and take it easy or you'll tire yourself out and undo all my hard work."

Lyra moved to Derpy's side and blocked her view of the others. "I need you to be as honest as you can, little one. Can you fix my ship?"

Derpy scrunched up her muzzle in thought. "I think I can. She uses an old anti G-bubble drive just like the cars my dad worked on back home when we were short on bits. I never saw one this big, but it works about the same. Give me a chance to find out."

"Good enough for me." Lyra pointed to Octavia and Bon Bon. "Get her to the engine room. Do everything she says. Thunderlane, you and Vinyl are with me. Doc, you stay here. You've done enough."

Everypony but Bon Bon rushed to obey. The companion maintained an air of grace and poise as she politely held the door so that Octavia and Mac could carry Derpy away. She regarded Lyra coldly as the unicorn passed. "I am not a member of your crew, remember?" She indicated Tick Tock and his sister. "I am helping for them, not for you."

"I don't much care why you're helping," Lyra said. "Just get to it." She galloped out of the infirmary with the rest of her crew in tow, heading for the passenger dorms. There was a traitor to question, and she wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

Author's Note

Death by parasprites...that just sounds yucky. That’s probably getting eaten alive, right? It’d be like the little beetles from The Mummy, only Brendan Fraser doesn’t show up to save the day and the bugs are adorable.

What do you think about “Spud”? Good twist? Bad twist? No twist at all? I was a little doubtful about this chapter mostly because of him. It’s oddly fitting that the character being a royal pain to write…is a royal pain in the story. I like that someone picked up on the fact that he was the useless mechanic Mal hired before meeting Kaylee.

What? No, that…that was completely intentional. Of course I meant to do that.

Pretty Vision isn’t a pont that I made up. She was the brown earth pony that followed Photo Finish around. You can find her on the big list of ponies on the wiki if you like.

Valkyrie

Lyra, Vinyl, and Thunderlane gathered outside the room where Blueblood was being held. “Get up to the bridge and plot a course for Beaumonde,” Lyra told her pilot. “We might find somepony there with enough money to buy our cargo and grease a few hooves to make the Empire look the other way. We'll sell for cheap so they can justify the expense. I want us in the air the moment the engines are running again.”

Vinyl flashed a comically serious salute. "Shiny. I'm on it."

Lyra waited until Vinyl was gone, then turned to Thunderlane. “Remember,” she warned, “you just need to scare him.”

Thunderlane tapped the hilt of his knife thoughtfully. “Pain counts as scary, right?”

“No!” Lyra hissed. “Well, yes, but no. Don’t torture him. I don’t want that kind of thing on my ship, okay? Violence perceived is violence achieved, or something like that.”

“That don’t make sense,” Thunderlane grumbled, but he didn’t argue further. He opened the door and politely held it for Lyra.

Prince Blueblood was in understandably poor spirits. His horn was covered by a cone made of rosewood wrapped in iron bands to suppress his magic, and his face was a bloody mess where Mac had kicked him. For a pony that probably had a broken jaw, he didn’t seem to be in much pain.

"Hey, Spuddy!" Lyra said cheerfully. "Sorry about the horn cone. We couldn't have you throwing the rest of us around like you did Octavia."

"I didn't think we had to use it," Thunderlane added. "I said we should just cut that horn right off, but Lyra thinks we shouldn’t stoop that low. I still say you'd look better without it."

Blueblood took a deep breath and let it out in a resigned sigh. "I would prefer to be called by my proper name. ‘Spud’ is just a fake title I assumed out of necessity. If this is about getting me to fix the engines, you're wasting your time."

"Reckon we don't need you for the engines," Thunderlane said. "That nice mare you shot is working on them. She's still alive, by the way. You didn't kill her. I know you were just all kinds of torn up about shooting an innocent mare."

"We just want to know why the Empire wants Tick Tock’s sister," Lyra said. "I've given Thunderlane the job of finding out. Given the situation, I hope you’ll understand if he’s a little… rushed.”

"You don't frighten me," Blueblood said with a sickeningly self-assured smile. "I know how you operate, Heartstrings. You don't torture ponies. You and your pathetic lackeys like to imagine that you are more honorable than the rest of the 'Verse. You’re a petty thief with delusions of nobility."

Lyra accepted the insult without batting an eye. "Octavia isn’t petty," she said. Blueblood's cocky smirk disappeared. "I could have given this job to her, but I didn't. Why do you think that is?" Thunderlane pulled out his bowie knife and gripped it tightly with his teeth. "I’ll tell you why; it’s because Thunderlane is going to enjoy it a lot more than Octavia ever would."

Thunderlane grinned. "Go do captainy stuff, Lyra. Leave me and Prince Charming alone for a while."

"You kids be good!" Lyra said. She leaned in so that only Thunderlane could hear her and whispered "Remember what we talked about."

"But what if he's stubborn?" Thunderlane asked.

"He won't be. He'll cave."

Thunderlane glanced at Blueblood, then leaned in to ask something else. “No,” Lyra sighed, “you can’t just pretend that he wouldn’t talk.” She stepped back into the hallway and shut the door, then set out for the engine room. Derpy seemed like an honest pony, but she wanted to make sure that the cross-eyed pegasus wasn’t just banging on the engine with a wrench and hoping for the best.

After Lyra was gone Thunderlane took a seat in front of Blueblood. "Alone at last!" he said with relief. "I thought she'd never leave. You and me, we don't get to spend nearly enough time together. We don't know each other half as well as I'd like. Hay, we've been pals for years and I never even knew you were a gutless traitor that likes to shoot at mares when you’re nervous."

"Talk all you want," Blueblood said. "It doesn't matter. The Empire will find us very soon. In one week's time I will be enjoying a bath with a pretty mare and you will be rotting in a prison cell."

Thunderlane's smile change subtly and became much less friendly. "That may be, but I can guarantee that she won't like you for your smile. Those pretty teeth are going to be the first things to go."

"You are embarrassing yourself," Blueblood said calmly. "The captain pretends to be coldblooded, but you and I both know better. Even a pony like you is above torture."

Thunderlane giggled, sounding almost like a child. “That’s a funny way to say ‘both’,” he said. “I didn’t know there was an l in ‘both’. Boooolllllth.” He frowned and tried to collect his thoughts. “Reckon we’re getting away from what’s important. I’m tryin’ to say that we’ve known each other for a long time, Spud."

"Blueblood."

"Whatever. You were here when I first joined Lyra's crew. Remember how I looked before they made me get cleaned up?” Blueblood shivered. “Yeah, you remember. Did I look like a pony that was above much of anything? You don't have to answer that." Thunderlane reached up and flicked one of Blueblood's ears. "I've changed my mind. I think I'd like an ear first."

“You wouldn’t!” Blueblood insisted. “Lyra would never allow it.”

Thunderlane leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “Yeah,” he sighed. “Lyra’s like that, ain’t she? I don’t blame her for it, I guess. She’s a nice pony most of the time, and she’s always been honest with me. I really like that about her. She’s way too nice to let me cut you up like I’m threatening.” He eased forward until he could whisper and still be heard. “You know what, though? Lyra isn’t here.”

To his credit, Blueblood remained calm right up until he felt the blade touch his ear. "Alright, alright!" he shrieked, sounding so much like a frightened mare that Thunderlane would have laughed had he not been so disappointed. "The Empire won’t say why she’s important! They haven’t even released an official statement to the military yet! I only know about her because I have a few important friends that still talk to me!"

Thunderlane sheathed his knife and stood up quickly, kicking over his chair as he did so. "I can’t believe that I’ve been living with a worthless loser all this time!" he huffed. "You're just a... a flip-flop! You act tough one minute and you're full of LAN-dan JIANG the next! Ain't you supposed to be some kind of noble-blooded outcast or somethin'? Where's your sense of pride?"

"I just wanted to go home!" Blueblood whinnied.

"Quit whining!" Thunderlane barked. "Lyra gave you a home when you didn't have one! You should be ashamed of yourself." He looked regretfully at Blueblood's ear. A small tricked of blood was leaking out from where his blade had nicked the skin. "I really expected better from you. I’ll never make that necklace at this rate. I'm going to find Lyra; maybe she'll have something fun for me to do."

“Wait! I could help you if you let me go.” Blueblood tried to smile, but the pain of his broken jaw turned it into a grimace. “You have no idea how badly the Empire wants that little mare. They’ll pay.”

Thunderlane opened the door and looked around to make sure that the Captain wasn’t still outside. “Would this agreement involve turning on the Captain?”

“Yes, it would.” Blueblood ran his tongue over one of his teeth and winced. Shepherd Mac had cracked one of his molars. “I’ll make sure that you are compensated. You’ll make enough to buy your own ship, hire a crew, and keep everything running smoothly for years.”

Thunderlane took plenty of time considering his options. He didn’t want to rush into a decision that he would regret. “You know where the suits are” he said, and cut the bindings around Blueblood’s forelegs. “Get out of here before I change my mind.”

*****

The engine room was not the hive of activity that Lyra expected. Bon Bon and Octavia were talking pleasantly with Derpy, who was propped up against the main reactor. The injured pegasus mare was carefully plugging every cable back into a cable box. “Hi, Captain!” she chirped.

“Hey there, Derpy. How are things coming?”

“Very shiny, Captain.” Derpy looked around at the engine room and sighed happily. She was obviously still under the effects of the null spell, but she looked awake enough to function. “She’s beautiful. You should really treat her better.”

“What do you mean?” Lyra asked. “Spudblood said she was in great shape!”

Derpy winced and plugged in another cable. It sparked and startled her so badly that she almost dropped the box. “Yeah, about that; I don’t think he really knew what he was doing, Miss Captain. Her thermal coupling wore out a long time ago and her radion accelerator core needs new clamps. I turned the coupling backwards because you can get a bit more use out of them that way, but-”

“Hang on!” Lyra said. Her head was starting to hurt. “Say everything you just said again, but pretend I’m Thunderlane.”

“I don’t know if I should. I don’t want to be mean.” She saw Lyra’s unamused frown and took a steadying breath. “Spud was only able to make you think she was running fine because you didn’t know what to look for. She’s a mess, and the only reason you didn’t notice is because it’s almost impossible to stop a Firefly.” Derpy fidgeted nervously with her hooves. “I-I’m really sorry. I don’t want to insult you or the rest of your crew. I’m sure you’re a great leader, but-”

“But I didn’t know enough to tell that my own mechanic was lying to me,” Lyra finished. “Don’t be sorry for being right. How long will it take you to get my ship flying?”

Derpy looked over her current work, then tried to size up the rest of the room. “Most of what Spud did was just pulling a bunch of wires out. He probably thought nopony else would know where they went. I might be able to have it working in twenty minutes if I can get the compression coils to carry a charge.”

“Good. Keep being clever and we’ll be out of here in no time.” Derpy blushed at the compliment and returned to work.

Vinyl spoke over the intercom, her voice amplified in the cramped space of the engine room. “We’ve got a bit of a problem up here. Lyra, you’re going to want to take a look at this.”

Octavia stood up and dusted herself off. “What seems to be the matter?”

“Get your sexy flank up here, ‘Tavi. The alliance found us, and they’re a lot angrier than we thought!”

Everypony ran for the door, but Lyra pushed Bon Bon away. “Stay here!” she ordered. “Derpy is going to need help. Do whatever she says. Dong-ma?”

“I’ll be here,” Bon Bon promised. “Just make sure that maniacal pilot of yours doesn’t get us all killed.”

“No promises!” Lyra yelled as she and Octavia took off down the passageway. They reached the cockpit in record time and found Vinyl browsing idly through her playlists and looking out the window. Mac was already there, praying quietly over his Bible. “What are you doing?” Lyra demanded. “Get us into the air!”

“That’d be pretty impressive without using the engines,” Vinyl shot back. “Right now we’re waiting on Bright Eyes. I don’t think it matters, though. We’re sort of outnumbered.” She pointed to the instrument panel. “See all those red dots? They’re all here for us, and they’re super upset about something.”

Lyra looked up through the bridge’s window and saw a huge gathering of ships assembling above the moon’s gravity well. Thirteen vessels, each of them carrying enough firepower to vaporize her beloved Sereneighty in an instant, were clustered together in an attack formation. “Do they know where we are?” she asked.

“Not yet, but it won’t be long once they start looking." Vinyl sat back in her chair and sighed helplessly. "The moment we fire up Sereneighty they’ll be on us like worship on an alicorn. I’ve got the scrambler going so they can’t pick up the ship’s serial number, for all the good it will do. I don’t know what else to do, Lyra."

“We’re dead for sure if we just lie here,” Lyra said. She sat in the captain’s chair, but didn’t bother with her safety harness yet. “We run. We don’t have any other choice.” The bridge was silent while everypony contemplated their chances of escape. Vinyl finally selected the music she wanted, but waited to play it out of respect for her friends.

Thunderlane eventually made it to the bridge, and Vinyl briefed him on the situation. “This ain’t the kind of thing that I signed on for,” he grumbled. He leaned against the steel rail separating the bridge from the lower airlock’s access bay. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“Not a clue,” Vinyl sighed. She looked over the imperial ships with a practiced eye. “Those are Warhammer fighters out there. They're really maneuverable, but they aren't half as fast as Sereneighty; their engines aren’t even big enough for anti-G bubble drives, let alone any of the newer stuff. We could outrun them if they don’t blow us up right away, but the bigger ships would just follow us.” She sat up in her chair and studied the fleet more carefully. “Hang on a second. They’ve put the smaller craft in front to look for us.”

“And that’s a good thing?” Thunderlane asked. “Sounds to me like they know what they’re doing.”

Vinyl began to giggle. “Oh, they do. They’re ready for almost anything.” She used the intercom to call the engine room. “Derpy! How much longer until we’re ready? We need to do a hard burn as soon as we can.”

“Almost there!” the pegasus answered. “I have one of the compression coils working. It isn’t enough for a hard burn, but you can fly at normal speed.”

“Good enough. Limber up those engines and get the other coil ready within the next two minutes.”

“But I don’t–”

The pegasus was cut off as Vinyl switched off the speaker. “Everypony needs to find something to hang on to,” she warned. “Things are about to get awesome.” Thunderlane shared his rail with Mac, who was starting to look extremely nervous. Lyra fastened her harness while Octavia braced herself against the cabin door.

The beginnings of Vinyl’s song began pumping through the ship’s speakers, filling the bridge with a heavy bass beat. “Here we go!” she exclaimed. She ignited the engines and launched the ship away from the moon, angling Sereneighty toward the imperial fleet. “Let’s hope that I know what I’m doing!”

“Vinyl, turn around!” Lyra shouted. “You’re going the wrong way!”

“You worry too much,” Vinyl soothed. “Nothing can touch me, Cap. I’m like a song on the wind.”

Octavia somehow managed to speak over the music and still retain her polite tone. “Vinyl, darling, I really think you should explain yourself!”

Vinyl completely let go of the controls and spun her chair all the way around to glare at her wife. “Hey! I’m flying this ship, thank you very much. Me pilot, you first mate. I think I’ve logged a lot more time at the controls than you have. Dong-ma?”

“Vinyl!” Lyra shrieked, covering her eyes and cowering in her chair. Vinyl enveloped the ship’s controls in her magic and narrowly avoided colliding with one of the Empire’s Warhammers. She turned around and frowned irritably, then pulled her goggles down over her eyes to block out the rest of the crew.

“That’s what happens when you distract the pilot!” Vinyl shouted. The ship careened hard to port and dodged a torpedo that would have fried anything electronic onboard. “Shut up and let me fly.” She turned up her music and pushed the ship to even greater speeds, heading directly toward the cluster of Solar Empire carriers.

The deafening music cut out as an authoritative voice automatically overrode Vinyl’s dubtrot. “This is Commander Shining Armor of the SES Warhorse. You are on a collision course with this vessel and three others. If you don’t change course we will be forced to open fire!”

Vinyl shut off the radio with her magic. “He won’t shoot,” she said confidently. Her voice was almost lost in the aural hell that filled the bridge once again. “The Empire wants what we have way too bad to risk damaging it.”

The nearest Warhammer opened fire and barely missed one of Sereneighty’s engines. “Or maybe the Empire is being too secretive for their own good and these guys weren’t told that they had to take us alive,” Vinyl said. “Whatever. No big deal.”

Sereneighty rolled out of the way as another torpedo nearly put an end to her escape. Vinyl made the ship dance through the enemy lines, maneuvering like she was piloting a nimble sporting craft and not a one hundred and fifty ton cargo vessel.

The carriers ahead were spreading out to open fire, but they couldn’t risk shooting down their own pilots. By the time the smaller ships were out of the way, Sereneighty had already rocketed through their lines and was moments away from crashing into the Warhorse. “Here comes the chorus!” Vinyl shouted. “Everypony, sing along!”

Sereneighty turned on her side and shot between the Warhorse and one of her sister ships. Mac began praying hysterically while Thunderlane and Lyra screamed. Octavia, however, gritted her teeth and remained silent.

“Chur ni-duh!” Vinyl whooped, making a rude gesture at the enemy ship as they passed. Lyra caught a glimpse of the Warhorse’s bridge, and saw a pony with a white coat and blue mane watching them pass. His expression was priceless.

Vinyl turned the intercom back on. “Derpy, we need a hard burn! Now!”

The ship’s anti-G bubble formed as they passed the Warhorse’s engines. The bubble was essentially an inverted gravity field, pushing everything away from a central point that was located right behind the ship. It pushed Sereneighty forward, but also extended behind her.

In this case, it was big enough to reach the Warhorse’s thrusters. They were far more powerful than anything the little cargo ship had, but gravity couldn’t pull in two directions at once without causing serious problems. The Warhorse’s engines automatically compensated by leeching more power from the rest of the ship, increasing their output tenfold but causing large sections of the carrier to go dark.

Sereneighty rocketed forward as the larger ship’s gravity field repelled her own. No Firefly had ever accelerated so quickly, and the crew held on tight as inertia pushed them back into their seats. Octavia’s hooves scraped against the door frame as she tried to avoid being thrown down the stairs like a ragdoll.

The flight soon stabilized, and Vinyl shut off her music. “That was amazing!” she cheered. “Derpy, sweetheart, you did great!”

“Thanks…I think.” The pegasus sounded a little dazed. “I think I’m upside down. What happened?”

Vinyl pushed away from the control panel and spun around him her chair, throwing her legs out in all directions as she savored the high that only a dangerous flight could bring. “Thank you! You’ve been a great crowd!”

“Keep going!” Thunderlane urged. “I’d say we just caused them no end of annoyance, and I don’t want to find out what they’ll do to us if we get caught!”

“They’ll never catch us,” Vinyl said. “They’ll have to get the Warhorse powered up first. We probably fried a few of her important systems anyway, so those will have to be fixed. They’ve also got to call back all those Warhammer fighters so they don’t get left behind. We’re totally history to them. Dear Celestia, I’m awesome!”

Octavia had finally regained her footing, but looked a bit out of sorts. Her mane was disheveled and her bow tie was crooked. She took the time to fix both problems as best she could before marching up to the pilot’s chair and pressing the release button for Vinyl’s flight harness. “Captain,” she said curtly, “I request permission to return to my quarters.”

“Why?” Lyra asked.

“Because I need to rip off the pilot’s flight suit with my teeth.” Octavia grabbed Vinyl’s forelegs and yanked her out of her chair.

“Whoa!” The unicorn exclaimed. “I uh, I guess we’ll be back later. Just point us toward Beaumonde and I’ll look over the route once we-ugh! Alright, I’m coming!” Octavia dragged her off the bridge, practically carrying her without any visible effort.

Lyra and Thunderlane shared a look. “I’ll be in my bunk,” both said at the same time. They giggled uneasily, and even Shepherd Mac joined in. The tension in the room slowly began to dissipate as the adrenaline worked its way through their systems.

“Um, h-hello?” Derpy’s voice called over the intercom. “I’m still upside down. I got tangled in some wires and I think Miss Bon Bon fainted. Can anypony hear me?”

Eventually Mac set out to rescue Derpy and Thunderlane went to check on Blueblood. Lyra had the bridge all to herself, so she took out her lyre and began to play. For a while she enjoyed the solitude and watched the stars twinkling at her in the black. She was in one of her rare good moods and wanted to savor it.

Bon Bon knocked politely before walking onto the bridge. Good mood over, Lyra thought wryly. Back to work, Captain Grumpypants. “Did you need something?”

“I was told that you had chosen our destination,” Bon Bon said. “If you leave Tick Tock and his sister on Beaumonde they won’t last a day. It’s a Rim world.”

“Barely.” Lyra strummed another cord on her lyre. “They can hitch a ride to a Border world without much trouble. That way they’ll be out of the Rim but not right in the Empire’s lap.”

“You know they won’t make it that far!” Bon Bon accused. “By the time we make it to Beaumonde the Empire will have posted a massive reward for their capture on the Cortex. They’ll be grabbed the moment they step off this ship. Even if they somehow survive for any significant amount of time, Tick Tock won’t be able to treat his sister.”

Lyra’s control of her magic wavered and she plucked one string a bit too hard, souring the melody she had created. “I notice you’ve done a lot of talking about helping them, but none about the trouble they’ve caused. That nice mare that fixed our engine nearly died today, along with the rest of us. We could have been blown all over hell and gone. Having them on the ship is like holding a live grenade.”

“But they need help!” Bon Bon argued. “The Empire did horrible things to poor little Vision. How could you possibly turn them away? If you throw them off this ship and they get captured, you’ll be no better–”

“Don’t!” Lyra shouted. “Don’t go there, Bon Bon. You won’t like what happens if you finish that sentence. This is your one and only warning.”

“Very well,” the Companion said. “Have it your way. Just know that if they leave, I’ll go too. Somepony needs to help them.”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “Do you think I care?” she asked. “You just rent my shuttle. You don’t take orders or bits from me. You’re a grown mare and you can go wherever you like.” Bon Bon stormed off, taking Lyra’s good mood with her.

The bridge remained quiet as she idly twisted back and forth in her chair. She had her ship, her crew, and a huge amount of emptiness outside. All things considered, she should have been happy with how the day had ended.

She wasn’t, but she tried to enjoy it anyway. She considered playing her lyre, but the desire had left her. Instead she decided to retire to her bunk. Lyra opened the hatch leading to her cabin and carefully climbed down the ladder inside. She gently placed her lyre on her desk and sat on the small bed bolted to the wall. For a while she stared at the floor, unsure of what to do now that the day was over.

Something wispy dangled in front of her eyes and made her look up. Lyra came face to face with Pretty Vision, who had somehow wedged herself between two support struts on the ceiling. Both mares screamed, causing Vision to lose her grip on the metal. She flailed about helplessly before tumbling to the floor and landing flat on her face.

“Don’t sneak up on ponies like that!” Lyra yelled. “How did you even get in here?” She completely forgot about being angry when she heard Vision start to sniffle. “Are…are you crying?” The scrawny little mare didn’t answer, which shouldn’t have been a surprise. “Hey, come on, don’t do that. I’m sorry I yelled at you, okay? Are you hurt?”

Vision looked up through her drooping mane and held her bloody nose. “I fell,” she whispered pitifully.

“Yeah, you did.” Lyra knelt down and looked at the injury. “That doesn’t look so bad. Do you want me to find your brother?”

“Hide-and-seek,” Vision said. “Can’t let them find you. No telling.”

“Uh-huh. Does he know that you’re playing hide-and-seek?” Once again, Lyra didn’t get an answer. Vision began looking around her room, still huddled on the ground as though she was afraid to take up more space than she was allowed. “You don’t stick to a conversation very well, do you?”

Vision’s eyes settled on a collection of shelves that held a variety of ancient objects. “You like those?” Lyra asked. “I’ve always had a thing for archaeology.” She carefully plucked one of the artifacts off the shelf with her magic. “I think this one was part of a sword. Lots of ponies think these are just pieces of junk from the Times-That-Were, but I feel like there’s more to it. Some of these tools don’t look like they were made for ponies, or even diamond dogs.”

Lyra pointed to a crude sketch hanging on the wall above her collection. The creature she had drawn walked upright on two legs, and had a pair of spindly appendages attached to its upper body that would allow it to grasp tools and whatever else it took an interest in. “I think this stuff might have been made by a forgotten species. That’s what they might have looked like.”

“Got used in a war,” Vision said quietly, looking at the piece of metal Lyra was holding. “Wasn’t treated right. Broken now.”

“You can tell all of that just from looking at a rusty hunk of iron?”

Vision carefully took the artifact in her mouth and put it back on the shelf. “Wasn’t talking about the metal,” she mumbled. “And that was a shovel.” Lyra watched in silence as she climbed nimbly up the stairs and trotted off in search of her brother. The cabin was quiet for a long time after she left.

Eventually Thunderlane disturbed her by yelling that Blueblood had escaped. Lyra grabbed her pistol and swore violently. One thing after another, she thought. Just once I’d like to think that the universe doesn’t hate me.

Author's Note

So begins Lyra’s tradition of never pronouncing Blueblood’s name the way he wants her to.

Space Monkeys

There were not many ponies among the upper crust of New Equestrian society that preferred to keep to themselves. It was considered strange for a pony to shut himself away in his big house and shun the glamour of high society in favor of a solitary existence. The select few that made this choice often became social outcasts, and their lavish homes were frequently the subject of much gossip among their more talkative peers.

Guesses as to what went on behind closed doors were typical among aristocrats. They hinted at lascivious affairs, violent domestic problems, or even political dissent when speculating about the secrets of their fellow socialites. All manner of terrible rumors were started based on nothing more than what somepony had heard somepony else swear was the truth.

Nopony, however, could have guessed the true nature of an unassuming stallion with a cream-colored coat and a blue mane. He had been called a deviant, a radical, a hermit, and on several occasions a very unpleasant pony. None of it was true, because the truth was too remarkable for anypony to guess.

Sir Horte Cuisine had mastered a wide variety of skills in his life, but his favorite was cooking. His skills in the kitchen were legendary, and he had the cutie mark to prove it. He was currently putting those skills to use by making a smoothie.

“These are very good for you,” the cultured earth pony explained as he looked over his ingredients. “Most ponies think of health food as being unappetizing, but it doesn’t have to be. Take kiwis, for example. They’re a good source of vitamin E, vitamin C, and potassium. Some ponies call them Chineighs Gooseberries, but I fail to see why. They don’t look much like berries, do they?”

Horte dumped a small bowl of sliced kiwis into the blender on his kitchen counter. “Next, strawberries. They’re good for folate, potassium, fiber, vitamin C, and even manganese. After that we have bananas, which provide potassium and thiamin. They’ve got lots of vitamin B6 as well.” Strawberries and bananas went into the blender together.

“Lastly, we’ve got oranges and fresh carrots. Oranges are good for folate and potassium. They also provide vitamin C, but everypony know that.” He frowned disapprovingly at the pile of carrots in front of him. “I grew these myself,” he said regretfully. “I’m not sure why. I like carrots, I suppose, but I don’t like the color. They give us niacin and vitamin B6, along with some vitamin A. They’d be the perfect vegetable if they weren't so…orange. They’re the same color as the oranges, and for some reason that bothers me. Is that strange?”

A quiet whimper filled the kitchen as he dumped the remaining produce into the blender. A mare in torn tactical gear was pulling weakly at the zip ties binding her to a wooden chair. Her stomach had been burned open by a plasma pistol, and the smell of burnt flesh threatened to make her sick. “Please,” she begged, “Please, I… it hurts. Help me.”

Horte leaned against the counter and coldly evaluated her injuries. “Why would I do that?” he asked. “You broke into my house and tried to kill me. Besides, plasma necrosis has already set in. Nopony can help you now.”

The mare sobbed again and looked around for someone to rescue her, but the rest of her team was already dead. “Nine is a bit large for a tactical team, don’t you think?” Horte asked. “If you can’t do it with five then you probably can’t do it with nine.”

The kitchen went quiet while the mare contemplated her bleak future. “You need to tell me who sent you,” Horte suggested. “I can kill you quickly, and without pain.”

“I’m dead anyway, remember?” The mare spat blood onto the floor and groaned as the action jostled her bleeding midsection. “I got a reputation to think of.”

Horte sighed tiredly and walked out from behind the kitchen counter. He knelt down next to his prisoner and pulled her wallet out of her pocket. “I can understand wanting to die with dignity,” he said. “However, you need to consider your friends. I mean your living ones, of course, not the ones you brought here to kill me. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll have to go looking for them.”

He held up an IdentCard. “You really shouldn’t bring personal documents into the field. I’m sure that you have family, or at least some living acquaintances. I don’t want to hurt them, but I will if you don’t tell me what I want to know. I can be very good at torture when I need to be.”

“Alright!” she cried. “It was –”

His communicator rang, interrupting her before she could finish. Horte Cuisine huffed in irritation and trotted back to the kitchen counter to answer. “I’m very sorry for putting our conversation on hold,” he apologized. “I have to take this. I’m sure that you understand.” He flipped open his communicator and held it to his ear. “What is it?” he asked. “I’m a bit busy at the moment.”

The mare watched in disbelief as Horte Cuisine had what sounded like a perfectly casual conversation while she bled to death. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think… yes, it’s a private matter. Somepony tried to kill me in my own home. What? No, of course they didn’t succeed.” He looked at her and rolled his eyes. “Sir, if they had killed me then… yes, you understand. No, I’m mostly free, I just… it’s that important? Really? Very well, who did… oh, no. Sir, please don’t let him do that.”

A voice on the other end of the line said something that sounded very angry. “It is hardly my fault that Blueblood is incompetent,” Horte Cuisine pointed out. “I understand, sir. I’ll find him as soon as possible and get someone else to go after the package. May I ask what it… no, I suppose you’re right. I am not paid to be curious. I believe that I know the former heads of security for this operation before the asset went missing. I’ll set up a meeting with them to… very well, sir.”

Horte Cuisine snapped his communicator shut and tossed it back onto the counter. “I dislike bureaucrats,” he mused. “They never ask politely. What about you? Are your employers polite, or are they like mine?”

The bleeding mare didn’t answer. Horte Cuisine ran over to check her pulse and let out a frustrated groan.

*****

Horrible, selfish mare! Bon Bon thought as she ran a brush through her silky mane. How could a pony be so heartless? Pretty Vision never did anything to deserve being tortured, and Lyra would gladly let the Empire have her again if it made life a little easier. She doesn’t want to admit it, but she’s no better than the monsters responsible for this.

No, she’s even worse than that. At least they had an excuse, however pathetic it may be. They were just following orders. Bon Bon knew that her temper was getting the better of her, but the anger felt too good to give up. As a Companion she was expected to maintain control over her emotions at all times, but surely here in the privacy of her own bedchamber she was allowed to have a few unkind thoughts. Unkind, perhaps, but not untrue. When innocent ponies need help as badly as Tick Tock and his sister, what kind of mare could turn them away?

Bon Bon finished brushing her mane and applied a little moisturizer. It was expensive, but she didn’t skimp when it came to her appearance; her livelihood depended on her ability to look her best. I can support them for a while, but not forever. How will they find work? How will Tick Tock help Vision while on the run?

Her eyes settled on a photograph taped to the side of her mirror. The whole crew, minus the newcomers, were gathered around the table and talking over dinner. I expected better from you, Lyra. You weren't like this when we first met. At this rate you’ll be a Reaver by Hearth’s Warming Eve. Bon Bon felt guilty for thinking something so horrible, but Lyra deserved it.

The Captain wasn’t in danger of becoming a Reaver, of course. Most ponies didn’t even think that Reavers existed, and the few that knew the truth believed the condition was caused by more than just simple insanity.

Somepony knocked at her door and derailed her train of thought. Bon Bon stood up and wrapped her robe around herself to ward off the chill. She kept her shuttle cool to make her bed seem cozier, but right now she was wishing she had turned up the heat just a little. Her hooves padded across the thick carpet and kicked aside a few stray pillows until she reached the hatch leading to the rest of Sereneighty. She pushed a button on the key pad next to the door and it slid open with a faint hiss.

“Captain?” Bon Bon asked, wondering why in the world Lyra was visiting her at such a late hour. Night and day had no meaning aboard the ship, but the crew had fairly regular hours that it liked to keep. “I don’t want to speak with you. You should be ashamed of yourself. When we reach Beaumonde our arrangement will be terminated. Until then I ask only that you leave me alone.”

Lyra seemed genuinely hurt, which was something that Bon Bon couldn’t remember seeing in almost two years of living aboard Sereneighty. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“You’re what?” Bon Bon stared at her dubiously. “If this is some kind of trick, it won't work. You won’t be able to persuade me to stay once Tick Tock and Vision are gone.”

Lyra grabbed Bon Bon in a cloud of golden magic and pulled her off her feet. “We shouldn’t,” the Companion warned, already certain of her intentions. The Captain carried her into the shuttle and locked the door behind them.

“We’re going to regret this,” Bon Bon breathed. Her protesting wasn’t as vocal as it should have been, and she made no attempt to push Lyra away. The unicorn gently kissed her cheek, then moved down to her neck. She slowly became more forceful until Bon Bon finally felt the need to stop her. “That’s…that’s a little too rough, Lyra.” The unicorn bit her shoulder once, then again hard enough to draw blood. “Stop! Lyra, that hurts!”

The unicorn that reared back and glared at her was not the same pony that had carried her into the shuttle. Lyra’s teeth had been filed to points, her horn was sharpened, and her cheeks were cut to resemble a wider mouth. She had even branded a crescent moon into her forehead around her horn. The Reaver’s horrible smell filled her nose and made her gag. Septic wounds and bad breath made for a pervasive stench that she couldn't escape.

The Reaver howled with mindless rage and plunged its teeth into her throat.

Bon Bon woke screaming and clutching one of her many pillows. She was grateful that the rest of the ship couldn’t hear her. For a while she sat in bed and hugged her pillow, waiting for her heart to stop pounding in her chest. It was only a dream, she told herself. Everything is alright.

Except it wasn’t. Bon Bon lay down and tried to go back to sleep, but she knew it was hopeless. Lyra was on her mind again, and her thoughts were too unsettled to allow her to relax. She resigned herself to a sleepless night and rolled out of bed. If she was going to be awake then she would rather not be alone.

Bon Bon pulled on her robe and walked toward the bridge. Somepony was usually awake and at the helm, just in case something bad happened that needed fixing. Bon Bon heard a voice as she neared the bridge and sighed with relief, but paused when she realized that it belonged to Lyra. I can’t see her right now, she thought. I’ll say something horrible and regret it forever.

She decided to go back to bed, even though she knew she wouldn’t be getting any sleep. Even being alone was preferable to being with Lyra right now.

Another voice answered Lyra’s. Is that Tick Tock? Bon Bon wondered. She quietly crept closer to the bridge. It was certainly the doctor, but she wasn’t close enough to hear what he was saying. She had to keep inching closer until she was standing right outside the doorway, and by then Tick Tock was finished talking.

“I need us to be clear on this,” Lyra said firmly. “You’re dangerous. You and your sister could bring down a world of trouble on me and mine. If I lose my crew or my ship, I’m out a home. You brought danger right to where I live.”

“I understand.”

“Good, because I sure as hay don’t want there to be any misconceptions here. I don’t see many reasons to help you. Hay, I don’t even like you. You’ve got too much of the Core worlds in you, and that makes most of us around here feel like you think you’re better than us.”

Bon Bon covered her mouth so that nopony would notice her angry snort. Lyra, shame on you! she thought. At least be civil to the poor stallion before you feed him and his sister to the wolves, you wretched mare.

Tick Tock struggled to clear his throat. He sounded very choked up. “I-I understand. I’m truly sorry for the trouble, Captain.”

“I don’t care how sorry you are. You’d do it again if you had to.” Lyra sighed and a few notes from her lyre drifted out to Bon Bon’s hiding place. “Contrary to what some of the crew might think, I had family once. I got sent to a music academy for a while as a filly and I missed them somethin’ fierce. I know what it’s like to care for those close to you. Do we have an understanding?”

“We’ll keep our heads down,” Tick Tock assured her. “We won’t make trouble.”

Lyra’s tone became even harsher than before. “You understand how this works, right? You’re taking my pay now. That means you stay out of the way and do your job. There aren’t many of the expensive little comforts out here that you Core ponies are used to, and I don’t want to hear any complaining about that.”

“Of course not,” Tick Tock said. “Thank you, Captain. I understand the risk you’re taking.”

“I doubt that. Go look after your sister. She might try to eat Thunderlane’s weight set or something.” Bon Bon stood aside as the doctor trotted by her. She started to follow him, but Lyra called out to her before she could get away.

Bon Bon reluctantly walked onto the bridge, feeling for all the world like a naughty filly about to get a lecture. “I don’t much care for ponies that sneak around and spy on others,” Lyra said. She was sitting upright in the captain’s chair, legs dangling over the end and lyre resting in her lap. On a whim Bon Bon tried to hop into the pilot’s chair and sit in the same pose, but slid right out of her seat.

Lyra’s scowl disappeared as she tried unsuccessfully to hide her laughter. “Nice try. You know I only sit like this because my pelvis got shattered in the war, right?”

“Really?” Bon Bon asked.

“I got run over by a wagon. It’s no big deal. Couldn’t sleep?”

Bon Bon turned toward the window so that she could watch the starts. Doing so also gave her a good excuse to avoid looking at Lyra. “I had nightmares,” she said. She suddenly wondered what she would say if Lyra asked what she had been dreaming about. “Nothing specific, you understand. I certainly don’t remember any of the details or who it was about.”

“I had bad dreams too,” Lyra admitted. Bon Bon pretended to be listening intently, but inwardly her mind was racing. What if our nightmares are similar? Lyra might be more self-aware than I thought. Does she worry about becoming cold and heartless? Does she fear losing herself out here in the black as much as I fear watching her go?

Bon Bon decided that it probably wasn’t a good idea to ask what Lyra was afraid of. The mint-green unicorn was obviously uncomfortable talking about it, so she shifted the conversation in a new direction. “I think it’s very sweet of you, taking in Tick Tock and his sister. I may have thought a few unkind things about you. I apologize.”

Lyra shrugged and began playing her lyre in earnest. Bon Bon was surprised to hear the melody of a pop song coming from such a traditional instrument. “I’m not sweet. I’m a mean, grumpy old mare. I didn't do it for them, you know.” You aren’t fooling anypony, Bon Bon thought, but kept such sentiments to herself. “We just picked up a great medic for cheap, and they won’t be too much trouble if they stay hidden. Considering that our new mechanic actually knows her business, I’d say the quality of life around here is really going to improve.”

“You offered that sweet mare a job with brigands?”

“Yeah, but we’re lovable brigands. Hay, Thunderlane’s downright cuddly.” They both shared a laugh, which was a rare occurrence. “She wasn't happy with the kind of work that we do, but I promised not to do anything too bad. There’s plenty of honest illegal work that doesn't involve slaves or drugs. I wouldn’t touch any of that that go-se anyway; I’ve got my standards just like everypony else.”

Bon Bon listened to the music and felt the knot of anxiety in her stomach slowly dissolve. She decided that she could finally get to sleep, knowing that the Captain wasn’t as lost as she feared. She even felt brave enough to ask a potentially dangerous question. “Can I ask what your dream was?”

“There were monkeys,” Lyra said. Bon Bon swiveled around in her chair and stared at her. “We were hauling cargo for a zoo. Terrifying space monkeys got loose in the engine room. One of them ate my lyre.”

False alarm, then. She’s just as oblivious as ever. Bon Bon rolled her eyes and left the bridge behind her, now certain that she would be able to get some rest. There was something oddly comforting in the knowledge that Lyra was as introspective as a bowl of celery soup.

*****

Octavia and Vinyl took the news that they would be having new shipmates very well, having already grown to like both Derpy and the fugitive siblings. Thunderlane, however, was less than pleased. When Lyra broke the news that Tick Tock and Vision would be staying on Sereneighty, the brawny pegasus had loudly objected. He was so belligerent that Lyra sent him to his bunk with orders to remain there until he cooled off.

Thunderlane’s bad mood was the only sour note in an otherwise pleasant trip. Between getting the newcomers settled and making lists of all the things that Derpy would need to fix up Sereneighty, Lyra had plenty to keep her busy.

The ship arrived on Beaumonde in just over three days. Vinyl called Lyra to the bridge on the third day to watch the “sunrise”. Octavia was there as well and dutifully stood up from the captain’s chair. Lyra watched as the planet’s sun, Kalidasa, peeked out over the horizon and lit the world with a yellow glow. “Gotta love a good light show,” Vinyl said. “It’ll feel strange to be back home.”

“Nopony is going anywhere unless they have to,” Lyra warned. “Don’t think this is a vacation just because you know the neighborhood. We’re here to sell some illegal cargo, not take in the nightlife.”

Octavia closed her eyes for a moment and steadied herself. “Actually, we will both be leaving for a while. Vinyl and I have something very important to do.”

Lyra eyed her reproachfully. “That end part there was missing a question mark.”

“It was not,” Octavia admitted. “I am sorry, sir, but we really need to go. Vinyl has something very personal to take care of and I need to be with her.”

Lyra was annoyed, but not really angry. She wished that Octavia had said something sooner, but trusted the slightly older mare’s judgment. “Fine, just make it quick. I don’t like being stuck in one place for too long.” She took one last look at the smoky grey orb of Beaumonde as it grew to fill the bridge’s window. “I need to find the others and dish out some orders. Octavia, tell everypony else to meet me in the galley and make sure to lock the ship down before you go on your errand.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lyra enjoyed a soda in the galley while the rest of her crew (and Bon Bon) congregated. “We’re about to land on Beaumonde,” she said when everypony was present. “It’s a mighty big world, so don’t stray too far. Thunderlane, you’re with me on this one. I’ve never dealt with our buyer before, so I don’t know how much I can trust him. Bon Bon, what are your plans?”

Bon Bon giggled and flipped her mane flirtatiously. “If you want an evening with me, Captain, you are sadly out of luck. You know my policy on servicing crew.”

Lyra snorted and sputtered as soda stung the inside of her nostrils. “That isn’t… I didn’t mean it like that!” She noticed Vinyl whispering to Octavia, who developed a sudden coughing fit. “Shut up!” Lyra ordered. She hoped she wasn’t blushing. Vinyl quickly left the table and galloped to the bridge before her mouth got her into trouble. “Derpy needs to look for parts and I need somepony to look after her. Can you handle that, or is it too much honest work for your delicate sensibilities?”

“I can find time to take Derpy shopping,” Bon Bon agreed. “I made arrangements for tomorrow evening. There should be plenty of time to spend a little mare time together before then.” Thunderlane chuckled, but the rest of the crew wisely ignored him.

“I assume that my sister and I are confined to the ship? Tick Tock asked.

“You’d better believe it,” Lyra said. "We're way too close to Empire territory. Nopony can get even a look at you or Vision. Where is she, anyway?”

Most of the crew began to look nervous; it was generally considered a bad practice to leave a crazy pony unsupervised on a spaceship. “I think I saw her with the Shepherd,” Derpy offered. “I like him. Is he going to be leaving now that we’ve arrived?”

Lyra shrugged. “Most likely,” she said, and stood up from the table. “He won’t be interested in traveling with us now that he knows the kind of stuff we’re doing. Ticky, you’d better go find your sister before the preacher has her trying to bring religion to all the fuzzy-wuzzies or something.”

“How’s our job lookin’?” Thunderlane asked. “Who are we dealing with, anyway? Is he the kind of pony we need to impress?”

“No!” Lyra said quickly. “No impressing and no intimidation. Word is, he’s just a business pony. He wants a professional, not a showoff.”

The ship lurched wildly and everypony grabbed the table to keep from falling over. Vinyl’s voice came over the intercom as another tremor rocked Sereneighty. She sounded like she was doing everything in her power to avoid screaming. “Hey, Captain! So uh, hypothetical question here: How mad would you be if something bad happened when we landed?”

“That depends on how bad it is. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason. We’re fine.” Everypony grabbed the table again as Sereneighty shook. “We’re uh, totally. Fine, that is. We’re okay. Derpy, could you be a doll and get down to the engine room?”

Thunderlane grinned. “Let’s hope he’s gullible.”

Author's Note

There are now breaks between the different parts of the chapter. Why did I stop doing that? I've been doing that for ages!

You didn't think I’d leave Reavers out of this, did you? They’ll be appearing either in the next “episode” or the one after it. If you've ever seen Firefly, you know that they’re bad news. It’s my job to make them seem just as bad, if not badder. That’s kind of a tall order. Also, on a semi related note, the next "episode" has Spitfire in it! Yay! Unless you don’t like Spitfire. In which case… sorry? I guess?

Can you guys pick the movie villain that inspired the way that I introduced Horte Cuisine? He was similar in some ways, like his love of cooking and cultured attitude. He was played by Dolph Lundgren, if that helps.

Shady Deals

Several hours after Sereneighty’s not-quite-graceful landing, Derpy followed Bon Bon through the crowded megacity of Beaumonde. The pegasus hauled a cargo sled full of engine parts behind her, but some of the larger components would have to be delivered later. The nice stallion working at the salvage yard had been very helpful, even if he let his eyes wander a bit too much in Bon Bon's direction. She was pleased with her haul, and couldn’t wait to start working on Sereneighty.

Derpy stayed close to her guide, awestruck by the sights and sounds of such a huge city. She had never seen anything larger than a small Rim town, and Beaumonde seemed like something out of a storybook. The buildings were so tall that she wouldn’t have been able to see the sun even if the planet wasn’t shrouded in a permanent haze of smog.

“Look at all the pretties!” she exclaimed, pointing to a clothing store as they walked by. There were live models posing in the windows to show off the many different outfits. “So many different colors!”

“We should go clothes shopping,” Bon Bon suggested. “This is your first time in a big city, isn’t it?”

“Sure is!” Derpy chirped. “Everything looks so big and shiny. It’s, well, shiny. But won’t the Captain be mad? She only told us to go buy parts for the ship.”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “The first rule of living on Sereneighty is to do what the Captain says. The second rule is to take comforts wherever you can find them, because there aren’t many out in the black. We’ve got plenty of time, so we should at least try to find you some practical clothes. Lyra can’t be mad about that, can she?”

Derpy followed her into a clothing store and was immediately accosted by several salesponies. “Gentlecolts, please!” Bon Bon called. “Give the poor mare some room. I am quite capable of helping her myself. Derpy, let’s see if we can do something about that mane first. Do you want to keep it long?”

“I’d like to,” Derpy answered. “I mean, I can cut it if I have to. Usually at home I just pulled it back into a ponytail when I was working on something.”

Bon Bon nodded approvingly. “We’ll need to find you something durable to wear. What would you like? Look around and see if you can find something with lots of pockets.” She smiled wickedly and added “Maybe we can find something nicer for special occasions, just in case you meet a handsome stallion you’d like to impress.”

“W-what!? No, I-I don’t think so.”

I’m going to love spending time with this mare, Bon Bon thought. She’s positively adorable. “No?” she asked teasingly. “You don’t think you might like to find a special somepony? That doctor pony Lyra hired is awfully cute.”

Derpy shyly examined a nearby dress, obviously clueless as to what she should look for. “D-do you know what’s popular in the Core right now?”

*****

Octavia knew that Vinyl was happy to be on her home planet again, but the skies of Beaumonde were clouded with pollution that hid the stars and moons from view. It wouldn’t be long until her wife was desperate to see them again.

For now she was able to tolerate being on ground, but she was still miserable. It was the doctor’s visit that had Vinyl unhappy, and Octavia wished that there was something she could do to make it better. Unfortunately, all she could do was sit and wait until the doctor was ready for them. Vinyl hadn’t said a word for hours, and Octavia was getting very worried. “How are you feeling?” she asked, unable to take the silence anymore.

“How do you think?” Vinyl snapped. “I’m scared out of my mind and I can’t do any of the things I normally do to get over it. Sereneighty’s grounded and I’m stuck on this jung chi duh go-se dway of a planet and I might h-have…I-I might….”

“Everything will be fine,” Octavia assured her. Vinyl hugged Octavia and cried into her chest, taking in big gulps of air and smudging her goggles with tears. Octavia was glad that the waiting room was mostly empty, because Vinyl would have felt very self-conscious about such a public display of emotion.

Octavia removed Vinyl’s goggles and placed them gently in an empty chair. She felt like crying too, but Vinyl needed her to be strong. “You are not sick, Vinyl. The doctor is just going to run some tests and then we can go." She gently nuzzled into her wife's electric blue mane. "Everything will be alright, baobei.”

Vinyl let Octavia hold her until she finally stopped crying. It took a long time, but eventually she ran out of tears. She looked up at Octavia with her big, soulful red eyes and sniffed. “But what if I h-have cancer? I was so Gorram s-stupid and I hurt us and now it’s…what if it’s too late?”

“You have not touched locoweed in over two years, Vinyl.” Octavia ran her hooves through her wife’s mane, wishing she could say for certain that Vinyl’s fears would not be realized. It was not likely, but there was no way to know for sure.

Locoweed was a dangerous, mind-altering drug that had become very popular on planets like Beaumonde. It was extremely addictive, and caused numerous psychological disorders if abused. It also drastically increased the user’s risk of throat cancer.

“I think you would have noticed a problem before now,” Octavia said. She hoped that was the case, but she wasn’t a doctor. She wished they could have asked Tick Tock, but Vinyl didn’t want anypony to know what they were doing. She didn’t want the crew to treat her differently.

Finally, after Vinyl had finished crying and dried her goggles with a tissue, a nurse called them in. The doctor met them in his office and began looking over his notes. He was kind enough, Octavia supposed, but she would rather have seen a doctor on one of the Core planets. Unfortunately, due to the illegal nature of Sereneighty’s business, this polluted rock was the closest they would get.

After looking down Vinyl’s throat with a tongue depressor, the Doctor fetched a long plastic tube with a light on the end. “I’m going to spray some novocain up your nose,” he explained. “After you’re numb we can feed this probe through your nasal cavity and into your throat. It won’t hurt, but it might feel strange and the medicine won’t taste very good. Please inhale when I tell you to.”

The doctor slid the long tube up Vinyl’s nose and into her throat. The poor unicorn looked extremely uncomfortable, but fortunately the test was over very quickly. “I don’t see anything too bad,” the doctor said. “It looks like you’ve got some problems with reflux.”

“Is that bad?” Vinyl asked.

“It isn’t good, but it’s hardly a serious health hazard. It just means that you’re suffering from heartburn every night. Don’t eat for two or three hours before sleeping, and think about sleeping on a very slight incline. You might also consider taking antacids before bed.”

Vinyl looked at Octavia with a mix of hope and apprehension. “S-so I don’t have….”

“You do not have cancer,” Octavia assured her. “We should do something to celebrate. How long has it been since you went to a nightclub?”

Vinyl eyed her suspiciously. “You hate nightclubs.”

“Yes, I do.” Octavia kissed her, finally allowing herself to relax after a long and stressful day. “But I love you very much. Pick a club.”

*****

Lyra and Thunderlane waited to meet their potential buyer in the basement of a small, run-down apartment building. A table had been set for them, and Thunderlane wasted no time in stuffing his face with whatever he could reach. Better keep my hooves off the table, Lyra thought. Wouldn't want to lose them.

She looked around and the cluttered basement. A large circle had been swept clean to allow space for the table and chairs. Our buyer is a cautious pony, Lyra decided. It would probably be pretty suspicious if he invited us into his office or something. He found a small, out-of-the-way place where he wouldn't be recognized and nopony would get nosey.

“Why is it we’re always waiting on other ponies?” Lyra asked. Thunderlane stopped eating long enough to shrug. It wasn’t so much a full stop as a momentary decrease in intake. “At least they sprung for a decent meal,” she continued. “That’s something.”

They only had to wait for a few more minutes. Lyra was nibbling on a sandwich when a brown earth pony trotted into the room. He was followed closely by a gold-colored stallion carrying a powerful rifle. “Very sorry to keep you all waiting,” he said, running a hoof through his immaculate black mane. He sat down opposite Lyra and poured himself a glass of water. “My name is Filthy Rich. I take it you are Captain Heartstrings?”

Lyra stood up to shake his hoof. “That’s me. I’m told you might be interested in buying our cargo.”

“I just might,” he said. “I’ve got a small terraforming operation going, but we need supplies. The stuff you’re selling is perfect, but it’s normally so expensive that we can’t afford it.”

“Always nice to help out ponies in need,” Lyra said. “As long as we get paid, of course.”

“Of course,” Filthy laughed. “Let’s talk price. How much do you want? As I said, my operation isn’t very big and funds are always hard to come by. Try to keep that in mind.”

Lyra glanced at the yellow stallion standing next to Filthy. He was smiling with the kind of cheer normally reserved for psychopaths and ponies that had won the lottery, but his hoof never strayed far from his rifle. She noticed that Thunderlane had stopped eating and was now watching the riflepony as well. “Two hundred.”

Filthy Rich’s smile shrank a little. “That’s…amusing. You don’t like negotiating, do you?”

He’s got to be kidding, Lyra thought. This isn’t a Gorram pawn shop. “Three hundred is not negotiating. I’m offering it for two hundred. You won’t find a similar product anywhere for less than ten times that price. This is the only chance you’ve got at getting some for yourself.”

Filthy Rich considered her offer for a while, then nodded to his friend. Lyra and Thunderlane tensed as the riflepony reached past his rifle and into his saddlebag, but they relaxed when he tossed a bag of coins onto the table. “Take this as a show of good faith,” Filthy said. “I’m told this is the preferred method of payment for this kind of deal. Credits are so easy to trace, after all. Can I assume that the Empire will want their merchandise back?”

“Assume whatever you like,” Lyra said. “They’ll be looking for it, but we left a pretty long trail to follow. By the time they make it here you’ll have shipped it off with your settlers. Then you get to wring your hooves and complain about being taken advantage of by the mean pirates that sold it to you.”

Filthy Rich chuckled and drained his glass. “You have clearly done this before. Braeburn will arrange the details of the meeting. Unfortunately, I will not be there myself as I have a very important party to prepare for.”

“Ah, to be rich and at play,” Lyra remarked wistfully. “You have yourself a nice evening, Mr. Filthy.”

Filthy Rich winced and pulled at his collar. “I’d really prefer ‘Rich’, if it’s all the same.”

Lyra lifted her glass in acknowledgement. “You’re the one paying us. I’d call you High Priestess Sparkle if you asked me to.”

Filthy Rich smiled and bid them farewell. After he was gone his hired gun sat down in his seat and helped himself to a sandwich. “Hope y’all don’t mind if I join you,” he said. “I missed lunch. I gotta say, the Apple family is mighty grateful for your help. Without you we’d have a lot of trouble feedin’ ourselves ‘fore the first harvest! How about this deal? Where should we meet?”

“Near the docks, but not on them,” Lyra said. “Westgate, Bay Seven. We’ll call you for the meeting at four tomorrow evening. It’s a really crowded place, just in case somepony gets any unpleasant ideas in his head. It’s safer that way.”

Braeburn seemed truly hurt by her implication. “Shucks, I wasn’t gonna-”

“Don’t imagine that you would,” Lyra said quickly. “It’s just business. You never can tell with some ponies, no matter how nice they seem.”

Braeburn seemed satisfied with her answer and went back to eating. “Can I ask y’all about what you do? It must be real exciting, travelin’ around the whole ‘Verse and seein' all it has to offer. The Apple family doesn’t travel much; we’re just stuck here until the homestead’s prepared for us. Not that I’m complaining or nothin’, you understand? I like the farm life just fine.”

Thunderlane indicated Braeburn’s rifle. “You’re awful well armed for a farmer.”

The riflepony’s already huge smile somehow grew bigger. “I’m workin’ as a favor to Mr. Rich,” he said proudly. “He’s givin’ us one humdinger of a deal if I do a few little jobs for him. It’s nothin’ illegal, ‘cept for this part. Mostly I just arrange meetings. The gun is just a family heirloom, but it works. I keep it in case there’s trouble.”

Lyra nodded in agreement. “Can’t be too careful,” she said, looking at Thunderlane. “There’s trouble everywhere these days.”

*****

Thunderlane handed Lyra the bag of Filthy Rich’s money as they were walking back to Sereneighty. “I’ve got an errand to run,” he said. “It shouldn’t take long. You head on back to the ship and I’ll be there before dinner.”

“I remember when my crew used to ask for the day off instead of just taking it!” Lyra called after him as he trotted away. “Lazy jing-tzahng mei yong-duh bunch of moochers!”

Thunderlane soon disappeared amidst the hustle and bustle of the city. He checked to make sure that Lyra wasn’t following him before ducking down an alley and slipping into a seedy bar. He discreetly motioned for the bartender, eyes still trained on the door. “You got a Cortex connection?” he asked.

“Ten bits a minute,” the bartender said. “In the back, there.” Thunderlane grudgingly dropped some coins on the counter and trotted into a tiny back room with a computer terminal inside. He slid a small plastic card into the machine and sat down to wait.

*****

Derpy and Bon Bon made it back to Sereneighty well before Lyra and Thunderlane. “I need to get started on the engines, but can I use the kitchen first?” Derpy asked as they unloaded their bags at the kitchen table. “I’d like to bake something. I make amazing berry powder muffins, and it might be a nice way to thank the Captain for taking me in.”

“You can use the kitchen whenever you like,” Bon Bon said. “As long as you don’t let Vinyl help you, you should be fine.” Bon Bon glanced at the three wrapped candies on her flank and smiled. “You know what? I think we should bake something together. I haven’t cooked anything sweet in a long time.”

“Is that your special talent?” Derpy asked. “I hope it’s okay for me to ask. I didn’t want to ask about what candy has to do with being a Companion. I thought it might be rude.”

“It’s perfectly alright,” Bon Bon assured her. “Most ponies don’t bother to ask at all.” Lyra was the only one, she thought, but she decided that Derpy didn't need to know that. “I got my cutie mark while I was making candy with my mother. After that it only took me a year to decide that I wanted to be a Companion. I’ve always been great at making other ponies happy, and candy isn’t the only way to brighten a pony’s day. I like to think that my special talent is being sweet, not just making things that taste that way.”

Derpy smiled and looked at her own cutie mark. Naturally, one of her eyes refused to cooperate. “That’s a really nice story. I just got lucky; I replaced a coil of wire on one of the cars my dad was working on. It was a Mark 3 drive, so it burned through its conductors really fast. That’s what happens when you try to cram an anti G-bubble drive into a small housing, you know? Things overheat or get crushed by the fallout belt.”

