Nightmare to Earth

Chapters

Prologue: The Mission
Introduction: Nightmare to Earth
Chapter One: Hyperbolic Functions
Chapter Two: Lost in Translation
Chapter Three: No Containers
Chapter Four: Land and Sea
Chapter Five: Explanations
Chapter Six: Complex Term
Chapter Seven: The Astronaut
Chapter Eight: Sabotage

Prologue: The Mission

The inside of the suit was very hot, Tony noted, as the foot of a technician pressed down painfully on his shoulder. The strap pulled his shoulder tightly to the seat behind him, but the padding meant that it didn't really bite. What was more uncomfortable was the proximity of his two colleagues, also receiving the same treatment. Sat either side of him, their shoulders brushed his and he had an urge to move away. But of course, now he was strapped in, he could barely move anything except his arms.

Testing this theory, Tony found he could also move his ankles, but not very much. As the technician shut the windowed hatch and smiled in a slightly worried way, Tony returned the smile with a slight wave. He couldn't smile, he thought that he might be sick if he did. Now they were shut in, he knew it would only be a few minutes until everything started rattling. This wasn't his first time, which was perhaps the only reason he hadn't actually been sick yet. He knew how it went, not that it reassured him at all.

None of the astronauts said anything as they waited for the radio to burst into life. It was deadly silent. Tony tried to keep his mind off the launch by scanning the controls in front of him, going over their uses and purposes. There were hundreds of identical switches, labelled only by tiny writing. Once they were weightless, Tony knew he could expertly use all of them, if needed to. But as an irritating bead of sweat ran into his eyebrow, his mind was a blank. The only switch he knew was the abort lever, situated within easy reach of his left glove. One tug and that was it, he'd be safely on Earth for the foreseeable future. Well, for aborting a launch, he'd be on Earth forever. No way they'd forgive that.

“Gentlemen, launch commencing in one minute. That's t-minus one minute.”
The voice was horribly crackly across the radio, and didn't have any of the reassurance that CAPCOM always carried. Tony swallowed and concentrated on the sweat caught in his eyebrow, but moments later it was shaken free by a jerk. This was the engines igniting, but Tony didn't like to think about the monstrous tank of fuel he was sitting on. It went quiet again, and then the rattling began.

Of all the horrible things about launch – sickness, nerves, danger, pressure and ridiculous g-forces – Tony's least favourite was the rattling. It was like being in an earthquake, except with no way of moving to protect yourself. Everything shook violently, including Tony's head, and left him convinced that everything was going wrong.

The shaking continued even as the g-force began. Of course, this meant that take-off was proceeding smoothly, but it felt like being kicked up the backside by a giant mechanical boot. Tony noticed the sky moving outside the window and shut his eyes. Motion sickness was not something you wanted to suffer from when sat in a tiny compartment atop a giant rocket.

The forces slowly disappeared at the same time as the light. This meant that they'd broken free of the Earth's gravitational pull, so Tony opened his eyes again. He was weightless, so he pulled the tight straps free and floated forwards a little. His two junior colleagues did the same, following his cue. Whilst they looked out of the window and cooed about the emptiness of space, Tony flipped through some routine checks.

This was in fact, Tony's third time in space. Both previous times he'd been there as pilot, in the same capacity as he was now. His company were both scientists, doing research. It sounded boring to Tony, but it was deemed crucial by whoever the people in charge of science were. In fact, Tony would probably have turned the job down, but for one important matter. Previously, he'd orbited the Earth and generally grown bored, then landed. This time, however, he was going to do something that no man had ever done before. This time, he was going to stand on the surface of the moon.

There had been countless rehearsals down to the tiniest detail. A news crew even filmed him stepping down onto a cheesy set, then asked him what he'd say when he got there. Of course, it was a secret. He'd got it all planned out, of course. But nobody would know until the live news broadcast to billions on the day, which was now a mere three days away. They were flying to the moon at thousands of miles an hour.

The worst thing about space was how it made practically everything difficult. Eating, drinking, sleeping, going to the toilet. It was just draining every time you had to do something simple and it took half an hour. Tony could input the tiniest course corrections into the computer and take minute angle readings, but eating high energy powder in tiny chunks just exhausted him.

It happened that because of weight restrictions, astronauts weren't allowed to take personal objects into space. Tony had heard that rule hundreds of times, but in reality, you could take anything you could sneak on. Last time he'd taken a drawing that his youngest daughter had done, of their house and car. She was only six, so it was little more than crayons and outlines, but she was the only girl in the class with a drawing that had spent a week in space.

This time though, he'd brought his wallet. Actually, he'd forgotten to bring the family portrait he'd meant to bring. At the last minute, he'd left it in his locker. Once he got to putting on his suit, the only thing he had left was his wallet. Since his colleagues were busy poking boxes full of spiders or plants, Tony leafed through the assorted receipts, change and cash that was in there. Then he went through his cards, taking in every detail of his driving licence. Then he found the very aged photograph that had been in his wallet for years. It was of his wife, about a year before their first daughter was born. He remembered that she hadn't been keen on having it taken without him in it, but he'd managed to talk her into it.

She looked as beautiful as she ever did, Tony thought, turning the photograph over in his fingers. It was only a week until he would see her again, but he felt a long way from her. Missing his wife, of course, was a key reason that he was in space at all. If the worst happened, his family would still be there.

He replaced the photograph carefully and put his wallet back in his pocket. In all of the time since the launch, he hadn't even thought about the main point of the mission. The entire world knew the real reason he was going to the moon. His name was in every newspaper on the planet. Ever since the strange transmission, and the photographs sent back by the moon rover, everyone knew. Tony wasn't exploring. It was a rescue mission.

The only personal effect that Tony was allowed to bring with him was a small good luck charm. It stayed inside his pocket and strictly never left it, except in emergencies. The charm was a small plastic toy, in the shape of a familiar pink pony. Pinkie Pie was Tony's favourite pony, ever since the My Little Pony phenomenon swept the world and he'd found himself hooked. It was only a cartoon of course, or at least he'd thought that until those pictures were found. A deep blue hoof and a wisp of pale blue mane, embedded slightly in the dusty surface. She'd been inches from the rover, but yet...

Three days passed in boredom for Tony, whilst his scientist friends enthused about their exciting results. Once they were on the final approach, though, Tony was suddenly excited. Minutes separated him from the triumphant return to the moon. He sat in the pilot's seat of the landing craft and looked down at the moon's surface from the window. It was an easy job, like landing on a runway. So he was told, anyway.

He set off, alone, heading for the huge grey satellite. It was a smooth descent and before he knew it, the joystick in his hand was controlling the last few minutes of his fall. All four feet hit the ground simultaneously, then sank a little as they took the weight of the craft. Tony stood up and ensured his space suit was correctly fastened. The door awaited him. He'd landed in her last known location, but she could be anywhere. He had five hours to search, before he would have to leave a message and return home empty handed.

He took one last look at a photograph of her, to make sure he knew every detail, then turned the handle of the hatch. It opened gently and Tony looked out onto the surface of the moon, with the Earth in the sky behind it. But he didn't even notice its beauty, his eyes were fixed on another. The cameras were rolling, and everyone on Earth was watching.

They could only see him as he stepped carefully down the ladder. His foot gently pressed into the surface, and the world waited for his words of wisdom. But he didn't say anything. Tony, in front of the biggest audience of all time, walked calmly out of shot.

Of course, television directors went crazy. Shouting, pointing, blaming. And yet nobody tuned out. They sat, transfixed, waiting for Tony's voice to crackle out of their television sets, their radios.

A voice did sound, but it was that of CAPCOM.
“Uh, this is Houston... do you read?” Uncertainty reigned in that sentence.

In mission control, there was a hive of activity around one desk in particular. It was known that the camera currently pointing at Tony could be panned using remote control, but they'd lost the controls. The suspense was as thick as custard and hung heavy in the air, making even the most experienced directors hold their breath.
“Got it.” The singular voice said that the camera could now be moved. It shifted painfully, inch by inch, slowly moving to look at where Tony had gone.

First his back came into view, then some beautifully dark blue legs wrapped around him. Nobody dared to think that it could finally be true. The camera continued to pan and into shot came the Princess of the Night, the goal of their rescue mission.
The tension broke like a dam, and around the world relief surged out. Applause broke out everywhere from Paris to Melbourne, resounding through huge crowds as they cheered.

Silence returned in a hurry when Tony spoke. The world hung on his every word.
“Houston, this is the moon.”

“Mission accomplished.”
Wild cheering broke out again as the world stared at a mere human astronaut locked in the ultimate hug of friendship with Princess Luna.
“Your highness, let's get you home.”

Introduction: Nightmare to Earth

“Welcome to Fox News, this is bsssssszszssskkkkrrr New York City. We're reporting live on the new Brony phenomenon – a craze, a fad, or something more bssszkzzz...”

“Tonight on BBC News at Ten; the triumphant return of the space mission sent to the moon. Princess Luna has touched down on Earth and seems to be doing bsssssssszksssks...”

“Our investigative journalists have infiltrated deep into the Princess' secret cult, with shocking bbbsbssssssssssskkkrrr having difficulties resisting the mind control.”

“Hsssssssskskssssss ninth country has officially left the United Nations in favour of the now-infamous Moon League, concerns from the President zzzzzzkzkzzzzrrrr...”

“Only one story tonight; war in the east. China goes to war with the United kkkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkr Moon League, dangerous as ever.”

“And finally, the astronaut who rescued Nightmare zrtztttttttt prison has been assassinated at his family home in Texas. The culprits are thought to be rrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnn...”

“I'm on the ground here in New England and I can hear planes passing overhead, the noise is incredible! They seem to be dropping bombs just rrrnrnrnrrkssssssssssssssssss...”

“Mass migration, it's really incredible to see so many mnnnnnnnnnnnnnrrrrrrrr...”

“Krsshshshshhhhhh we don't have long to get out krshshssshshshsssh...”

“Sssssssssss death toll rising, some say sssssssssssss...”

“Rrrrrrrrr and this is goodbye from us here, we can hear guns firing in the next street across llllrrrrrrrrrrr thank you for listening, sssssshhhhhhhh...”

“Winter wrap up, winter wrap up, let's finish our holiday cheer...”

“Learnt anything?”
The question made me jump. Once I'd regained my composure, I turned around to see whose voice it was.
Standing in the doorway to the shelter was the most impressive beard I'd ever seen. Long, scraggly and thick, it adorned the chin of Darius, possibly the beefiest man I'd ever seen.
“Oh, nothing new. Just the old news recordings.”

