Adrift - A SPECTRUM Tale

by Sledge115

Rating: teen
Tags: Crossover, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Human, Original Character
Length: 16026

A ship, fleeing a world at war. Far, far away from the war fronts of a world gone mad, a pony finds himself stuck on board. With armed gunmen and decadent ponies on board, hijinks ensue.

For Stellar Wind, the job of being a navigator for a human ship is hardly a dream job when you're a visitor from another world.

The fact that his employers are a shady smuggler crew does little to ease his worry. No sooner than after the ship leaves London, Stellar finds himself stuck on a ship with a ragtag group with questionable ethics and motives, with immigrant civilians on one end and a team of human SAS operatives, raiding the ship, on the other end.

The discovery of stolen prototype weapons, designed to wipe out an army without ever touching them, complicates things, and tensions reach a breaking point when war breaks out, and the traitorous PER begin their attack.

But who is the person in the night, the man or stallion who converts? Is he friend, or is he foe? As far as Stellar Wind is concerned, fanatical ponies and traitorous humans are no friends of his.

Several crates of ponification potions, seven thousand rounds of ammunition, dozens of rifles and various small arms, four missiles, and three cannons.

A four-man-and-a-pony team, a smuggler crew of men and ponies, an Indonesian President, the Last King of Romania, a group of immigrants, a team of SAS operatives, a former Bureau Doctor, the PER and the Solar Empire.

"It's going to be a bloody holocaust"

Set in the greater universe that is the Conversion Bureau: The Other Side of the Spectrum, or the Spectrumverse for short.

Edited and Proofread by:
redskin122004
Doctor Fluffy
Kizuna Tallis
TB3

Done with permission from redskin. So, I guess it's canon?

Do forgive me for any mistakes. And if you like this, rate it up and tell me what made you like it. As for those who don't, well, do provide constructive criticism, it'll help me a lot.

Cheers

The Timeline

Published 2014-11-24 19:30:02 UTC
Last updated 2014-12-31 17:01:49 UTC

The Stellar Wind Interview - Segment One

PHL RECORD ARCHIVE

ACCESSING PAGE BATTLE OF MAMAYEV KURGAN

PAGE REDIRECT

BATTLE OF MAMAYEV KURGAN
BATTLE ON THE MAMAYEV KURGAN

ACCESSING PAGE BATTLE ON THE MAMAYEV KURGAN

PAGE ACCESSED

The Battle on the Mamayev Kurgan, or the Mamayev Kurgan Incident, refers to a series of engagements on board the vessel Mamayev Kurgan, a vessel which disembarked from the Port of London almost a month before the 2019 Berne Conference on the 30th of June.

The incident involved the ship’s crew, its escort, and intruding PER and Solar Empire forces over the course of several months, and resulted in heavy losses inflicted on both sides. Combat was marked by close quarters combat in the ship’s deck, and intense crossfire from both gunfire and potion use.

Further information can be accessed from the interview of one of the ship’s crewmember, Stellar Wind. The interview was conducted in the course of several days, nearly two years after the recovery of Stellar Wind from one of the ship’s lifeboats.

A copy of the file was sent to Colonel Marcus Renee in November of 2023, but forwarded to Cheerilee due to unforeseen complications.

ACCESSING FILE STELLAR WIND INTERVIEW

WARNING: SENSITIVE INFORMATION

ID REQUIRED

PROCESSING REQUEST

ID ACCEPTED

WELCOME, TS

PROCESSING REQUEST

REQUEST ACCEPTED

OPENING FILE

STELLAR WIND INTERVIEW – SEGMENT ONE

DATED OCTOBER 29, 2023
LOCATION : Rothera Military Base, Adelaide Island, British Antarctic Territory

SUBJECT : Stellar Wind (ID NOT FOUND)
INTERVIEWER : MH (ID FOUND)

SUBJECT : Stellar Wind
SEX : MALE
AGE : EARLY 20s
NATIONALITY : EQUESTRIAN
CUTIE MARK : SEXTANT

INTERVIEWER : MH
SEX : MALE
AGE : CLASSIFIED
NATIONALITY : ENGLISH

BEGIN PLAYBACK

He should be coming soon enough, Stellar. Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be outside if you need anything, alright?

Okay, thanks for the heads up, Molly!

*click*

Uh, hello? Is anyone there?

Hello?

Good evening, and apologies for the delay, Mr. Wind.

Oh, good evening, sir! And to whom do I owe the, uh, pleasure of meeting?

As much as I hate to be, ah, cliché’d, that information is classified for the time being. For now, I am simply your interviewer, Mr. Wind.

…..alright. I suppose you’re one of those government men in black, right?

From a certain point of view, yes, although a man in black is hardly the term I would use.

Well, I’m just going to call you Umbrella Man if you’re fine with it. Don’t blame me, who brings an umbrella into an interrogation room?

I see no reason not to agree with your terms.

Well, glad we have an agreement here, mister. So, what am I here for?

I am sure you are fully aware of it, Mr. Stellar Wind.

Aware of what?

The reason you are here in this room.

Uh, no, no I don’t.

You’re sweating a bit, the room is cold, hardly a sign of someone in the unknown. I suppose you’re feeling a bit too warm. Unlikely, considering you are not a member of any northern subspecies of ponies known. But I have said too much, haven’t I, Mr. Stellar Wind?

Heh, I, I don’t think lying or uh, stalling would do me any good, here, sir?

I strongly advise against doing so, Mr. Stellar Wind. I can assure you of your safety here. Now, do enlighten us on your experiences on board the Russian vessel referred to as the Mamayev Kurgan.

Wher-where should I start?

Would you like me to pinpoint it first, or would you like some time for yourself?

I, I don’t know sir. I don’t think I’m enlightened to tell you. The boss wouldn’t like it.

Considering your boss is most likely in hostile territory and possibly converted to the Queen’s side, I cannot see your point here.

Alright. I’ll try to remember.

Do try. You have all the time. A bit of advice, we’re on record.

It was supposed to be an easy job, you know? We were supposed to board the ship and escort it all the way to some South East Asian capital, maybe Jakarta or Singapore. We had ample supplies and weapons, and the crew is lightly trained in your weapons. It strongly felt like it would be easy for us.

We might not be one of the largest groups of so called terrorists in your world, but we were heavily armed.

The ship we used was called the Mamayev Ku-

Yes, do skip that detail please.

That was rude of you, y’know? Now, as I was saying, the ship was just an old cargo ship. By the way my human crew members referred to it, I would have thought it was a, uh, crappy ship.

For Equestrian standards though, it was a marvel of engineering.

How so?

Well, for one, it had one of the fastest engines I’ve ever had the chance to examine. Not that my teammates bothered. In Equestria only the wealthiest would have these kinds of engines. According to Dimitri, the Mamayev Kurgan was commissioned over thirty years ago for the Soviet Union, and named after a hill in a Soviet city. Or maybe the battle on it, I don’t know.

You’re trailing off, Stellar.

Right, right, sorry.

So, yeah, there you go. You have an old Russian ship, a crew of untrained humans, and the escorts, which is to say, me and my team.

There were five of us on board. Five escorts, not all of them trained, but escorts nonetheless.

Ana, the only girl in our team. She’s the marksman, sort of. By marksman I mean the only one of us who can actually use a scoped rifle. And the easiest one to approach personally, quite sweet. Clumsy, yes, but she can use practically anything as a club.

Viktor, the team leader. Though, we’re all leading ourselves at this point, he’s pretty much the guy that keeps the team together. Really, really bad with pistol use though. Give him a machine gun and he’ll be fine on his own.

Grigori, the sailor. He was assigned to steer the ship to Jakarta. Of course, he was only a fisherman in the nineties, but he’s the closest one we’ve got. Keep it safe, just in case we get attacked. Someone has got to defend the bridge, right?

Dimitri, our demolitions man or something. Guy’s got the strength fitting for an Ursa Minor, but he’s a nice guy once you get to know him.

And then you have me, the one non-human in the team. They had a need for a unicorn on the team, so they recruited me off the streets. Literally. There were so many newfoals in their city that they were willing to pluck the first non newfoal unicorn they see in the city.

How exactly did you come across them?

Well, you know how it went back in 2018 to 2019. A whole load of ponies poured on to Earth, and we started to explore this new world we came across. I was not alone.

I came to Earth to learn about the stars they had there. It’s really jarring to learn Earth orbits the Sun, and not the other way around. Not to mention the fact that humanity has set foot on the moon. Heck, if the war hadn’t happened they might’ve colonized the planet Mars by now!

Course, my dad didn’t agree with me. I should stay in Equestria, he said. Do not mingle with those apes, he said. He would disinherit me, he said (not that we had loads of fortune back then). I then said screw him and left for Russia. You should have seen his face; priceless.

Have you wondered why he disagreed?

Haven’t given him much thought. Though, come to think of it, he didn’t seem overtly hostile towards other species. He had a minotaur drinking buddy back in the day, so dunno why he’s suddenly a speciesist, if such a thing exists.

What was his occupation?

Uh, I think he was an intelligence officer in the Guard. Why?

Nothing important. Please continue with your tale.

Right. After I left home, I got into a bit of trouble. No cash, no work, no home, nothing. With little option, I was just another unicorn immigrant wandering the streets of Moscow.

It lasted about a day, this homeless period of mine. Not even a day, more like a few hours.

So there I was, minding my own business in Moscow’s Cathedral, when a woman came to me. She asked what my special talent is, and I said it was star gazing and navigations. She asked again, if I needed any work. Naturally, as an unemployed stallion, I said yes.

You didn’t bother to learn what the employment was for?

People make split second decisions, Umbrella Man, I was sort of desperate, alright?

It was foolhardy and illogical of you.

Like I said, it was a split second decision.

Anyhow, I started to have second thoughts by the time we arrived in St. Petersburg’s harbor. Turn around, I thought. Turn around before it’s too late. I ignored it completely, and found myself in the company of armed men.

I tried to back off then, but it was too late for me. They needed a navigator who wasn’t a newfoal, and Ana conveniently spotted me in the Cathedral. That, and they offered a decent place to stay in tropical Indonesia once the job’s done.