Bon Bon heated the oven while Derpy rambled on about engines. She obviously had a gift, one that the Captain had been wise to put to use. Hopefully the life of a smuggler wouldn’t dampen her cheerful personality.

Shepherd Mac appeared as they were sliding the muffin tray into the oven. He smiled at them, pulled up a chair, and sat down at the table with a big book. “Have you seen Tick Tock?” Derpy asked. “How is he? Is his sister any better?”

“Tick’s doin’ fine,” Mac said. “He’s tryin’ to figure out how to help Vision, but Ah don’t think it’s gonna be a quick fix. She’s okay, though. Still a little raggedy, but she seems nice enough.” The sound of angry shouting drifted into the kitchen. “There’s still a long way to go, a’course,” he admitted.

“At least she’s making progress,” Bon Bon said. “What about you? Are you preparing to leave Sereneighty? I must admit, I enjoyed having a Shepherd onboard. It was nice having a stallion around that wasn’t… well, Thunderlane. The conversation was greatly improved.”

Mac shrugged and opened his book. “Reckon Ah’d rather stay, if that’s alright. Ah’ve got some money and Ah can cook. Ah’ll earn mah keep.”

Derpy stepped away from the stove to give him a big hug. “I’m glad you’re staying,” she said. “You were the first friend I made after leaving home. It wouldn't feel right to keep traveling without you.”

*****

Thunderlane made it back to the ship long before Lyra, which meant that she had taken a detour of her own. She was probably busy talking to a few corrupt ponies in high places and passing a bit of money around to get Sereneighty’s official records changed.

They had used a similar trick in the past whenever the Captain angered somepony a little too powerful for comfort. It was a smart thing to do, given the circumstances; Blueblood was still alive, and he knew the ship’s identification numbers.

Thunderlane found himself with nothing to do for the rest of the day. He felt like working out, but knew that his heart wouldn’t be in it. Instead he wandered the ship, looking for something fun to take his mind off of the nervous energy he had built up over the last few hours.

He started walking without any clear destination in mind, meandering through the galley and up to the bridge. He looked over Vinyl’s toy collection, noting that she had drawn different musical notes on each of them. He wasn’t sure what they were supposed to mean.

He ambled back through the galley and towards the engine room, passing through the cargo hold. Again he thought about hauling out his weight set, but decided not to bother. It would be more productive to see if Derpy needed help with the engine, though he was fairly certain that Mac was already there. Another pair of hooves couldn’t hurt, especially when the mare in charge was recovering from a bullet wound.

Thunderlane was slightly annoyed to find the engine room empty. How was he supposed to distract himself when nopony was doing anything important? Maybe he would go back to the cargo hold and work out after all, just to kill time.

“Hush,” somepony whispered.

Thunderlane’s mane stood on end even more so than usual. He spun around, eyes wide and heart pounding. When he finally found the source of the voice he wasn’t sure if he felt relieved or even more disturbed. Pretty Vision was huddled between the support struts of the ship’s main reactor. “What in the hay are you doing down there?” he demanded.

Vision held a hoof to her lips. “Hiding,” she whispered. “Ticky wants to give me a treatment.”

“Probably ought to let him,” Thunderlane said.

Vision peeked out from beneath the reactor and brushed her mane out of her face. Thunderlane was reminded of the sappy public service announcements that he sometimes saw when he tried to call somepony over the Cortex. "For only a few bits a day…" “I really hate needles,” she mumbled.

One of Thunderlane’s ears swiveled around as a morose voice drifted up from the infirmary. He trotted out to the catwalk overlooking the cargo hold so that he could listen in better. “I’m really sorry,” Derpy was saying. He hadn’t heard the first part of her apology, so he didn’t know what went wrong.

“It’s okay,” Tick Tock assured her. “Really, it’s fine. It was a good idea. I think she just isn’t comfortable yet. It’s going to take a while for her to get used to this environment.”

“Do you think you can help her?” Derpy asked.

Thunderlane glanced back into the engine room and saw Vision tangled up in the reactor’s support struts. Somehow she had managed to wedge herself between the reactor and the floor, and was now stuck. “I’ll try,” Tick Tock said. “This ship doesn’t have the diagnostic equipment I need, and none of the unicorns know any helpful spells, so I’m very limited in what I can do.”

“I think you’ll do just fine,” Derpy said confidently. “You’re a good pony, and there are other good ponies here. A nurturing environment can do a lot of good for a pony, right?”

Tick Tock snorted. “Right, nurturing. This ship is nurturing. This is what passes for nurturing on the Rim.”

“Nopony wants to make you feel uncomfortable,” Derpy assured him. There was a short pause while she reconsidered her words. “Nopony but Thunderlane wants to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Thunderlane trotted into the engine room and tried to help Vision out of her self-imposed prison. “Get out of there!” he snapped. He pulled hard on her forelegs and moved her just enough to let her slide out from between the struts. “Don’t come in here again. I don’t like the idea of some moon-brained little weirdo running around next to the machine that keeps us alive on long trips.”

“You aren’t very nice,” Vision muttered darkly.

“No, I’m not, now go! Your shee-niou brother’s lookin’ for you.”

Vision walked hesitantly out onto the catwalk and looked around at the cargo hold as though expecting some sort of ambush. “Do you have a brother?” she asked.

Thunderlane had never been comfortable talking about his family on Sereneighty. It felt wrong, like he was dragging somepony’s name through the mud. “Yeah,” he said. “I do. Now go on, go get your head looked at.” He made sure that she left the engine room and shut the door behind her, then headed back into the cargo hold to start his workout. He still didn’t give it his best, but he couldn’t stand being idle any longer.

*****

Thunderlane was still lifting weights when Lyra finally made it home. “H-hold up!” he grunted as she trotted past him. Lyra waited on the catwalk above him while he returned his weights to their cradle. He climbed the stairs with shaky legs and leaned against the rail next to her while he caught his breath. “It’s about our guests,” he said. “They’re dangerous, Lyra. They need to go.”

Lyra made a show of rolling her eyes. “Thunderlane, I’m dangerous. You’re dangerous. Everypony on this ship that knows which end of a gun the bullets come out of is dangerous!”

“But not like they are!” he argued. “They got the whole Empire lookin’ for them. We’ve never been in this kind of trouble before, and we’re in over our heads! Before now we could’ve been thrown in jail, maybe, but for this they’d kill us. It wouldn’t be quick, neither. They’d make us conveniently disappear, and I ain’t too eager to get conveniently disappeared!”

“I don’t care.” Lyra gritted her teeth in frustration and took a deep breath to calm down. “Haven’t you been paying attention? We’d do the same thing if it was your hide the Empire wanted. They’re on the payroll now, which means they’re my crew, which means they’re family. You don’t turn against your family, no matter what. That’s the end of it, understand? We’re not talking about this again.”

“Fine,” Thunderlane grumbled resentfully. Lyra left him alone in the hold, returned to her quarters, and locked the door behind her. Bribing officials and arranging illegal deals with shady characters was tiring work.

Author's Note

I didn't just make up the name for locoweed. It's a real plant that real horses really eat, and it has some pretty bad effects. At least, Cracked.com said so. They wouldn't lie to me, right?

Oh! Hey, have I ever told you guys my theory about how Dollhouse is a prequel to Firefly?

Well... I think that Dollhouse is a prequel to Firefly. Wow, that took a lot less time than I thought it would.

You're Fired

The next morning passed in a flurry of activity. Bon Bon had to prepare for her client, Derpy had to work on the ship, and Thunderlane had to pretend to be busy so that nopony would assign him any extra work. All in all it was a very chaotic morning, followed by a somewhat chaotic midday and a mildly chaotic afternoon.

To top it all off, Octavia and Vinyl had disappeared after their urgent secret mission and hadn’t arrived back on the ship until that morning. Vinyl was sporting a black eye, but both she and Octavia were smiling like they had won the lottery. “I got into a fight!” the unicorn said proudly. She was draped over Octavia’s back, too drunk to stand upright without tipping over.

At least the repairs had gone well so far. Derpy was almost certainly making great headway with the improvements to Sereneighty. Nopony could understand half of what she was saying, but she was so cheerful that it had to be good news. She had plenty of help from Mac and Tick Tock, who were making sure that she didn’t overwork herself in her excitement.

Bon Bon met her client as Lyra was preparing to sell her cargo. Thunderlane was helping her load the nutrient bars onto the cargo sled when a fancy black shuttle landed in front of Sereneighty. “Reckon that’s Bon Bon’s next customer,” the pegasus grunted. He dropped another box onto the sled, causing a loud bang to echo through the shipyard. “Who do you think it is?”

“None of our concern,” Lyra said irritably. “What is it with you ponies and Bon Bon’s clients? Why does everypony always need to know? He’s a lonely loser that couldn’t find a date, but he’s got lots of money so he decided to hire one. They’re all like that.”

Bon Bon trotted off the ship and toward the shuttle to meet her client. Thunderlane watched them curiously and smiled when he saw a familiar brown pony stepping out to greet her. “Don’t think you should be talking about him that way,” he said. “It ain’t smart to insult the ponies that pay you.”

“I don’t believe it!” Lyra giggled. “It’s Filthy!” She jumped up and down, waiving one of her hooves in the air. “Hi, Filthy! Remember us? Filthy, over here!”

Filthy Rich looked up into the ship’s cargo hold and said something to Bon Bon. The Companion glanced back at them and smiled. She then did a double take and smacked her forehead with one of her hooves. “Let’s just go,” she urged. “Go! Don’t wave. You’ll only encourage her.”

By the time she was ready to make the deal with Filthy Rich’s hired gun, Lyra just wanted the day to be over. She and Octavia met Braeburn in a small alleyway. Octavia was less than pleased about the meeting place, but the way Lyra saw it she had no right to complain. “You could have been with me when I chose it,” she said. “But no, you had to go somewhere with the wife. Well, now we’re selling stolen goods in broad daylight in a suspicious-looking alley. This is your fault, Octavia.”

Octavia looked at her in much the same way that a cat might look at a particularly annoying mouse.

Braeburn’s voice startled both of them as he stepped out from one of the side streets. “Am I interuptin’ something?” he asked. “I could come back later.”

*****

Thunderlane waited until Lyra and Octavia were long gone before fetching his favorite rifle and setting out to find Tick Tock and his sister. He needed to lure them away quickly so that he could be back before the others returned.

“Tick Tock!” Thunderlane called. “Where are you? The Captain needs you outside.” The ship was mostly quiet, though he could hear Derpy hard at work in the engine room. She had found and angle grinder somewhere and had immediately set about driving everypony else on board insane with the noise.

Thunderlane eventually found them in the infirmary, which wasn’t at all surprising. He considered trotting into the room wearing his best scowl and demanding that they follow him, but thought better of it. Maybe it would be better to sound worried, like somepony was injured and needed help. Failing in that, he could say that it was an order from Lyra and that he didn’t know why she wanted to see them.

Quiet sobbing reached his ears, and Thunderlane put his scheming on the backburner for a moment. He snuck closer to the door and peeked into the infirmary.

*****

Tick Tock was on his knees in front of an open cabinet, conversing quietly with somepony hiding inside. It wasn’t hard to guess who he was talking to or why she was avoiding him. “I don’t need any help,” Vision whispered. “The needles hurt my mind. I want to stay here and be quiet. Wo shang mei er, mei xin, bian shi tou. I will close my ears and heart, and I will be a stone.” She backpedalled as Tick Tock inched closer, clattering around with whatever else was in the cabinet with her. “No! No, no more, it hurts!”

“You know I wouldn’t hurt you,” Tick Tock said. “You don’t have to be afraid, mei-mei. Nopony is going to hurt you here, alright?”

Visions tear-streaked face peeked out at him from the darkness. “You promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to fly.” Tick Tock was finally able to coax her out of the cabinet, but she still refused to go near the operating chair. They sat on the floor together while Vision dried her eyes. “You’ve been hiding a lot lately,” her brother pointed out. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me? I might be able to help.”

“Nopony can help,” Vision said sadly. “It isn’t my fault! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“I know!” Tick Tock assure her. “I know you didn’t. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, and nopony here would ever disagree with that. This is a safe place.” Vision dried her eyes and honestly tried to smile. She met with limited success, but Tick Tock considered it progress. “There, you see? That’s more like it. We can wait to do our next test, if you want. Would you like something to eat instead? You’re much too skinny these days. You know what mother would say.”

Vision nodded seriously. “Have to clean up your plate before you get any desert. Is there cotton candy here?”

Tick Tock rolled his eyes. “I highly doubt that the Captain keeps a secret stash of cotton candy, but I’ll ask. If she doesn’t, how about asparagus soup?”

“I’d like that.” Vision climbed back onto her counter and curled in on herself. “I’ll be here,” she said. Tick Tock went to find her something to eat, stopping only to say hello to Thunderlane.

“Cotton candy,” Vision continued, even though there was nopony around to hear her. She felt guilty even mentioning them, but it felt wrong to keep it to herself. “Pink and blue. Pink and Blue, two by two.”

*****

Blueblood paced back and forth in the alley he had selected, waiting impatiently for Thunderlane to show up. “He should be here by now!” a pony in tactical gear said impatiently. She and three others had been ordered to keep an eye on the prince. None of them were happy with the assignment.

“Shut up!” Blueblood snarled. “He said he’d be here. Be patient.”

“Says the ponce that can’t stop pacing,” another pony muttered. Blueblood groaned in frustration and trotted to the other end of the alley. He was supposed to stay within sight of his escorts, but couldn’t stand their company any longer.

A familiar sea foam green mane stood out against the crowd. I don’t believe it, he thought as Lyra and Octavia trotted by. What are the chances? This makes my second lucky break in a week.

“Over there!” he whispered to the pony closest to him. “That’s the captain of Sereneighty!”

The soldier shoved him away. “We’re not going anywhere,” she said. “Our orders are to keep you here until the pegasus you mentioned arrives with the fugitives. If they don’t, you’re going back to the ship and flying straight to the capitol for your trial.”

Thunderlane must have tricked the Captain into scouting the area for him, Blueblood decided. I can’t let them get away. This is my only chance to redeem myself, and these fools aren’t going to help me!

Losing his escort was as easy as waiting until they weren’t looking. Blueblood’s horn glowed faintly, and a dumpster at the other end of the alley scraped against the ground. When the soldiers spun around to see what the commotion was, he ran.

It would be best to wait until Octavia and Lyra were somewhere private. Blueblood followed them to a dark alley where they unloaded a cargo sled and talked with a country stallion in a cowpony hat. They traded goods for coin and quickly said their farewells, then started back toward the ship.

The time had arrived. Blueblood readied his pistol and waited for Lyra and Octavia to pass in front of an empty side street. He charged out of his hiding place, opened fire, and followed them as they retreated down the alley.

*****

Lyra’s meeting with Braeburn went off without a hitch. It went so well, in fact, that it made Lyra nervous. She wasn’t used to things going her way, and expected something to go horribly wrong at any moment.

Braeburn had invited them to contact Filthy Rich again whenever they were in need of work. Apparently they had made quite an impression on the business pony, and he was eager to work with them again. Lyra was happy to have a possible source of work in the future, but also eager to get out of town before anypony could link them to the deal.

Just as Lyra was starting to accept that her day was going to turn out exactly as she had planned, the universe conspired to justify her paranoia. A blast of plasma passed right in front of her nose and singed her coat. “Run!” she shouted as instinct kicked her body into action. She and Octavia took off down a side street, weaving around trash bins and partially disassembled shuttles. “What the hell did you and Vinyl do last night?” she demanded.

“It was only a bar fight!” Octavia cried. “This is not our fault!”

Lyra hazarded a look back at their attacker and was so surprised that she almost forgot to keep running. “It’s Spud!” she exclaimed. “Ching-wah TSAO duh liou mahng! What’s he doing here? How did he find us?”

“Is that really relevant?” Octavia asked. One of Blueblood’s plasma charges sizzled through Lyra’s mane, and the unicorn decided that her friend had a point. They bent their heads low and ran faster, hoping to make it to a crowded area before Blueblood finally got lucky and hit one of his targets.

It was a good thing that Blueblood was as terrible a marksman as he was a mechanic. His pistol filled the air with magical fire, but rarely even came close to hitting them. Lyra was just beginning to think that they stood a chance of escaping when a lucky shot grazed Octavia’s leg and blackened the skin around her knee. She screamed and fell to the ground, rolling to a stop before dragging herself behind a dumpster for cover.

Lyra spun around and pulled out her pistol, but Blueblood’s magic yanked it right out of her grip. “It’s over, Captain,” the prince taunted. He lifted Lyra into the air and spun her so that she was dangling upside-down. It seemed very unfair that somepony so arrogant would have such powerful magic at his disposal.

Octavia leaned out from her hiding place and tried to line up a shot, but Blueblood immediately noticed her and seized her rifle with his magic. “Did I ever tell you how infuriatingly stubborn you are?” he asked.

“I’m quite pleased with the way things are going,” The prince said calmly. “Lyra, you are going to take me to your ship. I will radio the Warhorse, take the doctor and his sister prisoner, and possibly get the rest of you arrested for aiding and abetting fugitives. If you don’t, I’ll shoot Octavia.”

“You already shot her,” Lyra grunted. Her horn glowed brighter, but her pistol didn’t move.

Blueblood pressed the muzzle of his pistol into Octavia’s burned knee, causing the injured mare to grind her teeth in pain. “She’ll recover from a little burn,” he said. “Do what I want, or she’ll never lose that leg again. I won’t hesitate to hurt her, Lyra.”

“I know you won’t,” Lyra sighed. “I flew with you for a long time, Spud. It wouldn’t feel right to shoot you, so I’m offering you a chance that nopony else in the whole ‘Verse would get. Just this once I’ll let you go, even though you threatened my crew.”

“Oh, thank Celestia!” Blueblood exclaimed, throwing his hooves into the air. “The mighty spaceship captain has seen fit to grant me clemency!” He should have been an actor, Lyra thought. That was actually pretty good. Why am I thinking about this now? “Really, Lyra, are you blind? You are both completely helpless and I am extremely well armed. Why would I let you go?”

Lyra sighed and resigned herself to killing her former mechanic. “I guess you wouldn’t,” she said. Her horn’s glow winked out. “Goodbye, Spud.”

Blueblood looked around to make sure that nopony was sneaking up on him. He tried to ask what she was talking about, but as he opened his mouth a heavy engine block landed on his head and knocked him senseless. His horn cracked under the impact, causing his magic to flare momentarily before dying out. Lyra fell to the ground in a heap but managed to snatch up her weapon before it hit the pavement.

“Tell me something,” she said crossly as she stood up on shaky legs. “How is it that you’re still more graceful than me, even with that cooked knee?”

“A lady must be poised at all times,” Octavia answered. “What shall we do with him, sir?”

“What do you think?” Lyra asked. She cocked her pistol and aimed it at Blueblood’s head. The injured unicorn was completely helpless, clutching his horn and moaning pathetically. It was almost impossible to imagine a better opportunity.

Lyra grunted angrily and put her pistol back in its holster. “Hwun-dan aristocrat isn’t worth my time,” she grumbled. “We should get back to the ship. Can you walk?”

“I can hobble,” Octavia said. “We do not have far to go. I will be alright.” She refused to lean on Lyra as they walked away, supporting her own weight with only a grimace to show that she was in pain.

Something clicked behind them and a high-pitched whine filled the air. Lyra shoved Octavia aside as a plasma charge sizzled through the air between them. She spun around, drew her gun, and fired before Blueblood had the chance to pull the trigger again.

Blueblood’s eye imploded as the bullet passed through it and he slumped lifelessly to the ground. His magic, already unstable after the crack in his horn, died along with him. Octavia and Lyra stared at the body for a while as a pool of blood formed around his head. “Let’s go,” Lyra said sadly. “The others will be waiting for us.”

*****

The clouds had grown dark and foreboding by the time Lyra and Octavia finally made it home. Rain was a very serious problem on Beaumonde, since it frequently brought a payload of dangerous chemicals with it. The crew of Sereneighty often joked that Vinyl was so odd because she grew up being dosed by industrial solvents, but the truth was that nopony on the planet would dare spend more than a few minutes outside during a storm. Even the weather teams had given up on trying to stop the rains, instead scheduling them at regular intervals during which nopony was allowed outside.

Thunderlane was waiting for them with his favorite assault rifle trained on ramp leading up to the ship. He nodded to them as they passed, but his eyes stayed focused on the ramp. “Expecting trouble?” Lyra asked.

“Just couldn’t sleep,” Thunderlane said as he rubbed his eyes. “Figured I might as well make myself useful and do somethin’ while I was doing nothin’.”

A small plate of muffins was set aside in the galley with a hoofwritten note sitting next to it. “Dear Captain Heartstrings,” it read in lopsided print. “Thank you so much for taking me in and giving me a job. I finally get to see the ‘Verse, just like I always wanted! I know that it can be dangeris sometimes, but you look after your crew really well. Apart from getting shot this has been the best week of my life. I know that you’re taking a chance by hiring a stranger with no qualifacashons, and I’m very greatful.

Sincerely, Derpy.

P.S.: Shepherd Mac says he wants to stay with us. Can he? He can do odd jobs and cook and stuff.”

Lyra read over the note several times. She then folded it up, tucked it into her pocket, and began looking for the author. She eventually found Derpy, but the pegasus was very busy in the engine room and it didn’t seem wise to disturb her.

Generally speaking, it was a bad idea to startle anypony while they were removing unstable compression coils. That sort of thing often led to electrocution, explosions, fires, or some combination of the three.

Lyra wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and forget about her terrible day, but she wasn’t sure that she could afford to relax just yet. Were they really out of danger? Sereneighty had a new serial number now, but was there another way for the Empire to find them?

She could either lift off now and hope to escape, or lie low and wait it out. The ship was docked in a broken down part of the city, which meant that the port authority hadn’t bothered to ask for her ship’s records. That meant that there was no record of her ship landing with the old serial number. If she took off now it would look very suspicious, so the best option was probably also the easiest.

Lyra decided that she had enough of an excuse to get some rest. She trotted to her room, placed Derpy’s letter carefully on her desk, and collapsed into her bed. Blueblood’s death weighed heavily on her mind, but she eventually managed to get some sleep.

*****

The next morning, Lyra found Thunderlane sitting at the table and distractedly strumming a guitar. “I haven’t seen that old thing in a while,” she remarked as she began looking for something to eat. “Are you alright? You don’t usually play unless something’s bothering you.”

“I’m fine,” Thunderlane said quietly. “Just thinking, is all.” He played a little melody that Lyra recognized, so she pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. For a while her hunger was forgotten as she pulled out her harp and began to play.

Thunderlane faltered at first, both because he was out of practice and because he hadn’t been expecting company. He wasn’t half as good as Lyra or Octavia, but he made do. He could also sing, which made Lyra very jealous.

The song slowly coalesced from the broken chords and random scales. When Thunderlane was comfortable with the melody, he lent it a voice.

“Runnin’ from the wingrot out in ol’ Harvest,

I was born to be a mudder but I always knew I knew best.

My baby plays the guitar.

I pick a banjo now.

Oh, the freedom that I have keeps me far from my home,

But I still got me a family wherever I roam,

So I ain’t goin’ back to livin’ that old life no more."

Thunderlane’s hooves clumsily fumbled with the strings of his guitar, and the song ground to a halt before slowly picking up again. She watched him while they played, paying special attention to his contented smile.

“So love me, honey, through the cold and the black.

Love me, honey, until I come back.

Hey, honey, love me.

Love me, honey, through the wind and the rain.

Love me, honey, like a colonist’s train.

Hey, honey love me.”

“I’ve been doing some thinking,” Lyra said. Thunderlane stopped singing so that he could listen to her, but continued to play. “It’s mighty strange that Spudblood was able to get loose and escape the way he did.”

“Must’ve been smarter than he looked,” Thunderlane said. “It ain’t sayin’ much.”

“No, I guess not.” Lyra rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “That still doesn’t explain why we ran into him the other day. We told you about that, right? He tried to kill me and Octavia. Somehow he knew where we were going to sell our cargo. How could he know that, Thunderlane?”

Thunderlane narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why are you asking me? Are you pointin’ hooves? I got just as much to lose as the rest of you, remember?”

“I’m not saying that you did anything,” Lyra assured him. “Hypothetically, though, let’s say that somepony helped Blueblood escape and told him where to find us. Why wouldn’t they turn over the doctor and his sister? Why would somepony set us up and then not follow through with it?”

Thunderlane nervously fiddled with the tuning pegs on the neck of his guitar. “We’re just talking hypothetical-like, right?” he asked. “Well, if I had to guess why somepony wouldn’t follow through with the setup, I’d say the payoff wasn’t reliable. Spud didn’t have a contract or a reward posted; he just assumed that he could make somepony pay once he was in the Empire’s good books again. That ain’t exactly an ironclad guarantee.”

Lyra levitated a few of Derpy’s muffins onto a plate, frowning as she considered the implications of the conversation. “Does that mean you’d actually do it if you knew you’d get paid?”

Thunderlane chuckled and went back to playing his favorite song. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” he said. “We were just spectacle-ating.”

Lyra returned to her room with her muffins while Thunderlane continued to pick at his guitar. Soon he would have to find somewhere else to play, as everypony else would file in for breakfast and bother him while he was trying to concentrate.

Something yellowish-brown and translucent drifted in front of his face, and he reached up to swat it away. Thunderlane looked up directly into a pair of dark sea-green eyes. He shouted something profane and tried to leap backwards, but tripped over his chair and tumbled to the floor. He was lucky to avoid crushing his guitar.

Thunderlane untangled himself from the chair and discovered Pretty Vision clinging upside-down to one of the room’s light fixtures. He set his guitar on the table and glared at the annoying mare that was watching him through the curtain of her mane. “How long have you been up there?” he barked. “Get down!”

Vision squealed as her hooves lost their grip, and Thunderlane instinctively moved underneath her. He caught her across his back and bent his knees to cushion the impact, then dumped her unceremoniously onto the floor. “You ought to know better than to spy on us like that!” he snarled. “How did you get up there, anyway?”

“Did I scare you?” Vision asked. She smiled curiously up at him, seemingly unaware that he was trying to intimidate her. She examined his guitar and plucked a few strings experimentally.

Thunderlane sullenly snatched the instrument away from her. “’Course you didn’t,” he grumbled. “You just gave me a start is all. Anypony could get startled.”

“I scared you!” Vision giggled. “Big, bad gun pony got scared!”

“I-I did not!” Thunderlane insisted, suddenly on the defensive. “There’s a difference!”

“Okay,” Vision relented. “I’m sorry I startled you.” Thunderlane stomped off toward the cargo hold, thinking that he might be able to get his workout out of the way before anypony else was awake to disturb him. “What a drama quean,” Vision added when he was gone. She chuckled and trotted off to find her brother.

Author's Note

If you watch Lyra’s appearances in the show, it becomes clear that she likes to jump around to get our attention. So if you didn’t picture that scene with Filthy Rich and Bon Bon the same way I did, you do now.

The song Thunderlane and Lyra play is Wagon Wheel with different lyrics. I was hesitant about including that scene, since I didn’t know how anyone would respond to the lyrics. It’s essentially Thunderlane singing about his life, both the past a bit of his future as well.

Anyway, I’m sorry for the delay on this one. I’ve been working on the next “episode” involving a train heist, and I’ve been pretty busy with other things. On the bright side, there are Reavers at the end of the next episode!

Wait, that’s…that’s not much of a bright side.

Interlude: Merovingi

Far away from the familiar atmosphere of Sereneighty, four ponies were sitting down at a table in a very upscale restaurant. Horte Cuisine politely held a chair for his companion, who sat daintily and smiled but refused to speak. Her coat and mane were the color of grape juice, while her dress was similar but a shade darker.

The other two ponies were less than thrilled to see the mare. “We were told that we would be alone,” they said in unison. Their voices were eerily similar and carried a faint Prench accent. Both were flawlessly beautiful mares, both had perfect posture, and both had long manes secured by headbands. Their coats were pink and blue, while their manes were blue and pink.

“She can keep a secret,” Horte assured them. “In fact, she’ll probably forget all about our meeting by tomorrow; she’s going through one of her episodes. I would have left her at home, but I have the terrible feeling that she might not be safe there anymore. My life has gotten a bit complicated recently.”

“Very well,” the mares said. “We wish to discuss business. We have been monitoring the package for some time, and have studied the group responsible for taking it. We have begun monitoring known associates.”

Horte Cuisine frowned irritably as he looked over the menu. “Can’t we eat first?” he asked. “This is possibly my favorite restaurant in the entire ‘Verse, and meeting over food is one of the very few social pleasures that I still allow myself. We haven’t even made introductions yet, have we?” He stood up so that he could politely bow. “I am Sir Horte Cuisine, and this is my guest. She was never able to tell me her name, but I’ve taken to calling her Sorbet. She doesn’t seem to mind.” ‘Sorbet’ smiled shyly and bowed her head.

“We are Aloe and Lotus,” the mares said. “We will not be eating, thank you. Do you wish to speak about something other than business?”

Horte shrugged and signaled a passing waiter for some water. “I think that would be nice,” he said. “I prefer to understand the ponies I hire. The Empire will pay you quite a lot of money to secure the asset in question. For that much, I expect to know who I am dealing with.”

“And did you take this approach with the last pony that attempted to obtain the package?”

Horte shifted uncomfortably. “Not exactly,” he admitted. “The fool nearly got himself killed before I had the chance. I did not have a say in hiring him, but I still intend to become more familiar with my coworkers in the future.”

“We do not know how to proceed,” Aloe and Lotus said awkwardly. “We normally only speak to each other unless we are discussing business.”

“I can sympathize,” Horte said. “I confess to being somewhat out of my element here. Perhaps it would help if we addressed the buffalo in the room, so to speak?”

The twins exchanged another look. “We are not able to hear each other’s thoughts,” they said. “At least, we do not think that we can. We are perfectly in sync only because our thought processes are almost identical.”

“Almost?” Horte asked. He sipped water from his glass and leaned forward expectantly. “I must admit to being intrigued. What exactly are you, if I may ask? You obviously aren’t ordinary ponies.”

“You may ask, but we will not answer.” The twins tilted their heads curiously. “Perhaps we have found a topic of conversation. We agree on everything, save for two philosophical quandaries. Would you like to hear them? The first is the problem of free will.”

Aloe, the pink sister, spoke alone. Her voice sounded completely different without Lotus speaking in harmony. “I believe in free will,” she said. “The brain is more than a complex difference engine. Free radicals and stray thoughts often coalesce into unforeseen thought patterns that are, by definition, impossible to predict or control.”

“I am a determinist,” Lotus said. “Our actions are due to cause and effect. The laws of physics do not allow for the freedom of choice; there is no effect without a cause, even if the cause is beyond our knowledge. There is only action and reaction. Free will is a clever lie that our minds make up to hide the fact that our choices are nothing more than the answers to an equation.”

The twins stopped talking so that Horte Cuisine could order his dinner. “We will not be eating,” they said. “We wish to give a demonstration of our problem. Look, over there.” They pointed to a stallion sitting across the room. “That pony is not familiar to us, but he will do. The individual is unimportant in this discussion.”

Aloe looked back at Horte, while her sister continued to watch the stranger. “We have sent him a desert,” she said. A waiter brought the stallion a slice of strawberry cheesecake. Both twins looked away as he started to eat. “We have put something unpleasant in his food,” Aloe continued. “He will die later tonight.”

“We agree on what we did,” Lotus explained. “We simply disagree on why we did it. One of us believes that his death is unavoidable. Circumstances leading to his death unfolded because, through the magic of physics, they could not have happened any other way.”

“The other disagrees,” her sister said. “The laws of physics have no bearing on our disregard for his wellbeing. He is dying because we chose to kill him, not because the laws of the universe forced us to do it.”

“One viewpoint accepts responsibility,” they said. “The other has no room for it. What is your opinion, if we may ask?”

Horte Cuisine tiredly rubbed at his eyes. “The entire debate is caused by an incorrect definition of free will,” he answered. “That isn’t what concerns me. You’ve murdered somepony just to facilitate a conversation. This isn’t the sort of job that allows for unnecessary killing, and I am not the kind of stallion that will tolerate such behavior.”

“We understand,” Aloe said.

“Our reputation was tarnished when we allowed the package to escape,” Lotus added.

“We wish to regain the respect of our peers.”

“We will not tell you anything about the package itself, incidentally, should you ask.”

“Doing so would indicate that we were not professionals.”

Horte Cuisine held up his hooves to interrupt their cooperative train of thought. “I just wanted to be sure that you knew what you were getting into,” he explained. “It’s quite obvious that you do.”

The twins smiled at his compliment and allowed him to eat in peace for a while. “Have you guessed our second disagreement?” they asked when he was finished.

“You can’t agree on why you don’t agree,” Horte Cuisine guessed. He dabbed his mouth with a napkin before continuing. “One thinks that you disagree because you choose to, while the other believes you have no choice at all.”

Aloe and Lotus shared intrigued smiles. “You are correct,” they said. “We find ourselves enjoying this conversation. We do not like talking with other ponies very often.”

Horte glanced over at the now empty table where the doomed pony had been sitting. “I can’t imagine why. Your dinner parties must be very exciting.”

The twins giggled bashfully. “We will leave you now, Sir Cuisine. Please, do not hesitate to contact us again. It is not often that handsome stallions flatter us and intrigue us at the same time.” They walked away perfectly in step, smiling as they passed the now empty table where the condemned pony had finished his last meal.

Horte Cuisine was startled by a waitress reaching over his shoulder. “Apologies, sir,” the mare said as she placed a slice of cheesecake in front of him. “The ladies insisted.”

He politely grabbed Sorbet’s hoof when she reached for her fork. “It might be best to skip dessert today, my dear. You never know what goes into the things you buy at restaurants.”

Author's Note

So, uh…yeah. I’ve done really well about not accidentally calling these characters by their names in the show. And then I goofed and called Vision “River”. Really, brain? Seven chapters go fine, but then you screw up like that?

I like the fact that Horte Cuisine apparently just solved a question that had been bothering the twins for ages (a la the Merovingian)…and did it casually while trying to comment on something else. What do you think? Are Aloe and Lotus what you expected? Who could the mysterious companion (lower case C) be? You may never know. Because I may get bored halfway through this story.

Next story will be up before long, assuming I don’t get distracted. It’s the first chapter to actually get beyond the pilot of the show. It’s making me a weird kind of nervous for some reason.

Stealing History

Lyra hated going without work. The kind of work that she and her crew frequently took on was usually plentiful, but that didn’t mean there weren’t dry spells. She rarely got truly desperate, but right now she was approaching that point. The ship could still fly, but that wouldn’t last much longer if they didn’t find work soon.

Luckily, she had recently made a friend with good connections. Filthy Rich had been very pleased with her professionalism, and had graciously offered her another job. It had been almost two months since the last one, but Lyra forced herself to remain calm and collected while they discussed it. She felt like squealing with joy and hugging the ship’s communications array.

She was alone on the bridge, having ordered Vinyl and Octavia to find something else to do while she talked business. Filthy Rich had outlined a fairly standard (if there was such a thing) plan involving a train robbery and an ancient artifact. There was just one problem, and it was a problem that Lyra took very seriously. “That’s a pretty high profile object you’re talking about,” she said. “If we steal it, we’ll be running for the rest of our lives and then some.”

“I highly doubt that,” Filthy Rich said. “It is only on its way to New Equestria because the owner needs a cover story to explain why it will go missing.” Lyra stared blankly at the view screen. “Allow me to explain,” he continued. “My friend recently purchased an ancient burial urn from the Times-That-Were. It’s valuable, but not unimaginably so. He needs it to go missing so that he can return it to where it belongs.”

“That’s a mighty fine idea, except that where it belongs is hundreds of light-years away.”

“Not exactly,” Filthy Rich said with a laugh. “He means to give it to the diamond dogs; it’s considered a sacred relic in their culture. He objects to the idea of something so important being locked away in a museum where only the rich and privileged will ever get to see it.”

Lyra frowned as she considered the implications of the job. Diamond dogs were treated poorly all across the ‘Verse, even on the far edges of the Rim. They had no unified culture to speak of, unless poorly organized crime counted as culture. The urn wouldn’t be anything special to ponies, but diamond dogs would find it immeasurably precious.

“I think I understand,” she said. “He can’t just give it away without looking like he’s getting friendly with diamond dogs. His reputation would take a hit from that, wouldn’t it? He’s probably some fancy pants aristocrat that likes playing humanitarian.”

Filthy Rich looked around nervously. “H-how did you… oh!” He sighed with relief. “Yes, he is a fancy pants aristocrat. That’s right. He has a pair of tickets ready, if you’re interested.”

Lyra nodded, satisfied with the deal. “We’ll do it,” she said. “This ain’t the first time we’ve hit a train. We know what to do.”

“There is one more thing,” Mr. Rich said. “My friend wants the artifact very much, but there will be civilians on the train. None of them are to be harmed. He has seen to it that the guard will be very light, but there is to be no bloodshed whatsoever. Can you do that?”

“We’ll handle it,” Lyra assured him.

“Very good.” Filthy Rich began typing on a keyboard that was just out of sight. “I’m sending you as much information as I can about the train and the guard detail. We’ve paid a mare to sneak the urn past customs and meet you in the freight car. Good luck, Captain.” He killed the connection, leaving her to examine the files in peace.

When she was finished, Lyra and her crew met in the galley to discuss the job. The plan was simple enough that it worried her; most of her simple plans ended in disaster, so she had learned to be cautious of schemes that were too good to be true.

Thunderlane didn’t understand, but that was to be expected. He never understood anything the first time around. “This isn’t complicated,” Lyra said patiently. “The urn’s owner wants to donate it to diamond dogs, but he doesn’t want his fancy friends to know about it. We’ll steal it for him, then secretly give it back. We just need to sneak into the right compartment, find the right box, and fly away with it.”

“You will need to look respectable,” Octavia added. “The client chose to use a civilian transport for cover. The only ponies on board will be the ones that were wealthy enough to afford a train ride.”

“Rim barons,” Thunderlane snarled. “I hate Rim barons. Can we blow up the train when we’re done?”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure,” she said sarcastically. “Let’s turn a harmless heist into a bloodbath. Lyra, I have business of my own to take care of. I fail to see why I need to be here.”

“It’s like Octavia said,” Lyra explained. “We need to look respectable, and nopony around here knows more about looking respectable than you. Before you get mad, I’m not asking you to go with me. A pair of beautiful mares would probably just draw a different kind of attention.”

Bon Bon cocked her head skeptically. “Who else would be going with us?”

Lyra did her best to smile. “I’ll pretend that went over my head.”

*****

Bon Bon had scheduled an appointment for the same day as the train robbery, but she found time to make sure that Lyra and her escort looked proper. The unicorn wasn’t used to dressing up, but grudgingly admitted that she looked very nice in one of Bon Bon’s dresses. The blue fabric was meant to match Bon Bon’s mane, but it complimented her coat very well. Her mane had even been styled, which seemed like a bit much, but she was willing to put up with almost anything for the right price.

Thunderlane was less cooperative. Bon Bon had complained about everything from the moment she started working with him, including his “brutish” physique and his inability to stand still while she took his measurements. Lyra had to use a series of increasingly creative threats to keep him in line, and almost resorted to physical abuse when her imagination failed her.

Bon Bon stopped them before they left the cargo hold for one final examination. She looked Lyra over carefully, making small adjustments to her outfit and dabbing on a hint of makeup. The unicorn almost recoiled in horror. “You look positively lovely,” the Companion remarked. “You should dress like this more often.”

“Was that a compliment?” Lyra asked mischievously. “That sounded suspiciously like flirting. Are you trying to flirt with me, Bon Bon?”

What was meant to be a joke suddenly became incredibly awkward. “Not that I thought you were,” Lyra said a little too quickly. Bon Bon stammered that she knew Lyra was only joking, but neither of them sounded very convinced.

The uncomfortable silence that followed was mercifully broken when Thunderlane walked in on them. Pretty Vision followed at a safe distance, watching curiously as he fought with his collar. Bon Bon took one look at him and almost fainted. “What did you do to your mane!?” the Companion shrieked.

Thunderlane adjusted the collar of his shirt, trying to find a little more breathing room. “Nothin’,” he said.

“Exactly!” Bon Bon exclaimed. “I told you to run a comb through it!”

“I did!”

“You’re lying!” Bon Bon pulled a brush out of Lyra’s saddlebag and cornered the pegasus against the staircase. “Hold still,” she ordered. “Your mane is a mess! It hasn’t seen a comb in weeks. Honestly, how can you expect to blend in when you look like you were raised by timber wolves?”

Thunderlane gritted his teeth as Bon Bon brushed the tangles out of his mohawk. “Lyra,” he growled menacingly, “she’s brushing my mane. There’s a mare brushing my mane.”

“Sure looks that way,” Lyra said. “Grin and bear it if you want to get paid. I’ve seen the payoff for this job, and trust me; you don’t want to miss out.”

Bon Bon soon finished with Thunderlane’s mane and stepped back to admire her work. The blue mohawk had been parted down the middle and now hung down to frame his charcoal-grey face. “Shut up,” he snarled at Lyra. “Don’t laugh.”

“I wasn’t,” Lyra lied. She started giggling and couldn’t stop, no matter how murderous Thunderlane looked. She would never have expected to see him wearing anything more than a rifle harness, but the suit and tie looked surprisingly good on him.

“He looks pretty,” Vision whispered. She squealed and hid behind Bon Bon as Thunderlane glared at her.

Just before they set out for their train, Lyra was pulled aside by Tick Tock. “What gives?” she asked. “We’ve got to get going, doc. Our train is about to leave.”

“I know,” Tick Tock said. “I need to ask you for a favor. I’ve done some research, and I need you to look for something on the train. It’s a small medical scanner, about the size of your pistol. It might help me diagnose Vision more accurately. It isn’t perfect, but it’s the best I can hope for right now.”

“How much can you do without it?” Lyra asked.

“Very little,” he said. “Please, Captain? This ship’s infirmary doesn’t have the equipment that I need. I want to help her, but I can’t just give her random doses of medication and hope for a miracle. The train should be carrying several crates of them for a hospital in Appleloosa. It would have the Blue Moon logo stamped on the crate, right in plain view. You wouldn’t even have to look very hard.”

Lyra clapped him on the shoulder, almost making the gesture seem macho despite wearing a dress. “I’ll keep an eye out for it,” she said. “No promises.”

*****

Lyra and Thunderlane waited patiently as a crowd of ponies slowly filed into the passenger section of the Dodge Junction Express. The conductor stood at the door, punching tickets and extending a warm welcome to everypony that passed by. He really looked like he enjoyed his job, which seemed refreshing only until Lyra realized that he was making conversation with every single passenger.

Lyra and Thunderlane, sadly, were not exempt. “Lovely to see you today, sir!” the conductor chirped as he punched Thunderlane’s ticket. “It’s always nice to see a new face. What brings you to the Georgia system?”

“Business,” Thunderlane answered with forced enthusiasm. “Family’s lookin’ to expand the business.”

“Good for you!” the conductor exclaimed. “I hope you and your lovely Companion enjoy the trip.”

Lyra’s eye began to twitch. She became painfully aware of the tiny derringer pistol ticked into her purse. Thunderlane shot her a stunned look that quickly transformed into a devilish grin. “Don’t know about how lovely she is,” he said. “She’s alright, I guess. She’s a little bony, and her flanks are sort of uneven, but you get what you paid for.”

Lyra was now remembering that her derringer held two bullets, one for the conductor and one for her ‘friend’. I’ll kill him, she thought as she tried to maintain her cheerful smile. Kill both of them, right here. Kill ‘em dead. Right in front of everypony.

Miraculously, they made it onto the train without any bloodshed. “Thirty minutes to the pickup time,” Thunderlane said cheerfully. “I don’t know about you, but I’m havin’ a ball.”

Lyra’s glare could have stopped the heart of a lesser stallion. “Keep your mind on the mission,” she ordered. “Also, that mane style makes you look like a mare.” Thunderlane followed his captain toward the cargo area, chuckling as she tried to pull the hemline of her dress lower. “My flanks aren’t lopsided,” she grumbled. “Why would you say something like that? That’s just stupid.”

Neither of them noticed the pair of earth ponies that soon boarded the train. “I did not see which way they went,” the blue pony said.

“They will either go for the cargo immediately or try to stop the train,” her sister remarked thoughtfully. “Which is more likely?” They both trotted toward the train’s engine without another word.

*****

Lyra and Thunderlane quietly pushed through several crowded cars until they reached the dining car. Beyond it were two freight cars, one for luggage and the other for various shipments bound for Appleloosa. “Wait here and keep your eyes open,” Lyra ordered. “If you see anypony follow me, give me the signal.”

Thunderlane nodded and sat down at a table facing the door. He made sure that nopony in the car noticed Lyra slipping away and settled in for a short wait. He thought about ordering something to eat, but decided against it. He wasn’t sure how long he would have to enjoy his food.

He spent some time scrutinizing the car’s only other occupants. Two fashionably dressed unicorn mares were sitting in front of him, whispering to each other about something that sounded scandalous. The phrase “new money” was being used frequently. A third mare, this one an earth pony, sat alone at the other end of the car and tried to enjoy her meal in peace.

Thunderlane shut his eyes and took a deep breath before motioning for the waiter’s attention. “You got any meat?” he asked.

If the waiter was surprised, he was professional enough to not show it. “We have chicken and fish for our griffon passengers.”

“Bring me something fried,” Thunderlane said. “I’ll be right right over there.” He sat down at the table adjacent to the talkative mares and made a show of kicking up his hooves.

“Can we help you?” one of the mares asked curiously.

Thunderlane smiled as pleasantly as he could, which rarely amounted to much. This time, however, it earned him a flirty giggle and a wink. Must be the outfit, he thought. “I didn’t mean to pry or nothin’, but I couldn’t help overhearin’ you. What’s this about new money?”

“That mare over there,” the second unicorn said. She pointed to the lonely pony and grimaced as though smelling something foul. “Her husband was a sharecropper, but he struck it rich last year. She’s been making a mockery of good taste ever since, and she shows a terrible disregard for proper form in civilized society.”

“She doesn’t seem so bad,” he said. “Might be that she just doesn’t know any better.”

“I hear that her family used to eat meat,” the first unicorn added in a hushed tone. “Can you imagine? That little mare actually killed, cut up, and ate another living creature! It’s positively barbaric.”

Thunderlane saw that the waiter was returning with his meal. “You ever been hungry?” he asked. “I don’t mean just ready for dinner. I mean, you know, hungry. You ever come close to starvin’ to death?”

The unicorns stared at him with a gratifying mix of horror and uncertainty as the waiter served him a big plate of fried chicken. “Thanks,” he said politely, and turned back to his suddenly uncomfortable companions. “It ain’t healthy for you,” he continued. “You really don’t get much out of it but a full belly, but that’s something. Meat can keep you alive for a little while. You even start to enjoy it.”

One of the unicorns snapped out of her horrified trance long enough to look away. “Well, I never!”

“You’d eat meat,” Thunderlane argued. He cut off a big chunk of chicken and tore into it. “You just don’t know it yet.” He poured some ketchup onto his meal and took another bite. “I bet you’d even fight for the bones afterward, and you know what else? You jing-tzahng mei yong-duh aristocrats would all be better for it.”

One of the unicorns stood up and lurched toward the door. “I’m going to be sick!” the other wailed, and rushed to join her friend. Thunderlane chuckled and picked at his plate. Now that he wasn’t actually trying to intimidate anypony he didn’t feel like eating any more. He would have a stomach ache later, but it was completely worth it. The lonely mare smiled at him, and Thunderlane smiled back.

The dining car’s door burst open and a pair of elegant earth ponies trotted in, calmly scanning the area for their target. Thunderlane pressed the ‘talk’ button on his communicator three times as one of the mares locked eyes with him. Both of them spoke, perfectly in unison even though only one had seen him. “You are an associate of Lyra Heartstrings, correct? We have some questions to ask you.”

*****

Lyra was getting sick of prying open cargo containers by the time she found what she was looking for. The urn was packed in a large wooden crate on a protective bed of straw. So, this is what diamond dog culture looks like, she thought as she lit her flare and held it out the window. Not bad, I guess. It’s sort of pretty.

The communicator attached to her belt squawked three times in rapid succession. If there are any goddesses out there, they must hate me, Lyra thought. She was already trying to think of a good excuse for holding a flare out the window when a mare leaned against the wall next to her.

She was wearing a nice dress and matching saddle bags that suited her fiery mane and coat perfectly, but the aviator sunglasses perched on her nose gave the outfit a slightly offbeat look. Lyra gaped as the former captain of the Wonderbolts crossed her forelegs “Hey,” Spitfire said. “’Sup?”

“What are you doing here?” Lyra demanded. “I’m busy, and I’ve got exactly no time at all for any of your nonsense. How did you find me?”

Spitfire put her hoof over her heart and winced. “That hurts, Lyra. I’m not here for you. I’ve got a career too, you know. I don’t spend all of my time hunting down old war buddies.”

“We ain’t buddies,” Lyra corrected. “Seriously, what are you doing here?”

“I’m working!” Spitfire insisted. “I had to smuggle something through customs. I’m waiting for somepony to try to steal an ancient, cursed burial urn. That wouldn’t be the same ancient, cursed burial urn that you’re about to steal right now, would it?”

Lyra glanced at the wooden crate regretfully. “I was afraid of this,” she moaned.

“This is so great!” Spitfire exclaimed. She nearly crushed Lyra in a hug, causing her to drop the flare. “It’ll be just like old times! Where’s your crew? Are you still riding around in that flying junkyard, or did you find something with more style?”

It was a massive relief when the loud shriek of Sereneighty’s engines passed overhead. Octavia soon landed on the roof, and Lyra ran out from under her. A ring of metal began to glow as a thin stream of sun gel burned through it, and a section of the roof gave way.

Octavia dropped through the opening with a cargo sled tied to her back. She cut it loose and nodded politely to Spitfire before addressing Lyra. “Are we ready?” she asked. “The train will be going through a tunnel soon.”

“Here, take it up and come back for us.” Lyra levitated the wooden crate onto the sled. “We were supposed to go back to our seats and pretend that nothing had happened, but that’s probably out of the question. Thunderlane gave me the signal, so there’s trouble. I’m going to go see what the problem is.”

Just before Octavia was pulled back up to the ship, Lyra tossed her a small medical scanner. “Give that to the doctor,” she said. She noticed Spitfire watching Octavia over the tops of her mirrored sunglasses. “Married now,” she said helpfully.

Spitfire shrugged. “That’s not a deal breaker. Want me to leave a surprise here for our guests?”

“No!” Lyra said. “This is supposed to be a harmless robbery, not a bloodbath. Stay here and don’t get into trouble.” She trotted off to find Thunderlane, hoping that Spitfire would behave herself.

It wasn’t that Spitfire was evil. She had once been a very famous flyer and a loyal soldier with a reputation so great that her subsequent defection from the Empire had barely tarnished it. That was saying something, since she had collaborated with the Purplecoats and killed quite a few of the Empire’s Wonderbolts.

Her reputation helped protect her from any close scrutiny by the Empire after the war, but it did not protect her from the war itself. Spitfire had a unique set of abilities that more superstitious ponies would call psychic powers. It wasn’t a well documented phenomenon, and in fact most ponies would scoff at the idea, but Lyra knew better. Her condition meant that Spitfire was able to sense the emotions of other ponies, and such abilities were not healthy on the battlefield.

Spitfire hadn’t been the same since the war, and her casual offer to blow up a train full of innocent ponies indicated that she hadn’t gotten any better.

Lyra pulled out her derringer and checked to make sure it was loaded. She wasn’t sure what was bothering Thunderlane, but it was probably serious. She wished that she had something more powerful, but her revolver would have been much too difficult to conceal.

The door to the dining car flew open just as she was reaching for the handle. Lyra backpedaled as Thunderlane tumbled head over hooves into a stack of cardboard boxes. He stumbled to his hooves with a large cut above his eye, trying to wipe away the blood so that he could see.

“What’s happening?” Lyra asked. “How many are out there?”

A pair of beautiful mares, one blue and the other pink, strolled into the room. One of them had a bruise on her cheek, but they were otherwise unharmed. “Lyra Heartstrings?” they asked.

“Watch ‘em,” Thunderlane warned. “They’re good, Lyra. I ain’t ever seen anything like it.”

The twins leapt in two different directions, moving with unnatural speed and grace. The blue twin landed in front of Thunderlane and lashed out with her hooves. Lyra didn’t see what happened after that, as she had her own problems to deal with.

Those problems took the shape of a manicured hoof that nearly took her head off. She rolled out of the way and pointed her tiny pistol at the pink pony. “Back off!” she warned. “I don’t want to, but I’ll do it.”

The earth pony spun out of the way and kicked the derringer right out of the air. “So much for that,” Lyra remarked as she caught a second kick on her foreleg. She lifted the leg over her head and fell forward to punch the mare in the face as hard as she possibly could.

Punching the earth pony felt like hitting concrete. Lyra shook her leg out and hoped that she hadn’t broken anything. Her opponent wasn’t even fazed, and fought back with a series of kicks that broke through Lyra’s guard and knocked her to the ground.

Lyra scrambled to reach her pistol, but something caught hold of her rear leg and swung her into a heavy metal drum of machine oil. Lyra felt the metal give when she hit it, but it didn’t give nearly enough. The handful of similar drums stacked on top of the one she hit shook with the impact and nearly fell on her. If the wind hadn’t been knocked out of her before, it certainly was now.

The pink pony was suddenly on top of her, hammering blows into her face and neck that bounced her skull off the floor. Lyra used her magic to shove her attacker away, but she couldn’t manage to lift the petite pony any more than a few feet off the ground. It was enough that she could pull herself together, at least.

“You are tiring,” the earth pony observed coldly. She tried to move in, but Lyra backpedaled enough to stay out of her range. “You may also be hemorrhaging internally. Surrender, and we will let you live.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Lyra said. “You don’t strike me as the merciful type.” The metal drums above Aloe glowed with Lyra’s magic and toppled over, crushing the unfortunate earth pony beneath them. “Anyway, I got somewhere to be.”

Lyra was extremely irritated to find that Thunderlane was holding his own. In fact, to the blue earth pony’s obvious surprise, he was winning. She nearly managed to chop him in the throat, but he caught her leg and pulled her off balance. He was able to throw her headfirst into the side of the train car, and threw his own weight in behind her. Her head smacked into the metal and she collapsed in an unconscious heap.

Lyra found her derringer and tucked it back into her purse. “Let’s get out of here,” she panted, and hobbled over to where Spitfire was digging around in her saddlebags. “What are you doing?” she asked.

Spitfire pulled out a plastic bag containing several pounds of Buk4. “I’m securing our escape!” she said cheerfully. “How big do we want it? Your choices are huge or ginormous.”

“We aren’t blowing up the train!” Lyra shouted. “Put that away!”

“Oh, this is just typical!” Spitfire argued. “I’m a part of this job too, Lyra! I should get an equal say, and I say we blow this tin can wide open. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for the Doublemint Twins!”

“We ain’t got time for this!” Thunderlane pointed out. “Lyra, the blue one’s getting’ up and the pink one’s startin’ to move. I don’t know if I could take both at once.”

Lyra sighed regretfully. “You’re right,” she said. “Octavia?” The earth pony dropped back into the train car without making a sound.

Spitfire cocked an eyebrow. “What?” she asked, moments before Octavia’s foreleg wrapped around her throat. She struggled, but Octavia was an experienced killer. Had the situation been different it might have been garrote wire wrapped around her throat. Or, given that Octavia had a penchant for anything that reminded her of music, piano wire.

In no time at all Spitfire was shoved onto the cargo sled and tied down. “I apologize for the delay, sir,” Octavia said as the cable began to haul them both away. “Congratulations on a successful heist.”

“Yeah, I’m just glowing with pride,” Lyra grumbled. “This next part isn’t going to be big on dignity. Thunderlane, I need a lift.” Thunderlane grabbed her gingerly around the middle and tried to lift her into the air. “For Luna’s sake, don’t drop me!” she complained. “Pick me up and carry me! Come on, you’ve done this before!”

Thunderlane got a better grip and launched them both through the hole in the roof. Lyra sighed with relief as the Dodge Junction Express fell away below her. “One more thing,” she added. “Don’t tell anypony that I got beaten up by a Barbie doll, okay?”

Author's Note

Even while wearing a dress, Lyra is probably more manly than me. Just saying.

Can you figure out the movie that Thunderlane’s chicken speech was inspired by? I bet you can’t. It was a Western, if that helps.

Any input on the story? Drop a comment!

Ghost Town

Lyra made sure that Spitfire was secured in the observation lounge before arranging the meeting with their client. After a few quick words, the urn was shipped away and the crew of Sereneighty was paid a very respectable sum.

After the deal was finished, Lyra gathered her crew in the cargo hold. Most of the group were wondering why they couldn’t meet in the usual place, but everypony was patient enough to wait for an explanation before bombarding her with questions. “This isn’t going to be fun to talk about,” the Captain sighed. “Still, you all need to know what you’re dealing with. Spitfire’s dangerous, and I wouldn’t feel right having her here without explaining a few things.”

“Why is she even on the ship?” Vinyl interrupted. “Can’t we just let her off somewhere?”

Lyra shook her head. “Not on this planet. This kind of heist is going to attract some attention. We were supposed to slip away without making a ruckus, but now everypony’s going to know our faces. They’ll be lookin’ for us. Spitfire’s good at a lot of things, but lying low ain’t one of them. She’ll get arrested, and she could do a lot of talking about the job we just pulled. I’d rather that didn’t happen.”

The next part of the conversation was going to be the most unpleasant. “Spitfire wasn’t always like she is now,” Lyra said. “She defected from the Wonderbolts a few weeks into the war. She did demolition stuff, blowing up supply lines and the like. She was one of the best.”

“She went insane,” Octavia continued for her. “I am not sure what caused it. She became too aggressive, and began putting the rest of us at risk. Lyra attempted to reason with her, but eventually she disappeared. We have not seen her since.”

