Hydroponic Farms

The hydroponic farms serve both to provide extra food for the UAC station and to research plants able to adapt to Mars, a necessary step in the planet’s terraforming process.

After what could have been hours, Trixie forced herself to take her eyes off the nightmarish sky and examine the room around her. The walls and the floor were all made of the same metallic tiles repeated over and over, like some kind of giant and dull puzzle. All around the room were what looked like dull grey pipes, held around the unicorn’s eye level and apparently all connected to a large reservoir. Trixie couldn’t tell what material they were made of, neither wood, glass or metal; they were completely smooth. Out of the upper side of these, dozens upon dozens of green leaves were coming out, rows and rows of plants growing in these strange tubes.

Trixie approached one of these and picked up the sound of water trickling inside. She cautiously tapped one with a hoof, still trying to identify the material. It only produced a dull sound, while the lettuces growing in it shook gently. Shaking her head, Trixie went back to her examination. Light was coming from several strange-looking lamps, made of long, glowing tubes and casting spindly shadows in every direction. The selection of plants growing here was surprisingly varied, from herbs to vegetables, flowers and bushes, all of them sticking out of these tubes. One thing was certain: Trixie had never heard of any place like this one…

Trying to find Star Trail in the maze of green, Trixie reared up and promptly toppled over, falling on her back. Surprisingly, she fell relatively slowly, not hurting herself at all. In fact, Trixie realized as she rose to her hooves that she felt much lighter than before, as if she had been carrying a huge weight for days and just got rid of it. She jumped in the air, her eyes widening as she fell back slower than she should have.

“An anti-gravity spell?” she muttered to herself. Shaking her head again and setting that question aside for later, she rose on her hind hooves and finally spotted a gray and blue head above the greenery. “Star Trail!”

“Oh. There you are! I was starting to think we’d been separated.”

Trixie rested her forehooves on one of the strange planting pipes to stabilize herself, Star Trail imitating her a few rows further. “Where are we now?” she asked.

“This is… a greenhouse, I think.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “I meant, where in Equestria are we? I’ve never seen or even heard of a place like this… What’s wrong with the sky?” she asked, pointing up.

“I have no idea,” Star Trail answered slowly, his eyes turned upwards.

Trixie frowned, glaring at the young stallion through narrowing eyes. “What was wrong with your spell? Where did you send us? First that... that... dragon’s lair and now, this?” She gestured at the strange room with one of her hooves.

“I... I’m sorry. That wasn’t supposed to happen!” He raised his hooves defensively. “I guess I messed up the first time, I’m not sure how... But when we cast the spell a second time, it was like something… just... pulled us here.”

“Something?” Trixie raised an eyebrow and cast a glance around the room. It seemed completely deserted, aside from the two unicorns. The walls had been painted, but it was chipped in too many places to count, there were stains on the ground and rust almost everywhere. Trixie could have sworn that the place was abandoned, hadn’t the plants been perfectly healthy...

“Maybe it was somepony…” Trixie cleared her throat and called. “Hello? Is anypony here?”

The two ponies waited a few seconds, but no answer came.

“There must be someone around here somewhere,” Star Trail said. “Somepony who can tell us where we are...”

“Let’s hope so.” Trixie spotted what looked like a door. Just like the rest of the room, it was made of metal, a tall grayish thing with markings reading ‘GL-23’ in big, blocky letters. She walked towards it, followed by Star Trail and stopped a few meters away to examine it. In particular, she looked carefully, trying to find a handle...

The door -if it indeed was a door- was basically a smooth metal plate embedded in the wall. Trixie tried to push it with her magic, then pulled, without effect.

“Stupid door, why won’t you open?” She struck a forehoof on it and jumped back with a yelp when it suddenly slid into the wall with a whirring sound.

“Wha–? How...” By the time Trixie had recovered from her surprise, the door had come back in place with a whoosh.

Trixie and Star Trail exchanged a puzzled glance before staring back at the door. The stallion approached slowly and examined it closely. There was a part on one side that stood a little apart from the rest, some sort of raised plate, with arrows etched in the metal near it. Star Trail slowly brought a hoof and touched it. The door opened again with the same metallic sound.

“A door that opens on its own...” he muttered to himself. “Interesting. It must be enchanted somehow...”