Victor assigned me to communications and navigations. Yes, I have a limited experience with Earth’s night sky, but I was the only one experienced in any form of navigation. That, and the boss had some odd worries about newfoals. I’ll get to that later.

Almost forgot; we were carrying a whole lot of weapons.

According to Grigori, the weapons we brought on board were mostly automatic rifles – AK-47s, if I remember correctly, or was it AKMs? Maybe 74s, I dunno, can’t tell the difference – marksman rifles, as well as – get this - a 40mm caliber autocannon hidden among the containers. I thought Dimitri might’ve fainted there.

Not only that, the ship also had secret rooms and vents. Viktor found a secret room behind a staircase, stuffed with even more human rifles.

I asked for a weapon of my own, just in case. They briefly debated giving me a weapon, considering my innate magical skills. Eventually they relented, and gave me a small weapon they called a MAC-10. In hindsight, I dunno why I asked for it in the first place. We were taught defensive and offensive spells not long after the whole Crystal War. Compulsory once the Great Equestrian, uh, blew up a bit.

So there you have it. You have the crew, the ship, and the escorts. What next?

Let’s see. Ah, there we go; you had newfoals on board the ship by the time you left London, correct?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, things were different back then, mister. For everyone, especially fans of a sci-fi British show, newfoals were just people with different appearances and slightly different personalities. It was also the easy way out for the terminally ill too. For us natural borns, the newfoals of 2019 were just other ponies, and their smiles were signs they were happy with being saved!

You don’t strike me as the pony supremacist type, Stellar.

I’m not, poor choice of words there, sorry.

I was fascinated with human culture, but not to the extent of ponies like Vinyl Scratch or Lyra Heartstrings. And no, I call utter horseapples on newfoals being saved from their constricting human form. It was the general idea of the time, Umbrella Man, so please be considerate, kay? We didn’t know… we had no idea what they were really like.

The trip from St. Petersburg to London lasted a little over a month, or was it three? Don’t know for sure. It had its hiccups along the way, had to elude a ship off the coast of Germanei- I mean Germany. It’s an aircraft, uh-

Aircraft carrier

Yeah, that. Captain Wahid seemed kinda worried about it. It was huge, with tons of aircraft and soldiers on it. I think it was called the, uh, Gerald Ford? Anyways, uh, we had to elude the Gerald Ford a bit. Come to think of it, we didn’t even need to avoid it. The ship’s just, sitting there. Like, it was waiting for something. We passed it without a hassle in the night. What was it doing there?

Simple patrol duties, nothing else. Do proceed, Mr. Wind, we have a schedule to keep.

What’s the rush? You’re not running around, interviewing other people left and right, right?

No, but I have a schedule to keep, Mr. Wind. You will find it in the best of your interests if you would continue, Mr. Wind.

Hmpf.

Anyways, the rest of the trip went pretty well. We ran into a storm near Belgium, a submersible, and some autogyro like thingies. No real threats for us, mind you; they seemed a bit agitated. The vehicles, I mean. Viktor identified them as belonging to Russian and French forces. They didn’t seem to pay us any real attention, and we reached the Port of London at last.

Now here the story goes a bit sketchy; the plan never did involve stopping in London; we were supposed to stop in Malta. Or at least, that’s what I think.

And why is that, Mr. Wind?

Heck if I know, Captain Wahid decided to take a detour to London. So I asked Ana why. She then told me we were refitting in London for a couple days. I first thought this was an improvisation in the plan, but then it turns out we were planning to refit the whole time; the others didn’t bother to tell me.

What next then?

It’s obvious isn’t it? We refitted the ship in London.

You misinterpreted, Mr. Wind. What I meant to ask is what did the crew think of you?

Well, uh, being a mixed bag, they had varied opinions on me. But mostly good though. Especially the few ponies in the crew. Like, uh, Raven! Raven Cross was a good pony, if a bit prejudiced.

And yet, he joins the crew of a human owned, human operated vessel?

Hey, he didn’t have much of a choice back then, like me! He was starving in St. Petersburg, so they took him in as a crew member. A pegasus would be very useful for a ship’s crew. He did admit that he was reluctant to join the crew, and If he wasn’t desperate, like I am here, he would’ve refused on the spot.

Other than the whole ponies-should-be-in-charge-of-humans attitude, he’s a pretty nice stallion.

I can hardly imagine it.

It’s just you then. Raven’s a nice stallion. Believe what you want, I don’t care.

I mean, yeah, he thinks ponies should be in charge of Earth, but he wouldn’t kill for it. Maybe that’s why he didn’t bother picking up any weapons on board.

Does Mr. Cross show any desire to ponify humans?

No, actually. What about it?

Just making sure. Carry on, Mr. Wind.

I think we’re, uh, in London! Yeah, in London.

The boss secured us a dock for the ship to stay in for the duration of the refit. We’re given a few weeks to mingle around in the city before we return to the ship. Then again, we slept in the ship, so I guess we mingle around in the city before we return for the night, etc, etc.

London’s quite the gloomy city, I can tell ya. I felt like it had a permanent cloud cover over the city. Even the pegasi in the city struggled to keep it clean; something to do with the lack of magic on Earth.

Couple of interesting views and sites in the city though. Like, uh, the London Eye, the Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, loads of wonders! I mean, the Eye was ridiculously huge for a ferris wheel. I’m sort of sensing a pattern here; I think you humans have a tendency to make ridiculously huge stuff. For fun and games, that is.

You should have seen what the Japanese have made during the Second World War.

Huh, maybe I should. Anyways, yeah, there were loads of wondrous landmarks I’ve seen. As to the Cathedral, I dunno. Felt oddly peaceful in there, with all those praying people and generally silent interior (Don’t know why you worship a man nailed to a cross. What’s up with that?). Could’ve sworn there were humanoid robots in there though.

...humanoid robots?

Yeah, freaky things.

...St. Paul’s Cathedral had humanoid robots?

Not sure If I was drunk or something, but I think they’re either actual robots or cosplayers.

...carry on. Just, continue.

Uh, alright then.

None of us had any real experience in London, so there were some little, uh, incidents. Like the one time Ana tried to use the subway-

London Underground, the London system is called the London Underground.

Yeah, that. She was trying to go to the London Eye, but for some reason she got lost all the way to Blackburn. Took us a week to get her back to London. You should’ve seen how Viktor reacted to the phone call from Blackburn. He was waaaaaaaaaay mad then. After that, we weren’t allowed to travel without a partner.

I was partnered with Dimitri till May the 3rd; he decided to stick around to help refit the ship. So I got assigned with Raven Cross. Boy did we have fun around the city. Even met a cute mare to boot. She was kind of busy then, so we didn’t stick around for long.

And what was her name?

Winter Fall, a beautiful name for a beautiful mare. Used to work for the Cloudsdale weather team, but now she’s an independent newfoal activist.

What exactly does she do?

Well, campaign for newfoal rights of course! I guess she became an activist once the HTF- sorry, HLF reached the “insane extremist” phase. So, in the wake of the little war the HLF is waging against the PER, Winter decided to be an activist herself.

So far, she’s campaigning just in London, and every day she would march to the London Bureau and demand protection for the newly converted newfoals. Raven and I weren’t really interested in that; we were too busy trying to get her to date one of us.

She found it rather amusing, and asked to join us in our little endeavour to Jakarta. We didn’t see the immediate problems and thought “Well, why not?”

As it turns out, it was the first of many invitations to come on board the Mamayev Kurgan. Viktor didn’t agree at first; said we’ll blow our cover. Only Grigori supported him; me, Ana, Dimitri, and the boss all agreed to bring them on board. It’ll strengthen our cover, he said.

Next up, we had a couple more people and some other ponies.

There were, in order, a couple heading to Jeddah or Mekkah, two men heading for Jakarta, maybe a dozen more heading for Singapore. Most of the ponies who came on board wanted to go to Asia and India.

The two men; who were they?

These two were two of the most mismatched pairs I’ve ever seen. No romantic attachments, mind you; they were just a couple of diplomatic visitors. They had four bodyguards with them, ostensibly for the younger one.

Said younger one is named Joko Widodo (did I say that right?). He has got to be one of the nicest and most polite men I’ve ever met. Said his family is waiting for him in Jakarta; they were planning for a get together.

The older one, and I mean OLD, was named Michael. That’s it. Michael the First or something. According to Joko Widodo - actually, I’m just gonna call him Jokowi, he preferred it that way – Michael has had his share of violent history back in the day. He was Romanian, and he was almost one hundred years old by the time he got on board our ship.

Did you know about their actual identity?

Of course we do! We might have found too late who they were though. Jokowi is the newly reelected President of Indonesia, and Michael was the last king of Romania. Bit of an odd coincidence, don’t you think?

Do you honestly expect me to believe that you, and your crew, had no clue as to the real identity of Joko Widodo and Michael I of Romania? One of them is the recently reelected President of Indonesia, the other the Last King of Romania. How do you miss such a fact?

Well how the heck were we supposed to know? You would not know that that man is the President of Indonesia! He blended in with the crowd of civilians perfectly, he didn’t talk down, and he was an all around nice guy. All we could deduce was that he’s someone important judging by the number of guards. Michael? He didn’t say much, and he looked just like any other old man. Our conclusion was that he was a foreign friend of Jokowi’s.

That was an excellent deduction by you and your companions.

Well, we’re not exactly Sherclop Pones now are we?

…Sherclop Pones?

Famous literary detective in Equestria. What about him?

Nothing. Just, does he possess exceptional deductive capabilities?

The very best. Why?

…carry on with your story, Mr. Wind

Wait, why the sudden interest in Sherclo-

Just, continue, Mr. Wind.

Okay then. It was May 9th, the escorts minus me were celebrating something they called “Victory Day”, while the rest of us, including me, Winter Fall, and Raven Cross, socialized with the new passengers. They were a unique bunch, apart from those two men. We’ve got some backpackers, immigrants, and of course, Mr. Widodo and Michael. And Mr. Widodo’s escorts.

It still eludes me how you fail to identify Mr. Widodo’s occupation.

His bodyguards didn’t speak English much, okay? Sheesh.

