Blank Slates

Alone in uncharted space, the Harmony cried out.

The yellow one stumbled out of her stasis pod as soon as she opened her eyes. The hallway flashed red and sirens spew noise across the whole ship. She got up, looking around for the source of the sirens. It was an emergency alarm for the highest threats, so the first place to look would be life support controls.

She galloped down the hall and took the second left to the "mess hall" and blundered through to the other end of the room. Down that hall and to the right was the control panel for the ship's systems. The yellow one went for the largest display and glanced along all the buttons and switches. She knew she could figure out which one was the right one, but there wasn't time.

From behind she heard a blast of energy, but couldn't turn to see it before it sent her flying into the front of the bridge. She rolled up and saw another pony, a purple, flicking on switches and tapping displays. In seconds the emergency lights shut off and the alarm was cut. The purple pony had restored basic life support to the ship.

"Why'd you blast me?" asked the yellow.

Purple looked from the console to the yellow pony. "You were in my way. Plus, it felt right."

"Gee, thanks," replied the yellow, "but I still don't know what's going on."

The purple blinked, "You lost your memory?" Surprised, the yellow one could only nod. "Same here. Let's go find our memories then."

The yellow and purple trotted down the corridor where the stasis pods were kept. Three were opened, not two. "That wasn't open before," remarked the yellow.

"No," came a voice from behind, "now turn around slowly and tell me who the hell you two are." The two turned to see another pony, white and armed with a blast rifle levitated inches away from the yellow's back.

"Actually, we were hoping some pony else could tell us. We both woke up without our memories," the yellow paused and looked into the white pony's eyes, "and from that look, I think you don't have much in that head too."

The white pony looked to the purple. "That true? No memories, no clue about this ship?" The purple nodded. "Alright, so now what?" asked the white. The purple looked down the corridor of stasis pods. Three remained closed and active.

"Let's go give them a wake-up call," said the purple.

==========

"Hey apple-flank, rise and shine."

The white pony tapped on the glass of the stasis pod as the purple initiated the waking program. Ice cold water drained out the bottom as the pod heated up and gave an adrenaline shot to the apple pony. Like the others, she jolted awake with a confused look. The door opened and she stepped out to find herself surrounded by five other ponies; a white unicorn with a gun, a blue pegasus with crazy colored hair, a pink at the rear with the straightest hair imaginable, a nervous looking yellow pegasus, and a weird looking purple unicorn. The purple looked like she had synthetic wing implants.

"It's okay," said the yellow, "we're just like you. We woke up without a clue about our past or even who we are. Memories just gone." The apple nodded but could barely move, partly from the cold of the pod, and partly from the sudden awakening. "We'll be in the lockers to talk about what's going on. You can come once you've regained your senses."

"Yeah, alright."

The locker room was adjacent to the cargo bay. It was small, but only held six lockers, each identical to the next. Every pony opened up a locker and found the exact same things within. A pistol holster, followed by a universal horseshoe grip 10mm pistol, a flashlight and a spare battery, conventional titanium-weaved cotton armor, and short distance earbud communicators.

"Woah, hold on. Why does whitey over there get a rifle but we get, these?" The rainbow pony gestured to the pistol she held in her wing.

"Relax, I woke up with it, I must know how to use it." The white checked her rifle to make sure the safety was on.

"Let's hold off on that question for now and deal with the immediate," the purple stood up on the bench and grabbed every pony's attention. "First, we need to find out why we're on this ship and what woke us up. Life support was dropping fast when I got the console, but I managed to stabilize it by redirecting power and activating repair protocols."

"Really? How'd you manage that?" asked the apple pony.

The purple paused for a moment. "I just looked at the console and felt like I knew what to do. I can't explain it but it just felt right."

"Great! So everything will just come back eventually, right?" The yellow looked around but no pony gave an assured look.

The rainbow one pointed over to the cargo room. "So what are we shipping? I mean, if we were in stasis that means it must have been a long distance mission, which could mean we're moving heavy cargo."

