Event Horizon

“Uh...Why are you guys staring at me like that?” Lily asked as one of her eyebrows went up in the classic confused human look that she had practiced one time.

“I...I just shot you six times. Wha...What in the name of Celestia are you?” Echo held her still smoking revolver in her shaking hand, all of the rounds spent.

“Maybe it’s a ghost. It would make sense on why the bullets went through it,” Soarin blurred out. In normal conditions, there would be some ridicule for the comment that he just blurred out, but this was an exception.

“You know, if I was not scared shitless right now Soarin, I would slap you for saying something like that,” Blaze said with a scared tone that was not familiar to her.

“You know that ghosts don’t exist...And the spell is still saying that there is nothing in front of us!” The girl in front of the terrified group shocked them by facepalming and groaning, almost as if she was annoyed or something.

“I just explained why that spell of yours was not working. Are you sure you're a real Doctor? Or are you just not listening?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m a bit scared to all hell right now,” Heart said in a sharp tone, having just been offended by a ghost.

“Oh nevermind. Say, why did you waste those shots? A antique revolver in that good of a condition and working could sell for a lot of credits in an auction!”

“Wha...What do you mean by a ‘antique’ revolver? I bought this thing brand new a month ago for five hundred and fifty bits, not ‘credits’.” The groups level of fear was slowly taken down a notch by the very odd question that the thing had asked. The revolver that Echo had showed off when she had just brought it a month ago was brand new and the best you could buy at the time. So why was this ghost person telling them that it was an ‘antique’?

“Uh...What do you mean you bought that brand new? They stopped making gunpowder revolvers in the twenty third century. Either you got ripped off, or you got yourself the deal of a lifetime. Also, is bits the local jargon for Alliance Credits around wherever this place is.” The ghost answered it back in a surprised tone in her voice as her face took on a look of confusion.

The group looked around at each other, the looks of fear gone and the looks of confusion having replaced them.

“Twenty third century? Alliance Credits? You know what, I don’t think that this is a ghost,” Spitfire thought to herself. That thought in and of itself was terrifying. She could right now be metting the

“What the hell is an ‘Alliance Credit’?” The girls eyes widened in surprise, before narrowing in suspicion. The ghost stared at her with another look of confusion and suspicion , before she did something quite unexpected.

“Heh...Haha ha ha ha. Either that is one of the worst jokes I have ever heard, or I’m in a black hole! So, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you’re joking about that. So, can you tell me what colony this is? I’m know that this can’t be Earth or Alpha... Are we on Harmony by chance?  That would explain some things. On that note as well, can I talk to your Governor as well? I need to get in contact with someone,” Lily put her hand on her chin in the classic human thinking position.

The rest of the group, now nearly free of all their fears for the most part had been replaced by confusion. Colony? Earth? Harmony? Twenty fourth century? Governor? What the hell was this ghost talking about?

“Uh...The planet you’re on is called Equis, not Harmony or Earth... And were not a ‘colony’, whatever that is, and we don’t have a governor,” Echo recalled, a bit taken back at the girls very odd response. The girl just gave them an odd stare, like she was trying to decide if they were lying or not, in which ironically was just what Lily was attempting to calculate.

This can’t be right. They have to be lying to me, they just have too. The sensor data in Logans suit  identified them all as Human, all Fifteen million, five hundred thousand, fifty two of them, quite small of a colony on that note. But, this is no right. None of them knew which colony they were on, or what a colony was for that matter. And the ‘bit’ thing; does that  mean they have a different economy here than in the entirety of the Alliance?

Then the things that Lily had dismissed as errors began to make sense. When she had first scanned the planet when they had arrived at wherever this is and detected and viewed their Internet, the massive lack of data and just weird data that was there, was originally dismissed as a error on the ships scanners part and filed away, but now it began to make sense in Lily's mind.

There was also the whole ‘wings’ thing. Lily had originally passed it off as a new trend that they had not become aware of on the Station, like the whole tail incident that she did not want to remember again. That was one weird trend to say the least.

“This does not make any sense whatsoever, but I can’t discount it. It is very possible that the sensors on the ship were heavily damaged during the physics breaking trip that we just went through. They look identical to us, minus the usual body modifications, but they are lacking so far behind when it comes to tech level. They can’t be the 2 that we are, it almost seems like they are .07. But that can’t be right, that would make them...”

Unknowing to Lily, the A.I had started mumbling this out loud and the entire group had heard every word she had said.

“Uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I can guarantee to whatever you are that the thing in the room behind you is an alien, Heart said it herself. It...It did not have the same bone structure as us.” Spitfire said this as she stood up and slowly walked forward to the mumbling girl, which she had connected to the supposed alien guy in the room behind her. The girls head suddenly and immediately looked up and right at her, zero emotion on her face.

“Repeat what you just said. Now!”

“The alien behind you that I’m pretty sure you know, he has a different bone structure than us,” Spitfire said in a calm voice, not trying to spook whatever she was talking to.