Darius nodded and put down his serrated sword.
“Just don't get too caught up in it. Stay alert.”
His words were friendly, but beneath them was a serious warning. Even our shelter was not safe, although I liked to think it was during my long, lonely days on guard. It was actually against protocol to watch the tapes during guard duty, but the gnawing frustration had got the better of me.

Since my first night in the shelter, I'd felt like I knew something, like something I'd forgotten was suddenly important. I watched the tapes to try and pull it out of my memory, but it was like lifting steel out of syrup.
“Okay, thanks.” My reply was short, but when you live in constant fear, you learn not to mince words. Darius, the man who was currently taking a drink directly from the tap, had saved my life more times than I could count.

I put the news tapes back on the shelf and yawned. Now that Darius was back, it was my turn to go out scavenging in the ruins that we called home.
“Get anything?”
“No.”
I went to my bunk and pulled out my sword from its resting place under the mattress. In case of ambush, I kept an aged Swiss army knife in my socks, but carrying a three foot sword around all day got tiring.

It was cloudy outside, dusty too. I put on a pair of sunglasses to shield my eyes from it, then made my way down the main street. For all that Darius said, the area around our shelter was actually fairly safe, especially during the day. But you could never be too careful. Being too careful was the reason Darius was resting in a shelter and not dead.

I said a silent prayer, hoping for none of the Moon people to come across me. They'd been more bold recently, probably because we were being more cautious. My scavenging trips were moving into safer areas, checking places we'd checked in the past, because I was too afraid to go into the wild zones. There could be anything hiding amongst the twisted wreckage.

I didn't know what I was looking for. Obviously weapons and food were worth picking up, but Mayumi seemed to be hell-bent on finding something particular. Mayumi was my other companion. She was the opposite of Darius, who was huge, muscular and careful. Mayumi was thin and the most vicious human I'd ever heard of. I would have been afraid of her, too, but for the fact that she seemed to be working to a master plan.

The reason we had to go out scavenging on Mayumi's orders was because she had lived in the city before it was razed. I have no idea how Darius got here, but I had been fleeing south and only just arrived when the attack began. So, we followed Mayumi. She knew how to escape the rubble, she just couldn't find the door. At least, so she told us.

Some crows flew overhead, heading east, so I went west. Where crows went was where there was fighting, so I just went in the opposite direction whenever I saw them. I had to climb over the exposed foundations of a thousand-foot skyscraper, long gone now of course, but treacherous still. Somewhere behind it was a shopping centre, one that we'd been to before but not fully explored.

The glass doors to the shopping centre were shattered, but still there. I pushed one open and looked around cautiously. Initially, it looked empty, but behind the defunct fountain something stirred. I knew it was too late to run as soon as I saw it, so I drew my sword and stepped forwards, freeing up space so I couldn't be cornered.
It advanced, its hooves making clip-clop noises on the marbled floor. Thankfully for me, despite the vicious fangs, my first swing found its target.

We had learned long, long ago that it was impossible to kill the things. If you got in a good sword blow, they disintegrated into a thick black dust. They didn't come back, but the ease with which they did it made them seem invincible; your sword never met any resistance, like hitting a ghost. Anyway, the depths of Nightmare Moon's magic were unknown, and she could simply be reviving them somewhere else.

I kicked my shoes through the dust. It was so thick that it clung to them, but did a good job of clearing dirt off when it fell off. My shoes were the only thing I was wearing that belonged to my past. I'd got myself new, thicker clothes to protect from the cold and the jaws of the things, and even had my hair cut when Mayumi was in a good mood. But for some reason, we'd never been able to find a shop that stocked shoes, apart from fashionable ones that were no better than the tattered black dancing shoes I was wearing.
Yes, dancing shoes. I'd bought them for quite a lot of money, so when I fled the north, I wore them rather than carried them. I didn't expect to be wearing them for years to follow.

All of the shops were either empty, too damaged to get into, or full of useless items like summer dresses. I had to return empty handed as the sun set through the dust, casing weird shadows that made me jump.
The shelter wasn't really too far, and I hoped Mayumi was back. She had a habit of staying out after sunset which made us wonder whether she was still alive. Irritating, really, but you never said anything. Mayumi knew what she was doing, she had the master plan.

The itch returned as I headed back along the main street. That horrible feeling of having forgotten something, but not knowing what. It was like missing the piece of a jigsaw puzzle that you need to see what the picture is, and searching endlessly under the table. I sheathed my sword and notched the handle with my knife. I didn't really like keeping track, but Mayumi insisted. She insisted on a lot of things. She knew a lot of things I didn't know, as well. Sometime I used to wonder where she learnt it all, being that she just seemed to be a survivor like the rest of us, but I stopped wondering after a while. It just wasn't worth it.

The shelter's entrance was familiar, as it should have been to anyone who had lived there for nearly two years. We didn't call it home, because we all had different homes that we planned to return to. Mayumi said she wanted to go back to Japan, and Darius wanted to get back to what was left of the Bronx. Me, well I knew there was nothing left of my home, so I just held onto the memory.

“Welcome back.”
Darius always had a kind word. I smiled in response and headed for my bunk.
“Get anything?”
“No. Mayumi?”
“Still out.”
I sat on the bunk and started washing my face and neck with cold water. “I got another one of the things in the shopping centre. Nothing there though, it was probably just resting.”
“Remember to tell Mayumi.”

Darius fell asleep before Mayumi got back, which was about an hour after sunset. She always wore a strange combination of leather and waterproof that made her look about twice her real size, but the finely balanced samurai sword she was sheathing suggested she was more than met the eye.
“Get anything?”
“No, but I killed a thing.”
“Just one?”
“Yes, in the shopping centre.”

She took off her multiple jackets and lit a lantern.
“You can get some sleep. Darius has the second watch.”
The watches were mind-numbingly boring. You had to sit by the entrance with a sword and stare aimlessly into the darkness, looking for an imminent ambush, for about four hours at a stretch. In over seven hundred nights, I'd never even seen a thing in the darkness. They didn't seem to be nocturnal.
Darius said he used the watches to think about the past and remember when things were happier. Mayumi used it to think about the next day. I just stared and wondered about all sorts of things.

I lay down on my bunk and closed my eyes. Little noises, like Mayumi moving her jackets, prevented me from falling asleep, but once she was settled down in the entranceway I could nod off. Mayumi knew how many nights we'd survived, but I could only remember it being over seven hundred. I was pretty sure I'd be waking up to day seven hundred and whatever plus one.

Chapter One: Hyperbolic Functions

Day seven hundred and something dawned grey and misty. Mayumi woke me up as soon as the sun rose, since I would be going out searching again first thing. Better to be out early before anything else woke up.
I laced my shoes up and picked up the heavy sword, making my way past Darius at the door with a nod. Mayumi stopped me once I was a few yards beyond the entrance.
“I need you to go and check downtown. There's a shop, I marked it with a red sign. Bring back everything you can.” She whispered urgently. I smiled at her to show I understood, but inside I was cursing.

Downtown was dangerous and I held my sword a little closer as I approached. The sky was still dingy and uninspired, so I had plenty of dull light to hide in. The red sign, which used to be for a bus station, was resting against the crippled frontage of a row of shops, just off the main street. Small chunks of rubble, little more than gravel, crunched under my feet as I stepped uncertainly towards it.

I could easily see which shop Mayumi meant. The rest of them were either inaccessible or showed obvious fire damage. A few of them were gutted entirely. Only one, the furthest along, was still in reasonable condition and looked like I could enter.
The automatic sliding doors will worked, eerily. I paused before continuing, wondering whether this was a good or bad omen. The shop seemed to sell electronics, little spare parts and batteries. Maybe Mayumi was building a radio, but it would probably have been easier to convert another one we'd found intact a while ago.

Then I saw why she'd sent me. It was a mug, standing on the counter. Steam was rising lazily from the top. When I approached it, it seemed to contain black coffee.
For the first time since I'd met Mayumi and Darius, I was about to meet another person.
“Hi, come with me.”

The hissing voice was clearly trying not to attract attention. It was coming from a hatch in the floor, which I promptly climbed into and shut behind me.
The darkness underground was broken by an orange lantern, which was in the rather shaky hand of a balding man with spectacles.
“Mayumi sent you?”
I nodded.
“Come with me.”

As we walked down the passageway, it occurred to me why there was coffee sitting outside. The things, if they entered the shop, would have thought nothing of it. But humans would instantly realise someone else must be around. Clearly whoever was living here was clever.
The passageway was roughly dug and dripped water occasionally. I did my best not to trip over the rough ruts that made up the floor, as the man continued onwards.

We ended up in a chamber, perhaps as big as the shelter I'd been living in. Once there, the man turned to me.
“Watch this.” He said, a smile playing on his lips. Maybe a smirk.
He flicked a switch and the entire room suddenly lit up. I looked up to see an electric lamp hanging from the ceiling.
“Wow.” I'd come across remnants of electricity whilst exploring the city – crossings that still had dull lights in them and flickering strip lights at night – but I'd never known it to be used. Clearly the automatic doors must be running from the same power source.

“I'm Professor Samuel Franklin, but everyone calls me the Prof. I know, it's a stupid name.”
“Who's everyone?”
“The people who look after me. I'm not really up to fighting those enemies.”
In the room were four bunks, all of which looked slept in. Apparently nobody else was around.
“Why?” I wanted to ask him why I was here, but the words just didn't make it out of my mouth.

“Why what? Why are we here? Why did Mayumi send you?” The Prof said, tinkering with some wires. “That's because she wanted you to meet us, or more specifically, me.” He smiled. “You see, I'll let you into a secret. Do you know why they call me Professor?”
“You worked at a university?” A reasonable guess.
“Correct, I was a lecturer. Do you know what I lectured in?”
“I didn't go to college.”
“No matter. I lectured in History.” He sensed my surprise. “You were expecting me to be a physicist or a chemist, someone like Einstein. Well, I'm sorry but I'm not. My head is full of information about the English Civil War and the French Revolution, not how to build machines.”

“They why did you get that light to work?”
“That wasn't me, it was the previous resident's.”
“So, why?”
“Why would anyone want to meet me? Good question.” He smiled that enigmatic smile again. My slow understanding clearly brought him pleasure. “It's because of a woman I met at university about forty years ago.”

I started to interrupt, but he held up a hand to stop me.
“Allow me to explain. This woman was a civil engineer, or at least a civil engineering student. She got me interested in the subject as an aside to History, and since then I've kept an enthusiasm for it. That's why I knew there was electricity here. And that's also why I know where the working telephone lines are. Did you know that from an ordinary telephone cable, you can contact practically anywhere in the world? Something must have happened in the English Channel, though, because I can't seem to get through to the U.K.”

