Neighvarro Audio Medical Records Department: session 133-65B
Presiding Medical Officer - Major Glowing Dawn
Patient - Technician 2nd Grade Drizzledrop
Date - November 4th, 189 A.B
Begin Playback? Y/N
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"My name is Major Glowing Dawn and I am the chief therapist stationed here at Camp Neighvarro. This recording is of my session with Technician 2nd Grade Drizzledrop, "Driz" to her friends, according to her personality profile. As of five days ago Technician Drillzedrop was recovered half a mile from the crash site of the Raptor Northwind which was performing a standard long range patrol along the edge of the northwest sea and the Whitecap mountain range. She was in a delirious state and has only recently recovered enough to give a testimony as to the events that transpired on board the Northwind[. Contact was lost with the Northwind approximately ten days into its patrol route, presumably due to storm interference from an offshore squall that, according to the Raptor's last transmission, 'appeared suddenly and behaved strangely.'
Recovery and investigation of the crash site, nearly twelve hours later and over sixty miles from the Raptor's last known location revealed only one survivor; Technician Drizzledrop. It is unknown if her position half a mile from the crash site was the result of an attempt to abandon ship or if she was flung clear of whatever disaster befell the vessel. No other crewponies have been recovered, or indeed their bodies even located. I will not speculate on the numerous theories running rampant around base as to the events that occurred on board the Northwind, as this session is meant to get a clear and concise statement from Technician Drizzledrop as to the events of that twelve hour period."
*A pause, then the sound of a buzzer*
"Send her in."
*The creak of a door opening, hoofsteps, short and timid*
"Please, have a seat on the couch Technician Drizzledrop. Do you want something to drink? Water? Coffee?"
"I, uh, yeah, water would be good..."
*The sound of leather creaking followed by the noise of water dripping into a paper cup. Some rustling.*
"How are you feeling, Technician Drizzledrop?"
"F-fine I guess? I haven't slept much. Do you know if they've found anypony else? Gearwing, or Sergeant Falcontail? They rushed me out so fast I didn't see if they'd pulled anypony else out but there have to have been others! There were still others, I heard them, in the walls and vents, before the crash! Falcontail has to be alive!"
"Please be calm, Technician Drizzledrop, or may I call you 'Driz' as your friends are allowed to?"
"Um...okay. That's fine. But... did they find anypony else? Please, just tell me."
"I'm afraid to say that as of now you are the only known survivor of whatever occurred on board the Northwind. I'm hoping to gain some clarification from you as to exactly what did transpire between the time of 0722 when we lost contact and the time of 1919 when the Northwind re-appeared on radar."
"Wait a sec, 1919? That's twelve... we were only in there for three... four hours tops. I mean I wasn't counting but it couldn't have been that long before we got rid of that thing and... I can’t be the only one you found."
*The noise of a choking sob, the dropping of a paper cup on linoleum*
"I can’t be."
"Technician, ahem, Driz, I understand you've gone through a very traumatic experience. Understand that everything is being done that can possibly be done to investigate this matter, and you currently are our most key component to that investigation. We need to know exactly what occurred, and I hope you'll be willing to tell me. You can take your time, we can take this slowly, but I need your head clear, please. Perhaps it will be easier if you start from the very beginning of that morning?"
*Another, small sob, then the sound of gulping and a deep breath*
"Y-yes. I can do that. I just... I'm sorry, Major. My friends and comrades, everypony I knew on that ship, it just hit me that... they're gone."
"Losing comrades in the line of duty is a heavy burden all who swear the oath to the Enclave must face. You are, by my estimation, a very brave mare to be managing any semblance of composure, and I thank you for it. Now, from the beginning?"
"Right. Okay, uh, gotta get it all straight in my head. That morning I woke up at 0500 for my duty shift. I, uh, okay so Falcontail and me, we sometimes shared each other's bunks."
"Perfectly understandable. It's not against regulations, so you needn't hide it from me."
"I know, I just get embarrassed. Me and Falcon kind of hit it off quick after I got assigned to the Northwind and I usually don't, well, get into bed that fast, but he knew a lot of tech-talk for a combat flier and we both had a thing for collecting hoofball cards and... and I'm getting of topic. Anyway, Falcontail had come to my bunk that night so he was in my quarters when I woke up to go to my post on engineering level two. Just pounded down a cup of joe that Bypass brewed up and got to work on the third engine prop shaft, which had been giving us all a lot of trouble the past week of the patrol."