Trixie picked herself up and stepped through, now that the mysterious door had been mastered, into a narrow hallway with even worse lighting than the previous room. She used her horn to provide some illumination, the pink of her magic reflecting on the dull tint of the walls to create a dark, reddish haze.

Looking left and right, Trixie saw nothing that could give her any indication of where to go. With a shrug, she picked one side of the corridor and started walking in that direction. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Star Trail looking all around, examining the strange tunnel-like hallway they had landed in.

The two walked for a few seconds until they found another door, which only led into another greenhouse. They both kept walking into the dark corridor.

Trixie noticed that panels were sometimes missing from the walls. In one place, the gap revealed strings and wires of various colors. Another missing panel showed pipes from which some gurgling sounds could be heard intermittently. She wondered what could be hiding inside the rest as she heard humming, buzzing and hissing from different places in the walls. It almost seemed like the building itself was alive.

As the two ponies kept walking down the corridor, the noise became louder and louder. Trixie stopped in front of a wide door, looking for the command plate to open it. She smirked as she found the metallic trigger and bumped it with a hoof. Her eardrums were instantly hit by a cacophony of grinding, hissing and whirring. A snoring dragon might have sounded like that, if it had been made of metal.

“Gah! What’s making so much noise?” she asked, half to herself and half to her companion.

“What?” the other pony shouted back with his ears flattened on his head.

“I said: what’s making so much noise?”

“I don’t think so... What’s making so much noise?”

Trixie rolled her eyes and nodded forward, indicating him to follow. She made her way in a room filled with what had to be various machinery: large metallic box-like constructs… Was everything made of metal in this place? Some machines had a more rounded shape, other had pipes, tubes and wires going in or out of them, most had strange screens mounted on a side displaying curves, graphs, numbers or colorful flashing icons.

Looking closely at one of these didn’t teach Trixie much. Although some of the letters looked slightly different, the text on the displays were still written in standard equestrian. Trixie had no clue as to what they meant, though: even if she knew all but a few of the words, their overall meaning was murky. Taking her eyes off the machinery, Trixie looked around, trying to find an exit.

She froze when she saw the creatures. One had his upper body inside one of the machines, probably working on it while the other was standing near him. It was tall, standing on only its hind legs and looked both familiar and alien at the same time, creating a feeling of unease in Trixie. She was vaguely reminded of a minotaur, but besides the bipedal posture and the shape of the torso, the creature was quite different: the arms were almost the same, but the legs were thicker, ending in a strange flat end that looked nothing like a hoof or even a paw. Its was almost round, with two small eyes, a protruding nose and a mouth, all placed completely forward and only two strange-looking ears on the sides...

“Humans...” The word left her mouth by itself as she remembered the creatures from ancient myths, dating back to before civilization was beginning to appear in Equestria...

When Trixie was planning her revenge on Twilight and trying to find knowledge that could grant her more power, she had learned a lot of the oldest legends of ponykind. The humans seemed to appear in many of the primitive ponies’ mythologies. Creatures imagined by prehistorical ponies, appearing in crude paintings and sculptures dating back to fifty or a hundred thousand years... But what it they hadn’t imagined them? What if they were hiding in some strange and remote part of Equestria? What if Star Trail’s botched teleportation took the both of them there?

Judging by the movements of his mouth, the standing human was apparently talking with his fellow, but their voices were covered by the ambient noise, making all but a few of the words impossible to understand. Trixie looked to her side, seeing Star Trail completely transfixed, his eyes glued to the mysterious creatures. She shook him a little by the shoulder, making him blink and focus back on her.

“Do you see what I see?” he asked, trying to get his voice low enough that the creatures couldn’t hear him, but still louder than the cacophony of the surrounding machinery.

Trixie nodded and made a shushing motion, walking a little closer and hiding behind a large... metallic something. She vaguely heard their voices again and the standing one turned around. Using his weird hands, he reached in a box and grabbed some sort of tool that he put in the other’s outstretched hand, then leaned back against the wall, looking bored.

The human shoved one of his hands in his pocket and pulled a small box. Trixie tilted her head as she saw him take a tiny white stick out and put it between his lips. With his other hand, he grabbed a shiny silver object and worked his fingers on it somehow until a small flame appeared, which he used to ignite the end of the stick.

Her eyes widened like saucers and her mouth fell open when, a few seconds later, he blew out a puff of smoke. Trixie was so busy wondering what he was doing that she didn’t realize his eyes had drifted lazily to her position, before going back to another part of the room...