He wandered around the room as he spoke, probably a relic of his lecturing days.
“Because I can use the telephone, I've spoken to hundreds of others around the world. They're mainly in the same position as us; trapped, stuck in hideouts because of the ghosts. But when we're isolated, we're weak. We have to unite to become strong and rebuild the cities. I know that much from a lifetime's study of history. So that's why you're here. I'm heading to the coast, where there might be a boat to carry me to this central location, where we'll rebuild. But all the survivors, like you and I, have to go there. Mayumi knows this, and she wants Darius to come too.”

“So I'll be going with you?”
“Hopefully. Once we rebuild a city, with strong defences, we could even drive the ghosts away. Live peacefully again.” He seemed to be getting a little misty-eyed. “But the journey is exceptionally dangerous, and I need you and your companions to accompany me. Escort me.”
“Sounds like it's possible.” I was actually unsure, but in the end, anything was better than years in a shelter.
“Good. Anyway, I needed to see you specifically. You're from north of here, yes?”
“Yes, before I fled south.”
“We're going to have to travel back that way, so I need to ask you one important question. Is it safe?”
I paused to consider the question. When I'd fled, the scenes had been disturbing. Carnage was widespread. Fields burnt blacker than night. “No, it's not safe.”
“Are you sure?”
“This city is nothing in comparison to what happened when I left.”

Professor Franklin let me have a cup of coffee before I made my way back to my shelter. Despite the bad reputation that downtown had, I didn't see anything on my way back. Everything was just still.

Darius was out when I got back, and Mayumi was tidying the shelter.
“Did you meet him?”
“Yes. We're going to help him get to the coast?”
“And go with him.” Mayumi seemed determined. “We're leaving in two days. Darius had agreed to go. But I need to find what I'm looking for. Do you understand?”

Normally I just agreed with whatever she said, especially when she had her business face on. But in this case, I didn't understand.
“No, Mayumi. What are we looking for?”
“Before all this happened, I was part of a travelling group. The leader, who I know to be dead, had something extremely valuable. Not like diamonds or gold, but valuable to us. He was killed in a hotel room in this city, and the object I want is there. If we don't find it in the next two days, I'll have to come back.”
“What is it? Like, a computer?”
“No, it's a paper file.”
“What if it's been burnt?”
“It hasn't. I saw it on the day I last saw him, but foolishly I left it. Now, I'm going out tonight, because I think I might finally have worked out where it is. You and Darius have to stay here and wait two days; if I'm not back then, go and get the Professor.”
“Okay Mayumi.”

She smiled for the first time in weeks.
“I'm going once Darius gets back. You should get sleep, or read or something. It's the only break you'll be getting for a while.”

Once Darius' huge frame filled the shelter, Mayumi left. She had made her bunk and taken all of her personal items, not that there were many. She wasn't planning to come back, clearly. Darius seemed subdued so I just read some books we'd got hold of. Darius liked to read old magazines about basketball, and Mayumi didn't read, so I got pick of all the books I liked. Before, where I used to live, I'd mainly read biographies and stuff. Now though, I was working my way through all of the classics.

Whilst Darius cleaned his boots, I opened Crime and Punishment to the page I'd marked and continued reading. Dostoevsky was one of my favourite authors.
I was really getting into some of the psychology when Darius interrupted me.
“If I tell you something, will you remember it?”
I put the book down, open. “I'll try.”
“You have to repeat it back to me when I ask you.”
“Okay, go ahead. I'll memorise it.”

He looked a little embarrassed behind the beard.
“What is it?” I reached for the book again, in case he lost his nerve and decided not to say anything.
“Just tell me that tanch squared minus one is shech squared.”
“What?”
“Tanch squared, minus one, equals shech squared.”
“Can you write it down?”

He wrote it on a piece of paper. 'tanh2(θ) – 1 ≡ sech2(θ)'. I put the paper in my pocket after studying it for a few minutes.
“If you don't mind me asking, why do you want to know that?”
“It's a mathematical identity.” He definitely looked embarrassed to admit it.
I smiled a little. “I didn't know you did maths.”
“I'm teaching myself.”
“So why... tan-huh-”
“No, it's tanch and shech.”
“Why tanch thingy?”
“Because it's fundamental. If we meet people from other countries, it'll mean exactly the same to them. Or even from other planets.”
I shrugged. “Okay. I'll learn it.” I had no idea what it meant, or why it was fundamental. I barely understood it, so personally I thought that the chances of others in different countries understanding it very slight. I went back to my book, which made much more sense.

Chapter Two: Lost in Translation

I checked Darius' piece of paper as soon as I woke up the next day, to refresh my memory. Then I went to see if Mayumi was back. She wasn't.

She got back just as I was having a breakfast of tinned pineapple.
“Got it.” She announced, smiling. But she said no more about it, and she'd buried it deeply in her backpack before either Darius or I could see it.

Because Mayumi had been so successful, we left to pick up the Professor that day. It was much safer travelling in a group, so I wasn't really very worried as we clambered our way through downtown, heading for the electronics shop. Not that any of the things were around.

The Professor was surprised to see us, but he was quickly packed and ready to go. I wanted another cup of coffee, since he could use a kettle to heat the water in moments, but Mayumi was in a hurry and I didn't like to say anything to her.
I spent most of the journey to the city outskirts, what used to be suburbs, keeping my eyes out for movement and inwardly complaining about the irritating clanking coming from my backpack. We all had to carry our own supplies in case we got separated, so the tins of lentils and fruit salad kept knocking together at the bottom. Plus, my ankles tired more quickly than everyone else's because I wasn't wearing boots.

The old map we had said that there was a main road heading north east, which would skirt round the scorched area where I used to live. The road was still there, but had more craters and cracks than seemed necessary. It proceeded in a dead straight line to the horizon, so we simply made our way to the right hand side and began walking, only deviating when there was a hole in our way.

Around lunchtime, by which time the city was merely a dusty, smoky blemish behind us, we encountered some of the things. In the wilderness outside of the cities they travelled in packs, three or four together. They jumped out of a field on our left and attacked immediately. The Professor was no use, but Darius and I were quick enough to claim a 'kill' each. Mayumi had calmly finished the other two.

The drawback to this was that the Professor was so shaken by the experience that he insisted we stopped for a rest. I didn't mind resting, because it meant I could reorganise my backpack to stop the noise, but Mayumi was getting more and more tense the longer we waited. I didn't think it made much difference when we arrived at our destination, but she did.

After fifteen minutes we were on our way again. The road was starting to twist, heading for a town a little further east, so we went cross-country to cut off the corner and join another road, now heading north. As we walked, the Professor talked to me. I didn't reply much, but it took my mind off my aching ankles and passed the time.
He mixed reminiscences about his younger days with explanations of what we would do once we'd got to wherever we were going. It was broken only by Mayumi telling the Professor to keep up the pace, and the occasional stumble over a loose bit of tarmac.

The sun was low when we stopped to eat next. Mayumi said we would keep going after dark for a couple of hours, so I took the opportunity to ask the Professor about this human city he was talking about.
“Ah, of course. There are actually two key locations – the city we've chosen is in what used to be Europe, because of the fertile land. But we're also planning to reinforce a little of the coastline on the Atlantic, because we'll need to get boats from North America to us. The more people we get together, the better.” He said, smiling happily. “That's where we're heading now, to board a boat.”

Our conversation was interrupted by Mayumi leaping forward, sword in hand. By the time I'd scrambled to my feet and grabbed the hilt of my sword, she'd already made two movements, and the ground was suddenly thick with black dust.
“I've never seen that before.” She suddenly said. I followed her gaze and saw two of the things simply running away, moving far faster than we could. In seconds they were shadows in the darkness, going west.
Darius shrugged. “How did you see them?”
“They were hiding in one of those craters. They're behaving very strangely, normally they just charge.” Mayumi said, looking thoughtful. Darius nodded knowingly, and the two of them returned to their thoughts.

I felt guilty that I hadn't been more alert, and since our location had been spotted we began moving again. The Professor was silent for this leg of the journey, and I just concentrated on not falling over. The things acting strangely was playing on my mind, and that frustration of not being able to pick something out of my memory was back. My mind seemed to be full of a white mist that made it too difficult to see clearly, but yet the silhouettes were always there, just lurking outside of my grasp.

Mayumi told us to be quiet, not that she needed to. You could often hear the things before you saw them, because of the strange way they communicated. It was like a series of electronic beeps and thuds, but somehow not how I remembered electronics to sound. It was almost musical, although I hadn't heard any music for two years. It was more like a memory of music, another memory that was just hazy. I kept my ears strained for any snatch of the music floating on the gentle, meandering zephyrs that swept across the landscape, but heard nothing.

We slept in a small group of trees, just at the wayside. Darius took the first watch, and he said he'd awaken me after four hours. I nodded and did my best to sleep, keen not to waste any of the time I'd been given. I only checked Darius' paper briefly, saying the words in my head. The gentle rustling of the trees unnerved me after years of sleeping under a roof, but the tiredness seemed to run throughout my body and I didn't even remember falling asleep.

***

Nightmare Moon smiled a wide smile, a smile of success. During her takeover of the entire world, she'd always kept one secret from all of the humans, who seemed too stupid to realise it. They'd always assumed, right from the start, that because of her magic she could understand them. They were wrong. She could understand them, but so could all of her minions, right down to the stupid thugs who just guarded her palace. Everything they said to each other could be reported back to her, but no human ever realised that those minions that they saw were actually listening.

To try and keep this a secret, she only ever allowed her minions to flee when they were scouting strange human movements. In cities around the world, there were pockets of humans, but they were disorganised. They had merely decades left until they rotted away in their hiding places, but she'd waited thousands. Only when they did something strange, like leaving the city and heading elsewhere, did she try to work out what they were doing. She didn't take over the world by being stupid and careless. Oh no, she made sure she micromanaged everything down to the last search party.

And now... this. When humans had moved before, it had always been because of vain hopes of finding areas of the world that were untouched by her. Rumours, always rumours, never true. They'd invariably meet a sticky end, to keep those rumours alive. Nightmare Moon chuckled at the possibility.
The two minions stood in her presence remained bowed. They were probably thinking all sorts of things about their Princess, Nightmare thought. She'd have to make sure they were the next to be sacrificed for information.

This party of four humans were somehow different. Firstly, they were very good; the report said that the diversion had not lasted anything like as long as it normally did. And more importantly, they were speaking of some kind of human city, a fortress that Nightmare could not storm. This had to be crushed. A warrior knows his foe's weaknesses, but a winner knows his own. Nightmare knew she could be defeated by the power of friendship. The Elements of Harmony might not exist in this world, but friendship did. And worse, it manifested itself in all sorts of ways. Teamwork, humour, cheerfulness. All these things seemed offensive to Nightmare, but she knew they could hurt her.