Purple nodded, "That's a possibility, but there's still a lot more of the ship to explore, and I think if we take a look around more might come back to us, like it did with me and the console. We should should split into three teams. Apple and White, see if you two can find anything on the upper level. Yellow, go with Pink and scan the mid sections. Most importantly, find the ship's logs, the console on the bridge had a notification about ship data on the mid-level. It could tell us what we need to know."

"Rainbow, you're with me," Purple gestured to Rainbow. "There's damage to the main battery in the lower section, I want to check it out and see if we can get the whole ship fully functional."

==========

Apple checked the hallway to the left. Emergency lighting was still on from the power reroute, and the room was left in a dark red light. In the walls the hum of the ship's engines could be heard, whirling away and keeping the oxygen flowing. "All clear," Apple said to White.

White moved up ahead and checked ahead of the curved corridor. It was completely empty, save for the doors to the crew's personal rooms. The white beckoned Apple over. "Hey, check this out. I think the lock on this one's broken."

"Yeah, weird," replied Apple. "Ya think something's in it?"

"Well, it's a door to a room, something's got to be in it," White said, pulling on the sliding door. "Come on and give me a hoof big fella." Together they heaved on the door, straining the mechanisms behind it and slowly cracking open the room. Cold air flowed out with the scent of pine leaves flowing with it. Inside was a regular bed, two closets, and a gun case.

"Holy hell, look at that gun." White pointed to the gun case. "It's almost as big as you, Apple." White rushed over to the gun case and tapped on the display screen to check the specifics of the gun. The blue glass screen folded up, displaying a 3D image of the triple-barreled gun.

Wide-eyed and unrestrained, White spun the image around, tapping on all the little icons popping up. "I don't think it's a good idea to play with that. It might not like you touching everything at once."

With a random tap of a button, the case clicked opened. White turned back to Apple, "Or it just might be crazy enough to work." The triple barrel was plugged into a socket on one side of the case. The ammunition screen read Battery Full.

Apple looked at the gun and then looked at White. "Yeah... I don't trust you with that. I wouldn't trust any pony with that, so just leave it and lets go check out the rest of this place."

"Hold on, you're not in charge here, if any pony's the boss lady that'd be Purple. For now at least, who knows if she'll be any good at it," White said, tossing Apple her blast rifle. "Still, she said to see what we could find, and now see what we found? We'd make a great team, the two of us. We could help each other out, you know? Agree on group decisions, make the same votes, that kind of thing."

Apple shook her head. "I just want to find out what happened to us. Let's move on, I think the sign said the gym's up ahead."

"Fine," grumbled White, "but I'm taking the gun. You're not the boss of me, you know. Stop ignoring me!"

==========

"I'm making sense right?" asked Yellow. "I'm just wondering why some of our memories are still intact, like how Purple knew how to use the console, or how we all know what a spaceship is. If everything was lost then even basic language would be lost." Yellow looked over to Pink. "You're really starting to make me rethink my theory."

Pink turned left down another corridor, past the mess hall. "This way."

"Well, you must be the talkative type."

Pink led Yellow past the mess hall and into the ship's kitchen. Like most of the ship, it was bathed in red emergency lighting and it was hard to make out anything. "We're supposed to be looking for the data room," Yellow said. "Come on, do you even know how to cook?"

Pink glanced over to Yellow, then back at the kitchen. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. With uncanny speed and power, she did a front flip over the counter, kicking open the oven. Spinning, she yanked open the cutlery drawers and stuck two knives into the ceiling. Pulling out a pan from the oven, Pink cartwheeled over to the fridge, kicking the oven closed, and whirled carrots and celery from the fridge onto the pan. A knife dropped and flicked the stove on, blazing the gas into a roaring inferno.

Pink threw the pan onto the stove like a frisbee and kicked open the cabinet on her left, toppling the olive oil out. Pink grabbed it in her mouth and back flipped over to the stove, sizzling the vegetables in oil and mixing it up. The second knife lost its grip and fell back down, hitting the timer and setting it to ring in five minutes. Pink reached under the stove and pulled out a cover for the pan, and covered the pan.