Until the human’s eyes widened and his head snapped back to face Trixie.

He blinked a few times, but his eyes remained fixed on her... Trixie gulped, but remained otherwise immobile, wondering what he was going to do. Using one of his feet, the human tapped on his colleague’s leg. The second human dragged himself outside of the machine he was working on, covered in grease stains. He followed the finger pointing straight at Trixie and froze too.

She gulped again, still opting to remain frozen. They had already seen her, she didn’t need to make any move that could pass for aggressive. Ponies knew about nothing of the mythical humans: having only crude pictures and statuettes to work with, archeologists could only speculate as to what they were supposed to represent, what they could do, how they were supposed to behave...

The second human stood up, a strange spectacle to Trixie, seeing him getting his long legs under his body and unfolding them, balancing perfectly without any effort while these two long arms hung on his sides. The two creatures exchanged a few words. The first reached back in the toolbox.

Trixie started to sweat when he pulled out some kind of rope. She observed him working his fingers, almost hypnotized by the complex movements, but immediately snapped out of it when she realized that he had made a loop. The other was clutching a large hammer. They started walking very slowly towards her.

Instinctive alarms sounded in Trixie’s mind: they were intending to catch her, there was no doubt about it. She ducked back behind her cover and took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. Star Trail was still sticking his head out, watching the humans like a colt in front of a candy store. Trixie shook him.

“We need to leave,” she said loudly.

“What?”

“These things intend to catch us and I don’t want to find out why.”

He took another quick look and nodded at Trixie. While she was trying to find an exit, the humans appeared from behind the machine, on each side of Trixie and Star Trail. They were faster than she had expected...

One of them extended his hands, trying to catch her by the neck. Trixie jumped and started galloping before he had time to get close enough. Judging by the sound of hooves right behind her, Star Trail was doing the same.

The two ponies came back to the door they had come through and headed into the corridor, running like crazy. Looking over her shoulder, she yelped when she saw the two humans following. She couldn’t comprehend how they were able to move that fast on only two legs, but they were following quite close. The one with the rope threw his improvised lasso, but far enough from Trixie that she didn’t have to worry about it.

She heard Star Trail shouting behind her and skidded to a stop. The lasso had caught him around the neck and he was struggling to move despite the knot strangling him while the human at the other end of the rope was pulling on the rope with both hands, his feet firmly stuck on the ground. The other human was running forward.

Trixie looked at Star Trail, the humans, the rope, the very short distance between all of them... She was about to turn and run away when an idea hit her, etching a smirk on her lips. Trixie charged up a spell, her horn glowing pink. The running human slowed down when he saw her magic, holding up one hand defensively. She didn’t give him time to think, throwing a blast of magic at the rope.

It came to life under her spell, unknotting itself, sliding away from Star Trail’s neck and then standing like a cobra in front of the human. He took a few steps back, his eyes wider than ever and watching the rope with a mix of surprise and fear. He yelped when it jumped on him, quickly entangling both feet and hands, forcing him to fall on his face.

Star Trail quickly went back to running again, followed closely by Trixie, away from the two shouting humans. The duo of unicorns reached the end of the corridor and passed the door without even paying attention to their surroundings. Now that the humans were out of sight, they slowed down to catch their breath.

“Whew... Thanks for the save, Trixie.”

She managed to flash her cocky grin. “You shouldn’t expect any less from the great and powerful Trixie.” He didn’t need to know that she was ready to abandon him without any hesitation if her trick had failed, after all...

“What were those creatures anyway? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I think they were humans,” Trixie said. “Mythical creatures… At least they were supposed to be mythical.”

“I wonder what they wanted with us,” Star Trail mused. “Look at this place, their technology looks completely different from anything we have in Equestria.”

Trixie took a look at the room. At first glance, it seemed to be some sort of storage: long shelves going all through the room and covered with a plethora of objects. Some were familiar: random tools like hammers or spanners, microscopes... Most of the apparatus were completely foreign to her, though. Things made of metal, glass and other materials she couldn’t even identify, cardboard boxes with labels making no sense to her...

Trixie nickered. “This is fascinating, but this doesn’t tell us where we are. And these humans look… creepy. I’d rather not deal with them, do you think there are other ponies around?”

Star Trail took his head out of a box he was currently inspecting. “They seemed really surprised to see us... So I would say ponies are not common here.”