In a human city, they'd have all of this. They'd have harmony. It was a dire threat and Nightmare had to stop it. But, like a predator waiting patiently for its prey, Nightmare knew she had to allow this to develop. The humans had spoken to two locations, both coastal, that would be protected. There was no point allowing her minions to be uselessly beaten by assaulting them, but she could cut off the humans on their way. They would follow paths to the city, which she could cut off. The humans would think they were heading towards safety, and walk into an ambush.

The success smile crossed Nightmare's face again, but she suppressed a laugh. Sending the minions away, she informed her generals to keep tracking that party of four and send occasional attacks, on strict orders not to kill anyone. She had to find out where both of the locations were as soon as possible, so the minimum amount of humans would slip through her net.

In fact, if this plan of theirs appeared to work, it would send all of the humans scurrying there, exposing themselves to her attacks. Yes, it could actually be an advantage. Nightmare decided not to be too hasty. Nothing was worse than pulling out a weed before discovering that it was a flower.

The orders went out post-haste, and additional minions were moved into their predicted path. She needed to hear everything they said without seeming suspicious.

The clock on the mantel ticked over to nine. Nightmare nodded. It was time to return to Equestria, to resume her duties as shepherd of the night. Back to her 'good' self, Princess Luna. It was difficult keeping up such an act, but necessary. She could do without those ponies from finding out about her latest little project. They were far more dangerous than the humans.

Chapter Three: No Containers

Darius awakened me after four hours. I didn't feel too tired, as happens when you don't get enough sleep, so I simply took up my post and sat quietly until the rustles of Darius getting to sleep subsided.
The musical calls of the things were what I was listening for, since even though the sky was illuminated with brilliant stars, they didn't cast enough light for me to see anything beyond my feet. There was no sound, but for the occasional movement from our sleeping party, for four hours. The sun rose brightly and burnt through the early mist, leaving the day looking like a sunny one as I finally turned to wake my companions for another day's walking.

Mayumi was already awake, which didn't surprise me, and Darius was slow to rise. We set off as soon as we'd eaten, following the road and covering our exposed necks to avoid sunburn.
We passed a scorched road sign, which had miles marked. Mayumi inspected it.
“We should arrive by the end of today.” She said, sounding a little more optimistic. This was news to me, I'd expected a much longer walk. We had to be within thirty miles of wherever we were heading to arrive so soon.

The things attacked twice, either side of lunch. Both times it was just a pair, easily dispatched by Mayumi. She seemed very suspicious of them and always took a good look around after the battle, probably searching for more, which was sensible.
I guessed it was mid-afternoon when we finally spotted the sea. It was little more than a strip of blue, glinting on the horizon, but it was definitely where we wanted to go. Pre-Nightmare Moon, the coastline had been densely populated, so we took a small detour to arrive at a sandy beach between two wrecked towns.

What struck me first were the piles of scrap metal and wood at the high tide mark. At first I thought it might have been beach barricades, but the Professor enlightened me without my asking.
“Probably from further up the coast, washed down here.” He said, turning over a sheet of corrugated iron. “Looks like it's from buildings.”

I walked up to Mayumi, who was checking the whole area.
“Is there where the boat will come?” I asked, looking at the horizon hopefully.
“Yes, but we'll have to board a smaller boat which will shuttle us to the main one. It's too dangerous to dock the large boat.” She explained curtly, without looking at me.

Cover of darkness was required, apparently, because the smaller boat finally appeared once the sun had set.
“Okay, come aboard.” Someone said, so we all carefully waded out to it and found ourselves pulled in.
Mayumi was last on, and she did a quick sweep of the beach to make sure we weren't followed. We had to row until the sea was too deep to be waded in, then the engine finally started and we began sailing towards a silhouette.

“They journey will take two days, so just sit tight.” The person steering the smaller boat said. “You're lucky, we've found nothing but bodies on all of the other beaches we've visited.”
Mayumi replied quickly. “We were only attacked twice today, we must have slipped through somehow.”
“Maybe.” The man replied, a little sadly. “Seems that the coast is swarming with those things lately.”

We were the only people to be picked up, so we were finally taken to the main boat and told to climb rope ladders. The main boat was huge and seemed to be a container ship, but without any containers on it.
The mood was sombre as we were welcomed and shown to our cabins. The captain said that they'd only rescued seven people, including the four of us, in two days. The beaches were full of the things, but yet it was too late to tell people to stop coming. I was grateful that we'd made it, but Mayumi was suspicious.

“What if we were supposed to arrive? It's strange that we weren't even attacked on the beach while others were obviously overwhelmed by hundreds.” She said.
“It's just luck.” Darius replied.
“I don't think so. Something's weird about this. They could be tracking us, or using us to find out information.”
“They're not that intelligent.”

Nothing would reassure Mayumi, so the rest of us slept whilst she paced and theorised. Well, everyone else slept. The unbelievable frustration about my memory returned and I couldn't get to sleep. To try and counter the problem, I decided to run through what I could remember of my flight and see if any new details appeared.

My parents told me that Princess Luna had been rescued from the moon when they were children. Following that, there had been widespread outbreaks of people following her as some kind of leader. They said it started to spread over the internet, until a place called China decided to donate some land that Luna's followers could live in.

The next parts were harder for me to recall, because I hadn't understood them when I was a child. Something had happened which led to some countries being angered by Luna, who then revealed herself as Nightmare Moon.
Because of this sudden change in heart by the Princess, most governments became indifferent towards her, whereas they had once been supportive. This carried on for a number of years, and was the case when I was growing up.

It was only once I had left school that things got worse. Nightmare Moon proclaimed her desire to expand, and the Chinese government offered help. This sparked a conflict on the Chinese borders, which I'd read about in newspapers but not been very interested in. Her strange army made up of black, equestrian creatures that acted like ghosts had been strange, though, and caught my eye.

Only problem was, when Nightmare Moon began winning, she turned on her friends the Chinese. With nobody left to harm, and the fragile peace of the nuclear age shattered, Pakistan was the first to 'drop the bomb'. It had appeared on the evening news on a particularly warm summer's day, I could remember. Nightmare Moon survived of course, and nobody could work out what had happened. Then Nightmare Moon's forces entered Pakistan and started to spread.

First our army had gone to fight them, then the civilians had mobilised. I was exempt from duty because of my profession as a newly-employed miner. Just as well, because casualties were heavy and by the following summer, Nightmare Moon was sweeping south. Rumours were claiming that the cities were safer, so I decided to leave the rural mining town. No sense in being helplessly swept up. That was when I put on my dancing shoes and gathered my few belongings. I'd stopped contacting my parents when their phone was disconnected the week before.

I reached the city to the south just in time to see Nightmare Moon's forces arrive. It was like an earthquake, but I didn't see what they were doing. I hid in a basement which partially collapsed, only emerging when everything was silent. The destruction was awe-inspiring. I found Mayumi whilst scavenging for food in an abandoned supermarket, and she took me to the shelter where Darius was recovering from his head wound.

After that, we just survived. Mayumi dug my sword out of a weapons shop that had caved in, and we just collected food and supplies whenever we could. Darius told me he used to be a teacher, but Mayumi hadn't said anything about her past, which was unsurprising.

None of this told me anything about the irritating thing I'd forgotten. I was sure it had something to do with the earlier days, the stories my parents told me when I was curious. But when I was a child I was focusing on other things, not the story of how a strange pony Princess had arrived on Earth. This only frustrated me more because I was sure I knew it. Something they'd said was there in my mind. If only I could ask them, ask someone who knew. Like the Professor.

I waited until the next day, then caught up with him during his walk around the deck.
“You want to know about how Luna arrived? I'm afraid it's difficult for me to recall, I was only... well, twenty-two.”
“Just try, please. Anything.”
“I didn't pay much attention to it. There were some weird fanatics who were fans of a television show about ponies, some kind of new version of an older idea. Then they suddenly got pictures that appeared to confirm that their animated world was real, something about this pony on the moon. The pictures were from NASA and weren't faked, I'm pretty sure.”
“So this was the Princess Luna?”
“Yes. They sent an astronaut to search and found her, then brought her back to Earth for study. I remember watching the astronaut land on the moon on the television, actually.”
“And then?”
“Well, these strange fanatics all started following her and it evolved into a strange movement. They lived somewhere on a Chinese mountain, more and more of them, then mysteriously disappeared. The Princess turned into the tyrant Nightmare Moon who tried to wipe out humanity. I think she might've disposed of all of her followers, it would certainly have been easy.”

We paused for a moment and continued to walk. The deck was windy and a little cold.
“So then it just continued like that until a few years ago?”
“Yes. I can't really remember many details. Any of that ring a bell for you?”
“No... do you remember anything else about the mission? With the astronaut?”
“He was a national hero afterwards, but I think he was eventually killed. Revenge by some extremists for bringing the Princess back, or some stupid thing like that. It was in the news. As for the mission, the capsule was put on display in a museum, but it's probably been since destroyed.”
Everything he said was interesting, but none of it helped me to work out what I had forgotten.

“Thank you Professor.”
“Oh, it's no problem. I'm just sorry it hasn't helped you more.”
“The astronaut, his name was Tony something?”
“Yes, I think it was. Tony um... yeah. How do you know?”
“We had some old news tapes in our shelter that I watched. One of the reports was on his death.”
“Oh, well. I'll try and come up with his surname, but I don't have much hope. I'm getting old.”
I chuckled along with him.
“Armstrong.” He suddenly said.
“What, Tony Armstrong?”
“No, no. Neil Armstrong. He was first to the moon. Sorry I can't be any more help.”
“That's okay.”

The weather worsened as the day continued, so I spent the rest of the time in the canteen area of the boat. Some of the others were playing card games, but I didn't feel like it. The irritation of not being able to remember had killed my mood. I went to bed early and slept soundly, but something wasn't quite right. I was sharing Mayumi's misgivings, but I didn't know why. Before I feel asleep, I checked Darius' paper. It made even less sense than it had before.

Chapter Four: Land and Sea

We arrived in the morning the next day, the ruined hulks of dock building appearing out of the morning mist. It was clearly safe – there was chatter coming from the people ready to welcome us to their safe haven. It was something I hadn't heard for a long time.

Once they'd seen how few of us there were, their smiles dimmed a little. We were disembarked hurriedly so that the ship could go back and look for more survivors, balancing along rickety planks leading to burnt cranes that no longer operated, then climbing down.
There were a lot of people dressed in Kevlar body armour and carrying various weapons, who looked a lot like guards. This reassured me.