Yellow looked in awe and nodded. "I'll take that as a yes."

Pink stayed emotionless and walked out of the kitchen. "Now let's find our data."

The sound of the sizzling meal washed away in the ship's humming as Yellow and Pink made their way to the rear of the mid section. Below, the engines could be heard screeching and groaning, trying to keep up with the life support. The emergency lights were dimmer in the rear section, but one room remained well lit enough to brighten the end of the hallway.

"There, that's it," said Yellow. "That must be the ship's data log, I can even see the memory disks."

The two ran in to check on the data. "Hey, check this out," said Pink, pointing the monitor. It read 30,119 FILES DELETED. ERROR, COULD NOT COMPLETE COMMAND.

"Crap," Yellow muttered. "Okay, I think I can run a diagnostic. Maybe retrieve some data that was deleted."

"Who would delete so many files from the ship?" asked Pink.

Yellow sighed, "Whoever did it must be connected to our memories, maybe even responsible. But it could have been the power failure that damaged the data and our stasis pods." The screen turned green, finishing the diagnostic test and displaying the results.

Yellow looked at it and radioed Purple. "Purple, come in, this is Yellow. Looks like we lost most of our data, I don't know what from. Purple? Can you hear me?" Yellow looked over to Pink. "We got to get to the lower sections, now."

==========

"Purple? Purple what happened? Where'd that thing come from?" Rainbow took caution walking into the engine room. The lights were perfectly fine but there were only two of them, leaving most of the room in shadows. Coolant dripping and metal clanging made too much noise for Rainbow to hear what had gotten Purple.

"If any pony's there, please don't hurt us. We're don't know what we're doing here and we need some help."

"Rainbow!" yelled Purple as she was thrown across the engine room. Rainbow turned to find her but caught the full force of Purple as they both crashed into the wall.

"Look out!" Rainbow pushed Purple aside and readied her pistol in her wing. She aimed at the creature in the engines but it was too small and nimble, and Rainbow knew she couldn't risk hitting the engines. Still, she kept her pistol trained onto the creature to keep it away, and it worked. Until it didn't.

Before she could pull the trigger the creature flung itself out of the engines and blasted fire onto Rainbow. She shielded herself with her wings, but they were burned before Purple could get to her.

Purple blasted the small dragon across the room into the engine control panel, dumping coolant all over it. "Step back," moaned Purple, getting up and putting herself between Rainbow and the dragon. The dragon tried to ignite its flame, but the coolant prevented flames from reaching past its mouth.

The dragon changed its plans in an instant and charged strait for Purple, but she was prepared for it. She leaped over the dragon, picking it up with magic, and slammed it into the metal floor. She pulled out her gun while it was down and shot it twice in the head. "Glad that's over," sighed Purple. "I thought that thing would never-"

The dragon propelled itself off the ground with incredible force, uppercutting Purple in the stomach and sending her into the lighting above. Rainbow dashed over to the dragon, attempting to tackle it, but it simply turned and slapped her back into a pile of equipment crates. Rainbow opened her eyes to see the dragon walking over to her, limping with its twisted foot. The bullet holes in the dragon's head sparked with broken wires and electricity.

Rainbow stared at it with shock. "Well, I guess I don't have to feel bad about killing you then."

The dragon sprinted toward Rainbow, headfirst. The green metallic scales reflected the flash from Rainbow's pistols. Her aim was off from her wounded wings, but she still punctured the synthetic purple scales along the dragon's torso. But the torso was not enough to slow its charge. Rainbow closed her eyes and prepare to get rammed, instead Purple dived from the ceiling into the dragon, turning it away from Rainbow.

Rainbow opened her eyes and looked up at Purple, flying in the air with wings, but blasting the dragon with magic. "Holy shit, Purple, you can use your wings!"

Hoof steps barreled down to the engine room entrance as Yellow and Pink rushed in. Both stopped and stared at what they thought was impossible. "Purple," Yellow said, "I don't think those wings are normal implants."