So there we were, frolicking with the humans. Most of them were friendly, like that couple leaving for Jeddah, or was it Mecca? Anyways, we were busy discussing faith with said couple when Grigori burst in and told us the city’s been rocked by an explosion! During the breakfast at one of the restaurants, some madman detonated a car bomb. We didn’t care much for it, until Ana pointed out Dimitri was in the city.

Viktor, in one swift movement and talk, told everyone to stay put, and beckoned for us to follow him. He wouldn’t let anyone else but some of the crew, and the escorts, to come with him. Guess his reasoning was that there’s always the off chance they would discover what we’re really up to here.

By the time we got to the scene, it was one hell of a mess. We couldn’t tell what the building was before the bomb detonated; a paramedic said it was a restaurant filled with people having their breakfast. Bodies everywhere, ponies and humans alike, it was a nightmare to see. Couldn’t hold my breakfast, seeing a mess like that, y’know? But you’ve seen your fair share of dead bodies now haven’t you?

By Luna, the screams, you can’t forget something like that. Smoke rising up, people crawling on the ground wheezing and gasping and dying. And the newfoals. By the Moon, the newfoals, I’ve never seen them quite so…excited.

How excited? In what context? Do enlighten me on the matter, Mr. Wind

Have you ever seen a happy newfoal, Umbrella Man?

I can’t say that I haven’t. What do-

A genuinely happy newfoal. Have you ever seen one of those, Umbrella Man?

…

Sir? Are you, uh, alright?

…no

Huh?

No, unfortunately, I haven’t. What about them?

They were beating a corpse. No, they weren’t having that usually perpetual smile on their face, but I can feel they were happy. Took the paramedics and police a while to pry them off, but I can feel the happiness and utter hatred in them. One of the paramedics on the scene told us it was the bomber’s corpse.

It was then I sensed something so utterly wrong in them. Didn’t think much of it back then, but still, it was wrong. I mean, yeah, that bomber was one, uh, bad man, but come on, beating his corpse isn’t going to make everything better, right? I remembered someone, this, this absolutely enormous stallion I thought was an earth horse-

I’ve met him before, actually. An interesting fellow, I might say.

Wait, you’ve met him? Who was he?

That is irrelevant, nor is he important to this, Mr. Wind. Please, continue.

You had a run in with him before?

I’m afraid I must refuse to speak of it. Personal reasons, Mr Wind. None of your business, just...continue with your story.

…okay then. That huge stallion said something along the lines of “if that’s what being a pony means”. Don’t know for sure, the stallion passed out soon after. The whole area was covered in thick debris, but I can tell he was badly injured. His head was covered-no, wait, soaked in blood, it looked like he’d suffered a nasty injury and concussion.

Miraculously, the supposed target for the bombing somehow survived it, according to this detective of sorts. Pointed his finger over to somepony, couldn’t see whom, though. I got distracted by Ana calling out to us; she found Dimitri.

He was buried under rubble, cuts and bruises, and a broken leg, but other than that nothing too threatening. The detective seemed quite interested in our little group, and had quite the keen eye too. He pretty much spouted Grigori’s entire life story when he tried to tell him off. Quite some…embarrassing details, to say the very least.

Viktor didn’t like him. Not one bit. Even when the offender tried to apologize, “old habits die hard”, he said. So, I ended up taking the detective over to a corner to ask a few things, while the others brought Dimitri back on the ship.

This detective, what was his name?

I was just getting to that, hang on.

He introduced himself as William Scott –

Of course he did.

…right. Anyways, William here told me – albeit a bit reluctantly – that he was busy investigating odd disappearances all across the British Isles from way back in 2016. Nothing more than that; he went off with a female friend of his. Bit of a weird man, he was, but the best detective I’ve ever seen. Like a real life Sherclop Pones, know what I mean?

More than you know, at least.

You know him?

Obviously. Now, continue, Mr. Wind.

What about Willi-

Continue, Mr. Wind

Alright, alright, you’re the boss.

Dimitri’s wounds turned out to be more serious than we thought; broken legs, cracked ribs, fractured hand, and a suspected punctured lung, I think. The ship’s doctor provided us with a few treatments, nothing else. We couldn’t risk blowing our cover by coming into the nearest hospital, too many questions, not enough answers.

We had to confine Dimitri to a wheelchair. Boy, was he mad; Dimitri here is one of the most hyperactive person I’ve ever met. Wheelchair confinement is practically torture for him. He would’ve strangled Viktor if we didn’t restrain him. And it still took some effort to do so.

It turned out Dimitri’s injuries were the least of our problems in hindsight. The only conceivable instant cure was ponification, and there was no way in hell Viktor would allow it at the time. Not because of some deep seated hatred, no. The situation outside wouldn’t allow it.

The whack jobs known as the HLF had started to screw everything over.

What was your opinion on them?

Isn’t it obvious?

Total, hatred. These idiots would shoot anyone that isn’t human! They’re like the Daleks of Doctor Who, in human form, minus the extermination beam, and the tank forms, but it’s the attitude that counts.

We were stuck in the Mamayev Kurgan for five weeks. Everyone was agitated, especially the civilians. Rather miraculously, they stuck with us for the five weeks. Even Jokowi and Michael stayed with us.

And you still haven’t found out about their occupation?

None of our business at the time, mind you. Although, Jokowi did mention being a modestly successful carpenter in his native city of Solo. And Michael said something about being a soldier in World War II. Well, both technically true; now I know Jokowi used to be a carpenter, while Michael did lead a coup back in his day. And Jokowi’s bodyguards wouldn’t talk.

Everytime me and Raven, or Winter, went out, the city’s situation deteriorated further. Policemen everywhere, with the occasional soldier; London was under martial law at this point. People were afraid to come out of their homes, for good reason.

It escalated into war in the streets. Well, not war by your standards, more like mass riots, but still, war in the streets. The HLF were fighting the PER, street by street. And we were caught in the middle of it; humans feared the random forced ponification, while ponies feared death in a hail of bullets.

By the time we reached the second week of May, London was a warzone. I intercepted several radio messages telling that they had to bring in the Special Air Service to suppress the situation in Belgravia. Apparently the HLF thought the elites were siding with the PER, through some insane logic. The main problem for the Brits was that the whole area was right next to the parliament, practically right next, I mean.

It wasn’t limited to London, or even Earth either. It turned out that in May 1st the HLF attacked ten bureaus across the world, totally destroying some of them. On May 14th, a madman aligned with the HLF bombed the Graz Bureau in Austria to oblivion, and started killing people in the streets.

Not only that, no sir. He then proceeded to wipe out PRACTICALLY EVERY PONY IN INNSBRUCK! And then he BLEW UP THE INNSBRUCK BUREAU! I completely blame him for the Queen sealing off the Bureaus in May the 21st; he blew up Innsbruck JUST the day before.

It was that, that butcher’s actions that convinced Raven and I that not not even us natural borns were safe from the HLF! The HLF were attacking anyone and everything they could reach and see for Luna’s sake!

And what of the events off Earth, Mr. Wind?

Well, I heard it from a second hand source, so I don’t think it will be reliable…

So am I, as of this interview

Touche, Umbrella Man.

In Equestria, it was the opposite; PER supporters did mass, anti-human demonstrations all across the country. From Baltimare to Manehatten, Trottingham to Las Pegasus. Everywhere, half the population rallied against humans. A mare that managed to get out of Equestria told me things really kicked off in May 4th, with anti human ponies demonstrating in practically every major city, and then some. And THEN the battleship strike happened.

The Guard cracked down on pegasus workers in the Strike. From the tone of her voice, I’d say she left because of the Strike’s crackdown.

Did you ask why they were building battleships?

Well, yeah! I mean, Equestria’s been a peaceful nation apart from the whole Sombra-Returns-To-Make-War thing, why would we be building battleships now? Doesn’t add up for me, so I thought she was lying at the time. Although, Raven pointed out that with the current crisis, and talks of war breaking out, it made sense for Celestia to be building counter weapons, y’know? But that just made me more suspicious.

Have they reverse engineered human weaponry at the time?

No, actually. The repurposed skyliners were basically airborne troop carriers.

Noted. Carry on.

The mare that talked to us didn’t hang around for long; she left for Mainland Europe, or Russia not long after. There were more we’d like to know, but we couldn’t exactly blame her with all these stupid HLF idiots running around, shooting ponies and burning shops left and right, that sort of thing. At this point, I think Winter’s seriously considered going back to Equestria.

Raven, rather amusingly, managed to convince her not to. I can’t remember the monologue, but I think it has something to do with the wonders of human peaceful protests. Or the fact that we have an equally sucky situation in Equestria, any of those two really, I don’t know. Maybe the internet actually, or cup-a-soups, or even B-

Stay on topic, Mr. Wind.

Right, right, sorry, about that.

Dimitri’s wounds deteriorated further, and Dr. Zhirinovsky told us he will be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of the trip unless we brought in even better medical supplies.

The only problem was that it was the third week of May; London was under martial law. Scarcely any newfoals were seen, none of the city’s usual attractions were bustling with people (I heard one of the museums got burnt down in the fighting), and there were very strong rumours of war breaking out.

We decided to risk it and go.

Viktor stayed behind to watch over the immigrants and civilians, along with Jokowi and Michael, while the five of us went to look for supplies. Not an easy job; we almost got caught by some patrols, and we weren’t exactly following curfew.

Winter figured out an easy way out, though. I vehemently protested against it, saying it’s not what Viktor wanted, nor Dimitri, but Raven and Winter both told me they were going to do it if Dimitri’s condition worsened.

What did they intend to do?

They, they intended to ponify Dimitri.

We were desperate alright? I didn’t know what it would do to him other than it will give him a fresh set of body. Like, like a Time Lord regenerating! You know, people change their appearance and personality, but still the same person! It, it was the general idea at the time.

How are you, and your companions, intend to pull that off?

Winter knew somepony from the Bureau. Pony doctor, called Steady Aim. Weird name, I know, but a doctor nonetheless. She told us he was a friend from Equestria back in her school days.

The Bureau was closing; all time low amount of ponifications by Thursday, and all the human staff were already withdrawn the day before. Only the pony staff remained inside, with several newfoals staying in for the week. So, it didn’t surprise me that Dr. Aim would readily supply us with almost all the remaining potion stocks as long as we deliver it to Jakarta and anyone who needs it. Rather excited and happy to help us, actually.