We were taken to a special centre where we were assigned accommodation and food rotas. It was a little bit like a commune – everyone had to do something to contribute to the community. Apparently they thought I was useless, because I got midnight-4a.m. guard duty on the city walls. The walls themselves were little more than large embankments made out of rubble, but they were pretty imposing and had a layer of spikes on top.

Whilst eating my first meal there, I asked a guard about the danger of manning the walls.
“Oh, it's not bad. We've only had a few injuries and one disappearance in all my time here, which is about six months. It's getting better as we get more people, of course.”
With all that body armour, I was sure I'd feel fairly safe, even if I was rather bored.

Mayumi had disappeared as soon as she'd got here, and Darius was going his guard duty, in the day time. I was at a loose end, so I went to find the Professor and see how he was doing.
The third person I asked directed me to a prefabricated building that looked as if it was a new construction, mainly of wood. I knocked before entering.

Inside was the Professor and a few other older gentlemen, looking serious and huddling around a table. I got the feeling I was out of place as soon as I stepped inside.
“Ah, come in. You can help settle our disagreement.” Professor Franklin said, beckoning me over. Reluctantly, I made my way to the table, one hand steadying my sword to stop it hitting things.

“Okay, take a look at this map.”
It seemed to show the city and its surroundings. A black outline showed where the walls were, blocking off the dock area. I nodded.
“Look here.” The Professor pointed to a raised bit of ground about ten miles from the walls. “This is where the ghosts seem to be coming from. They've got some kind of observation post.”
“So what's the disagreement?”

“I think we should leave it well alone, and just let them watch so long as they're not attacking, but others think we should strike early and knock it out.”
“Isn't it better to wait until we can reinforce the area, stop them setting up another one?”
One of the other men took over. “Yes it would be, but they may have valuable intelligence. We've found that the things are more cunning than we'd previously thought – their communication is at least as sophisticated as ours, and they can use maps too.”
This was news. “Okay, well I don't know then. You should ask Mayumi, she's quite tactical.”
The Professor chuckled. “Oh, Mayumi is strange isn't she? When she arrived she wouldn't tell anyone what job she'd had before the wars, and so we're just keeping an eye on her at the moment.”

“Why? She's one of the best people I know at you know, all this planning.”
“We know very little about people's pasts, which makes it hard to trust them. She might've just been unemployed and embarrassed about it, but she could also be a serial killer escaped from prison or a terrorist. If she won't tell us, we can't trust her.” The Professor explained. “It's a shame, because I think she would be very valuable.”
I shrugged in response. “Well, whatever you think's safest. Anyway, I'll leave you all to it.”

They murmured their goodbyes and I left the hut, not entirely convinced they had the right idea. I didn't really have anything to do for the rest of the day and I didn't feel like being super-helpful and helping to cook or anything, so I just went back to my bunk room and read. I thought that life trapped in this city was going to be very boring, especially if they ran out of books.

“Why don't they attack the outpost...” Nightmare murmured to herself, pacing around in front of her throne. Another two hapless messengers were bowing before her, having just brought the latest news of where the ship had docked.
“I knew this was going to be irritating, and now this... this plan to move all of the humans there. I can't let it happen.”
She turned suddenly to her audience, who seemed to cower away a little.
“You may wait outside.”
They couldn't escape fast enough.

At least she was winning the battle for the beaches that the ship was visiting. Well, that wasn't entirely true. It was barely a battle, it was so easy. After letting those four through deliberately, and possibly a few more who'd chosen unusual paths, it was a very tight net down there. If she'd been a kind pony, she would have remembered to congratulate the commanders on the ground.

“These humans... they're so irritating.” She said, turning her brilliant mind back to the problem of the outpost. It was fake of course, swarming with her minions just waiting for the humans to attack. But surely they didn't suspect that... they were too far to know for sure how many of her minions were there.
Nightmare clicked her teeth. “Perhaps a frontal assault... too dangerous.” She knew that casualties were high and the humans were vigilant. An overwhelming attack might work, but she only had a limited army size. And there were humans all over the place. She couldn't afford to lose too many in a single sweep.

“If only I could provoke them... something to get their blood boiling.” She chuckled. “Hmm. What about the boat?”
“Commanders!” Her tone switched from scheming to shrill in a matter of seconds.
The senior minions hurried in. They weren't actually any more intelligent or talented than the other nameless masses, but she needed some of them to remember things she couldn't.
“How might we sink a boat?” She asked, waiting for a reply whilst casting her evil eye over the pathetic beings.

“Two choices, Princess.” One of them said, snapping to attention as he spoke. “Firstly, we board the boat when it docks and overwhelm it with our forces, who sink it by deliberately crashing it.”
“No good! It only docks in safety.” Nightmare replied, dismissing the answer with a flick of her hoof.
“Secondly, we use the human technology for sinking boats on it.”
“Interesting... go on.”
“We have complete control over several large floating metal islands that can be driven towards this boat. They have special weapons, large tubes that fire explosives.”
“Will it work?”
“Almost certainly. It will even work at night.”

Nightmare nodded curtly. “Okay, do it. Sink the boat that keeps docking in their futile little city, and any other boats you find humans on.”
The Commanders scurried away to carry out their orders. Nightmare sighed.
“Maybe this will force you to attack, make you leave your little rat-hole...”

They were mid-way back to their beach run, with the moon shining brightly over the black waves. The captain was doing his part of the night watch, running his hands softly over the wooden wheel, enjoying the touch.
“Cap'n?” It was the first mate.
“Yes, what is it?” The Captain was in a good mood, despite their recent lack of success.
“There's something off the starboard bow. Can't really tell what it is from this distance, could be a stray iceberg.”
“Better steer clear.” The Captain chuckled, adjusting the course a few degrees port before heading onto the decks for a better look.

He'd just reached the side and was squinting into the darkness when the first orange lights appeared. Unsure what to make of it, he thought it might be some form of signal.
“First mate?”
“Yes, Cap'n?”
Before he could say any more, the shells landed in the water about three hundred yards short of the ship's side. It took a few seconds to sink in.
“Cap'n? I think we're under attack. Cap'n?”

The Captain dashed back to the bridge and quickly wrenched the wheel to port. Only modern battleships could fire shells that far, so he had no chance of outrunning it. They had to get to shallow water and hope that their displacement saved them.
“First mate, send a mayday call back to the city. They need to be informed at all costs. Tell the radio operator he may not leave his post under any circumstance until the message has been received.” He barked, setting the engines to full forward.
“Aye aye.” The first mate disappeared.

Whilst the boat slowly turned, the Captain debated waking the crew. They'd undoubtedly be awoken if they took a direct hit, but by then it would be too late. Maybe it was better to let them sleep. After all, the large container ship was a sitting duck.
The next volley landed about a hundred yards short. The next ones would make contact. The noise of the shells would probably have already awoken anyone.
The Captain looked out of the starboard windows and prayed that the radio message got through. It was unlikely that his slow ship would escape, but the knowledge that the ghosts could sail a battleship would be incredibly precious to those who remained.

Taking a chance, the Captain wrenched the wheel around to the right, starting a zig zag pattern. If they went towards the battleship on the horizon, they might overshoot the next volley, buying time. He was no warship captain, that was for sure, so it was a gamble.
The first mate returned as the orange lights of the guns firing appeared again.
“We've got about thirty seconds. Any last requests?” The Captain, laughing a little.
“The radio message got through, cap'n. We're resending it over and over to make sure, and trying to contact the beaches, and anyone else listening.”
“Excellent, good work.”

The volley did overshoot, and the Captain allowed himself a childish fist pump.
“Well, I think that's probably it. They'll have us for sure next time.” He said, pulling the wheel around. Noise behind him indicated that a few of the crew had woken up and were wondering what was going on. “Anything you want to do?”
The first mate shook his head. “I'll just stay here. Not much we can do, I suppose.”
“You could try getting a dinghy and jumping overboard. Tell the crew to do that. It's up to you.” The Captain said, keeping his eyes fixed on their opponent.

The first mate disappeared again and began shouting at the crew. His words didn't carry through the thick glass onto the bridge, so the Captain simply kept staring. The orange lights appeared at the same time as he heard the first splashes of something going over the side.
The first mate stepped back onto the bridge and shut the door.
“Well done.”
“Thank you, cap'n.”

The shells hit the midsection of the ship, in the starboard side. It was a poor shot due to the ship moving to port again, but it punched through the hull with ease and sent the ship reeling. Taking on water at an alarming rate, the bridge tried a final turn away, hoping that the enemy believed the damage fatal but they could still limp back to port.

The fifth volley destroyed the bridge and living quarters entirely and broke the hull midway. The ship sank in the subsequent nine minutes.

Chapter Five: Explanations

The news of the sinking reached us in the morning. The men who ran the docks knew from the moment they received the radio transmission, of course, but they'd chosen to wait until everyone was awake for breakfast to break the news.
Mostly people just mourned the loss of the brave sailors and the ship that had carried them. But Mayumi's sharp brain caused her more concern, which she shared with me once everything had calmed down.

“The radio transmission said they were being fired upon by a battleship.” She said, deadly serious.
“But they said it was just an attack, it could have been a boarding.”
“I talked to the radio operator. You know what this means?”
I wasn't sure what she was getting at. “It means that those things can sail ships? It'll make crossing the sea more dangerous.”
“Yes, but if they can fire shells at ships, they can fire shells at cities. We're safe from land attack here, but we're not safe if they start shooting at us from the seas.”

The impact of that was similar to being told that your car is wrecked. I didn't feel immediately worried, but something told me I'd be needing to get a new car. Or in this case, somewhere new to live.
“So we'll have to move inland?”
“Listen to me carefully. We can't move, they'll just overwhelm us. As soon as they sail that ship towards us, we're either going to have to hide underground and not come out, or just accept our fate. There won't be any of this 'future city' nonsense.”

“I've spoken to the Professor, and he think they may have the only solution to this problem. Will you come with me?”
I agreed and we took a short walk across the city streets to a low building that had been partially rebuilt. There were a few people inside, and Mayumi seemed out of place surrounded by middle-aged men drinking coffee.

“I brought him. I'll leave you to it.”
“Thanks you, Mayumi.” Professor Franklin said, approaching me. “Will you help us?”
“What with?” I was definitely confused now.
“It's complicated. Do you want me to explain the science?”
“Go ahead.”

The Professor walked through into another room, and I followed him. On a table in the centre of the room was a shiny metal object that looked like some kind of machine. Like an engine of some kind, but chrome-plated.
“Have you seen one of these before?”
I had, but not for years.
“It's one of their weapons, those things they use.”
“Precisely. We don't know what they call it, but we do know what it does.”