“Different bone structure? That would mean...No, that is impossible. There is no possible way that...” And that is when all the data and ideas came together to form a very simple, but universe breaking conclusion.

She and Logan were not on a human colony like they had thought, well rather she had thought. Logan had been knocked solidly unconscious by the fall, even with the suits technology. From the damage that she had seen and sensed, he had a broken arm and a broken leg along with a small armada of cuts and bruises, which meant that he was going to be unconscious for at least a day, possibly more.

But back to the main, universe breaking point though.

They had landed on a human planet, but it was not a colony. Life, in all its mysterious  and odd ways, had decided to go and pretty much break every evolutionary rule by forming life intelligent life that was exactly like humanity. This was supposed to be impossible by all standards, but here it was.

And she had just gone and made first contact with them while breaking every single first contact protocol that was programmed into her.

In less than proper words, she had just fucked up to a planetary, or possibly universal degree.

And that would not look good on most resumes.

The correct way to have done this would have taken much more time and would have involved a ton of planning and research into the civilization below, then the decision would be made whether or not to initiate first contact.

“Oh fuck. Oh shit shit shit.”

“Uh...Are you alright Miss Ghostlady?” Surprise asked with concern, her usual happiness returned to her.

“Oh I’m just fine,” she said with sarcasm dripping from her voice.

“You don’t sound fine,” Surprise said as she got up and walked towards the clearly distressed ghost person thingy.

“I’m not fine, now please back away before even more damage is done!” The girl said as she held up her hand to try to tell Surprise to stop moving towards her. Lily’s processors were beginning to get very hot as she began to think more and more.

“Okay, I’ll stand right here then,” Surprise said as she stopped moving and somewhat stood her ground. Meanwhile, Spitfire had regained her composure completely and had stood up and was now standing next to Surprise, bent on helping the poor girl.

“Hey, can I help you?”

“Yeah, yeah you can. You can start by letting me take the person in the room behind me, and then forgetting everything that you just saw, and heard. That is how you can help me,” Lily said in a much more serious tone, her usual happy tone gone. She had nearly overloaded her main CPU thinking about how this could have happened, and had inadvertently activated an emergency ‘cool down’ program.

“He is in no condition to move right now,” Heart snapped back as she stood up and moved towards the girl.

“So, because you have treated him for what, an hour, you know more about him?” Lily snapped back, very annoyed at Hearts arrogant sounding tone.

“Woah, let’s try to not have a massive brawl here. Now, can you tell us your name?” Spitfire asked, trying to keep the peace and also attempting to stop a possible intergalactic war.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’d rather not call you ‘ghost’ or ‘thing’ anymore. Do you even have a name?”

“Of course I have a name.”

“And it would be…?

“Lily.”

“That’s a nice name. Now, Lily, what exactly do you want from us?”

“And what are you!”

“Soarin, I am five feet from you, you do not need to yell that loud,” Echo said as she lightly smacked Soarin in the back of the head.

“What I want has not changed in the last five minutes. I want the person in the room behind me to come with me, and for you to forget and never tell anyone about what you saw. I’m not trying to be rude, but that is what I want from you,” Lily said with a very firm tone as she crossed her ‘arms’ to further cement her point.

“Uh… Why?”

“...” Lily gave no answer at all, her face still in the same stone etched look. Spitfire was confused this by this.

Why the hell can’t she tell me why she needs him? She must know that we know that he is an alien, but what is she in all this?

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“I’m really not trying to sound rude, but why do you need to know?”

“Because I want to know what we’re dealing with before we both do something that both of us regret,” Spitfire said with the thought of an intergalactic war still on her mind.

Lily thought about this for a second, before sighing in agreement. The amount of protocol that was going to be broken was immense, but it was better for that for protocol to be broken than someone to be broken.

“Sigh… Alright, it’s no use lying when you already know so much. If I can answer it, I’ll try. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know for one, who you are, what and who he is, and why you’re here. Is that alright? I’m not going to start any intergalactic wars now am I?” Spitfire asked, surprised at how well this was going. All those boring diplomatic scifi shows she had watched were finally being useful.

Lily looked at her oddly for a moment, before bursting out in a surprisingly happy laugh. “Heh… That’s a good one, I should probably save it. But all jokes aside, unless you do something massively wrong, you don’t have to worry about some intergalactic war. Also, what you are hear is not going to leave this group, do you understand me?” An uneasy laugh was echoed by the group, still a bit concerned at the current situation.

“Ah, so you want to know who I am? Hmm… How would I describe this the best? My ‘proper’ title is Chief Science Officer, and you know my name,” she replied, a bit happier about how this situation was going.

“You’re the Chief Science Officer for what exactly?”

“That… is something that I can’t tell you exactly,” Lily said calmly, not wanting to break one of the biggest rules that existed in the Alliance Government… But then again, she was technically never a part of the Alliance Government, and this was a class one discovery.

