Cryostasis

        “One of the Sparrows crashed?” I asked the VI. It replied with a high-pitched beep. I furrowed my brows while turning towards the planet just behind the bridges window. Looking down I gazed upon the icy planet, which at the moment was shrouded in the darkness of night. “Along with it landing in the middle of a colony?”

        Another high-pitched beep. I sighed in frustration. I should have seen this coming. Though the drones were well preserved I had expected at least one to fail on entry and explode in atmosphere. Instead it decided to drive straight into the ground, worst of all, it landed in the middle of a structure. It looked familiar to a castle you would see in fairy tales. Luckily, the autopilot was smart enough to avoid going kamikaze and correctly turned itself towards an open space in which it could crash land.

        The Sparrow at the moment was still intact, if not barely. Unfortunately, it landed in the middle of a undoubtedly populated city. I was hoping to go unnoticed by the local population and observe them before initiating contact. Sadly, I had no such luck. The Sparrows crash would attract a lot of attention. If I were to try and retrieve it I could spark something, I just pray the locals don’t touch anything.

__________

Unicorn Guards surrounded the Sparrow as it lay where it had come to a halt. The common electric spark and small electrical fires were lighting up the area around it. A single Unicorn approached the downed Sparrow and began charging up a spell. Once close enough she scanned the metal bird looking for any signs of life.

        None.

        “It’s dead.” She announced. Unicorn Guards who had been holding their breaths exhaled in relief. They soon got closer to the machine, one curious enough to even lightly jab it with a spear.

        “Go get the princess and the adviser.” Ordered the Unicorn Guard Captain. The mare standing beside her nodded before trotting off. Upon her departure the Captain began to approach the Sparrow. A few minutes later Platinum and Clover wandered into the garden. Escorted by four Elite Unicorn Guardmares they approached the Sparrow. Soon they were standing meters away from it.

        “By the gods, the heat is unbearable.” Commented Platinum. Clover had to agree, the Sparrows surface radiated with heat, still hot from entry and made the air around it impossible to stand near for too long. Steam was even rising from the hull. However, curiosity getting the better of Clover she began to approach it again.

        “Wait!” Yelled the Captain. Clover found herself being pushed back by the two Unicorn Guards flanking her. “The surface is still hot, watch.”

        The Captain proceeded to pick a berry from a nearby bush. It was big, blue, plump, and most of all juicy. She tossed it at the Sparrows hull. However, instead of colliding with the Sparrow’s surface there was an electric screech as a blue field appeared around the Sparrow. Said field was not completely transparent like the shields produced by Unicorn Mages, instead it had various colors of blue and white energy moving in waves without pattern.

        Everyone backpedaled as their eyes went wide with fear. Guards were quick to form a barrier around their Princess and Adviser, ready to take whatever the Sparrow would throw at them. Soon the shimmering shield died down and returned to it’s invisible state.

        Upon seeing that the Sparrow had settled down they slowly began to approach it again.

        “Fascinating.” Clover said to no one in particular. Just as she was about to inch closer once again, a hatch began to open. The Guards again on alert formed a defensive formation around their leaders. Something then flew out of the hatch. A disk, a floating disk slowly levitated itself out of the Sparrow. It was soon followed by nine more. They hovered just out of the hatch.

        Crossbows, spells, and Ballistas along the castle walls aimed towards the group, ready to fire at a moments notice. Then, they all vanished. Light began to bend around them before they flat out disappeared from sight, all but one. This one slowly began to approach the Unicorns in front of it. Unlike the other disks that were pure black, this one had a single white stripe going down the middle.

        All the Unicorns backpedaled from the disk, all except the Captain. She kept her focus on it as it approached them, ready to strike if it attacked. The disk seemed to notice her and slowly approach. Her instincts were telling her to run, but she stood fast as it closed the distance between it and her. It stopped just above her muzzle and had to cross her eyes just to focus on it. She could see the reflective lenses of the camera of the disk. It floated there for a few moments before zooming off.

        She flinched as it took off into the sky and everyone soon lost sight of it in the darkness. Silence filled the garden, no one taking their eyes off where the disk disappeared. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence a single unicorn guard shattered it.

        “What just happened?”

__________

        ‘So, cold. So…. cold.’ Hoof steps crunched softly in the snow. A lone Unicorn mare stumbled through the icy tundra. Wrapped in right foreleg was a young Unicorn colt who clings to his mothers chest for warmth. It was a vain attempt sadly. Their bodies fur did little to protect them from the cold.

        They had been heading towards a town with a caravan that had gladly let them hitch a ride for a small fee. There were three of them, a father, a mother, and a foal in the family. Then they attacked, out of nowhere they dived from the sky and began killing the caravan.

The Pegasi Legion was known for their devastating surprise attacks.

They tried to fight them off, but they were outnumbered and had poor attack spells. Most of the time they were throwing supplies from the carts to use as weapons. Her husband fought with all his might, but in the end he fell to a short sword to the stomach. In that time she and her foal were able to escape in the chaos of it all. He sacrificed himself for that his family could get away.