He pointed to a kind of nozzle on the end.
“This fires a ray... it's complicated, but we think it's to do with quantum light. Anyway, what it proves is that time is non-linear.”
“What? What does non-linear mean?”
“If you think about a time line, that's linear. It means that everything just progresses at a steady rate and can't be stopped.”
“So if it's non-linear, it can be stopped?”
“Er, well, no. You can think about it like a memory. What this machine does is allows the target to return to some point in its memory. If I use it on you, and set it back twenty years, you'll turn into a child.”

“So it lets you get younger?”
“That's not really why you'd use it. They use it as a weapon like that, though. They can turn steel girders into what they used to be – iron ore. That's why they can turn skyscrapers into rubble and sand in an instant.”
“Everything has a memory?”
“Yes, a perfect memory. I could turn a sheet of glass into sand, or into the rocks it was before that. You could make fossils back into living creatures, or bring people back from the dead.”

“Wow.”
“Very wow. But it has little practical use for us, except for saving anyone who dies. We think it's how those ghosts disappear when they're attacked – they simply go backwards in time until they reach their old constituents.”
“Then why do I need to see it.”
“This is the important part. Because everything has an eternal memory, it can remember the origin of the universe. Or the French Revolution. Or the bronze age. Crucially, it can remember when they launched the mission to save Nightmare Moon.”
“So we can fire it at Nightmare Moon?”
“No, no. She'd never get close enough, and if she were we could just shoot her. No, what we have to do is prevent the mission from succeeding, which means we have to send someone back in time as they are now.”

“But won't they just get younger, but be stuck here?”
“Precisely. That's the snag. We have to reverse the way the beam works – do the inverse. Make everything else travel back, whilst the target remains in the future. But, the gentlemen next door think they've cracked it.” The Professor smiled.
“So, do you want me to go back?”
“Yes.”
“Why me?”
“Why not? It's you or Mayumi, and Mayumi claims she has a good reason not to.”
“Well, okay. How would I stop the mission? Blow it up or something?”

“Not quite. There are two key things we need to succeed. Firstly, we have to get something that was created around the time we want to go to. Because it was created then, it has a memory of that exact point. A rock, for example, is so old that it's like throwing a dart at a time line millions of years long. But something like a sheet of paper was only manufactured a few months before it was used, so the manufacturing would be a big event, easy to track down. A newspaper would be perfect.”
“So what else is needed?”
“The object that we're obtaining the time from has to be destroyed. If it were a newspaper, for example, you'd have to find that newspaper and burn it before the events that we're trying to avoid, happen.”

“So I'd burn the newspaper before Nightmare Moon is rescued. But won't she just get rescued anyway? One newspaper won't stop that.”
“That's why we have the key item. The thing that caused Nightmare Moon to be rescued was a photograph, taken on the moon, of part of her. If it was destroyed, nobody would ever know, and the reality would collapse and shift into a new one.”
“Would the new reality be better?”
“We've no idea. It could be worse. But anything is better than the imminent destruction of the human race, I suppose.”
“But if the photographs are key, that means we need those now. To get the date from.”

“Absolutely. But of course, they're surely lost to time?” The Professor's tone of voice suggested he knew differently.
“Well...”
“I didn't know this until recently, but apparently the original and only copy was given to someone. Specifically, the astronaut who went to the moon. Now, he was assassinated years ago and the chances of his belongings surviving are slim. But I hadn't bet on the assassins being trophy hunters.”
“So whoever killed him kept the photographs?”
“Yes. In fact, he had them right up until Nightmare Moon killed him. Then, two years later, his old colleague retrieved them and brought them here.”
“Who? You?”
“No, Mayumi. She's so skilled with a sword because she used to be a paid assassin.”
“Wow. So she really wanted these photographs before we left the city?”
“Yes. I told her to get them.”

“So the two of you knew about... all of this, even before we came here?”
“I heard that one of these weapons was here, so we had to come. Everyone else wanted to make a resistance city, but I knew that this was more important. I'm sorry we had to lie to you.”
It didn't bother me that I hadn't known. What bothered me was that something didn't seem right.
“I have to go back and destroy the photographs?”
“Yes. You should be able to do it without too much trouble – they were never top secret.”
“But if Mayumi killed the astronaut, why doesn't she do this?”

“Because she met him before he died, there's an unfortunate problem. He will recognise her future self, if that's understandable. She'll be from a time in his future, so he'll recognise her as an assassin and probably run away from her. It just won't work.”
“Right.”
“Finally, if you do this, there's on thing to remember. We'll all cease to exist once the reality changes, and you'll be stuck with the consequences. It'll seem very similar at first, apart from Nightmare Moon, but the tracks will diverge until it's totally different. You have to live with whatever happens.”
“Okay. Can I think about it?”
“Don't think too long. We haven't got long until those ghosts will attack us.”

***

“Those humans are up to something.”
Nightmare Moon paced before taking a seat on her carved throne, her head resting on a hoof.
“I know they are. It's just too... easy. They want me to attack.” She looked at a map. “It seems so easy to just... destroy them. They've even gathered themselves together.”

“Advisers?”
“Your highness, we humbly suggest you send one battleship to attack them. If they're bluffing, we will only lose one battleship's worth, we have many more.”
“Hmm... good advice.”
Nightmare used her magic to turn the map around, so that she was facing the coastline. “So simple... something must be going on.”

She looked at her advisers again.
“Any other news? Rumours, something overheard?”
“No, your highness.”
“Maybe I should pay them a visit... just a quick one, to remind them who their ruler is.”
The advisers didn't make any comment. They learnt early on not to question Nightmare's musings.

Chapter Six: Complex Term

In the end, I had nothing to think about. The only reason I didn't say yes straight away was because I wanted to get a good night's sleep.

By nine o'clock the next morning, I was stood in the strange room with the strange machine on the table in front of me. I felt cold; the morning was a chilly one. The Professor looked at me with that look that meant he was pitying me.
“Ready?”
“As I'll ever be.”
He picked up the thing and aimed it like a gun at me. I held the photograph, contained in a brown paper document wallet, in front of me, over my heart. The Professor fired the gun thing and at first nothing happened.

“Did you forget to take the safety off?” I asked, a nervous smile on my face. He didn't reply, just looked intensely at my face. Actually, he wasn't moving at all. Then I discovered that the gun had worked, but I was simply staring at a totally still version of the world. I tried moving my arm and found that I could. I walked around the room. It was a little like being in a museum exhibit, where everything is set up in an action scene but nothing is moving.

Heading outside, I noticed that even the candle flames were still. I could put my hand in one and not be burnt, which was a novelty which soon wore off.
The outdoors were no longer cold, rather just an adequate temperature. There was no wind. I started to wonder whether I was going to be permanently stuck in some kind of glitch, when I noticed something that was moving. But it was black and moving towards me.

I was stuck in the middle of the courtyard, with paving slabs under my feet, so there was nowhere to hide as it descended from the sky and clattered to a halt in front of me. Then I discovered it wasn't an it, it was a she.

“I know what you're doing. It won't work.”
Her voice was what I'd expected. Somehow regal, yet sinister.
“Nightmare Moon?”
“Indeed. I am your ruler, and you are daring to defy me?” Her eyes were fearsome.
I could only smile, though. “Of course.”
“I'm sorry?”

“Sorry... Nightmare Moon. But we had to.”
“We? There is no we, only you. They were all too cowardly to go with you.”
Her words were stingingly close to the truth, but I tried a feeble riposte. “No, they knew only I could achieve it.”
“Everyone knows those guns can send two individuals back. The more the better, surely?”

Her laugh said everything it needed to.
“You're pathetic, believing their lies. Not even a worthy adversary.”
“Do you know why the world is frozen?” Changing the subject seemed a good way of avoiding her taunts.
“I froze it. Once I knew you had my technology, I couldn't allow it to continue. So time's frozen, you see. Or, more scientifically, the moon is frozen. Since it has sufficient gravity, it can stop time. Or make it move very slowly, which is what's actually happening.”
I nodded.

“Once I unfreeze it, you'll go back in time. I won't be able to stop you, and I can't hold the moon still forever. It's the source of my power.”
“So you're going to have to let me defeat you?”
“Oh, no. I'm going to let you go back. But you won't be able to defeat me.” She laughed again “That just wouldn't do.”
“Why did you stop time, then?”
“To give you this warning.”

She leant close, her long neck bringing her coal-black head within inches of mine.
“You cannot win, and I will kill you when you lose.” A smirk formed on her lips, and it suited her.

Her long wings unfolded and she began to take off. “Good luck” she cackled, then the ground gave way to a black abyss. I tripped backwards and fell like a stone, grasping for the ground that should have been supporting me. I spun around in the air and got a look at the perfect darkness that was swallowing me. It was like looking into the summer's sky – there was no depth to it. It simply went on forever.

As I fell, I looked upwards at the rapidly disappearing light. It was a pinprick within seconds, which winked and went out moments later. Then I must have blacked out, but it was too difficult to tell because I couldn't see anything anyway.

I came round in a perfectly white hospital. I looked at the white ceiling and tried to pick out details through my blurry eyelids. I could hear voices speaking English, which was a relief. Suddenly something appeared in front of me. I was expecting a pretty nurse or a knowledgeable doctor, like in the films, but it was entirely different.
“Hello? Are you okay?” Her voice was female, but...

“You looked shocked. What's the matter?” The nurse (she was wearing a hat with a red cross on it) said, backing away slightly.
“Oh, I imagine he is shocked. Let me handle this, Nurse Redheart” came another, more confident voice. This time the thing was purple, and had a blueish mane.
“He's shocked because he's never seen a pony before. Am I right, sir?”

I shook my head, which caused the purple one to look a little perplexed.
“I'm not right, or you've never seen a pony before?”
My voice worked. “I've seen a pony before, but she was as black as night.”
“Ah, I was afraid of that.”
“So you're all... ponies?”
“Yes we are!” The purple one said cheerily. “I'm Twilight Sparkle. I brought you here.”

“Where's here?”
“This is the hospital in Ponyville, which is in Equestria. This is where Nightmare Moon is from.” She explained quickly. “I think you've heard of her.”
“Yes.” I sighed a little and sat up. Now I could see the rest of the room, which was sparsely furnished and contained nobody except Twilight Sparkle and myself.
“Before you get upset... in order to be in Equestria, you have to be in a pony form.” Twilight Sparkle said warily, looking at me in case I suddenly snapped.