What were the newfoals doing in the Bureau?

Beats me, I think they’re staying in there for safety. The HLF were kidnapping and killing newfoals everywhere, so I guess it makes sense. Anyways, we had several crates worth of ponification potions, and no way of transporting it out manually without looking ridiculously suspicious.

We ended up taking it slowly across the city, past policemen and soldiers alike. Took us all of three days to reach the safety of the Mamayev Kurgan, but it was worth it. By the time we got to the ship, all the Bureaus were summarily closed by Celestia, and contact was broken off with Equestria. No thanks to the Luna-damned madman who blew up Innsbruck. It was all over the news the day before the Bureaus were cl-

Was it really worth all the trouble, to drag several heavy crates filled with potions, across a city under martial law, patrolled day and night by the military?

Well, it was tough, but worth it nonetheless.

What convinced you to bring those potions across the city?

It was a favour; Dr. Aim was Winter’s friend, and a friend of a friend is my friend, so I helped him.

Is that all the reasons?

Well, yeah.

Mr. Wind, did you feel anything when you entered the London Bureau?

Nothing. Really.

Did you feel anything when you were in its presence?

Nothing.

Are you sure?

Of course I’m sure! What’s with these questions?

I find it absurd that you would readily accept a difficult task with no personal gain, from a stallion you only knew for a few hours.

It was a FAVOUR! It was a FAVOUR for WINTER. A favour for a FRIEND. Get it?

…hm. What of Ms. Ana and Mr. Grigori?

Hu-oh. They split off early on, told us they had some business to attend to. The boss wanted them to run an errand for him as it turned out.

What did he want them to do?

He wanted them to secure…something. I don’t know at the time.

Relative time hardly matters. What did he want you to find?

Well, Raven, Winter and I weren’t in the know, bu-

What did he want, Mr. Wind?

…missiles, sir. Some prototype missiles. Ana and Grigori were sent to recover it; according to Ana, they had a few contacts ready to smuggle the missile outside of Great Britain. Sh-she said it’ll give us all a fortune when sold. Oh, Luna, it didn’t work out too well for us.

Mr. Wind, you can continue your story later. Tell me; what, exactly were these missiles called?

Wellll, that’s where it gets confusing.

See, the missiles were a part of an overall program, you see. Said program is usually used to colloquially refer to the missiles themselves.

Explain this program, Mr. Wind. Any term you’d like. Just explain it.

It’s been three years or so, Umbrella Man. You obviously knew already; you must’ve checked the wreck, identified the missiles.

This is on record, Mr. Wind. It’s for the record. Please, describe it. It may be essential

…The Bruce-Partington Project

We were near France when Viktor finally explained it, what it was, and how to use it.

It was a joint defense program, between the Brits and the Americans, first developed waaay back in the 1980s. Or at least, one part of it was. Basically, what the Bruce-Partington Project was is that it’s a-a missile version of, of those gas, gas grenades used in protes-

Tear gas

Yeah, tear gas, except this one is airborne and lethal.

The initial phase involved a hallucinogenic drug of sorts, something to do with a hound or, or a devil’s foot, I don’t know. The project was put on hiatus in ’86, or the British ended their cooperation with the US, I don’t know.

They revived the project with, with missiles and an intelligence network back in 2010. It got a little drama surrounding it; the plans were stolen that same year. Some Irish terrorist got hold of the plans, but it was a close call. Said terrorist somehow decided to throw it into a pool, or maybe he sold it, don’t remember which.

These missiles were, as I’ve said, basically missile versions of tear gas grenades, as Viktor explicitly compared it to. Not only that, there were plans to use some sort of heat seeking device to target specific enemies on the battlefield, like an oversized sniper bazooka assassination device.

What I personally believe to be this thing’s greatest asset is its compatibility with ANY ship. As long as you’ve got the Stewart Launcher you can launch this thing from any ship with sufficient size to support it. That, or you can use the, whatsitcalled, the Unified Intelligence Defense Network or something to launch it remotely. Or even, launch numerous missiles, in synchronized motion, to the highest priority target!

No, wait, actually, the missile’s greatest weapon is itself! It has quite the long range, and where it goes it leaves a trail of clouds dispersed from its Saxon-class Cloud Dispersants (I think it’s supposed to be a peacetime cloud making device).

With, with common sense they can fill it with toxic gas, or even liquid poison (did I mention it’s a GIANT FREAKING FLYING AEROSOL?) and use it against whole armies or cities! Grigori speculated it can be used to wipe out half a city filled with a million people when used in conjunction with the UNIDEN.

The missiles had some sort of compressor to increase the density of the clouds, however light the gas being used is.

I have no idea why the United Kingdom would use such a weapon when they already have the ultimate defense of the realm (FREAKING ATOMIC WEAPONS! By Discord, we don’t have ANYTHING close to it!), but according to Viktor, the Bruce-Partington Missiles were a defense program. It didn’t take long for someone or somepony to figure out it can be used offensively.

Luckily for anyone not on the side of the British, the missiles were Luna-damned expensive. Four missiles were all we got; just enough for us to use.

We, we didn’t know what it meant to the PER. I swear, I SWEAR, we didn’t know. Oh, Oh what have we done? I, I swear we didn’-

I’m sure you didn’t, Mr. Wind. That will do for today.

I-uh,-what?

That will do for today. I will give you a call for the next interview session, Mr. Wind. I have some…errands to attend to, for the time being.

Really?

Yes, really. Now, off you go, Mr. Wind, and thank you for your time. Have some rest.

Oh, uh, al,alright then. Wait, what about the-

That is none of your concerns for now, Mr. Wind. Off you go. Now

Uh, okay then. Good night, Umbrella Man.

*click*

Well, that went well, don’t you think?

…

Hello? Are you alright, M-?

…there were two Saxon-BP missiles retrieved from the Mamayev Kurgan, Molly. Debris we’ve recovered from the area confirmed the detonation of another one prior to recovery.

…so, wait, one’s missing?

Yes, precisely. Do tell Anthea to contact the Indonesian and Russian Governments. Request further information on the current whereabouts of the missiles, Molly, that is essential.

What about the fourth one? The, the missing one, I mean

Yes, what of the fourth one? The question, Miss Hooper, remains – what happened to the missing one?

END SEGMENT ONE

RELATED FILES:

Battle on the Mamayev Kurgan
Bruce-Partington Program
Unified Intelligence Defense Network (UNIDENT)
Saxon-BP Class Missile System
Project Eris< SELECT

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The Stellar Wind Interview - Segment Two

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STELLAR WIND INTERVIEW – SEGMENT TWO

DATED NOVEMBER 2, 2023
LOCATION : Rothera Military Base, Adelaide Island, British Antarctic Territory

SUBJECT : Stellar Wind (ID NOT FOUND)
INTERVIEWER : MH (ID FOUND), MH-2 (ID FOUND)

SUBJECT : Stellar Wind
SEX : MALE
AGE : LATE 20s
NATIONALITY : EQUESTRIAN
CUTIE MARK : SEXTANT

INTERVIEWER : MH
SEX : MALE
AGE : CLASSIFIED
NATIONALITY : ENGLISH

INTERVIEWER : MH-2
SEX : FEMALE
AGE : 40 YEARS
NATIONALITY : ENGLISH

BEGIN

…know it’s rather obvious, but is it confirmed?

Afraid so. The Indonesians and Russians reported that their missiles are still in their possession, but they’ve also confirmed they only have, let’s see, two of them.

Are we equipped for a diving expedition?

Yes, why?

Tell them to prepare. I need that fourth missile found.

Alright then, but why are you so wor-?

*click*

…

…

…am I interrupting something? Really, really sorry if I did, didn’t mean to, sorry.

Ah, yes, the interview. Come in, we’re just cleaning up.

But you haven’t explained wh-

Listen, Molly, do as I say, tell the crew to send in a diving team.

Alright, then

*click*

Uh, what was that all about?

Nothing, none of your concern, Mr. Wind.

I-I think it is. What’re y-

Stellar, there’s nothing to worry about. Now, take your seat, please.

Right right right, sorry. Just, don’t point that, umbrella of yours at me, alright? It’s sort of… threatening.

Very well then. Have a seat.

So, where were we?

Apart from the missile exposition you kindly gave us, you were just leaving the Port of London, on board the Mamayev Kurgan.

Oh, right!

We left London in the evening of May the 20th. You can blame me for that; didn’t want to stick for long after that, that butcher destroyed Innsbruck’s Bureau, and, and massacred the ponies in the town. That, and the escalating violence in London.

On board, we had us, the crew (24 men and pony strong), Captain Wahid, Joko Widodo, Michael, Raven and Winter, and maybe two dozen civilians, including the newfoal refugees we brought on board.

How did they get on board?

Newfoal refugees, duh. We invited them in, remember? We needed a viable cover to leave the port. Captain Wahid told the Port Authority that we were evacuating newfoals out of the city due to the escalating situation. Given the city’s, uh, screwiness at this point, it’s not hard to see why they easily let us through.

And they didn’t try to stop you?

The Authority didn’t. But someone did.

Who?

Well, we didn’t know. All we heard was someone breaking in the room, and then he started to tell the port authorities to stop us from passing through. The radio cut off at that point. He had this sort of commanding voice, baritone maybe. Dunno who he really was, or why he tried to stop us.

Noted. Now, you said the Mamayev Kurgan was refitted in the Port?

Refits? Oh right. Yeah, we practically rebuilt it.

Elaborate?

Three autocannons, all mounted on three separate elevators. They’re hidden from view most of the time, so no worries about the civilians finding out about them. I don’t know about their full firepower, but given Dimitri’s excitement for them, I think they pack enough punch to take down an entire pegasi air wing. With skyliner support. And that’s some serious firepower right there, I’ll give you that. Who would’ve thought combining machine guns and cannons would be so ridicul-

Mr. Wind, would you please skip your enthusiasm in this one?

Sorry, trailed off a bit there, sheesh.