Purple looked around at every pony, and then at her wings. "We'll talk about it later. For now," she pointed to the damaged dragon-bot, "we need to take care of that."

==========

White glared around the mess hall, but mostly at Purple. "I don't get it, why are we listening to you again? You, the one who hid the fact that you're an alicorn!"

Purple shook her head in her hoof. "How was I supposed to know they're real? Ponies get wing and horn implants all the time."

"It's your body!" White shouted, "you should know what's up with it!"

Apple put a hoof on White's shoulder. "Maybe you should give it a rest. The robot's the issue here, it tried to kill Rainbow and Purple."

White shook Apple's hoof off. "Don't touch me." She looked around at every pony's stares. "What? You all can't be serious right now. Just think; what if she's the one who took our memories? She's the only one of us who just happened to recall how to turn on the life support. She even remembered how to reset the damn dragon, and now she says to check the the death machine for answers and you all are going along with it?"

Every pony exchanged looks for a moment before a unanimous, "Yes."

"Fine," grumbled White, "go play with your stupid toy, but I'm staying on this side of the room, far away from it."

Every pony else took a step back, allowing Purple to put the dragon up on the mess hall table and power it up. "Okay guys, it'll take a while to boot up, so get ready. I'm not sure if the full reset will stop it trying to kill us, so get your guns ready."

Every pony had their pistols trained onto the dragon, except White, who was sporting her new triple barrel ion cannon. Apple glanced over to White. "Just don't shoot us with that thing." Yellow and Rainbow both looked at White and stepped away from her line of fire.

The dragon jolted up, looking around at the six ponies around it. "Hello," was all it said. Every pony pause for a moment, unsure of what to do.

"Now what?" asked Pink.

Purple stood in front of the dragon. "Now, we ask it some questions. Let's start with a name. Dragon-bot, why did you attack us?"

The dragon stood up, and on the table managed to look eye to eye with Purple. "I have no data of such an incident. My only files outside of my core data are of the most recent reset, which was deleted all non-essential files."

"Okay, not what I wanted to hear," replied Purple. "What's your name?"

The robot paused, checking its files. "I do not have a registered name. However, you may refer to me by my model code; SP1-K3."

"I think we'll stick with Dragon," said Purple. "I linked you to the ship's logs, can you access any information on the crew of this ship?"

Dragon closed his eyes. A soft hum of internal fans whirled away, cooling the dragon-bot's CPU. "There is heavy damage to the ship's memory due to radiation. Also, nearly ninety-three percent of the ship's data has been deleted."

Every pony sighed with disappointment. "Relax," Purple reassured them, "I'm sure Dragon can retrieve the data, right Dragon?"

Dragon gave a robotic nod. "I will see what I can do. Estimated time: three hours. Also, there is significant hull damage along the port side of the ship. Engines are running at forty-three percent efficiency. Weapon systems and shields are also disabled."

"Alright, focus on the data, we'll take care of the ship." Purple turned to White and Apple. "The ship's schematics are on the bridge. Go find the controls for external repair drones and fix the hull. I'll go see what I can do for the engines. Yellow, take Rainbow to the Med-Bay and get her wings taken care of. Pink, weapon and shield consoles are right below the bridge, see what you can do."

"So we're just listening to you now?" complained White. "I think I'm the most qualified here to check on the weapons-"

"You've already got a big gun," replied Pink. "Now it's my turn."

Apple put a hoof on the snarling White and led her out of the mess hall. "Come on sunshine

"This is just fucking great," grumbled White. "It's not her choice you know."

"It's the best one though," said Apple.

==========

"Really, it's okay. It's better than it looks." Rainbow sat on a metal bed while Yellow applied ointment and bandages to her burned wings.

"No, I don't think it is," Yellow replied, dabbing a green paste on her burns.

Rainbow flinched. "Ow, okay, so it is pretty bad, but do you have to use that much ointment? It feels so greasy and heavy. It awkward just to move my wings."