"Had there been any unusual occurrences during the course of the patrol up until that point?"
"No, uh, not in engineering anyway. I mean, the usual tech glitches, sure. But it'd been smoothing sailing, all things considered. I mean, with the Whitecaps to starboard all the time."
"Are the Whitecaps of particular note? They're a fairly small mountain range."
"Y-yeah, but... okay I guess you wouldn't know, being stationed all permanently and such here in Neighvarro. I mean, have you ever been on patrol, Major?"
"Only a few times during my ROTC. I've been a base girl for most of my career."
"Right, then you wouldn't know. The Whitecaps have, er, a reputation. One of being, well... haunted."
"Haunted?"
"I know, it sounds dumb. But it's true that most patrols out by that mountain range get a lot of weird sensor readings. Ghosts all over the radar. Weird signals. There was even this one time I heard a gunner on the Morning Blade swear up and down that she saw a weird purple glow coming from one of the deeper mountain valley's when she'd been on lookout duty. It's all stuff like that. We enlisted kind of like to share a few spook stories, especially around Nightmare Night, you know? With it being Nightmare Night that day and with the Whitecaps being right there everypony was just a bit on edge, you know? Bypass and Oilspit were already trading a few spook stories as we worked. It was all just dumb fun, but..."
"But rumor tends to take root in the mind. I can sympathize. Long range patrols can do strange things to the mind, and rumor can spark such boredom into seeing or hearing that which is not real."
"Well... what happened to my ship, and my friends, that was real. Too real."
“That’s what we’re here to determine. Take your time, think it through, and please continue.”
“T-thanks. Okay, so, the first hour went by pretty breezy. Got the calibration specs for the prop shaft and we drew lots over who’d go out onto the hull to make the adjustments. I of course drew the short straw, but hey, I don’t mind a little airtime. We logged it with the lookouts and I went out the top hatch. It... it was a pretty nice morning, I guess. Clear sky above, just starting to turn pearly blue from the sun coming up. The clouds below...”
“...Yes? Do continue.”
“You know how the cloud sea always looks like a pretty solid gray wall, with some gentle rolls to it? Right so the Whitecaps were piercing through that to the west, pretty normal, and the cloud cover dropped off a bit to the east into the ocean, only that’s how it's supposed to be but something was off. The clouds were extending out into the ocean way more than usual. They looked... stretched, like taffy. I didn’t think about it at first, I just flew over to engine three and got to work on the prop shaft. By the time I was done it was probably close to 0700, and when I went to head back in I noticed that there was this weird cloud front that’d taken shape out over the ocean. I mean... just weird.”
“Weird? How, exactly? Try to be specific.”
*The noise of shuffle on the couch, a creak of wood*
“It was white, but not... not like white is supposed to look. It had this grainy texture. Clouds aren’t supposed to look grainy but these one’s did. There was just this huge bank of grainy white cloud over the ocean, spreading out north and south and curving inward like... like a big mouth. I remember when I looked at those clouds I felt this cold jolt, right down my back. I... I don’t think I’ve ever felt that wigged out. The cloud bank had these little wisps coming out of it too. No, not wisps. Tendrils. They looked like tendrils. I went back inside pretty quick after that, and I guess Gearwing thought I looked a bit spooked, or tired, or something because he sent me on to grab breakfast right after that, even though we engineering techs usually didn’t hit up the gally until 0800 after the flight crew have eaten.”
“So you were in the galley when the Northwind went out of contact at 0722?”
“Not exactly. I mean, yeah I went to the galley to grab some grub, but when things went down, I mean really went down I was on my way back to engineering. The galley was still full up with the flight crew taking breakfast when I went there. The Northwind works on three duty shifts, and this was the one about to relieve the night crew. This included the combat fliers, both squadrons, so all the air grunts were there along with Falcontail who’d finally gotten his butt out of bed. I ate with him and his wingmates. They’re alright for sky pounders, they don’t make too much fun of me for being a techie. Heh, Orange Squeeze had just finished this raunchy joke when ponies started to notice the clouds out the windows and... things started to get weird.”
“Do you remember approximately what time it was when this occurred?”