“This is just great. How are we going to find our way home now?”

Star Trail simply shrugged, making Trixie grit her teeth.

“This is your fault, you know!” she hissed. “You could at least act like you’re concerned.”

“Panicking won’t get us anywhere,” he answered nonchalantly, making Trixie’s anger rise another level.

She was seriously considering throwing one of the heavier looking boxes in his face when the door opened. Two other humans came in. When the first two they had met were wearing only a few loose clothes, these seemed to be carapaced in a greenish armor. Their faces in particular were completely concealed in strange helmets, with tubes reaching to where their mouth should have been and a large shiny panel, maybe made of glass, covering the upper part of their heads. The armor looked bulky and covered mostly their torsos, leaving their arms free. They still wore huge boots covering up to their knees, though.

By the time Trixie was done observing their strange attire, she realized that one of them was pointing towards her... She didn’t wait any longer and ran in the opposite direction. Luckily, the room had another exit and she found herself in another of the long corridors, followed closely by Star Trail. The two unicorns ran without slowing down, the shouts of the humans only motivating them further.

Speeding down the hallway, Trixie spotted a few large crates stacked up on one side. As soon as she passed them, she concentrated her magic in a powerful burst to throw them across the way. She smirked as the huge crates blocked the passage, confident that the humans would have to find another way to catch her.

Her grin turned into a grimace of dread when she spotted one of the humans’ head appearing above. The creature was using its long, freakish arms to hoist itself on the top and apparently without much of an effort. It crawled quickly on the crate and jumped on the ground with surprising agility.

Trixie screamed and ran away, adrenaline pushing her heart and legs to new levels. The two unicorns kept throwing as many objects behind them as they could, earning themselves a few seconds, but unable to get rid of the pursuing humans. Not only could these things run fast, they were able to move in ways that nopony could. They didn’t even seem to tire, keeping pace without any problems... How was she supposed to lose them?

“Over here!”

Trixie jumped at the strange, whispering voice. It seemed to come out from one of the walls.

“Over... here...”

She spotted a grate that seemed to lead into some small tunnel. A quick look at the corridor and the two tall humans barrelling down did a great job at convincing her to follow the voice instead. With a strong telekinetic pull, Trixie ripped the grate off the wall and squeezed herself into the hole.

It was a tight fit, forcing Trixie to squirm and wiggle to advance, but the motivation of the two creatures pursuing her made her surprisingly flexible. After only a few seconds, she had succeeded in shoving her entire body in the vent, panting from the effort but making steady progress.

“Trixie?” Star Trail called her from behind. “I’m too big, I can’t follow you.”

Trixie paused for a second. She couldn’t turn around, but she could still backtrack her way out. That would mean more time wasted, letting the humans get closer again.

She pushed forward.

“Trixie!”

It was his fault they were in this mess anyway. Served him right... Trixie heard him curse and gallop away. If he could run fast enough, maybe the things wouldn’t catch him. She wondered what they would do. Eat him maybe? That wasn’t her problem anymore...

Trixie used her magic to light herself in the long, dark vent. Progressing through, she mumbled a curse every time the metallic walls scraped and scratched her skin but didn’t slow down. Confined in such a small space, she felt her moist breath heat the air with every pant. Sweat started to roll in her eyes, stinging and forcing her to blink.

Trixie felt like a mole under the ground. A hunted, tired, sweaty, panicking mole.

“Stupid tunnel goes on forever,” she muttered to herself in between hot, steamy breaths. “Damn those humans for building that place... Damn that Star Trail for bringing me here. Damn that ursa minor for ruining my career. Damn those two retarded colts! Damn Twilight Sparkle! Damn alicorn amulet! Damn everything! What have I done to deserve this?”

Still cursing and raging, Trixie reached a sort of opening. It didn’t lead into another room but instead let her enter a larger part of those tunnels. Now that she had enough room to at least stand, she took a brief pause to breathe and did her best to wipe the sweat off her face with a hoof. “If I had my cape and my hat,” she said to herself, “I could at least sponge and fan myself. But nooooo, I have to be transported into weird and creepy places when I’m au naturel…” Cursing the entire universe one more time, Trixie headed down one of the larger-looking vents, not wanting to play the earthworm again.

She walked for a while in the dark space, turned pinkish by her magical light, somewhat grateful that she at least didn’t have to crawl anymore. That advantage was quickly compensated when she passed near pipes leaking gas in her face, making her cough and pray that they weren’t toxic.