Anyways, we also had the engines refitted. By human standards, it’s got average speed now, with double the capacity. By OUR standards, heh, the engines were the state of the art engines. I think only the Great Equestrian can match it at the time.

Dimitri and Grigori both suggested and helped add a large boarding ramp, near the ship’s waterline. I told the civilians it was for cars and other vehicles, which was technically true. What I didn’t tell them was that the boss planned to use it as a missile launching hole…thing. Against other ships, just in case we ever cross that bridge, he said.

We also had some machine guns installed, out of view, easy to deploy pretty much. The crew could access them through special hallways in the ship. It was rapid mobilization, Ana explained to me. Speaking of whom, Ana here had her own special perch/office, near the ship’s br- scratch that, on the ship’s bridge.

She showed me exactly how it works. Not really complicated, no. It’s a small room, just enough room for a small desk, some rifles, and a window, a reinforced window that is. Like every weapons system we have on board, it’s really easy to set up if you know how to. “Just grab one of the rifles off the wall, and SLAP it on the window bipod. Easy!” she said, with a live demonstration to boot.

It really was quick, and efficient. The rifle stand was just long enough for Ana to grab, and she’s not really that tall. I concluded that, yes, we can deal serious damage.

But I suddenly became much, much less confident in our competence, when Ana knocked over a cup of hot coffee all over my face, while waving her rifle around. She’s a crack shot with rifles, but damn is she clumsy. At least she apologized about it though.

What of your colleagues, Mr. Wind?

Sorry, what?

Your colleagues, Mr. Wind, what else do they have?

Liiike?

Possessions, living quarters, and any little tidbits you would like to tell us.

…alright, did Molly ask you to do this? Because, well, you’re not really the personal details type of guy, Umbrella Man.

…correct. She said it was for, emotional support and historical records. We are, as she said, on our final run.

What did she mean by that?

We are losing this war, she said-

Wait, WHAT? But, Wh-why’d you need this as a historical statement? It’s nothing, nothing much, Umbrella Man. You’re losing the war?

I have already stated the reasons, Mr. Wind. According to Mrs. Hooper, we need all the memories and records of human life we can save. I see no problem with it, given the current situation.

Right-right. Luna, I didn’t know it was THAT ba-hang on, you haven’t stopped the Barrier?

It is, in the words of a newfoal I’ve had the misfortune to witness, never stopping, never faltering, never fading. There’s not much we can do about it for the time being, I’m afraid. Please, Mr. Wind, would you please continue?

…al-alright, ahem.

So, Ana’s got her perch, lemme gather my thoughts for a bit.

Dimitri didn’t really have much of a choice with his… messed up state. Dr. Zhirinovsky and him shared a room on board, right in the Doctor’s makeshift office. Dimitri had his detonator always within arm’s reach; the explosives connected to it is rigged to the ship’s armoury, enough to turn our measly ship into atoms and the atoms into nothing.

Luckily for us, Dimitri will only use it if he must, and out of all of us, he’s pretty much the only one trustworthy enough to handle it; he’s not as drunk as Mr. Belinski, nor was he as clumsy as Ana. Ana might’ve accidentally blown up the ship by sneezing if she had it.

Grigori’s place is rather obvious; he’s staying with Captain Wahid in the bridge, but in a separate room. He’s staying in the ship’s control room, while Wahid’s with the other bridge crew downstairs. In each of their beds, they have either a rifle or another MAC-10, like mine. Although, Grigori does have a ludicrously powerful rifle just in case he needs it, or when Ana needs a replacement rifle.

Viktor? He doesn’t have a set place; always carries his stuff around in that backpack of his. He does have a certain pattern of sleeping with the civilians, I think he wants to keep a close, close eye on them.

And yet, he still doesn’t know Mr. Widodo’s occupation?

Ignore that, I’ll get to that later.

As for me, well, I sleep in the ship’s radio room. It’s got a quick access vent to the ship’s observation deck, in the front, as well as to the bridge. I also have a roommate; he’s an earth pony named Resolute. He’s haughty and stuffy if you ask me, but I couldn’t complain about it in front of him; the guy was at least a head taller than me. He served as the ship’s intelligence and communications officer, and back in Equestria he used to work for the Guard. I think he left due to the fact that they won’t promote him to a higher position. Apart from his whole stuffiness and haughtiness and rather intimidating accent, he’s quite amicable when you get closer to him.

We were well defended in our own rooms, as you know. Grigori’s got his silly AWP, Ana’s got her own rifle collection, Dimitri’s got his, uh, deagle or something, Viktor’s a one man army with that machine gun he carries around, and I’ve got this MAC-10 to guard me…now that I think about it, that’s not much of a defense at all. Well, what’s important is that it’s kinda lethal, right?

By the time any attackers manage to break through those autocannons we have up top, they’ll have to deal with the crew AND five heavily armed and trained soldiers. Ok, maybe not that last part, but that’ll do for now. That’s not counting the machine guns we have mounted on the deck; eight or ten of them, mixed bag. According to Grigori, they date back to the late Cold War, but those twin ones are older than the Mamayev Kurgan itself. There’s still even more machine guns downstairs, though these ones are “relatively lighter” in comparison.

Of course, I couldn’t help but notice; why do we have so much firepower? I started to ask around the ship, to everyone that isn’t a civilian. No, we still didn’t know Jokowi is, mind you. Shut up.

…I didn’t say anything.

Well, you’re probably going to.

Anyway, everyone was busy with their own stuff. Many of the crew were kinda reluctant to talk to me, even the ponies didn’t really know much. So, I decided to turn to my team.

Turns out our boss was paranoid. Or prepared. Or any combination of those two. He actually expected us to be attacked at one point. Well, after learning what our cargo was, I couldn’t blame him for that.

Would you care to remind us when and how did you learn of the cargo’s nature?

I’ll get to that, hang on. Didn’t Molly tell you to ask for personal details?

Well, yes.

Then hear me on this, alright?

It was fine and dandy on board our little ship, our endeavour to Jakarta going rather well, everyone’s well fed thanks to the supplies we got in London. Raven and I haven’t told Viktor about the potions we brought on board; Dimitri’s wounds got better slightly thanks to Winter and Zhirinovsky’s efforts. He’s still on a wheelchair though.

We were warming up to each other, slowly but surely, Sure, some of the human crewmembers were a bit of a speciesist against us ponies, but most of the time – I mean, most of them are pretty accepting of us.

Until Viktor’s announcement, I haven’t seen much of Raven or Winter; too busy working. They, like the other civilians, are scattered across the ship. Mostly one area that didn’t have any sort of weapons lying around. Michael on the other hand, stayed with Zhirinovsky and Dimitri; he’s old and all that. That also prevented Dimitri and Zhirinovsky from talking about our business.

Anyway, Raven and Winter had formed one cute friendship with each other. She’s rather supportive of him, and would speak up against the mistreatment of our few newfoal passengers and my fellow pony crewmember, every time they get insulted by some of our more extreme crewmembers. Raven, being a minor pony supremacist himself, found this especially touching.

What of the other passengers?

Well, come to think of it, I haven’t come into contact with them all that much haven’t I? I didn’t pay them much attention, too busy guiding Grigori at night and assisting Resolute at day. The part of the trip from London, to the coast of France, was rather uneventful. We didn’t stop anywhere else; we stocked the ship with enough provisions to last us until we arrived in Jakarta.

What about this “Resolute” fellow?

What about him? He’s haughty, stuffy, and amicable once you get to him. I thought we were over this?

You misinterpreted. What is his attitude towards the Bureaus? Did you bring the topic up?

Uh, actually, yeah, why?

What was his attitude then?

He doesn’t really care about the Bureaus, but he does support ponification a bit. Just a bit, he thinks it shouldn’t be used for trivial reasons; rather, as a medicine.

Did he have a, a “cutie mark”?

Yeah, I think it was a chess bishop. He’s good at chess, so I guess it pretty much fits. What about it?

Just a thought, nothing. Carry on, please.

Huh. Anyways, yeah, didn’t get to meet the other passengers all that much. I do run into them from time to time, but I didn’t interact with them much. The only person I constantly communicate with is Resolute, and Viktor through the radio whenever he needed help. Navigation here is a bit easy for me, even though I only have the stars and an old chart for use.

Resolute, as I’ve said, is quite friendly once you get past the haughtiness. We’ve worked wonderfully together, but the one thing I find rather annoying is his tendency to stick to the rules. Like, he wouldn’t switch to any other channel in the radio; just the ones Viktor ordered him to.

Funnily enough, he was a former college classmate with my dad. He told me on a fine June night, in the 15th. He doesn’t know my dad much, but was kinda jealous when he found out the old stallion joined the Royal Guard’s intelligence division, and he’s stuck being a low paying librarian. Like pretty much every single pony we had in the crew, he jumped at the offer to join the Mamayev Kurgan’s crew.

What was his attitude towards Equestria’s contact with Earth?

Resolute? Well, he sees it as a chance to get off the “stagnant world we called home”. He doesn’t really care about humanity’s supposed violence. Heck, he actually admires “the efficiency of human military intelligence”. Bit of a control freak if you ask me; he seems to believe in the absolute need for government agents to be inserted in the common folk, and effectively control the government. He’s kind of a crackpot, don’t you think?

Well… he does strike me as a fellow who would do well in the government.

…what. Moving on then, I suppose.

Resolute told me came into contact with my dad again, sometime before I left Equestria. It turned out he had one huge argument with my dad, and led to him leaving Equestria. He confided in me about how Dad used the argument that “humans are inferior”, something-something he used against me too.

Did all of you have prior knowledge of humanity before the portal incident?

Well, no. They were just myths you know, myths from a long forgotten land. They’re just crackpot theories. Oh, you should’ve seen our faces when we realized that nutjob Lyra was right when she found evidence of humans.

There were previous visits by us?

Don’t know for sure. It’s just a fringe theory, Resolute told me. Only weird ponies like Lyra has ever paid it any serious attention, you see.

And how did Ambassador Heartstrings discover these “evidence”?

Well, I haven’t heard about the details, but according to official records, she found them in a sunken ship. Long story about that one, which I don’t know the details about, so yeah, can’t help too much with that.

What do you know of this ship?