Sadly, it seemed his sacrifice was in vain. She had ran off in a random direction and was completely lost. Now she was slowly freezing to death along with her foal. Grief and sadness filled her heart, but the sake of her child's survival pushed her on. Frozen tears stuck to her cheeks as her foal’s whimpers grew more faint. She found her legs having a hard time coordinating.

She wasn't paying attention and tripped over something. With a surprised yelp her foal and her tumbled down a slope. She screamed in pain as her legs were broken as she came to a stop. New found tears made their way into her eyes from the white hot searing pain in her legs. However, the sight of her foal sent a bolt of dread through her. The foal she loved so dear had landed on his back and worst of all, wasn't moving.

Driven by her motherly instinct she fought through the pain in her legs and began to crawl towards her foal. Upon reaching him she wrapped her forelegs around him and brought him close to her chest. She looked into her child's emerald eyes, they were full of fear, sadness, pain, and shock. He was frozen, paralyzed. Tears flowed freely from his eyes due to the pain in his back. The worst part, she could do nothing to help her suffering foal. She tried to whisper reassuring words into his ear, like “it’s going to be OK”. It was a lie, there was no spell in existence that could repair a broken spine.

If they were to survive this her child would be paralyzed for the rest of his life. A typhoon of emotions ripped through her heart. Greif from the death of her mate, sorrow for her child, sadness for she could not stop the inevitable, anger towards the Pegasi, and pain from her fall.

Whimpers came from her foal, she reacted by holding him closer.

“Shhh, it’s OK. It will all be over soon.” She said into his ear, trying to comfort her child as much as she could in her final moments. She began closing her eyes, ready for death to take her to the afterlife. Just as she was about to close her eyes for a final time she saw something fly above.

It came back. It wasn't a Pegasi as she originally thought, instead it was a black floating disk. It stopped just above her and slowly lowered down to the ground. Coming beside her she eyed the hoof sized disk as it floated next to her head. It made no sound as it floated along with no physical indication that it even had a way of flying. It was just a smooth, rounded, disk with a single eye that was completely black.

After a few moments of silence she was able to summon the strength to speak.

“W-w-w-what a-are y-yo-you?” It didn't answer her question, after what felt like an eternity it zoomed off faster than she could see. “W-wait, please do-n’t go!”

A volley of emotions filled her heart as her body finally began to shut down from the cold. Darkness began to fill the time of her eyes as she began to lose conscious. “Please, dont-”

Her head slumped into the snow as her eyes closed. Her foal had long since lost consciousness as well, both of them exhausted mentally and physically. Now, they waited for death to take them.

Then a foghorn like sound ripped through the heavens as a Sparrow descended from the storm above. The powerful engines caused snow to lift into the air and thrown all over the place. The belly of the Sparrow opened revealing large robotic arms that folded outward. They slowly made their way towards the pair of Unicorns before gently clamping to their fragile frames. They were soon lifted into the Sparrow’s belly and the hatch closed. Tilting upwards the aircraft rocketed into the sky above at high speeds.

__________

        I calmly walked down the ships many halls with my hands behind my back. I had put on my uniform finally after finding it on the laundry deck. The pattern in the uniform was a deep grey. It looked like a near mirror of a twenty to twenty-first century BDU. The only difference was the material it was made out of. We called it Chameleon Silk. It felt like silk, but it was far stronger. This particular fabric could change colors depending on the environment I was in. Since I was in the steel corridors of the vessel my uniform adjusted to the color of the walls.

        Anyway, I was walking towards the med-bay at the moment. I had ordered the two ‘Unicorns’ as I decided to dub them to be sent their due to the physical injuries that they have suffered. Alien or not, I was not about to let a them die, I’m to soft to allow that to happen. Yes, I have a bleeding heart, whatcha’ gonna do ‘bout it?

        I walked up to the med-bay doors before typing in a code. Once it accepted it the titanium door slid open and allowed me to enter. Inside were various steel tables, medical supplies, and other equipment. Walking in I approached the tables where my quest were sleeping soundly. Laying on their stomachs the anesthetics kept them asleep and unable to feel anything. Small robotic arms danced around their table as they repaired their broken bodies.

        The female or mare’s flanks and knees had been cut open as the small steel arms and other equipment began fusing the bones back together. The foal had his back cut wide open exposing his shattered spinal cord. The medical arms were removing and repairing the shattered parts of his spine. Along with that small nanobots were running among their bodies going about smaller jobs like removing dead cells.

The VI had scanned their bodies to look for anything that could be harmful to them. Though the medical VI was programmed for only human anatomy it was also programmed to be adaptable. That and it was going off Earth Equine biology, but it would keep it’s original anatomy, like the fact that horn is for some reason wired into the equines brain, intact.

The sound of lasers pulled me from my thoughts. It seemed that the medical VI was done and now was cauterizing the cuts it had made to get to the injury. Though their fur would undoubtedly be missing from the areas I was sure it would grow back.

I hope.

Either way, now came the difficult part. Trying to interact with them.