A minute later, Trixie found herself behind another metallic grate. After a quick peek to make sure that nopony– or rather, nohuman was waiting for her outside, she pushed it off the wall with her telekinesis and squeezed herself out of the wall.

A quick look around didn’t teach the unicorn much about her surroundings. She identified some desks, holding screens displaying various lines of text that were nothing but gibberish to her. The only thing that appeared often was a triangular picture with the letters ‘UAC’ at the bottom. There were various representations of that symbol on the screens, on papers, on boxes. Some also had ‘Union Aerospace’ added to the letters, making her think that UAC was the shortened version of... whatever that was.

She had never heard of anything bearing that name and wasn’t even sure of what “aerospace” really meant. Something about air and space? Maybe it was related to astronomy... Trixie grunted in annoyance. She had no clue as to where she was and how to go back to Equestria (since it was pretty obvious that she was in a whole another part of the world now, thanks to that stupid stallion) and couldn’t even figure out the name of the place.

Trixie was considering destroying all the arcane machinery in the room, just to vent a little steam, when she heard voices and footsteps approaching. The door opened, leaving her barely enough time to jump under a desk and quickly bring a few boxes in front of her with her magic. She froze, hoping that they wouldn’t come looking for her here.

Two sets of legs passed in front of Trixie, but thankfully stopped a little further.

“Man, how much more of these reports do we have to file?” The voice was deep and slow, the human slurring each word.

“Are you really going to complain when we haven’t even started yet?” The other one had a strange accent that Trixie couldn’t place.

Slurry voice grunted. “It always takes forever. And do you think anybody actually reads those? Pfft! They’ll just archive ‘em somewhere.”

“Just do your job,” weird accent answered irritably.

“Yeah, yeah. Damn it, I can’t wait to get off this stupid rock.”

The two stopped talking for a moment and Trixie only heard some sort of clicking noises as they were doing whatever their job actually was.

“Attention all UAC personnel.” A feminine, tinny voice resounded in the room and Trixie had to gather all of her concentration to not jump in fright. “Unidentified animal specimens have been spotted near the hydroponic farms. If you see anything out of the ordinary, please contact Mars Security immediately. Thank you.”

“Animal specimens?” weird accent repeated out loud. “Do we even have any on Mars? And what did they mean by ‘unidentified’?”

“Hell if I know... Did they lose their lab rats or somethin’?”

“How could a rat be unidentified? Come to think of it, do they even have rats in the labs?”

“Don’t ask me,” slurry voice answered with a snort. “I don’t know what’s going on in this goddamned base and I sure as hell don’t want to know.”

“Aren’t you at least a little curious?”

“Not anymore. Everything is just creepy about this place. Nothin’ but weird crap going on in here.”

“Oh come on, you don’t believe all these rumours...”

“Rumours? I heard a guy lost his hand when a machine turned on... By itself. For no reason and without any power source. That’s not a rumour, there were two guys standing there who saw it happen!”

“Well, that was just an accident.”

The other human snorted. “Yeah right. We get an ‘accident’ at least every week, not to mention all the people going crazy. I heard Johnson jumped on Rodriguez yesterday. Tried to bite him like a rabid dog...”

“Bullshit...”

“No, I swear, I–” slurry voice paused. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Sounds like... breathing.”

Trixie clamped her hooves over her mouth and held her breath. Agonizingly long seconds passed, her heartbeat sounding like a pair of terribly loud drums in her ears.

“I don’t hear anything,” weird accent finally declared.

Slurry voice sighed. “See? This is what I’m talking about. Noises, voices, stuff moving on its own... It’s like this base is haunted or something.”

Trixie allowed herself to breathe, as softly as she could.

“Come on.”

“Whatever. Next month I’m going back to Earth and you’ll never get me to put a single foot on Mars. Ever. Again.”

“Mars?” Trixie wracked her brain, trying to make sense of what she just heard. “They’re speaking as if they’re not on Earth... How could they not be on the planet? Besides Earth there’s... nothing, except for the Sun and the Moon. Nopony could live there. Those aren’t even real places anyway, just... stuff in the sky that the princesses magic in place…

“What the hay is Mars then?”

“Hey, do you hear–”

“Shhh!”

“How could a unicorn’s teleportation, no matter how inaccurate, possibly send ponies in another world entirely?”

