Fallout: Equestria: Stars & Stripes

            Mortality.

            Sometimes, a pony will think about death. Is it painful? Scary? Is there really an afterlife?

            Well, death is also an objective idea. Every pony has a different idea of death. Coma. Cardiac arrest. Even brain-death. But all of the old pony-tales tell us that in order to pass into the great beyond, one must die completely.

            For now, I really hoped that I wouldn't have to find out in the immediate future.

            I struggled futiley against the glass enveloping me as the sedative filled the pod with an unnerving hiss.

get out now no room to fly mommy mommy oh god I'm sleepy

            The glass was reinforced. There was no getting out. Even the powerful srikes of my hooves did nothing. In such a small space, I could gain no leverage. I might as well have been hitting it with a twisty straw.

             I took a look at my H.U.D.. Even as I activated the squad mate application with a few quick blinks, the icon for Char went from "healthy" to "unconscious".

             I activated my throat mic. Static. The insulated stasis pod was blocking all transmissions.

             "HEY!" I yelled, as the icon for Lost Star went uncon.

             The sound simply reverberated back at me. These were soundproof, apparently.

             "Please breath in deeply." A microphone in the pod informed me helpfully.

             "LIKE FUCK I AM!" I struck the glass again, to no effect.

              My brain was being starved of oxygen now. I felt the sudden urge to take a piss, and wondered vaguely how that worked.

              And, now I had to drop a duece. Go figure.

              With that last though in mind, I faded into blackness.

              I was sitting on top of a cloud, eating the cotton candy out of it.

              OK, this is probobly a dream. But at least it's a good one!

              I buried my snout into the pink, fluffy goodness, and began chewing. I could get used to this!

              I stopped. In less than two seconds, I had eaten the entire cloud. Yet I was somehow still sitting on it.

              I had just bag an to taste the chocolate rain, when a voice rang out from nowhere.

              "Dance, my puppet. Give me some chaos!"

              I froze, and then realized that I was in a dream. Nobody could hurt me!

              His voice was low and soothing, with a slight lisp.

              I realized what I needed to ask him.

              "Are you GAY?!"

              The dream ended just about there.

              Yawnn...

              A familiar burst of claustrophobia took root just as the glass pod hissed open, slowly revealing the interior of the SI-21 Skreex. I attempted to roll out of the pod and stand up.

              "I could really go for some cof- "MOTHERFUCKERTHATHURTS!!!"

              In hindsight, it should've occurred to me sooner that 150 years locked up in a cryogenic freeze would leave you a little cramped up. My hind legs, both spasming, refused to obey my brain's commands to get up. Instead, my front legs pulled back and forth.

              "Spazz." Char was in her pod, but had not yet gotten up. She was stretching out her legs, and practicing breathing deeply. I had missed a lot of training when I was... well... zoned out.

              I continued to struggle futiley against my own fucked-up limbs as Char got up and began pacing slowly in circles around each pod. She pressed each red button, and the glass slid open, revealing the occupant. Until she got to the front of the room, next to where I was having my spazz attack.

              "Oh my god! Look at Halfheart's pod!"

              My spasms had stopped wracking me as badly as they were before, and indeed, something was definetely wrong with her pod. The top part of the glass was smashed clean off. HalfHeart herself was nowhere to be found. Her glasses and battle saddle were missing.

              "Char. Wake up Voltage. I need to open the medical record, and he's the one with the pass codes."

              Char trotted into the weapons room, where the quick-awakening systems were located. She ran her hoof over each of the red buttons, numbered one through six. In the other room, anti-sedatives were pumped into everypony's neck, waking them up. However, the little post-it note taped to the main terminal reminded us that it still took five minutes to act.

               "Why do you need the medical records?" Asked Char.

               "I need to see if the back hatch was opened in the last few years." I grimaced at the morbid thought. I did not  want to have to think about this right now.