In a nutshell? It’s an expedition ship, funded by Doc Waggoner back in the day. It sailed to some place over the ocean, and didn’t come back again. Lyra here found it on a diving trip. Completely accidental.

She found some old records and stuff like that, toys, some sciencey instruments and drawings and such. The Bucephalus’ discovery made her a star overnight (figuratively), and Cellie even decided to make her one of the first ponies to make first contact with Earth! Over that whackjob Catseye, even. Weird isn’t it? One day we find evidence we’re not alone in the whole wide multiverse, and then the next we find ourselves visiting the exact same universe of origin!

Yes, it is rather odd. Awfully convenient, even, I must say.

Yep, it’s what happened. Contrived and stuff. Hey, have you wond-

However, time is of the essence, please carry on with the, er, small talks you’ve had with Mr. Reso-

*four knocks*

Huh? Who’s th-

Come in

*click*

Terribly sorry to interrupt sir, Eddy called for you.

Anthea, I’m in the middle of a very important session. Tell Mr. Eddy to bugger off for a while.

Sir, they need you on board. It’s urgent, they said.

Does this have something to do with the Mamayev Kurgan?

Yes, sir. They need you on board.

For what?

They’ve found it, sir.

Umbrella Man? What’s going on here?

…apologies, Mr. Wind, but I have some urgent matter to attend to.

Wait, wait, WAIT! Where are you going?

A diving trip, Mr. Wind. Now, good day.

Bu-who’ll replace you-

*click*

-here. Darn it.

*silence*

Hnnnnhhhh.

*silence*

Welp, got nothing else to do, soooo-

Cast the shadows out from sight. A final stand a shouting cry.
All the wrongs now turned to right, so fight the past, take back the night.
And caaalll upon, the torch, tonight. To bring out all, the ghosts, to light
Becaaause, at last, we have to go. It’s tiiiiiime.
To take back the nig-

*click*

Good morning!

ghht-Molly?

Who else?

Right, right. So, uhm, what’re you doing here?

Well, isn’t it obvious? I’m filling in for the Umbrella Man

What, you call him that too?

Well no, but it kind of sticks to him. What was that song?

That? Just, just something I picked up on the radio. Someone decided to broadcast some internet song from waaaay back in 2013. Sort of an unofficial resistance song.

Interesting. What’s it called, Stellar?

Take Back the Night. It used to have an animation to go with it, but then some ponies on the PHL decided to broadcast it as, well, a resistance slash propaganda song. It stuck with them, ever since Princess Luna…got stoned. That sounds wrong. Sorry.

I’d love to hear in full sometime later. Really sorry, but, well, we’ve got some matters to attend to.

Oh, yeah, no prob.

So, where did you left off ?

Well, I’ve summed up everything I had to discuss with Resolute over the trip. Things turned to regular old, boring business, I suppose. A little bit of reading off the charts, helping Resolute with his stuff sometimes (he’s a good operator, but hey, still an earth pony. A bit of magic can help at times), or reporting back to Cap’n Wahid and co up there on the bridge.

What did you enjoy most on board?

…okay, why ask me that?

Pardon?

It’s an official interview, right? Why the personal questions? I mean, yeah, your friend there asks personal questions as well, but then he said you told him to.

It’s for moral support. Since, well, we haven’t stopped the Barrier, whoever listens to this in the future should know you’re hu-I mean pony. A living creature with a personality, people connect better to those. You get what I’m saying, Stellar? Just-just in case Earth doesn’t make it through in one piece.

Huh, that actually makes sense.

Well, there was one thing that didn’t bore me to death when I did it. It was when I was ordered to star gaze for directions.

Can you elaborate on that?

Basically, when the skies are clear, I’m told to climb up to the crow’s nest, and watch the stars. Yes, this is a task I’m told to do by the Captain or Viktor, but I really, really liked it. It, calms your mind after all the crap you’ve been through.

While there aren’t any major threats to my life during the, uh, initial, sailing part, the whole “smuggle illegal weaponry while evading stuff” danger caught up with my mind, and, well, I was kinda nervous for the trip.

Wait, aren’t your cutie mark a sextant?

I know you humans don’t make a big fuss about cutie marks Molly, but they’re a part of you, you see. Yes, it’s a sextant, not a telescope, but that doesn’t mean I only do normal navigationy stuff. The name Stellar Wind has something to do with my stargazing hobby, you see; as a foal, I loved it when Mom brought me out at night.

Earth’s skies are so much dirtier than ours back home. When you’re out at sea, with clear skies all night long, it just, reminds you of home, right? Sure, the stars are all wrong, but what counts is the feeling you get, when you see that no matter where you are, no matter how different, the night skies are always, ALWAYS, works of art.

Back home, I’d usually sneak out of my room, with a mattress, and some snacks, as well as my dad’s old telescope. We lived in the side of a mountain, close enough to Vanhoover to see the cityscape. Usually though, the skies above Vanhoover are so clear you can see hundreds and hundreds of stars even without the telescope.

And if I could, I would bring my cousin Frost with me on holidays; he and his mother lives with me and dad. The little colt loved seeing the stars with me; usually I’d say the stars are past heroes, Equestrian or not. It’s, too bad Winter Truce couldn’t be with us. Dad got hold of him, and sent him to fight on Earth last I heard. I hope he’s alright.

On Hearthswarming, Frost would practically beg to come with me; I haven’t disappointed him since. Oh he loved seeing the reindeers come, with their, uh, magicks and stuff. And he would squee if he sees the great stag himself.

Adding to that experience, picture an entire city lit by lamps and candles, with the stars above the night sky. That’s why, that’s why I wanted to go to Earth, or at least part of the reason. To see the same view, or at least close to it, but with the wonders of humanity with it, the life and blood of a megacity.

Damn this war, damn Lyra and her stupid discovery, damn Celestia, damn everything. I, I just want to go back home, without any sort of Tyrant waiting there. I promised Frost I’ll be home with Winter; Luna knows where he is now, thanks to that stupid war. I want the old Equestria back, kind and loving and warm.

I’m sorry, Stellar.

It-it’s alright. There’s nothing of the old Equestria to go back to anyways. Maybe, just maybe, after all of this is over, and the Tyrant has been stopped, I’ll settle down in something that reminds me of home, like the US’ Western Coast, or the Himalayas, heck maybe Bandung, or Paris van Java as they called it. From what I’ve heard from Wahid and Ana, that city looks and feels almost exactly like Vanhoover.

No use dwelling in the past. Just, forget about it, alright? Sorry if I’m a bit, emotional, had to get it off my mind.

It’s alright, Stellar, it’s alright. Now, um, I don’t mean to be rude, sorry if I am, but where were we?

Right, yeah.

I wasn’t always alone in my thoughts, you see. Sometimes a crewmember would accompany me for a few minutes, share some coffee, talk about life on board the ship, stuff like that. When my companion is another pony crewmember, we’d chat about life in Equestria a bit. But even with them it never went further than that; not that many crewmembers went to the deck with me, so I mostly spent stargazing alone.

But of course, someone had to notice, right?

So there I was, watching the night sky, on a particularly windy June night. I was shivering; my coat offered little protection against the wind. Maybe some pegasi decided to pull off a sick joke somewhere in France, I dunno.

Ana decided to pay me a visit that night; she kindly said I forgot to drink the soup Dimitri served us down there, so she brought it up for me. Since the incident with the coffee was still fresh in my head, I was kinda wary that she would somehow knock it into my face.

Luckily, that didn’t happen, although she almost knocked me out with a completely accidental punch. Emphasize completely accidental; that girl can knock out an entire army just by sitting. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but who knows?

Naturally, I asked her why she wanted to come up here, instead of just calling me down. She said she wanted to deliver the soup. Of course, we both know the real reason-what’s with that smile?

What smile? Nothing, just continue with your story Stellar. Carry on!

…ok, huh, weird. Ahem.

Anyways, yeah, I think Ana just wanted to sit up here and watch the stars. Overall, I believe she just wanted a little R and R; she told me that she spent maaaaybe too much time in her little nest. While I’m still kinda wary of her, um quirks, I’m fine with her being around, as long as I’m not alone up here.

The girl may be clumsy, but she has got to be the nicest person on board (with Jokowi on the same ship, that’s saying something); she took one look at me, quickly said I look a bit cold, and offered her winter coat. As everyone always says when they’re being offered something, I said no to it, as I thought it would be redundant.

Didn’t stop her. At all. Before I knew it, we were locked in a scuffle, with Ana trying to put the coat around us both. Rolled around a bit, b- seriously, what’s with the smile? Ah, whatever-before I finally relented. And so it was that I find myself in a coat that wasn’t designed for us both at once, but Ana, being Ana, decided our body heat would warm each other. With the soup’s help, of course. Dimitri makes good soups even when crippled, I’ll give him that.

So, in the end, we were in a snuggly position, drinking soup and stargazing, with Ana’s comfy winter coat draped over us. And by Luna, it was very, very warm indeed; heck, I even felt a bit hot, inside; Ana sure is ditzy, but her idea of sharing body heat is very thoughtfu-what?

Oh, nothing, just, just carry on (*snigger*). So, um, what did you do after you got *ahem* comfortable with her? Snuggle a bit more?

Well, uh, we did some small talk, of course, what were you thin-see? You’re doing that smile again! Seriously, what is up with that smile?

Nothing, really. It’s just that, well, I can imagine how it turned out.

…ok…?

Ana, as I’ve discovered, isn’t that shady at all. While we rested – you can stop sniggering now, Molly – while we rested on the mattress, she spilled out her past life. Boy was she a motor mouth; all I did was admit a little bit about the whole messup that sent me to Equestria, and BOOM! She was blabbering about her life. Although I gotta admit, she was so cute when she blabbered.

I suppose it’s no problem for me to recite that here, right? Personal details after all.

Sure, sure, it’s fine

As we observed the tranquil night sky, just off the coast of France, Ana began her little backstory exposition.

She first joined the group we were in back in 2013, when she just earned her college degree. While she was happy and all with her degree, Ana explained that she, well, didn’t feel like staying in Norway. And so, she decided to go into Russia, leaving her grandfather and sister back in her hometown. Fate being silly as it is, she joined our smuggling ring completely by accident. She never said how and why, come to think about it. Given who she is, I’d say she turned left instead of right. Silly Ana, as always.