My body was certainly pony-like. The hooves were a big adjustment. “Why did you bring me here... like this?”
“We're under the rule of Nightmare Moon just like your world. But when we found out something was travelling through the time continuum, I used my magic to pull you out. I'm magical, because I'm a unicorn.” She added, pointing to her horn. “So now you're here, but you're not safe. Nightmare Moon can get you because you don't have the protection you had in your world.”
This Twilight Sparkle was certainly very clever.
“But why do you want me? I was supposed to do something in my own world, in the past.”

“That's the key thing. Nightmare Moon only exists once, so she'd travelling to and from your world and our world. If you defeat her there, she's defeated here too.”
“So you want to help?”
“I want to go with you.” The soft smile on her face said everything I needed to know about her.

I was discharged from the hospital because there was nothing obviously wrong with me, apart from my total lack of knowledge about anything. I even tried walking on two legs, but fell over and suddenly found four to be a better option.
“Before we can go anywhere” my purple companion began as we reached the door to the hospital, “I have to check you're not a spy, or someone working for Nightmare Moon.”
“How do you check that?”
“I need you to tell me something you learnt in your world that's the same as in ours.” Twilight said carefully. “Something I can verify to be true, but that would be impossible for one of Nightmare's minions to find out.”

My mind was blank.
“Er, we have ponies in my world too? They don't look anything like you, though...”
“No, it has to be something better. Like a fact.”
“A fact?”
“Something you learn at school.”
Suddenly, everything I'd ever leant at school left me.
“E equals m c squared?”

Twilight thought for a moment.
“The energy mass equivalence formula?” She eventually asked.
“I think so... it's definitely got the speed of light in it.”
“We have different physics here, so our equations are different.” Twilight said, her face looking strained. “Anything else?”

For the first time in two years, something floated to the surface of the mist in my memory. It was strange – I'd always looked through my memory like looking through mist, but it suddenly revealed itself to be a pool of liquid. My perception changed and in an instant, I had the answer.
“I've got it!”
“Got what? What is it?” Twilight asked, desperate for a breakthrough.
“Wait... tanch squared theta plus one equals... um... shech squared theta. Is that right?”
“I don't know what tanch, theta or shech are.”
“It's maths! Hard maths, I never did it at school.” If this didn't work, I had no chance.

“Maths is the same in both our worlds... wait. Advanced mathematics, I'm not actually familiar with it.”
She hurried away and spoke to one of the nursing staff, who left the hospital.
“I've gone to get someone who does understand. They'll be here soon.”

It took about five minutes until the red-maned nurse returned, followed closely by a strange looking grey pony with a blonde mane.
“Miss Hooves, can you confirm something for us?” Twilight asked, smiling politely.
“No prob Twilight, so long as it's not practical.” The pony replied, laughing slightly.
“Can you repeat it?”
“Tanch squared theta plus... no wait, minus one, equals shech squared theta.” I repeated, trying desperately to hold on to it.

Miss Hooves just laughed. “I've no idea what tanch, shech and theta are, but it's an identity. Something squared minus one equals something else squared. Assuming he's remembered it correctly, the minus will be a result of the squared complex term not being present, which occurs in the 'shech' thing. Sir, is theta an angle?”
“Yes... in a triangle.”
“No, not in a triangle. This is hyperbolics, not trigonometry, which explains the minus. What he said is exactly true.”

I didn't understand anything about what she'd said or why it was true, but Twilight was satisfied.
“Thanks so much!” She gushed, causing Miss Hooves to blush slightly.
“No problem. I'll get back to the weather.”
The grey pegasus left, flapping the wings I hadn't previously noticed.
“Okay, so you're not a spy. I'll take you to meet the other pony who'll be going with us.”
To say that I was relieved was something of an understatement.

“I think you'll like her. Everypony is her friend, so you'll probably find her easy to get on with.”

Chapter Seven: The Astronaut

“Hi there!”
She possibly had the perkiest voice I'd ever heard, like listening to a children's entertainer who'd inflated one too many balloons. We were at Twilight's library home, and the door has just been flung open by a rather happy neighbour.
“Hi Pinkie.” Twilight turned to me. “This is Pinkie Pie. She's one of my best friends.”
“Pleased to meet you!” The pink pony squealed, extending a hoof and shaking mine vigorously. “I hope we can be friends.”
“Friends” I repeated, smiling back. Her happiness was infectious and I couldn't help it.

“Pinkie lives at Sugarcube Corner, and helps make cakes.”
“Oh, and biscuits, and cupcakes, and muffins, ooh, and we-”
“She's going to help us travel back in time.” Twilight said, sounding a little resigned.
I nodded back. “Okay. So how are we going to do it?”
“-shortbread and brownies, oh oh oh, and fruit cake!”
“You're a fruit cake Pinkie! Now just listen for a second.”

Pinkie Pie went silent and waited for Twilight to speak with a perfectly-innocent look on her face.
The purple pony smiled, a little strained. “We're going to use some of the magic scrolls that Princess Celestia has kindly allowed us to borrow.” Her hoof pointed to a small pile in the corner. “Once we're there, I can help you find what you're looking for. What is it, that you're looking for?”
Her question was phrased so perfectly. “I'm looking for an astronaut. That is, someone who goes into space.”
“How? Do they fly?” Pinkie again.
“No, in a rocket. It's not important.”
“I once had a dream about going to space, it started when-”

“So when you find the astronaut, what do you have to do?”
“Use him to find some photographs. Once they're destroyed, Nightmare Moon will return to her banishment.”
“Okay, I think we can do that.”
I lowered my voice. “Why are we bringing... her?”
“She's been to your world before.”

This was amazing, and I asked Twilight more about it when she'd sent Pinkie away to make the final preparations.
“How did she get there?”
“Apparently a long time ago you used to watch us through some kind of portal. Like looking through a window.” She explained.
“Television? There used to be television shows about ponies like you, that's how we knew about Nightmare Moon.”
“Probably. Anyway, Pinkie realised she was being watched and managed to get through the portal. She was gone for about five minutes, then came back and told us about these things called humans.”

“Five minutes? Sure she wasn't just tricking you?” I chuckled.
“I think our time works differently. Five minutes here is about five days for you.”
“Wow.”
Pinkie returned. “Everything's super-ready, we just have to go to the Town Square!”
“But Pinkie, we're doing it here...” Twilight said, exasperated.
“No no no, I've organised a great going-away party! Everypony is waiting!”

Twilight's expression said it all as we made our way to the Town Square, set in front of the Town Hall. The Mayor, a grey-maned pony with a severe expression, was waiting to give a speech as we approached.
“Everypony, here are the three brave ponies who will be trying to rid us of Nightmare Moon!” She said, stamping her hooves as we climbed onto the wooden stage.
Twilight spoke. “Okay, we'll be back very soon, and we'll defeat Nightmare Moon.” She said. The crowd murmured. Apparently Twilight wasn't a very good public speaker.

She quickly moved onto the scrolls and began the spell that would take us back, just as Pinkie Pie found some balloons.
“Hey Twilight, everypony, I just found out that these balloons float! Look, it's like a pegasus pony, but with no wings! Isn't that great?”
Thankfully, Twilight interrupted her as the ground disappeared again, pulling myself and my two companions into the gaping blackness. The second time was far less scary, I found, and I closed my eyes as the blackness took over.

***

Instead of waking up in a hospital, this time I woke up standing on the steps of another town hall. This one was far more familiar though, in a way. It looked... human, anyway. Twilight and Pinkie were stood either side of me, and they looked very strange.
They had both assumed human forms to fit in, but neither of them could get used to it. Twilight was looking, dumbfounded, at her new fingers, whilst Pinkie was drinking in the attention from onlookers.

Whilst Twilight looked very plain, very much like a librarian but without any glasses, Pinkie had retained her vibrant hair and was allowing it to bounce around happily whilst passers-by stared. Looking around at the cars, I guessed that we had to be around the right period, but somewhere before hair dye became commonplace.
Twilight dragged Pinkie away from a shop window where she was admiring her appearance and we headed for a tourist map.

“Now, the astronaut lives in the suburbs.” I explained, pointing to a road that headed out of town. “We need to find his house.”
“Do you know his address?” Twilight asked.
“No, so we have to find a telephone.”
There was one across the road. Pinkie skipped the whole way.
I used the directory to look up the astronaut. I knew his first name was Tony, but not his second name. Thankfully, I spotted another name with the occupation 'astronaut', then discovered that they all lived in the same area. There was only one Tony, and I copied down the address.

The bus was a nightmare. Once we'd finally got on the right one and paid for tickets, Pinkie Pie tried to conduct a sing-along. I was convinced we were going to be killed by some tough-looking gentlemen sitting near the back, but Pinkie's magic worked again and we spent the last twenty minutes singing the hokey-cokey endlessly. Twilight looked like she might be the one to kill us by the time the bus pulled up outside the right street.

Tony lived at the end but one, so I led the way whilst Twilight tried not to stumble with her new legs. Pinkie, of course, had instantly mastered them and was skipping along gracefully.
I knocked on the door and then took a step back. I wasn't sure how I was going to explain to him what I was talking about and how I knew about the photos.

A man in his mid-thirties answered the door, with his petite wife standing just behind him.
“Can I help you?” He asked politely, his button-down shirt hanging from ex-athlete's shoulders.
Twilight answered. “Hi, we're here about the space agency?”
“What about it? I don't speak to the press.”
“We're not the press. I just want to ask about some photographs. May we come in?” I said, hoping it sounded plausible.

A man and two women, one of whom seemed distracted, must not have seemed a threat to the astronaut, because he invited us through to his front room. I took a seat in an itchy blue chair opposite him, as my companions tried out the sofa.
“This is difficult to explain.” I said, ready to begin my convoluted story. Then his wife entered with a tray of biscuits.
“Oooh, biscuits!” Pinkie helped herself.

“Sir, have you seen any photographs of... life on the moon?” I asked, accompanied by Pinkie's munching.
He was suspicious. “Like what? Green aliens?”
“No, specifically something purple.”
“I have. Are you those freaky weirdos who search the desert for UFOs?”
“No. This isn't going to make sense, but I'll tell you anyway. Someone from the space agency gave those photos to you, yes? You must destroy the originals, you absolutely must. It is of critical importance.”
“How do you know about them?”

“I've seen them, they have serious repercussions for the future. If you destroy them, you'll save the world.”
“Haha, now I know you're those alien-bashing idiots.”
I couldn't believe I'd lost him at such a late stage. Then I remembered, of course, that I had the photos. I had the ones that I'd been holding when the Professor had fired the gun.
“Wait, please believe me.” I said, slipping the document folder out of my pocket. “Take a look at these.”