Char and I trotted back into the stasis room. Kilowatt's muscles were starting to stir under his electric-blue hide. Most of the needles in him were now retracting from his body, back into the stasis pod. He still had a good three minutes before the last dose of anti-sedative was administered, shocking him awake.

I turned to Char.

Char. "I know this is a bad time for you, and you don't want to think about it." I looked at the smashed pod. "But is there any... blood, on the glass?"

I think I already knew the answer.

Char turned to the pod, and scrutinized it closely, an expression of fear on her face.

"Y... Yes. Lots of dried blood. Inside."

We were silent for about a minute. Although no one said anything, it was an unspoken vibe in the air that our leader was probobly dead.

"Please don't be dead, sis. Please..." Cried Char softly.

Kilowatt awoke after about ten minutes of anti-sedative, leaving me out in the cold for a good seven minutes of extreme awkwardness with Char.

"Ughhh..." Kilowatt woke in the Skreex

"KILO! KILO!" Char yelled.

"Wha..." Kilo started, until he started to roll out of his pod.

"NO! Not anyone else!" No one else should have to experience those spasms!

"Stretch out, Voltage. 150 years in a pod isn't exactly good for your muscles." I said.

We sat for about a minute while he stretched his legs.

"You need me to access the terminals? He guessed.

A look from me told him "yes". We had been "bronies" for long enough that we had a sort of telepathy going. He started typing, entering the passcodes and his account codes into the system. The rest of the team began waking up.

Colgate was first.

"What happened?" Yawned Colgate.

As she said this, I began to wonder exactly how many of us actually remembered the last night.

"Char?" I asked.

"Yeah"

"Ummm... what happened? I wasn't exactly... conscious for it all."

"None of us were." This was Lost Star, who had apparently just woken up from stasis.

"We were all tranquilized. None of us have any idea how the scientists even got us here.

I pondered this. This was certainly fishy.

"Then who was wheeling me through the hallways? The scientists? They were all running for thier lives."

"DONE!" Announced KiloWatt, interrupting.

We all raced to the terminal in the back of the jet, crowding around it like virgin nerds at a whorehouse.

The screen was still on the main interface page, and Voltage double-clicked on the icon for "Entrances/Exit Records." A screen pulled up, showing only two lines of code.

Stasis_Pod_1_Y1079M4D7/1134_Exit_Forced.

Back_Hatch_Door_Y1079M4D7/1146_Exit_ Forced.

Stasis_Pod_1_UnOccupied_Y36M4

This was bad. Very, very bad.

The two lines of code on the terminal screen, simply put, stated that a stasis pod was abandoned, and someone jumped out the back hatch roughly twelve seconds later.

"Wait!" Said Char. "Check the parachutes."

"Already did." Replied KiloWatt. "All six are right where they're supposed to be.

"Oh..." I could hear the dissapointment and sadness in Char's scratchy voice.

"Ok, now acess the medical and stasis records." I told KiloWatt.

More strings of code appeared.

Stasis_Pods_2-6_Activated/Awaiting_CryogenicsY1015M3->

Life_Support_1_Pods 1-6

"But this means..." Began Char.

I interrupted her.

"Yeah. C'mere."

I wrapped Char in a tight embrace with my right wing, feeling the stub of her amputated left wing.

"Maybe he's still alive somehow...''

"No. I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to get over this." Said KiloWatt. "We touch down in twenty-four hours."

"But..."

I piped up. "Char, those lines of code clearly stated that the life support for Pod One went on. Do you know what this means? This means that she spent over 75 years, unable to move, still concsious. If he somehow made it out alive, she would be stark raving mad!"

I looked at my cutie mark, a brain. I still haven't figured out what it was for, although one of the common guesses was pshycology...

I hugged her even tighter. I knew what it was like to lose a sibling.

"So, who wants some, umm, coffee? Suggested Kilowatt. I smiled. One of his talents, other than engineering, was cheering other ponies up. He came into the weapons/terminal room with five cups of steaming hot, creamy mocha.

"To Halfheart." He prompted.

"TO HALFHEART!"