I gradually enjoyed her company, even after she accidentally hit me during her rather, eh, energetic story… story telling. While she blabbered on and on and on, I thought about my other teammates, and what I actually thought about them.

Viktor, Viktor’s a good man. I cannot, in any way, picture him as a killer.

Grigori’s a bit tougher. I can see him as the man who would pull the trigger.

Dimitri? The guy’s big and huggable, and loves his explosives. That’s all I really knew about him at the time. Apart from Ana, I stayed away from them most of the time.

See, now I feel guilty, your fault by the way, Molly. I tried to push away Ana when I first came into the team you see; her inherent clumsiness turned me off significantly. Grigori didn’t like me all that much, and Dimitri likes everyone. Really, the only person I talked to for realsies, back in December was Viktor. Even that was mostly out of necessity.

Anyways, I would’ve fallen asleep with Ana, hand in hoof, were it not for Grigori’s ludicrously loud announcement over the intercom. He was screaming at us to head straight for the comms room.

How loud?

Loud enough to possibly rupture my eardrums. Seriously.

It was loud but effective, mind you; within minutes, me and Ana were rushing downstairs, passing pretty much everyone on board. Along the way, Raven and Winter decided to follow us. Ana was a bit, ehr, apprehensive, but didn’t say anything about it. She didn’t really like people following her; gives her the creeps.

By the time we got to the radio room, the whole place was an absolute mess. Blood splatter across the wall, smoke from the radio, and the smell of gunfire. By the moon, it was horrific.

The team was already there, with a couple other crewmembers in the room. Grigori explained it to me pretty quickly; apparently Nikolai Belinski drank one glass of vodka too many, and ended up drunk enough to stumble his way into the radio room.

Things… got ugly fast.

Nikolai here went a bit nuts when drunk, started swinging his pistol around. Poor Resolute didn’t see him coming; he sort of stumbled into the radio room and called Resolute an incompetent toy, and THEN he tried to wrestle control of the whole rig.

Resolute didn’t take too kindly to that, and the two ended up in a struggle that ended in a bang.

Nikolai shot Resolute?

Yep. Resolute got lucky there, though.. One more inch and the bullet would have severed a major artery vessel. The shock was enough to knock him unconscious.

By the time Grigori and Viktor got there, Resolute was lying against a wall, and Nikolai was busy boasting into the radio. They managed to restrain him in time, and Grigori called out to us.

Of course, they didn’t expect Winter to be following us.

Grigori ended up in a shouting match with Raven, said she could have jeopardized our whole cover. Raven retorted that the cover didn’t matter now that a human crewmember spoiled our entire stuff on the radio.

Viktor tried to separate them, but by then it took Lev and Nikita to restrain Grigori before he could strangle Raven. Winter was huddled in a corner; she couldn’t take the yelling and violence. I was sort of just… there, too speechless to do anything.

Ana tried to calm Winter down, all the while telling me to bring Resolute to Doc Zhirinovsky. ‘course, by this point I was already halfway in trying to bring him up. But then Jokowi and Michael came.

Michael, rather politely, inquired why there’s blood all over the wall. Jokowi went a little more straight to the point; as in, he asked just what the hell are we really carrying on board.

Before Viktor could reply, Davis, some guy who brought his family on board (probably a cheapskate, dunno), demanded a quick explanation. I know I know, he had a young daughter on board, and was probably a bit overprotective, but was it really necessary to grab Viktor by his coat?

That sent Grigori over the edge; within seconds, he had punched out Mr. Davis and drew his gun on Jokowi, Michael, and his bodyguards. They didn’t take it too well, and drew their own rifles on us.

For a few moments, everything was silent; the only noise heard was Winter softly sobbing in the corner, and my own nervous breaths. And then Viktor recognized the rifles the guards were wielding. From that tiny bit of info, he deduced that Jokowi really is that Jokowi.

Viktor, being Viktor tried to reason with the Indonesian President, said he didn’t want any trouble. And in a truly, truly awesome moment, Jokowi simply replied that, well, he couldn’t let us supply guns to the HLF, or any other armed group in Indonesia.

Well, we never found out who exactly were we selling our guns to, but that accusation drove Grigori over the edge, and all of Tartarus broke loose in that little radio room.

It was quick, short, and violent; within a minute, Lev was incapacipatated, Nikita choked to death in his own blood, and all four of Jokowi’s bodyguards were taken down thanks to timely reinforcements.

Winter, poor Winter was covered in blood, none of it hers. Her screams compounded the cacophony of noises in the radio room.

Jokowi and Michael had the idea to take cover, and even though Jokowi shielded Michael with his own body, no bullet struck him or the old king.

Ana, well, she knew we didn’t bring guns, and so decided to try to shield me from the AR2 bullets the guards were shooting us with. Wasn’t really necessary, since they weren’t aiming for us; still, I appreciated the gesture.

Grigori’s had enough of being covert; he reasoned to Viktor that there was NO WAY anyone on the ship could have missed the sound of unsuppressed gunfire.

Viktor, Viktor was powerless at that moment. Couldn’t raise a finger to stop Grigori from grabbing Jokowi and dragging him away to the ship’s bridge.

What for?

To make a statement.

See, Grigori, while he’s kinda silent, has been holding back this entire time. As Viktor and I left Ana to tend to everyone (especially Winter, poor girl’s shellshocked) in the radio room, he explained that Grigori’s been waiting for a moment like this, to finally make a statement to the civilians that we are NOT dicking around.

So there he was, standing on the bridge’s balcony, Jokowi forcibly sat by his side. Before him were our entire complement as well as the civvies we brought. It was, noisy, to say the least. Everyone, even the crewmembers, were demanding to know just what in Tartarus is going on.

Grigori silenced them all, including Mr. Davis’ rather loud daughter, with his AK-

Wait wait wait he GUNNED them down?!

Wha-no! Nonono, you got it wrong Molly, he, he just unloaded a clip into the air to make them sile-oh dear it came out wrong didn’t it? Ah well, he shot at the air to silence them.

After everyone’s nice and silent, he started making his speech. I don’t remember all of it, but after the whole incident, Grigori gave me a brief summary of the speech he gave to the crowd, while threatening them with his AK:

Yes, we are smugglers.

Yes, Jokowi is the Indonesian President.

No, we didn’t know he was a foreign President until tonight.

Yes, we are carrying illegal weaponry, and stolen potions.

We fully intend to use both if the situation demands it. No exceptions.

Oh it wasn’t the end of our troubles, hell no, Grigori told me. Viktor and him had discussed it a bit, and they both agreed that by this point someone with authority outside must’ve caught on to what Nikolai was babbling about in the radio.

So, what exactly did he ramble on about?

Ramble? He was downright BOASTING for Luna’s sake!

He literally drunk dialed the entire militaries of Faust-damned Europe, through an open channel! Heck, if the ongoing cold war didn’t happen, he would have unleashed the military might of the European Union on our ship, and we’d be paraded around as a triumphant example of bad illegal smuggling.

Even then, Viktor and Grigori knew someone must’ve heard him, and as Dimitri pointed out in his defense of Nikolai, the owners of the normal cargo we’ve got on board will have contacted the authorities by now.

So, for three days we were on edge, from June 17th to the 19th. The passengers were herded back to their hold and locked in, but with access to food and fresh air, of course. Jokowi, Jokowi and Michael were put in with Doc Zhirinovsky and Dimitri, for the sake of not making them on edge as it is.

And them on June 18, we got a phone call, from one ‘Nick Fleming’. Notice the gesture I’m making, the quotation gesture. ‘Nick Fleming’.

Mr. ‘Fleming’ asked us politely if we had any cargo from Dee Enterprises. As I’m the one filing in for Resolute, I responded yes, we had. He kept asking us increasingly weird questions, and so I put him on hold.

Viktor, Grigori, and Ana came to support me. To Viktor’s dismay and Grigori’s annoyance, Ana decided to continue the convo.

Well, she calls bullshit on Mr. Fleming being Mr. Fleming, and him working for Dee Enterprises, claiming the cargo we have is fully authorized. That is, until Mr. Fleming told us his company never sent any cargo on board our ship.

While we couldn’t confirm nor deny this, it pretty much nailed our coffin shut; Dee Enterprises might have the SAS on speed dial, according to Grigori.

Now, I only heard about their reputation, but the very mention of the SAS sent chills down everyone’s necks (except me, of course, And Raven, and Winter, and every pony crewmember). While Raven, Winter, and I have all seen SAS personnel back in London, Viktor’s the only one of us who’s had any experience dealing with them, and even then he only engaged two of them.

When did he meet them, Stellar?

He met them back in the nineties, you see. He was on guard duty under employment of some hardline Russian in league with our current boss. When his boss was busy dealing in some uranium trade, a sniper suddenly opened fire out and blew off his arm. Viktor told us that there were only two SAS operatives battling them in the ensuing firefight, one of them crippled and armed with only a sniper rifle, no less, but the full might of his heavily armed crew couldn’t kill the two of them, and the SAS pair got evacuated to fight another day.

What about the missiles?

I already told the Umbrella Man, about how Viktor decided to drop the bombshell of a private exposition about the missiles, bit redundant if I decide to tell you again, am I right?

Right, yeah, sorry. Carry on, Stellar.

On the evening of June 19, Grigori’s radar intercepted an aircraft approaching our ship. Within the hour, Viktor ordered our crew on high alert, and to be prepared against boarding parties. Even Dimitri got in the action by helping the crew fit in some rockets.

I requested a brief leave, which Ana granted; I needed some time alone with Raven and Winter.

They came out of their room, a bit worse for wear, but not too grumpy or all that (they’re quite happy to see me then, actually. I’m gonna stick with the fact that they might be drunk), and we had a little chat. Winter’s afraid, Raven told me, although she doesn’t show all that. I assured him that I’ll make sure the coming British forces won’t hurt him or Winter, in any way. As a sign of good faith, I armed him with another MAC-10 just in case.