He shrugged and opened it. Inside was only one photograph, and it seemed very small.
“Is this a joke?” His tone had turned angry.
“What?”
“Have you come here for some... funny reason? A prank?” Now he was turning red.
“I'm sorry, what's the problem?” Twilight asked, trying to calm him down.

He turned the photograph so I could see it. Instead of a grainy picture from the surface of the moon, it was a portrait, obviously taken professionally, of a petite woman.
“You have the cheek to break into my house and steal a photograph of my wife, then try and bring it back to me to get top-secret material?” I had no answer to that.
“Get out!” He shouted, pointing to the door. We left.

On the bus back, Pinkie seemed subdued but said nothing.
“I thought I'd been sent back with the original photos. Something's wrong.” I explained to Twilight. “Without the originals, I don't think we can destroy them and still defeat Nightmare Moon.”
“So what do we do? Just go back to Equestria?”
I shook my head. “If we can destroy the original photograph of his wife, it should still break reality like we want. But now we have to get hold of it.”
“So let's go back and break in.”
“No, something else isn't right. He shouldn't have seen the photos in the first place. We're here later than I'd expected.”

“Oh, yes. Because of the few hours you spent in Ponyville, time will probably have moved about a month.” Twilight said. “I didn't think it would be a problem.”

We got off at the next stop and I grabbed a newspaper from someone's bin. The headline shocked me.
'SPACE MISSION BLASTS OFF TOMORROW'
“Twilight?”
“Yes?”
“We've got about a day to destroy that photo.”

“Where will it be?”
We were now walking around the city looking for somewhere to stay.
“The photo? In his wallet, no doubt.”
“Why?”
“Humans keep photos of their family in their wallets, well, men do. It's just a thing.”
“How do we get to his wallet?”
“Ooh, ooh, I know, I know! Pick mee!”

“Pinkie?”
“We break into his house, kill him, and grab it!”
Twilight was shocked. “No! Why, why would you even say that?”
“Oh, it was in that newspaper. Someone has broken into a house, killed someone, and taken their wallet. I thought that was how you were supposed to do it here?”
“No, very much not.”

We slept in a hotel downtown. Twilight and Pinkie shared a room, because Twilight didn't trust Pinkie not to run off in the middle of the night or something. It was of paramount important that we destroyed that photo, otherwise we would have changed nothing. And now the astronaut was going to be on high alert, which made everything far more difficult.

Chapter Eight: Sabotage

Half an hour after we got up, we were outside his house again. This time, I was determined to get the wallet no matter what.
The first sign that it wasn't going to happen was the fact that both of the cars were gone. I tried the door, and it turned out nobody was at home.
“Of course, the launch.” I murmured.
“What?”
“If the launch is happening, they'll both be there. The astronaut's wives always watch them go.”

Pinkie broke the door down by running into it.
I began the search in his bedroom, before moving through all of his jackets and coats, then searching obvious places like the coffee table and bedside drawers. But there was no sign of his wallet. The document folder with my version of the photo was hidden under the bed, so I pocketed it.
“Any luck?”
Twilight shook her head when we met in the kitchen. Pinkie had eaten all of the snacks that remained in the house with a slightly guilty expression.

“That means he's taken the wallet with him, into space.”
Once it was there, we couldn't touch it.
“So we have to destroy the rocket before it takes off?” Twilight asked quietly.
“Yes. But with all the security, we've got no chance.”

I didn't want to contemplate a future with Nightmare Moon, but there was no other option.
“I have an idea.” Pinkie said, wiping melted chocolate from around her mouth.
“What is it Pinkie?” Twilight asked, sounding as if she'd had just about enough of hearing about cakes and parties.
“Why don't I send somepony back in time further, so they can destroy the rocket then?”
“I wish we could...”
“I'll just use my magic, Twilight. So who's going, you or him?”

“Pinkie, only unicorns have magic. Earth pony magic isn't possible to control.”
“Oh, you're so silly Twilight. I can travel around between parties! I can send somepony back to a party, then they can destroy the silly rocket!”
It sounded insane, but I was willing to go along with it.
“Okay Pinkie, send me back about six weeks.”

Black abyss number three swallowed me, but this one had streamers and balloons.

***

Getting into the factory that made the glass was actually surprisingly easy. I simply sprinkled some kind of powder I'd read about in a book into the molten glass, and apparently it would weaken the final product.

***

The inside of the suit was very hot, Tony noted, as he was strapped into the seat. All of the usual things rushed through his mind, from fear about the mission to irritation about the sweat running down his back.

Lift-off was, as usual, scary. The rattling made him think that the world was about to end, but it didn't. CAPCOM's reassuring voice did make him feel a little better, but the strong G-forces and nausea were enough to make anyone feel pretty terrible. The sky outside changed from white to blue as they passed through the cloud layer, and Tony worked out what he was sat on. The square was his wallet, still tucked into the pocket of his flight suit. He'd forgotten to take it out when they were suited up.

Oh well, he thought. At least he had that picture of his wife. It had been taken the day that they'd taken the photos on the moon, but he thought his wife was far more beautiful. Those weirdos stealing it had made him really angry though, and he hoped that his wife would be safe staying with her parents. He didn't want any more lunatics smashing the door down to get to her whilst he was up in space.

The blue was starting to darken now into the black that was space. Tony thought about his two fellow astronauts, who must be feeling fairly terrible. He looked across to the man on his left, who apparently was a biologist. Then he saw the man's face, which was white with terror. Now, launch was terrifying, there was no doubt, but it was no worse than a roller-coaster. Something in his expression said that something was badly wrong. Call it pilot's instinct.

Sadly, Tony didn't need his instinct to work out what was wrong. On the left side was a window, which had a tiny white chip in it. As he watched, the white chip expanded, like watching water freeze but sped up. The experienced astronaut had never seen anything like it, but as the chip expanded into a fracture, he knew what was going to happen.

The abort lever was inches from his hand, and he pulled it as hard as he could, with no effect. Then a crackling voice appeared in his helmet.
“Captain, what's the problem? Over.”
“We've... there's a fracture in window number four.”
“Repeat please?”
“Fracture in window number four, over.”

There was no reply from launch control, which Tony knew from experience meant that they knew it was over. In mission control, they'd be looking at the screen with dread, waiting for the explosion.
The fracture had turned the window into a sheet of white. The biologist's expression was exactly the same, but now the astronaut to Tony's right had exactly the same expression. He'd heard everything over the radio.

With anything from seconds to minutes, Tony scrabbled at his flight suit, unzipping the side. Sticking his hand inside, he managed to get his fingers onto his wallet. If he was going to meet his maker, he wanted to look at his wife again.
The wallet fell open obediently, as if it understood the gravity of the situation. Tony found it difficult to pull the photograph out with his gloved hands, but managed it by flinging his useless credit cards out first. He unfolded the square of paper and looked at his wife, who looked happy in the photo. She'd probably be informed by telephone in a few minutes.

At the same instant as the window broke, nobody noticed the radio connection break. In fact, Tony's wife wasn't informed by telephone.

I was standing on the viewing platform near the launch site when it happened. I'd expected the rocket to disintegrate on launch, but it had disappeared from sight when suddenly everything froze. This time, I knew it was Nightmare Moon, and I looked up at the sky to see where she would be coming from. Then the ground collapsed again.

I woke up next to the still bodies of Twilight and Pinkie, in some kind of strange palace. The floor was black marble, highly polished, but there was nobody around. In front of me was a black throne, and it looked very uncomfortable.
I nudged Twilight, but she didn't move.
“She won't come to until I let her.” Nightmare said, appearing from a corridor off to one side. She smiled at me and took a seat on her throne.

“Do you know where you are?”
“In your palace?”
“Yes, that's true. Rather, I mean why are you here?”
“Because we destroyed reality?”
Nightmare smirked. “Yes, you destroyed reality. Very clever of you, really. In fact, I can tell you that all of the astronauts on the rocket are still alive. For the moment, whilst time is frozen.”
“Why did you freeze time this time?” The sentence didn't really work.

“Why? Because you've beaten me.” Nightmare said, sounding honest. In fact, she sounded tired. “For that, I commend you. But you overlooked one thing.”
“What's that?”
“I can no longer rule over either ponies or humans. But for both worlds, there is no reality now. In fact, the only thing that exists is this palace. Outside is nothing. It's disturbing.”
“So we're trapped?”
“I'm trapped. You're free to go.”

I paused. This was a trick.
“There's nothing to return to?”
“Quite right. Time is the one thing my sister and I have no control over. It is our master, perhaps. I control the moon, she the sun, but time progresses even if we neglect our jobs. The reason the sun rises is because it's that time. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“But I do have enough magic to control time just this once, because of the unique circumstances you've given me. I can restore one reality, but only one.”

“Will this reality be the same? With you as ruler?”
“No, I'm trapped in this palace. The new reality will simply be however the world progressed without me.”
“So why don't you restore reality?”
“I can only restore one. Pony or human, not both. One reality has to stop existing.”

This was a sudden development.
“Take a look at the brave ponies who accompanied you.”
This was a guilt trip, but I had to. Twilight and Pinkie looked as if they were sleeping, now returned to their natural pony forms.
“There's one other thing.”

“What else can there possibly be?”
“You're tied to the human reality. If it disappears, you disappear too. Forever. It's like signing your death warrant. But if you keep the human reality, they disappear.” She pointed an elegant hoof at my companions.
“This is too difficult to decide. Isn't there another way?”
“There's a third option, but it's simply that you live in my palace forever and both realities are destroyed. I assume you'd rather not have that one.”

“Can I think about it?”
“No. I can only hold the moon for a few more minutes. The glass in the rocket is moving at eight thousand miles an hour, so the photograph will be incinerated in about... two minutes.”

I crouched down next to Twilight and Pinkie. They looked peaceful and innocent, not like Nightmare Moon. They didn't deserve her cruelty.
“Chop chop. I need a decision before they both disappear.”
I stood up, allowing my hand to run across Twilight's shoulder as I did so. A last fleeting touch of reality.

“Ready?” A smile was on Nightmare's face.
“One question first.”
“Make it snappy!”
“Are you really the same as Princess Luna?”

Nightmare Moon cackled happily.
“Of course. Princess Luna is my... good side, shall we say. I am the Mare in the Moon, she helps rule Equestria. But once I'm locked here, in just minute or so, Princess Luna will be free to return without me. She won't have her bad side any more.”
I nodded. “Okay, that makes sense.”
“That is, assuming you restore the pony reality.”

I had no answer for that.
“You've got thirty seconds before the photograph burns. What's it going to be?”
Turning away from Nightmare, I looked down at Pinkie and Twilight. Then I took a deep breath.