“No, I mean, eating never takes me long, so it couldn’t have been much past 0710, I guess? Ponies were pointing out the window and more and more of us gathered up there to look. Falcon, he was right next to me and I remember his face got this look, this confused look, and it worried the shit out of me. Falcontail’s got a lot of flight experience compared to me, or even a lot of the other combat fliers. I figured if anypony would know what was up with those strange clouds it was him, but he didn’t have a damn clue what he was looking at any more than we did. The clouds were closer now, too. I... I swear I saw some of those tendrils reaching towards us. Somepony mentioned the Whitecaps, and there were a few nervous chuckles, like nopony really wanted to believe anything out of the ordinary was happening... I don’t know, Falcon gave me this quick hug, and told me to head back to engineering. His voice had that hard tone to it that shows up any time he’s trying to act tough. I didn’t argue and I started trotting back to my post... that’s when it all started to happen.”
*A long pause, seconds dripping by.*
“Technician Drizzledrop?”
*The sound of rapid breathing, a gulping noise, then a sudden fumbling sound followed by the noise of water entering a cup and quick gulps*
“Haaa...haa...s-sorry, I just, I need a moment.”
“I understand. Do you want perhaps something to calm your nerves? It isn’t strictly to regulation but I do keep a small stock of... spirits, in the bottom drawer of my desk.”
“Heh, you’d let me get sloshed while taking an official statement?”
“Majors can bend the rules here and there, but I wouldn’t let you drink to detriment, just enough to steady yourself, if you wish.”
“...No, no I’m okay. My memories are kind of a mess. It's like some parts of this are blurry as a thick fog, while other parts are so damn sharp I feel like I’m being cut by them! And the first, real sharp memory is that wail.”
“Wail?”
“I don’t know what else to call it. I was in the D corridor near the aft, almost back to engineering, when this sound cuts right through the hull, through the whole ship I think. So loud, I could feel it down to my bones. It undulated, but I couldn’t tell you if it was high pitched or low, or even what made it, something organic or mechanical. I don’t think whatever made that wail had a mouth, or a transmitter, or anything that resembled a way to make noise like we know noise is supposed to sound... because this damn wail felt entirely, utterly, purely unnatural. I don’t know what made the wail, only that whatever it was, it didn’t belong here. It didn’t belong anywhere. I... felt that wail brush up on my soul and it made me want to curl into a ball and scream.”
“Could it have been some kind of system failure in the Northwind’s intercom? Static or some sort?”
“Did what I just describe sound like static!?”
“I’ve heard some pretty nasty feedback from glitches in communication systems before.”
“Well, this wasn’t a com glitch. This was... was not anything to do with our systems. It nearly put me on the deck, bawling like a foal. When my head cleared a minute later the captain’s voice was coming in over the coms anyway so I don’t think the system was broken.”
“Ah, that would be Captain Noblemane.”
“Yeah, she’s...she was a good officer. Kinda a mother hen, but she kept morale up, you know? Wasn’t too much of a hardflank, but didn’t let us slack either. When I heard her voice on the coms it calmed me down, even if what she was saying wasn’t anything good. She was calling us to general quarters and to brace for turbulence. We were changing course, into the Whitecaps.”
“Did she give a reason for the course change?”
“No, but she didn’t have to. I mean, just rushing back to my post I could get a look out a porthole and see what was happening. We were changing course, turning from our northward route to head west towards Whitecaps. I think we were going for one of the mountain passes. The reason why, well I guess I don’t know what was going on up on the bridge, but I saw that weird cloud bank coming towards the coast, and heading right for us. It was moving too fast. Way too fast.”
“What do you mean?”
“As in no normal weather moves like that. Not without hurricane force winds behind it. Even then the glimpse I caught of those clouds made it look like the whole damn thing was coming alive and closing in on us. Chasing us.”
“Are you suggesting this... unusual weather formation was somehow actively pursuing your ship?”
"I'm not suggesting it, I'm saying that's what it looked like and pretty damn sure that's what it was. The screwy ass tendril cloud thing was chasing the Northwind and the captain ordered us into the Whitecaps to try and shake it. I can't think of any other explanation for what happened. I got back to the engine room and Gearwing and the others are all wigging out a bit. I mean I didn't blame them I was feeling pretty shaky after that wail thing played wet willies with my soul. Everypony was nervous and while somepony tried to crack a joke here and there it was pretty obvious we knew some serious shit was flying our way.