“No mystery as to what did it,” Lyra said. “She’s a reader; she can sense thoughts and emotions. Something about feeling all of that during the war changed her, and it drove her totally fong luh.”

“Spitfire is a sociopath, among other things,” Octavia explained. “We have already seen that she would blow up a train full of innocent ponies because it was convenient. She cannot be trusted to roam free aboard this ship, and she certainly cannot be allowed to know that we are harboring two fugitives worth a very large reward.”

Lyra couldn’t have agreed more. “Doc, you and your sister can’t go anywhere near her. Stay on the lower levels of the ship, and for Luna’s sake, keep an eye on Vision. Vinyl, how soon can we be rid of her?”

The pilot fidgeted with her hooves, evidently lost in thought. “I don’t know about this psychic stuff,” she muttered. “It’s like something out of science fiction, you know?”

Octavia giggled. “Darling, you are a magical talking unicorn that pilots a spaceship.”

Vinyl stared blankly at her wife, obviously at a loss as to what her job had to do with psychic powers. “So?” she asked.

“Focus!” Lyra ordered. “I’m a mite anxious to get this new heap of annoyance off my boat. Where’s the closest place with air?”

Vinyl adjusted her goggles and stared at the table. “There’s a moon twelve hours away,” she said after some thought, “but there should be something between here and there. I think there’s a small mining operation that ships out ore once a week. We might be able to drop her off there and let her hitch a ride to civilization.”

“Set a course,” Lyra ordered. “From this moment onward, everypony but me needs to stay far away from the observation lounge. I spent the most time around her, so I know what to expect. I’ll keep a close watch on her so she doesn’t get loose. If you need anything from the galley, I’ll get it for you. I know it’s inconvenient, but it won’t last for long.”

Lyra was already trotting through the galley on her way to the observation lounge before she noticed that she was being followed. “Thunderlane!” she snapped as the pegasus shied away from her. “Did you spit your bit or something? I told you to stay out of here!”

“I might be able to help you,” Thunderlane said. “Spitfire’s a reader, right? I used to work with someone like her. I know how to hang on to my secrets.”

Lyra eyed him curiously, trying to gauge how serious he was. “Fine,” she relented. “If you can keep her from reading you, we’ll take turns watching her. It’ll make this less unpleasant, at least; Spitfire has a way of getting under your skin.”

The observation lounge was essentially a tiny brig with a tough restraint harness. The room was sandwiched between the galley and the aft hallway, and was only big enough to allow somepony to watch a prisoner while still staying out of that prisoner’s reach.

Spitfire didn’t seem bothered by being cooped up and had managed to retain her annoyingly cheerful attitude. “Lyra!” she exclaimed as they walked into the lounge. “It’s about time you showed up. I’ve been bored to tears. Oh, and you brought your little friend!”

“This is Thunderlane,” Lyra said. “He’ll be helping me keep an eye on you.”

“When did you stop batting for the other team?” Spitfire asked.

It took so long for Lyra to process the question that Thunderlane had already stopped giggling by the time she answered. “I didn’t!” she insisted. Then, immediately afterward, she slapped her forehead. “I-I mean, he’s not… that isn’t what I meant! We’re not together. Shut up, Thunderlane!”

Thunderlane’s laughter drowned out the rest of what she said, even though Lyra threatened him with some of the worst forms of torture that she could come up with. “You’ve got a great crew,” Spitfire observed. “Very professional.”

*****

Lyra took the first shift with Spitfire. She made herself as comfortable as possible on the little bench set against one wall of the observation lounge and cracked open a book on ancient cultures. She skipped directly to the chapter on diamond dogs, her curiosity aroused by their latest escapade.

“I’m bored,” Spitfire complained. Lyra put her book away and sighed. And thus, it begins, she thought. I wonder how long I can stay in here without going insane.

“I heard that,” Spitfire muttered darkly

The nauseating sense of psychic influence made Lyra shiver. It felt a little like something was crawling around inside of her brain. She clamped down on her thoughts and tried to fortify her mental defenses. “You’ve gotten better,” she said. “Color me impressed.”

“You’d better believe it!” Spitfire exclaimed. “Sometimes I have to get away from other ponies for a while, just so I can hear myself think. What about you, Lyra? Do you ever get lonely without me poking around up there? I can tell that you haven’t moved on yet. Is that because you missed me, or because you haven’t found anypony else that can keep you interested?”

“I’m not waitin’ for you, if that’s what you mean.” Lyra grabbed her book again, now desperate to distract herself. She had thought she was prepared for Spitfire’s mind games, but now she wasn’t so sure.

Spitfire chuckled and spent a while tugging at her harness. She couldn’t get free, so Lyra was happy to let her try if it meant she was distracted. She wasn’t sure what she would have done if Spitfire picked up on…

Uh oh. “I saw that!” the former Wonderbolt giggled. “You aren’t very good at keeping secrets from me, Lyra. You must be out of practice. Who is it? Is it one of your crew, or are you trying to keep business and pleasure separate?”

“That’s none of your business. Or your pleasure, for that matter.”

“You’re trying not to think about her, aren’t you?” Spitfire’s eyes bored into her, searching for any secrets that might accidentally slip through the holes in her mental shield. “Come on, Lyra, you can tell me. I promise not to be jealous.”

“You’re going to want to shut up now,” Lyra said calmly. “If I don’t think I can keep you out of my head one way, I’ll have to find another. I could always just have you sedated.”

Spitfire almost said something, but wisely decided to clam up. Lyra felt the intruding presence fade from her mind and let out a relieved sigh. “So what’s the plan?” Spitfire asked sullenly. “You’re going to dump me somewhere, obviously. Is that how it is between us now? I don’t want to be enemies, Lyra. I still like you, even if it didn’t work out between us.”

Lyra grimaced at the unpleasant change in topic. She would almost prefer talking about her secrets. “I don’t cheat the ponies that I work with. You’ll still get your cut.”

If Spitfire was surprised, she didn’t show it. “You’re very kind,” she murmured, and lapsed into an unpleasant silence. Lyra went back to her book and enjoyed the quiet while it lasted. She was pretty sure that her old marefriend would be bothering her again soon.

When the time came, Thunderlane took his turn on guard duty without complaint. Lyra was nervous about leaving them alone, but he put her at ease by calmly walking up to Spitfire and slapping her in the face as hard as he could.

“I was right about being able to keep her out of my head,” he explained when Lyra demanded to know what had gotten into him. “If she knew what I was gonna do, she would have flinched.”

*****

After leaving Thunderlane to deal with Spitfire, Lyra began checking up on the rest of her crew. Eventually, after giving Octavia permission to join her wife on the bridge and getting Shepherd Mac something to eat, she found everypony else in the infirmary.

Tick Tock was using the new handheld scanner on his sister, who was sitting very still in the operating chair. Vision looked extremely uncomfortable, but Derpy and Bon Bon were helping her relax. The Companion was reading to her from a romance novel, while the mechanic held her hoof.

Tick Tock looked surprised when he saw Lyra watching them, but his hooves remained perfectly steady. “Is there something you need, Captain?” he asked.

“Just checking up on everypony,” Lyra said. “What’s going on in here?”

“Tick Tock’s scanning Vision’s head,” Derpy offered. “We’re helping her relax.”

Tick Tock nodded and checked the readings on the scanner. “I’m glad for the company,” he said. “This could take a while. The kind of detailed scan that I need is normally impossible with a handheld scanner like this. It’s supposed to be used only to diagnose superficial injuries. I’m going to have to scan tiny sections of her brain, then put the entire thing together like a jigsaw puzzle.”

“The good doctor is very clever,” Bon Bon commented. She snapped her book shut and stood up to work a kink out of her hind leg. Lyra realized that she was staring and tore her gaze away before anypony noticed. “There aren’t many ponies that could do so much with so little.”

“This type of procedure has been circulating around the Rim worlds for a while,” Tick Tock said dismissively. “We’re done for today. Thank you both for your help.”

Derpy offered to play a game with Vision, who seemed very excited by the idea. She was probably just happy to be out of the infirmary. Tick Tock waved to them, and continued staring at the door even after they were gone.

Bon Bon politely nodded to the Captain and went to do whatever Companions did in their free time, leaving her alone with the doctor. “Still having trouble with our infirmary?” she asked. “Treatin’ your sister must not be easy with this kind of tech.”

Tick Tock blinked and finally tore his attention away from the door. Lyra guessed that a certain grey pegasus was still on his mind. “Yes,” he sighed, “conditions around here are adorable. Uh, aplorable. They’re deplorable. D-don’t look at me.” He shuffled around anxiously, refusing to look at her, and put the scanner in the drawer of his desk. “Did you want something?”

“I was just checking up on everypony. How are you settling in?”

Tick Tock’s embarrassment gave way to a skeptical frown. “You’re being oddly social. Is this because you’re concerned for us, or because you can’t stand to be in the same room as your old marefriend?”

“Mostly the second one,” Lyra admitted. She trotted out into the cargo hold and saw Bon Bon looking down at her from a catwalk. The Companion motioned for Lyra to join her, so she climbed the stairs and leaned against the railing. “What are you doing up here?” she asked.

“Wait and see,” Bon Bon said cryptically. Tick Tock soon joined them with the same question that Lyra had asked, and he received the same answer. They stood in companionable silence for a while until Thunderlane rattled across the catwalk.

“Your turn,” the pegasus grunted as he hopped over the guard rail. He fluttered his wings to slow his descent and landed next to his weight set.

Bon Bon grabbed Lyra’s shoulder as she tried to leave. “Just a minute longer,” she urged. “I think I hear them coming.”

Vision galloped through the cargo hold with Derpy in hot pursuit, filling the air with terrified shrieks as the Pegasus tried to tackle her to the ground. Tick Tock, Lyra, and Bon Bon watched the chase while Thunderlane tried to focus on his workout.

“It’s almost like we’re home again,” Tick Tock said. “She used to act like this all the time before they took her away. Any time she wasn’t moving was time wasted.”

“Ah, the pitter-patter of little hooves,” Lyra said wistfully. Then, in a suddenly harsh voice, she shouted “Shut up! One of you is gonna fall and die, and you know I don’t provide health insurance!” She grinned at Bon Bon. “They’re so cute.”

Derpy careened up the stairs, hot on Vision’s hooves. “She’s got my wrench!” she shouted. Vision stopped at the top of the stairs, the wrench dangling from her mouth, and pranced around in a little circle. “Oh, you’re dead!” Derpy giggled. “Dead, you hear me? I know where you live!”

Eventually Derpy managed to corner Vision and wrestled the smaller mare to the ground. She came up holding her wrench and laughing. “Victory is sweet!” she exclaimed, and twirled her wrench like a pistol before hanging it back on her belt. “No force in the ‘Verse can stop me!” She returned to the engine room, but not before flying a victory lap.

Vision crawled up the next flight of stairs on her belly and collapsed beside Tick Tock. “Derpy cheats,” she wheezed, and hung her head over the edge of the catwalk to watch Thunderlane. “Air superiority takes all the fun out of war. I’ll look for reinforcements next time.”

“Good luck with that,” Bon Bon scoffed. “Derpy is a very strong flyer when she isn’t bumping into things.”

“That reminds me of something I need to discuss with the Captain,” Tick Tock said. “Could we have a word in private?”

Bon Bon looked questioningly at Lyra, who could only shrug apologetically. “Very well,” the Companion sighed. “I’ll be in my shuttle.” She trotted away, inadvertently catching Lyra’s eye as she climbed the stairs to her door. Vision wandered off as well, but only went as far as the lower level of the cargo bay. She flopped down near Thunderlane’s weight set and immediately went to sleep.

“I’m sorry to bother you with this,” Tick Tock began. “It’s about Derpy. I need to ask you for a favor.” The Captain didn’t respond. “Lyra?” he asked. “Are you listening?”

Lyra wrenched her gaze away from the door to Bon Bon’s shuttle. “Huh? Right, sorry. What about Derpy?”

“I think she’s hiding something,” Tick Tock said. “Before you make any unfortunate assumptions, it isn’t anything dangerous. I think she might be hiding a medical condition.”

Lyra was taken aback by the concern in his voice. “Is she sick?” she asked. “I mean, is this the sort of thing we need to contain?”

“Not at all,” the doctor said. “I think she’s suffering from PBMSE. That’s Pre-Birth Mystical Static Exposure, if you were wondering. I did a very detailed study of it in medical school. It’s a congenital disorder that usually occurs on planets that have been recently terraformed. She exhibits most of the symptoms; irregular strabismus, cognitive dissonance, even fits of creative mania. She’s probably taking medication to keep the mood swings in check.”

“So she’s got some kind of birth defect?” Lyra shrugged apathetically. “So what? She seems happy enough, and as far as I can tell she’s jen duh sh tyen tsai. What’s there to worry about?”

“She’ll run out of those pills eventually,” Tick Tock pointed out. “I can give her more, but I need to be sure that she actually needs them first. I need you to help me keep an eye on her for a while. Tell me if you notice any strange mood swings, or if she starts getting confused for no apparent reason.”

Lyra glanced at the door to the engine room, looking as though she expected to be caught talking behind Derpy’s back at any moment. “Why don’t you just come out and ask her? I don’t much care for all this secrecy.”

Tick Tock rested his hooves on the catwalk’s guard rails and looked down at his sleeping sister. “It isn’t going to be that easy,” he said. “Lyra, I know that everypony thinks I don’t understand how life is on the Rim, and for the most part they’re right, but I know medicine. Most of the ponies suffering from PBMSE will do anything to hide it. It’s seen as a sign of weakness in the family. It isn’t, of course; anypony subjected to latent magical energies in the womb can develop it. That doesn’t stop other ponies from looking down on them. I’m afraid that if I bring it up, she won’t let me help her.”

“Alright,” Lyra agreed. “I’ll watch her.”

“Good,” Tick Tock said. “This has to stay between us, though. I may be a fugitive, but I’m still a doctor. I took a very important oath about giving away my patient’s personal information.”

“I’ll keep it confidential,” Lyra promised. “If you’re right about this, and we blabbed Derpy’s secret to the rest of the crew, she’d be crushed. I won’t let that happen.”

Tick Tock breathed a sigh of relief, satisfied that he had made the right choice in trusting the Captain. He hadn’t known Lyra for long, but he knew that she could keep a secret. A pony didn’t become a relatively successful smuggler without knowing when to keep her mouth shut.

*****

Lyra took several more turns watching Spitfire before Vinyl called her to the bridge. “We’ve got a bit of a problem,” she said. “You wanted to know when we were about to reach the Dogworks, right? Well, we’ve just entered the Diamond Rings. I think you’d better get up here, Cap.”

Sereneighty’s engines flared as the ship passed into an asteroid belt that dwarfed all others in the known universe. The Diamond Rings were home to a number of mining colonies, some of which weren’t afraid to associate with smugglers if it meant access to a few comforts that their employers couldn’t or wouldn’t provide. It also helped that the dogs forced to work in the mines rarely got to see strangers, so there was always a warm welcome waiting.

Life for an asteroid miner was usually unpleasant and occasionally very short. Diamond dogs were often paid in a special currency that was only redeemable in the company store. Without any real money, they couldn’t leave to start over somewhere else. The companies employing them were well aware of the dismal prospects the species faced elsewhere in the ‘Verse, and didn’t mind exploiting it.

Times are tough, Lyra reflected. What else is new?

The colony came into view, and immediately Lyra saw that something was wrong. Normally shuttles would be traveling to and from the station, loaded down with workers and the equipment they needed. Ore grinders should have been running within the station itself, venting the useless toxins and impurities in whatever direction was necessary to help the station maintain its position. There certainly should have been something happening, and the complete stillness was downright creepy.

“Where is everybody?” Vinyl asked, voicing the Captain’s concerns. “No diamond dogs, no griffon overseers, no ships. What happened here?” Once of her ears swiveled around like a radar dish searching for a signal. “Do you hear that?”

A loud bang startled them. It came from far below and outside the ship, as though an errant asteroid had bounced off the hull. An eerie scraping noise traveled up from the point of impact and slowly made its way toward the window. “What… what is that?” Vinyl asked. She almost sounded panicked, and Lyra honestly couldn’t blame her.

The scraping stopped, and the bottom half of a bright orange spacesuit drifted into view. It was followed by a belt connected to a long tether, the kind used by miners to keep them anchored to the asteroids they surveyed. The magnetic plate at the other end must have gotten stuck on Sereneighty’s hull.

The helmet finally came into view, causing Vinyl to cover her mouth and gag. Octavia put a comforting hoof on her shoulder, but even she began to look a little green. Inside the helmet was… well, Lyra wasn’t sure what to call it. It had probably been a diamond dog, but his insides weren’t on the inside anymore. The front of his helmet was smeared with blood and bile.

The diamond dog’s suit must not have been sealed properly before he left the station. That meant that he was either fatally incompetent or working with substandard equipment. It was probably a bit of both.

“Wuh de ma,” Lyra whispered. “That’s an omen if I ever saw one.”

Author's Note

Dialog, dialogue. So much dialogue. I’ve been trying to get better at making characters talk. Please drop a comment with any suggestions or thoughts you might have. I know this chapter doesn’t have much action, and that always makes me nervous for some reason. Is this one as good as the others, or is it boring because nobody gets shot? Well, I guess Spitfire got slapped, but that’s the extent of the violence here.

Sometimes I feel like pointing out something that is especially ridiculous. Case in point: magical talking unicorns piloting spaceships. I bet I could make a novel out of that idea. I… I’ll be right back. I have to go write a novel about the best idea ever.

I know this one is short. Sorry about that. Thunderlane's speech in the last chapter was from "Hombre", just in case you were wondering. It's a pretty good Western, if you like those.

Interlude: Sombra

The office of New Equestria’s most influential socialite was surprisingly modest. Its owner didn’t believe in using his wealth to show off. Money, as he was fond of saying, had more important uses.

His attitude was best illustrated by the photograph sitting on his desk. It showed the famous stallion and his future wife, Fluer De Lis, having a conversation in the middle of a freeway. They pointedly ignored the long line of tanks stretched out behind them while they talked.

They had known each other for only a few hours, but Fleur fell in love on that road. Fancy Pants wasn’t the kind of stallion that let social norms stop him from doing what he thought was right. He was a bit of a rebel, and it made him just dangerous enough that other aristocrats thought he was exciting.

The tall, silent mare allowed herself to dwell on the photograph for a while. Fancy Pants often said that anypony with the means to help other ponies had a responsibility to do so, and he wasn’t shy about living up to his own philosophy. The wooden crate sitting in the corner of his office was clear evidence of that.

Fleur snapped out of her daydream and grabbed her purse from behind her husband’s desk. She was beginning to worry that they would be late for Rarity’s dinner party. When the High Priestess sent out invitations, all of New Equestria was at her beck and call. She had developed a special fondness for Fancy Pants and his wife, and would be very disappointed if they didn’t show up.

Something rattled behind her and Fleur spun around, startled by the sudden noise. The crate’s lid was now resting innocently against the wall behind it. The burial urn, a thick obsidian container decorated with crude symbols that meant nothing to her, was nestled inside on a bed of straw.

For one confusing moment, Fleur felt the urge to run. She knew that her feelings made no rational sense; the urn was nasty-looking, but it wasn’t dangerous. It was pottery, plain and simple. The lid had probably just slid off of the box.

A huge crack split the urn from neck to base, and Fleur let out a hoarse whisper. It was as close as she ever came to using her voice anymore. The urn began to rock back and forth, rattling its crate against the floor as something inside struggled to escape.

Fear threatened to make her freeze on the spot, but she forced herself to run for the door. It slammed shut in her face, and the thick oak paneling nearly broke her nose. An ear-splitting shriek, like steam escaping Hell’s tea kettle, made her cover her ears and whimper. Black smoke spilled out of the urn and filled the office in an instant, accompanied by a sense of dread so powerful that she thought it would stop her heart.

The sinister cloud surged toward her and silenced her raspy cries for help by forcing itself down her throat. Her lungs burned as it forced out all the air, and she began to choke. Her struggles slowly became weak and sluggish, then stopped entirely.

Finally, long after she had lost consciousness, Fleur collapsed. Her body twitched sporadically as the room slowly cleared of the sickening miasma.

Fancy Pants came looking for his wife ten minutes later. He found her turning slowly in front of a mirror, admiring her appearance. “Are you alright, my dear?” he asked. “You’ve taken quite a long time.”

“I’m fine,” Fleur assured him. She wrapped him in her forelegs and nuzzled into his neck. “Darling, I don’t suppose you’d consider staying here with me instead of hobnobbing with all of those uptight socialites? I’m sure the two of us would have much more fun.” Fancy’s jaw dropped. “What’s the matter?” his wife asked. “Did I come on too strong?”

“By Celestia!” Fancy Pants shouted. “You can speak!”

Fleur’s face fell into an annoyed frown. “We’ll do this the hard way, then,” she sighed. Tendrils of black smoke began leaking from her mouth, and her eyes began to glow with a faint, emerald-green light.

A bolt of dark energy shot between their horns. Fancy Pants collapsed on the floor of his office while his wife – or rather, the creature pretending to be his wife – went back to looking at herself in the mirror. “I was hoping to get you,” she muttered crossly. “It’s a bit unpredictable, shipping yourself around in knock-off antiques. You never know for certain who you’ll end up in. I suppose the wife is going to have to do.”

Fleur tossed her mane and batted her eyelashes. “I think I can get used to this. What should I call myself? I still like being Sombra, and I suppose the name could work just as well now. There’s no need to start calling myself ‘Sombrette’ or anything silly like that, is there? I can just be Queen Sombra.” She turned to the side and struck a menacing pose. “Ugh, look at the colors! Pink is so degrading.”

Fancy Pants shuddered as Sombra’s magic slowly stripped away his free will. “Never mind,” the possessed unicorn sighed. “I’ll come up with something. Let me know when you’re done drooling into the carpet and we’ll go to that dinner party. We need to keep up appearances, after all.”

Author's Note

I like that Lyra thought the urn was “sort of pretty,” but Fleur thought it was nasty looking. That probably says something about the two of them, doesn't it? Of course it does. I totally didn't just make that up when I noticed that I accidentally described it differently.

Fancy Pants (who seems to be this universe’s version of Tank Man) is going to a dinner party with “High Priestess” Rarity. For those that don’t know (I have no idea how many of you saw Firefly), the leaders of the Companion’s guild are referred to as priestesses (there might be priests too, I don’t know). That implies that she’s a member, or even the leader of, the Companion’s Guild. Also, the reason that Fleur can no longer speak is left up to you. She was clearly carrying on a conversation in the photograph, and now she can’t speak. What do YOU think happened? Tell me your theory in the comments!

The next episode is… in progress. I’m having a few problems with it, but I’m working on it. Sorry for the wait.

Bushwhacked

It was very late in his sleep cycle when Shining Armor’s communicator began to ring. He immediately snapped awake and rolled out of his bunk. His entire adult life had been spent in the Imperial Navy, and he had grown accustomed to the lifestyle. Most officers preferred to have luxurious quarters aboard their ships, but he had never gotten used to sleeping alone in a full bed.

Not that I’d take this over my bed at home, he thought with a grin as he jammed his communicator into a small port on his desk. The screen mounted on the far wall blinked to life, and he shielded his eyes until they grew accustomed to the light. “Commander Armor?” a female voice asked.

“We wish to speak with you,” another added. Shining Armor finally managed to look directly at the screen and saw a pair of similarly colored mares staring at him. “You are the highest ranking Imperial officer in this sector. We request that you meet us at these coordinates.”

Shining Armor blinked at the numbers flying across his screen. “Hang on,” he mumbled, trying to shake the drowsiness from his head. “Who are you, exactly?”

The mares glanced at each other. “Aloe and Lotus,” they said at the same time. Shining Armor was reminded of the creepy twins from an old horror movie about a haunted hotel. “We are private contractors for the Blue Moon Corporation. We have authorization from your superiors to contact you if necessary.”

Stupid bureaucratic nonsense, he thought. The Blue Moon Corporation had a stranglehold on the interplanetary economy, and provided most of the technology used by the Empire. The Imperial Navy tended to bend over backwards to appease the megacorporation whenever possible. “Fine,” Shining Armor said. “What’s so important at these coordinates?”

“You do not need to know,” the twins said curtly. “Our assignment is not something that we are eager to discuss with the likes of you, and certainly not over an unsecured channel. Further details will be provided if and when we deem it necessary.”

Another black bag operation, courtesy of Blue Moon. Why am I not surprised? “I’ll be there in a few hours,” he said.

Aloe and Lotus nodded, satisfied with his obedience. “Very good. We are waiting for you aboard a mining station. Contact us when you arrive.”

The image of the twins shook faintly. “Did you hear that?” one of them asked. Her sister nodded. “It seems that we have arrived at an inconvenient time.”

“You have new orders,” the second twin said. “Search for our vessel. It should be clearly tagged by the Blue Moon Corporation. If you cannot find it, then we are already gone and there is no point in waiting for us. Good day, Commander.”

The camera shook again, and the twins began to look worried. “This plan was ill-advised,” one of them muttered. The feed cut to static moments later, and Shining Armor was once again blind in the darkness of his quarters.

*****

One of the many downsides to space travel was that most ponies didn’t like being cooped up in a ship. Thunderlane was usually one of those ponies, and often got restless on long trips. Occasional claustrophobia was just part of being a pegasus pony. There was a reason that he spent so much time in the cargo hold, which was the most spacious area of the ship.

This preference for open spaces did not extend to the endless void of space itself. Thunderlane didn’t particularly mind looking out at the ‘Verse from the safety of a sealed suit, but today he would much rather be inside. This assignment was much more unpleasant than the ones he usually took care of; there was a dead body clinging to Sereneighty, and he had to get rid of it.

“I always get the Gorram luh-suh detail,” he grumbled as he crawled along the access rails built into the ship’s belly. He had clambered out of the EVA hatch below the bridge and was making his way closer to the magnetic clamp. “I got an idea,” he mused. “We should let Tick Tock do this next time. He can float around out in the black, and I’ll sit in the infirmary and look pleased with myself. How’s that sound?”

“Get a move on,” Lyra ordered. “We might need to leave in a hurry. Vinyl’s scanning the Dogworks, but she says there’s a lot of interference. Somepony might still be around.”

“We could always ask Octavia,” Thunderlane said. “She ain’t squeamish. No reason it always has to be me doin’ this kind of thing. Just sayin’.”

“Your whining has been noted.”

Thunderlane reached the auxiliary fuel tank and began climbing over the bulge in the ship’s hull. “I’m not whining!” he argued. “I’m complaining. You want to hear whining?”

“Thunderlane–”

“Thiiiis is whiiiiiining!” Thunderlane moaned in the highest pitch he could manage.

Lyra barked through the microphone and cut off his ran mid-sentence. “Thunderlane!” she shouted. “Your mouth is talking. You might want to take care of that before I decide to sew it shut. Get that hitchhiker off my ship and get your stupid flank back in here!”

Thunderlane could see the diamond dog’s tether, but the maintenance rail didn’t run close enough for him to reach it. “I’m here,” he said, all levity forgotten for the moment. “I’m going to have to let go of the ladder. Tell Vinyl to hold the ship steady.”

The pegasus sized up the distance between himself and the tether. It was about eight feet, give or take. He gently pushed off of the access rail and floated toward the clamp. When he was close enough he wrapped his hooves around the anchoring rings and twisted the locking mechanism.

The clamp came free without a sound, and he tossed it away from the ship. The action pushed him back toward the rail, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to reach it. “Haul me in,” he said into his microphone.

Thunderlane felt his safety line tug against his back as it pulled him toward the EVA hatch. He watched the diamond dog float away and said a short prayer that had become very popular among pirates and smugglers: “Zài jiàn, pal. Better you than me.”

The crew met on the bridge after Thunderlane’s unpleasant space walk. Bon Bon was present as well, and for once Lyra didn’t see fit to order her away. Sereneighty was hidden behind a massive asteroid, just out of sight of the Dogworks while the crew went over Vinyl’s scans.

“We’d have to get a lot closer to do better than this,” the pilot began. “There’s an awful lot of fey tyeh luh-suh floating around out there, and the station’s reactors aren’t being looked after. With all that interference, it’s a wonder we can see anything at all.”

“Do we know if there are survivors?” Tick Tock asked.

“No idea,” Vinyl said. “It gets a little fuzzy toward the center of the station. The lifeboats have been launched, but there’s no way they’d fit the whole crew. I can’t see any of them floating around here, so they were probably picked up by somepony. That’s something, at least. The station’s records mention a private craft docking, but it’s long gone.”

Thunderlane cleared his throat. “So, why are we still here? I say we beat our hooves in the opposite direction with all due haste. Somethin’ bad happened here, and I’m none too eager to see what it was.”

“We’re still here because I’m trying to decide the best way to get aboard,” Lyra said. She looked around at the stunned faces of her crew. “What? If there’s nopony onboard, there’s nopony to stop us. There was probably some kind of industrial accident or something. We’ll get in, take a look around, and try to grab any pieces of precious that might sell. It’s the same routine we always use.”

“I don’t know, Lyra,” Thunderlane said. “It’s a little eerie, ain’t it?”

Lyra looked over the scans and scratched her chin. “We aren’t exactly rolling in it. This last job paid well, but we can’t turn our backs on easy coin. Thunderlane and I are going in. Octavia, stay on Sereneighty and keep an eye on things. Remember to stay far away from Spitfire.”

Octavia nodded obediently. “What shall I do if she makes trouble, sir?”

“You’ll think of something. Hit her over the head with something big and heavy if you like. Just stay alert and let us know if there’s any trouble.”

“I’d like to go with you,” Tick Tock said. “There might be somepony in need of medical attention.”

Lyra shrugged. “Just stay out of the way unless we need you. If nothing else, you’re another pony to carry loot. Vinyl, what kind of atmosphere are we lookin’ at?”

“I don’t know,” the pilot admitted. “There should be air, but with the station’s computer offline I can’t check. There could be a rupture somewhere that vented it all.”

“That’s fine,” Lyra said. “Let’s suit up and get moving. We don’t know how long we have before somepony shows up.”

*****

Of all the things that a pony could be afraid of, a sealed suit had to be the stupidest. Lyra watched impatiently as Tick Tock donned his environmental suit with the kind of apprehension normally reserved for approaching things like live explosives or angry manticores. He was taking so long that Derpy kindly offered to help him, but even with a mechanic he had trouble getting his equipment to work properly.

“He ain’t too smart for a doctor,” Thunderlane grumbled. The pegasus was loaded down with several cargo sleds, and had insisted on bringing a combat shotgun in addition to his revolver. The extra weight was making him grumpy. “He’d better hurry up before we leave him behind.”

“He’s ready!” Derpy announced. She patted the doctor’s shoulder reassuringly, though he probably couldn't feel it through the suit. “You’ll be fine, okay? I mean, you put it on wrong at first, and you almost broke the helmet’s seal lock, and you had the air flow shut off, but I think it’s all fixed now. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Tick Tock forced himself to smile, and Lyra was struck with the strange notion that the expression was about to break his face. He fell into step with the others as Sereneighty made contact with the Dogworks. A hiss filled the cargo hold as the airlock was prepped, and the trio stepped inside. A sliding panel sealed them off from the rest of the ship, and the atmosphere drained around them.

Lyra waited for a light to flash green, then stepped calmly into the mining station. She began punching buttons on a small computer strapped to her foreleg. “Looks like we’ve got air,” she said. “Temperature should be tolerable.” The seal on her helmet popped open and she yanked it off. After a few deep breaths, Thunderlane did the same. Both of them had to help Tick Tock with his own helmet.

“We’re splitting up,” Lyra said. “Thunderlane, start looking through the cargo areas. See if you can find something that’ll sell. Doc, you’re with me on this one. We’re raiding the medical facilities. Be back on the ship in thirty.”

Thunderlane adjusted the communicator clipped to his weapon harness. “Can you hear me?” he asked.

Lyra stared at him, wondering if he was just pulling her leg. “I’m standing right here.”

Thunderlane nodded, satisfied that his equipment was working. He checked to make sure that his shotgun was loaded, and slung it over his shoulder.“Okay, you’re comin’ in good and loud.”

You’ve got to be kidding me, she thought. “That’s because I’m standing right here!” she insisted.

Thunderlane looked down at his communicator. “W-well, yeah, but…the transmitter’s…”

Tick Tock and Lyra shared a bewildered look, but decided not to push the issue. Thunderlane trotted off to plunder the cargo while they made for the medical bay. On the way they passed through the galley and a large dining area. The tables were filled with half-finished meals, and the smell of spoiled milk filled the room. “What happened here?” Tick Tock wondered aloud. “I don’t see any signs of a struggle.”

“Might be that they tried to evacuate in a hurry,” Lyra said. “It happens sometimes with a ship this size; whenever there’s any sign of trouble, everypony rushes to the life boats.”

“I see,” he said. “Captian, now that you mention it, doesn’t this strike you as being rather strange?”

Lyra’s horn sparked faintly, and a corresponding light answered from the grip of her pistol. “Strange?” she asked. “How, exactly?”

“Well,” he began, “the lifeboats are all gone. Vinyl said that they wouldn’t hold everypony. What happened to the rest of the crew?”

The infirmary came into view, and Tick Tock ran ahead to begin sorting through the medication. “Could be anything,” Lyra said. “Maybe a ship passed by and picked everypony up. That would go a long way toward explaining where those lifeboats went.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” the doctor agreed. He hurriedly shoved bottles into the duffel bag Lyra had given him. The Captain stood by, patiently watching as bag after bag filled up with precious goods. Tick Tock snuck a smaller bottle into one of his pockets. “Pills for Derpy,” he said when he realized that she had seen him.

It was several minutes before both of their communicators clicked on. “Lyra!” Thunderlane called. “Get down to the cargo deck. I think we’ve stumbled into a real mess this time.”

Lyra and Tick Tock raced out of the infirmary, the former weighed down by their plunder but still easily able to keep pace with the earth pony. They left the sled at the top of one of the access ladders and dropped down into the station’s expansive cargo area.

Stacks of cargo crates and large metal containers stretched out before them. The lower levels of the station formed a maze of loading ramps and cargo stacked to the ceiling. “Over here!” Thunderlane called from atop a refrigerated container. “Stand back, Lyra. We don’t know what’s inside.”

Lyra saw that the container’s door was smeared with a rusty brown substance. A small, dark puddle had frozen on the floor in front of it. She drew her pistol and motioned for the doctor to stand back. “Ready?” she asked. Thunderlane aimed his shotgun at the doors. “Okay. Here we go.”

The doors were difficult to open, frozen solid and caked with something that Lyra very much hoped was not blood. The inside was obscured by a thick shadow, so Lyra began searching for her flashlight. She finally found it and held it up, but needed a moment to steady herself before turning it on.

Lyra would never be sure how she knew what was in the refrigeration unit. A full second before her magic pressed down on the button that activated her flashlight, she knew exactly what she would see. It was probably her subconscious mind picking up on the scent of blood, or perhaps the shadows in the container weren’t as dark as she had first imagined. Maybe she had very weak reader abilities of her own and simply didn’t know it.

For whatever reason, she had time to shut her eyes before her light illuminated the grisly scene in the container. Bodies were piled against the far end, stripped of clothing and stacked like firewood. Most of them were missing limbs, and some had obviously been savaged before death. The frigid mist washing over her carried with it the faint smell of cooked flesh.

Thunderlane’s violent swearing snapped Lyra out of her trance. “Wuh de tyen, ah,” she whispered. “We landed on the wrong damn station.”

“What happened here?” Tick Tock hissed. He had immediately looked away, and had yet to bring himself to turn around. “What could have done this?”

“No mystery there,” Lyra said. “Reavers.” Tick Tock’s eyes widened in horror.

All three ponies jumped as their radios crackled. “Captain, is that you?” Octavia asked. “I can hear something outside the ship.”

“Don’t open the doors!” Lyra shouted. “Octavia, don’t let them in! Lock it all down!”

The floor shook, and Octavia’s reply ended abruptly. “They… they aren’t real,” Tick Tock whispered. “They can’t be. Reavers don’t exist!”

Lyra didn’t bother to argue with him. She took off at a dead sprint, pistol held at the ready. Thunderlane flew behind her and shouldered his shotgun while Tick Tock tried to keep up. They passed the sled full of medical supplies, but Lyra had other things on her mind. As soon as they saw the corridor leading to Sereneighty, all three ponies stopped in their tracks.

The reinforced hatch leading to Sereneighty’s airlock had been blown open, and parts of it were still glowing with the immense heat of the blast. “Octavia!” Lyra shouted. She charged ahead, her friends following in her wake, and galloped into the cargo hold. The blast had shaken the utility vehicle free of its platform, and it was now lying upside down among a pile of shredded boxes.

Octavia was nowhere in sight. What if they took her? Lyra thought. What if we’re already too late? “Octavia, say something! Where are you?”

Something stirred beneath the all-terrain vehicle. Octavia tried to crawl out of the wreckage, but screamed when she tried to move one of her hind legs. “Get that thing off of her!” Lyra shouted. Her magic, combined with Thunderlane’s brawn, soon freed her second in command.

Tick Tock rushed to Octavia’s side and began examining her leg. “That’s broken,” he said a bit unnecessarily. He pulled out his medical bag and ripped it open, producing a needle and a small bottle of clear liquid. “It could have been worse, you know. The bone isn’t sticking out or anything.”

“No!” Octavia hissed when he tried to give her a shot. “There are Reavers onboard, doctor. I would rather maintain control of my faculties.”

Everypony, including Tick Tock, began talking at once. “You’re in a lot of pain,” the doctor warned. “You’re in shock right now, but once it wears off–”

Octavia’s lavender eyes blazed so brightly that everypony took an involuntary step backward. “Ta ma de! Nimen de bizui!” she shouted. She shut her eyes tightly and stomped one of her hooves against the floor. “Pardon my language, doctor. Please hand me my rifle and prop me up against something or I will crawl over there and break all four of your useless kao knees. Perhaps then you will have a reason to complain.”

Lyra quickly grabbed Octavia’s retractable rifle with her magic and levitated it over to the downed mare. “Thank you,” the cellist said calmly. “Will somepony please make certain that my wife and the others are unharmed?”

“You sure you’re alright here by yourself?” Thunderlane asked.

Octavia stared at him coldly. “I believe that I asked somepony to check on my wife. You are not moving.”

Thunderlane immediately grabbed his shotgun. “Y-yes, ma’am!” He leaped into the air and flew toward the bridge, apparently forgetting to wait for the others.

“Come back here and wait on a catwalk after you’re done!” Lyra called after him. “Don’t let anything past you. That should make it harder for them to get around without bein’ seen.” She pushed Tick Tock in the direction of the bridge. “Go with him to make sure Vinyl isn’t hurt,” she ordered. “Tell her to lock down the ship. I want every door and shutter on Sereneighty sealed tight as can be. We’ll search everywhere, room by room.”

A distant scream echoed through the ship. “That sounded like Derpy!” Tick Tock exclaimed.

Lyra nodded. “Change of plans, Doc. You’re with me. Let’s go.”

*****

Sereneighty’s engine room was a mess by the time Lyra and Tick Tock arrived. They had taken a shortcut through the ship’s water reclamation area, which was a challenging room to navigate in a hurry. Lyra arrived first, and almost stumbled over an open toolbox. Derpy had been hard at work when the Reavers showed up, and they had caught her completely off guard.

The mechanic had crammed herself into the little gap between the reactor and the floor, climbing between support struts until the Reavers couldn’t reach her. One of her hind legs had been sliced open almost to the bone by one of the filthy, jagged blades that the savages carried.

There were two of them in the engine room. One was a griffon with a splintered beak, and the other was a pony with nails driven through his cheeks. Both of them smelled like blood, but lacked the usual scent of infected wounds and excrement. These two didn't change that long ago, Lyra realized. They’re survivors of the original attack. They've probably only been Reavers for a few hours.

Only the griffon noticed Lyra. By the time Tick Tock caught up with her she had already drawn her pistol and put it down with two slugs to the chest, then another to the head. Her pistol’s barrel trailed smoke as she drew a bead on the pony, and killed him in exactly the same way.

Just as the noise died down, the intercom snapped on. “Reavers are on the ship!” Vinyl shouted a little too loudly, causing a blast of feedback. “The Captain and Thunderlane are hunting them down. We’re going into lockdown, so find an empty room and shut yourself in until help arrives.”

Tick Tock knelt down in front of the engine and began trying to coax Derpy out of hiding. She was still panicked from the attack, and shrank away from him like a frightened foal at first. Eventually she was able to crawl out on her own, though it took some creative wiggling to squeeze through the reactor’s struts. Her entire body was still trembling as she stepped over one of the dead Reavers, and her injured leg wouldn’t support her weight.

Tick Tock quickly sterilized the wound and bandaged it. “We’ll need to do a more thorough cleaning later,” he said. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Derpy shut her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. It didn’t seem to help, but after a moment of silence she was able to wipe her eyes and stand up. “I think one of them went down the access ladder,” she whispered in a voice made weak by screaming and crying. “Mac and Vision are down there!”

*****

Shepherd Mac didn’t mind spending time with Vision, but he wished that she would stop staring at him while he was trying to read. He had been lounging in the passenger dorms, reading through one of Bon Bon’s cheesy novels, when the little earth pony snuck into the room and plopped down beside his chair. She had been watching him for quite a while, and he was finding it very difficult to concentrate. “Is there somethin’ Ah can do for ya?” he asked when the silence finally became too uncomfortable.

“I don’t think so,” Vision said. She finally looked away, and Mac let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding. “I was playing with Derpy,” she said with great concentration. “Then I was tired, so I slept. After that I came here because I wanted to see you. I remember. I remember what happened to me.”

“Is that unusual?”

Vision looked at him again, but this time her stare was much less unnerving. “Sometimes,” she said. “It’s not so bad now. You all don’t think I notice, but I do. I notice a lot of things. Ticky’s finally made some friends.”

“Thank the goddesses,” Mac chuckled. “He still doesn’t fit in out here. Your brother was very brave, goin’ after you like he did. You’re lucky to have him.”

Vision almost agreed with him, but something distracted her. The ship trembled, and she collapsed on the floor as though something had struck her. “Bad ponies!” she whimpered, and scuttled behind his chair. She covered her eyes and began so shiver and sweat.

“Where?” Mac asked. “We’re alone, darlin’. Nopony’s gonna hurt you here.”

Derpy screamed, and Mac slammed his book shut. “They’re here,” Vision whispered. “They saw the endless nothing that hides behind stars, and they let it in. They’ve found us!”

As if summoned by her words, a loud bang sounded from the access ladder leading to the engine room. A ragged, bleeding pegasus pony stumbled into the room, obviously stunned from his unexpected fall down the access hatch. Both of his wings had broken razor blades wound into the primaries, and one of them was beginning to show signs of infection.

The Reaver noticed them and stalked curiously around the perimeter of the room. It eyed Mac with a perverse mix of hunger and lust, snarling and drooling saliva and blood onto the floor. Its broken teeth clacked together as it snapped at him like a rabid dog.

The stench of sickness and refuse soon hit Mac’s nose and made his eyes water. The Reaver’s coat, matted with something dark and sticky, reeked of decay. “Bad pony,” Vision repeated.

Shepherd Mac stood up and flexed his shoulder, grunting as it popped. “Eeyup,” he agreed. Something about the little noise sent the Reaver into a rage, or possibly just helped it pick a target. It erupted into action, galloping toward him with its maw open wide and emitting an otherworldly howl.

Author's Note

Ripped the title right out of the show, because there is literally no better title on Earth. I checked.

Sorry for the wait! This one has me really nervous, since it was harder to write and strays from the show’s story a bit more. Were the Reavers scary? I tried pretty hard to make them scary. They’re “fresh” Reavers (except for “Razorwings”, who got left behind by his buddies), so they don’t look as gross as the others might. Tell me what you think in the comments, please!

Purplecoat

Lyra and Tick Tock dropped down the access hatch and into the passenger dorms, one of them landing on her hooves while the other tumbled inelegantly onto the thick carpet. The room was empty, but not undisturbed. Furniture had been overturned, blood covered the floor, and one of the room’s small reading tables had been smashed to pieces.

A feral scream chilled Lyra to the bone. “It’s close!” she hissed as Tick Tock climbed shakily to his hooves.

Derpy finally managed to worm her way through the hatch, but she didn’t have the coordination to climb down. Tick Tock reached up to help her, taking most of her weight so that she didn’t strain her injured leg. Had the situation been less grim, it might have been cute.

“Where’s Vision?” Derpy whimpered. She looked at the blood and bile smeared on the floor and gasped. “Oh, Celestia! What if we’re too late?” The Reaver screamed again, and Lyra took off toward its voice. A trail of blood led to the sleeping area, where passengers could seclude themselves in the relative privacy of their bunks.

The hallway leading to the tiny, private rooms was just ahead. Lyra approached the corner at a dead sprint, pistol drawn and heart racing. She heard Vision crying as bone snapped just around the bend, and a feeling of incredible helplessness brought tears to her eyes. She hadn’t run fast enough to make a difference.

A dark shape flew across the hallway and hit the bulkhead on the other side hard enough to shatter its spine. Lyra screamed and reflexively fired off a shot, hitting it in its already collapsed chest cavity. It crumpled to the ground in a useless heap, haunted eyes staring at nothing, and gave one final shudder before it died.

Shepherd Mac trotted around the bend and prodded the Reaver to make sure it was dead. “Sonofabitch,” he muttered crossly, and winced at his own language. Vision peered around the corner, wide eyes staring at the body.

“Nice work,” Lyra said. Relief and adrenaline conspired together to make her voice shake. “You alright, Preacher?” Mac nodded wordlessly. His shirt was stained with the Reaver’s blood, but he was otherwise unharmed. “Good. Let’s take Vision and Derpy to the cargo hold. We’ll check the infirmary on the way. Thunderlane should be set up on one of the catwalks with his shotgun.”

Vision noticed her brother and immediately ran to him. She almost knocked him over with her enthusiastic hug. “It’s alright,” Tick Tock whispered, still shaken by the fear of losing her. “You’re alright, mei-mei.”

Lyra barged into the infirmary and tried to hurry her little group along. She was fighting off panic through sheer force of will, but the dread tugging at the pit of her stomach grew worse with every passing moment. Reavers had a way of unsettling ponies, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she would last before she reached the limits of her courage.

The group rushed into the cargo hold to find Octavia still watching the airlock, drenched in sweat and shaking but very much awake. Lyra climbed the stairs to join Thunderlane on the catwalk. “Vinyl’s still on the bridge,” he said. “Just about had to tie her to the pilot’s chair when she heard about Octavia. Bon Bon’s in her shuttle with the door locked, and they’d have to go through here to reach her.”

“That just leaves Spitfire,” Lyra said. “Doc, I know you want to be here with your patients, but I might need you. Stay behind me; we don’t know how many are left.” She nodded to Thunderlane, who was feeding shells into his shotgun. “Try to keep an eye on Octavia. I’m not sure how long she’ll stay conscious. Get everypony else in there with Bon Bon.”

Lyra cracked open the cabin door leading to the galley and peered inside. A pair of Reavers were mindlessly throwing themselves against the reinforced door of the observation lounge, grunting and jabbering hysterically. Numerous injuries, most of them self-inflicted, wept blood onto the floor. The keypad by the door was smeared with grime, but hadn’t yet been smashed.

One of the Reavers was a diamond dog, and the other was a unicorn. The dog had punched through the door’s small window, and still clutched broken shards of glass in his bleeding paw. He could probably reach the handle inside, but the door wouldn’t open with the ship on lockdown.

Lyra shot him first, then turned her attention to his partner. The unicorn had time to notice her, and glared with one eye while the other roamed uselessly along the ceiling. He opened his mouth, baring teeth that had been filed to sharp points, but his scream died in his throat.

A few seconds of silence passed while Lyra listened for any more Reavers. When she was finally satisfied that they were alone, she holstered her pistol and punched in the override code on the door’s keypad. It swung open freely, though she had to push a corpse out of the way first.

Spitfire was hanging listlessly in her restrain harness, held up only by the padded straps around her legs and midsection. Her face had lost all expression, and she stared numbly at the floor as they approached. Tick Tock waved his hoof in front of her face. “I think she’s in shock,” he said. “Can we get her to the infirmary? I can treat her better there.”

“Fine,” Lyra said. “Help me get her out of this thing.” She began working on the band around Spitfire’s midsection while Tick Tock reached up to free her hooves.

Loud, hysterical laughter erupted from the former Wonderbolt without warning. Tick Tock shrieked and fell backwards, startled halfway out of his mind. Spitfire shook in her restraints, chest heaving and pupils contracting to pinpricks. Every muscle in her body drew taut, and her smile tightened into a gruesome rictus.

Lyra whipped her pistol across the laughing mare’s face, knocking her senseless and causing the awful sound to grind to a halt. “You hit her!” Tick Tock exclaimed.

The Captain returned her pistol to its holster. “It’s not my fault!” she shouted indignantly. “She startled me!”

Spitfire blinked sleepily and shook her head. “Whuh?” she mumbled. “Wazzat? Who’s there? ” Tick Tock and Lyra glanced at one another and, very quietly, backed away.

“You can examine her in here,” Lyra whispered. “I’m not letting that loose on my ship.

Tick Tock looked at the disoriented pegasus and shivered. “Agreed,” he said. “I’ll have a look at her after I take care of Octavia and Derpy.”

“Might want to get a move on,” Lyra urged. “Octavia’s probably in a lot of pain right now.” She watched Tick Tock rush off through the galley, stumbling over one of the dead Reavers and continuing on without a second look. “Not bad for a Core dandy,” she mused. “I expected more screaming.”

“Lyra!” Vinyl called over the intercom. “There’s an Imperial cruiser heading right for us! I think it’s the same one that tried to stop us on Persepony a few months ago.”

Lyra shut the door behind her and entered another code to ensure that it remained locked. “It never buckin’ rains,” she grumbled as she made for the bridge. “Doc! Give Octavia something for the pain, and then get ready for some stargazing.”

*****

“Reavers?” the Commander asked incredulously. Lyra had made it to the bridge just as he hailed Sereneighty. “You must be joking, Captain. I’m Commander Shining Armor, by the way. I don’t believe I caught your name.”

Lyra shut her eyes and tried to think happy, calming thoughts. There’s no way I’ll get away with this, was all that came to mind. “Strings,” she lied, using the fake name on the ship’s registration forms. “Plucky Strings. It’s very nice to meet you for the first time.” Smooth, Lyra. “It shouldn't be hard to confirm my story, Commander. Just send a team to the station and look around.”

Commander Armor glanced at somepony that Lyra couldn’t see. “I’ll have it checked out. I need to question your crew, of course. I hope you’re aware that the Empire’s official position is that Reavers do not exist.”

“With all due respect, Commander, your official position amounts to less than a road apple out here. I know what I saw. Question us if you want, but I’ve got wounded to look after. They need medical attention. My first mate has a bit of experience patching ponies up, but she’s out of action for now.”

“I can help with that,” Shining Armor offered. “Your crew will have access to our facilities. In the meantime, I expect complete and total cooperation on your part.”

Lyra looked over her shoulder and saw Tick Tock trying to fit Spitfire’s sedated body into a space suit. She subtly angled the screen a bit to make sure that Shining Armor couldn’t see them. “You got it,” She assured him. “No funny business.”

*****

“I’m not happy with this plan,” Soarin’ said. He had been saying very little else for the last half hour. “Interrogations can be a delicate business, boss. I’ve got a lot more experience with it than you.”

Shining Armor rolled his eyes and smiled. “I’ve done covert ops too, Soarin’. You’re just mad because I’ll be talking to the Companion.”

“And the first mate!” Soarin’ complained. “You saw the way she looked at me when we brought her onboard. You’ve got to let me talk to her!”

Shining Armor knew he should probably scold his friend for being so unprofessional, but something about Soarin’ made it impossible to stay mad at him. “Don’t feel too bad,” he said. “The ship’s mechanic is sort of pretty, right? Besides, I’m sure the first mate was on some heavy-duty painkillers. I don’t think that look counts.”

“Whatever,” Soarin’ muttered sourly. “I guess I’ll talk to you after we’re done.”

They parted ways, Soarin’ heading to a private holding area while Shining Armor went in the opposite direction. He started with the second in command, who had been moved to the infirmary. He wanted to question her before the painkillers took full effect. “Treble Clef?” he asked. “That’s a very…generic name.

“That is correct,” the grey pony said. “I am a cellist.”

“You don’t seem like the kind of mare to go adventuring across the ‘Verse,” Shining Armor said. “Shouldn’t you be in the Core, sipping champagne and playing music for ridiculously fancy parties?”

“This is where I belong,” she argued. “I left my family behind a long time ago. My friends are here. My wife is here. What more reason do you need?” She noticed his eyes scanning the scar on her chest, and wished that she hadn’t been relieved of her vest. “A birth mark,” she said. “Nothing more.”

Shining Armor flipped through several pages of notes. “You’re married?”

“That is not relevant.”

They stared at one another in silence until the unicorn began to feel uncomfortable. “Is there some reason you don’t want to talk about her?” he asked. “I’ve been married for years, and sometimes I still can’t seem to stop talking about mine. It’s starting to annoy my friends.”

The cellist somehow managed to look down her nose while lying on her back. He guessed that looking disdainful was probably an art that she had practiced from a young age. “My marriage is none of your concern. We are very private ponies.”

Shining Armor would later find out that the ship’s pilot was much less “private” than her wife. While he was attempting to pry information out of the cellist, Soarin’ was forced to listen to what was probably the most uncomfortable interview he would ever conduct.

“It was the legs,” the ivory unicorn said proudly. “I definitely noticed the legs first. Well, that and the area where the hind legs meet up with the rest of her.” Soarin’ toyed absently with his pen, cheeks burning with both embarrassment and frustration. The pilot either didn’t notice his discomfort or had decided not to care. “You know, she was straight when I met her.”

Soarin’ groaned and laid his head down on the table. Sometimes life seemed incredibly unfair.

*****

“All the ponies on that ship are crazy!” Soarin’ complained. “The big one just… stared at me. It was creepy. It felt personal somehow, y’know?”

Neither Soarin’ nor Shining Armor had been able to learn anything useful. They had agreed to meet up on the bridge and compare notes before Shining Armor interviewed the Firefly’s captain, but the only information they had been able to get out of the crew amounted to a very uncomfortable and horribly graphic description of the pilot’s sex life.

“Some are worse than others,” Shining Armor said grimly, thinking of the huge stallion dressed as a priest. It was a deeply ironic choice of wardrobe, to say the least. He almost hadn’t recognized Big Macintosh, and was stunned into speechlessness when the big earth pony walked into the interrogation room.

It hadn’t been a very nice reunion. Shining Armor had been very tempted to kick Mac’s teeth out, but he managed to restrain himself. Instead, he had ordered the guards to keep Macintosh in cuffs for the rest of his stay. It was better than he deserved.

“Sir?” Soarin’ asked. “Hey, Shiny? Am I boring you?”

Shining Armor dragged himself back to reality, putting daydreams of vengeance out of his mind. “Sorry, what?”

“I said that I don’t think we’re going to get anything useful out of them.”

“You’re right,” Shining Armor agreed. “There’s always the chance that they don’t have anything useful to give.” He scratched at one of his ears and frowned. Something was bothering him, but he couldn’t put his hoof on it. “Have you seen any of them before?”

“Besides Chancellor Applejack’s brother?” Soarin’ asked. “No, I haven’t. I’m pretty sure I’d remember meeting one of these head cases. What should we do with them?”

Shining Armor shrugged. “I’m going to talk to the Captain. After that we’ll probably just release them. Any word from our Blue Moon friends?”

“The freakishly attractive operatives haven’t made contact,” Soarin’ said. “It seems that we’ve been stood up, sir.” He looked perplexed for a moment. “Sir, is this what rejection feels like? I don’t think I like it.”

“Just keep listening,” Shining Armor said. He grabbed a small folder filled with the tiny amount of information they had collected. “I’ll be in the interrogation room. Get a shuttle ready for them, would you? I’d like to finish this up soon.”

The Captain was waiting for him when he arrived, and she had obviously gotten bored with the proceedings. “Are we about done here?” she asked when he sat down at the table. “No offense, but I’ve got places I’d rather be.”

“You and me both,” Shining Armor said. “I’m just as eager to leave as you, especially after seeing what happened on that mining station. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“Wish I could say the same,” the Captain said. “You may not believe in Reavers, but I sure as all Tartarus do. That freezer wasn’t just a place to dump bodies, Commander. That was a Gorram lunchbox.”

Shining Armor shivered in his seat. “I’m well aware of that,” he said. “My reconnaissance team found the whole mess right away. It’s pretty clear that a small crew like yours couldn’t do that alone. If I had to guess, I’d say that you’re just smugglers of some kind. You probably arrived late to the party, saw that nopony was around, and got attacked while trying to loot the place.”

Captain Strings – or whoever she really was – smiled nervously. “That’s crazy talk.”

“Uh huh,” Shining Armor said, obviously unconvinced. “The names were a nice touch. You might want to get a bit more creative next time.” He flipped the folder’s cover closed and pushed it away. “Look, I’m not about to bust you for trying to trade with diamond dogs. My soldiers searched every inch of your ship, and we didn't find anything illegal apart from a few interesting firearms. Given that those guns probably saved your lives, I’m not very eager to confiscate them. I just have one question for you, out of personal curiosity.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why is your ship named Sereneighty?” Shining Armor asked. “You were obviously a Purplecoat, given your choice of clothing. Why would you name your ship after a battle that you lost?”

The Captain frowned at the table, possibly trying to decide which answer would get her into the least amount of trouble. “Ever talk to somepony that was there?” she asked. Shining Armor shook his head. “They’ll all say the same thing; you can never leave Sereneighty Valley. You just learn to live there.”

“I think I understand,” Commander Armor said. “Alright, Captain. I suppose I don’t have any reason to keep you here. You can go.” He stood up, gathered his papers in his magic, and trotted away. “One more thing,” he said at the door. “Stay out of trouble. You seem like a nice pony, and I’d hate to have to arrest you.”

“Too bad staying out of trouble doesn’t get me paid,” Lyra grumbled after he was gone.