Winter didn’t really like it; she didn’t trust guns after what went wrong in the radio room. Raven, although he would have preferred a Royal Guard spear, didn’t complain too hard.

We parted ways in the hold, all the cliché’d stuff, I’ll skip that. I only told Raven to come to Vanhoover, find a little colt who goes by the name of Frost, and tell him his cousin isn’t coming home regrettably, in the event that a SAS soldier put a bullet through my head.

By 7 o’clock, we were ready for them. Dimitri left his room to provide watch on where and when to fire the RPGs, Ana was back in her perch with her rifle stocks, her Dragunovs and AWPs. Wahid and Grigori would protect the bridge, since they would pretty much attack it first, and Viktor prepared the machine gun crews. Everyone else, including me and Raven, were assigned to protect the ship’s corridors, and prevent the SAS from taking our cargo, and protect the civilians from the crossfire as well.

All in all, we were all set, even though we’re forced to use some of our newer gear we were meant to smuggle.

By 9 o’clock, all was quiet, with only the sound of waves pounding against the ship, and the occasional metal rattling of our guns, to interrupt the silence. It was tense; every breath, every step we make could be critical. The SAS, or whoever’s after us, was clearly taking their time.

And near midnight, they arrived.

One of the men in the forward bow of the ship was the first to spot them as they arrived in a helicopter. And a huge one at that, maybe a Merlin troop carrier, Ana said over the radio. That was the last bit of info we received before we shut off all the comms.

They circled around us first, gauging our strength maybe, I dunno, before finally stopping near the bridge. Then, they decided to land their troops up on the helipad we had, maybe for convenience’ sake.

That was their first mistake; landing there brought their helicopter close enough for Dimitri’s RPGs to strike. Viktor gave the order, and the rest is history.

From what I heard up on the deck, the RPG round struck the chopper while it was still sending down troops, and sent it spiraling into one of our towers, before finally crashing in the ocean. But a simple, crashed chopper isn’t going to stop the SAS, no. By Luna, they were going to bring us down with the ship.

Soon enough, gunfire rang out on the deck above, while Raven, Winter and I heard the battle raging. Everyone down in the hold was tense; they could decide to descend down below and set charges on the missiles.

Sure enough, they did.

While we managed to take out their chopper, and some of their men with it, the SAS still had a significant presence on board; eight of them, at least, although not all of them were regular SAS.

Some were regular soldiers; marines, I think, armed with their standard issue rifles. Even then we were still fighting a tough battle. By the time the battle on board the deck was over, five of our crewmembers were dead, 0 SAS casualties apart from the chopper crash.

Ana turned on comms again, and warned us down below of them coming downstairs. She had managed to pin down the soldiers on the deck, hit one of them non-fatally, but forced them to go down the ship.

No sooner than when Ana said this that they did come to us. Heck, I barely survived the encounter.

It’s a wonder we actually won at the end; they were very professional, I’ll give them that. And we were expecting them!

So there I was, watching a corridor, when I suddenly saw several dark figures moving in from the dark hallway. I called out to my teammates, three others, armed with AKs, and we began to fight back.

But it wasn’t GOOD ENOUGH. Those damn elites took out all three of my teammates within TWO LUNA DAMNED MINUTES.

It was like, FWIP FWIP FWIP, and BAM they’re FREAKING DEAD! Holy Tartarus, they were TERRIFYING. Couldn’t see their faces too; they were hidden entirely in gas masks. Somehow, that made them even MORE scary.

As I said, FWIP-FWIP-FREAKING-FWIP, and my teammates fell over dead. Yeah, they tried to fight back, but those Brits were too fast for us.

I, I only survived because I decided to hide beneath their bodies. Dunno why it fooled them, considering I stuck out like a sore thumb, but it worked, and that’s all that matters.

As they passed, I discerned some info about them. Their apparent leader was a Sergeant named, named Harold Winson, and he was in charge because “Captain Griffin” was down, and “Baseplate” put him in command. That abrupt change of command didn’t deter his hardheadedness. One of them was injured, no doubt because of Ana’s fine shooting previously. I think the young man’s name was, uh, James Croft.

Poor guy’s got a bullet through his sides, but heck, he still joked around about it. Even his teammates’ “you look like hammered shit” response to his (really unnecessary question), earned a deadpan “No shit, Sherlock” from him. He was a nice guy, I can tell.

Was there anyone else with them?

Yeah, there’s, there’s Corporal Harwood, dunno about the rest; some were SAS, a minority were members of the Royal Marines. But there was one civilian with them.

What was his name, Stellar?

Richard Hoffman, I think. Doctor Richard Hoffman, some German-British man, from his name and accent. I seriously don’t know what exactly a, a Bureau doctor would be doing with the British special forces, but they were definitely up to something else. They were on to us and the potion shipment perhaps.

You met Richard?

Well, passed by h-you know him?

Used to, at least. He left work in, uh, St. Barts, where I worked, for some, some new employment he said.

Huh, small world.

Anyways, I just waited until they passed, off to be someone else’s damned problem. For, maybe three hours, I just laid there, waiting for somepony to come to me. I couldn’t risk waking up, prance around like a dingus, and then get shot in the face by surprise surprise, the SAS.

I didn’t have to wait all night long, thank Luna. Serene, one of the crewmembers I rarely talked to, found me under the corpses, and dusted me off, before taking me to the infirmary. Not for medical attention, but to lock down the SAS in there.

By the time we got there, we got what, twelve different rifles pointed at the door? Yep, sounds about right.

We managed to trap them in the room, sort of a humane prison, considering there’s enough room in there to accommodate all of them. Plus they’ve got Jokowi and Michael to keep them company.

But we still had a problem; half our crew are dead or injured. While Doc Zhirinovsky is available outside, Dimitri…

Poor, poor Dimitri got his wounds reopened in the fighting. Those damned SAS weapons did it, and he was bleeding profusely. Even the good Doctor couldn’t help.

But of course, Winter, Winter decided to help Dimitri, with the potions we’ve got on board. And as she told me, the presence of a Bureau doctor on board might help a bit.

It took us days and days to negotiate provisions for the trapped men, but eventually, on June the 23rd, a combination of factors beyond our control convinced the SAS to accept our assistance and in exchange let Doc Hoffman help Dimitri.

Jokowi kindly told the SAS that we weren’t that harmful, as Michael recalled. Good man, he was, even Grigori had to (begrudgingly) admit that.

As, as we feared greatly, we were forced to, to convert Dimitri. I’m sorry, but, I didn’t exactly fear it greatly; I actually supported his conversion at the time. The biggest irony is that Doc Hoffman, was the one to do it. I’ll tell you later.

They had to convert Private Croft too; I can’t forget the look on his eyes as they turned him into another newfoal.

Now, Doc Hoffman told us that, that the process would not be for the weak hearted, and gestured for us to leave the room, all seven of the SAS, as well as Jokowi and Michael.

All seven?

Yeah, all seven. See, this is why we almost lost the fight; they had exactly 0 casualties from the battle apart from the helicopter and James’ injuries, they weren’t worse for wear. The SOLE REASON we even SUPPOSEDLY WON was that they got cornered in the infirmary.

As Hoffman converted Dimitri and Croft, I finally had a little chat with Raven, Winter, and Resolute, and decided to skip ahead and just ask them what they thought of the conversion process.

Aaand?

Results, were mixed, you see.

Raven, Raven’s a bit unsure, said it’s unnecessary at times, but eventually said it was for the best of Dimitri and Private Croft.

Winter agreed fullheartedly to the process, no doubt. She was the one who suggested it, after all.

Resolute…disagreed with it. He said they should’ve let them die. In hindsight, this was, oh God, for the better.

Our discussion was interrupted when Dimitri and James emerged in their new bodies

Dimitri was huge, not as big as that injured pony I saw back In London, but huge nonetheless. His first reaction to seeing me was to scoop me up in a big, all crushing hug. I think the potion turned him into a pony shaped teddy bear of hugs.

James was smaller than him, kinda small there. Bit, bit meek if you asked me. From the corner of my eyes, I could see Sergeant Winson tense up, so did his men, a bit.

Doctor Hoffman assured us he’ll be keeping an eye on the two newfoals as they adjusted to the ship, and will introduce them to the other newfoals we already had on board.

And then, and then Ana sat right beside me as we heard Hoffman’s announcement. For the first time in forever, I actually saw some kind of, I, I don’t know, fear perhaps? In her eyes, I could see that odd feeling in her. The fact that she grasped my left hoof as we heard Hoffman didn’t help matters.

Life in the ship, went back to normal, for a given value of normal, at least. We still had WMDs on board, the SAS were escorted everywhere they went, weapons confiscated, and Dimitri and James, those newfoals, never, never connected with us the same again.

How so?

I, I can’t say. I mean, they look like a pony, but when you know someone as a human for so long, it…feels uncanny. Doc Hoffman and Sgt. Winson agreed subconsciously with my sentiment there. I, I don’t know.

In the week, the week before Queen Celestia declared war, Doc Hoffman offered me to help him on a research project. Something he’s been working on for a while before the whole mess of London happened.

Hold up, Stellar, do you feel comfortable right now?

Sorry?

Stellar, I can tell you’re not really, really comfy talking about this. I’ll give you some time off

…I-I don’t-

Stop. Trust me on this, you need some time off for a bit.

But, ho-

A friend of mine taught me to read people. Now, please, Stellar, take the time off for now. Please?

…alright. T-thanks, Molly, I appreciate it.

Not a big deal, but you’re welcome! Now, let’s get some coffee you and me, righ’? Heard Andrew’s making some for tonight.

He is?! Oh thankyouthankyou! Oh damn I love his coffee, hey did you know that…

*click*

END SEGMENT TWO

RELATED FILES:

Battle on the Mamayev Kurgan
Bruce-Partington Program
Unified Intelligence Defense Network (UNIDENT)
Saxon-BP Class Missile System
Hoffman Logs<SELECT

OPEN FILE HOFFMAN LOGS-SEGMENT ONE?

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PROCESSING REQUEST

REQUEST ACCEPTED

ACCESSING FILE

PLEASE WAIT

Author's Note

For the record, I based off Vanhoover's night view off Bandung.

Combine that with the clear night skies of Equestria.