So there we were, half a dozen jittery techs, all watching our monitors and trying real hard to pretend that things were normal, when the power starts to seriously start fluctuating. Lights snapping on and off, terminal screens going wonky, and the engines rattling like somepony had stuffed a bag of empty cans into the turbines. We start getting some drop offs in energy output from the generators that don't have any clear cause, and our screens start spitting some garbled mess of data at us that doesn't make any damn sense!"
"How so, exactly?"
"Major, when it comes to the engines on a Raptor there's a pretty strict balance to maintain between the propulsion of the turbines and the generation of our own clouds that keep that hunk of metal floating. There's more arcaneotech sensors jammed into the bulkheads and wire conduits of that ship than there are carbs packed into a block of field rations. So anything goes wrong, we can get a clear, concise picture of what's going wrong, and where. That way we can fix it and keep the ship flying, and nopony dies a horrible flaming death, yeah? Only now our sensors are spitting data at us that makes zero sense, like the air pressure outside is now consistent with being submerged two hundred meters underbuckingwater!
Gearwing got on the horn with the bridge to tell them what was going on, but the com systems was also acting screwy by now so he only got half a conversation with the captain. She sounded strained from what I could hear. I remember she said something to Gearwing about needing more engine power, but he was telling her there was jack all we could do without seriously risking an engine failure with our sensors all messed up. She ordered more power to be dumped into the engines anyway and Gearwing... I think he was more surprised than any us to hear it because the captain had this note of panic in her voice I never heard before when she gave that order."
"According to her files Captain Noblemane was not a mare prone to panic."
"That's what I mean. I don't know what they were seeing up on the bridge, but whatever it was it made the captain want to move as fast as the Northwind could move and damn the risks. And freaked out as we all were, well, we're good soldiers and we follow orders. Gearwing had us reroute power from the weapon banks into the engines and I could feel the ship surge forward, but that's also when it happened. The entire ship lurched and shook like we got hit by something. Something big, I think."
"Could you have clipped one of the mountain's or taken weapons fire?"
"I don't think so. I mean, I can't be sure, but the way the hull just shifted backwards, throwing all of us off our hooves like... like whiplash of epic proportions, makes me thing something grabbed us. Ship speed decreased, I didn't even have to look at my terminal to tell that. I could feel the engines straining against something. That's when the wail came back, gave our ears a good cornholing, and I think I might've passed out for a second that time because the next thing I remember was blinking my eyes open with Oilspit shaking me and shouting my name like she was afraid I was dead or something. She was shivering. The whole damn engine room had gotten cold, like were were in a fridge."
"Was this near the time of 0722 when we lost contact with the Northwind?"
"Major, checking the chronometer was last thing on my mind right then. If I had to guess, yeah, it had to have been pretty close to that time, but my memory starts to get... fuzzy at around this point. Oilspit had woken me up, but me and her were the only one's in the engine room. I asked where Gearwing and the others had gone but she told me she passed out just like I did and just happened to wake up first. Poor filly was near hyperventilating. Said she'd been hearing all sorts of strange noises in the hull and that the ship wasn't moving. I checked the terminal readouts but they were now utterly snafu, just showing this constant scrawl of babble and code spew that made my head hurt. But I could feel the vibrations in the hull were different, and that Oilspit was right; the Northwind was dead in the air. Not falling, but not moving forward anymore either. As for the noises, well, I started hearing things too. Sounded like faint talking, or shouting, like distant voices coming in through the vents but in that muffled way you might hear hushed conversation through a door. Couldn't make anything out, and it was constantly punctuated by this... this pulsing noise. It'd undulate randomly for a second then fade, then come back in this grinding manner. Reminded me almost of a heartbeat.
Anyway, staying put seemed like an unproductive choice, and I couldn't raise anypony on the intercom, so I figured the only move to make was to try and leave the engine room and find out what happened. Oilspit nearly screeched my head off about how that was crazy and we had to stay at our posts. I had to put a steadying hoof on her shoulders and tell her to calm her breaths and think things through. We couldn't just stay put and wait. The ship was clearly in trouble, and who knew if our comrades were also in danger. Just sitting around was going to do nothing, and scared as we were, we were conscious and we were Enclave soldiers with a responsibility to our ship and crew! The pep talk sounded good to my ears but I don't know how much Oilspit bought into it. She did calm down, though, and agreed to come with me. I think, maybe, I was... I was too chickenshit to leave on my own and that's why I talked her into coming, but... anyway the engine room does have a small weapons locker so me and Oilspit grabbed a pair of laser pistols from there and went out into the ship's corridors. That's where things started to get even weirder."