*****

As Shining Armor had promised, Lyra and her crew were escorted back to their ship as soon as a shuttle was ready for them. Lieutenant Commander Soarin’ was waiting to escort them onboard, and flashed a charming smile at Octavia. He received only a haughty sniff in response. Ouch, Lyra thought as the poor pegasus slouched in his flight harness. He really should have taken the hint.

Once they were finally alone on Sereneighty, Lyra trotted to the bridge and radioed Tick Tock. “How’s the weather out there, Doc?” she asked.

“Ticky’s scared,” Vision answered. “He wants to come in now, but I can’t make him move.”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “Well, you’re wearing the only suits we have. Can you drag Spitfire in here and let Thunderlane use one of them?”

The radio was silent for a bit. “Okay,” Vision said quietly. “Spitfire woke up, but she’s sleeping again. I think I made her sick.” What in the hay is that supposed to mean? Lyra wondered.

Vision crawled in through a small EVA hatch near the gravity rotor. She was able to climb down the ladder, but she lost her grip on Spitfire and let the pegasus plummet to the ground. “Oops,” Vision giggled, sounding not the least bit sorry. “Can we go out again, Lyra? I like seeing the stars.”

“You’re looking awfully lucid,” the Captain observed. She lifted Spitfire in her magic and tried to wake her up, but the former Wonderbolt was out cold. A thin trickle of blood had oozed out of her nose and dried on her lip. “What happened to her?”

“I don’t know,” Vision sighed. “Did I do something wrong?”

Lyra ruffled her mane playfully. “Not a chance. Go on, little one. See if Mac needs some company. I’ll get Thunderlane to reel in your brother.”

The brawny pegasus, who had been standing nearby, fluttered his wings in agitation. “Gorram sexism’s what it is,” he muttered as he began pulling on Spitfire’s discarded suit. “Nopony else has to clear the trash away.”

“You’ll get over it,” Lyra said. “Just get it done. I’m eager to leave this little patch of misery behind us.”

She got her wish and, after taking some time to catch his breath, a shaken Tick Tock was tending to his duties in the infirmary. He wanted to examine both Derpy and Octavia to make sure they would heal properly.

Octavia’s leg was his first concern, but it looked like the Imperial doctors had done a very good job of setting it. Vinyl held her wife’s hoof while Tick Tock examined the injury. “Broken in two places,” he noted. “It should heal up fine. We’re going to need to stock up on potions, but with any luck you won’t walk with a limp.”

“I will not be able to play my cello for a while,” Octavia sighed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Vinyl said comfortingly. “I can play it for you.” Octavia’s horrified gasp made everypony chuckle.

Derpy stumbled back against the operating chair and, still giggling, tried to get her hooves in order. “S-sorry,” she said quickly. “It just gave me a little twinge. I’m fine.”

Tick Tock rushed across the room and put his hoof on her forehead. “You’re not fine at all,” he said. “You’ve got a fever. Why didn’t you say anything if you were feeling sick? You shouldn’t have waited this long. Lie down in the chair.”

“Really, Doctor, I feel fine.”

“Derpy!” Tick Tock snapped. “I’m not joking. Lie down and stop arguing with your doctor.” Derpy timidly did as she was asked and crawled into the operating chair. Tick Tock cut away the bandages on her leg and gently peeled them away. “This looks infected. You can’t just ignore this sort of thing.”

“Sorry,” Derpy whispered, looking like she wanted very much to burst into tears. Tick Tock patted her shoulder comfortingly while reaching for a null spell. “It’s alright,” he soothed. “This isn’t going to be pleasant, though. I’m going to give you a local anesthetic. Try not to move too much, alright?”

Derpy lay perfectly still as Tick Tock sprayed a bright purple mist onto her leg from a bit that fit into his mouth while he worked. The mist clung to her fur and quickly seeped into her skin. Now that he was free to work, Tick Tock began removing a dirty piece of metal from the cut.

*****

It didn’t take long for Tick Tock to clean and dress Derpy’s injury again. He gave her some antibiotics and, after making sure that she was settled in for a good rest, went looking for his sister. Shepherd Mac was reading to her when he found them, and Vision was obviously having trouble with the lesson. “Solar radiation isn’t magic,” she muttered crossly as the big stallion tried to explain the concept of a goddess. She seemed to take the problem as a personal insult. “A pony can’t be made of sunlight. It’s impossible.”

Tick Tock’s arrival provided a merciful distraction, and Mac was able to slip away undetected. He felt bad for avoiding Vision, but he had been looking after her for quite a while and needed a break.

He wasn’t sure where to go, but he decided that he might as well get a quick snack. He found Lyra quite by accident on his way to the galley. She was standing outside of the observation lounge, watching Spitfire with a mix of pity and hatred. When she noticed him she shooed him away toward the bridge. “Not here,” she insisted. “You can’t be up here, remember? The rules haven’t changed.”

He waited until Lyra was satisfied that nopony would overhear. Vinyl had already set the ship’s course before escorting her injured wife to bed for a little rest, so the bridge was completely empty. “Derpy’s leg was infected,” the Captain said. “Poor mare’s got some really bad luck.”

“She’ll be alright,” Mac said confidently. “A pony doesn’t grow up on the Rim without toughening up a little.”

“Guess so.” Lyra reclined in the captain’s chair and began plucking her lyre. “You and Commander Armor have a history, don’t you? I saw the way he looked at you. That stallion hates you in a way that few ponies know how. Care to explain?”

Mac stared out the window, taking in the familiar sight of stars and darkness. “Not really.”

“That’s it?” Lyra asked. “You’ve been riding around on my ship all this time, and you’re not going to tell me why an important Imperial soldier looked at you like he’d skin you alive if he could get away with it?”

“Eeyup.”

Lyra stared at him, unable to glean anything from the stolid mask of his face. “You handled that Reaver pretty well, too,” she said. “Never seen a Shepherd fight like that. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the two are related.”

The smile Mac gave her was kind, friendly, and strangely sad. “Ah knew a farmer once. He had this old oak tree that he loved; named it n’ everything. He used to climb up in the branches and watch the sunset. One day, that limb he sat on broke n’ dumped him right on the ground. He fell a good twenty feet. He healed up afterward, but he never did walk quite right. The tree’d got rotten right to the core with a sickness, and it almost spread to the rest of the farm, so he had to burn it.”

He watched the stars for a little while longer, carefully choosing his words. “Sometimes we’re just rotten,” he said quietly. “Ah’m just a Shepherd, Captain. Ah’m nothin’ special.”

“Can’t say I believe you,” Lyra said. “Still, I guess you don’t have to tell me. Long as you pay your fare and don’t bring us trouble, you’re free to do as you please.”

Mac was satisfied with her answer, even though he knew she was still curious. That was okay if it meant that she wasn’t going to pry too much. Lyra was good at respecting privacy when she needed to, and he was sure that she wouldn’t say anything to the rest of the crew.

Maybe it was time for a nap. Mac sometimes thought that he was getting old, which was a bit of a surprise. He honestly hadn’t considered what it would be like to live long enough to feel his age.

Author's Note

My one regret is that the Reavers may not have seemed dangerous enough. I had a short scene where one of them surprised Lyra and nearly killed her, but it felt tacked on. It was obviously just a little detail that I threw in to make them seem like more of a credible threat, and I didn’t like the way it turned out. Oh well.

Someone ("Snowyflanks", I think?) asked if the twins are the "Hands of Blue" agents. They absolutely are, complete with strange robotic behavior. Let me know what you think, if you’d be so kind!

Interlude: Something Witchy

Spitfire didn’t pay very much attention to what happened after she was dumped on Persepony. As far as she was concerned, the details of the transaction weren’t important. Lyra had tossed her right off the edge of Sereneighty’s cargo ramp without the ship ever touching the ground. It was a level of abandonment that she had seldom felt before.

She had been handed over to a group of diamond dogs with a promise that somepony would give her the very best medical care. Apparently Lyra had already made arrangements with a very nice psychiatric hospital. Spitfire’s share of the pay from their job together had paid for it, of course. She was being committed on her own dime.

There was a lot of talking, and then she was put into a tiny underground cell until the nice ponies in white coats could collect her. There was a bed and a little bathroom, but she had no privacy and didn’t feel like using either. One of the big dogs was positioned outside of her cell to keep an eye on her.

For nearly an hour she stared at her reflection in the bathroom’s mirror. She thought back to her time on Sereneighty, remembering the torn flesh and twisted minds of the Reavers. The thoughts hurt, and they weighed heavily on her now that she was alone with them. She wanted to cry, and actually managed to produce a few tears.

The memories were inescapable, plastered all over the inside of her mind like nightmarish wallpaper. She felt like cracking open her own skull, just to let out the awfulness that was taking root. It wasn’t fair that she had to deal with it alone. For the first time in nearly a decade, she missed Lyra.

Thinking about Lyra made her angry. It was easy for Lyra to talk about getting help. She had a crew, a ship, and a million other shiny adventures waiting for her among the shiny, shiny stars. Spitfire had nothing, and she knew it. She had no money, no job, and no friends. She’d had an old flight jacket with sunglasses in the pocket, but the guards had taken it.

Nothing hurt. Nothing was the worst thing in the whole ‘Verse, and she was all alone with it like a victim in a horror movie. She couldn’t remember being more frightened of anything in her entire life.

Somewhere, somehow, her life had taken a turn for the worst. It had started, most likely, with Lightning Dust. The sycophantic little hotshot had gotten under her skin without even trying.

At first Spitfire had been horrified by her own actions, but the anger had given way to a sick sense of satisfaction. She could feel the broken recruit’s fear, and it was utterly captivating. Seeing herself through Lightning Dust’s eyes was like looking up at a terrible, enraged goddess.

She had always wondered if changelings felt the same way while feeding on love.

Her life had quickly spiraled out of control, and she made no attempt to stop it. The War of Unification flew by, and for a while it seemed like the good times would never end. She plummeted to new lows, and laughed as the ‘Verse burned from her passing. She was unstoppable, and everypony knew it.

The reflection in the mirror seemed to smile at her. She wanted to smack it, to drive it to the ground and smash its stupid face against the floor for making light of the situation. Her forelegs were trembling with panic, and the empty cell frightened her with its isolation. Nopony could reach her, so nopony could help her.

Then, quite suddenly, she had an epiphany. It was the kind of quiet, creeping revelation that she imagined would lead ordinary ponies to do all kinds of unspeakable things. “Death is psychosomatic,” she told her reflection. “You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

She made it nod its ugly, infected head in agreement. “Nothing can hurt you.” Spitfire grabbed the sink, planted her hooves firmly, and rammed her head into the mirror.

Author's Note

Did…did she just quote Charles Manson? That’s probably not a good sign.

I know, it’s been a long time and I only have this to show for it. I’m really super sorry about that. Work has been unbelievable lately, and I just haven’t had the time to do very much. I’m still working on it, though! The story isn't dead!

One final question, and it’s a serious one: Is it a problem that this story is getting further away from the plot of Firefly? Remember, I never set out to write the story exactly the same. That would be boring, since you’d know exactly what would happen. Good idea, bad idea? What are your thoughts? I put a lot of thought into this, but I want to hear what you guys think about it.

Thanks for reading. Stay shiny!

Interlude: Gilda

Gilda was normally slow to wake up, but a bucket of ice water really helped expedite the process. She came to, gasping and coughing, and saw nothing but the inside of a black hood. She felt nothing but an uncomfortable chair beneath her and ropes cutting painfully into her flesh. “Was that really necessary?” somepony asked.

The bag was removed, and she immediately missed it. A blinding spotlight kept her eyes from adjusting to the otherwise dark room and made her head hurt. I must have made someone mad, she thought darkly. Terrific. Now I get to start the day with waterboarding.

“Gilda?” the voice asked. “You are Gilda, aren’t you? It would be a shame to go through all this trouble for the wrong griffon.” It sounded cultured, with no accent that she could recognize. Probably the mob, then, she thought. Padre Amati loves doing this kind of thing.

“Who wants to know?”

“Unimportant.” Papers were shuffled around for a moment. “I represent a very powerful individual that has need of your services.”

Gilda tried to work her claws around to cut the ropes tying her to the chair, but everything below her wrists was going numb from the poor circulation. “You’ve got a funny way of asking for help,” she grunted.

A metal pipe smacked against her knuckles. Gilda squawked in pain and tried to snatch her claws away. “Keep those where we can see them,” a female voice warned.

Another voice chimed in with “We will be asking the questions, if you please.”

“You’ll have to excuse my friends,” the first pony said. “They were recently entrusted with the success of our operation, and it was a disaster. They are still upset.”

“We were simply unlucky,” the pipe holder complained. “We could easily do the job ourselves, but new help has been brought in without our consent. We find this to be quite irritating.”

“Now is neither the time nor the place for this argument!” the first voice snapped. “Gilda, we believe that you can help us. My name is Horte Cuisine. Consider this a job interview.”

Gilda looked around, trying to puzzle out where her kidnappers had taken her. All she could make out was a bare concrete floor. She craned her neck, trying to get a look at the pipe wielding pony, and instead saw a table of torture tools laid out behind her. “This is the weirdest damn interview process I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot.”

Horte Cuisine laughed. “I’m in a bit of a bind, I’ll admit. I don’t have the option of letting you refuse. There is a carrot in addition to this stick, if it helps.” A small envelope dropped onto the table, its source hidden by the darkness. “Those are the details of your assignment. Not even I know what is inside.”

“Griffons aren’t wild about carrots,” Gilda said. “How much are we talking, exactly?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Gilda rolled her eyes and tried to hurry the negotiations along. With a little prodding she finally got the stallion to tell her how much she would be paid, but he had to be lying. No mercenary ever made that much from a single job. Or any ten jobs, for that matter.

“What’s this?” a new voice asked. Metal grated on metal as something slid off the torture table.

“That’s a beak file,” Horte answered helpfully. He began to elaborate, but a horribly shrill grinding noise interrupted him. “Dear goddesses, what are you doing?”

The new voice giggled and swiped the file back and forth a few more times. “I’m going to borrow this for a bit,” she said. “Is there a bathroom around here?”

*****

Horte Cuisine and Lotus met in the mansion’s sitting room after leaving Gilda to think for a while. Aloe was still keeping an eye on her, though the griffon wasn’t likely to be a problem. If Lotus’s sister couldn’t keep her in line while she was chained up and blindfolded, then the twins were simply not fit for this kind of work.

“I’m worried about our new recruit,” Horte said the moment they were out of earshot. “I doubt that we can trust her.”

“She will do as she is told,” Lotus assured him. “Money can be very persuasive.”

“I meant the other one.” He cast a worried glance toward the bathroom. “I don’t like her. Our employer has no idea what kind of monster he’s hired.”

Lotus gave him a smug smile. “We spoke with him yesterday,” she said. “He seems very intelligent. I believe that he knows exactly what he is doing, and my sister agrees.”

It only took a moment for Horte Cuisine to suppress his frustration. He normally wouldn't have cared in the slightest who his employer decided to talk to, but this was supposed to be his operation. He had tactical command, while another pony held the purse strings. It was supposed to be a very standard arrangement, but the endless meddling was making his life quite difficult.

“I don’t appreciate it when ponies go over my head,” he said as politely as he could manage. “From now on, you’ll tell me before accepting any more clandestine meetings with our employer. Is that clear?” Lotus nodded obediently. “Good. You’ll also start carrying a firearm. I think that your pride has cost us quite enough already.”

“We have no need for your weapons,” Lotus sniffed.

The stallion’s laugh made her grit her teeth, and the noise made him shiver. It sounded like glass being ground into powder. “Of course not. Why would you?” he asked. “I doubt you could handle one anyway. The mighty guardians of the Empire have no need for the weapons of lesser creatures, do they? Nine hundred years, and you still haven’t learned.”

Lotus’s eye began to twitch. “Tread carefully, Renaissance stallion.”

He allowed himself a rare moment of self indulgence. “Do not expect me to dance around the truth to preserve your pathetic sense of nostalgia. You are the product of a culture that was too weak and stagnant to survive. You cling to foolish superstitions and outdated customs rather than innovating and adapting. It’s no wonder the rest of your kind died out; they were so busy being self-righteous and bigoted that they failed to notice the world changing around them.”

The cool composure of Lotus’s face shattered. Horte Cuisine leaned back to avoid her kick and, with a deft twist of his hooves, dropped her into a submission hold. “Stop struggling!” he ordered after one of her flailing hooves nearly broke his jaw. Her prodigious strength made it almost impossible to hold her in place, even with his superior position. “You’ll force me to hurt you, and that would make you much less useful.”

Lotus snarled at him in a language that hadn’t been spoken in centuries. Horte rolled his eyes and tried to cling to her leg for a while longer. He wasn’t sure how long he would be able to restrain her. “Yes, yes, you’re a vengeful remnant of a bygone age. We’re all terribly impressed.” He leaned in closer to whisper into her ear. “Do ancient warriors feel pain? What would happen if I decided to break your leg off? Would it eventually grow back?”

He pushed just a little harder, twisting Lotus’s leg in a direction that it wasn’t built for. A sound like splintering glass filled the air, and Lotus whimpered in pain.

“Let her go,” Aloe warned. Horte looked up and discovered that she had snuck into the room during all the commotion. “If you harm my sister I will pull each of your limbs off, one by one. Not even you could survive a fight against both of us at once.”

“I assume that it would be much easier if one of you were missing a leg,” Horte pointed out. “Nevertheless, you are correct. At the moment you have me at a disadvantage.” He rolled away from Lotus, climbed shakily to his hooves, and dusted himself off. “Circumstances will be different if you fail again,” he warned, and stormed out of the room.

I should never have accepted this assignment, Horte thought sourly as he climbed the stairs and made for the master bathroom. I don’t need the money, nor do I need this kind of aggravation. From now on, I need to do more research before accepting work from strange voices on the phone.

Unfortunately, turning down this job hadn’t been an option. Horte Cuisine and his companion were, for some reason, marked for death. He had no idea who wanted him dead, but the assassins would keep coming endlessly unless he could find a way to disappear. Fixing the problem would require both money and powerful friends. He had plenty of the former, but was short on the latter. His reclusive lifestyle had finally come back to bite him.

Sorbet was sitting by the window in the master bedroom, flipping through a study of the War of Unification. She looked up as he entered and immediately tossed the book aside. “It was just a minor disagreement,” Horte assured her. He watched her make a few quick gestures with her hooves and nodded in agreement. “Yes, I know that I’m a fool for antagonizing them. There’s no need to point it out.”

Several more words in sign language followed, and tears began to build up in Sorbet’s eyes. “There’s no need for any of that,” Horte said comfortingly. He stroked her mane with one of his hooves. “I’ve deal with worse situations. We’re going to be fine.”

Sorbet’s hoof tenderly brushed against his bloodied jaw. “That’s nothing,” he assured her. “Really, I’m quite alright. It’s just a scratch.” He sighed heavily as she ran to the bathroom and began digging through the medical cabinet.

“I’m quite capable of taking care of myself,” he said gently, but made no attempt to stop her. Sorbet cleaned the shallow cut across his jaw, bandaged it, and scrutinized her work with slightly skewed eyes. Horte pecked her on the cheek, glad that she was at least having one of her good days.

That’s the spirit. The “Renaissance stallion” smiled and turned his head to the side so that she could further inspect her work. There’s always a silver lining. “Things are going to be alright,” he soothed. “I promise.”

Author's Note

I told you this story wasn't dead! It's still going strong, but I've been drowning in a flood of work and poor scheduling. That's my story, and I'm stuck with it. Err, sticking to it.

Let me tell you, this chapter was a mess at first! Ugh, I threw out sooooo much material. On the bright side, the next episode is really long. It’s so long that I’m considering splitting it into two, just to keep track of everything.

I’m considering including another song or two. It would be sort of like when Thunderlane played his guitar; different words to a familiar tune. My Little Pony has always been a very musical show, and I want to make at least a little effort to carry that over. What do you think? Would that be something sort of fun, or would it just be annoying? Input please!

Bar Brawl

The numerous bars and taverns scattered all over the Rim were often seen as wretched hives of scum and villainy, and rightly so. Lyra and her crew more or less fit the bill, so they occasionally found themselves visiting such places. Today was one such occasion, but the little group was too preoccupied with business to enjoy themselves.

Octavia , Vinyl, and Lyra sat in a corner booth and quietly discussed their current job. They needed to pick up some illicit cargo for the next leg of their smuggling run, and to stay away from the Empire while doing so. It was going to take some creative bribery and even more creative navigation to get them where they needed to go.

Thunderlane stood nearby, playing darts with a very disgruntled unicorn that was about to lose a few bits. He was rarely a part of the actual business side of things, preferring to let his friends make the hard decisions while he focused on keeping his weaponry clean. Recently his job had involved more heavy lifting than heavy weapons, but he wasn’t complaining. Well, he wasn’t complaining loudly. At least, he wasn’t doing it where Lyra could hear.

Thunderlane finished his game and drained the cup that was sitting on the table beside him. “I win,” he said proudly. “Pony up.” The unicorn grudgingly handed over his bits, which the pegasus then took to the bar. “Hey!” he called to the bartender. “Ching zie lie ee bay Ng-Ka-Pei?” The bartender uncorked a bottle and poured the grey pegasus a drink. “Thanks,” he said, and hoofed over his winnings.

The bar’s jukebox clicked as it changed records. An old song, one that Thunderlane distantly recognized, began to play. He frowned into his drink, trying to remember where he’d heard it before.

The barrel of a gun pressed against the back of his skull, and Thunderlane sat bolt upright. Now I remember, he thought. Funny how a gun to the head jogs your memory. “Rice wine?” someone asked in a harsh, grating voice. The strange accent and faint click of a beak marked the speaker as a griffon. “You want a little umbrella to go with that?”

“Herb wine,” Thunderlane corrected. “Guess your Manedarin hasn’t gotten any better. They make books and such for that, you know.”

There was an exasperated huff from behind him. “You know that thing you were thinking of doing?” the stranger asked as she pointed a second pistol at Octavia. “Think again.” The earth pony’s eyes widened in shock, and she slowly returned her rifle to its sling on her back.

“Just go back to the ship,” Thunderlane said. “Don’t worry about me, alright? This is between me and Gilda. I can handle her.”

“You could never handle me,” Gilda laughed. She pointed the pistol not aimed at Thunderlane toward the ceiling and fired a shot. “Everypony out!” she shouted over the ensuing pandemonium. “I’m taking the bar. You can have it back when I’m done.”

Lyra, Vinyl, and Octavia didn’t follow the panicked crowd of drunken ponies at first. “It’ll be fine,” Thunderlane assured them. “Don’t worry yourselves none, alright? This is just a thing we do.”

“If she kills you, I’m giving her your job,” Lyra muttered, but she reluctantly let Octavia pull her away.

“Alone at last,” Gilda sighed after the bar had fallen silent again. “Stand up, babe. Pull out that pistol real slow and give it to me.”

Thunderlane shook his head and took another sip of his drink. “If you’re gonna shoot me, then shoot me.” He heard her pistol’s hammer being pulled back and nearly choked. “Or we could talk more first. I think I’d like to keep talking.”

“Pistol. Now.” Gilda snatched his revolver when he offered it to her and stepped back to examine it. “Is this a LeMat?” she asked. “Didn’t they stop making these in, I don’t know, the Stone Age?”

“I like it,” Thunderlane countered. “It suits me.”

Gilda slid his pistol to the far end of the bar. “Uh huh,” she agreed. “Slow, simple, and it can only count to nine. That sounds about right.”

Thunderlane made a point of ignoring that. He heard her backing away, and she only stopped when she was on the other side of the room. “This a social call?” He asked. “You weren’t paid to kill me, or you would have done it already.”

He finished his drink and tossed the cup aside as Gilda set her pistols on a table at the far end of the room, leaving the shoulder rig empty. She wore nothing else, save for a leather collar around her neck with her name stitched into it. Her clawed feet flexed against the wood floor in her excitement. One of them feet was missing part of the outside digit. “Beat me and I’ll tell you. You’d better limber up, big guy.”

Thunderlane leaned his head to one side, then quickly to the other. His neck let out a satisfying pop. “Have it your way, dweeb.” They giggled at the old joke and began circling one another, looking for an opening.

Gilda rushed forward unexpectedly, and the fight began in earnest. Thunderlane reared back to avoid her slashing talons, but played right into her paws. She ducked under him and came up with a hard uppercut, bruising his jaw and causing him to fall onto his back. She followed him down, but he caught the next punch before it landed.

Gilda’s beak met his mouth for a brief instant. “You’re still slow,” she mocked, and they both smiled hungrily.

“You’re still small,” Thunderlane grunted. He bucked forward and smashed his forehead into the curvature of her beak. Gilda let out a surprised yowl and rolled off of him, trying to shake the disorientation that came with a blow to the nares. Her eyes began to water, and she tried to clear them while still keeping her guard up.

Thunderlane clamored to his hooves and hurled himself into her. Gilda crashed into the bar, unable to protect herself with her legs pinned at her sides. She snapped at him with her sharp beak, but couldn’t reach his face. He spun around, still holding onto her, and threw her over his shoulder.

The helpless griffon smashed onto the table behind them and sprawled out on her back. “H-have you been working out?” Gilda wheezed. She blocked Thunderlane’s hoof and held onto it to keep him busy. He mashed their faces together into another clumsy kiss, then tried to punch her with his free hoof. “This the part where I make a comment about liking it rough?” she asked with a laugh.

The griffon abruptly twisted to the side, tangled both of Thunderlane’s forelegs around each other, and leaped up to deliver a hard kick to his stomach. He fell back, winded and feeling more than a little sick. He was glad now that he hadn’t had more to drink. When Gilda came for him again he dropped onto his back, caught her on his hind hooves, and threw her into the bar with all the strength he could muster. The entire room shook with the impact.

Gilda rolled over the faux mahogany and grabbed Thunderlane’s pistol. The exhausted pegasus took to the air, ducking below the bar’s rafters and scooping up the pair of automatics his opponent had discarded before the fight began.

They came to a stalemate as Gilda reared over the bar, gun clutched in her bruised claws. Thunderlane landed in front of her, pointing two smaller pistols to match the larger revolver. They froze, each staring down the barrel of a gun.

Gilda began to laugh first, and Thunderlane broke down soon after. “I need a drink.”

Thunderlane collapsed right on top of the bar. “Thought you’d never ask. Find some of the good stuff.”

Gilda dropped two shot glasses onto the bar next to him and filled them with golden liquid. “The law’s gonna be here soon,” she said.

“Yeah.” Thunderlane knocked back his drink and rolled off the bar, careful to keep Gilda’s pistols from dropping onto the ground. They exchanged weapons and took another shot, each trying to work up the strength to speak again. “I’d call that one a draw,” he finally said. “You should meet my friends.”

Gilda smiled nervously. “I’m not just here for the booze or the company,” she admitted. “I need help.”

Thunderlane surveyed the destruction caused by their contest. “You got a real funny way of asking for it.”

“I’m serious,” Gilda insisted. “This is kind of a big deal. I’ve got some really bad ponies after me, and I can’t seem to shake them. They wanted to hire me, and I told them to… well, you know how I can get. There was a lot of profanity involved. Now I need to disappear, and they’re making it damn near impossible.”

The bar was quiet while Thunderlane finished another drink. “These Purplecoats I’m runnin’ with,” he began, “they’re pretty good at layin’ low. I could ask Lyra if there’s room for you, if you don’t mind flyin’ with a bunch of misfits and losers.”

“Sounds like our usual crowd,” Gilda said. “You think she’ll let me stay for a little while until this blows over?”

The pegasus heaved his tired body off of the barstool on which he had been sitting. “You’d be surprised what she’ll put up with. How did you find me, anyway?”

Gilda teetered on her paws and leaned against him. He was pretty sure that it was too soon for the alcohol to be hitting her, but he didn’t bring it up. “I called in a favor to Miss Universe,” she said. “You aren’t impossible to find, you know. A gang of smugglers led by two old Purplecoats tends to stand out. Besides, I’m pretty sure she’s keeping tabs on you.”

“She’s got the hots for me,” Thunderlane agreed. He and Gilda limped to the back door and out of sight, but not before he grabbed the bottle of booze they had cracked open. It was expensive stuff, and he couldn’t stand the idea of leaving it behind. “Nice to see you, by the way.”

Gilda shoved him playfully with her shoulder. “Yeah. You really think this Purplecoat will let me stay?”

Thunderlane shrugged, wincing as he noticed that his shoulder was bruised. “It’ll be fine as long as you don’t stark poking around where you don’t belong. I know just how to sweet-talk her.”

*****

“I hate you so Gorram much!” Gilda snarled as she squeezed into the storage container. Thunderlane had loaded the most of the crates onto Sereneighty himself, so it was easy enough to find an empty one that nopony was using and split the goods between the two. It left just enough room for an adult griffon, though said griffon was less than pleased with the arrangement. Fortunately, the ship had already lifted off. That meant that he’d be able to sneak her into his room as soon as everypony was asleep.

Thunderlane frantically looked around to make sure that they were still alone in the cargo bay. “Can it!” he whispered.

Several cans of coffee rattled as Gilda sat up to glare at him. “You did not just say that!” Thunderlane shoved the box’s lid down on top of her, cutting off her protests before they could attract too much attention. He snapped the latch shut and slid the box in with the rest of them.

“Wait!” Gilda shouted, barely audible from within her box. “You forgot–”

“Shh!” Thunderlane hissed.

Gilda’s claws scratched against the wooden lid. “Thunderlane! There aren’t any–”

“Keep it down!” the pegasus ordered. “The Captain could wander through here any second now! I’ll be back in a little while, alright?”

Thunderlane was so engrossed in making sure that his friend was safely hidden away that he didn’t even notice Lyra approaching. “Thunderlane?” she asked as he tapped the box’s lid. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing!” Thunderlane shouted. He spun around, heart pounding, and tried to look innocent. He wasn’t sure how convincing he could be, since he had very little practice at it. “Just, y’know, checking that everything’s in order.” He kicked the box with his rear hoof.

Lyra raised an eyebrow at his odd behavior. “You’ve been acting mighty skittish today. Is it because of that griffon we saw earlier? Who was she, anyway? You never said.”

“Just an old friend,” Thunderlane explained. “She was sayin’ hello.”

“Awful way to greet a friend,” Lyra said disapprovingly. “She the one that messed up your face?”

Thunderlane rubbed his bruised jaw. “It’s nothin’,” he assured her. “She’s... out of sight and out of mind.” Something shifted in the crate, and he frantically kicked it before she noticed. “Eeyup, nice and sturdy! We’re all set here.”

Lyra’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You’re awful eager to get out of here. What’s got you so sick of the ground all of a sudden?”

The cold sweat breaking out all over his body made Thunderlane shiver. “No real reason,” he said. “Just seen enough of this world is all.”

The silence that followed was intensely uncomfortable. Thunderlane put on his best smile, which strained under the weight of Lyra’s penetrating gaze. “Is that a fact?” she asked. “You’re just eager to get going for the sake of going? You ain’t hidin’ something from me, are you?”

Does she know? Thunderlane wondered. What if she already found out somehow? What if she’s gonna shoot me right here and now? “Nope!” he said, determined to maintain his smile at all costs. His jaw was beginning to ache from the effort.

The shipping crate’s hinges blew open behind him, and the lid slid onto the floor. Gilda sat up with a breathless gasp, one of her pistols clutched in her shaking claws. Lyra gaped in shock while Thunderlane tried to think of a credible excuse.

Regrettably, nothing clever came to mind. “Wow!” he shouted. “How did that get in there?”

*****

Gilda was locked up in the observation lounge while Lyra tried to decide what to do with her. It took a while to convince the griffon to give up her guns, but she went quietly once she understood what the Captain wanted. Firing a pistol in an enclosed space had left her temporarily deaf and quite dazed, so Lyra had to communicate what she wanted with an elaborate pantomime.

Once Gilda was locked up, Lyra interrogated Thunderlane outside. Her hearing was slowly returning, so the griffon was able to listen in. It helped that the Captain had a remarkable shouting voice. “Have you lost what little sense you had?” she demanded. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time we let strangers onboard?”

Gilda closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She allowed her mind to open, taking in stimuli and that she was normally all but blind to. The first thing that she noticed was a dark, ugly clout hanging over her restraints.

The surge of anger and frustration coming from Lyra threatened to make her nauseous. “You don’t understand!” Thunderlane said. “Gilda needs our help, Lyra. She needs me. I knew her a long time before I met you and the rest, and I’m one of the only ponies she trusts. I owe her a lot more than I’d care to remember.”

Lyra’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Tell me about her,” she demanded.

At least it isn’t a ‘no’, Gilda thought as Thunderlane rattled off what he knew of her past. Lyra wasn’t impressed to hear that she’d started as a volunteer in the Grand Imperial Army, but the pegasus quickly added that she’d disappeared not long after the war started.

“She did a few odd jobs here and there,” he said, glossing over the few years of her life that he wasn’t familiar with. “She worked with the griffon mafia for a while, but they had a falling out. We ran into each other not long after that. She was sort of famous for a while because she stood up to a mob family, so we had plenty of work.”

Gilda felt a little swell of pride, but Lyra immediately killed it. “You brought a fugitive onto my ship, which is bad enough. She’s done business with the griffon triads, which is even worse. Please, please tell me that the family she offended wasn’t the Amati family.”

Gilda could picture Thunderlane wincing at her tone. “It… could’ve been.”

“Could’ve been?” Lyra shouted. “Could’ve been? Did you ever think about what could happen if Octavia finds out?”

“I couldn’t just leave her!” Thunderlane argued. “She was in some real trouble, Lyra. You ain’t bein’ fair about this. She’s as much family to me as the others are to you. More, even. Would you tell Octavia to get lost if she needed you? What about Vinyl? Hell, what about me?”

Lyra took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Gilda held her breath, and she could tell that Thunderlane was doing the same. “We can’t turn back anyway,” the Captain finally said. There was a hint of regret hanging in the air, but at least she wasn’t suggesting that they leave the ship via airlock. “I want her unarmed and supervised at all times, dong-ma? Keep her in the cargo bay when she isn’t locked up here. You may trust her, but I don’t have to give her the run of my ship.”

“I understand,” Thunderlane said happily. “Thanks, Lyra.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” the Captain warned. “Octavia’s going to help you watch her, assuming I can convince her that murder isn’t the best solution.”

Gilda perked up as the door to the observation lounge creaked open. “It’s about time,” she grumbled as Thunderlane trotted in and quickly began unfastening her restraint harness. “Who was in this thing before me? There are some seriously bad vibes left over.”

“Hush!” Thunderlane whispered harshly. Gilda looked over his shoulder and saw the ship’s captain glaring at her. “Keep your mind games to yourself while you’re here.”

“I doubt they’d believe me anyway,” Gilda chuckled. She sighed happily and flexed one of her talons as the restraints came free. “What’s the deal, dude? Am I a prisoner or what?”

Lyra stepped forward. “Just about,” she said. “You’re restricted to the cargo hold for the most part. Thunderlane and my first mate will be watching you. I hope you’ll understand if I’m not thrilled to have a stowaway onboard.”

Gilda scratched an itch that had been bothering her. “Wasn’t my idea,” she growled, and nudged Thunderlane as she passed. “You got anything to eat around here?”

“Galley’s through there,” the Captain said. “I’ll go tell the others. You can call me Lyra, if you were wondering.”

“Can’t say that I was,” Gilda laughed. “I’m pretty sure the whole ship heard that little exchange. Thunderlane, I don’t have to come back here at night, do I? I’m not gonna get any sleep hanging from the ceiling like a slab of meat.”

“We’ll see,” Thunderlane said. “Maybe I can convince the Captain to let us share my bunk.”

Lyra stared at them, a look of dawning comprehension transforming her stern gaze into one of horror. “Yeah,” the griffon giggled. “It’s like that.”

*****

Lyra and Octavia met on the catwalk above the cargo hold for a private discussion, but they weren’t alone for very long. Vinyl soon joined her wife, while Derpy and Bon Bon showed up after a little while to watch the spectacle unfolding below.

Derpy’s eyes were a little red when she first arrived. Lyra decided to ask her about it later, but she was sure it was nothing serious. Rust from the engine had probably blown into one of them.

Thunderlane and Gilda claimed to be practicing Wonderbolt flight drills, but it was highly unlikely that the Wonderbolts got drunk during flight practice. “I never knew that Thunderlane was almost a professional athlete!” Derpy said excitedly. “Do you think he knew any of the famous ones, like Surprise or Soarin’?”

“I highly doubt it.” Octavia sniffed disdainfully. “Surely his work ethic would be a problem. Captain, why are we here? Thunderlane seems to have the situation well under control, and I have no desire to spend any more time around these two than is absolutely necessary.”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “You’ll just have to get used to it. I want as many eyes on her as we can afford, and that includes you.”

Octavia quirked an eyebrow. “Thunderlane is not enough?” she asked. “I am certain that he has looked at nothing else for the last hour.”

“That’s sort of the problem,” Lyra sighed. “He’s known Gilda longer than us, and I think it’s safe to say that she’s dear to him.”

“You’re not doubting his loyalty, are you?” Vinyl asked. “Thunderlane’s cool, right? I mean, he’s a total jackass, but he’s our jackass. We’d be lost without our jackass.” She looked to her wife for confirmation. “Lyra’s just being paranoid, isn’t she?”

Octavia’s face had lost all trace of annoyance. It was now an emotionless mask that coldly sized up the griffon hovering in place just a few inches off the ground below them. “The Captain is extremely paranoid,” she said. “That does not mean that she is incorrect. Total paranoia, after all, is simply total awareness. Thunderlane joined our venture because we paid him to betray his previous employers; he has a very powerful love of money, among other things. Captain, I strongly urge you to turn the ship around and leave the griffon behind.”

“I can’t do that,” Lyra said regretfully. “Thunderlane felt morally obligated to help her.” She stared hard at Octavia. “I know, right? Thunderlane.”

On the floor below, Gilda and Thunderlane touched down and clapped each other on the shoulders. “Ready?” the griffon asked.

Thunderlane stepped back and sunk into a fighting stance. “Oh, look!” Vinyl exclaimed. “They’re about to throw down. Ten bits on Jackass. Err, Thunderlane.” She leaned into Octavia, who giggled at her childlike excitement.

“I find myself conflicted,” Bon Bon said thoughtfully. “On one hoof, I’ve gotten to know Thunderlane very well over the last few years. He is an extremely skilled fighter. On the other, I’d love to see him get beaten to within an inch of his life. I think you have a bet, Vinyl.”

The fight was surprisingly brutal for two people that claimed to be friends. “Why are they hitting each other so hard?” Derpy asked. She watched as Thunderlane hurled Gilda through the air like a ragdoll. “Don’t they worry about hurting each other?”

“I couldn’t care less,” Lyra said, but she didn’t take her eyes away from the spectacle. There were no television shows in deep space, and this was very entertaining.

Gilda kicked two of Thunderlane’s legs out from underneath him and dropped one of her knees into his stomach. Just before she made contact, the pegasus twisted out of the way. He imposed his legs between them and shoved her aside, then rolled onto his hooves.

Thunderlane caught hold of Gilda’s foreleg as she tried to punch him again and pinned it to her side. He grabbed the other, and playfully nipped her ear before tossing her onto the unforgiving floor. “Wait, what was that?” Vinyl asked. “Are they getting… frisky? Is this like foreplay for them?”

“Are you surprised?” Octavia asked. She watched as Gilda rolled away from Thunderlane and took to the air before he could catch up. The pegasus spread his wings and gleefully followed. The audience was treated to a short aerial battle that quickly exhausted both fighters, but everypony was disappointed to see that neither of them could outpace the other.

Once they were finished, Thunderlane and Gilda seemed to pass out in mid air. They collapsed together on the large, open platform between two intersecting staircases on the opposite side of the cargo hold. Gilda leaned her head against Thunderlane’s shoulder and heaved a tired sigh. She grinned as one of his hooved played with the feathers on top of her head.

“Listen!” Derpy whispered. “I think she’s purring. That’s so cute!”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes and leaned over to whisper something in her friend’s ear. Derpy’s eyes grew wide, and her smile turned into something that looked more like a grimace. “I changed my mind,” she said quietly. “That isn’t cute at all. I-I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Author's Note

The biggest deviation from the show yet! …yay? Maybe? I’m both excited to take the story somewhere else and worried because I have no idea if Gilda’s too flashy to fit in. Oh well.

Hey, innuendo! Innuendo everywhere. I can’t promise that it was all intentional, but I can promise that it all made me giggle. And feel slightly uncomfortable, but mostly the giggling. I pushed myself a bit out of my comfort zone, but I think it turned out okay.

"Vera"

Lyra wanted Gilda to eat in the observation lounge, but it didn't take much persuading to change her mind. Thunderlane only needed to insist that his friend hated enclosed spaces, which wasn't exactly a big secret. Griffons, like pegasi, got claustrophobic if they were cooped up for too long.

The griffon was curled up on the utility vehicle’s raised platform when Thunderlane brought her supper. Gilda cracked open a sleepy eye as he landed with two bowls carefully balanced in his hooves. She examined the green goop inside as though expecting it to rise up and revolt at any moment. “I’m not eating that,” she said flatly. “I’ll go catch a mouse or something.”

“You were expecting fine dining?” Thunderlane asked. “This here’s got oats, vegetable paste, and protein. It’s everything a growing pony needs.”

Gilda sullenly dug in, and soon tipped the last of the stringy mush down her gullet. “Ick,” She said with a full-bodied shiver. “You actually eat this garbage willingly?”

“I’ve eaten worse,” Thunderlane said. He mopped the bottom of his bowl with a bit of bread and popped it into his mouth. “We got any of that brandy left?”

Gilda reached into the small satchel hanging across her shoulders. “A little, thank Faust. I need to wash the taste out of my mouth. I think my esophagus is melting.” She pulled out the ornate bottle and took a long drink, then passed it to Thunderlane. When she saw his confused look she rolled her eyes and smiled. “It means my throat, moron.”

“I knew that!” Thunderlane snapped. He took a drink and handed it back to his friend. “Wanna go a few rounds?”

“I’m still sore from earlier,” Gilda grumbled. “There’s nothing to do on this stupid ship. I’m bored out of my mind! Our old gang wasn’t this boring, was it? It feels like we used to run with way more interesting ponies. I think I might be missing some of them.”

Thunderlane grabbed the bottle for another drink. “Hangin’ Crime took over after you ran off,” he grumbled. “He ran the group into the ground. Lyra offered me a better job, and I took it. You want to run with that hiong-mung duh kwong-run again, be my guest, but don’t be surprised when he tries to stab you in the back. Oh, and don’t mention me. He’s probably still sore about bein’ shot.”

Gilda’s snort of laughter sent a small spray of brandy all over her face. She quickly wiped it away before it could get into her eyes. “You shot him?” she asked, coughing violently. “And I missed it?”

Thunderlane looked extremely pleased with himself. “I’ve never had more fun shooting a pony,” he said. “He cried like a baby. Lyra thought it was funny too, for the record.”

“Guess she can’t be all bad,” Gilda said. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. “I need something to do,” she complained. “Being cooped up in this dump with all these lame smugglers is driving me buggy.”

Thunderlane lay down next to her and twitched one of his ears in annoyance. “I know what you mean; sometimes I feel like my legs are gonna explode if I sit still for too long. Working out helps.” He glanced over at her, tracing her outline with his eyes. “Y’know, there’s other ways to keep busy.”

Gilda met Thunderlane’s devious smile with one of her own. “D’you think we can lose our chaperone?” she asked, indicating the grey earth pony that was quietly reading a book on the cargo hold’s bottom floor.

“She isn’t looking,” Thunderlane whispered. “Follow me!” he lifted into the air and nimbly ducked into the forward hallway, his wings all but brushing against the sides of the passageway. Gilda landed next to him, her clawed feet making even less noise than his hooves. “In here,” he whispered, and opened the hatch to his room.

“Did you sneak away from Octavia?” Vision asked.

Thunderlane spun around, eyes wide with surprise as his heart pounded in his chest.. “Keep it down!” he hissed. “Where in the hay did you come from? Where’s your brother? He’s supposed to be keeping an eye on you!”

“He said I could watch the stars with Lyra,” she said. “I got bored, so I’m going to look for Mac.” She flashed a shy smile. “I won’t say anything to Octavia if you don’t want me to.”

Thunderlane clapped Vision on the back. “Thanks, moon-brain. Come on in, G!” He dropped down the hatch, but apparently hadn’t cleared his landing zone first. Something heavy tipped over, and a few quiet curses drifted up the ladder.

“Hey, Vision?” Gilda asked. “That other earth pony, the skinny one, he’s your brother?”

“He’s a good brother,” Vision confirmed. “He’s taking care of me.”

“That’s cool,” Gilda said. “Where’d you two come from? It’s rare to see a fancy stallion like that all the way out here. He looks like he belongs in the Core, not out on the raggedy edge of the Rim.” She met Vision’s eyes, and carefully reached out for a quick peek into the little pony’s mind.

Something extremely unpleasant reached back. She immediately backed down, hoping that it wasn’t too late to break the connection, but it had already ensnared her mind.

Gilda wanted to scream as something entered her thoughts, only to be ripped from her a moment later. Each new memory of the previous instant was like something straight out of her nightmares, and they left horrible gashes in her as they were torn free and swallowed up.

The sight of Vision’s broken mind, twisted and damaged in ways she could never comprehend, ravaged Gilda’s psyche and chipped away at the foundations of her sanity. She was unmade, created, and unmade again. It was unimaginably painful, but she couldn’t even call for help. Every muscle in her body quivered, taut like a bowstring, and she became so tense that something was bound to snap soon.

Vision watched her, unblinking and aloof. “Forget,” she whispered. “You shouldn’t peek at your presents. It spoils the surprise.”

Suddenly, the pain stopped. Gilda blinked and rubbed her eyes, then discovered that she was now alone in the hallway. She was pretty sure that she hadn’t been alone before. Her mind felt hazy and lethargic, but if she concentrated hard enough she was sure that she could remember what happened.

Thunderlane’s voice nearly gave her a heart attack when he called up from the bottom of the ladder. “Alright, got it sorted out! Come on down!” Gilda shook her head and dropped down the hatch, allowing any thoughts about the last few moments to fade away.

Thunderlane’s room was exactly what she was expecting; it was messy, cluttered, and packed with weaponry. A faded poster of a scantily clad mare holding a massive rifle hung on one wall. “CALLAHAN,” proclaimed the elegant lettering below her. “Feeling lucky?”

“Some things never change,” Gilda muttered. “What is it with you ponies and clothes, anyway?”

Something tickled her beak, and she scratched at it. “You alright?” Thunderlane asked when he noticed. “You’re bleeding.” Her claws came away slick with blood, and she stared at them with only mild curiosity.

“It’s nothing,” she said dismissively. “You got a towel?” He tossed her a rag, and she tried to clean her face up. “Cool. What happens now? That bed might not be big enough for two.”

The pegasus tugged at a large knit blanket that, for some reason, he had nailed to the wall. “Floor’s fine with me,” he said, and pulled it free. Gilda watched it fall to the ground and then gaped at what was hiding behind it. “Wow,” she breathed, letting her rag fall to the floor. Her beak hung open as she began to tear up. “It’s so shiny.”

“Yeah,” Thunderlane said proudly. “Nothin’ with more shine in the whole ‘Verse.”

Gilda pointed at one of the innumerable weapons hanging on the wall. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, and one very large portable minigun all battled for space. The crown jewel hung in the center; a gorgeous, gleaming instrument of destruction. “That’s an auto-lock!” she said excitedly. “Those aren’t even legal!”

Thunderlane grinned at a fond memory. “Callahan full-bore auto-lock with a customized trigger. Double cartridge, thorough gage. I took her off of a death squad that came for me a few years ago.” He reached up to pet the gun’s stock. “I call her ‘Vera’.”

“Same way I got my ladies,” Gilda sighed dreamily. “I wonder what that captain of yours did with them.”

“She probably just them locked up somewhere,” Thunderlane said. “Don’t worry, G. You’ll get ‘em back. I’ll make sure of it.” He looked over his collection with immeasurable pride. “I still say you should upgrade.”

Gilda bared her teeth threateningly. “You got a problem with my taste in weapons?”

Thunderlane held his hooves up in surrender. “No, no! Nothin’ wrong with a nine millimeter.” Gilda smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder, looking over the rest of his weaponry. After a moment he cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I mean, y’know, long as you’re just hunting mice.”

It took nearly a full minute for his words to register. “You lying yatsume!” she shrieked, and lunged at him. They tumbled onto the bed, one laughing and the other cursing.

As it turned out, Thunderlane’s bed was plenty big enough.

*****

Morning always came too early for Gilda. Not even removing the very thing that signaled the arrival of a new day – namely, a sunrise – could stop morning from arriving before she was ready for it. There were three constants in the universe: taxes, death, and unpleasantly early wakeup calls.

Gilda and Thunderlane received one such wakeup call when the ship was rocked by a small explosion. Gilda immediately began to panic, thinking that something had gone wrong and they were all about to die horrible deaths in the inky blackness of space.

Thunderlane, meanwhile, rolled over and grunted irritably. “Vinyl’s makin’ breakfast,” he mumbled.

“Does she do that every morning?” Gilda asked. She could smell something burning, which meant that the mess up in the galley was powerful enough to momentarily overload the ship’s air purifiers. That could pose a serious problem.

“Mmm-mm,” Thunderlane grumbled. “Go back to sleep.”

“I can’t,” Gilda sighed. “Thunderlane, I need to talk to you about something.” Thunderlane rolled over and glared at her with one bleary eye. “I know, I know,” the griffon said quickly. “A tired Thunderlane is a grumpy Thunderlane. This is really important, though, and I don’t want the others to hear.”

Thunderlane sat up in bed and ran one of his hooves through his mohawk. “Yeah, what is it?” he asked. “This have to do with the job you turned down? I hope so, ‘cause otherwise it’s girly talk. You know I don’t do lovey-dovey girly talk that well.”

“Me neither,” Gilda said patiently. She was trying not to be annoyed, but it wasn’t easy. “And yeah, it’s sort of about the job. I had a quick talk with that weird mare that runs around with the ship’s doctor last night. I think there’s something wrong with her.”

Thunderlane nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, she’s nuts. Lyra doesn’t seem to mind and she hasn’t tried to kill one of us yet, so none of us worry about it much.”

Gilda locked eyes with him, making certain that he would understand the gravity of the situation. “I tried to read her,” she whispered. The resulting curse was so loud that she worried the rest of the crew would hear. “Keep it down!” she hissed. “I don’t remember all of what happened. It’s mostly gone, like she cut it right out of my brain, but a few pieces got left behind. I couldn’t even think about it for a while, but it’s getting clearer.”

Suddenly, the air seemed too heavy for her. Gilda wanted to fly away, to soar into blue skies and never look back. She dreamed of escape, but it was a pipedream in the black. “It hurts to think about it,” she whispered. “I saw insanity. I can’t expect you to understand, and I couldn’t describe it if I tried.” She reached up and brushed away a tear. “It hurt, Thunderlane. It hurt so bad, and that’s just the parts that I can remember.”

The fog of sleep was quickly fading from Thunderlane’s mind, replaced by a growing sense of dread. “She’s dangerous,” Gilda warned. “Lyra and the others don’t want to believe it, but you have to. She’s a ticking time bomb, and when she goes off it’s gonna be like something out of a slasher flick.”

Thunderlane swore again, but quietly this time. He’d known that Vision was unstable, but he wasn’t expecting anything like this. If what Gilda said was true, then the little psycho was a threat to everypony on the ship.

The griffon leaned back to make sure that the hatch leading to the rest of the ship was shut tightly. “Can I trust you?” she asked. Thunderlane nodded. “Good, because I’ve got an idea. If we play our cards right, we could get rid of her and get filthy rich in the process. We could spend the rest of our lives in a house on a tropical beach, and I don’t mean a synthetic one. I mean a real, actual, unpolluted beach.”

“What about Lyra?”

“You sweet on her or something?” Gilda demanded. Thunderlane’s glare answered the question better than words ever could. “Then why are you so worried about her? I already told you; the Empire wants Vision. They don’t give a pile of pellets about a washed-up starship captain and her lame crew. She’d probably just thank us for getting rid of a headache that she doesn’t want. Two headaches, if we take the doctor as well.”

Thunderlane lapsed into a long silence while he considered his options. “This could be the big score we’ve been dreaming of,” Gilda begged. “I can’t do it without you.”

“You won’t have to,” Thunderlane sighed. “I’m in. Just make sure that Lyra doesn't find out.”

*****

The first thing that Octavia saw after waking up was a pair of bright red eyes surrounded by a snowy white coat. The morning was already off to a good start. “You woke up before me,” the cellist mumbled sleepily. “Am I becoming lax in my routine?”

“Nope,” Vinyl assured her. “I had to get up early to check the ship’s course. You’re still the boring pony that gets up early on Saturdays. By the way, you don’t have to be up for another hour.”

Octavia sighed happily and rolled over. Vinyl draped a leg over her and snuggled into her dark mane, enjoying the moment of peaceful comfort. Her flight suit chafed slightly against her wife’s coat, but it wasn’t annoying enough to warrant moving.

The tranquility lasted for another ten seconds. Octavia felt Vinyl’s hoof brush against her stomach, and suddenly she was under attack. “Vinyl, no!” she shouted, but it was already too late. The unicorn tickled her mercilessly, and she covered up as best she could. Escape was impossible, and she could only curl into a ball to reduce the number of obvious targets. It didn’t help as much as she’d hoped.

Vinyl didn’t stop tickling her until her stomach ached and her legs shook. Octavia felt as though she’d run a marathon, and tried to regain her breath before the unicorn though of some new way to torment her. “Brute,” she giggled, and smacked her wife with a pillow.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Vinyl whispered. “Maybe I could come back to bed after that.”

“That sounds lovely,” Octavia agreed.

Vinyl pecked her on the cheek and reluctantly pulled away. “You should eat something,” the unicorn said as she sealed off the bathroom with a sliding partition. “I brought you breakfast.”

Octavia’s sleepy response was lost beneath the sound of running water. She burrowed deeper under the covers, deciding that breakfast could wait for a few more minutes. The smell of shampoo filled the room, along with something else that Octavia couldn’t quite identify. She was completely relaxed, and wanted nothing more than to lie there in bed for a while longer. Maybe she could sleep in, just this once.

The strange smell became slightly less strange as Octavia’s sleepy mind began to puzzle through her wife’s words. Vinyl had brought her breakfast. Vinyl had cooked.

Octavia sat bolt upright and shook the lethargy from her limbs. A plate of toast, eggs, and protein strips sat on the bedside table. Absolutely everything, including the plate itself and the napkin accompanying it, was burnt to a blackened crisp. “Vinyl!” Octavia shrieked. “What did you do this time? Answer me!”

“Can’t hear you!” Vinyl shouted, sounding a little worried now that the illusion of a normal morning was compromised. “I’m in the shower!”

With a growing sense of dread, Octavia climbed the ladder and opened the hatch leading to the rest of the ship. Smoke immediately stung her eyes, and the frantic wailing of a fire alarm assaulted her ears. She was barely able to make out Lyra and Bon Bon fighting over a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.

A frightened, screaming pegasus rocketed out of the black cloud of smoke with Tick Tock in hot pursuit. “Derpy, wait!” he shouted, brandishing a second fire extinguisher and fumbling with the pin. Derpy lurched to a full stop against the stairs leading up to the ship’s bridge, allowing Tick Tock to finally spray her with pressurized coolant.

“It is far too early to deal with this,” Octavia decided. She shut the hatch, climbed back down the ladder, and sunk back into her bed.

*****

It took a long time for the crew to clean up the galley, but the job was made a bit easier with Lyra’s help. A unicorn’s magic made even the worst messes much easier to deal with. When Vinyl eventually slunk out of her cabin to help with the cleanup effort the job fairly flew by. Soon the galley looked no worse for wear apart from a few new scorch marks in the ceiling.

“So everypony just lets her torch the kitchen from time to time?” Gilda asked. She and Thunderlane were slouched at the kitchen table while Bon Bon and Shepherd Mac worked on a suitable meal. It took a lot of work to make protein powder and vitamin chews look like actual food, so it would probably be a while before the meal was ready. The end result resembled scrambled eggs, if scrambled eggs were dark grey and filled with multicolored sprinkles.

“We mostly just quit tryin’ to stop her,” Thunderlane said. His cheek was pressed against the table, a steaming cup of coffee sitting next to him. He was a little bit hung over, and honestly didn’t feel like eating anything yet. Octavia was sitting across the table with a cup of tea, and daintily sipped from it like the refined mare she was doubtlessly trained to be. The retractable rifle sitting next to her did nothing to detract from her sophisticated image.

Derpy trotted into the room just as Bon Bon and Mac finished cooking. She had cleaned most of the soot from her mane, and the burned patches were fairly well hidden. The slight odor of smoke and chemicals was just something she would have to deal with for a while.

Since talking with Tunderlane was clearly a lost cause, Gilda focused her attention on the mechanic. “So, what’s your deal?” the griffon asked as Derpy poured herself a cup of coffee. “What’s a pony like you doing with this bunch?”

“I work here!” Derpy said cheerfully. “I keep Serneighty running.” Thunderlane groaned and covered his ears, thinking that there ought to be a law against sounding so happy this early in the morning.

“Must be one hell of a job,” Gilda said. “I’m surprised this old rust bucket could even break atmo, let alone burn hard enough to get anywhere in a hurry.”

Derpy had been about to pull up a chair, but now her hoof hovered over it uncertainly. “She isn’t a rust bucket,” she argued. “She’s got a better design than half the luh-suh flyin’ around today, and she’s compatible with any scrap of tech you’d ever be able to pick up!”

“I’m just saying that her time’s come and gone,” Gilda argued. “Cool your jets, Walleyes.”

Derpy lifted a hoof to her face, then immediately put it down again. Her voice wavered with anger, frustration, and a little bit of shame. “Y-you don’t… you can’t just–”

Gilda rolled her eyes. “It’s a relic, moron. You obviously don’t know much about ships if you think this hunk of junk is the greatest thing to ever crash on reentry. What, did you have trouble reading the contract or something? Did the Captain promise you lots of fun and adventure while conveniently forgetting to tell you that you’d be working on a ship older than your grandfather?”