Does that mean I could possibly break the Prime Directive?

Meanwhile, Spitfire was confused. If they already knew and had established that the guy in the room was an Alien, and that Lily was connected to him somehow, but why couldn't she tell her what she did for a living? Heck, there was a very good chance that Lily was probably an Alien her self, but that would not explain how she was able to let six bullets go right through her.

Urgh, the people on Star Voyage have it so much easier than this.

“...What about we talk about that later. So… What exactly are you?”

Lily paused for a moment, trying to think of a way to tell her… and not to tell her at the same time. As much as she was beginning to like this flame haired Alien but identical human girl thingy, she still did not want to tell her and her group everything there was about them right now.

She could go and lie and say she that she just performed a small illusion to make it seem like the bullets had gone through her, or she could just say it was magic or something along the lines of that…

Crap, I forgot I did the door thing by accident… Fuck, what the hell do I do now? Wait, what would Logan do in this circumstance? He would probably make  promise to an extent to get them off his back so that he could do his job until the problem was fixed, then confront the person and go from there… That may possibly work a lot better than the whole massive lying plan that I was going to do. Fuck it, let’s do it!

“To fully explain what I am, and everything else you are going to ask is going to take time, and time something I really don’t have at the moment, so here is my deal for you guys,” she paused for a moment to let what she said sink in. “Instead of  questioning just me right now, you wait for my friend to wake up, and then you can ask both of us. Sound better to you Miss…?”

“Wait, you knew Echo’s and Hearts name,” Soarin said.

“Yes, I knew theirs because they left their badges on the floor of the room when you guys walked out. Wait, how did you think I knew?” Lily asked, wondering how they thought she had found them.

“Uh...I may, or may not have thought that you downloaded our entire internet or something like that,” Soarin said with surprising confidence.

“Uh...No,” Lily said in a deadpanned tone. She also noted in her head that

“Oh, then forget what I just said,” Soarin mumbled out, his cheeks red with embarrassment

“Forgive him, he’s a little bit stupid. Anyway, my names Spitfire,” Spitfire said, reaching her arm out to shake the hand of Lily in the all so common greeting. Lily looked at her awkwardly for a moment, before reaching her hand out and shaking her hand in return. As soon as she felt her hand, goosebumps went up her back. Her hand didn't not feel… living. Her hand had no pulse that she could feel in anyone elses hand. It also had no real weight behind it, even though she was able to move Spitfires hand. Her hand jerked away from her, drawing an odd look from Lily. She gave her a sheepish smile, trying not to look freaked out but failing.

What Spitfire did not know was that this moment was the start of a friendship that would span decades, and would cause adventures beyond anything she could imagine, and cause moments of happiness, and also despair that would make even the best drama writers jealous.

But first, they had to come to an agreement, and that could be a problem.

“So, Miss Spitfire, do we have an agreement?” Lily asked in a questioning tone, hoping that she would accept and not have to use the other option.

Spitfire thought about this for a moment. She had no idea who or what these people, aliens, were or what they were doing, or what they would do to them later. But at the same time, she would still be leaving someone injured and someone who clearly cared about him for no other reason than she was scared of the unknown. Letting them stay would also get her some questions answered, and maybe some more stuff that she did not know at the time.

“...I accept your deal then Lily. You can stay here for the night, or until your friend wakes up, but I do intend for you to keep your promise, but you’re going to have to stay hidden for a bit until we can get some stuff clear,” Spitfire said with confidence.

“And that I will do. Thank you very much for letting me stay here Spitfire. In Fact, you won’t even know I’m here,” And with that, Lily disabled her physical form and disappeared, sending one last wave of shock through the team. Soarin looked around, before standing up and walking towards the doors that led to the exit of the building.

“Soarin, where are ya going?” Echo asked as she got up and followed behind him, the rest of the team joining her.

“This day has been too damn fucking nuts. I’m going to go and drink large amounts of alcohol and hopefully have a nice, drunken slumber. Feel free to join me,” And with that, he pushed the door open and walked out, leaving the doors swinging behind him.

“As much as I’m going to regret to say this, I’m going to go with him,” Blaze said as she walked toward the door, with all other members save for Spitfire, Heart and Echo. Echo looked at Spitfire with puppy eyes, in which Spitfire replied by simply waving her hand to signal her that she could go. She flashed her a huge smile, before running off and going through the door, trying to catch up with the group.

You know… Large amounts of alcohol does sound nice… Let’s see if the old Puppy eyes still got that charm.

Spitfire turned to Heart, who was busy staring at the door that led to the Aliens room took notice of her puppy eyed look and sighed. She knew that she was, as usual, was going to be the only one doing their job. She waved her hand in the same manner Spitfire did to Echo, and the results were about the same. Spitfire bolted out the door, leaving Heart standing there alone.

“I swear, if this thing tries to kill me, I am going to haunt the ever you for all of eternity Captain, and a day.”