Yellow wrapped a bandage around Rainbow's right wing. "If I don't use this much, the ointment won't last long enough. And be glad you can even move your wings with these kinds of burns."

Gently, Yellow wrapped up Rainbow's left wing. "There, now just don't fly around for a few days and it should get better."

"Thanks," replied Rainbow, "you're really good this."

Yellow put back the ointment and bandages into the glass medicine cabinet. "It just feels right, to be helping others. Like I've done it before."

Rainbow got off the metal bed and wiggled her wings into a comfortable position. "You probably did do that, before we lost our memory. I wouldn't be surprised if you were the ship's doctor or something."

Outside of the Med-Bay the red emergency lights flicked off, giving way to white florescent bulbs illuminating the ship. The loud rumbling of the ship's engine softened, turning into a barely noticeable hum. "Looks like the ship's back to it's old self again. Come on, let's go see if we can find something fun to do while you heal up."

==========

"Dragon," Purple called with her transmitter. "I replaced piston A2 and C8 and tightened the impact plates, what's next on the list?"

Dragon's voice crackled over the radio. "The coolant chamber is leaking. The fusion reactor will not operate at full capacity without coolant projection around other systems. Coolant repair is in cabinet 5."

Purple walked over to cabinet five, opening it to find a trove of insulated pipes, nano-carbon fibres, multiple toolboxes, and coolant protection gear.

"What's the suit for?" asked Purple.

"The coolant is very dangerous," replied Dragon. "If it touches you, it will freeze off your skin and muscle."

Purple's eyes widened. "Okay... did not need that image in my mind." She slipped on the protection gear. It's thick insulated padding was heavy and restricted movement, but it kept out all temperature, including the engine room's hot air. Purple looked up to the maintenance platform right above the coolant tanks. She tried using her wings but the suit did not have wing-sleeves; the weight wouldn't been too much to fly with anyways.

"I'll take the stairs then," Purple muttered to herself, climbing up the metal stairs to the platform. Looking down, she saw the root of the problem; a coolant tank was partially opened from the fight with the malfunctioning Dragon. Purple hooked her suit to a maintenance rappel and slowly descended to the opened tank.

Purple messaged the robot on her radio. "Dragon, how do I fix an unstable coolant valve?"

"You will have to replace it," replied Dragon. "I can remotely route the coolant to another tank while you replace the valve so that it does not flood the engine room."

"No flooding sounds nice," said Purple. "Do it."

"Rerouting has started." The tank rumbled as its coolant pumped out into an adjacent tank. The broken valve on the tank shook form the pumping, spraying out a pressured stream of coolant onto Purple's suit.

"Whoa, okay," Purple squealed, "that's cold, that's really cold. Glad I have this suit."

With telekinesis, Purple pulled out a few screws from the tank and the valve clattered down to the engine room floor. She ruffled around the tool box and found a spare valve, as well as brand new screws for it. Using magic, Purple fitted the valve and put in the new screws, tightening them as far as they would go.

"Dragon," Purple beamed, "I fixed the tank valve, you can send back the coolant."

"Okay Purple," said Dragon.

"So, anything else I need to do?" Purple inquired.

"Only minor fixes around the engine room, however," Dragon added, "I detected power has been sent to the secondary repair drones, meaning the ship will fix the rest of the damages to the engine room."

"Perfect," Purple sighed with relief. "I am done with hot engine rooms for a while now. How's the progress on the data recovery?"

Dragon took a moment to reply. "Incomplete, however, I have recovered a lunch calendar. Today's special is dried preserved blueberries."

Purple scrunched her face in disgust. "I'll pass on that, Dragon. Just keep me posted on the progress."

"Of course. Also, Pink just left a message for you; she finished activating the weapon and shield systems and wishes to chat with you. She's waiting in the cargo bay."

Purple looked down at the cold, wet, coolant suit as she left the engine room. "You know what," she said to herself," I don't think this is the best outfit to wear around the ship."