Derpy took a hesitant step back and flare her wings. She glared at Gilda with watery eyes, but whatever she had been about to say came out as a quiet sob. Her wings propelled her into the air, and she ducked out of the room with barely an inch of clearance between her and the ceiling.

Gilda twirled a butter knife between her talons. “Crybaby,” she muttered irritably. Octavia glowered at her, but she pretended not to notice. “Come on, Thunderlane. I feel like smacking somepony around.” She tried to drag her friend out of his chair, but the grey pegasus went limp in her arms. “Get up, you lazy yowamushi. I had just as much to drink last night!”

Thunderlane looked longingly at his cup as she pushed him away. “B-but…coffee….”

Octavia finished her tea and trotted after them. Gilda could sense a quiet resignation coming from the unassuming earth pony, but very little else. She hated to admit it, but she was impressed; most ponies didn’t have that level of control over their emotions.

Thunderlane became a little more animated once they reached the cargo hold. “Where are you going?” Gilda demanded as he rolled over the safety rail and glided to the other end of the room. “Wait for me!”

“I’m getting’ some Gorram painkillers from the infirmary!” Thunderlane shouted. “Settle yourself down. I’ll be back in a minute.”

*****

Stupid Gilda and her big, stupid beak! Derpy thought angrily. Her flight from the infirmary had taken her through the cargo hold and into the hallway leading to the engine room. She was angry, frustrated, and more upset than she actually had a right to be.

Gilda may have insulted her home, but Derpy knew that the griffon hadn’t been entirely wrong. The ship was, in fact, very old. That didn’t mean she was anything short of magnificent, but it was true that there were faster and shinier ships out there. She’s still a jerk, Derpy thought, and wiped a tear from her eye. She was beginning to feel a little silly about her outburst, but there was nothing she could do about it now. She hoped that it hadn’t looked too suspicious.

No medication until tomorrow, she thought glumly. I have to make what’s left last. If I ration it out, I might find a way to get some more. A quiet sniffling sound made her pause outside of the infirmary. Who’s that? She wondered. Did Vision sneak away when nopony was looking? Why would she go to the infirmary of all places?

Derpy carefully pushed one of the double doors open, moving very slowly to keep the hinges from squeaking. She was quite surprised to see Tick Tock instead of his sister. The brown earth pony was sitting at his desk and staring at a thin sheet of plastic. His face was a painful mix of despair and desperation, but it quickly changed to embarrassment when he noticed her. He made a sound halfway between a greeting and a shout, then slammed the document down onto his desk. “Derpy!” he said once he had managed to make his voice work. “Was there something you needed?”

“Are you alright?” Derpy asked, wincing internally at how intrusive the question sounded. Sometimes it’s good to be blunt, she reminded herself.

“Fine,” the doctor lied. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” He forced a smile, but abandoned it almost immediately. “I don’t feel like talking about it, Derpy. Thanks for asking, but I’d rather deal with this by myself.”

Derpy looked around the infirmary. “Weren’t you by yourself before?” she asked. Tick Tock nodded. “It didn’t look like it was helping much.”

The earth pony shook his head and sighed. “With all due respect, I don’t think you can help me.”

Derpy trotted across the room and pulled a stool up next to him. She took a moment to look down at the sheet of plastic, trying to make sense of the strange color patterns surrounding a cross section of a pony’s head. “Is that from the scans you ran on Vision?” she asked.

The façade of composure that he had built up crumbled all at once, and Tick Tock’s voice was suddenly choked with despair. “I think I know what they did to her now.”

Author's Note

I'm not sure how to feel about Gilda's confrontation with Vision. It was rewritten several times, and I'm still not sure if I'm happy with it. This is what happens when I take a really long time to submit something. I start to doubt absolutely everything about it.

Who is Hangin’ Crime, you might ask? He’s an OC I made for an old story. He was pretty awful, if I do say so myself. He was a boring, gritty character that was so out of place it honestly seemed like some kind of parody. To this day, I wonder how in the world I was planning to justify his existence. I dislike him, so I used his name for the pony Thunderlane shot.

Hey, look at the date! Merry Christmas, everyone. You guys rock, and I’m super grateful that you’ve stuck with the story for this long. Knowing that someone enjoys this stuff is what makes me want to keep doing it. Thanks for reading. It really means a lot to me.

Getting Pinched

Thunderlane landed outside of the infirmary, cursing both Gilda and the bright lights in equal measure. Gorram griffon’s gonna kill me one of these days, he thought venomously. Is it too much to ask for a little peace and quiet after a night of drinkin'?.

He was about to throw the infirmary doors open and march inside, but a pair of quiet voices made him pause. He pressed one ear to the door, anxiously looking around first to be sure that nopony was watching. He only heard the last part of Tick Tock’s sentence, but picked out the word “finished”.

“Wasn’t that supposed to take a really long time?” Derpy asked.

“I compiled it from what we already have,” Tick Tock sighed. It was obvious that he’d been crying. “I just wanted to see what I could put together from the results so far. Not much point in running any more tests, is there?”

A short silence passed. “I don’t know how to read any of this,” Derpy finally admitted. “What’s that attached to her forehead? It looks sort of like a horn.”

“It is, I think. See the spiral pattern?”

Thunderlane waited to hear more, but the ponies on the other side of the door were frustratingly silent. Just as he was getting bored, Derpy spoke again. “It’s growing the wrong way, isn’t it?”

Tick Tock coughed, and Thunderlane could picture him trying to subtly dry his eyes. Neither of them seemed to know what to say. “Yes, it is,” the doctor answered. Every word sounded weak, as though it had barely survived the trip out of his mouth and was on its last legs. “It’s… it’s growing into her brain”

Derpy gasped. “Poor Vision.”

“This isn’t something that I can fix,” Tick Tock sad. “My sister had a shard of bone growing into her brain, and I can’t remove it. I promised that I would help her, and I’ve failed.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Derpy said. “She’s much better now than she was before, right? Sometimes she even seems happy. Maybe helping her isn’t just about surgery and stuff. Vision likes it here, and we like her. My momma used to say that sometimes knowing you’re cared for is more important than the care itself.”

Tick Tock answered, but he was so quiet that Thunderlane couldn’t pick out any intelligible words. “I know,” Derpy soothed. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out. She’ll be alright, Ticky. She’s got a good big brother looking out for her.”

Thunderlane pulled away, an angry scowl on his face. He shook his head to clear it, grimacing as his headache flared up again. Once he had reminded himself of why he had come to the infirmary in the first place he shoved the doors open and began looking for something to sooth his raging hangover.

*****

Octavia waited patiently for Thunderlane to return, though her nerves were beginning to fray. Gilda was bored and apparently unfamiliar with the concept of patience, so naturally she found it impossible to remain silent. She had already made several attempts at conversation, each one more desperate than the last. “So, what’s it like working for Lyra?” she asked. “Do you see much action, or do you mostly just run away when things get violent?”

I will not let her damage my calm, Octavia thought. She will not be here for long. Take a deep breath. There, see? That was not so difficult. “We tend to avoid fighting,” she said. “You may have noticed that this is a cargo ship. It is not armed.”

“Uh-huh,” Gilda grunted. “Lyra said you were in some kind of organized crime family before you met her. I used to do some of that, too. It just wasn’t, y’know, a family gig. It paid pretty well, and it was even fun most of the time. Shame I had to give it up.”

Octavia wanted to ignore the griffon entirely, but this new topic had piqued her interest. “Why?” she asked.

Gilda held up one of her paws. “Problems with authority,” she said with a grin, and wiggled her shortened toe. “That’s a story for another time. What about you, Octy? You’ve probably got some pretty great stories from the bad old days. Which family did you work for?”

Octavia’s eye twitched. “Gilda, dear?” she asked sweetly. “I know that we do not know each other very well, so I will make this as clear as I possibly can; we are not friends. You are an annoyance that I am forced to tolerate.” She leaned against the griffon to whisper into her ear. “My dear wife is allowed to call me whatever she wishes, but you most certainly are not. The next time you shorten my name, I will slip aconitine into your next meal. I will then finish my tea and work on my composition while you vomit uncontrollably and descend into cardiac arrest. It will be a painful, humiliating death. Do we have an understanding?”

For a moment it was impossible to speak. Gilda swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the sudden dryness in her throat. “Y-yeah, I get it,” she stammered. She spent the rest of her time waiting for Thunderlane in silence, Octavia’s lavender eyes drilling into her.

*****

Vision decided that she was having one of her good days. Some days she couldn’t tell the difference, but this wasn’t one of those times. She looked around at her mother’s garden, at the cherry trees and magnolias, and decided that she liked it here. Spring had sprung, and most of the trees were in bloom. Pretty white and pink petals coated the ground and floated gaily in the warm breeze.

“I like it here,” she said, just to fill the silence. The wind in the branches wasn’t quite loud enough for her liking. She was alone, and she didn’t like being both solitary and silent. “Can I stay here, please?”

The earth pony strolled through the trees, enjoying the perfect weather. The garden’s fountain burbled merrily like a childhood friend saying hello. Several tiers of stone seashells formed a chain of basins, each filling the next until the final shell flowed into the pool at the fountain’s base. A few bits gleamed at the bottom, relics of the numerous wishes she and her brother had made when they were children.

Something else sat on the bottom of the fountain, and Vision leaned over for a better look. She reached into the water and pulled out a broken piece of stone. The lip of the lowest seashell had cracked, and a chunk of it had fallen into the water. “What does this mean?” she asked.

Nopony answered. Vision looked around at the garden’s trees, holding the stone out in front of her like a lucky charm. “Can I fix it? Can somepony tell me, please? I’m trying to be my best. Really, I am.”

“Sweetie, put it down.” Vision squealed in surprise and spun around. Her mother held out her hooves as though asking for a hug. “You don’t need that.”

“No!” Vision cried. “No, no. This has meaning. You understand, but you don’t comprehend. It’s more than what it just is.”

Derpy was slowly edging away from her, both eyes focused on the stone. They were slightly red around the edges, as though she had been crying but tried to hide it. “Just calm down, sweetie,” she soothed. “Nopony wants to hurt you.” Her other friends surrounded her, reaching out with hooves like worshipers at a pagan altar. What are they doing in Mother’s garden? Vision wondered.

“I’d say she’s powerful eager to make us!”

“Thunderlane, stop it!” Octavia snapped. “Vision, darling, please put the gun down.”

Vision shook her head and clutched the pistol to her chest. “But it’s important!” she insisted. “It means more! It isn’t just a disconnected thing that we can forget about. It needs attention.”

“I’m sure it does,” Lyra said. She was the closest of the group, and had nearly crept close enough to grab her. “Why don’t you just give it to me and we’ll talk about it?”

A tense moment passed, but finally Vision’s shoulder slumped as she allowed Lyra to take the gun from her. The unicorn backed up and ejected the gun’s clip. “Fully loaded, safety off,” she announced. “This here’s a recipe for disaster. Doc, your sister could have killed somepony just now.”

Vision’s ears drooped as her brother tried to lead her away. “But she needed to see,” she whispered forlornly.

*****

It was three days before Sereneighty landed on Deadwood. Vision was kept under close supervision, and Lyra confined her to the rear of the ship. She wasn’t allowed near the crew’s quarters or the bridge, just in case she had another one of her episodes.

Lyra had nearly chewed out Thunderlane for leaving his weapons lying around, but he had quickly pointed out that the pistol wasn’t his; it was one of the nine millimeter handguns that she had confiscated from Gilda. That was a problem, because Lyra had hidden both of them in her cabin behind a securely locked door.

Vision must have worked out the right access code, either through trial and error or by spying on her. And she didn’t even know what she was doing, Lyra thought. She was running on autopilot the whole time!

Locked doors wouldn’t be enough to stop Vision if she decided to hurt somepony. It was a sobering thought.

On the day before they landed, Lyra decided to have a talk with Tick Tock. She knew it wouldn’t be pleasant, but she was a firm believer in pulling the band-aid off quickly. She found the doctor in the passenger dorm, pouring over notes and formulas with an obsession that almost unnerved her. A pair of reading glasses perched on his nose, giving him a much more mature look than she was accustomed to. “You busy?” she asked.

“Extremely,” Tick Tock said. “I’ve been researching behavioral modification. So much of the technology is dependent on magic that I’m having trouble understanding it, but I think I’m making progress.”

“Good to hear,” the Captain said as she sat down. “We need to talk about your sister, Doc. She’s getting worse.”

Tick Tock paused in his work. “I know.”

“We had a deal, Doc. Part of that deal was that you’d keep your sister under control. If you can’t do that, we might have a problem.”

The doctor removed his glasses and tossed them onto the table. “I’m sorry,” he sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. “I’m trying, Captain, but the problem is a lot worse than I thought. She has a–”

“It doesn’t matter what she has,” Lyra interrupted. “She’s dangerous.”

Tick Tock grabbed one of the pages on the table and held it up for her to examine. “See this?” he asked. “Vision wrote this when I asked her to draw me something. I was expecting a house or an animal, something that I could use to psychologically evaluate her. Instead she wrote an extremely complicated probability current accounting for the existence of hyperspace. It follows the movement of a particle through the quantum barrier. This is a mathematical explanation for why we can’t travel faster than light with our current technology.”

He squinted at some of the numbers. “I think she even accounted for the passage of time being distorted. It gets a little wibbly-wobbly in the middle there. My point is that my sister wrote this in eight minutes with a crayon because she didn’t want to talk about her feelings. She’s more intelligent than all of us put together, and with the exception of Thunderlane I’d say that’s very impressive.”

“You aren’t listening!” Lyra insisted. “Doc, I don’t care. I don’t care how sick she is right now, and I sure as hell don’t want to hear a bunch of fancy mathematics when you should be trying to figure out why she was pointing a gun at me. She could have killed somepony the other day! Her being crazy wouldn’t make one of us any less dead if she’d pulled that trigger. If you can’t control her, I’m going to have to.”

“I’m trying!” Tick Tock insisted. “I’ve been looking into benzodiazepines, but I don’t know what kind of dosage she needs. Her brain doesn’t work the same as ours anymore.”

Lyra closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She really didn’t want to get angry at a pony that was honestly trying to help. “That’s great, and I hope it works. What happens if it doesn’t? What if she gets violent?”

“I don’t know,” Tick Tock admitted. “We’ve already got somepony watching her at all times, and the only other option would be locking her up.” He noticed the slight slump in Lyra’s shoulders and the tired resignation in her eyes. “You wouldn’t, would you?” he asked dubiously. “She’s already unstable! Restraining her is only going to make things worse.”

“Then you’d best make sure it doesn’t come to that. I like your sister just fine, but her happiness isn’t more important than our lives. I’m sorry, Doc, but that’s the way it is.” Lyra stood up and looked over his notes as though she had any hope at all of understanding them. “I hope you can figure something out.”

Lyra left Tick Tock to his work. She decided to check on the cargo, and hoped that Thunderlane wasn’t so enamored with his old flame that he had forgotten to package everything properly. She wasn’t in the mood to chew anypony else out.

*****

As an experienced smuggler and all around brigand, Lyra never negotiated without somepony to back her up. Today, that somepony was Octavia. They spent nearly an hour haggling over price, when that price should have been fixed from the start. Having her time wasted was both aggravating and embarrassing. Lyra preferred to think of herself as a professional, not somepony that had to awkwardly demand the amount of contraband goods she was promised.

It was lucky that Octavia’s air of callous disdain made the shady black market ponies nervous. Lyra’s job was to exchange the coffee for some very expensive tea, and she would have been held personally accountable had the shipment been smaller than expected.

Her bad day suddenly got much worse when they returned to Sereneighty. Smoke was billowing from the right atmo engine, and Derpy was frantically trying to figure out what was causing the problem. “She won’t talk to me!” the pegasus shouted. “I can’t see inside, but the computer says that nothing’s wrong. We’ve already cut power to the engine, but the smoke won’t stop!”

“Is there anything lodged in the rotors?” Lyra asked. “It might not be a problem with the ship itself.”

Derpy carefully fished around in the turbine, coughing from the thick smoke as she tried to find anything out of place. “Aha!” she shouted. “I found a… uh, what is this?”

Lyra looked at the small cylinder her mechanic was holding and sighed. “That’s a homemade smoke bomb. Somepony wanted us to think the engine was broken.”

“Why would they want that?” Derpy asked.

The Captain and her mechanic were interrupted as Thunderlane touched down next to the cargo. “I made it!” he called breathlessly. “The Doc and Vision are out of the way, just like you wanted.”

Lyra felt a sudden, overpowering desire to swear at the top of her lungs. “There’s your answer,” she said. “A while back I told Thunderlane that he should get Vision and her brother out of the way if it ever looked like somepony was sabotaging Sereneighty. Octavia?” The grey mare straightened at the mention of her name. “Put everypony on high alert and load the cargo as quick as you can. See if you can get Vinyl to help. Thunderlane and I have some fugitives to find.”

“They’ll be fine,” Thunderlane assured her. “I left ‘em with Gilda.”

“You what?” Lyra demanded. “We need to find them before she figures out how much they’re worth!”

Thunderlane gulped nervously. “You sure?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we just stick around here for a while to make sure it’s safe?”

Lyra unhooked the cargo sled from the utility vehicle and hopped into the driver’s seat. “Lead the way!” she ordered. “I’ll follow as fast as I can.”

“B-but what if it ain’t safe to bring them back here yet?”

“Stop arguing and fly!” Lyra shouted as she gunned the throttle. Thunderlane reluctantly took to the air and flew back in the direction from which he had come. The Captain kept up as best she could, weaving in and out of crowded streets at speeds that were more than a little irresponsible. Millington was a large town for a planet like Deadwood, so there were plenty of cars and wagons that she could have hit if she wasn’t careful.

Thunderlane landed next to a shabby hotel and waited for Lyra to skid to a stop. “I’m tellin’ you, this is a waste of time,” he grumbled.

“And I’m tellin’ you that I don’t want to hear another word about it,” Lyra snapped. “We’re taking them both back to Sereneighty, and we’re never doing anything like this again. It was a stupid idea to separate them from the rest of us.”

“Seemed like a good idea to me,” Thunderlane grumbled.

Lyra paused outside of the room he indicated. “I wasn’t blaming you,” she admitted. “It was my plan, not yours, and it was a bad one. At least we’ll know better from now on.” She knocked on the door and waited patiently for whoever was inside to answer.

It wasn’t long before the door creaked open and one of Gilda’s yellow eyes peeked out at them. “The hell are you doing here?” she asked as she opened the door all the way. She spared Thunderlane a very serious what-do-you-think-you’re-doing glare when Lyra wasn’t looking.

The hotel room Gilda had rented was nice only by diamond dog standards. The wallpaper was peeling, the carpet needed replacing, and the window was so grimy that it only let in a pale imitation of the sunlight outside. It was on the hotel’s third floor, but it felt like a dungeon.

Vision was curled up at the foot of the room’s only bed like a dog. She perked up as Lyra entered the room, and actually smiled when she saw Thunderlane. “She’s been giving me the evil eye for the last half-hour,” Gilda complained.

Tick Tock was sitting in an armchair by the bed, twiddling his hooves with boredom. “She can’t help it,” he said. “She thinks you’re dangerous.”

Gilda rolled her eyes. “She also thinks she’s a little teapot, short and stout. So what?”

“You won’t need to deal with her anymore,” Lyra said. “We’re going home.”

“Already?” Thunderlane asked. He knew that Gilda could hear the panic in his voice and hoped that Lyra didn’t know him well enough to notice. “We just got here. Shouldn’t you make sure it’s safe before you move them again?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Lyra asked suspiciously. She stood up to her full height, which still only put her on eye level with his chin. He suddenly noticed that her eyes were almost exactly the same color as Gilda’s. How had he never made that connection before? “Are you stupid, or just blind? Whoever planted that smoke bomb did it to get Vision away from the ship. This is exactly what they want!”

Gilda pressed the barrel of her pistol to the back of Lyra’s head. “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” she said as her free hand grabbed the unicorn’s weapon. “My friends are going to be here any minute, so you’d better clear out.”

Lyra looked between her and Thunderlane. “Did you know about this?” she asked.

While the Captain wasn’t looking, Gilda winked. It was a flirty wink, the kind she had given him hundreds of times before, but for the first time he found that he couldn’t enjoy it. He saw the way that Vision was staring at him, and a lump formed in his throat. “I didn’t know,” he lied, exactly as they had rehearsed. “I think we should do what she says.”

“Wait!” Tick Tock pleaded. “You can’t do this. You’ve got no idea what they’ll do to her if they find us!”

Gilda shrugged and backed against the wall to keep anypony from sneaking up on her. “Don’t care,” she said. “They’ll do something just as bad to me if I fail. You two had better get going before I decide ventilate your chest cavities.” She turned her head to the side and listened intently. “Do you hear something?”

“I don’t like you,” Vision whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Gilda staggered and reached up to wipe her nose. Her claws came away slick with blood, and moments later her eyes rolled back into her head. Thunderlane rushed to catch her as she swooned and gently laid her down onto the floor.

“What in the hay was that?” Lyra asked. Vision hid her face behind her brother and moaned pathetically.

Thunderlane cleared his throat for attention. “Hey, not that watchin’ Gilda bleed from the nose ain’t a barrel of laughs, but ain’t it about time that we got out of here before we get pinched by the feds?”

“He’s right,” Lyra said quickly. “Let’s get a move on. If Gilda was telling the truth, they aren’t far behind us.”

Thunderlane moved to pick up his friend, but Lyra pushed him away. “Are you nuts?” she asked. “Gilda just threatened to kill us!”

Thunderlane glared at her defiantly and hefted the griffon over his shoulders. “I’ll carry her for a few blocks. She can take it from there once she wakes up.”

*****

Octavia wasn’t pleased to be doing manual labor, but she carried out her duties without complaint. The Captain would be in a hurry to leave when she returned, and it would be best to have the cargo stacked properly so that it wouldn’t be damaged during flight.

Vinyl had been helping with her magic, but she quickly exhausted herself by showing off. Now she was resting on the ledge formed by the aft catwalks and sipping from a cup of water while her wife finished the job alone.

Octavia couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed with Vinyl. At least she managed to unload most of the sled, she thought. Besides, the unicorn had been rather adorable with her nose scrunched up in concentration.

The final crate of tea slid into place next to the others, and Octavia looked around for a harness to secure them. There were thirteen boxes in all, each weighing nearly as much as Octavia herself. It was enough to net them all a pretty penny if they completed the next leg of the run without incident.

Oh dear, Octavia thought as she noticed a pair of mares watching her work from the other side of the dock. Speaking of incidents, I believe I see a pair of them coming this way. “Vinyl, darling? Be a dear and put the ship on lockdown.”

Vinyl sat up and looked around, obviously half asleep. She adjusted her goggled and followed Octavia’s line of sight to the pair of beautiful mares that were now striding toward them. “Now, Vinyl!” Octavia insisted.

It only took a few seconds for Vinyl to rush up the catwalks and onto the bridge. In that short amount of time, the twins had already crossed half of the dock and were about to board the ship. Octavia grabbed her rifle and, not bothering to extend the barrel, fired at the pink twin. Aloe veered away the moment she pulled the trigger, causing the bullet to graze her side.

Before Octavia could fire again, the ship began to rumble as the cargo ramp lifted into the air. The twins shouted something to each other, and one of them made a throwing motion while she ran. What are they doing? Octavia wondered. The ramp rose slowly, and obscured both of them from view.

For a moment, Octavia allowed herself to relax. There was no possible way that either of them would board the ship now.

A pair of blue hooves grabbed hold of the ramp’s edge. Lotus hauled herself into the quickly closing opening and shimmied between the ramp and the roof, but couldn’t quite make it in time. She put her hooves on either side of the opening and pushed, lithe muscles straining beneath her coat as the thick metal plates closed around her midsection.

That was quite foalish, Octavia thought, bracing herself for the inevitable spray of blood and gore as the unfortunate mare was crushed to death. There was obviously not enough room.

The ramp’s climb upward slowed as Lotus struggled against it. Machinery whined in the walls as hydraulic joints struggled to shut the ship’s heavy door. Octavia watched in horror as the gap between the door and the roof widened slightly. Impossible, she thought. Those hydraulic motors operate with nearly two tons of pressure! Lotus cried out under the immense strain, but her hooves didn’t give an inch as she forced her way into the ship’s interior. After a moment of stunned observation, Octavia worked the lever of her rifle and fired again.

Author's Note

Oh, a Dr. Who reference! Imagine that. Dollhouse, too. Grab you’re umbrella, because it’s raining allusions all up in here.

Who do you guys think would win in a fight between Thunderlane and Octavia? The show never addressed that question, as far as I can remember. I always wanted to see if Zoey’s cunning tactics (but ridiculously impractical taste in weaponry) could hold up against Jayne’s brute force.

I’ve got a question for anyone that read some of my other stories. I’m thinking of doing a sequel to Chrysalis Catches Cold. It would be a much darker horror story following Blueblood, Duster, and Blueblood’s bodyguard as they make the trip to his home country and discover something terrible waiting for them. Does that sound interesting, or would it just be too drastic of a change? The first one was a comedy, but I intend to make the sequel a lot more twisted and hopefully creepy. That, or I could goof it up and it would turn out pathetic. I give it 50/50.

Trust

“You’re sure that you don’t mind talking about this?” Tick Tock asked. “I’m only curious, you understand. In the Core, a romance with someone of another species would be unthinkable. It seems to be largely the same out here, and yet you haven’t made the slightest attempt to hide your relationship with Gilda.”

Thunderlane shrugged indifferently. He had dropped Gilda on the doorstep of a dentist’s office only a few minutes ago. The thought of a creature with no teeth visiting a dentist had amused him, and he hoped that she would see the humor in it. “No big deal,” he said. “Gilda’s nice to me, and Lyra doesn’t judge. Nopony else matters much, do they?”

“What about your cultures?” Tick Tock asked. “Don’t they clash?”

Thunderlane rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. “Once,” he said. “We mostly got over it. Other than that, there wasn’t much to get in the way. We’re all basically the same, you know, where it really counts. Things still fit together about the same.”

Tick Tock grimaced. “I didn’t need to hear that. I’m trying to think of a more disgusting argument for species equality, but nothing is coming to mind.”

Vision tapped her brother on the shoulder. “I’m glad Gilda’s gone,” she whispered guiltily.

Her brother made sure that Thunderlane wasn’t listening before giving her a mischievous wink. “So am I.”

Lyra slowed down as they neared Sereneighty. “Something’s wrong,” she warned, her voice tight with worry. “The cargo ramp isn’t all the way up. It shouldn’t be stuck like that.”

“Malfunction, maybe?” Thunderlane asked. “Ship’s in better shape than she used to be, but she’s still seen better days.

“Surely not with Derpy around,” Tick Tock said. “We’d see her working on it.”

A gunshot made all of them jump. Lyra snatched a radio from her belt and pressed the “Talk” button. “Octavia, you there?”

No answer came for a long time. Finally, Octavia’s breathless voice answered. “We were attacked by the ponies that tried to stop our train heist, sir. I am running out of ammunition. The ship is on lockdown, but I doubt a locked door wi –stop right there!” Another gunshot came from inside the ship. “Apologies, sir. As I was saying, they are not like normal ponies. I am certain that I have shot both of them, but I have yet to see any blood. They are not carrying any weapons that I can see, but I worry that they may be dangerous enough without them.”

Lyra grabbed her pistol. “Thunderlane, you and I are going in. Doc, stay here with your sister. The moment you see anything or anyone coming for you that isn’t friendly, hop on our wheeler and drive off.” She handed the doctor her radio and added “We’ll find you later.”

She edged closer to the damaged cargo ramp while Thunderlane flew up to peek inside. “I don’t see anypony,” he whispered. “We should go in while we can still surprise ‘em.

“Fine,” Lyra agreed. She watched as Thunderlane tried to squeeze his bulky frame past the raised door and rolled her eyes. “Hey, yú rén! You think that maybe you should radio Vinyl to open the ramp?” The pegasus freed himself from the metal prison and bashfully fumbled for his radio.

Once the door was open, Lyra and Thunderlane cautiously edged into the cargo bay. Octavia called down at them from one of the catwalks and pointed to the crates of tea. “They are hiding behind the cargo,” she said. “I hesitated to approach alone.”

“This day just keeps getting better,” Lyra sighed. “Time for some thrilling heroics. Thunderlane, you’re flanking.” She slowly crept forward while Thunderlane circled around from the side. She couldn’t see any signs of the twins, but there was plenty of room for them to hide.

A pink blur suddenly rocketed out from behind the tea boxes and crashed into Lyra. She fell to the ground, Aloe’s demure frame bearing down on her, and tried to throw her hooves up to protect herself. It didn’t help as much as she would have liked; Lyra’s head bounced off the floor as Aloe punched her, and the cargo bay’s metal grating cut into her scalp.

Time stopped making sense. Lyra struggled to her feet, unsure of where Aloe had gone. She noticed Thunderlane pinned to the ground, reaching for the pistol he had dropped. She looked around for her own gun, found it, and tried to take aim. She couldn’t remember afterward if she pulled the trigger.

The next time she blinked, Aloe was running at her again. Lyra solved the problem by shooting her in the face. At least, she thought she shot Aloe in the face. It was getting tremendously hard to focus. The world went dark again, and her legs gave out on her.

*****

Thunderlane saw Lyra collapse, but there was no way that he could get to her. Lotus had charged right through his gunfire, shrugging it off like it was nothing and pinning him to the ground beneath her. She weighed more than a stallion twice her size, and hit with ten times the strength. She had nearly bashed open his head several times, but so far he had been able to keep her from bringing her full strength to bear.

Finally, she made a mistake that he could exploit. Thunderlane grabbed hold of her foreleg as it smashed into the floor next to his head. He wriggled out of her grip, heaved one of his hind legs over her head, and yanked her into a leg lock.

Then, strangely, nothing happened. Thunderlane pulled with all of his might, but Lotus’s leg just would not budge. He had used this same move before, and knew that it shouldn’t have been very difficult to pull her leg right out of its socket.

Lotus growled angrily and rolled over, taking him with her. He let go of her leg to keep his head from hitting the floor, then continued rolling to get away from the freakishly strong earth pony. When he was able to stand on his own hooves again, he saw the the pink twin climbing on top of Lyra and raising her hoof. “Shoot her!” he shouted, not realizing that there was no way to do so without hitting Lyra. “Octavia, now! Shoot her!”

Lyra’s horn sparked, and her pistol lifted from the floor. She gritted her teeth in concentration, pulled back the hammer, and blasted Aloe right in the face. The bullet struck the earth pony square in the forehead and made her yowl in pain, but Thunderlane was horrified to see that it didn’t actually penetrate.

Nevertheless, the seemingly indestructible pony was momentarily disoriented. Thunderlane took to the air, rolled over Lotus, and snatched his weapon from the ground where it had landed. He careened into Aloe, knocking them both to the ground, and pressed the barrel against her temple. “Shrug this off!” he snarled as he pulled the trigger.

Thunderlane’s pistol had a special feature that Lyra’s didn’t; a second barrel, mounted in the cylinder’s center, which held a single shotgun shell. The load of buckshot tore into Aloe’s head, shattering the tough surface and blasting the rest into solid chunks of crystalline rock.

Lotus screamed wordlessly, momentarily distracted by her sister’s death. Octavia used the opportunity to line up a perfect shot, and blew a hole through the unfortunate pony’s neck.

When the sound of the final gunshot had dissipated, Thunderlane helped Lyra to her hooves. She swayed drunkenly and clenched her eyes shut in an attempt to block out the world for a moment. “Get’em outta here,” she slurred.

“I will get the doctor and ask Vinyl to lift off as soon as possible,” Octavia said. “Please sit down, sir. You may have a concussion.”

Lyra moaned her ascent and leaned against the stairs. Her entire body hurt in ways that she had rarely experienced before, each minor movement a new study in discomfort. Was it the head injury, or had she been beaten worse than she realized? She gingerly touched the back of her head, and felt the bloody patch of her scalp that had been dashed against the floor.

Today had not been a good day.

Lyra was checked out in short order, and Tick Tock made her promise to take it easy on her magic for a few days. The last thing she needed was to strain her brain and turn herself into a vegetable. Lyra knew the doctor would never admit it, but she was pretty sure he was thinking it.

One the ship was ready to lift off, Lyra began looking for her hired gun. Thunderlane was finishing up with the cargo when she found him. “You mind if I talk to you?” she asked.

The slate grey pegasus straightened up on his hind legs and flexed his back tiredly. “Go ahead,” he sighed, not bothering to turn around. “Long as you ain’t askin’ me to lift anything heavy. I’m about tuckered out for the day.”

“I’m not,” Lyra assured him. She pulled out her pistol, flipped it around in her hooves, and smashed the grip into Thunderlane’s head as hard as she could.

*****

Thunderlane woke with a pounding headache and a nasty feeling deep in his gut. The wind’s roar greeted him first, followed by the feeling of ruffled feathers and far too much speed. A pegasus had an innate sense of what safe flight felt like, and Thunderlane’s was more developed than most. He knew instinctively that he was going much too fast.

As he looked around, the feeling got worse. He was trapped in the cargo hold’s outer airlock, and the ramp was partially down. He momentarily considered trying to crawl out through the opening, thinking that he could fold his wings in and let wind resistance slow him down enough to fly. He quickly discarded the plan; the ramp wasn’t open nearly wide enough to admit a full-grown pegasus.

Lyra tapped on the thick, reinforced glass window that separated the airlock from the rest of the ship. Thunderlane saw a radio clutched in her hoof, and noticed one identical to it lying on the floor next to him. “Derpy fixed our door,” Lyra said. “We’re good for the next leg of our trip, so I figured it was about time for us to have a little talk.”

“You start all your talks with a blow to the head?” Thunderlane asked. “What’d you want to talk about?”

“How about that little stunt you pulled with Gilda?”

Thunderlane’s confusion immediately shifted into barely-restrained panic. “Lyra, that’s crazy talk. We just got pinched is all!”

“Yeah,” Lyra agreed. “That’s what happens when you call the feds.”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Thunderlane insisted. “Gilda lied to me, just like the rest of you. My hoof to Celestia! You’ve gotta believe me!”

“I’ve got to do nothin’ of the kind.” She pointed to the slightly open cargo ramp. “There’s the door. You’re fired.”

Thunderlane looked back at the open hole, seeing in a new and terrifying light. It was a very unsettling feeling, looking at the thing that was about to kill him. “Come on, Lyra! That ain’t no way to go. Please, don’t do this! Be reasonable!”

Lyra didn’t seem bothered by his begging. “Y’know, lots of ponies think that getting thrown out of an airlock happens like it does in the movies; big rush of wind, bodies getting sucked through small holes and the like. It’s not that spectacular in real life. You’ll probably just run out of air, pass out, and die.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Well, that or freeze to death. Don’t rightly know which would come first. Either way, I think you’d mostly be in one piece.”

Thunderlane noticed that it was getting very cold in his little prison, and his frantic pleas for help took on a new urgency. “What are you takin’ this so personal for?” he asked. “It was just the doctor and his sister. They didn’t belong here, and I was just doin’ what you should’a done a long time ago! It ain’t like I was turnin’ in one of us!”

One of Lyra’s eyes began to twitch, and Thunderlane knew that he’d made a terrible mistake. “Personal?” she asked coldly. “You made this personal, Thunderlane. We have to be able to rely on each other. There’s no place on this boat for anypony that can’t understand that.” She held the radio to her mouth for a while after that, but for a minute she couldn't think of what to say. “The ponies you fly with are your family,” she said after some consideration. “That was my family you tried to hurt, and you ought to know that it’s the only one I’ve got left. You turn on my family, you've turned on me.”

“The money was too good!” Thunderlane cried. His words were accompanied by puffs of frost that fogged the glass. “I-I got greedy, okay? I got greedy and stupid. I’m sorry!”

Lyra nodded in agreement. “So am I, Thunderlane. I’m sorry, but you still have to go.” She left the radio sitting beside his little window and trotted toward the stairs.

“What are you gonna tell them?” he asked.

For a moment the unicorn stared at him, trying to size him up. She tried to levitate the radio, but her horn only emitted a small spark and she grunted in discomfort. In the end she had to walk back to the window and pick it up by hoof. “The truth, if I can’t think of something better. Why?”

“Make somethin’ up. Don’t tell ‘em what I did.”

Lyra raised an eyebrow. “Why? You think some of them thought you were better than this?

Thunderlane looked away from the window. “Maybe not,” he admitted. “Doesn't mean I want them knowin’ about it.” He sat down against the door and stared out the tiny opening, looking at the stars twinkling at him outside. He noticed that it was getting harder to breathe, and shivered at the touch of cold metal against his coat. It wouldn’t be long now.

Machinery hummed over the deafening wind, and the ramp slowly pulled shut. “I’m sorry,” Thunderlane said quietly. Several minutes passed, and he stood up to look into the cargo hold. “Uh, c-can I come in?” he asked. The Captain was nowhere to be found.

*****

Tick Tock found Derpy in the engine room, relaxing in a hammock she had strung up in one corner. She was reading through one of Bon Bon’s cheesy romance novels, which were apparently the only sources of literature on the entire ship apart from Shepherd Mac’s Bible. “Do you have a moment?” he asked.

“You bet!” Derpy chirped pleasantly. “Is this about your sister? She was in here earlier, I think.”

“No, it isn’t, but I do appreciate you looking after her; it isn’t easy to keep an eye on her sometimes. I’m glad that she gets along with you.”

“So am I,” Derpy agreed as she shut her book and rolled out of the hammock with the kind of grace unique to pegasi. She then immediately lost her balance and fell flat on her backside. “Oops,” she giggled. “Sorry, Doctor.”

Not as sorry as I am to force this conversation on you, Tick Tock thought. “Derpy, we need to talk. As your friend I don’t want to say anything to upset you, but I can’t just ignore a problem when I see one. I am your doctor, after all. We have to talk about your… condition.”

The change that came over the pegasus was so sudden that it was downright unnerving. “What condition?” she asked. Her tone was polite, but Tick Tock was able to pick up on an undercurrent of desperation. “I’m not sick, Ticky. I feel fine.”

“I know that you do,” he said. “I imagine you’ve been feeling fine for several hours now, but you’re going to be coming down from it soon. Am I right?”

“Where are you going with this?” Derpy demanded. “You aren’t making any sense. Didn't I just tell you that I felt alright?”

Tick Tock nodded. “You did, and I believe you. Why don’t we start with something else? Can you tell me what you know about PBMSE?”

“Not much,” she lied. The truth was written all over her face, but she continued anyway. “It’s a sickness, it makes you stupid, and I don’t have it. Are we done now? I've got things that need doing.”

“It isn’t a sickness!” Tick Tock said. “Derpy, you don’t have anything to be ashamed of. You aren’t out on the Rim anymore; things can be different here.”

The poor mechanic was quickly descended into panic mode. “Things aren’t different anywhere!” she wailed. “Nothing changes, here or anywhere else! They’re gonna think I’m stupid!” She sat against one of the reactor’s support struts, hiding her face in her forelegs so that she wouldn’t have to look at him. “I’m not,” she sobbed. “I'm not! I can be smart!”

Tick Tock sat down next to her, but maintained a respectful distance just in case she was feeling jumpy. “Do you really think that this would change anything about how we see you?” he asked. “None of us are going to look down on you. We owe you too much for that.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Derpy mumbled, her voice muffled by her forelegs.

“Oh, but we do.” He gently touched her shoulder with a hoof, and she went rigid at the unexpected contact. “What would have happened if you hadn’t met the Shepherd on the day you found us?” he asked. “What if it had been some other pony? They wouldn’t have known how to fix the ship. The Empire would have caught us and we’d all be in prison or worse. My sister would have become a science experiment all over again. You stopped that from happening.”

Derpy frowned at the floor, obviously trying to find some flaw in his logic. He was confident that she wouldn’t be able to. “You fixed a problem that nopony else could,” he continued. “As far as I can tell, the day I met you was the first day you’d ever set hoof in a real starship. Now she’s running better than she has in years, and you did it all with no formal training! That goes beyond intelligent, Derpy. You’re practically a genius.”

“You’re just being nice,” Derpy whispered. “You can't tell anypony. Please promise that you won't?”

“I had to tell the Captain,” Tick Tock admitted. “She decides where we fly, so she has to know where to find refills for your medication. Nopony else has to find out.”

A long silence passed, and Tick Tock began to wonder if Derpy had heard him. “You promise?” she whispered.

Tick Tock nodded, and was shocked when she almost bowled him over to give him a hug. “Hey, there’s no need for that,” he said quietly as she sniffled into his vest. He had dealt with crying patients before, but rarely ones that trusted him with such a personal secret.

They also weren't this pretty, Tick Tock thought. His cheeks began to burn, and he was secretly disappointed when she pulled away. “Thank you,” she mumbled shyly.

I should say something, he realized. Despite his remarkable vocabulary, conversation had never been his forte. He tried to come up with something clever to say, or a witty remark about some of the more ridiculous patients he’d had in the past. He wanted to make her laugh, to convince her that everything was really going to be alright.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know where to begin. One poor choice in diction, one poorly phrased expression, and he would ruin the moment. He wished bitterly that he had inherited his father’s social skills. “It was my pleasure,” he said quietly, and knew that he would have to content himself with that.

Author's Note

I’m sorry that this one is shorter than normal. Things have been busy, I’m preparing for a certification, some third excuse…yeah.

Honestly, I feel bad for Tick Tock. I think most of us know that feeling, don’t we? We’ve all had a moment when we wanted to say something encouraging, but we couldn’t quite put the right words together. Some of us more than others. Which is sort of ironic in my case, considering what I do in my spare time.

Allow Lyra to explain what is wrong with the Hollywood version of getting thrown out of an airlock: after the air drains from the room, the pressure is equalized. There might be a bit of a quick rush at first, but there is only so much air in a given space. Once it’s gone, there’s no prolonged suction or anything. You’d still die, but you wouldn’t need to worry about getting sucked through tiny holes like a milkshake through a bendy straw.

Interlude: Air Holes

Hours after Sereneighty left Deadwood, most of the crew could finally relax. It would be days before they reached their next destination, and most of them were looking forward to a few days of peacefully drifting through the black.

Most of the crew was ready to turn in and get some sleep, but a few still had work to do. Derpy was finishing some routine maintenance on the ship’s compression coils; one of them had nearly shaken loose on takeoff. She would be up for a while yet.

Thunderlane had wandered back to his bed after Octavia let him out of the airlock. He insisted that getting stuck inside was purely an accident. He finished off the last of the fancy brandy, toyed with his guitar, and then buried his head under his pillow.

Octavia had retired only after convincing Vinyl to leave the ship’s computer. The DJ had recently finished mixing another song, and it was getting terrific reviews on the Cortex. It took a lot to coax her away from the endless stream of positive comments on her media page, but the cellist wasn’t without her methods.

Bon Bon was troubled. The Companion had noticed that Lyra was very upset about something, but knew better than to ask what it was. Instead, as she had done several times before when something was bothering her, she sought out the Shepherd for a long talk that lasted late into the evening. They both wondered at great length what might be bothering the Captain, but neither had a satisfying answer. When Bon Bon finally returned to her shuttle for a good night’s sleep, Mac decided to keep Derpy company in the engine room.

Although the danger had passed, Lyra couldn’t relax. She knew that she should get some rest, especially since Tick Tock had insisted that it was necessary in her condition, but she was so upset that she knew she would only lie awake in bed. Thunderlane’s betrayal had shaken her more than she let on, and she still didn’t know if she had been right in letting him stay. She sat in her chair on the bridge, plucking her lyre and moodily watching the stars.

The only other pony awake was the ship’s doctor. Tick Tock had spent hours researching drugs that could alter behavior, and had eventually begun toying with the idea of magic inhibitors. When he finally exhausted himself with study, he was annoyed to find that he still couldn’t sleep. He had settled for a different kind of work instead, and sketched a rudimentary design for a simple clock.

Once the ship had been quiet for long enough, something stirred in the cargo hold. An electronic whine sounded from inside one of the tea crates, and small blasts of superheated plasma ripped through the metal hinges securing the crate’s lid.

Moments later, the crate flew open and an extremely disoriented pony in a red space suit tumbled out onto the floor. He got shakily to his hooves, removed his helmet, and shook his head to clear it. A perfectly manicured hoof smoothed back his blue mane.

A cursory check of his oxygen tank revealed that it hadn’t lasted nearly as long as he had hoped. He saw several empty space suits hanging in a cargo locker, and hurriedly replenished his tank. “Dreadful business,” Horte Cuisine complained quietly. “Next time I’m putting air holes in the box.”

Author's Note

Oh, SNAP son! The guy that took out an entire black ops team is on the ship! And he's wearing armor! Except for his face. His face isn't wearing armor.

I practically had to write this whole episode twice. That’s why this took so long. I got all the way to the end and noticed that it was all about Thunderlane, which wasn't the point of Objects In Space at all. I'm still trying to get everything nailed down, so hopefully it'll turn out fine. Bear with me on that, because there are like eight ponies to keep track of here.

No, there's...there's nine. Or ten? I don't even know anymore. Here are some words.

Stealth Mission

Horte Cuisine made for the ship’s bridge first. If anypony was still awake, he knew that they would likely be watching over the communications array. He would need to deal with them before returning to the cargo hold. He could then activate the homing beacon hidden in the bottom of his crate and wait for the rest of his allies to show up.

He didn’t like making so many assumptions about the ship’s sleep cycle. The motion detector in his suit said that nopony was moving, but that didn’t necessarily mean that they were asleep. He would simply have to tread lightly and hope for the best.

We’re certainly taking a lot more chances than usual these days, he thought darkly. I hate field work. Still, there is that old saying about wanting something done right. I might even put an end to all of this trouble myself, Goddesses be willing.

It was almost eerie to find the bridge abandoned when he had been prepared for a struggle. I was told that I would be dealing with professionals, Horte Cuisine thought as he glanced over the ship’s controls. A small, cheaply made lyre was resting against the instrument panel. Is it strange that I’m disappointed?

He turned around and, quite by accident, came muzzle to muzzle with the ship’s captain. Lyra dropped the muffin she was holding, eyes widening comically in surprise. The bandages around her head had been freshly changed, and she must have stopped by the galley on her way back to her post. Her arrival was so sudden that, had his life not been in danger, Horte Cuisine might have taken the time to wonder how in the ‘Verse she had managed to sneak up on him unintentionally.

After a moment of confusion, Lyra drew her pistol. She was so fast that the gun had actually cleared its holster before Horte could even move. Fortunately, he was close enough to swat it out of the air. Had they been standing even a few more inches apart, she could have killed him.

Lyra capitalized on the distraction her gun provided, and the stallion rocked back on his hooves to soften the blow as her hoof made contact with his chin. He reached for his blaster, but her magic yanked it away as it went off. The plasma bolt melted a bit of circuitry in the corridor outside.

Horte Cuisine fought back, and tackled her against the guard rail separating the seating area from the avionics bay. He targeted her head first, thinking that he could capitalize on her previous injury.

The Captain squirmed in his grip, somehow breaking free in her attempt to turn the tables. He grunted as her hooves found his mane, grabbing hold and using it to yank him aside. She punched him hard enough to bruise his jaw and hurled him into the control panel with the aid of her magic. The exertion caused the glow around her horn to sputter, and she grimaced in pain.

Before she could recover, Horte swept her legs out from under her. He kicked hard, aiming for her temple and scoring a perfect knockout.

Lyra’s weakness made binding her hooves foal’s play. Horte Cuisine hoisted her over his back, staggering slightly under the weight, and carried her toward her cabin. He had studied the schematics for Firefly vessels thoroughly, and knew that hers would be the first hatch on the left.

He was just about to dump her inside when she wrapped her forelegs around his neck and squeezed. “I’m quite impressed,” he said as he slipped out of the poorly executed choke hold. She was only halfway conscious, and had no strength left in her limbs. “I admire your spirit, though I do not envy your situation.”

After dumping the rebellious unicorn into her cabin, Horte locked the hatch firmly behind her. He worked his jaw, rubbing gently at the brand new bruises that were going to be forming soon. Sorbet is going to worry again, he thought, sighing internally. Occupational hazard, I suppose. I should make certain the other doors are locked.

After making sure that the rest of the crew were sealed into their bunks, Horte returned to the cargo hold and activated the beacon. He sat down to wait, pistol held at the ready in case he needed to defend himself until help could arrive.

I hate to admit it, he thought, but this plan worked perfectly. He had objected at first to the idea of being quietly slipped aboard an enemy vessel. It wasn’t because he doubted his own abilities; he mostly distrusted the plan it because it was Spitfire’s idea. In the end he had been ordered to go along with it, much to his distaste.

Unfortunately, Spitfire’s questionable competence in her current state of mind wasn’t the only thing that bothered him about the mission. This was the second time that his employer had undermined his authority, and it was beginning to make him nervous. He hadn’t become one of the most dangerous ponies in the entire ‘Verse without developing a healthy sense of paranoia, and that paranoia had been eating at him for weeks.

I don’t even know what I’m here for. I understand that it could be extremely sensitive material or dangerous information, but it’s already been stolen. What would anypony gain by keeping secrets about it while it’s on a ship full of criminals? He looked around surreptitiously, as though worried that his employer could somehow sense that he was about to misbehave. I suppose that I should check to make sure it’s on board. I’m not actually disobeying orders. If anything, I’m going above and beyond.

Horte Cuisine holstered his pistol and trotted up to the galley to begin his search. On the way he slipped some ice into a bag and held it to his jaw.

*****

“You’re really good at this,” Derpy said as she watched Shepherd Mac fiddle with a small radar dish. “Where did you learn to fix electronics?”

“Family had a few machines that had to be taken care of,” the Shepherd grunted. “Weren’t nothin’ like this, though. Mostly Ah just had to know where to find the duck tape.”

“You’ve got the capacitor in backwards,” Derpy giggled. “Also, that’s the wrong kind of wire. The insulation needs to be thicker or it could burn up.”

Mac set the dish down next to the mechanic and grunted in resignation. “Lost cause,” he admitted. “Illegal Cortex connections are mah limit, Ah guess.” Derpy carefully disassembled his work and returned each component to its proper place. He looked down at Vision, who had crawled into the engine room an hour ago and fallen asleep between them. “This one’s gonna give her brother a heart attack when he notices she’s missin’.”

“I know,” Derpy agreed. “He’s been so worried about her lately. It’s even worse than usual. I think he’s afraid the Captain is going to make them leave.”

“Makes sense why he’d think that,” Mac said thoughtfully. “After that incident with the gun, Lyra’s been mighty careful to keep Vision under control. Ah don’t reckon she’d actually throw ‘em out, though.”

Derpy gently rested her hoof on Vision’s shoulder. “Do you still have family somewhere?” she asked. “I mean, I was just wondering. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Mac didn’t answer right away, and at first she thought he was going to be annoyed with her.

Eventually, the big stallion was able to collect his thoughts. “Had a real big family once,” Mac said. “Two sisters and a whole mess of cousins. The sisters did pretty well for themselves; one’s a politician, other’s an engineer. Don’t reckon Ah’d like to say more than that, if’n it’s all the same.”

“That’s fine!” Derpy said, almost before he was finished speaking. She could feel a minor anxiety attack coming on, and quickly tried to change the subject. “I probably shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry. S-sometimes I don’t know when to stop prying.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Mac put one of his huge hooves on her shoulder, apparently unaware that it nearly toppled her over. “No need for it. We’re friends.” He carefully got to his hooves, stretching a bit to work the kinks out of his back. “Reckon Ah’ll go and let Tick Tock know where his sister is. Be back in a minute.”

Derpy waited patiently for Mac to return. After a few minutes she heard a loud clatter in the aft hallway, followed by something heavy dropping to the floor. She trotted out of the engine room to investigate, thinking that one of the maintenance panels must have come loose and fallen from the wall.

A strange stallion with a blue mane shoved a gun into her face and pushed her back into the engine room. “Be quiet!” he snapped when she opened her mouth to scream. “I can promise you that this finely crafted blaster makes far less noise than you would.”

Derpy glanced behind him and saw Shepherd Mac lying on the ground. “Y-you attacked a Shepherd!”

The stranger leaned into the doorway to look at Mac’s limp form. “That was hardly a Shepherd. There’s no need to panic; he’s merely sedated. Turn around, please. I’m quite capable of using force, but I would prefer to leave you unharmed. I think you’d prefer it that way too, wouldn’t you?”

Tears were beginning to wet her cheeks, but Derpy forced herself to nod. Her breaths came in short, frightened gasps as she struggled to keep her wings from flaring. She was descending into a full-blown panic attack, and the stranger knew it.

“You’re going to be alright,” he assured her. “My name is Horte Cuisine. May I ask yours?”

“D-Derpy.”

“I see. My apologies; I was only given information on the ship’s original crew. Now, I can understand why you would be afraid, but I need you to remain calm. I am going to tie you up, and you are going to let me. If you don’t, I will be forced to hurt you.” She shook her head, but wisely remained quiet.

Horte Cuisine pulled several zip ties out of his belt pouch. “I promise that you won’t be harmed in any way,” he said when he noticed Derpy shaking in fear. “If you do as I ask, this will be completely painless. However, I feel that it’s only fair to warn you of the consequences should you decide to disobey.” He reached into the same pouch and pulled out a thin metal rod with a ring on one end. “Do you know what this is for?” he asked. She shook her head, already sobbing in quiet resignation. “It’s used to pull a rope through the hole I’ll cut through your leg.”

“No!” Derpy whimpered.

“It will be extremely painful,” he warned. “Your calf muscles are remarkably tough; I once tied a pegasus down for days, and he still wasn’t able to pull free. By the time I finally let him go he was never able to walk right again. Believe me, this is not a punishment that I enjoy carrying out, but I will if you make me. Do as I ask, and you’ll never have to see me again after today. You’ll spare us both a lot of unhappiness.”

Her wings drooping in defeat, Derpy offered her hooves to be tied together. “I’m glad that you made the sensible decision,” Horte said once he had secured her. “I am going to look around the rest of the ship. If I find what I’m looking for, I will simply take it and leave. If not, I will have to question you about it.”

Derpy looked around for Vision, and was surprised to see that she had disappeared. “I’ll be back,” Horte Cuisine said. “Behave yourself while I’m gone.”

*****

Tick Tock wasn’t sure when he fell asleep, but he woke up with his head resting on his desk and his neck twisted at an unpleasant angle. He sat up and massaged his shoulders, trying to loosen the cramps. The plans on the table in front of him were completely unfamiliar; he couldn’t even remember sketching the device’s basic outline, let alone its inner workings.

The doctor sighed and gathered his papers into a neat stack. Maybe he could work on it later, once he figured out what he had designed.

“That’s a very lovely clock,” somepony said from behind him. Tick Tock screamed and spun around, tossing his papers into the air in a panic. A very bemused pony stood in the doorway of the infirmary, pointing an advanced blaster pistol right at his chest. “Goodness!” the intruder chuckled. “You don’t see a reaction like that very often. At least, not from a stallion.”

“Who are you?” Tick Tock asked, trying to ignore the burning in his cheeks.

“Sir Horte Cuisine, at your service.” The stranger did a little bow. “Well, not really. If anything you’re about to serve me, not vice versa. Where is it?”

Tick Tock looked pointedly around the infirmary. “Could you be more specific?” he asked. “And please don’t say ‘the thing you stole’, because there are probably a lot of those around here.” He picked up a pen from his desk and began nervously toying with it. Hopefully Sir Cuisine wouldn’t notice that he was beginning to sweat.

“Don’t play games with me,” the intruder warned. “I’m sure that you have a fairly good idea of what I’m here for. The Captain would have mentioned it to you. Tell me about it; what it looks like, what it does, how hard it would be to transport. Something this important wouldn’t go unnoticed.”

“You’re asking the ship’s medic where he’s hiding priceless stolen cargo?” Tick Tock asked. “When last I checked, my job description was mostly limited to treating injuries and handing out Band-Aids.”

Horte Cuisine hissed out an exasperated sigh. “I have neither the time nor the patience for this. You will take me to what I’m looking for, or I will mutilate your mechanic. When she tries to fight back – and she will, I assure you – I could easily end up killing her.”

Tick Tock snapped his pen between his hooves. “Now we’re making progress,” Horte said. “Don’t look so glum, Doctor. There’s always a chance that I’ll get careless and you’ll turn the tables. Unlikely, I grant you, but there it is.” He stepped aside, gesturing politely toward the door. “After you. What did you say your name was?”

He doesn’t know that he’s here for a living pony, Tick Tock thought. I assume that’s a good thing, but I haven’t been in enough of these situations to know. The smart thing to do would be to tell him as little as possible, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that what Lyra would do? “Clockwork,” the doctor lied. “Doctor Clockwork. I would say that it’s a pleasure to meet you, but let’s not kid ourselves.”

*****

Despite not finding what he was looking for in the infirmary or the cargo hold, Horte Cuisine was in high spirits as he strolled into the galley. It was only a matter of time until the brown earth pony told him where to find what he needed, and then he could sit tight and wait for the cavalry to arrive. There didn’t seem to be anypony left on the ship to interrupt them, and he was pretty sure that Clockwork wasn’t hiding a gun anywhere.

That said, he was beginning to get a little impatient. “This is the second time you’ve taken me through here,” he said as they finished the circuit of the ship. “I’m beginning to think that you don’t know anything useful. I may have to ask Derpy after all.”

“What makes you think she’ll know better than I would?” Clockwork asked.

“She wouldn’t,” he answered. “I just think she’ll be more honest.” The doctor bristled at the threat, but said nothing more.

They paced through the cold storage area, looking in all of the same spots they had checked last time. “I’m tired of this,” Horte announced before they headed back to the aft hallway. “This is your last chance, doctor. Tell me where to find what I’m looking for, or I’ll turn my attentions to your mechanic. I’d really prefer to settle this without doing grievous bodily harm to anypony, but you’ve given me no other option.”

The lights in the room dimmed, then abruptly flared red. “What is that?” Horte asked as a siren sounded through the ship’s intercom system. “What’s going on?”