“I hear it too,” weird accent said.

Trixie’s eyes widened and she clamped her muzzle shut with her hooves.

She heard the humans stir and walk around.

“What is that?”

Something tugged on Trixie’s tail, making her yelp in surprise. She looked back and noticed much too late that the tip of her long tail was poking out of her hidey-hole. And now, one of the humans was pulling on it...

“What the hell?”

She darted out from under the desk, knocking boxes in her way. The humans jumped and shouted in surprise, but Trixie didn’t give them any time to recover. She rushed for the nearest exit and ran.

Why there were so many hallways and doors, Trixie couldn’t even begin to guess. She didn’t even care much anyway, only preoccupied with running away from the humans.

A man appeared in the hallway ahead of her, his eyes focused on some device he was holding in his hands, even while walking. Trixie skidded to a halt, looking left and right. She picked the closest door and tried to open it, but only got a buzzing sound out of it. A panel right next to the door turned red and indicated ‘access denied’, in case she had any doubts.

Cursing, she turned around and headed for another door. The human in the hallway had taken his eyes off of his thingie and was now gaping at her. It looked pretty ridiculous between its orange baggy jumpsuit, almost hairless head and stupid expression... Ignoring him, Trixie went through the door and found herself in what was most likely a bathroom, with no other exits. Cursing once more, the unicorn went back in front of the stupefied human. She lit up her horn, trying to think of an appropriate spell if he tried to attack her, but saw the creature flinch and look with worry at her horn.

“Well, it’s worth a try…” she thought to herself. Taking on her most menacing pose, she addressed the human. “Where is the exit?”

“Wha– What?” he took a step back and widened his eyes even more.

“How do I get out of this place?” Trixie snarled.

“Holy shit! Blue talking unicorn... Holy shit!”

Trixie frowned in annoyance. “Answer or face the wrath of the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

“Holy... Uh... What?”

“How do I leave this place? Where is the closest exit?” Trixie yelled at him.

He blinked a few more times, then hesitantly pointed with a finger down the hallway on his left.

“Hey!” Both turned to face a few armored humans running in the hallway. “Stop that thing!”

The human glanced at Trixie. She gulped and reared, lighting up her horn. Fortunately, he simply cowered instead of making a move towards her. She stomped her front hooves on the ground as she unleashed her spell, creating a thick cloud of smoke that she used as cover to escape. It only bought her a few extra seconds and as she was sprinting down the way that the human had pointed out, she heard her pursuers running uncomfortably close behind her.

The hallway led to a T-shaped intersection. Directions on the wall told her read ‘Sectors 5-9’ on the left and ‘Surface Access’ on the right. Trixie turned right and immediately stopped when she spotted a second group of armored humans in the way. Once their initial surprise passed, they started running towards her too.

She took a glance at the first group... She could not get past them, but going in the opposite direction of the surface did not sound good...

Everything became dark suddenly as every single source of light went out at the same moment.

“Fucking piece of shit generators!” she heard one of them shout. “Get some lights on, quick!”

Trixie acted fast. Using her magic, she took apart a ventilation grate from the wall and squeezed herself in the empty space, quickly putting the metal grate back in place. Through it, she saw the humans turn on some portable lights, strong enough to force her to close her eyes when they ended up pointing them in her direction. They scanned the area quickly.

“Where did it go?”

“This way,” one pointed down the hallway that led to the labs. Trixie smirked as her improvised plan paid off.

“Was there ever any doubt?”

Once the humans were far enough, Trixie dislodged the grate again and slid out of the wall, praying that this would be the last time she had to squeeze herself in that kind of tiny hole. As she shook herself to get her mane and tail back into an acceptable shape, she accidentally tipped the grate.

It fell on the ground, making a loud clang that resonated all along the hallway.

“Over there!” a voice came from behind her. She darted in the exit’s direction.

“Don’t shoot,” she heard. “Take it alive!”

Trixie ran without looking back, hoping that the promised access to the surface would be very, very close.

She burst into a room comparatively larger than most of what she had seen until then. The ceiling was much higher and there were several crates packed here and there, near a very large curtain-like door. She didn’t see any buttons to press that would get it open, though...

The only other notable thing in the room was a big metallic, vaguely round construct painted in bright yellow and gray. A screen on the side had a few readings that she didn’t take much time to analyze. The words ‘interior’ and ‘exterior’ were enough for her: that thing had to be an exit.