==========

Purple trotted into the cargo bay through the locker room, changed out of the coolant suit. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"I found a code written on a notepad at the weapons console. I tried using it on the locks on these crates," Pink said.

"Okay," Purple looked at the opened crates, their contents covered in bubble wrap and foam padding. "What's inside then?"

Pink reached down with her mouth and pulled off the covers, revealing the cargo.

Purple gasped, "Holy shit, that can't be-"

"Well, it is," interrupted Pink. "We're not what we assumed we were. We're shipping explosives, machine guns, grenades, mortars, and one hell of an ammunition cache."

Purple's eyebrows furrowed in thought. "But, that can't be right. Weapon shipments are illegal in most of the galaxy, or at least I think it is."

"So do I," said Pink. "Which makes me wonder who we really are."

"There must be a reason, we couldn't be arms dealers, well White seems to be into that kind of thing, but I know I'm not. There's no way-" Purple was cut off by a message from Dragon.

"I found a significant file from the crew's files. Would you like to see it?"

"Yes," Purple looked to Pink, "now would be a really good time to learn who we are."

"From the robot?" asked Pink.

Purple nodded. "Let's sort this weapons thing out."

==========

"I'm serious Apple, we shouldn't have to take orders from a pony who can't even tell us she's a legitimate alicorn," White said to Apple. "How can we trust her? Alicorns are super powerful, right? Powerful enough to take memories and screw with our minds, even."

Apple struggled at the repair drone console. "Quit moving your drone over to my side, I got this. And if she did take our memories, why would she let us wake up? She nearly destroyed that robot with her magic, she could put us back right now if she wanted." Apple jerked her controls over to the left. "Quit it!"

White grunted, "I think something's wrong with my drone."

Apple shot back, "I think something's wrong with you."

"Don't be like that Apple," White sighed. "We're the only ones thinking strait around here. Yellow's a total softy, Purple's got secrets, Pink's being the 'brooding silent type,' and Rainbow's a pegasus with crispy wings."

"Okay, that last one was a bit too soon," Apple lectured. "Besides, it's probably just the amnesia effecting them. I'm sure each of us has some big secret or-"

White and Apple's radios crackled on. "Everypony, please come to the meeting room next to the bridge. Dragon's found a file on who we were and I think you'd like to see it. I know I do."

Apple released the controls of the repair drone. "Hurry up, we can take care of that later."

"Yeah yeah," replied White, "don't get your hat all ruffled up, I'm coming."

==========

Every pony filled into the screening room. There was a long meeting table and soft cushioned office chairs, but no pony could stand still, let alone sit. White and Apple were the last ones to enter the room.

"Woo," howled White, "that's a pretty looking picture of me, don't you think Apple?"

Apple huffed. "Ponies always look a little better in a picture."

"Hey, this is serious you two," Yellow interjected. "Take a closer look and listen to Dragon."

"These are the files of the six crew members aboard this ship, the Harmony," Dragon motioned to the screen on one side of the room.

Every pony looked at their files, horrified, surprised, mostly a little of both.

Dragon looked strait at White and began reading the details. "Rarity, wanted for: murder, assault, theft, piracy."

Dragon turned to Apple. "Applejack, wanted for: assault, smuggling, terrorism."

The robot stared directly at Yellow. "Fluttershy, wanted for: murder, assault, kidnapping, theft, piracy."

Then to Pink. "Pinkamena Diane Pie, wanted for: murder, assault, arson, vehicular manslaughter, terrorism, theft, smuggling, piracy."

Dragon glanced behind Pink to Rainbow. "Rainbow Dash, wanted for: vehicular manslaughter, theft, smuggling, piracy."

And finally to Purple. "Twilight Sparkle, wanted for: murder, assault, arson, theft, smuggling."

"Holy shit," whispered Apple.

Dragon closed its eyes, changing the screen to a picture of a barren planet. "This was the destination of the ship before it malfunctioned and stopped, Terrus Rhina-4. According to the data cache, you six were sent here to kill every inhabitant of this farming outpost."