“The ship’s on high alert,” Clockwork said. “Somepony must have triggered the alarm.”

Who could have done that? Horte Cuisine wondered. I’ve already sealed off all the cabins. Who did I miss? He trotted out of the galley and looked around the cargo hold, his eyes immediately settling on the thick hatches on either side of the room. Each of them led to one of the small shuttles that came standard with Firefly cargo vessels. Of course! It was foolish to assume that the Companion would run her business from the crew's quarters. What an embarrassing oversight.

He returned to the galley, intending to say something clever about loose ends, and instead saw a frying pan streaking through the air toward his head. Speaking of oversights.

The blow wasn’t backed by a lot of strength on the part of the doctor, but it still knocked him senseless. Horte Cuisine stumbled back, covering his head to prevent another attack, and tried to keep his balance. He teetered on the brink of unconsciousness, knowing that to pass out now would probably mean death.

Slowly, he recovered from the blow and took stock of his surroundings. Clockwork had fled, not even bothering to take the pan with him. I need a new job, Horte Cuisine thought sadly as he checked his pistol’s charge. I am getting too old for this kind of work. He decided to head for the engine room, reasoning that freeing the mechanic would likely be the doctor’s first priority.

The door to the aft hallway wouldn’t budge. It appeared that Clockwork had decided to put the entire ship on lockdown rather than let an intruder roam around as he wished. Smart, Horte Cuisine admitted to himself. I suppose there’s no chance of getting the answers I want now. I’ll just have to survive until help arrives.

He settled in for a long wait, but it was only a few minutes before something clattered across the catwalks outside. Horte Cuisine looked through the small window in the door, and saw a charcoal grey pegasus taking aim with a hideously large rifle. Oh, dear. That might be easier said than done.

Author's Note

I always have second thoughts before submitting. Luckily, I’m usually so sick of looking at it by then that it doesn’t matter.

Wow, have I ever messed up the lengths of these chapters. Please excuse me while I cut and paste behind the scenes. I’m a creator now. I get to say that I’m doing things “behind the scenes”. That’s so cool.

Horte Cuisine is showing his roots in this; he was developed from Jubal Earl’s character, obviously. His fighting style and sophisticated attitude were chosen specifically to contrast with Lyra and Thunderlane. Horte Cuisine obviously had extensive training and refined his abilities through years of practice. Thunderjayne (THEY ARE ONE, as it should be!) is basically just a brute that learned how to fight by… getting in lots of fights. Both approaches have their merits.

What are your thoughts? Let me know!

Interlude: New Enemies

Picking up a pony drifting in space was a bit like throwing a dart and hitting a bull’s-eye six thousand miles away. It took an extremely skilled pilot to get the ship close enough to board without broiling the hitchhiker with the engines or sending him careening off into space after an accidental impact.

Spitfire was one such pilot. Horte Cuising resented waiting for nearly two hours to be picked up, but he couldn’t complain about the rescue once it arrived. A small craft, undoubtedly owned by his obscenely wealthy employer, admitted him with a minimum of fuss and a gentle hiss of pressurizing air.

He removed his helmet and took a relieved breath. “Welcome aboard, traveler!” Spitfire said over the ship’s intercom. “Somepony’s waiting for you in the passenger’s lounge. It sounds like you're in deep go-se.”

“What about the griffon?”

“The tracker in her pistol’s working fine,” Spitfire said. “We’ll pick her up soon enough.”

The ship only consisted of a small passageway connecting three rooms. One was a small bedroom, one was the passenger’s lounge, and the last was a tiny kitchen. At the far end of the hallway was the ship’s bridge, out of which trotted a familiar brightly-colored pegasus. “Wow,” she said as she flashed a toothy smile. “You look awful. Did you mix it up with a dragon?”

Horte Cuisine grimaced at the sight of her teeth. She noticed, and opened her mouth extra wide to show them off. Each had been painstakingly filed to a sharp point over the last few days. “You like them?” she asked. “I think they turned out really well!”

The first pony he saw as he entered the passenger’s lounge was Lotus. She was sitting perfectly still on a sofa, one hoof draped over a mass of blankets next to her. The hole in her throat was surrounded by a ring of clear crystal, showing each crack and fracture in sparkling detail. A thin glaze of silica had grown over the opening like a tiny pane of glass. “Perhaps your code needs to be revised?” Horte suggested. Lotus glared at him, but couldn't answer. “Whatever happened to your sister?”

The blankets shifted, and Aloe sat up. Horte Cuisine gasped at the sight of her crushed skull and mangled face. Everything above the bridge of her nose had been blown away. She looked around as though her eyes were still firmly in place, trying to figure out who had spoken.

The only other ponies in the room were a tall, elegant mare and the stallion standing by her side. The stallion stared straight ahead through glazed eyes, oblivious to everything around him. The mare was a bit more lively, and lounged in her chair with an air of superiority that rubbed him the wrong way. “Fleur de Lis,” she said. “At least, that's who this body belonged to before I came along. You may call me Sombra, if you like. Lovely to meet you.”

“I might have known,” Horte Cuisine said disdainfully. “I see that you’re still hopping from one rich socialite to the next. I was rather hoping that the rumors were true.”

“Hardly,” Sombra said. “The reports of my death were highly exaggerated.”

Horte snorted. “There’s a lot of that going around. Chancellor Applejack’s brother was on that ship.”

Sombra’s eyes glowed with eerie green light, and her jaw set in a vengeful snarl. “Macintosh Apple?” she asked. “Are you absolutely certain? Couldn't it have been some other red earth pony?”

“It was him,” Horte confirmed. “I was fortunate enough to catch him by surprise. Had I any intention of continuing to work for you, my price would be doubled.”

The unicorn’s eyebrows furrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that we are finished!” he snapped. “This operation is a joke! Had I been given tactical command as was promised when you hired me, this job would have been finished ages ago!”

“I assume this is your way of telling me that you've failed,” Sombra said. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about; you were perfectly willing to do whatever I wanted until now. What happened to the discretion you loved to brag about?” Her lips turned up in a self-righteous smirk. “I think I know what's going on. She must remind you too much of that pathetic waif you’ve taken in. Is that it?”

Horte Cuisine was tempted to shoot her, but he wasn’t sure if he would make it off the ship alive afterward. “Oh, I know all about your little friend,” she continued. “A helpless mare found in the wreckage of a slave ship, correct? It’s cute in a pathetic sort of way, and it made you the ideal target. Nothing keeps ponies in line like love. Let’s hope that the story doesn’t end in tragedy, shall we?”

A heavy, dangerous tension filled the air. “I have a terrible feeling that we are about to become enemies,” Horte Cuisine said.

“You have very good instincts,” Sombra said with a disarming giggle. “Are you really surprised? I called you only a week after putting that massive price on both of your heads. Didn't you think that was odd?”

His pistol cleared its holster before she had even finished speaking, and he blasted the insolent mare with white-hot plasma. The beam fizzled as it reached her and suddenly veered off only a few inches from her chest. Flecks of the burning material scattered in all directions like a spray of liquid, peppering the walls and floor with tiny burns. Lotus let out an annoyed wheeze as several patches of her coat were melted, but didn’t seem terribly upset about it.

Sombra’s horn began to glow, and Horte Cuisine felt every muscle in his body seize up. He grunted in discomfort, struggling to break the spell before she killed him. His hooves skidded along the floor as he was pulled toward her, helpless against her magic. "I'm going to offer you a deal," she said graciously. "Before I do, I’ll have to ask you something. It’s a bit personal, but I make sure to ask interesting ponies whenever I can.”

The motionless earth pony watched as her eyes began to glow with an eerie green light. He tried to look away, but in his condition it was impossible to even blink. “It’s very simple,” Fleur said as her irises turned blood red. “What are you afraid of?”

Author's Note

This author's note is going to be a little long (again). Sorry, but please bear with me because WE ARE HAVING TECHNICAL DERPYCULTIES! And by "technical difficulties" I mean "My computer died." I'm sorry for the long delay, but I'm doing the best that I can. I've been working hard to fix all of this and making due without Microsoft Word until I can get it installed on a new laptop.

I'm also trying to change my writing style. I looked over the early chapters of the story, and I realized that I like them much better than the more recent ones. I think I was just having more fun with it. I can't figure out what changed, but I'll work on it.

Apologies to anyone that may have believed my lies. Rule number one of traveling through a universe that I wrote: The Author always lies! (I'm on a bit of a Doctor Who kick.) Here's Aloe and Lotus, no worse for… maybe a little worse for wear. Uh, don't mind that shattered skull. I'm sure she'll be fine. It's probably nothing.

Interlude: Scalpels

It was strange to wake up while under the effects of local anesthetic. Several parts of Thunderlane’s body, particularly his jaw, remained numb while the rest of him ached. He tried to reach up and touch it, but discovered that he had been strapped down to the operating chair.

"Don't move," Tick Tock ordered. "You took quite a beating. One of your molars is cracked right down the middle, and your jaw is badly fractured. I wouldn't try to speak unless you want to make things worse."

The doctor grabbed a small loop of wire from his operating tray. "This should help. Hold still." He looped the filament around Thunderlane's broken tooth and yanked his hoof away as the wire snapped shut, pulling the two halves together with a tiny click. Thunderlane felt something squirming in his jaw as the wire slid into his gums and made contact with the fractured bone. Had he not been completely numb, he had no doubt that he would be in unspeakable pain.

His jaw now reinforced, Tick Tock set about fixing the rest of him. "I could’a beat him," Thunderlane groaned. His words were transformed into gibberish by his numb mouth.

"I'm sure," Tick Tock said. He caught Thunderlane's look and smiled apologetically. "No, really. You've got some deep cracks in your hooves; you kicked him so hard that you nearly made yourself lame. Most ponies wouldn't survive a beating like that."

And don't you forget it, Thunderlane thought. Tick Tock asked him to move his wing, and he tried to obey. "The joint itself doesn't look damaged," he said. "That's good. It's moving, which is also promising. I think you’ll be good as new after a few weeks of therapy."

Thunderlane wasn't looking forward to that. "You're lucky," the doctor continued. "The blast was only an inch away from your spine. You could have been crippled." Then, without changing his inflection in the slightest, he asked "How much were they going to pay you for my sister?"

All at once Thunderlane realized how incredibly vulnerable he was in his current position. Even if he hadn't been strapped down, he was in no shape to defend himself. "That's crazy talk."

"Crazy?" Tick Tock asked. He'd probably had lots of practice talking to sedated ponies. "We'll talk crazy, then. How much?"

For the first time since meeting the scrawny earth pony, Thunderlane felt uneasy looking at him. He remembered seeing a movie once about a serial killer, a monster that could casually talk about his love life while browsing through scalpels and needles like he was trying to decide which candy bar to buy at a gas station. He didn't like to admit it, but the idea that ponies like that actually existed sent a shiver down his spine every time he thought about it.

Now he was alone with one of them, or at least it felt that way. The doctor's cold, clinical attitude felt immensely wrong somehow. He looked past Tick Tock and into the hallway, hoping to see one of his friends there to offer support. "Anypony there?" he called.

The only pony near enough to hear him was Vision, who peeked curiously into the room. Something dark and unsettling glinted in her eyes. "Anypony else?" he asked quietly.

"It's just us," Tick Tock assured him. "Physician-patient privilege and all that. Has it ever occurred to you that you're in a very dangerous line of work? Given your job and temperament, I think it’s safe to say you'll be under my knife often. With that in mind, I want you to listen to me very carefully. Can you do that?"

Tick Tock spoke with the same tone that most ponies would use to deliver a death threat. "Good. I want you to understand that I'm not going to hurt you. I'm a doctor, and you're my patient. When you're on this table, you're safe. You have my word."

The doctor waived a small flashlight in front of Thunderlane's eyes and frowned. "I don't think you have a concussion," he muttered to himself before returning to his previous train of thought. "I'm not going to take advantage of my position. Even if we don't like each other, we're on the same crew. We've got the same problems, the same enemies, and more than enough of both to go around.

"I'm not interested in making this life more difficult than it already is. I've given up everything to help somepony that I care for very much, and I'm trusting you to respect that. We've all got loved ones, after all. I'm sure that you care for somepony just as much as I care for my sister."

Thunderlane glanced at Vision while her brother rambled on. She glared at him, betrayal written all over her face. “I look over my shoulder enough as it is,” Tick Tock continued with a heavy sigh. “I don’t like you, but we’ll just have to coexist. I can’t see this working any other way.” He jabbed Thunderlane’s shoulder with a small injector and calmly trotted out of the infirmary.

Vision watched her brother go. Before she followed, she spared Thunderlane a wary look. "Also, I can kill you with my brain."

Author's Note

You know what's a little scary? Tick Tock's tooth repair thingy is totally inspired by Niska's torture device from the show. I'm sure that nobody in this series will ever use one of these medical marvels to inflict pain.

Sean Maher. God, Sean Maher. Could anyone else see him staring in Dexter? I think he could play a really scary serial killer. Thunderlane does too, apparently.

I'm working on the next group of chapters at this very moment! It's coming, I promise. I'm getting close to being done. Which is good, because once Wildstar releases you might never hear from me again. Super excited.

Interlude: Chain Gang

There was a small planet named Highgate on the edge of the Blue Sun system. Orbiting this planet were two moons, Stonewall and Perth. The latter had never been terraformed properly, and was still a barren wasteland despite the Empire's best efforts. Stonewall had fared better, although its climate left much to be desired.

The only settlements on Stonewall were mining colonies, but the towns that grew up around them were equipped with most of the comforts of home and a few luxuries. Work in the mines was grueling and sometimes dangerous, but it paid well enough to afford a decent life.

Dr. Stable sometimes wished he could handle such backbreaking labor. It would certainly be less nerve-wracking than his current job as the lesser of Forgeright’s two doctors. It was a small town, but he was always very busy.

The morning was hot, as he had come to expect after two years on Stonewall. He watched as a long line of creatures, chained together at the ankles, trudged along Main Street. Each of them gleamed faintly in the morning light, chitin and multifaceted eyes occasionally catching the sun in just the right way. They stared straight ahead, ignoring the small crowd that had gathered to watch them go. Each prisoner carried either a pick or a shovel to do his or her work for the day. Two wagons followed the band, one loaded with supplies and the other empty.

The line was kept in check by several guards, each armed with shotguns and pistols. They served the dual purposes of keeping the prisoners from escaping and making sure the small crowd that turned out to watch kept a safe distance.

At the column’s head was a grim, unapproachable mare with a scowl that could curdle milk. She carried a collapsible rifle in one of her saddlebags, but almost never used it. An iron war hammer, wrapped with gleaming bands of steel and lovingly polished to ward off corrosion, hung in an improvised sling across her right side.

Doctor Stable fell into step beside her. Neither spoke, but a few of the prisoners made snide comments at his appearance. He could pick out the word “maggot” somewhere in the mix of grumbling and insults.

The sheriff, a friendly earth pony named Caramel, met them at the edge of town with his deputy. “Take care, lads!” he called in his musical accent. “She’s a brutal one today, she is.” The mare standing next to him was sky blue, with a wild grey mane that often fell in front of her face. She waved cheerfully as her friends passed

None of the prisoners were foolish enough to make a break for it today; a recent escape attempt was still fresh in their minds, and none of them wanted to end up like the escapee. Mjolna had crushed the unfortunate prisoner’s leg when he ran, shattering bone and chitin as easily as she might crack open an egg. It was the kind of brutality that sent a very clear message.

It was only ten minutes before the chain gang became bored with walking. “Hey!” one of the veteran inmates called. “I heard the law comin’, but I tried to run!” Several of the group immediately replied with “I got sixty long months under the desert sun!”

Doctor Stable noted smiles forming, even among the guards. The song grew in volume and pitch until every prisoner was lending his or her voice. The beat was kept by stomping hooves and rattling chains that kicked up a small cloud of dust behind the grim choir.

Mjolna adjusted her harness and snorted irritably. “About time,” she muttered in a voice that still spoke of her Horsewegian childhood.

“Walkin' the trail, headin’ way out west.
Feel the rhythm deep in your chest.
That iron hammer’s poundin’ out the beat.
Sand and dust far as the eye can see.
This pound of flesh sure weighs a ton!
Sixty long months under the desert sun.

When you hear the law comin’, don’cha try to run.
You’ll get sixty long months under the desert sun.
Sixty long months under the desert sun.”

Mjolna looked at a tall building occupying a nearby hilltop. The Heart of Gold Ranch had once been a productive farm, but in the last few years it had become infamous for something much less wholesome. “Something wrong?” Stable asked. “I mean, besides the heat.”

“Yes,” Mjolna said, and spat into the dirt. Her lip curled with disgust. “Something is very wrong.”

“Like broken glass under your hooves.
They'll say the chains are for your own damn good.
Sun-bleached bones and an iron cage.
No rest for us in this day and age.
I could starve to death without a taste of love.
Sixty long months under the desert sun.

When the Iron Bringer’s comin’, don’cha try to run.
You’ll get sixty long months under the desert sun.
Sixty long months under the desert sun."

Author's Note

This one is really, REALLY long and I've put... I don't even know how much work into it. I really hope it's not a flop, but I think it's finally ready to start. LET IT BEGIN!

You know what this story needs? A villain song. Everyone loves a good villain song. I'm thinking of doing Depeche Mode if I do a spinoff of this. Sing this one to the tune of 99 Problems by Hugo, if you feel like it. I get really excited whenever one of these chapters comes along.
There’s another story that I wrote and posted on a different fanfiction site. There’s little chance that anyone here has seen it, but if you have, shhh! No spoilers! If you've read it, you know the one I mean!

The House of the Rising Sun

Shore leave meant different things to different ponies. Vinyl and Octavia, for instance, saw it as an opportunity to spend time together. They would often take in the sites or enjoy whatever night life they could find on the Border planets. They slept in late, went window shopping, and occasionally got thrown out of nice restaurants when Vinyl’s antics went a little too far.

Thunderlane had his own business to attend to. His plans almost always consisted of drinking, fighting, and finding a mare afterward. Sometimes he mixed up the order to keep things interesting, or attempted to do all three at the same time just to see if he could.

Unlike her friends, Bon Bon saw shore leave as a business opportunity. Every space port had a few lonely ponies with the funds to hire a Companion for the evening. If she happened to eat well and have a lovely time in the process, well, she wouldn’t complain.

Nopony knew what Lyra did during shore leave. If she left the ship, she did so after everypony else was already gone and was back before they returned.

There was a comfortable routine in place between the Companion and her Captain. Bon Bon would announce that she had a client lined up, while Lyra mocked her and pretended not to care. They had been retracing the same steps for a long time, and showed no signs of stopping. It helped keep their relationship strictly professional.

Lyra was sitting in the galley when Bon Bon found her, looking over a small collection of weapons that included her beloved revolver. She was running a cleaning rag through the tiny barrels of her derringer, and had polished the little gun until it was completely spotless. “Lyra?” Bon Bon called. The unicorn shouted and jumped out of her chair. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle.”

“I wasn’t startled!” Lyra said a little too quickly. “I-I was just… it’s sort of a fierce… waaah.” She frowned at Bon Bon’s amused look. “What do you want, anyway? Sneakin’ up on a pony handling their weapon ain’t an overly bright thing to do.”

“You’d be surprised how often I hear that.” Bon Bon frowned at the small arsenal and the dirty towel on which it was lying. “Must you do that here?”

“Only place with a big enough table.” Lyra looked the weapon over and, once satisfied, set it aside before going to work on her revolver. “You need something, or were you just here to see my equipment?” She winced at the unfortunate choice of words.

“I’ll be gone for a few days,” Bon Bon said. “I trust you won’t get into any trouble?”

Lyra glanced up at her in surprise. “A few days? Don’t know who this stallion is, but he must have stamina.”

“She does,” Bon Bon confirmed. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

Lyra chuckled as she removed the cylinder from her sidearm. “Far be it from me to get in the way of your whorin’. Don’t worry about us; we’ll be here when you get back.” She looked over the bronze-colored metal of the gun’s barrel and let out a low whistle. “Shiny. The Moses brothers sure make a fine product, don’t they?”

“Who are they?” Bon Bon asked.

The unicorn rolled her eyes and held up her pistol. “Moses brothers? As in, Moses Brothers Self-Defense Engine, Frontier Model B? Come on, mare. Show some class for Luna's sake.”

Bon Bon giggled and swatted Lyra’s shoulder with her purse. “Says the pony that can’t even set the table properly.” She picked up the derringer and snapped the barrels shut. “Small, concealable pistols go to the far left of the place setting. Any well-bred brigand should know that.” She looked at the pistol in her hooves, noticing a disparity between it and the Captain's other weaponry. “Why do you even have this? It's so tiny.”

Lyra shrugged and dripped some oil onto a rag. “Because it’s pretty."

Nothing in the Captain’s tone indicated that she was joking, but Bon Bon was interrupted by the ship's intercom before she could press further. “Hey, Lyra?” Vinyl called. “I was making one last check of the ship’s systems before we left, and I noticed that we’ve got a distress call coming in.”

“You sure it’s meant for us?” Lyra asked. “Seems a mite strange to contact us instead of the station we’re docked with.”

“It’s for Bon Bon."

Lyra and the Companion exchanged confused looks. “I’ll take it in my shuttle,” Bon Bon said, and trotted out of the galley.

The Captain shrugged and went back to her guns. “Would this distress happen to be in somepony's pants?” she called, and chuckled when she heard Bon Bon groan. She pieced her revolver back together and slid it into her holster.

Lyra stared at a random spot on the wall for a moment, lost in thought. Her pistol felt familiar in the grip of her magic; its comforting weight was like an old friend that had seen her through some of the worst times of her life. The only companion that had been with her for longer was Octavia.

The revolver snapped to attention at eye level, moving so quickly that conscious thought would only have slowed it down. “Waah!”

*****

Bon Bon was thrilled to see an old friend’s face, but she knew within moments that they would not be having a pleasant conversation. The mare’s jaw was tense, her eyes were weary, and her mane desperately needed brushing.

Despite the hard times that had clearly been wearing on her, the former Companion was undeniably beautiful. She and Bon Bon had graduated from the Academy at the same time, and made certain to keep in touch afterward. “Colgate!” Bon Bon exclaimed. “Tzoo-foo nee, mei-mei! How are you? How is the ranch?”

“It's lovely to see you, too,” Colgate said. Her mouth turned up in a smile that no amount of hardship could suppress. “I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“What’s the matter?”

Colgate shrugged. “The same thing as always, only more so. Veiled threats and a pretty pistol aren’t going to be enough to protect us this time. I know it’s imposing, but I don’t have anypony else to call. The Guild and I aren’t exactly on the friendliest of terms these days. You mentioned that you were traveling with some rough types, so… well, here we are. I need some muscle, and I need it fast.”

“It sounds like the kind of job this group can handle,” Bon Bon said thoughtfully. “I can’t promise that they’ll handle it very well, but I’m sure they won’t mind waiving some weaponry around if the payment is there.”

“Payment isn’t a problem,” Colgate assured her. “We just aren’t equipped for this. As long as they’ve got guns and brains –”

Bon Bon gave her friend a badly needed reassuring smile. “They have guns, at least. I’ll talk it over with them. With any luck, we’ll be there soon.”

“Thank you,” Colgate said. Some of the tension eased out of her, an ounce of weight removed from the titanic load on her shoulders. “You’ve got no idea how good it is to hear that. Some of the mares here don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“It’s going to be alright. You know, you could have contacted the High Priestess about this. She’d make an exception to the laws for an old friend.”

Colgate shook her head sadly. “I tried. They wouldn’t let me speak to her. Apparently she's too important to deal with the problems of a lowly sinner such as myself. How is she, by the way? I assume that she’s still allowed to speak to you.”

It took a long time for Bon Bon to decide how to answer the question. She and Colgate had both been trained personally by Lady Rarity, who at the time had been one of the most successful Companions in the ‘Verse. She was more than a decade Bon Bon’s senior, but retained her youthful appearance and energy with seemingly no effort at all. As far as anypony could tell she hadn’t aged a day in at least ten years.

Rarity’s beauty wasn’t the only exceptional thing about her. It was a well-known fact that she was one of the greatest minds in the world of high culture, and the Companion's Guild had flourished under her guidance. Her dinner parties were the most exclusive in the ‘Verse, her charities raked in more money than the GDP of some planets, and her fashion lines often caused lesser designers to burst into tears.

She was also prone to fits of extreme depression and loneliness. The life of one of the Elements of Harmony appeared glamorous only when a pony didn't look too closely, and Bon Bon had been given a very close look indeed. No matter how successful Rarity became, she would never want to trade places.

“She’s doing as well as can be expected,” Bon Bon said after some thought. “The Defense Council isn’t letting her see clients anymore, but they can’t shut down her charities or prevent her from running the Guild remotely. They’ve got a very nice compound set up for her and the others. Her sister gets to visit sometimes.”

“She deserves better,” Colgate muttered. “A gilded cage is still a cage, as they say.”

Bon Bon agreed wholeheartedly. “Lovely ponies, the Defense Council. May they all choke to death on their own inflated senses of self-importance. I’ll tell her that you were asking about her; she likes to be reminded that she still has friends on the outside.”

Colgate nodded, and reached for something off screen. “I hope to see you soon,” she said. The connection went dark, and Bon Bon turned off her monitor.

“I take it you heard that?” she asked.

Lyra leaned in through her door. “Only ‘cause I was eavesdropping. It sounds like your friend is in need of a little help. Why doesn’t she just ask one of the locals? A pretty mare like that could bat her eyes and have every lawpony in the territory at her beck and call.”

“She doesn’t have that luxury,” Bon Bon said. “Ponies like Colgate don’t often get much sympathy from the law."

“And why is that?”

Bon Bon hesitated to answer. “They’re... whores.” She made a face like she’d just swallowed a teaspoon of castor oil.

“I thought you didn’t much like that word,” Lyra said. “What gives?”

“It fits.” The Companion sighed. “Colgate left the Guild years ago. She and another Companion went into business for themselves. They recruited a few locals to help out, and moved into a large ranch house just outside of Forgeright. They’re quite successful, so payment won’t be an issue.”

Lyra waved a hoof dismissively. “Keep your money,” she said. “No debts between friends.”

Bon Bon’s eyes widened slightly. Lyra had turned down work before, but had never offered to take on a job for free. “That’s quite alright,” she said as the beginnings of a blush colored her cheeks. She turned away quickly before the Captain could notice. “You’ll be paid. I think it’s important to keep this a strictly business relationship. I’ll contact Colgate right away to give her the news.”

She didn’t see Lyra’s hurt look. The unicorn quietly trotted away, stung at how quickly Bon Bon had rejected her generosity.

*****

The group assembled in the cargo hold before setting out for the Heart of Gold Ranch. Lyra stood in the center of the room and addressed her crew. “This job’s got nothing offered up front,” she said. “It’s what you might call speculative. You can go with us or stay here, whichever you prefer.”

“Fine by me,” Thunderlane grumbled. The irritable pegasus was draped over one of the catwalks above the rest of the crew, all four limbs dangling over the edges. He was cranky, hung-over, and annoyed at having his shore leave cut short. “Don’t see much need to stick my neck out when I don’t know if I’m getting’ paid.”

“Nopony’s forcing you,” Lyra said. “Shepherd, what about you?”

Shepherd Mac scuffed his hoof on the floor. “Don't know how welcome a preacher'd be in a place like that,” he mumbled. “Still, Ah know my way around a hammer and nail. Don’t feel right just sittin’ by while innocent ponies die.”

“Don’t seem right riskin’ anything for nothin’ neither,” Thunderlane complained. “I don’t know these folks, and I don’t much care to. You ever think about what happens if they can’t pay? Hey, what’s nothin’ split eight ways? Let me do the math here. That’s nothin’, divided by nothin', carry the nothin’. Split that by eight and, uh… hmm.” He tapped his hooves together, trying to work through something in his head.

Vinyl leaned over to whisper in her wife’s ear. “I'm not sure what’s worse; that he tried to use fake math to insult us, or that he actually confused himself with it.”

“They’re whores,” Lyra said.

Thunderlane’s head rose off the floor, his ears perking up at the news. “They're what now?”

Most of the group quickly dispersed after the briefing was finished, but Derpy and Tick Tock stayed behind. “Captain?” the mechanic asked after the others were gone. “Maybe I shouldn't go. I don’t do well with guns.”

“You could always help Mac make the place safe,” Lyra offered. “Doc, the same goes for you. If you’re willin’ to lend a hoof, you’ll be paid for it. I won’t make anypony go, but I won’t stop them either.”

“Hey, Lyra!” Thunderlane called from above. “You said this Companion friend of Bon Bon’s went to the Academy with her, right?” Lyra nodded. “And they were both trained by that fancy unicorn on all them propaganda posters?”

“Sure,” Lyra said. “Bon Bon’s got powerful friends in the Guild. What’s your point?”

Thunderlane frowned at the floor, deep in thought. After a moment he nodded with satisfaction. “I’ll be in my bunk.”

In a moment the implication sank in, and Lyra glared up at him. “You’re disgusting.”

*****

Sereneighty landed a quarter of a mile away from the Heart of Gold Ranch. It was close enough for an easy walk, but far enough away that the wind kicked up by the ship’s atmospheric engines wouldn’t disturb anything around the house.

The house itself had once been impressive, but its appearance was diminished somewhat by the sheets of glimmering metal draped over the walls. A large oak tree stood nearby, stubbornly thriving despite the terrible climate. “That’s the cathouse?” Thunderlane asked. “Why’s it look like a TV dinner?”

“Solar foil,” Derpy explained. “It provides power and helps keep the interior from getting too hot. Neat, isn't it?”

Thunderlane didn’t look satisfied. “Hope the whores are prettier than the house.”

The group was greeted at the door by a plum-colored pony with glazed eyes and a mildly annoyed frown. A curtain of small iron beads hung in the doorway and obscured her vision, but she made no attempt to brush them out of the way. “Wuzzat?” she grumbled, wincing at the bright light outside. “Whaddaya want?”

Lyra and Octavia looked at one another. “Uh, is this the Heart of Gold Ranch?” the unicorn asked. “We’re the hired guns.”

The drunken mare looked both of them over with bleary eyes. “Colgate!” she shouted. “Ponies are here.” She turned and staggered toward the stairs, passing a bright blue unicorn along the way.

Bon Bon pushed to the front of the group and gasped at the sight of her friend. “Colgate!” she exclaimed as the two mares grabbed each other in a hug. “It’s been so long!”

“Two years at least,” the unicorn agreed. She politely kissed Bon Bon’s cheeks, then welcomed the rest of the group inside. The entryway opened into a lovely sitting room filled with couches, reclining chairs, and tea tables. Ponies, zebras, griffons, and even a few diamond dogs were waiting for them with welcoming smiles. Thunderlane stamped the ground in excitement as he began sizing up his options.

“You’ll have to excuse Berry,” Colgate said. “She fell off the wagon a few weeks ago, and we’ve been trying to convince her to sober up. My name is Colgate Minuette, and these fine fillies and gentlecolts are my employees.”

“Captain Lyra Heartstrings,” Lyra said, offering her hoof. They shook, and she indicated her second in command. “This is my first mate, Octavia. I can introduce you to the others later if you want, but you can trust them. They’re all good ponies.”

Thunderlane cleared his throat irritably. “Can I start gettin’ sexed now?”

Lyra’s confident smile immediately fell away. “Actually, that one’s pretty horrific. The rest aren't so bad.”

Thunderlane sidled up alongside a nearby earth pony and put his foreleg around her shoulder. “May we talk business?” Octavia asked, making no effort to hide her distaste. “It may be best if we discuss the specifics of our arrangement in private.”

“In here,” Colgate said, indicating the next room. “For the rest of you, there’s food and liquor in the cabinet. Feel free to make yourselves at home. The girls will help you with whatever you need.”

Distracted as he was, Thunderlane didn’t seem to hear her. “Look at ‘em all!” he said, whooping excitedly. “There’s so much tail in here my belt buckle’s fixin’ to pop off and go flyin’ around the room!”

Vinyl groaned and rolled her eyes. “It figures that you’d get the most poetical about getting laid.”

A pair of mares honed in on Tick Tock, who began to look increasingly nervous as they got closer. “Are you the doctor?” one of them asked. “Miss Colgate said a doctor was coming. There’s a little filly upstairs that hasn’t been feeling well. We can’t pay you, but do you think you could take a look at her?”

Visibly relieved, Tick Tock grabbed his medical bag and adjusted his tie. “Absolutely. Where can I have room to examine her?”

Derpy remained off to one side of the room, content to stay out of the way. “They’ve got stallion whores too,” she said, indicating one corner of the room. Vinyl glanced at a small gathering of ponies that were playing cards around one of the tea tables. “That's thoughtful. D’you think they deal with mares at all?”

“No idea,” Vinyl said. “Probably best if we don’t ask. Why? Are you interested?”

“Oh, no!” Derpy’s eyes widened, and her wings rustled anxiously. “No, I could never! It’s just....” She glanced forlornly at Tick Tock as he followed the mares upstairs. “It isn’t like anypony else is lining up to, um, examine me.” She watched as Thunderlane motioned to a zebra mare on his way out with the earth pony. “Am I pretty, Vinyl?”

The pilot barely managed to stop herself from laughing. One look at Derpy told her that it would have crushed the poor pegasus. “If I wasn’t married and you were into mares, I’d rock your world.”

“Because I’m pretty?” Derpy asked hopefully.

“Because you’re pretty.” Vinyl ruffled Derpy’s mane, glad that she had cheered her friend up a little. “Come on; let’s see what kind of tech we're working with around here.”

While the others attended to business, Shepherd Mac made himself a sandwich. He didn’t have anything to do at the moment, but he knew that soon enough he’d be called on to help fortify the house. He was no stranger to hard work, and preferred not to do any on an empty stomach.

Two of the house’s employees soon approached him. “Excuse me, Shepherd?” one of them asked. She was a diamond dog, but spoke with the refinement of a Core pony. It probably came from having Miss Colgate as a teacher.

“Nope,” Mac said, politely but firmly. “Thanks, but Ah'm fine here.”

The diamond dog’s friend, an earth pony, snickered. “I’m Daisy, and this is Jennie. We were hoping to have a prayer meeting.”

“We haven’t had one in ages,” her friend said. “’Cept what Bluebell reads out on Sundays. Last preacher pony that came by here was Father Springtime, and he only read but one passage. Took it out in trade from the both of us.”

The thought of a preacher taking advantage of anypony like that made Mac feel a little sick to his stomach. Since he'd lost his appetite, he decided that it might be nice to pass the time some other way. “Alright,” he said. “Get whoever wants to listen together.”

*****

Bon Bon waited patiently while Lyra, Octavia, and Colgate talked business. She wasn’t technically a member of Lyra’s crew, and she certainly had no right to weigh in on Colgate’s side of the deal. She had, however, brought the two of them together and wanted to be sure that they understood one another.

“Any idea why this mare wants you gone?” Lyra asked.

Colgate shook her head with the air of somepony that had learned long ago not to ask such questions. “Does anypony really need a reason?” She asked. “We’re whores. Well, they’re whores. I’m retired. Maybe she’s jealous, or she’s decided that Celestia wouldn’t approve of what we do. Maybe she had a bad experience with a stallion and blames us for it.” She snorted disapprovingly. “Personally, I figure she just hates changelings like everypony else around here. If that’s the case, then nearly half of my girls would be on her hit list.”

“Changelings as prostitutes?” Octavia asked. “Is that wise? What if they attempt to establish another hive?”

“There aren't many other options for them,” Colgate said. “They can’t get by on food alone, and most ponies aren’t likely to give them any affection to feed on. Combine that with all the hate in the air these days, and their future starts to look pretty bleak anywhere else. If Mjolna had her way they’d all be in iron cages by the end of the week. I refuse to let that happen.”

Lyra took in the hard setting of her jaw and the battle-tested resolve in her eyes. “I can see that,” she said admiringly. “This law pony sounds like quite a character. I’d like to meet her.”

“Igneous Rock and his family like to throw parties whenever they can find an excuse. There’s a small charity dinner tonight to raise money for the local church. As an officer of the law, she's required to attend.”

“Sounds like as good a place as any,” Lyra said. “Octavia, stay here and see if we can make any plans for fortifyin’ the place. Bon Bon, do you think you could stoop to being on my shoulder for the night?”

The Companion grinned. “Only if you wash it first.”

*****

Lyra didn’t like garden parties. She hated dressing up, brushing her mane, and observing all the little rules of etiquette that high society seemed so enamored with. She also disliked crowds in general, especially when everypony was a total stranger. The fact that most of those strangers were inevitably going to regard her with barely hidden suspicion only made it that much more difficult to slap on the big, fake smile that they were all expecting.

In a way it was refreshing to be treated with open contempt. She could tell that Mjolna wouldn't be very friendly when Bon Bon pointed across the garden to an austere mare in a military uniform. She had taken a table far away from the rest of the crowd, and looked like she was counting the minutes until she could go home.

The only other pony at the table was a handsome doctor that looked much more comfortable with the party than his companion. He smiled at everypony, even the few diamond dogs in attendance, without looking remotely bothered by his friend's attitude. “Here comes trouble,” he whispered as Lyra trotted across the garden.

“Just the hero of another story,” Mjolna muttered sourly. As usual she sounded completely unimpressed.

“Nice place,” Lyra said as she sat down. She politely pulled out a chair for Bon Bon with her magic, missing the Companion’s blush. “Does Sir Igneous throw parties like this often?”

“Sometimes,” Mjolna said. She stared at her glass of water as though wondering if she could somehow manage to drown herself in it. Her posture was so perfect that even Octavia would have called her uptight. “What do you want?”

Lyra glanced down at the hammer sitting next to Mjolna’s chair. “Nice!” she exclaimed, avoiding the question for the moment. “That’s for hunting the fair folk, isn’t it? You don’t see too many of those in the hooves of civilians. I love old war weapons; they’re like pieces of history, you know?”

Mjolna grabbed her hammer and heaved it onto the table. The resulting bang made several partygoers jump. “I made her myself,” she said proudly. “Burns a changeling like nothing you’ll ever see. She’s been with me for near a decade.”

“I know the feeling,” Lyra said. "I've got a wheel gun with a similar story."

“I just bet that you do.” Mjolna dropped her hammer to the ground again. “It’s probably something from the Moses brothers, I think. They were popular with the rebels. Your have the bearing of a Purplecoat, miss."

Lyra nodded and extended her hoof over the table. "Captain Lyra Heartstrings. Guilty as charged.”

Mjolna stared at the hoof without touching it, noting the cracked edges and old powder burns. “Good choice of words,” she said. “My name is Mjolna, and I have nothing to say to you. You are a criminal, I take it? Most of you are, you know, at least the ones that still wear purple.”

For a while nopony was sure how to react. Bon Bon looked nervous, but Lyra managed to keep her cool. “No need for that kind of talk.”

“There is always a need,” Mjolna argued. “You ought to know that, rebel that you were. When you wanted to be free of the Empire, you had need of that kind of talk. When you made your stand at Serenity Valley you talked some more. You Purplecoats do a lot of talking.” She leaned across the table with a smug smile. The sudden change in her attitude was quite unnerving. “You are not talking much anymore, are you? The war put a stop to that.”

“The war put a stop to a lot of things.”

Mjolna raised her glass and took a drink. “Some diamond dogs would agree with you, I think. Four dog soldiers lost for every pony or griffon, was it? I can never remember. I am bad with numbers. I wonder, did any of them talk like the rest of you?”

Lyra shrugged. “They sounded about like everyone else,” she said. Bon Bon could hear the tension in her voice. “If you don’t mind, we’ll take our leave. Bonny, shall we?”

“Oh, and Lyra?” Mjolna asked. “There is a whorehouse nearby. The ponies around here have gotten very suspicious of the goings on there.” She pointed to another table, where a drunken pegasus was trying to argue with the town’s sheriff. “Boxxy Brown lost his wife recently, and he blames the insects nesting in that house. There are many that agree with him. You should stay away from that place if you can.”

“I’ll be sure to give it a wide berth,” Lyra said.

As they trotted away, they heard Mjolna’s companion whisper something to her. “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked. "I was polite!"

Lyra got a good look at the sheriff as they passed. He was a dead ringer for Mjolna’s unicorn friend, but lacked the horn and perfectly combed mane. “Evenin’ ladies,” he said, and tipped his hat to the two of them. Moments later he was dragging the pegasus out of his chair and hauling him off to sober up in a jail cell.

“Lovely town,” Bon Bon noted. “You’ve seen what we’re up against now. What do you think?”

“She’s cute,” Lyra said. “Long legs, pretty face. She’s a bit rough around the edges, but I kind of like that. I’m pretty sure that she’s insane, though. That’s a turn off.”

Bon Bon smacked Lyra’s shoulder. “The plan, Captain. What’s the plan?”

“The plan is, we run.” Lyra began to walk faster, and the Companion struggled to keep up. “We get off this rock as fast as we can, and hope that she doesn't follow us.”

Author's Note

Now we find out why this story doesn't mention the Elements of Harmony much. It's rough being one of the mane six in this universe. You basically live in a high security prison for your entire adult life because you're part of a living super weapon. At least you get visitors... sometimes.

You know what I love about Thunderlane? He is a simple creature. I like to think that his thought process when meeting a lady is basically "Does she want to fight, or could I talk my way into a roll in the hay? Could... could I do both? I bet I could do both if I tried." And that's how he met Gilda.

I had more to say, but I can't remember it. I'm tired. Goodnight. Remember to leave comments and tell me what you think, because I love to hear it.

Small Comforts

Shepherd Mac was prepared for a lot when he sat down to read from the Bible in a brothel. He expected a few inappropriate outfits, or some bad behavior from ponies that didn't agree with Celestia’s teachings. They were easy enough to deal with, and he wasn't worried in the slightest.

The one thing he didn't expect to see was a familiar face. “Howdy, cuz!” Braeburn exclaimed as Mac gaped at his sudden appearance in the first row of chairs. “Small universe, ain’t it?”

Macintosh quickly pulled his cousin aside, apologizing to the rest of the group for the delay. “Have you gone and spit your bit?” he demanded. "Why ain't you helpin' the rest of the family with the settlement? What in the hay are you doin' in a place like this?"

“Workin’!” Braeburn said cheerfully. “What else? The old homestead’s runnin’ a little low on bits, so some of us went to find jobs elsewhere for a while. It’s only until we can scrape together enough cash to keep things going.”

“So you found work in a cathouse?" The preacher nervously pulled at his collar, wondering when it had gotten so uncomfortable. "Breaburn, this... this ain’t the kind of work our family would take kindly to."

“You're workin' here, too!” the cowpony laughed. “Relax, Macintosh. I’m just helping with security and the like.”

Macintosh raised an eyebrow. “Security? You ain’t ever been in a fight in your life.”

If some of the wind was taken out of his sails, Braeburn certainly didn't show it. “Shucks, I know that! There are a few others besides me that handle the rough stuff. I just help carry out drunks every now and then. Folks mostly behave themselves on account of Miss Colgate keeping order, and there are plenty of other things to do; I cook sometimes, and I fixed a fence out back.” He looked Macintosh over curiously. “Is there any particular reason why you’re here? I think I might've seen some of your friends before, and they don't seem like religious types.”

“They’re good ponies,” Macintosh assured him. “Listen, Ah got a feelin’ that things are about to get nasty around here. Might be a good time to cut and run.”

“I couldn't do that!” Braeburn insisted. “Macintosh, these folks have been good to me. They’re payin’ me way more than I’m worth, and the Apple family needs all the help it can get. Besides, there are some real nice ponies here.”

One member of the tiny congregation waved shyly at Braeburn. “And some nice buffalo,” Macintosh noted as the cowpony waved back. “Brae, you’re smarter than this. A good job ain’t worth dyin’ for. You really ought to get out while you can.” After a surreptitious glance around to make sure that nopony was listening in, he added “And for mercy’s sake, just call me Mac. You know better.”

Braeburn’s blindingly bright smile disappeared. He looked much older without it, and the sudden change was as startling as it was depressing. The responsibility of caring for his family was weighing on him, no matter how well he hid it. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I forgot. We miss you back home, you know? Things just ain't been the same." They stood for a while in silence, each wondering what to say next. Braeburn, ever the talkative pony, spoke first. "I ain't leavin', cousin. These folks need all the help they can get.”

"Bad idea," Macintosh grumbled, but he could see that there was no changing Braeburn's mind. "Just keep a lid on things, alright? You know how careful Ah need to be, especially in a place like this.” He looked at the buffalo again and broke into a reluctant smile. “She’s... cute. She got a name?”

“Little Strongheart.” Braeburn’s grin returned with a vengeance. “Nice to see you’re doin’ alright, cuz.”

Macintosh hugged him, thankful for any chance to see his estranged family. “Ah missed you, too.”

*****

Every resident of the Heart of Gold Ranch crowded the lobby that evening. It was a tight fit, but everypony made sure that Lyra had plenty of room. She nervously paced back and forth in the small area allowed to her. “We run,” she said. “The math just doesn’t add up. Our arsenal ain't exactly overwhelming, and I don’t much like what we’re up against. There’s nothing worse than a monster who thinks she’s got some goddess or another on her side.”

“She’s only one mare, isn’t she?” Thunderlane asked. “Can’t we just shoot her?”

“We don’t want to turn her into a martyr. A lot of ponies around agree with her, and they outnumber us. She's got them all scared for their lives and concerned for their families. There's no reasoning with fear like that.” The Captain's face darkened. "Besides, with the kind of training she's had I think it'd be best to avoid tussling with her altogether."

“May I ask why you know so much about her?” Colgate asked. “She’s lived in this town for years, and we didn't know any of this.”

“It’s the hammer,” Lyra explained. “Only a very special kind of soldier carries a weapon like that. During the war, the Empire needed a way to root out changeling spies. Ponies like Mjolna were what they came up with.”

“She’s a changeling hunter!” Colgate spat. “Wang bao dahn!”

Octavia inconspicuously grabbed Vinyl’s hoof as Lyra continued. “Changelings, and other things. All the ones the Empire picked for the job were just... wrong, somehow. None of us really knew what they could do, but you'd hear stories. It was all just rumors; none of us believed it, but it kept us plenty scared. We’re not sticking around to see what this one’s capable of.”

To her credit, Colgate took the news in stride. “I understand, Captain. You have to think of your crew, just as I have to think of my workers.”

Lyra smiled and shook her head. “You don’t get it. When I said we were running, I meant all of us. You get your people together, grab whatever you can’t bear to leave behind, and kiss this place goodbye. We’ll help you find somewhere else to set up.”

Some of the mares and stallions seemed to like the idea. Furtive looks were passed around, and all eyes turned to Colgate. “With all due respect,” she said, “I’m not leaving.” The ranch’s owner calmly walked into the center of the room, squaring up to Lyra and making it clear that hers was the final word on the matter. “I spent years fighting for this place, Captain. It’s a part of me.”

“I know the feeling,” Lyra sighed.

“When I got here, half the girls were drugged up and the others were in withdrawal. In less than a month I was running the place and helping them get clean. Two years after that, one of my mares was with child and the father came looking for trouble. He’s buried out back, along with the previous owner. We’re no strangers to trouble, Captain. We’ve seen our fair share.”

Lyra looked around at a sea of frightened eyes and tense jaws. “She’ll kill you,” she warned. “She’ll kill every last one of you if it comes to that, and she’ll do it with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. She's been conditioned to feel not one ounce of guilt over it.”

“She’s just a mare,” Colgate said. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to roll over and let her take what’s mine. I think you’d do the same.”

Nopony spoke while Lyra mulled over the situation. “I have to admit it,” she finally said. “Mare, you’re my kind of crazy.”

“Doubt she’ll be expectin’ a fight,” Thunderlane said. “Could be that we’ll catch her with her pants down, assuming she’s wearing any.”

Octavia nodded in agreement. “She will most likely attack by daylight, but some caution would not go amiss. I suggest a three point watch with four hour shifts, Captain.”

“Three points,” Vinyl agreed with a stern look, “four hours. That should do it.” Her wife gently patted her on the shoulder, trying not to laugh.

“There’s some lumber in a wagon out back,” Shepherd Mac offered. “Not sure how much is usable, but it could come in handy. Ah’ll take a look.”

Pride stirred in her chest as Lyra looked around the room. Her little group was ready and eager to help, even those that were clearly out of their depth. “Okay,” she began. “When we start shooting, they might try to burn us out. They’ll know that changelings aren’t big on fire. What’s the water situation?”

“Underground well,” Colgate said. “The pump’s old, but it won’t break down on us.”

“Good. Derpy, could you swing an upgrade?”

The ship’s mechanic nodded. “I’ll talk to Sereneighty and see what she’s got that we can use. We could also probably rig up some kind of container and release clamp underneath the ship to dump a few dozen gallons in a hurry.”

“Perfect,” Lyra said. “Vinyl will help you. See if you can fill it with something a bit more exciting than water. Tick Tock, you’re going to be doing pretty much what you’ve always done. Be ready to take care of anypony that gets hurt. Octavia can teach the whores a little something about handling a gun, which is definitely the weirdest thing I’ve had to say all week. Thunderlane is going to set up in the attic. He’ll be our sniper.”

The pegasus had been distracted by a mare hanging off of him, and had to pull his attention away from her. “You’re looking awfully cheerful about all of this," Lyra observed.

“Are you kidding?” he asked. “We’re in a whorehouse, and the whores are payin' me. This is the best job ever!”

Lyra rolled her eyes so hard that she nearly hurt herself. “Charming,” she sighed. “Well, what’s everypony still standin’ around for? Get to it, you lǎn shǎguā! We’ve got work to do, and there’s only a few hours of daylight left!”

*****

Work proceeded at a good pace, especially for the Shepherd. Several volunteers had offered to help him fortify the ground floor, Bluebell and Daisy among them. The two mares went out of their way to work near him, and he was surprised at how much he enjoyed the company. “We’ve been thinkin’,” Daisy said after about an hour. “We know what we want you to read over us if we fall.”

Mac held a wooden plank over the window and plucked one of the nails from his mouth. “Nope,” he said around the rest. His comforting smile brought to mind a father building a tree house. “We only bury the dead, sugar cube. Nopony’s dyin’ here.”

"But would Celestia take us?" Bluebell asked. "If... I-I mean, even though she knows what we are and what we do? Father Springtime said -"

"Enough of that!" Mac interrupted. He scowled and hammered the nail a bit harder than was necessary in his anger. The room shook with the impact. "Don't you listen to a word that pony says, y'hear? Not one word. He ain't a good pony, and he's takin' advantage of you. You don't mean any less to the goddesses than the next mare, and don't you doubt that for a moment. Understand?"

"Y-yes!" Bluebell said quickly. "Thanks, I think."

Mac grabbed another board and held it against the window frame. "Well... you're welcome, I think." They smiled at each other, reaching a strange sort of understanding. It wasn't every day that a preacher befriended whore.

Meanwhile, an impressive pile of weaponry was being arranged in the attic. “There’s no easy way to say it,” Thunderlane said while organizing his rifles. “Somepony’s gonna die. It could be us or them, but more likely it’ll be a few from each side. That means there’ll be blood, screamin’, and all manner of strange behavior. It can scare a pony that ain’t used to it.”

Rose watched his every move with rapt attention. “The important thing,” he continued, “is to keep your head. I’ve got my favorites lined up here, so you just gotta pass 'em to me one after the other. If everything goes right, you’ll be one of them that survives this. Any questions?” She shook her head. “Great! Let’s get started.”

The earth pony leaped into his lap and enthusiastically began to kiss him. Thunderlane was careful to keep her away from his mouth.

The escapades of the ship’s hired muscle were heard one floor below as something heavy tipped over. Colgate looked up at the ceiling, a bemused smile gracing her normally stern face. “Your friend is going to use up all of his credit before he’s earned it.”

“He’s an eager one,” Lyra said. “Not much else to be said about it that doesn't make a body nauseous.” She looked out the window and saw Octavia trying to train some of the ranch’s workers. Braeburn was among them, and wasn't shy about showing off his rifle. Bon Bon had joined in the lesson with, of all things, a bow and arrows.

Derpy and Vinyl were working on Sereneighty nearby, the unicorn lugging around heavy equipment while the pegasus scribbled something on a drawing board. From Lyra’s position it looked suspiciously like a collection of stick figures.

“Well,” Colgate continued, “perhaps you can do a few chores when you’re done saving our lives.”

“I got plenty of experience with a mop,” Lyra offered. She watched as Colgate levitated a small, ornate box down from a shelf in her closet and carried it to the desk. “Shiny. What’s that?”

Colgate raised the lid to reveal a pair of extremely expensive pistols. “The only things the previous owner of this place didn't abuse.” She touched a pearl handle fondly. “I've never fired them in anger before. I think that’s about to change.”

Lyra looked over the weaponry, standing a little closer to the blue unicorn than was necessary. “They’re mighty impressive,” she said. “What’s their story?”

The former Companion chuckled. “Every golden gun ever made has the same story, and it isn't an interesting one; somepony had more money than sense. They were meant to be vanity pieces, nothing more.” She lifted a heavy revolver and checked the cylinder. “They shoot true, but I've always been fonder of the kind you carry; practical, comfortable, and dependable. Too much shine can obscure the heart of the thing.”

Lyra smiled admiringly. “You've got a gift for fine phrasing.”

“Comes with the job,” Colgate said. “At least it did, when I still had the job.”

When the silence became uncomfortable, Lyra took out her lyre. “Do you miss being a Companion? A mare of your talents ought to have done pretty well, I’d think. I hope I’m not prying.”

“I don't mind.” Colgate stared at the pistol for a while before putting it back in the box. “I do miss it, sometimes. It wasn't as difficult as you might think; there’s a lot of fuss over it, but you’d be surprised at how much of it just amounts to being nice. It's sad that some ponies have to pay for that.” Lyra motioned for her to continued, which was quite a thing to do while playing with her hooves. Colgate joined her on the love seat, sitting just close enough that their shoulders brushed against each other. “It’s silly,” she said quietly.

Lyra nodded. “Most things this important are a bit.”

“Maybe it just wasn't a good fit,” Colgate sighed. “I can still hear the High Priestess lecturing me. She kept telling me that I was treating it like a business. I’d always try to say that it’s just that: business, nothing more. She’d go on and on about how beautiful and healthy the relationship was, about how much we were helping by giving the client a pony to talk to. We didn't agree on everything, but I liked hearing her talk about it. Rarity had a way of making you feel better about yourself whenever she opened her mouth.”

For one small, almost imperceptible moment, the iron-hard resolve seemed to abandon her. For the first time since they’d met, Lyra saw what Colgate looked like when she wasn't sure of herself. “It’s funny in a sad sort of way. Being a Companion is just about being there for somepony that needs you, but they never consider returning the favor. Is… is that a selfish thing to want?”

“You don’t strike me as the selfish type,” Lyra said, wishing that he had Colgate’s way with words.

“Berry was always there for me,” Colgate continued, a trace of happiness working its way back into her voice. “I always wondered if she loved me, but I doubt it. Companions don’t normally go for that kind of thing. We get jaded after a while.”

Eventually the sun sunk low over the horizon and Lyra began to wonder where she would be spending the night. “There’s a room ready for you just down the hall,” Colgate offered. “Unless, that is, you’d like a drink?”

In the end duty took precedence over a beautiful mare, much to Lyra’s intense regret. “Probably a bad idea to drink the night before a gunfight,” she said reluctantly. After an awkward goodbye she trotted down the hall to her room.

She was surprised to find a handsome pegasus waiting for her, although in hindsight she should have seen it coming. He leaned against the door frame and winked at her as she approached. “Hi,” he said, flashing a smile that could have stopped the heart of nearly any mare in the 'Verse and more than a few stallions. “I’m Morning Glory.”

“Of course you are,” Lyra muttered under her breath.

Morning Glory glanced behind him at the bed, hinting at a potential business transaction. “Would you like some company?”

By the time he turned around again, Lyra was already knocking on Colgate’s door. The former Companion looked pleasantly surprised as she opened it. “Colgate? I think I’d like that drink now.”

*****

Bon Bon , like many other Companions, had only a basic understanding of first aid. Something as complicated and delicate as a sick foal was completely beyond her. Tick Tock was a bit more knowledgeable, but hadn't been trained as a pediatrician. He made do with running all the tests he could think of and staying as friendly as possible.

His sister was much less helpful, but at least she was staying out of the way. Vision watched little Berry Pinch with the same detached curiosity she used for the rest of the world. "I don't like it here anymore," she had muttered when they first met the little filly. “Something’s got her sick.”

It was heartbreaking to see such a wonderful foal bedridden. Berry Pinch smiled as Tick Tock examined her, happy to be meeting somepony new. She spoke constantly despite her sore throat and cough, spouting an endless string of questions that Bon Bon tried her best to answer. The most amusing question by far was "Are you space pirates?"

“No,” Bon Bon answered automatically, but reconsidered when she saw how disappointed the little filly was. Maybe a little excitement would be good for her. “Do you know what a smuggler is?”

“Is that like when mama tucks me in?” Pinchy asked.

It was impossible not to laugh, but Bon Bon made a valiant attempt. “That’s snuggling, darling. A smuggler is a pony that transports illegal things. Lyra and her crew sneak around behind the Empire’s back all the time, so they’re sort of like pirates that don’t hurt innocent ponies.”

Pinchy’s eyes grew adorably wide. “Do they fight Reavers like Daring Do?”

Again, Bon Bon hesitated to answer. She didn't want to put ideas in the filly’s head, but surely there was no harm in letting her fantasize about a life of adventure. She was obviously going to do it anyway. “Sometimes, and they often have to deal with dangerous criminals as well. They've been in a few tight spots over the years.”

Pinchy's mother didn't appear until Tick Tock was nearly finished. “Your foal is sick!” Bon Bon whispered harshly. "Where have you been?"

“Does it matter?” Berry Punch asked tiredly. Her breath smelled of red wine, and her eyes were unfocused. Every few seconds a hint of green would shine through, spoiling the illusion. “How is she?”