She didn’t see any handle or button to press on the door, nothing but the panel on the side that simply read ‘Cycle Airlock’, along a few random numbers... There weren’t any instructions as to how she was supposed to do that. Trixie tried saying it out loud, to no avail.

The humans’ shout and footsteps became closer. In frustration, Trixie slammed a hoof on the screen. Immediately, the text changed to ‘Pressurizing’, while some of the numbers changed.

With a groan, the metallic gate opened itself, revealing a disturbingly coffin-like interior. A tall and long space, completely enclosed by the very thick metallic wall. Trixie gulped, unsure of this exit’s safety.

The humans came in, still shouting.

Trixie jumped inside the coffin without any more hesitation.

“The airlock!” one human yelled from behind her.

She spotted the bright screen on the side of the wall, with the same message: ‘Cycle Airlock’. She slammed a hoof on it and it changed to ‘Depressurizing’.

“Shit! Stop it!”

Trixie smirked as the heavy metallic door closed itself.

“Ha ha! The Great and Powerful Trixie is also a master of escape!” she declared with a cocky grin.

She heard a whistling noise. Her smile disappeared as the air was sucked out of her lungs.

“Wha–?” the word died on her lips as she simply ran out of breath.

Trixie clamped her muzzle shut to try and save all the air she could, but it wasn’t much at this point. The opposite end of the airlock opened, finally giving Trixie access to the surface.

Her mouth gaped open when she saw outside.

The world was made of dust. Red dust, on the ground, in the air, even making its way inside the airlock, carried by the wind. Outside was no life. No water, no trees, no blue skies, no clouds. Only rocks, red dust, and rusted metal constructs abandoned here and there. In the distance, she could faintly see large buildings, standing ominously in the nightmarish landscape.

Trixie whimpered, stars dancing in her vision. Her ears couldn’t hear anything. She struggled to get air in her lungs but found nothing to breathe, working her mouth uselessly like a fish taken out of water. She felt strangely cold and wasn’t even able to scream in terror before everything became dark and she lost consciousness.

“Oh my gosh… Did you die?”

“Pinkie…” Twilight said with a groan. “She’s standing in front of you right now.”

“Oh, right.” The pink pony giggled… then gasped and pointed a hoof at Trixie. “Are you a zombie?”

Trixie did not even bother answering, simply sighing and rolling her eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Twilight Sparkle chided her, a know-it-all tone in her voice. “Zombies are just a product of fiction, they’re not real.”

Trixie simply stared at her, a sad look in her eyes...

Author's Note

The gravity on Mars is about 40% as that on Earth... Not as bad as on the Moon (only 16% of the Earth's gravity there), but it should still be pretty noticeable. Of course, that point was completely ignored in the games, since it would have made them weird to play (could have been fun, though!), but since I don't have that problem in a story I decided to mention it.

Come to think of it, it's a good thing they never took gravity into account, especially for the original Doom. The first episode (Knee-Deep in the Dead) takes place on Phobos. That rock has so little gravity it's pretty much the same as outer space. I guess it's a good thing the classic doom engine didn't allow for jumping, or the marine would have put himself in orbit around Mars by the power of his own legs! The Shores of Hell takes place on Deimos, which is even smaller, but at this point it has already been transported into Hell, so I guess there could be some gravity there. Inferno takes place entirely in Hell, too...

It's not even explained how the low gravity problem is treated in Doom 3. Maybe the UAC has some tech device to create artificial gravity ? Personally, I like to think that the low gravity is more or less compensated by the sheer weight of all the crap the marine carries around. You've got the big suit of armor, plus a pistol, a shotgun, a machine gun, a chain gun, grenades, a plasma gun, a rocket launcher, a chainsaw and the BFG. Also, hundreds of ammo for each of these... I shouldn't overthink this, but I find it hilarious how the soulcube is weightless. It could have been the straw to break the camel's back.

But enough misplaced physics... I've reached the end of what I had drafted. Don't worry, I know where this is going, I have a detailed outline and everything. What this means is that future chapters will take longer, though. And this brings me to this question : should there be future chapters or is that story hopeless ? Do you guys want to see more ? What do you think of this story ? Like it ? Hate it ? Meh ? Tell me what you think is good and what you think is bad, even if it seems unimportant. I can always use some feedback and hopefully improve my writing.

Also, anyone feels like drawing a cover art ?