Tick Tock ruffled the filly’s mane. “I think she’ll be just fine,” he said. “She seems to be on the mend. I can’t find a thing wrong with her, and her fever’s broken. She needs to drink plenty of liquids, and some hot soup wouldn't go amiss. Keep her in bed for a day or two and make sure she takes her supplements.”

“I will,” Berry said numbly. “Time for bed, honey.” Her daughter complained as she was tucked in, but Berry was very firm. Tick Tock led Bon Bon into the hall so that they could talk in private.

“Is something wrong?” Bon Bon asked. “Is Berry’s daughter really going to be alright?”

“I think so,” Tick Tock said. “It’s the mother I’m worried about. I’m not sure that she’s the best thing for her daughter right now.

Bon Bon gasped. “What an awful thing to say!”

Tick Tock gave her a hard, disapproving look that he had relied on for years whenever dealing with unruly patients. “Bon Bon, she’s been drinking since we arrived here this morning. I don’t like saying it any more than you like hearing it, but alcoholics aren't usually candidates for Mother of the Year. She needs help, for her daughter's sake just as much as her own. Nothing good comes from ignoring an addiction like this."

Bon Bon looked at Berry, who was quietly singing her daughter to sleep. Her words were a little slurred, but the love behind them was undiminished. "What do you want me to do?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Tick Tock said, "but don't Companions often provide a form of psychotherapy? That training could be very useful here. It might be good for her to talk to a friend about her problems."

"Fine," Bon Bon sighed. "I’ll see what I can do. You just focus on getting ready for tomorrow; there are going to be plenty of other ponies for you to worry about."

Tick Tock trotted away do prepare his makeshift operating room, Vision trailing close behind him. "So," Bon Bon said when they were gone, "how about some soup? It might do her some good to eat something before she rests."

"I think I'm a little hungry," Pinchy said. "Can I have some soup, mama?"

Berry smiled and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “Of course you can, honey. We’ll be right back.” She stumbled out of the room, inviting Bon Bon to follow her.

They had a quiet talk while Berry prepared a small meal. The purple mare slid a bottle of wine out of a rack sitting on the counter while she waited for the soup to cook. “Is that really a good idea?” Bon Bon asked. “It might be best to stay sober while your daughter recovers.”

“Yeah,” Berry said bitterly. “It would be.” She uncorked the bottle and took a drink.

Bon Bon gently laid a hoof on Berry’s shoulder as she sighed into the bottle. “Are you alright, dear? Is there anything you’d like to talk about?” Berry mumbled something so quietly that she probably couldn’t even hear it herself. “What was that?” the Companion asked.

Berry sniffled and tried to wipe her eyes, spilling a little wine on the floor in the process. “I make a terrible mother.”

This is worse than I thought, Bon Bon realized. She gently led Berry to the kitchen table and helped her sit down, subtly taking the bottle away as they walked. “I doubt that very much,” she said. “You love your daughter, dear. Anypony could see that.”

“Can they?” Berry asked. “I’m not so sure. I’m raising her in a whorehouse for Celestia’s sake! Things should have been easier after her father died, but sometimes I just….” She buried her face in her hooves and sobbed quietly. “I want to be the mother she needs, but I'm not. I'm trying, Bon Bon. I’m trying so hard.” Her voice became choked with tears.

Bon Bon was familiar with emotional decompression, and could see that this had been building for a long time. She hugged Berry and let her cry, glad that everypony else had turned in for the night. The alcoholic mare was free to vent all of her frustration and insecurity in relative privacy.

Some of that frustration was most likely related to Colgate. Poor Berry was never very good at expressing herself, and had been expelled from the Companion Academy after only a few months for that very reason. Colgate had helped her find a job, and that small act of kindness had earned her Berry’s undying devotion.

Unfortunately, that lack of communication skills continued to haunt her. Even for a changeling, Berry was abnormally desperate for affection. Sometimes Bon Bon wondered what kind of life she had endured before joining the Guild.

Author's Note

Good news, everyone! Someone brought up something important in the comments. I’d like to remind you that this story, especially the finale, doesn't end the same as it does in the show. So, if you're dreading someone's sudden but inevitable death, you can relax. They are no more or less likely to die than anyone else.

You can admit it. When you saw Braeburn, you probably thought the same thing as Macintosh for a second. Also, I just... I just realized that I never checked to see if we know how old Little Strongheart is in the show. She's an adult, right? She acts like she's about the same age as the mane six.

Read, enjoy, and don't be shy about dropping a comment. You guys know how much I love those.

Lynched

Colgate wasn’t stingy with her liquor, and Lyra greatly appreciated it. “So,” she began, “somepony was waiting for you. Why is that a problem?”

“I don't mean to insult your workers,” Lyra said as she accepted a glass with half a hand of whiskey in it and took a small sip. “Good stuff,” she remarked. Her hooves played a few chords on her lyre while she managed the drink with her magic. “Most Companions don’t have a taste for good whiskey.”

“You’re dodging the question,” Colgate teased. “What’s the matter, Captain? We’ve all got needs, even former Companions. There’s no shame in it.”

Lyra shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Having needs isn't the issue.”

Colgate sat next to her, gripping her own glass in one hoof. “There’s no shame in that either. I don’t judge. I must say, I’m surprised that more of you haven’t taken us up on our hospitality.”

“Well, we’re an odd bunch.” Lyra began listing off the members of her crew, raising a hoof to count them off only to realize that she could only count to one. “We’ve got two married ponies, a Shepherd, and a mechanic that can't look at anything but our medic.”

“And the medic?”

Lyra grinned and sipped her drink. “I figure he’d have to relax for thirty seconds, which would be nothin’ shy of a miracle. Besides, he’s as taken with Derpy as she is with him.”

“What about you?” Colgate asked. “My girls are clean and kind-spirited if that’s more your way. They don’t judge, either.”

“I’ve just got the job on my mind.” Lyra focused on her music in an attempt to keep from blushing. She drained her glass, and it was immediately refilled. “It’s a distraction I’m not keen on with all that's goin' on around here.”

Colgate’s smile, which had been warm and comforting until now, became just a little predatory. “I was a Companion, Captain. I’m very good at reading ponies. You spent more time looking at my pistols than you did the mares downstairs.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lyra asked.

Colgate shrugged and took a little drink, savoring the taste. “Just that you and Bon Bon have a lot in common. She’s quite a mare, you know. She took to the training even better than I did, and I was practically a prodigy.”

Lyra nodded, remembering the many clients that Sereneighty's “ambassador” had entertained over the years. “That sounds about right. She’s good, no denyin’ it.” She glanced at the case containing Colgate’s pistols. It was tempting to change the subject again, but she decided against it. "I guess you’d know her better than me, going through training together like you did. How are we alike?”

“You hate complications.” Colgate’s face brightened as the music’s melody changed. “I recognize this one! I learned to play it on the dulcimer at the Academy. It was part of my training.”

“And you don’t have a dulcimer anywhere in your room,” Lyra noted. “I guess that means the training didn’t take.”

Colgate’s glass nearly ran empty, so she floated the bottle over to top it off. “You could say that,” she said. “You could also say that I nearly became the first mare in history to use one as a murder weapon.”

“That must have been quite a sight,” Lyra chuckled. “Who was the intended victim?”

“My music teacher.” Colgate frowned and sipped her drink, upset over the memory but not overly so. “He kept telling me that I was playing the music, but not feeling it. What does that even mean?”

Lyra noticed that she was sitting a lot closer than she had been a few moments before. “Could mean a lot of things,” she said, wondering if she should maintain a respectful distance. She decided not to, since she had a pretty good idea of were all of this was going. “In the interest of self-preservation I won’t go into it.”

“I think that might have been the beginning of the end for me as a Companion,” Colgate mused. “Before long the Border was the only place left for me. I learned to say ‘ain’t’, packed up my things, and set out for a life of adventure.” She indicated the house around them with a look of bemusement. “This is what adventure looks like. Life’s full of disappointments.”

“You turned it into a nice place,” Lyra said.

Colgate snorted into her glass. “It was a hellhole. Putting a stop to all the terrible things happening here might be the greatest thing I ever did. Berry was a big help when I needed her, and I owe her a lot.” Her eyes became slightly unfocused as an errant thought crossed her mind. "We used to be closer than this. It was actually a bit unprofessional of us, I suppose. We were never good at following rules."

The music rose in volume after they had both fallen silent. Colgate hummed a few bars and reached up to dab her eyes. “This song always makes me cry,” she said after a while. “You’re a very talented musician.”

“And you’re a remarkable mare,” Lyra replied. “I hope that’s okay to say.”

The former Companion chuckled, a little tipsy now that they had been drinking for a while. “As long as it’s you saying it and not my fine whiskey.”

“It takes a lot more than this to blur my judgment.” Lyra turned to the side and tried to strike a heroic pose. “What about me? Am I gettin’ any prettier?”

“By the minute,” Colgate said. A moment of silence passed as they looked at each other. “Everypony’s asleep, Captain. I'm sure that Morning Glory has given up on you by now. If you like, you can go back to your room.”

“Or?”

Colgate rolled her eyes impatiently. “Jen mei nai-shing duh FWO-tzoo! Or you can kiss me, you silly mare!” Without hesitation, Lyra did just that. She hadn't kissed anypony in a long time, and was worried that she wouldn’t be very good at it. Colgate obviously didn’t mind, and by the time they parted both of them were out of breath. “I’m not Bon Bon,” she warned. “And you aren’t Berry. We have to understand that.”

“Yeah,” Lyra agreed. She floated their glasses aside, setting them on the bedside table where they wouldn’t be in the way. Her lyre hadn’t missed a note yet, and probably wouldn’t for the rest of the night. “I know. You and me are the only two here.”

*****

Most mornings caught the town of Forgeright by surprise. The sleepy little town would wake just after the sun rose, as though doing a double take before realizing that the day had already started. Wives would wake husbands, parents would wake children, and the streets would be noisy for a few busy hours as everyone tried to make it to work on time. The mines would soon echo with the cries of foreman and the orders of line bosses as indentured workers pried ore from the selfish planet with precise tools and slightly less precise sticks of dynamite.

Today was not like most mornings, and it made Dr. Stable nervous. The town was dead quiet. He met Mjolna for coffee at the Salt Lick, just as he had every morning for the last several years. He liked the routine, while Mjolna... accepted it. He wasn’t convinced that she could actually enjoy things in the same way that other ponies could.

As usual, she sat ramrod straight. Doctor Stable hadn’t realized that it was possible for good posture to look so uncomfortable until he met Mjolna. “How are the teeth?” he asked, desperate for conversation. Mjolna wordlessly opened wide to show him. Every tooth on the right side of her mouth had been replaced with an unbreakable crystalline replica that was surgically bolted into place. “Oh, good. Be sure to let me know if they start hurting again.”

“Of course,” Mjolna said. She went back to her coffee, and the silence returned. Doctor Stable couldn't remember the last time he’d been this uncomfortable at breakfast. It probably had something to do with the angry crowd forming outside.

The rest of the townsfolk were gathering in the square, led by an angry pegasus. “Aren’t you worried?” Stable asked. “Something’s wrong here. I don’t like the way Boxxy’s getting everypony all riled up.

“I am not paid to worry,” Mjolna said calmly as she added sugar and cream to her coffee. “My job does not begin for another hour. Mr. Brown is still grieving for his late wife, and I don’t feel like stopping him. Let the Sheriff and his wife take care of it if he gets too belligerent.”

“Do you think they could?” he asked. “There are a lot of angry ponies around here.”

Mjolna showed a rare hint of amusement. “We both know what he is capable of. He and Screw Loose are good at what they do.”

“They aren't bulletproof,” the doctor pointed out. “As far as we know, they aren't immortal either.

“Close enough.” Mjolna sipped her coffee, and that was the end of the conversation. Doctor Stable sullenly went back to his own cup, wrestling with the sense of dread brought on by the growing tension of the last few weeks.

A gunshot startled them both. Mjolna grabbed her hammer as they ran to the door and pulled the curtain of iron beads aside for her friend. “Thanks,” Stable said as they hurried outside. He stayed behind her as she scanned the street for danger, but neither of them could see anything amiss. “Where did it come from?”

“I do not know,” Mjolna admitted. “A single shot is difficult to pinpoint.”

The angry cries that came soon after, however, were very easy to follow. “I will be back,” she said.

Doctor Stable reached out to put his hoof on her shoulder. “Be careful,” he warned. Mjolna flinched at his touch, and he quickly pulled away. “Sorry. I forgot.”

Mjolna tightened her harness. “I am not angry. Stay here, doctor.”

*****

Lyra couldn't remember the last time she hadn't woken up alone. She smiled at Colgate’s sleeping form and quietly crept out of bed. The former Companion’s perfume clung to her coat, and her lips still tasted faintly like whiskey. All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to start the day. She ran a hoof through her mane in a futile attempt to straighten it, grabbed her coat and gun belt, and began to get dressed.

“Busy morning?” Colgate mumbled sleepily.

“Morning before a fight is always busy,” Lyra said. “I’d better get to it. I’ll see you downstairs.” She kissed Colgate’s forehead and threw on her coat before slipping out into the hallway.

Bon Bon nearly ran into her, and took a few startled steps backward. “Captain!” she exclaimed. “I’m terribly sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going.” She slowly took in Lyra’s half-buttoned coat and messy mane. “I take it you’ve acquainted yourself with Colgate?”

“W-what?” Lyra stammered. She subtly nudged Colgate's door closed with her hoof. “I was just, uh, talking. We were talking about… stuff, and things. Big fight today!”

“Lyra, please.” Bon Bon put a friendly hoof on the frightened unicorn’s shoulder. “I’m glad that you and Colgate kept each other company. She’s a dear friend, and probably in need of some comfort right now."

Through sheer force of will Lyra swallowed her embarrassment for the moment. “I-I didn’t want you to think I was takin’ advantage of your friend,” she said.

Bon Bon flashed a mischievous grin. “I certainly hope you did; Colgate is worth taking advantage of.”

“So you’re alright?” Lyra asked. She smacked her forehead. “Yeah, of course you’re alright. Why wouldn't you be?”

“Not entirely,” Bon Bon admitted. “I’m a little appalled by her taste.” She sashayed past the Captain and nudged her with a shoulder. “Ponies in my profession rarely feel embarrassed about sex. I’d recommend that you try it, but judging from what I see here the training would kill you.”

The Companion ducked into the first room she came across, careful to keep the smile on her face. She shut the door behind her and took deep breaths, anxiously trying to find her center so that she could meditate.

Lady Rarity would be very disappointed if she could see her student now; a Companion needed to be at peace with herself whenever possible, and Bon Bon was anything but. She felt wretched, and hated herself for being so selfish.

Lyra was happy. That should have been reason to celebrate, especially since the Captain had lived such a hard life for so many years.

Bon Bon sank to the floor, desperate to keep quiet lest somepony overhear her. Lyra was happy, and it was with somepony else. For a long time she sat in the dark, alone and heartbroken for reasons that she didn't fully understand. There were tears at some point, but she wasn't sure when they began or ended.

After she had finally started to calm down, the door opened and Colgate stepped in. She was surprised to see Bon Bon at first, but quickly put the pieces together. "Oh, la mei, I'm sorry! I didn't know you felt the same."

"It's nothing," Bon Bon insisted, but she knew it didn't sound very convincing. "Please don't tell Lyra." Colgate hugged her, and she began to cry all over again.

*****

When morning came, Octavia woke even earlier than normal. She carefully climbed out of bed, shifting her weight as slowly as possible to avoid waking Vinyl, and immediately tripped over the pilot’s discarded flight suit. All pretenses of stealth abandoned, she set about getting ready for the day. She brushed her teeth, brushed her mane, and then brushed her coat for good measure.

Sometimes she wondered if the sophistication of a pony could be measured in brush strokes.

"Hey, 'Tavi?" Vinyl mumbled sleepily as she was zipping up her vest. "Are you scared?"

"Yes." Octavia had never been very good at sugarcoating her words. "Why do you ask?"

Bleary red eyes stared up at her, a hint of shame hiding behind them. "Because I am, too. Mjolna sounds like a tough customer. She's, like, Nega-Lyra."

"Nega-Lyra?"

Vinyl nodded. "Yeah, like how superheroes always have an evil version of themselves. Mjolna's been through the same kind of awful stuff, but it turned her evil instead of good. She probably wears a scary dominatrix version of Lyra's outfit with the colors inverted."

Octavia rolled her eyes. "Somehow I doubt that."

"I'm allowed to dream." Vinyl grabbed Octavia's shoulder as she passed. “Be careful.” She didn't try to ask what the chances of survival were; there was an unspoken agreement between them that such things were Octavia’s concern.

"I will be," Octavia promised. She kissed Vinyl's nose, collected her gear, and tied her bow-tie. After quickly checking her weapons, she set off to examine the house's defenses.

Most ponies were still asleep, but she encountered a few early risers as she trotted downstairs. The first was a small changeling that fluttered down from the building’s attic. She was surprised to see that the creature wasn't in disguise, since all the others were quite careful to stay in character. They probably felt safer that way, given the unfriendly sentiments around town. Maybe a client had made a special request.

Octavia suddenly remembered that there was only one paying customer in the house at the moment, and felt a little sick to her stomach. There were some things that she didn't want to know about Thunderlane, and this was definitely one of them.

She inspected the windows on the first floor, making sure that they were secure. Satisfied, she made her way outside to find Derpy hard at work on Sereneighty’s bow. It was still dark, but the pegasus had set up work lights around the ship. A large water tank had been attached just behind the bridge, looking for all the world like a gaudy necklace around the ship’s neck. “It is very early to be so busy,” Octavia noted. “Did you have trouble sleeping?”

“A little,” Derpy admitted. “I got nervous. I thought that working might help.”

“I know the feeling,” Octavia said. “A distraction can be quite comforting sometimes.” She turned to face the sunrise and tried not to think about the odds they would face later in the day. She and Lyra had faced worse in the past, but never without losing a friend. Horrible as it was, Octavia found herself hoping that it would only be one of the prostitutes that died, and not one of her adopted family. She very nearly hated herself for thinking that way.

The morning slowly grew brighter, revealing the miles of dusty hills that surrounded the Heart of Gold Ranch. The landscape was painted a dim orange, the overcast purple sky draped over it like a protective blanket. It was a pretty sight, and both mares stopped to take it in.

Derpy happened to glance at the ranch’s oak tree. She squinted suspiciously and angled one of her work lights to better illuminate it. She was sure that something was off about the shadows in the branches.

A brown mare with a blond mane was hanging from her neck, twisting slowly in the morning’s breeze. Octavia ran over to investigate, ignoring Derpy’s screams for the moment.

A heavy iron hammer was dangling from the mare’s harness, speckled with dried blood. Her mane was full of grit, and her face had been scraped raw in some places. Somepony had dragged her here, probably by the very rope that now held her up. A grimy old rag had been stuffed in her mouth, and a folded note was pinned to her harness. “You must be Mjolna,” Octavia sighed. She drew a small knife from her vest and reached up to cut the rope. "I wish we could have met under better circumstances.”

Mjolna’s hooves snatched her own, and her eyes snapped open. Octavia's startled scream was even louder than Derpy's.

Author's Note

Lyra doesn't measure whiskey in fingers. She measures it in hands because she is a silly pony. You... yeah, you get it. It was funny to me okay!?

Look, I'll just say it. I feel odd writing about pony prostitutes. It's... it's just weird. Maybe it was a bad idea to do the episode set in a cathouse. I hope this isn't too icky for anyone, since the actual deed is mostly just talked about and never actually described. That, and I threw in the occasional crude joke like having a male prostitute named "Morning Glory." I was rather proud of that one.

This is a very important chapter, even though it's short. This is where I totally break from the show's story. I hope I do well going forward. As always, constructive criticism is a great thing to have. Let's not forget that my major motivation is to get better

Tricked

“It don’t make sense,” Thunderlane whispered as he watched Tick Tock bandage Mjolna’s leg. She winced every time the doctor touched her, and shook with the effort of holding still. “How’s she still alive?”

“The rope was caught on her harness,” Octavia said. “I suppose the pony hanging her failed to notice in the dark.”

Lyra was talking quietly with the changeling hunter, and looked less happy with the situation by the moment. After a while she nodded and tried to shake Mjolna’s hoof, but the earth pony pulled away. “I do not like to be touched,” she explained. “It is not personal.”

The Captain called for the rest of her crew and locked the doors so that nopony could listen in. She even made all of them touch an iron nail to be sure they weren't changelings in disguise. “Things have gotten a bit out of control,” she said when she was sure that they were alone.

Octavia held open the note that had been pinned to Mjolna’s harness and read it aloud: “Leave while you can. You have one hour. The sheriff’s dead, so nopony is coming to help you. We only want the bugs.”

“Surrender Dorothy,” her wife added gloomily.

Lyra snatched the note and crumpled it up. "Forget about the torches and pitchforks," she said. "We might have a bigger problem than some angry villagers. Mjolna thinks that one of the changelings around here isn't what she's pretending to be, and I don't mean just playing at being a pony for a customer."

"A murderer," Mjolna explained. "An old acquaintance, as it happens. Her name is Chitur, and she is one of the most dangerous criminals I ever hunted. I would have caught her during the war if I hadn't been... detained." She shivered and reached up to touch her jaw.

A terrible, sick feeling was building in the pit of Lyra's stomach. She had seen that kind of nervous behavior before. "Ezra?” she asked.

Mjolna's hoof dropped to her side, and her jaw tightened. Her eyes lost a bit of their focus and intensity. It wasn't quite a thousand yard stare, but it was headed in that direction. "That's right. I spent three months digging in the mud and the dark while soldiers in purple coats watched us work. Over time, we saw that those of us pulling carts lasted longer than the diggers.”

Her lips pulled back in a humorless smile to show her false teeth. A pony missing those teeth wouldn't be able to hold a pickaxe or a shovel, but they'd also have a very hard time eating or talking. "I made... arrangements. A pony can sacrifice all sorts of things in the name of survival.”

Lyra met her gaze without blinking. "I know."

As they stared at each other a silent understanding was reached. "Serenity Valley," Mjolna murmured. "Of course you do."

It was too easy to dwell on the ghosts of the pasts, and there just wasn't time for it. Lyra forced any unpleasant memories as far away as she could and tried to focus on more immediate concerns. “Thunderlane, get back up to the attic and keep an eye out. Let us know when the shooting’s about to start. Vinyl, you and Derpy get back on the ship. You’ll do the most good there. The rest of us need to figure out how we’re going to find Mjolna’s changeling.”

“It will not be easy,” the hunter warned. “I spent eight months chasing Chitur across three different planets. She is very smart. In the beginning I used cold iron to expose her, but she discovered that mimicking another changeling would make the iron test useless.”

“Could be worse," Lyra said. "At least she's not a queen. I hear that iron doesn't burn them at all, so they’re practically impossible to expose.”

Mjolna nodded in agreement. “Once we find her, we will have to subdue her. That could be even more difficult; she has been here for weeks, if not months. A changeling that has been feeding for so long can be almost impossible to kill without the use of iron. The more love they consume, the more punishment they can take.”

Octavia cleared her throat politely. “I was under the impression that changelings prefer to replace ponies in positions of power.”

“That would normally be foolish,” Mjolna said. “It attracts too much attention. Then again, Chitur was always vain and may not be in her right mind anymore. It’s possible that she would make a mistake like that.”

“What would happen to the ponies around her?” Lyra asked. “What kind of effect does a changeling have when she feeds on a pony?”

Mjolna shrugged. “It is not always the same. Boxxy Brown’s wife was the latest victim, I think. She became paranoid near the end. Some ponies get depressed or become angry at nothing. Many times, young foals become quite ill.”

“And if one was a recovering alcoholic? Could she go back to drinking?” Mjolna nodded, and Lyra began to feel a little nauseous. She was going to need a long, cleansing shower when all of this was over. “I think I know who we’re after. Mjolna, you need to stay here with Tick Tock. You’ll probably just slow us down. The rest of us are going to split up and find Colgate.”

The others left right away, but Lyra stayed behind for a word in private. "We won't be able to stop them, will we?" she asked. "They'll try to burn this place to the ground even after we give them what they want."

"It's possible," Mjolna admitted. "Boxxy Brown was well respected before all of this. If he has his way, we'll be dead by noon. He blames this place for his wife’s death just as much as the changeling that killed her; he was sleeping here instead of in his own bed."

"Perfect," Lyra said with a tired sigh. For a moment she had a terrible feeling that she was forgetting something. “Have you seen a crazy little earth pony around here? I think we might have lost her again.”

*****

It was no minor annoyance to be stuck in an attic all alone. Thunderlane wished the angry mob would get a move on, because he felt like he would go insane if he had to stay in such a confined space for much longer. At least Rose had been able to entertain him, but with all that was going on he couldn't risk letting her keep him company.

The attic’s door swung open behind him, and his changeling climbed up through the hole in the floor. Speak of Discord, Thunderlane thought as he put one of his legs around her. “Sorry, la mei. You can’t be up here.”

“Why not?” she asked, a little hurt at being refused. “You said I could help!”

“Captain’s orders,” he sighed. “Some business about a killer changeling runnin’ around. Lyra wants me to keep watch alone until they've sorted it out. It sounds like a load of niou fun to me, but I've been wrong before.”

Rose pulled away. “Fine,” she grumbled sullenly as she backed away.

“We’ll play later,” Thunderlane promised.

The distinctive sound of a shotgun being pumped made his blood run cold. “I’d rather play now.”

Thunderlane instinctively leapt into the air moments before his chair was blasted to pieces. The gunshot was deafening, and shards of wood cut into his flank. He crashed into the wall, unable to fly in such a confined space, and scrambled across the floor as another load of buckshot skimmed through the top of his mane.

He tumbled down the access ladder and into Daisy, knocking both of them to the ground. “Don’t just stand there!” he snapped. “Run!” Daisy rose above him on shaky legs, a haunting green light shining from her eyes. He wasted a moment gaping at her before snapping back to his senses. “Never mind! I’ll run. You stay here.”

Daisy’s friend, a diamond dog with a name that he couldn't remember, snuck up behind him and wrapped her paws around his throat. “Hold him still!” Rose called from the attic, her voice deepening into the multi-pitched warble of a changeling.

Vision chose that moment to peek around the corner. Thunderlane managed to roll his eyes even though he was in the middle of being throttled. I hate this job, he thought as Daisy tried to grab her. I should have just stayed on the ship.

A swift blow to the dog’s sternum freed him, and he bowled Daisy over on his way to Vision. “Quit squirmin’!” he snarled as he snatched her off the ground. He rocketed down the hallway, feathers lightly brushing the walls as he tried to ignore the painful twinge in his wing. He hadn't completely finished healing from his fight with Horte Cuisine, and Vision's added weight wasn't doing his damaged muscles any favors.

Rose fired after them, and almost nicked Thunderlane’s wing. The wall exploded, pelting them with dust and splinters as Vision screamed. “Pipe down!” he shouted. Soon they would be at the stairs, and he could finally get out of the line of fire.

Colgate trotted into the hallway, a gold-plated pistol floating in her magic. “Gorram dirty whores!” Thunderlane spat as he quickly dropped to the ground. The slug that could have killed him buried itself in the ceiling and showered them with powdered plaster.

He was out of options, and had no time to think of a way out. The recoil had pushed Colgate’s revolver off target, but it would only take her a split second to line up another shot. He could hear Rose pumping her shotgun behind him. In moments he and Vision would be dead.

His eyes settled on a nearby window. “This is the worst whorehouse ever,” he complained as he clutched Vision tightly to his chest. He threw himself across the hall and into the glass, bending his wings around the earth pony in a protective canopy.

Thunderlane had never jumped through a window before, but he knew that it didn't happen like in the movies. He braced for the pain, knowing that the jagged shards would cut him to ribbons. He could feel the jagged pieces sliding against his coat, and hoped that somepony would be able to patch him up before he lost too much blood.

It could have been the adrenaline that kept him from feeling anything, or maybe he was going into shock. He spread his wings shakily, clinging to Vision so tightly that she almost couldn't breathe, and glided down from the house’s second story. He landed a few hundred yards away next to Sereneighty and shook himself off. Broken glass flew in every direction.

Once he had settled down, he let Vision go and looked himself over. From his head to his hooves, there wasn't a mark on him apart from a few missing feathers. “Tzuh muh luh?” he asked, so surprised that it didn't even occur to him to feel relieved. “Why ain't I all cut up?”

Vision looked up at the window and snorted angrily. “Shouldn't have been throwing the ball inside. You could break something.” She reached up and plucked a shard of glass from Thunderlane’s mane. “You should be more careful.”

“Never can tell when you’re suddenly gonna start makin’ sense,” he said. “We’ve got to get back in there."

"Company!" Vision warned. She pointed to a large group of ponies that was approaching from the road into town. Thunderlane swore and yanked her away as the first gunshot cut through the morning air.

*****

Tick Tock stared up at the ceiling as though he could watch the action unfolding upstairs through the wood and masonry. “I think those were gunshots.”

“They were,” Mjolna confirmed. One of her hooves rested on her hammer's grip. "If we are fortunate, your friends just found Chitur and killed her. We'll be able to offer her to the townsfolk to make them back down."

"Then why are you grabbing your weapon?" he asked.

Mjolna smiled and pointed to her battered face. One of her eyes was swelling up, and her lip had been cut open by somepony’s hoof. The raw patches of skin around her jaw were starting to scab over, but would probably leave a permanent scar. "Do I look like a fortunate pony to you?" Her caution was vindicated only a few minutes later when Rose snuck into the kitchen. She pulled Tick Tock underneath the dining room table and clamped her hooves over his mouth.

The changeling awkwardly tried to adjust the shotgun strapped to her back. She was clearly not used to carrying a weapon at all, much less one so large. After making sure that she was alone, Rose opened the basement door and trotted down the stairs. “Funny,” Mjolna whispered. "I remember another house with a changeling in the basement. I burned that one down.”

“We have to tell somepony!” Tick Tock whispered. “She’s cornered down there. If you keep an eye on her, I’ll go find Lyra.”

Mjolna crawled out from beneath the table and grabbed her hammer. She wouldn't be able to slip into her harness, so she settled for resting the weapon across her shoulders. "You may look for whoever you like," she said. "I will be downstairs."

"You can't!" Tick Tock said. "You're injured, and she's got a gun. She'll kill you!"

"No," Mjolna argued. "She has tried before, and she failed. I will be back soon." She limped toward the basement, leaving the frustrated doctor beneath the table. Descending the stairs was tricky with two injured legs, but the steps were concrete and wouldn't squeak beneath her. She went slowly, setting each hoof down as gently as possible while holding her hammer at the ready.

The basement was pitch black, and she was smart enough to leave it that way. Changeling eyes often glowed in the dark when they were well fed, which made it difficult for them to hide. Mjolna breathed deeply, inhaling the faint ammonia smell that she had come to associate with changeling nests. Her ears swiveled, searching for any signs of life in the dank rooms beneath the whorehouse.

This wasn't the first time that she had been alone in the dark, and it wouldn't be the last. A changeling hunter's life mostly consisted of stalking through one gloomy, foreboding place after another. She had traversed caves, basements, mine shafts, and even sewers many times over the years. A good hunter learned to use the darkness instead of hiding from it.

A very faint echo led her to a door. It was just a supply cupboard, but the back had been dug out to form a small tunnel that led deeper underground. She followed it, crouched low and clutching her hammer in her teeth.

The telltale green glow of a nest caught her attention, and Mjolna peeked around an illuminated corner. Rose was standing in front of a glowing chrysalis of hardened changeling resin. Her victim was encased inside, dead to the world and trapped in a place halfway between dreams and reality.

Mjolna grimaced as her behavioral conditioning kicked in. She flicked her tail anxiously, reining in her feelings and suppressing them with cold logic. When she felt ready, she snuck up behind the changeling and cleared her throat.

Rose spun around and caught the iron hammer right across her face. Her disguise disappeared in a flash of green light as the chitin cracked and ignited. She fell with a wordless scream, thrashing about and clutching at her cheek as it sizzled.

For a moment it was tempting to gloat. Mjolna had spent a long time chasing this wretched creature, only to knock her out in a dark basement with no trouble at all. The urge to rub it in only lasted until she noticed the second chrysalis in the room. It was sitting directly behind the first, so in the gloom they had been difficult to tell apart. This one was empty, but she didn't think it would remain so for long.

"She isn't alone," Mjolna whispered, slowly backing away. "Celestia, help us. How many more?"

"Just the one," Chitur said from behind her. A flash of green light lit up the basement, and Mjolna collapsed in a heap on top of Rose. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets as she struggled to cling to consciousness. "Not to worry. I’ll fix that soon enough."

The earth pony's limp form was pressed against the green membrane of the second pod, and she began to sink inside. She struggled weakly as the green fluid filled her mouth and nose, then abruptly seized up and gave in to the sedation spell. "Hush now," Chitur whispered. "I've got work to do, and you could use the rest." As she gathered up Mjolna's things, she looked over Rose's ruined face. The younger changeling was probably going to die from her injuries.

It was a shame, really. She had shown promise.

*****

Lyra was quickly reaching the end of her patience. She and Octavia had scoured the attic for any signs of Thunderlane, but the pegasus had disappeared. His radio was still sitting next to his chair, and the walls had been blasted apart with one of his shotguns. “Somepony caught him by surprise,” Octavia said.

“Yeah,” the unicorn agreed. “At least there isn't any blood. It looks like he made it out alright.”

Octavia pointed to the window. “We seem to be out of time, sir.” Lyra followed her gaze and spat out a colorful string of profanity. A long procession of ponies was approaching from Forgeright with a brown pegasus out in front, heavily armed and out for blood.

“Ta ma de!” Lyra swore. “Come on!” She ran toward the stairs and nearly crashed headlong into Mjolna, who was hobbling along with her hammer clutched in her teeth. The head dragged the ground, bumping against the steps and scarring the wood.

The injured mare made it to the top of the stairs and sat down heavily, groaning in pain. “I looked for Chitur in the basement,” she said. “No luck.”

“Figures,” Lyra muttered. She heard some of the defenders downstairs opening fire, picking out the distinctive crack of Braeburn's rifle. “We’re out of time. Octavia, get downstairs and keep an eye on things. Try not to kill anypony, but don’t be afraid to wing them if they get too close. We need to buy as much time as we can. Mjolna, you’re with me. We'll check Colgate's room first.”

Octavia glanced nervously at Mjolna. “But, sir, I think –”

“It's alright,” Lyra said. She clapped Mjolna on the shoulder and grinned. “Don’t worry, ‘Tavi. We can handle this.” Octavia stared at her, then at the hoof on Mjolna's shoulder, and finally at Mjolna herself. She nodded politely and marched down the stairs to prepare the ranch's defenses.

Once they were alone, Mjolna trotted into Colgate's room and poured herself a drink. Green fire flared up around her, burning away her disguise and revealing the changeling underneath. It was obvious at a glance that she wasn't like the others; numerous fractures and scars crisscrossed the plates of chitin on her back and sides. Her eyes were tired, her hooves were cracked, and she was missing part of her horn. This was what a changeling looked like after it had been through Tartarus.

"What tipped you off?" she asked.

"Lots of things," Lyra said. "The blood on your hammer, for starters. You should've cleaned it off."

Chitur downed a shot of whiskey and went back for another. She reconsidered at the last moment and tossed her glass aside in favor of the whole bottle. "Hell with it," she grumbled sourly. "I used to be better at this. I was even good enough to fool the Ironbringer! That's no small thing, y'know?

"You've got one chance to turn yourself over peacefully," Lyra said. "This doesn't have to get bloody."

"You think I'm worried about blood?" Chitur asked. "I've seen more than my fair share, Captain. Didn't Mjolna tell you where she finished chasing me?" Lyra shook her head, and the changeling sneered disdainfully. "Reaver territory. She chased me into Reaver territory. I might be a criminal, but nobody deserves that."

Thoughts of Spitfire sprang to mind, and Lyra cringed. Changelings could sense the emotions of anypony nearby, much like a reader could sense thoughts. Being around Reavers was probably torture for them.

Chitur shut her eyes and drew in a shaky breath. There was a sob hidden in her voice, waiting to come to the surface at any moment. "There was so much pain. So much anger. There's only one logical thing to do when confronted with that kind of evil, Captain."

"And what's that?"

"You give up on logic altogether." Chitur looked out the window at the mob circling the house. "I can’t begin to describe what I saw," she said. "It made me realize how... how small we all are. I know what I have to do now; I want to make a safe place for changelings. We're starting over, right here in Forgeright. One day we'll be strong again, even if I don't live to see it."

"There's a whole mess of folks outside that aren't going to let that happen," Lyra said.

The changeling grinned, displaying a single curved fang. The other was missing. "They'll see things my way soon enough. In the meantime I'll just hand over Rose's body. Nopony out there will know the difference. Once I go out there dressed as a famous changeling hunter and carrying a dead changeling, they'll believe anything I tell them. They might even apologize for getting in the way."

Lyra pulled out her revolver and took aim. "And us?" she asked. "Got any bright ideas that can outsmart a bullet?"

Chitur nodded as the bedroom door flew open. Colgate stood in the doorway, her pistol drawn and her eyes glowing with unearthly green light. She wasn't Chitur after all! Lyra thought. She was undeniably relieved, but this raised a troubling question. I feel a lot less violated now, but who did Chitur replace?

Instinctively, Lyra's pistol spun around and fired. Colgate's revolver flew out of her control as the bullet deformed the gold-plated barrel, rendering the gun useless. A name came to mind as she leapt into the hallway and knocked Colgate senseless. It had to be Berry Punch. Chitur's become an alcoholic, so she swapped placed with another alcoholic to avoid raising suspicion!

Lyra snatched up the ruined revolver and backed away from the unconscious unicorn. "You need better help," she taunted as she turned to face Chitur once again.

A ray of green light struck her in the forehead and electrified her body. Her muscles locked up, and her teeth ground together as she struggled to fight back against the surge of magic. Glossy black chitin slid against her coat as Chitur put one leg around her. Warm laughter tickled her ear, and she shuddered in revulsion. "What a lovely idea." The world disappeared in a sea of green, and Lyra felt herself falling.

Her eyes closed, and then she felt nothing at all.

Author's Note

I'm... tired of writing this sad story. I think I'll write something happy now.

Unchained

The morning came with all the fury of a goddess scorned, blinding Lyra with the full power of the sun. In desperation she reached out with her magic for her last line of defense against Celestia's wrath.

The blinds closed, and she rolled over to go back to sleep. She expected to find Bon Bon lying next to her, but the earth pony's side of the bed was cold and empty. Lyra sat up, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and looked around the bedroom. No sign of her anywhere, she thought grumpily. How am I supposed to sleep until noon all by myself?

She lay in bed a while longer, but couldn't get back to sleep. Resigning herself to a (relatively) early start, she rolled out of bed and took care of her morning routine. She found Bon Bon downstairs behind the small glass counter that showed off the variety of treats she had for sale. Her candy shop took up most of the first floor of their home.

"There you are!" Lyra exclaimed as she nearly tackled her marefriend to the floor. "Where have you been? You know I don't like waking up alone."

"I've been working," Bon Bon said patiently. "Which I'd like to get back to, actually. You're lucky that we don't have any customers at the moment."

"Darn right I am." Lyra kissed her, cutting off any further objections. She trotted into the kitchen and began making breakfast.

Bon Bon took a short break to eat with her and make plans for the day. Once they were finished and the dishes were cleaned, Lyra went for a walk around town. She brought her lyre along just in case she felt the urge to play. The weather was as bright and sunny as ever, even though the weather team was having trouble getting coordinated. Rainbow Dash was doing her best to keep her flyers organized, but there was just no helping some ponies.

Thunderlane was probably the worst offender. "No, no, no!" Dash admonished him as he frantically tried to straighten out his section of the sky. "Cumulus over here, stratus pieces over there. Get it together!"

There was a cool breeze blowing through the park that prevented the day from becoming too hot. It ruffled Lyra’s mane and played through her tail, teasing her like one of Bon Bon’s mandatory brushing sessions. She went for a quick gallop, letting the ground fall away beneath her as she made the most of the perfect weather.

When she finally got tired, she plopped down on her favorite bench and began to play her lyre. It helped relax her after the run, and she slowly caught her breath while clouds obscured the sun. There was a storm scheduled for tonight, if she remembered correctly.

The rain was still a few hours away, so there was no need to worry about it. Lyra leaned back in her seat, shut her eyes, and eventually drifted off to sleep. So far, the day was off to a perfect start.

*****

Wooden benches don't make for very comfortable beds. Lyra found this out the hard way when she woke up with a terrible crick in her neck and sore hips. Why did she bother sitting like this if it was so uncomfortable? She groaned and tried to get her bearings, unsure of how long she had been asleep.

It was probably around lunchtime, judging by both the crowded market and her own growling stomach. She thought about stopping at Sugarcube Corner on the way home, but decided against it. Bon Bon would have a fit if she thought her own marefriend was buying from the competition.

Lyra passed a few of her friends at the Apple family’s cart. Applejack usually sold the produce herself, but today she was busy helping Applebloom with another of the filly's harebrained schemes. Her brother had taken over in her stead. "Morning!" the unicorn called. Big Macintosh smiled and waved to her as he counted up the current customer's bits.

There was a mangy black goat standing in line. Something about it seemed to suck all the life out of the surrounding area, like a sudden cold spot in an otherwise warm room. It watched Lyra with unfeeling blue eyes, its rectangular pupils contracted in the sunlight.

She fought off a shiver and continued on her way. Bon Bon was still working the counter, and had just sold a heart-shaped box of chocolates to a brown earth pony with an hourglass cutie mark. He trotted away with a smile, brushing past Lyra at the door. "How's business?" she asked.

Bon Bon smiled warmly. "You're a waste of time."

Lyra nodded absently and headed toward the stairs. She paused halfway across the room, trying to process her marefriend's words. "What did you say?"

"I said 'business is fine'. What do you want for lunch? We've got a few things for sandwiches and some apples from that nice farmer pony."

Lyra rooted around in the kitchen until she found something to eat. Bon Bon joined her for a little while, but she had a shop to mind and couldn't be away from the counter for very long. They talked about music, and Lyra mentioned giving lessons again for some extra cash. The idea would have been more appealing if she didn't hate being around small foals.

"They cut her open." Bon Bon raised her eyebrows at Lyra's surprise. "The Cakes, I mean. They can't stay open. If they don't bring in more customers, they'll go out of business."

"Oh. Yeah, uh, I figured. That's a good thing, right? More business for you."

Bon Bon shook her head sadly. "They've got two foals and a mare that might as well be their daughter living in the loft. Even if it would help my business, it'd be terrible if they had to give up the bakery. They don’t have any other source of income, and they've worked so hard at it."

"I guess so," Lyra agreed, a little annoyed that Bon Bon was so sympathetic toward her rivals in the dessert business. She berated Lyra endlessly whenever the unicorn bought something from Sugarcube Corner, but insisted that she felt bad when they came on hard times. Lyra thought about crying hypocrisy, but that would probably ensure that she would be sleeping on the couch tonight.

The rest of the day passed as summer days often did. Lyra played her lyre, helped Bon Bon sell her sweets, and goofed off when nopony was looking. By the time the shop closed, she and Bon Bon were both ready to turn in.

Lyra cleaned up the kitchen while Bon Bon showered. After taking her turn, they snuggled against each other in bed and drifted off to sleep.

*****

Lyra woke in the middle of the night without anypony lying next to her. She rubbed her eyes and rolled over, wondering what had disturbed her.

Bon Bon was standing at the window, a frown souring her pretty face. "Bonny?" Lyra mumbled sleepily. "What's wrong? Come back to bed."

"You already know the answer to that," Bon Bon sighed. "You're going to ruin me, Lyra. This is your lonely, lonely life and you've got no right to trap me in it."

"What in the hay are you talking about?" Lyra asked. She rolled out of bed and put her foreleg around Bon Bon's shoulders. The earth pony didn't respond at all, neither pushing her away nor leaning into her. "You shouldn't say stuff like that. Whatever's bothering you, we can talk about it. We'll... what is that?" Something outside drew her attention, and she realized that Bon Bon was staring at it as well.

The goat was watching her. It stood in the middle of the road, so black that it seemed to cast a shadow on the darkness surrounding it. Its vibrant eyes were the only things that stood out in the gloom. Even with the wind and rain swirling around it, the creature never blinked.

"I'll hate you," Bon Bon whispered spitefully. " You know that, don't you? You're just going to drag me down until I'm as miserable as you. One day I'll think of the life I could have had and I'll realize that I was always better off without you."

"Why would you say that?" Lyra asked. Tears blurred her vision as a lump formed in her throat. "Bonny, I love you! I-I'd do anything to make you happy!"

Bon Bon's anger suddenly disappeared. The change registered too fast, like a jump from one scene to another in a poorly edited movie. "Don't look at it," she warned in a very different voice than she had been using a moment before. "Once you've seen it, you can never forget. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

Lyra tore herself away from the goat's hypnotizing eyes. She couldn't remember when she had gone back to watching it. "What's going on, Bon Bon? What is that thing? Why are you acting like this?"

Bon Bon rubbed her eyes, and for a moment they glowed green. "It's what I brought back with me from Reaver territory. There are some things that we aren't meant to see, Lyra. We're so small, and they are all so very large."

The goat was gone when she looked again, and Lyra clenched her eyes shut. "I'm just dreaming," she said. "In a minute I'll wake up next to you and promise myself that I won't eat sweets before bed anymore."

Cold, bitter laughter filled the room. "Keep telling yourself that. It just makes my job easier." Her fangs glinted in the twilight as she smiled. "Go back to sleep, Captain. Go back to dreaming about a happy ending that you know you don’t deserve and a mare that you know you'll never have."

"No!" Lyra shouted as she stomped across the bedroom. "You shouldn't talk like that! I'm not listening! I-I won't listen! Wo shang mei er, mei xin, bian shi tou!" The awful lie of her cozy life began to sink in, and it brought her to tears. She wanted to go back to sleep, to wake up in the morning and forget all about this awful dream. Some small part of her knew that would never happen, and she cried at her inability to ignore it. "I'm happy here!" she whimpered. "I just want to be happy!"

"You will be," Bon Bon said. She went back to staring out the window, a melancholic sigh on her lips. "Ponies like you fight it on a subconscious level. You’re so used to misery that it doesn't feel right when you finally have what you want. It isn't easy to work around that." She rambled on, not noticing that Lyra had stopped crying. "Captain?" she asked, her ear twitching at the angry growls behind her. The smell of rot made her wrinkle her nose. "Are you paying attention?"

Lightning illuminated the room as Bon Bon turned around. Her eyes widened at the mass of ragged flesh and sharp teeth that lunged for her, snapping hungrily at her neck. She screamed as the Reaver crashed into her, throwing both of them through the window. Lyra's enraged howl drowned out the sound of shattering glass as they plummeted into the storm.

*****

The sunlight was blinding. The glass cut into her flesh. The wind whistled by, blowing shards from her mane and bringing tears to her eyes. Through it all, Lyra could only see the changeling in front of her. Her hooves had closed around Chitur’s neck, and she felt chitin cracking beneath them as her grip tightened.

They landed in the back of a wagon filled with lumber. Lyra ground her teeth in pain as something in her shoulder gave out with a quiet pop. “Chur ni-duh!" she screamed. She grabbed Chitur's horn and yanked her head back until the vertebrae ground against one another. “You want to make me happy? Then you can die!”

A storm of dust and wood splinters kicked up around them as Sereneighty flew overhead. Lyra smashed the changeling’s head into the boards beneath them over and over again, shouting obscenities and shutting her eyes to keep splinters out of them.

For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, she hadn't felt the familiar sense of inadequacy eating away at her. She hadn't felt like damaged goods or a lost cause. She had been loved unconditionally, and had returned that love in equal measure. For the first time in nearly a decade, she had been truly happy. It was one thing to long for such a life, but to have it dangled in front of her and then cruelly snatched away was more than she could bear.

By the time her legs gave out, the wagon was coated with green ooze and flecks of chitin. Chitur's face had been brutally caved in, and luminous blood dribbled through the floorboards onto the dry dirt. It took everything she had not to pass out right then and there on top of the broken body.

The best she could do, unfortunately, was to lean in the other direction. It was a short fall out of the wagon and onto the unforgiving ground. She coughed in the dust that swirled around her, exhausted and hurt in ways that weren't purely physical. A growing feeling of dizziness made her wonder how much blood she had lost, but she thought that it couldn't be anything serious. After all, hers hadn't been the first body through the window.

Something moved in the wagon above her. Like a corpse rising from its grave, Chitur rolled onto the ground next to her and barely managed to stay on her hooves. Her broken legs were quickly mending, and the deep cracks in her chest were being stitched up by glowing sparks of green magic. Her face had already been restored, although she was still missing some teeth. "I admit it," she said. "I'm impressed. If you'd tried that a few weeks ago, I would have been done for."

Lyra groaned and tried to roll over. "You're too late, Captain," Chitur said as she stomped on her injured shoulder. The pain was blinding, and her scream quickly became a breathless sob. "I've been eating well, and I'm overflowing with magic! A lowly thug like you couldn't possibly hope to threaten me. I could even take on the Ironbringer herself if she weren't already trapped in one of our pods!" A strange, oscillating whistle made her cock her head to the side. “Do you hear that?”

Mjolna’s hammer struck the changeling just behind her withers, shattering her spine and breaking apart the tough plates on her back to reveal the sensitive tissue underneath. Chitur collapsed with an agonized scream as her hind legs went limp. Green flames flared along the edges of the wound, and continued to smolder after the initial brush with cold iron.

Lyra saw the Ironbringer watching them from the upstairs window. She must have lost consciousness, because when she looked again the earth pony was standing next to her. “You look awful,” she grunted.

Mjolna gave herself a once-over. She was covered in green slime, and had torn open a few of the doctor’s stitches. “You do not look so good yourself,” she said with a trace of amusement. She grabbed her hammer and casually slung it over her back. “What made you think that going through the window was a good idea?”

Despite the pain and weakness keeping her down, Lyra smiled. “Seemed like the thing to do. Where’ve you been?”

“In the basement,” Mjolna said. “I was taken by surprise. Very embarrassing.” She looked over at Chitur, who was desperately trying to crawl away using only her front legs. Her back was slowly knitting back together, but it wasn't healing fast enough to do her any good. “Excuse me, Captain. Duty calls.”

"Jian huo!" Chitur shrieked as Mjolna stood over her. "Do it, you bitch! Just—"

A sickening crunch filled the air, and Lyra let out a breath that she hadn't realized she was holding. She rolled onto her stomach, determined to get her hooves underneath her. “You’re badly hurt,” Mjolna warned. “You shouldn't move.”

“I’ll be hurt later,” Lyra said. Standing up was so painful that it almost made her reconsider. She shifted onto three legs, shaking with the effort of supporting her own weight. “Get the body so we can go greet our guests.” Mjolna shrugged and grabbed one of Chitur’s legs in her teeth, an unsettling grin on her face as she followed the unicorn.

The posse had hunkered down just outside of rifle range while it tried to decide what to do next. There was a lot of arguing, but it died down as the unlikely pair approached. Lyra heard several startled gasps, along with plenty of swearing. She looked down at herself and was surprised to see a steady trickle of blood flowing down her legs. The trip though the window much have cut her much worse than she'd thought.

The only thing she could come up with to fix it was a rudimentary coagulation spell. Lyra wasn't a powerful unicorn, but she had picked up a few very basic spells over the years that sometimes came in handy. This one wouldn't be enough to save her on its own, but it might keep her from bleeding to death until she could get some real help.

“This here’s the killer you're after!” she said as Mjolna dumped the body in front of them. Everypony except Boxxy Brown took a startled step back. “You can all go home.”

"What happened to her head?" somepony whispered.

Lyra leaned over and spat out a glob of blood, causing a small stream to flow from her nose. This is just stupid, she thought grumpily. Is there any part of me that isn't bleeding? “What do you think? Look, as much as I like standing around in the hot desert sun, I'm running a little low on blood and patience right now. Are we done here?"

Boxxy Brown stepped forward to loom over the exhausted unicorn. “It’s a trick!” he warned. “You all know what changelings are like, and more’n half of the whores in that house are bugs in disguise! If we stop now, it won’t be long until somepony else winds up dead. Is that what you want?”

“He’s right!” shouted a mare directly behind the pegasus. “Burn the nest! It’s the only way to be sure.”

"This doesn't have to turn into a bloodbath," Lyra warned.

"It won't," Boxxy said. He hefted a shotgun, holding it casually over his shoulder."You’re bleedin’ to death right in front of us. We've got more guns than you, and way more bodies to use 'em. What do you have?"

Sereneighty roared overhead, the heat from her engines causing everypony's eyes to water. The tank on her belly opened to dump several hundred gallons of burning fuel between the mob and the cathouse. The flames surged across the ground, leaping high into the air and causing the crowd to backpedal frantically. "Desperation,” Lyra answered calmly. “It can drive a pony to do just about anything.”

She pressed the barrel of her revolver into Boxxy’s neck, making sure that the rest of the crowd could see it. “Don’t test me, friend. There are some good ponies in that house, and a little filly that hasn’t seen her real mother in weeks. They’re dear to me, and you ain't.”

“This isn't over,” Boxxy warned. “They don’t have the money to keep you on permanently. You won’t be here forever.”

Mjolna cleared her throat politely and pointed to the road leading into town. “She doesn't need to be."

Boxxy Brown's shotgun clattered to the ground, his jaw hanging slack with horror at the sight of a brown earth pony trotting up to greet them. The town's sheriff walked next to his deputy, looking perfectly healthy and incredibly annoyed. “I’d listen to the mare, boyo,” Caramel said. “She’s made ready to blow your brains all over half of our fair town. Best to live and let live.”

“I don't believe it,” Boxxy said. “I-I shot you! I shot you through the heart! We all saw you die!”

“Is that so?” Caramel asked. His deputy bared her teeth and growled like an animal, her eyes never leaving the frightened pegasus. “Screwy, what would ya call a pony that claims he killed an officer of the law?”

Screw Loose spoke in a low, guttural voice that sounded like it hadn't been used in months. “Under arrest.”

The sheriff tossed Boxxy a pair of hoofcuffs, handling the iron without the slightest bit of discomfort. “That sounds right enough. Would ya kindly put those on? Oh, and ya might not want to make any sudden moves. That Purplecoat looks like she'd consider shootin' ya anyway, just for closure's sake.”

Lyra glanced at her revolver and, for just a moment, was quite tempted. "Nah," she sighed regretfully. "Wouldn't want to give you sun-lovers the satisfaction."

*****

While Tick Tock tried to make sure Lyra wouldn't bleed to death, Doctor Stable examined Berry Punch. The poor mare had been rescued from a terrible fate, and somepony had to make sure that Chitur hadn't done any lasting damage to her.

Once he had given her a good once-over, Stable met Mjolna in the kitchen. She was still up and about despite his insistence that she get some sleep. “Too many changelings around,” she admitted. “They make me nervous.”

Since neither of them had gotten to finish their morning coffee, they decided to enjoy a cup in the lull following a near-death experience. “It isn't that I'm not happy you're alright,” Stable said after a while. “I just wish you’d be more careful, Mjolna. You and Caramel take too many risks.”

“I’ve survived worse,” Mjolna said dismissively.

Stable almost touched her shoulder, but he knew how she would react. He made do with putting his hoof down firmly on the table. “That's no excuse for being reckless! You've been through a lot today, and your body needs time to recover. Promise me that you’ll let yourself rest before pushing yourself this hard again.”

“No promises,” she said. The doctor slumped in his seat, disappointed but sadly not surprised. “But… I will try,” she added reluctantly.

Her friend smiled, his eyes twinkling green. “Good. I’m going to check on Berry again. She might have woken up by now.” He trotted away from the table and almost bumped into a massive red stallion dressed like a Shepherd. The magic levitating his coffee cup winked out, and the mug fell to the floor.

“What’s the matter?” Mjolna asked. Her friend took a step backward, then another, and continued until he bumped into the table.

Shepherd Mac watched the exchange pensively, waiting to see if any trouble would come of it. The boards balanced on his back teetered precariously. “I want to go home now,” Stable whispered, suddenly terrified out of his mind. His hooves trembled as tears began to form in his eyes. "Can we go home, please? Please, Mjolna?”

She stood next to him, as close as she could get without worrying about being touched. “Who is that?” she asked. “Doctor, what’s wrong? Answer me!”

The would-be preacher backed away, his shoulders hunched in despair. It was only after he was gone that the doctor could regain his composure. “I'm sorry,” Stable whispered. Picking up the pieces of his coffee mug provided a useful distraction while he tried to steady his hooves and calm his pounding heart. “I thought he was dead."

"Who, Stable? Who was that?"

Doctor stable cleared his throat and tried to dry his eyes. "That was the pony I told you about. He's the one we're all afraid of. That... that was the God-killer.”

Author's Note

Oh, Macintosh. You've done some terrible things, haven't you?

Also, I started reading the comics a while ago. I'd say that I like them, but it would be more accurate to say that I adore them. So far my favorites are "The Day Shift" and "Neigh Anything". The incredibly dorky Shining Armor is just the best. God, we would have been best friends in high school.

Are these chapters long enough? Are they too long? I can never tell, but this length is working well enough in my opinion. Be sure to drop a comment if you've got any feedback!

By the way, the last chapter was our THIRTIETH. Good grief, guys. Thirty chapters. That's the longest I've ever stuck with any project. Trust me, nobody's more surprised than I am that this story is still going on.

Edit: Loads of attention for this chapter! I love you guys.

Interlude: Duty Calls

It was two days before Lyra and her friends were fit to leave. Most of it was spent waiting for the Captain to regain her strength, but nopony minded the chance to rest up. When she was finally well enough, Lyra escorted her crew back onto Sereneighty with only a walking stick to help her. Tick Tock insisted that she needed more rest, but she couldn't see any difference in the rest she'd get in her bunk versus in Colgate's bedroom.

Before she could step onto her ship, Lyra was stopped by the Heart of Gold's owner. "Thank you," Colgate said, wrapping her in a warm hug. "You've done more for us than you know."

"All part of the job," Lyra said. "I mean the gunfight, not... not what we did.”

Colgate gave her a dubious look. “I’d certainly hope not, Captain. You aren't nearly good enough to charge for it.” She held a straight face long enough to send Lyra into a fit of stammering apologies, then burst into laughter. “I’m only joking, dear.”

“Yeah, I-I knew that,” Lyra said. She was desperate to change the subject. “How’s Berry? Are you two together again?”

“She’s better than I expected, but she’s been through a lot. It’ll be a long time before she’s back to her old self.”

Thunderlane came trotting out of the ranch house, a lopsided bag of weaponry slung over his back. His favorite rifle had barely left his side for more than a moment ever since they had been separated. Some of his friends were starting to wander if such devotion to an inanimate object was healthy.

"Come back soon, Thunderlane!" a mare called from one of the house's windows. Half a dozen others joined her in bidding him goodbye, most of them sounding very sad to see him go. The pegasus grinned and waved back before lugging his gear back onto the ship.

“She’ll be alright,” Lyra said. “She’s got you to help her. Thanks for everything, Colgate. I’m sorry we couldn't help everypony.”

Colgate’s smile wavered as she thought of Bluebell. The poor mare had been hit in the throat as soon as the shooting started. “She was a good friend,” she said. “She'll be missed, but the rest of us get to go on living because of you. She'd want us to make a good life for ourselves here, and you helped us do that. You've got nothing to apologize for.”

The crew finished loading up Sereneighty, and soon her engines were primed and ready for takeoff. Lyra settled into her chair on the bridge, ready to put this planet behind her. “Take us up,” she told Vinyl. “Keep it away from anything exciting for a while, alright? I could use the rest.”

Far below, another mare watched the ship ascend. Mjolna squinted in the bright sunlight, a hoof shielding her eyes as Sereneighty rose higher into the sky. “There they go,” Doctor Stable said wistfully.

Mjolna spat into the dirt. “Good riddance,” she grumbled, and shifted her harness awkwardly. One of her shoulders was still very sore, and he was having trouble walking on it. “One less thing to worry about.”

“Oh, they weren't so bad. Only two of them wore purple, right? The others were just making their way in the ‘Verse, same as us.”

“That’s two more than I'd like,” Mjolna argued, unyielding as ever. She paused to look behind her at the long line of prisoners marching through the hot sand. “Hey, back there! Get a move on!”

One of the older prisoners answered her with the beginnings of a song. “Well, I heard the law comin’, but I tried to run!”

Thirty-nine changelings answered at the same time. “We got sixty long months under the desert sun!” The procession eased into the song once again, moving on to a new verse. Mjolna dropped back a little, letting several of the group pass her by.

No love for us in this awful place.

It’s been so long that I forgot the taste.

The end came quick for the easy life.

I played the husband, but I killed the wife.

I got hunger buildin’ down deep in my bones.

May the Queen have mercy on this sorry soul.

When you hear the law comin’, don’cha try to run.

You’ll get sixty long months under the desert sun.

Sixty long months under the desert sun.

Well, the hunger grew until I couldn't break free.

God-killer's waitin' in hell for me.

This hard life's gettin' me nowhere fast.

I got three more years, but I'll never last.

The addiction's stronger than the kindest heart!

Goddess take my soul after I depart.

When you hear the law comin’, don’cha try to run.

You’ll get sixty long months under the desert sun.

Sixty long months under the desert sun.

One prisoner refused to sing along, and Mjolna fell into step beside him. “I’ll get you for this,” Boxxy swore. “One day, you’ll be sorry.”

“For what?” Mjolna asked. “You tried to kill an officer of the law. You might have succeeded if it were anypony other than Caramel. That is a hanging offense in these parts. Better a few years of hard work than a short drop with a sudden stop.”

The pegasus rustled his wings angrily and set his gaze straight ahead. Mjolna caught up with her friend, who was watching her with disapproval. “I still don’t think you should be out here,” he said. “You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

“I am only walking,” Mjolna said. “I will ride part of the way in one of the wagons if I get tired. Besides, it is a nice day. I want to enjoy the weather.”

Mjolna stumbled, and Doctor Stable reached out to catch her. She shied away, regaining her footing without his help. "S-sorry," he said quickly, and snatched his hooves away. He cursed himself and fell silent, refusing to look at her now that he had made a fool of himself yet again.

After a few minutes Mjolna reached over with her hoof and lightly touched his shoulder. The contact lasted for less than a second, but it left a warm spot on his shoulder. The unicorn stopped walking, his eyes widening in surprise. Luckily a shout startled him back to reality before he was trampled. “We got a runner!” one of the guards called. “Three o’clock!”

Mjolna yanked the hammer out of her harness and smiled at her friend. “Excuse me,” she said. “Duty calls.”

Yeah, when the Iron Bringer’s callin' out your name,

Don't hide your face or disguise your shame.

It ain't worth the pain to try to run!

Just take sixty long months under the desert sun.

Sixty long months under the desert sun!

Author's Note

My favorite part of this is another reference to the "God-killer". That's the nickname of someone you don't take lightly.

There are loads of reasons that this is taking so long to update. The next story line is really difficult for me, and I'm nervous about getting it to feel like a Firefly episode. I'm also working with a new storytelling device that I've never used. Lots of reasons, all of them very complicated and relevant.

It's Wildstar, okay!? I've been playing a lot of Wildstar. I'm addicted. Also, I'm working on the idea for my next fanfic. So far it's looking insanely bloody, which is fitting given the source material. Seriously, there's just blood all over the place. Edit: I didn't mean to imply that the next chapter or fic has anything to do with Wildstar. I'm just blaming the game for the delay. Sorry, but no Wildstar fics here for the foreseeable future.

Oh, and happy 4th of July! I had to hurry to post this in time. Have a safe night, and God bless!

Salvage

Here’s how it is: the Times-That-Were are long over. Our gods and goddesses disappeared, leaving us to find our own way in the universe. Our old planet died without them around to protect it, so we had to leave. Eventually we found the ‘Verse, and decided to call it home.

The central planets formed the Solar Empire and decided to bring the rest of us under their rule. Some of us objected, myself included. We tried to preserve our independence by forming the Lunar Republic.

War broke out, but it didn’t last long. It ended in a little place called Sereneighty Valley. The fighting there lasted for seven weeks. I was a sergeant, and Octavia was my corporal. More than two thousand of us fought against the bright and shiny Empire, but less than two hundred survived.

In a way, none of us ever really made it out of that valley. You can never leave Sereneighty. You just learn to live there.

The war’s long over now. Me and mine try not to draw too much attention. We take work where we can find it and protect each other as best we can. If you’ve got a job, we can do it. You might even get a small discount if it causes the Empire a bit of misery.

*****

Six years after “once upon a time”…

Octavia’s hooves were remarkably agile, even when burdened with sun gel and a spacesuit. It probably came from years of playing an instrument with hooves instead of magic. It was equally possible that she was just used to blowing things up. Lyra wasn’t sure which she was more comfortable with.

The grey earth pony was pressing strings of red goo around the frame of a porthole on a derelict spacecraft. The ship was stuck in a decaying orbit over a worthless rock not big enough to be considered a planet. Sereneighty had picked up the distress signal and come to investigate, but there was nopony left to save. The lifeboats were long gone, and anypony left inside was already dead. It was the perfect salvage job, and they were being paid handsomely. It was technically piracy, but salvage sounded so much…

Actually, piracy sounded much cooler than salvage. Lyra grinned as she imagined painting a Jolly Roger on the side of her ship. I’m a mighty space pirate! Yarr! Gangway, ye scurvy mudders!

A raspy, not-quite-masculine voice suddenly cut through the silence. “Hey ‘Tavi, you gotta check this out! I built a little castle out of data disks for my Daring Do figure.”

Octavia’s sigh was visible through her helmet, but not audible through the vacuum of space. She keyed her microphone and pushed away from the porthole. “We are busy, Vinyl. Play with your dolls and contact us if something happens.”

“They’re action figures!”

Octavia flipped a switch on a control band strapped to her ankle and activated the sun gel. The solidified goo burned a hellish red and melted right through the thick armor plating around the porthole. “Shiny!” Lyra announced when she looked inside. “Let’s get a move on. Get this stuff loaded.”

A pegasus floated by with a cargo sled clipped to his belt. His impressive size was made even more so by the bulky suit he wore. Thunderlane wasn’t freakishly huge, but in his antiquated spacesuit he looked positively gigantic. “How’s it look?” he asked.

“Like Hearth’s Warming Eve,” Lyra answered. “Hurry up and drag it aboard so we can get out of here. The longer we fool around, the better the chance of some Empire do-gooder noticing us.”

Lyra heard Vinyl’s voice filter through the static of her suit’s speaker again, despite Octavia’s request for silence. “You need to chill out. Sereneighty’s listening on every channel known to ponies and a few that I just made up. It’ll ding if there’s stuff.” A bell began to ring in the background. “Uh, hold on. It’s dinging. There might be stuff.”

“Get those bars loaded!” Lyra barked. “Move it! We’re out of here in two minutes, not a second longer!”

Thunderlane and Octavia hurried to grab as much as they could from the derelict’s hold. The steel crates were filled with foil-wrapped nutrient bars, the kind of dietary supplement that ponies from the Rim would kill for. Sereneighty's crew would make a pretty penny from this haul, assuming they survived.

Sereneighty’s engine lights began to flicker as Vinyl powered up the ship. “Hey guys, I don’t mean to nag, but we should really get going.”

“Power down!” Lyra ordered. She helped Octavia crawl along the tether line and into the ship’s cargo hold, then shut the bay doors. “We have to shut everything down. Turn off everything but the air and sit tight. Thunderlane, help me get this stuff hidden away.” Vinyl’s frustrated groan was cut off as the radio died. Lyra, Thunderlane, and Octavia hurried to secure their loot and rushed to the ship’s bridge.

Sereneighty was an old Firefly vessel, a cargo ship with a sturdy design and reliable engines. The ship’s bridge was located in its “head”, as close to the bow as a pony could get without putting on a spacesuit. The entire crew, minus the mechanic, gathered to watch the blip on Sereneighty’s sensor readout grow closer.

Vinyl Scratch, a slightly scruffy unicorn with an ivory white coat and a vibrant blue mane, seemed a little peeved when everypony crowded around her chair. She wore a bright orange flight suit and purple goggles that probably served no practical purpose. Her voice, like the rest of her, was rough and unrefined but usually friendly. “I know I’m being rude, but you guys are sucking all the oxygen out of my personal space. This probably isn’t even a ship, so relax.” She cleared away a few action figures and dinosaur toys so that they could see the monitor better. “It could just be a chunk of debris or something.”

A red light began blinking on the control panel. Viny lifted her goggles and scanned the readouts with blood-red eyes. “Okay, so it’s a chunk of debris that scanned for heat signatures. Big deal. They still don’t know we’re here.”

“It’s changin’ course,” Thunderlane said. “I think we’re in trouble.”

Lyra scratched her check thoughtfully. “You could say that. This section of space is pretty dangerous, so it’s not much of a surprise that the Empire would send a cruiser to patrol it.”

“Gosh, you’re right!” Vinyl said as she flipped a switch. “Hey, listen! A distress signal from a ship full of widows and orphans about to get attacked by Reavers! I sure hope there are some big, tough Imperial types around to save them.”

The blip on the screen didn’t change course. Soon the computer was able to identify the vessel and listed off its name and serial number. “I believe that is a Solar cruiser,” Octavia noted. “It looks like the Snortthunder. Captain, we may have a problem.”

“Hun dan,” Vinyl muttered. “The decoy isn’t working! What’s wrong with this stupid thing?”

Octavia rolled her eyes and reached over Vinyl’s shoulder to press a button. “You turned off the radio, darling.”

Vinyl flipped the switch again, and moments later the cruiser reacted. “Look at them go!” she laughed. “What a bunch of suckers. Can we go now, Lyra?”

“Fire it up,” Lyra ordered. “Get us out of here, Vinyl. This part of the ‘Verse is a little too crowded for my liking.”

Vinyl punched the intercom and cleared her throat. “Greetings, passengers! This is your pilot speaking. We are about to engage in a hard burn to put a lot of distance between us and the boring forces of law and order. Please return all tray tables to their upright position, fasten all seatbelts, return all overdue library books, cancel the circus performance, secure all animals in the zoo, and-”

Another voice interrupted her. Spud, the ship’s mechanic, hated listening to Vinyl ramble. “Enough already!” he yelled over the intercom. “The ship is ready to go. Stop babbling and fly.” The ship lurched as Vinyl happily obliged him, leaving the derelict ship and the Empire’s cruiser far behind them in a cloud of golden light.

*****

When the Times-That-Were ended, intelligent life spread out from Terra and searched for a new place to call home. They found a star system – four stars orbiting a fifth – and dubbed it “the ‘Verse”. The planets near the center of the system were considered “Core” planets, while those on the edge were known as “Rim” planets.

Between the two extremes were a host of “Border” planets. These planets had the (somewhat) civilized appearance of the Core, but embraced the archaic-yet-affordable technology of the Rim. The Empire maintained a fairly strong grip on the governments of these planets, but its influence was less pervasive than on some of the Core worlds.

The crew of Sereneighty tended to stay far away from the Empire, but the Border planets were safe enough that they could dock on rare occasions without worrying about being noticed. Persepony was one such world, and this was one such occasion.

Lyra waited impatiently while the cargo was loaded onto Sereneighty’s utility vehicle. She was carrying her revolver under her usual purple coat, but hoped that she wouldn't need it. Octavia was also armed, but preferred a rifle with a collapsible barrel that fit in a holster over her purple vest. Thunderlane had his automatic pistol and his favorite knife.

“Everypony listen up!” she announced. “Me, Octavia, and Thunderlane are going to make the deal with Rover. Vinyl is going to look for any replacement parts the ship might need.”

“Wait!” somepony yelled in an extremely cultured New Equestrian accent. “I’m here! Wait for me!” The doorway leading to the infirmary opened and a haggard unicorn stallion tumbled out. His white coat looked quite a bit like Vinyl’s, but due to his lack of interest in personal hygiene it was dingy and grey. His blonde mane was matted to his face by sweat and engine grease while his horn, impressive though it was, had several grease spots down its length and ended in an unpolished tip. His cutie mark was a lumpy potato, completely unrelated to his job as a mechanic.

Octavia had never trusted Spud, but Lyra assumed that it was due to his unpleasant appearance. He did his job and kept to himself, probably because he knew that his smell could be classified as a war crime. “Late again, Spud?” Vinyl teased. “You’ve already much missed out on all the fun jobs.”

Spud heaved a melodramatic sigh. “Passenger duty?” he asked.

Lyra nodded. “Spud is going to convince a few generous souls to part with their hard-earned coin for the chance to travel on such a wondrous vessel as this.” She leaned forward and gravely clapped him on the shoulder. “May the goddesses have mercy on your soul.”

The rest of the crew laughed as Spud rubbed his chin. “I should shave,” he muttered.

“You should also bathe,” Octavia said curtly. “Please try to present a respectable image for the rest of us.”

Spud set his lawn chair on the ship’s cargo ramp and watched the rest of the crew go. He made sure that Octavia was out of earshot before muttering a few extremely impolite things about her, her mother, and her mother’s father.

The wait was long and boring as usual. Spud waived to a few pretty mares, but most of them turned away after taking one look at his dirty jumpsuit and unwashed mane. This is so embarrassing, he thought resentfully. It isn’t my fault that this ship has no hot water. How is a pony supposed to enjoy getting clean with no hot water?

A powerfully built stallion walked by and immediately caught Spud’s attention. His red coat and hay-colored mane made for an interesting color combination, and his cutie mark added a dash of green to the mix. He looked like a farmer, but wore the simple clothes of a Shepherd. Spud had never been overly fond of preachers, but a holy stallion’s money would spend just the same as anypony else's.

The Shepherd was looking over every ship in the yard with a peaceful, unhurried smile. His luggage amounted to nothing more than a small suitcase and a blanket that had seen a lot of use. Spud waved to get his attention. “Howdy, Shepherd! You might as well stop looking, because you’ve found the ship you want.”

The stallion paused to examine Sereneighty. “Don’t see how ya could be so sure,” he said.

“You’re coming with us,” the mechanic said confidently. “I watched you walk all the way here, and you haven’t even asked anypony where they were going. You’ve been looking at the ships.” Spud took a deep breath and put on his best salespony face. “There’s no finer ship than this one!” Wrong. “She’s as comfortable and dependable as they come.” Also wrong. “You won’t regret it, sir. I guarantee it.” You’re going to be miserable on this piece of junk, you ignorant yokel.

“Ah traveled on a Firefly once,” the Shepherd said. “Mighty fine vessel.”

“She certainly is!” Spud agreed. He mentally chided himself for putting too much enthusiasm into his words. “Can I ask where you come from?”

The Shepherd set down his suitcase and looked around at the other ships. “Been livin’ in the Everfree Abbey for a few years. Figured it might be nice to walk the world a bit. Ah’d be plum grateful for a ride, if you’re offerin'. Ah could pay.”

Spud grabbed the stallion’s hoof and shook it heartily. “Welcome aboard!” he exclaimed, pleased with his success. “My name’s Spud. What’s yours?”

“Name’s Mac,” the Shepherd said. He turned over his shoulder and let out a loud whistle. A grey pegasus with a yellow mane stumbled out of the crowd, clutching a small suitcase of her own and looking very lost. She smiled at Mac, but one of her eyes was looking in a completely different direction. “That’s Derpy. We met about an hour ago while lookin’ for a ship. She seems like a nice mare, but she doesn’t rightly know where she’s goin’.”

“She’s quite welcome,” Spud assured him, trying not to laugh. Misery loves company. “On you go. I’ll show you to the passenger dorms.”

*****

Lyra hated dealing with unsavory types, but sometimes it was unavoidable. The fact that she and her crew were themselves what most would consider “unsavory types” did nothing to make it any easier. The diamond dog they were meeting with thought of himself as an underworld kingpin on Persepony. He was a moron, but his money spent just as well as anyone else’s.

Rover made his home in a pathetic excuse for an office that smelled, fittingly, like a wet dog. The floor was rough and stained in places, the walls were bare concrete, and the ceiling was sagging alarmingly in one corner. All in all, it was exactly what Lyra expected from a dog that had once appointed himself “Head Chief Dog” of an entire city and then proceeded to do nothing at all to enforce his claim.

The wait was almost not worth it. Lyra and her crew sat down at a crooked table while Rover pretended to work at his desk. She politely accepted the food she was offered, trying not to think too much about what it was. She was fairly certain that meat of some kind was involved.

Serving meat to an herbivore was a very serious insult, but Lyra tried not to take offense. Either Rover was trying to goad her into saying something she would regret, or he was genuinely too stupid to know any better. She honestly thought that the latter was more likely.

Thunderlane and Octavia followed her example and accepted plates, but nopony ate. They waited impatiently for Rover to finish “working” and join them at the table. Armed henchdogs stood around the room, watching the newcomers with varying amounts of curiosity and distrust.

Lyra strummed her lyre while they waited. Her music seemed to please a few of the guards that were watching them. When Rover finally joined them a small chorus of disappointed groans filled the air as the music stopped. The unicorn smiled; she had never been able to make money with her special talent, but it was nice to know that others enjoyed it.

Rover quickly signaled for a plate of his own and messily devoured what he was given without a second thought. “So about this deal,” Lyra began. “We’ve got what you want and I’m starting to get just a teensy bit curious as to why you haven’t said a word about payment.”

“Marked goods,” Rover spat, along with a sizeable chunk of… something. Everypony except Thunderlane shuddered. “Government be tracking them always. Can’t sell to nobody with molecular stamp.”

“Hey, we worked our flanks off for that go-se that you wanted so bad!” Thunderlane shouted. “You can’t send us across half the solar system for something and then leave us stuck with it!”

Rover swallowed so that he could bare his teeth. “We make deal for goods that can sell, yes? You not bring goods that can sell. You bring go-se that Empire find soon, maybe put all the stupid little ponies behind bars for taking it. Not buying.”

Thunderlane’s hoof strayed dangerously close to his gun. “You lying sack of-”

Several dozen metallic clicks filled the room. “Best for you to stop yelling,” Rover said calmly. His dogs formed a circle around the table, weapons drawn, and slowly advanced inward. “This not your ship, big pony. Go home and leave the big dog alone. You can’t hurt me here.”

“We had a deal,” Lyra said.

Rover curled his lip up in disgust, looking like he wanted very much to spit at somepony. Luckily he decided against it, but he wasn’t finished mocking them. “I think you need lessons, stupid ponies. You come here and make demands, not treat us nice, expect us to do miracles. Maybe you think diamond dogs not as smart as ponies. Maybe you even think the stupid civil war still not over, and we should help for goodness of our hearts. That what you think?”

“I think you should behave like a professional,” Lyra said. “When a professional enters into a business arrangement, he keeps to the deal. You agreed to pay us, and you’re going back on your word. That’s mighty dishonest of you.”

Rover sneered and lopped off another chunk of barely-cooked substance from his plate. “You not keep with the times, Heartstrings. You just some stupid relic, like that coat or your wheel gun. You bring me the Empire’s goods, I not sell. Can’t even dump the stupid things on this planet or the Empire hwoon-dahn find them and trace them to me. You should know that, stupid unicorn.” He reached for the salt in the middle of the table.

“Don’t blink,” Lyra warned.

The diamond dog gaped in amazement at the blade that appeared as if by magic only millimeters away from his flesh. Octavia leaned on her knife, gently grazing Rover’s paw with cold steel. “Have you met Octavia?” Lyra asked casually. “I don’t believe you’ve been properly introduced. She’s ex-Marefia, believe it or not. I like to think she adds a bit of class to the operation."

Lyra leaned back in her chair and crossed her hind legs, adopting one of the many strange poses that only she was comfortable in. “You already know Thunderlane, of course. He doesn’t need an introduction. If you think Octavia’s bad… well, let’s not get into that. I’d really like to tell one of them to kill you, but it seems to me that you’re speaking a bit of reason. You can’t sell, so you won’t buy. That’s fair enough.”

Thunderlane and the diamond dogs looked surprised, but Octavia didn’t move an inch. “We’ll just go,” Lyra continued. “Come on, guys. Let’s get out of this jung chi duh go-se dway. The mean diamond dog has a poor, defenseless animal to disembowel.”

“Wait!” Rover shouted as they left. “You forget your crates!”

“Did we?” Lyra giggled at the diamond dog’s horrified expression. “Gosh, I guess you’re stuck with them. Good luck getting rid of them without anypony noticing.”

“B-but those are yours!”

Lyra tapped her chin thoughtfully and exchanged meaningful glances with her friends. “You wanted me to bring you crates, so I brought you crates. I’ll even let you have them for free. What you do with them is your business. Of course, if you’re lookin’ to get rid of them, we could probably take them off your paws for the right price.”

Rover’s primitive brain took a while to fully comprehend the situation. He was now in possession of four crates of highly illegal stolen cargo that the Empire would follow right to his doorstep. He couldn’t even ditch it without the feds finding out. There was only one pony in the ‘Verse that would buy it from him, and that pony was Lyra Heartstrings. “You are not a nice pony,” he growled.

Lyra giggled. “That hurts, Rovey. That hurts real deep.”

*****

“Hey, check it out!” Thunderlane exclaimed when they returned to Sereneighty. “Spud found some passengers!”

“I am well and truly speechless,” Lyra said. “Maybe they have no sense of smell.” The group trotted up the loading bay ramp, cargo sled in tow. “Hurry up and stash this stuff while they’re getting settled. Can’t have our innocent guests knowing they’re sleeping alongside disreputable types such as ourselves. Octavia, go keep a lookout and let us know if they’re coming.”

A small shuttle approached, causing the ship to rattle as the tiny craft settled into its dock on the ship’s port side. “Our Companion’s back,” Thunderlane noted. He yanked a metal panel off the wall and began loading the crates inside the hidden compartment. “Think she’s got any new whorin’ stories?”

“None of our concern.” Lyra cast a nervous glance around to make sure that nopony would hear them. “Just hurry and get that stuff hidden away, will you?” She galloped toward the passenger dorms to occupy the new arrivals. Thunderlane yelled something about having to do all the unpleasant work, but Lyra ignored him. She motioned for Octavia to follow her, hoping that a pretty face would make a good impression. It’s probably too late, she thought. They’ve already seen Spud.

Somehow the mechanic had lured three ponies onto Sereneighty. One was a massive stallion with an apple cutie mark, one was a walleyed pegasus with bubbles on her flank, and one was a brown earth pony with an hourglass.

Spud wasn’t naturally ugly, but his personal hygiene was terrible and tended to drive squeamish ponies away. Lyra had expecting one passenger, possibly two if her luck was good. “I’m impressed, Spud!” she exclaimed as she trotted into the dorms. “You’ve done well, my smelly friend.” Spud rolled his eyes and grumbled about getting no respect in the workplace. “I’m Captain Heartstrings and this is Octavia. If anypony wants a tour, they can follow me. It shouldn’t take long.”

The group slowly shambled through the narrow passageways in pursuit of the Captain. Only one passenger stayed behind, looking back toward the stern of the ship. Derpy cautiously followed the mechanic, walking extra slowly to avoid bumping into anything.

Spud made a detour on his way to the engine room to check the fuel lines. When he was finished, he returned to the engine room and was shocked to find Derpy staring at two different parts of the main reactor. “Hey!” he shouted angrily, “What are you doing back here? This area is for crew only!”

Derpy shrank away, shivering under his stern gaze. “I’m sorry!” she said quickly. “I just wanted to see the engine!” She squealed in surprise as Spud lifted her with his magic and threw her out of the room.

“You’re lucky I don’t beat some sense into you with a crescent wrench, you ignorant hick!” the unicorn shouted. He slammed the door in the mare’s face and turned to assess the potential damage to the ship’s reactor. Right away he noticed that the thermal coupling was now on backwards.

Spud groaned and set about examining the rest of the reactor. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for, but hopefully he would notice if anything was grievously wrong. This was going to take a while.

Author's Note

I love Firefly like I’ve never loved another television show… apart from my ponies, of course. This is going to be a special project for me. It’ll be WAY longer than the one-shots I’ve been doing and have a more serious story. Also, it can be broken up into smaller “episodes” like the show! That should be convenient when I want to work on something else for a while. I intend to do more than just follow the story of the show, since that would be pretty boring.

Also, there are a few other crossovers with Firefly on this site. I'm not pretending that I had the idea before anyone else.

Interlude: Baggage Claim

Commander Shining Armor, leader of the Royal Guard and universally recognized public face of the Imperial Navy, had spent the majority of his adult life protecting the Solar Empire. The rest of his time was divided between administrative duties, caring for his family, surfing, and tending a small herb garden that he insisted would one day produce something useful.

More than a decade of military service had turned him into a very dangerous pony. He was rated with nearly every projectile weapon in existence, skilled in two forms of unarmed combat, and considered in most circles to be a tactical genius. His physical stature added to his imposing presence, to the point that most of his karate class was afraid to spar with him.

It seemed strange that such a tough pony was afraid of his little sister’s friend. True, his sister was an absurdly powerful lesser alicorn that might one day become an actual goddess, but that didn’t make her friends any more frightening than the average pony.

Except, somehow, for the pink one. Shining Armor had never been able to form an opinion of Chancellor Pinkie Pie; she was bizarre and completely unpredictable, two things that any battlefield commander knew could be dangerous. This was offset by her endlessly cheerful attitude, which provided her with enough energy to fuel a small star for a year. The hyperactive public relations specialist had always managed to unnerve him simply by being so very odd. This, naturally, made talking with her a problem.

After the Firefly vessel preformed its absurd vanishing act, Shining Armor had attempted to contact Captain Dash. He was instead greeted by a disturbingly wide grin that filled his terminal’s entire screen so that he could see almost nothing else. He was sure that most ponies didn’t have that many teeth.

Pinkie Pie had insisted that she was filling in for the Captain, which wasn’t at all how the chain of command was supposed to work. Shining Armor had reluctantly given her all the details, up to and including the suicidal tactics used by the fugitives to escape his fleet. “May I ask for more information about our targets?” he had asked when he was finished. “Why are we chasing them? What did they do?”

Pinkie giggled as though he’d told the funniest joke in the ‘Verse. “I don’t know, silly!” she said. “This isn’t like hunting Reavers or bandits! Somepony really important wants to be sure that they don’t get away with whatever they took. It could be anything, but it’s super duper extra secret!”

“I understand,” Commander Armor said, though he wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth. “I request permission to follow the enemy as soon as my ship is operational, ma’am. I’ll bring them in alive if possible.”

Pinkie Pie put a hoof to her chin and pretended to think very carefully. “Hmm, nopey-dopey! The Defense Council already called somepony else. This is a matter of galactic security, so the Harmonious Senate is pretty much in the dark. They aren’t even talking to Dashie! The thingy they stole is super important, so keep it super quiet.” She put her hoof to her lips. “Shhh!”

“Very well, ma’am. I’ll await further orders.” Shining Armor killed the connection and sat back in his chair. His cluttered desk had nowhere to bang his head, so he had to settle for covering his eyes and sighing. He heard somepony laughing at him and the sigh became a groan. “Shut up, L.C.”

“I can’t help it!” the blue pegasus giggled. “You look so uncomfortable. You really don’t know how to talk to politicians, do you?”

“The problem isn’t that she’s a politician,” Shining Armor said. “It’s like talking to something out of an H.P. Lovecraft novel. There’s no way for any sane pony to understand her.”

“Follow me,” Lieutenant Commander Soarin’ said with a chuckle. “I’ve got something to show you that might brighten your day.”

*****

After Sereneighty preformed her remarkable vanishing act, Blueblood had watched the golden trail of light from her engines disappear with a sense of crushing finality. His time aboard the old cargo vessel was over for good. He didn't think he would miss it, but there was an odd feeling of melancholy that came with ending a chapter of his life.

Thunderlane had been kind enough to leave him a communicator with enough range to signal the SES Warhorse. Blueblood radioed for a pickup as soon as Sereneighty was gone, but it was a long time before anypony paid any attention to him. When the commanding officer of the fleet finally answered him he almost wished he hadn’t escaped at all.

“Well, isn’t this an interesting turn of events?” Shining Armor asked. “I can’t believe I thought this was going to be a slow day. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you that obnoxious nuofu that nearly got my wife killed?”

Blueblood snorted scornfully into his radio. “Just get me off this pathetic rock,” he ordered. “I have important information and it is not for the ears of commoners such as yourself.”

Shining Armor chuckled gleefully. “Oh, I’ll give you a lift. Just don’t expect it any time soon. I have to get my ship in order first.”

Blueblood shifted his legs and felt the inside of his suit beginning to chafe. “This suit is extremely uncomfortable. How long will that take?”

“That depends. How much air do you have?”

*****

Vinyl had to make a short foray out of the cabin she shared with Octavia to set the ship’s course. The Captain had gotten it almost right, but she made a few tweaks to save them some time. When she was finished she returned to her bunk and found her wife playing her cello.

Most non-unicorns weren’t very musical. It took a lot of skill to manipulate strings with hooves. Not even the captain, a talented musician in her own right, could play her lyre without magic. Vinyl settled down on the bed with a smile and listened to her own private concert.

As the song ended Vinyl happened to notice a paper bag sitting next to the bed. She lifted it into the air with her magic and began unpacking it. “We’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to put away the groceries,” she said. “I picked up a few things on Persepony. Nothing too exciting.”

A new pair of goggles floated out of the bag and onto the bedside table. Octavia rolled her eyes, and in doing so noticed a small plastic box filled with thin strands of something being slipped into the closet. “What is that?” she asked. “Vinyl, what is in that box?

“It’s incense. I thought it might make the room smell nice.” Vinyl floated the box into Octavia’s hooves so that she could smell for herself. “Why? What’s wrong?”

The room was quiet while Octavia tried to think of an explanation that wouldn’t lead to an argument. Vinyl noticed her hesitation and scowled. “Oh, here we go again!” she spat. “I’m not stupid, Octavia. If you don’t trust me then you should just say so. You can come with me next time if you want!”

“I did not think-”

“Yes, you did!” Vinyl shouted. She ripped off her goggles and threw them into the closet. “It’s been two years. I got clean! Stop looking at me like you’re my Gorram parole officer! You don’t have to inspect every package I bring on board!”

Octavia grabbed her wife and pulled her off the bed, her superior strength making resistance completely useless. “I’m sorry! It was wrong of me to make an assumption without talking to you first. I do trust you, Vinyl.” Vinyl didn’t say anything for a long time, and Octavia could tell that she was trying very hard not to cry. “I am sorry,” she repeated. She didn’t know what else to say.

Vinyl resisted at first, but eventually gave up and allowed herself to relax. “It’s okay,” she said regretfully. “Maybe I shouldn’t get so angry. Were my ears playing tricks on me, or did you just use a contraction?”

“I did, but do not get used to it.” Octavia kissed her forehead and tried to avoid getting poked in the eye with her horn. “I do trust you, baobei.”

In her haste the cellist hadn’t bothered to put away her instrument. The two mares lay together in silence for a long time, until finally Vinyl levitated the cello back into its case. “At least we’re already on the subject,” she said. “You know that we’re going to Beaumonde, right? I have to make a trip to a hospital when we get there.” Octavia gasped. “It’s just a sore throat!” Vinyl said quickly. “It’s gotta be nothing. I just want to get it looked at, you know, because…yeah.”

“I will ask the captain about it.”

“That figures,” Vinyl muttered, her dark mood returning with a vengeance. “This is important, ‘Tavi! Can’t you just tell Lyra that we need to go? Every time she asks you to do something you hop to it, but when your own wife has a serious problem you have to–”

Octavia covered Vinyl’s mouth with her hoof. “Allow me to rephrase,” she said in a steely tone. “If you need to go, we will go. There is no force in the ‘Verse that could keep us on this ship. I will ask Lyra because I am polite, not because she had a choice in the matter.”

“Really?” Vinyl asked. “Even if she says she needs us?”

“Do I look like I am joking?”

Vinyl buried her face in Octavia’s neck and sighed deeply. “No. I love you, ‘Tavi.” Octavia disturbed her only enough to make her turn out the light. She then pulled the blanket over them and let the DJ-turned-pilot get comfortable again.

The brash, overconfident mare that Octavia hadn’t trusted at first had a lot more baggage than most ponies realized. She was unstoppable while flying, but she had lived a very hard life right up until joining flight school. She often acted spiteful and temperamental just to hide how frightened or hurt she was.

Octavia didn’t mind. Vinyl had shown immense personal strength in the four years since she’d joined the crew of Sereneighty. In her own way she was just as tough as the ship itself. “Love you too,” the cellist whispered, and drifted off to sleep.

Author's Note

Guess who’s baaaaack! Yes, Lyra and co. are about to return. There isn’t much violence in this “episode”. I’m sorry about that. I’m so, so sorry.

On the bright side, the very first section of the next chapter introduces a new character that you might find interesting. He’ll appear briefly at first, but he gets important later.

Note: Spike will pull a Say Anything and be outside the window with a boombox in Season 4. Equestria Daily recently posted a tweet from Meghan McCarthy mentioning a 90’s pop culture reference.

I’m calling it. This, right now, is me calling it. You all saw it.

Jetsam

Thunderlane had always been slow to wake, and was doubly so with a few drinks in him. It should have been easy for him to sleep through almost any disturbance, so he was extremely annoyed when his shipmates managed to wake him up anyway. Sleep was an appealing escape from reality, and he resented being pulled out of it. “Thunderlane?” Vinyl’s voice called. “Thunderlane, say something!”

Octavia’s voice joined her wife’s, saying something about a locked door. Thunderlane groaned and rolled over, pulling his pillow over his head to block out their voices. Whatever they wanted, it could wait. His head hurt where Lyra had brained him the night before, and he was beginning to think that he might have a concussion. It would explain the annoying drone coming from the other side of his pillow.

Oh, right. That was Octavia. “We are out of options,” the first mate said. “With Derpy and Tick Tock unaccounted for, we have no way to unlock the doors. The intruder is trapped, but so are we.”

“What about Lyra?” Bon Bon’s voice asked. “She might still be out there.”

“Then she is most likely dead,” Octavia sighed. Bon Bon’s horrified gasp sounded in the background. “I am not trying to frighten anypony. I simply mean that she would have released us by now if she were able to do so.”

Thunderlane sat up and rubbed his eyes, groaning as his headache flared up. He grabbed a small bottle of pills from a shelf by his bed and swallowed a few. Rolling out of his bunk put him right next to the intercom, and he pressed the “talk” button. “I’m here!” he said groggily. “What’d I miss?”

“Only everything!” Vinyl snapped. “We’re under attack, tyen tsai. Where’ve you been?”

“Sleeping. Sort of wishing I hadn’t woken up. What’s this about locked doors?”

“We’re on lockdown,” the pilot said. “We need Lyra’s authorization codes or access to the bridge to override it. So far it’s just been us and Bon Bon. We don’t know where anypony else is.”

A small, frightened voice squeaked through the speakers. It was so quiet that at first it sounded like interference. “I’m here,” Derpy whispered. “I… I saw him. He’s got an armored spacesuit and a really fancy gun. H-he said he’d hurt me if I tried to stop him, and he tied me up.” There was a barely audible sob. “I let him tie me up.”

“He can’t get to you, mei-mei,” Bon Bon assured her. “Is there any way that you can override the lockdown from the engine room?”

“I can’t,” Derpy said, her voice quickly descending into uncontrollable sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I should have d-done something, but he said he was gonna h-hurt me and I just –”

“Pipe down!” Thunderlane snapped. “Y’all are makin’ my headache worse. If Derpy can’t open the doors, then we wait for Lyra to turn up. There’s nothin’ else we can do, so there’s no use in fussin’ about it.”

The rest of the crew fell silent, apart from the occasional sniffle from Derpy. Thunderlane knew they were annoyed with him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was right, and they would just have to live with it.

Just as they were settling in to wait, a different voice spoke up. “You’ve forgotten about me again,” Vision grumbled. “I’m still here, you know. Even when you aren’t looking.”

“Vision!” Vinyl exclaimed. “Thank Celestia! Look, I know this is a longshot, but I might be able to talk you through unlocking the doors. Are you anywhere near the bridge?” A loud clanking sounded in the hallway above as, one by one, the locks on almost every hatch were released. “Or…not,” she said, sounding equal parts impressed and concerned. “Well done. Hey, do you know how to work the atmo controls? Because I’m really sorry if I ever called you crazy.”

Octavia cleared her throat politely. “Vision, dear? Our door is still locked. Can you open it?”

“I tried,” Vision said. “The flow is broken. There’s a stone in the water.”

“I think we lost her,” Vinyl sighed. “Zhen dao mei. That just leaves Bon Bon and Thunderlane.”

Bon Bon snorted. “They didn’t cover close quarters combat at the Academy. I’m good with my hooves, but not in the way that we need right now.”

“What about Thunderlane?” Vinyl asked. “Isn’t that kind of what we pay him for? I think it’s actually been a while since we let him murder anypony.”

The pegasus rolled his eyes and looked around for his sidearm. “Wish this could have happened when I wasn’t hung over,” he complained. He strapped on his gun belt and trotted to the ladder, but then reconsidered and grabbed his favorite rifle as well. “Shiny,” he said fondly as he patted Vera’s stock. “Come on, Vera. Let’s go meet the neighbors.”

Once he had cleared the hallway, he looked around at the hatches leading to the rest of the crew’s quarters. “Vinyl!” he called. “Can you hear me? The control panel for your hatch is fried. Looks like it got hit by a plasma bolt.”

“That is not encouraging,” Octavia’s voice said over the intercom. “Is there any way to bypass it?”

“Not without somepony on the other side,” Vinyl said. “I don’t think Thunderlane’s going to cut it. We need Derpy.”

Thunderlane gritted his teeth. “Oh, juh jen sh guh kwai luh duh jean jan. It’s just me out here alone, then?” He looked into the bridge, but Vision had already disappeared. It was probably too much to hope that she would be lucid enough to help, but it would have been nice to at least know that she was out of the way. “Derpy, you said he was wearin’ armor?”

“Uh-huh,” Derpy squeaked.

“What about his face?” Vinyl asked. “I bet his face isn’t wearing armor.”

Thunderlane rolled his eyes and trotted down the hallway. He was sure that Vera could punch through whatever fancy suite this mystery pony was wearing. He held her at the ready, and glanced into the cargo bay as he passed. One of the tea crates had been blasted open. Lyra’s going to spit her bit over this, he thought. Assuming she’s still alive, that is.

He returned his attention to the door leading to the galley. A pair of curious eyes peered out at him through the window, and grew wide with surprise as he took aim with Vera.

A blast of full-auto fire blew a hole right through the lock. Thunderlane kicked the door open and took a position next to the doorway. He made certain to stay out of the line of fire, trusting the thick metal of the ship’s walls to protect him.

White-hot plasma ate through the bulkhead and nearly burned one of his ears off. He yelped and fell backwards, returning fire as he scrambled away. “Them ain’t kosher rules!” he shouted. “Newtech guns ain’t fair!”

“Fair fights are for the unimaginative!” shouted a voice with a very refined accent. If Octavia were a stallion, Thunderlane decided, she would sound just like that. Bet he’s got a sissy little moustache and everything. “Throw down your weapon and return to your room!”

“Come out here and make me!” Thunderlane called. Another blast of plasma cut through the wall right in front of his face. This here's a losin' battle, he thought grimly. If I stay out here, he’ll cut me to pieces!

Unfortunately, getting closer would mean that he had to go through something that soldiers often referred to as the “fatal funnel”. Passing through a doorway was risky at the best of times, and right now it felt like a death sentence.

There was no easy solution, so he went with the only one available. Thunderlane took to the air and rocketed into the kitchen, Vera’s muzzle flash lighting his way. He avoided getting bisected by no more than a few inches, and the wash of heat roasted the base of one of his wings. He cried out and dropped to the ground, his back seizing up in agony.

“Tzao gao!” he swore as his wing shook uncontrollably. It was a bad burn, and he knew he’d need therapy to recover from it. He saw the stranger taking aim again, and rolled out of the way just before the floor melted beneath him. “Hold it!” he shouted as he came to rest against the portside bulkhead. “Better put that cannon away, xiaren. There’s nothin’ but the Big Black on the other side of this here wall!”

He had lost Vera in his crash landing, but still had his revolver. He yanked it from its holster while his opponent was still trying to decide what to do.

*****

Lyra woke from her stupor when the intercom crackled to life. “Wake up!” Vision whispered.

The Captain rolled over and looked up at the ladder leading to the rest of the ship. She groaned miserably, holding her head in her bound hooves as it throbbed in pain. “I’m here,” she mumbled, shutting her eyes as the room seemed to tilt beneath her. “Things are kinda fuzzy. Am I dreamin’?”

“We all are.”

Lyra pulled experimentally at her bonds. They were too tough to break with brute strength, and her magic wasn’t up to cutting them. “Thanks for clearing that up. What’s going on? Where are you?”

“We’re playing hide-and-seek again.” Vision sniffled quietly. “Did you see it?”

“It was a tiny stallion.” Lyra blinked as hard as she could, trying to clear her vision. “He was very blurry.”

“It’s not natural. It’s hurting us, and it’s all my fault. I’m sorry, Lyra.”

Lyra took a deep breath and shut her eyes. She tried to block out the rest of the world, and the pain that came with it. “It’s alright,” she said. “You didn’t do anything wrong, little one. This is just a bad stallion that came to do bad things. Doesn’t make much difference who he wants to do them to.”

“Sereneighty can help us,” Vision said. “Can you get free?”

Lyra pulled again at the zip tie holding her hooves together. “I need something sharp,” she grunted. “Something like… oh.” Her eyes fell on a rusty length of iron that sat on her desk. It was one of the many artifacts she had collected over the years. “Hey, how about that? Chekhov was right.”

The Captain crawled over to her desk and gave it a hard kick. The ancient blade rocked back and forth before tumbling onto the floor. Its sharp, jagged edge raked across the zip ties, occasionally nicking her legs when she moved too quickly. “I’ll be free in a minute. I’ve still got my pistol, so-”

“No guns!” Vision ordered. “No touching guns. It’s better to be clever.”

I hate this plan already, Lyra thought, rolling her eyes as she freed her front legs.

Vision huffed with irritation. “Don’t make faces.”

*****

Horte Cuisine saw Thunderlane reach for his pistol, and knew that he had only a split second to act. He then made one of the strangest tactical decisions he had ever considered; he threw his blaster. It was small, but the enlarged battery pack made it heavier than it looked. The titanium alloy frame smacked the pegasus square in his nose just as his revolver cleared its holster.

Making the most of the distraction while it lasted, Horte Cuisine charged the pegasus and planted a hard kick into his stomach. Rather than doubling over in pain, Thunderlane grabbed his hoof and held on tight. He yanked the earth pony off balance and tossed him into the wall headfirst.

Horte threw his remaining foreleg up just in time to cushion the impact, but it still left him shaken. The pegasus kicked his hind legs out from under him and forced him to the ground beneath more than two hundred pounds of solid muscle.

A hard punch bounced his head off the ground, and he saw dark spots swimming in his vision. The next time Thunderlane tried to hit him, he twisted out of the way and delivered a hard kick between the pegasus’s hind legs. His opponent yelped and leaned back, allowing Horte to squirm free and give him another kick to the face for good measure.

Both stallions climbed to their hooves on shaky legs. Neither of them had been expecting such a tough fight. “Gonna break you in two, half-pint!” Thunderlane snarled. “What do you weigh, a buck twenty?”

“You’re not far off,” Horte muttered. He noticed Thunderlane’s pistol lying on the ground nearby, and began edging closer to it. Hopefully the conversation would serve as a distraction. “I must admit that I’m impressed. You’re a very skilled fighter, Thunderlane.”

“How do you know my name?” The pegasus asked. He began walking in the opposite direction, circling like a predator uncertain if it really had the upper hand.

“I know quite a lot about you,” Horte said. “I know about your time on Higgins’ Moon, and the years you spend with Gilda. I know about the little backwater town that you accidentally flooded, and the songs they sang about you afterward for accidentally irrigating their fields. I even know about that pathetic starship you stole before Lyra hired you. What did you ask Gilda to name it? The ‘Marigold Lane’, or something to that effect? A little too feminine for a stallion like you, don’t you think?”

“That’s my momma’s name!” Thunderlane shouted. Horte dove for the pistol, but hadn’t quite gotten close enough to reach it in time. He was dragged away, hooves scraping the floor like a victim in a cheesy horror movie.

When the Pegasus tried to kick him, weakening his grip in the process, he twisted to the side and broke free. He leapt into the air, spinning all the way around before lashing out with one of his hind legs. There was so much momentum behind the kick that it nearly broke Thunderlane’s neck. The larger stallion staggered, eyes unfocussed, and nearly keeled over

Horte pressed his advantage, and hammered Thunderlane’s jaw as hard as he could. Something cracked beneath his hoof as saliva, blood, and tooth fragments flew through the air. He rocked the pegasus back with a blow to the throat and leapt up to deliver another spinning kick, certain that the fight was about to be over.

Using the same trick twice proved to be a mistake. Before his hoof could make contact it jerked to a halt in his opponent’s grip. Thunderlane pulled him forward once again, making it impossible to land properly.

He cried out in surprise as the burly pegasus hurled him into the ground with enough force to knock the wind from him. The ship tilted beneath him as he was lifted into the air again and thrown into the wall. His suite did little to cushion the impact, and he crumpled to the floor.

Not content to let him crawl away, the pegasus grabbed one of his forelegs and hurled Horte Cuisine over his shoulder in a judo throw. The smaller pony felt a rush of vertigo as he was flung across the room. The back of his head struck something hard that cracked from the impact, and the world went dark for a moment

Suddenly, Thunderlane was on top of him. Hooves struck his face again and again, beating him until the strength bled from his body and his struggles weakened. Thunderlane refused to let up, howling curses and threats as he pounded the earth pony into the ground.

Horte Cuisine momentarily entertained the thought that he was about to die. In what could very well have been his last moments, his hoof brushed against something solid. He grabbed hold of it and swung with what little strength he had left.

A frying pan smashed into Thunderlane’s head. It left him disoriented, and he crawled away in an attempt to disengage. The earth pony hit him again when he tried to stand. Horte raised the frying pan above his head, wide-eyed and panting after his near death experience, but Thunderlane didn’t move again.

Horte Cuisine collapsed next to the unconscious pegasus and groaned in pain. Every inch of his body hurt in a multitude of new and unpleasant ways. He felt like his bones had been pulverized, even through his reinforced space suit. To top it all off, He was pretty sure that he had thrown his back out. He hadn’t come so close to being killed in years, and it left him understandably rattled.

The pegasus grunted in his stupor, and Horte frantically ripped open his belt pouch. He jabbed a needle into Thunderlane’s neck with a little more force than was necessary and scrambled away. He came to rest against the stove, noting that the glass in the oven’s door had nearly been shattered by his head. “Gan ni niang!” he mumbled as he waited to see if the huge pegasus was finally down for good.

He would check the rest of the ship in a moment. For now, he needed to collect himself and let his hooves stop shaking.

*****

Derpy was startled halfway out of her mind when the intercom snapped on. “I’m here,” Vision said. “Derpy, you need to get up.”

“I can’t!” the pegasus whispered. “He’ll hurt me if I try to escape. He said he’d-”

“I know,” Vision said soothingly. “You won’t be here when it gets back. If you go through the infirmary and the cargo hold, it won’t see you.” Derpy shook her head, choking back a sob. “You can do it,” Vision urged. “You have to be brave.”

Derpy blinked the tears from her eyes and tried to stop her hooves from shaking. “I’m not!” she argued. “I just fix the engine. I don’t know the first thing about being brave!”

“It’s okay to be scared,” Vision said. “We’re all scared, but we can’t let that stop us. Thunderlane won’t be able to slow it down for long. You have to move now, before it comes back. Find something sharp.”

Derpy looked around the engine room, and one eye fell on her toolbox. “I-I might be able to reach my wire cutters,” she said.

“Good.” Vision sounded very pleased with herself. “I’m going to tell you what to do. Go as fast as you can once you get out. Ticky’s waiting for you.”

*****

Horte Cuisine leaned against something that looked a lot like a dentist’s chair and cursed his luck. That blasted pegasus had nearly pulled one of his front leg right out of its socket. His overconfidence had nearly gotten him killed.

To make matters worse, the mechanic had escaped by the time he returned to the engine room. He was now limping through the infirmary in search of her, thinking that she must have made for the bridge. If she managed to free her friends, he would be in a very tight spot.

His suit’s radio squealed alarmingly with a blast of feedback. “You aren’t supposed to be here, Renaissance Stallion,” a mare’s voice accused. “You’re cheating. Leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for others to follow.”

Horte Cuisine considered ignoring her, but decided against it. There was always a chance that she could be useful if he could find her. “May I ask your name? You seem to have me at a disadvantage.”

“You have no idea,” the voice said mournfully. “I’ve seen what you do. Wish I hadn’t. You’re not right on the inside. You got issues. Sometimes even you can see that you’ve done wrong; the crash, her leg.”

He was surprised, and suddenly a little worried. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Who told you about that?”

The voice was silent for a moment. “Sometimes you wonder if she hates you,” it continued. “She doesn’t say it, but you wonder. The way she looks at you. Her smile. You think she’s afraid. Nopony could ever love a pony like you.”

“How do you know about my wife?” he asked. “You don’t… you’re wrong. Who are you?”

“You’re wrong,” the voice noted matter-of-factly. “Wrong about what you want and how to get it.”

“I most certainly am not,” he said. “Once I’ve incurred the favor of my employer, he or she will ensure that my wife and I are able to disappear without a trace. Nopony will ever bother us again. To do that, I need to find whatever this troublesome crew stole. My friends are on the way, so I’m in a bit of a rush. It’s quite frustrating.”

For a moment the absurdity of the situation made him laugh. “I don’t know I’m looking for because my subordinates wouldn’t tell me. Does that seem right to you?”

“You came here blind. You’re after a mare, but she’s not here anymore. She couldn’t stay. Saw how they looked at her when they thought she wasn’t watching. Everything would be easier if she left, but it hurt to go. Instead, she just melted away. Became a part of her home. They didn’t know she could do that.”

Horte Cuisine frowned, unhappy with this new turn of events. He didn’t like the idea of dealing with a crazy pony, especially one that seemed to know him a little too well for his liking. “I’m afraid that I don’t understand.”

“You came here for me,” the voice said. “I’m not like I was. I’m tied to the ship.”

“Then with whom am I speaking?” he asked.

“Sereneighty. The mare you want and the ship are together now. And, Sir Cuisine? Sereneighty is very unhappy.”

A shiver went up his spine. Horte Cuisine suddenly got the horrible feeling that he was being watched, and turned around to make sure that nopony was sneaking up on him. “She’s also unhealthy,” the voice continued. “She belongs here now, but it still hurts. Can’t be trusted or controlled. She’s dangerous, like you. She’s going to have to leave now. Sereneighty will bleed, but she will heal.”

“Very well,” he said. “Let’s assume for a moment that you are, in fact, what I’m here for. Where can I find you?”

“The cargo hold. I’ll be your bounty if you let the others live.”

Horte Cuisine limped down the passageway, pistol held at the ready in case somepony had prepared an ambush for him. He highly doubted it, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

He was relieved to see that his caution was unnecessary; there was only a small figure in a space suit waiting for him. She was standing near the airlock, watching the stars through the window. He trotted closer to the mystery pony, scanning the area for any signs of a trap. He wasn’t quite jumping at shadows, but this ship and its crew were quickly pushing him in that direction.

“They’re pretty,” said the familiar voice. “It’s empty out there. Quiet.” She turned to face him, her helmet reflecting the pinpricks of light outside.

He wasn’t sure at first why he thought of Sorbet. The two mares looked as different as two ponies possibly could without straying into the grotesque. The only thing about her that he recognized was the cold, resigned hopelessness in her eyes.Therein lay the resemblance.

Sorbet had looked at him in exactly the same way when he’d met her for the first time. She had been a complete mess, covered from head to hoof in soot and engine oil. The grime had been so thick that he could hardly see her beneath it. She has been lying in the mud, her leg badly broken, and waiting to die.

That day had been the first and only time in his life that he felt guilt. It was a very foreign emotion, and he found that he really didn’t like it. He had done a great many terrible things in his line of work, but it was almost unheard of for his conscience to complain. He supposed that there was something very wrong with him, but the thought had never bothered him as much as it probably should have.

In the present, the mare’s eyes went wide with shock. “You’re more lost than I am,” she said. Horte Cuisine took several seconds to snap out of his daze. When he did, he noticed a cable clipped to the mare’s belt. The other end was hooked into a recess on the floor. “Told you,” she said. “Tied to the ship.”

A siren sounded as a warning light flashed above the cargo door. Horte Cuisine frantically searched for his helmet, remembering that he’d left it in the crate that had been used to smuggle him in.

As he ran for the pile of tea crates, he saw a different mare standing at a control box on the other side of the room. Lyra grinned at him, her hoof ominously tapping a lever. A thick cable attached to her belt tethered her to a hook on the wall meant for just that purpose. “You wouldn’t believe how much trouble we have with stowaways around here,” she said, and yanked down on the lever with all her might.

The cargo bay ramp groaned as it began its ponderous descent. Horte Cuisine lunged for his helmet, and barely managed to grab it before a powerful wind kicked up. The ship’s gravity was suddenly shut off, and he went tumbling across the room at a dizzying angle.

The growing maw of darkness drew closer, and he frantically tried to secure his helmet. The seals locked into place just as he smacked against the ramp’s edge, and a hiss of compressed air let him know that it was safe to breathe again. He used his first breath to curse, and his second to praise the goddesses that he was alive.

His mission was probably a failure, but he would live to fight another day. Spitfire would pick him up soon, guided by the tracker in his suite. He would have some explaining to do, but it was a small price to pay for his own survival.

*****

Vision stood at the ramp’s edge, anchored by the magnetic boots of her suit. She watched the stars with detached curiosity, not unlike a clinical observer examining insect specimens. Lyra stood silently next to her, but then again everything was silent with no atmosphere. “That was a fine bit of thinkin’ you did,” the Captain said. “Good thing we turned off the intercom before the doctor could mess it up. You should’ve seen him; I think he was about ready to run down here and stop you himself.”

“He meant well.” Vision looked down at her hooves. “Miscalculated. I said some bad things. I hurt his feelings.”

“I don’t think he had that many to hurt,” Lyra chuckled. “Really, though. You did well.”

Vision looked at her, happiness warring with caution for control of her face. “Permission to come aboard?”

“You’re already aboard,” Lyra said. “You know something? You’re not quite right.”

The earth pony nodded. “That seems to be the general consensus.”

The Captain put one of her forelegs around Vision’s shoulders and pulled her into a clumsy hug. “Go on, little one,” she said. Vision’s smile became a little more genuine. “Go and give your brother a thrashing for almost messin’ up your plan.”

“He takes so much looking after,” Vision sighed. She stomped across the cargo hold, planting her hooves to make sure that the magnets had a good grip before lifting one of her other legs. She flipped a lever to shut the cargo ramp as she passed. Before it could close all the way, Lyra tossed out a small metal cylinder with a blinking light on one end. The tracking beacon spun out into the Big Black and was soon lost among the stars.

Lyra couldn’t hear the mechanism as the ramp locked shut, but the floor vibrated beneath her hooves. “I think we’re done here,” she said into her radio, switching to a public channel. “Derpy, we could use some air. Get Vinyl to check our course once you get her out of her bunk. That gust might have given us a push in the wrong direction.”

Author's Note

Every time I read over Vision’s dialogue, it changes completely. It’s never the same twice when I'm done with it. I’ve got no idea why, but I might have strayed into Lovecraft territory so I’m just going to leave it alone. Maybe the Great Old Ones will leave me alone if I don’t mess up any more of their fanfiction. Good God, that’s a strange thought. I rather like it. I should write a novel about that. “All the world’s a fanfiction, and all the men and women merely original characters.”

Anyway, there’s a TON that I want to say about this, but I promised myself I wouldn’t write huge notes. Symbolism about Vision truly belonging, Thunderlane mimicking Dolph Lundgren in front of a character inspired by the actor, and things finally don’t seem right to him. Enjoy, thanks for reading, leave comments. Chariots chariots.