"Actually I'd like us to take a break here, Driz. You've given me much to think about and I imagine we both could use something to eat at this point. We shall take a half hour lunch break and pick this up afterwards."
"Alright. Yeah, that sounds good, actually. Some painkillers would be awesome right about now, too. I've got this mounting headache the more I try to remember everything that happened."
"I'll ensure we acquire something for your pain before we begin this session again."
*The sound of leather rustling, the noise of several hoofsteps, followed by a click*
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...
...
*A click, the sound of one pair of hooves shuffling*
"Technician Drizzledrop will be joining me shortly once again, but I let her have a moment to collect her thoughts before coming in. Thus far her report of events on board the Northwind is intriguing, if highly suspect. Recovery of the Raptor's black box shows that indeed the ship made a turn towards the Whitecap mountains at around the time Drizzledrop mentions, however there is no record of any 'grainy tendril clouds' or the like. The recording cuts off only six minutes after the Northwind entered the mountain passes, albeit to static of an unknown origin. Teams sweeping the ship after its crash on the eastern edge of the mountains indicate unusual exterior damage, again from unknown origins. There are certainly signs of weapons fire inside the ship, the patterns in accordance with standard issue shipboard weapons. Could this have been a mutiny gone wrong? A terrorist attack by radical Wasteland elements? Or is Technician Drizzledrop telling the truth and the ship fell victim to something more... extraordinary? I suppose I should not speculate until I've heard Technician Drizzledrop's story in full."
*A few minutes pass in silence, then the sound of a door opening*
"Welcome back Technician. Are you ready to resume?"
"Yes. Thanks for the break. I needed to get my head in order a bit. There's still a lot about this I just... just can't get my head wrapped around. More than anything I don't understand why I'm the only one it let go."
"What do you mean by 'it', precisely? The cloud with the tendrils?"
"Maybe? I don't know for sure if the cloud was just an extension of it or not, but there was... there was something in the ship. Inside the Northwind. Not, like, physically, exactly. More like the ship had been..."
"...Yes? Go on."
"Like it'd been possessed by something. Possessed by a force that just wasn't like anything we could understand. You'll see what I mean in a sec. We were just at the part where Oilspit and I left the engine room to go explore the ship. I was worried about Falcontail, so my first thought was to get to the starboard flight deck. In an emergency situation combat squadrons would be on standby there, so I figured that'd be where I'd find him... only the moment we left the engine room I realized things weren't right. The corridors had changed."
"Changed?"
"Stuff wasn't where it was supposed to be. The corridor out of the engine room is supposed to be about twenty paces to a junction that'll either take you port towards medical, or starboard towards the cargo hold. That wasn't what we saw, though. The corridor went on way further than twenty paces, and into the dark. The lights were all messed up, like the light couldn't go very far, so it left all these little pools of light amid a big river of darkness. Oilspit said she smelled something bad in the air but I didn't smell anything myself. We started trotting along, and those faint voices in the walls got a bit louder. I could make out a bit of it, but it was all strange gibberish. I don't think the voices were talking Equestrian.
We kept going, and it was near five minutes of trotting before we got to the junction that should've been only a short trot ahead. When we got there, I saw something dripping out of one of the ceiling vents. First I thought it was blood, because it was dark, and kind of viscous, but when we got closer I found it was some kind of oil. I don't think it was motor oil, or the kind we use to grease up some of the shipboard machinery. It kind of smelled like fish oil, but off, kind of with this ozone whiff. Oilspit herself said this was what she'd been smelling but I hadn't noticed it until we were on top of the stuff. I don't know where it was coming from and I wasn't about to open the vent to find out. I took us towards starboard. The cargo hold has this access hatch to the next level up, which is a short way to the hangar... but we ran into something before we could get to the cargo hold.
It was a door. A big, wooden, purple door, in the middle of the fucking corridor. It wasn't anchored to the walls or anything, but it was big enough to block most the hall, so we couldn't' slip past it. It was kind of bent, too, like you see those funny mirrors that make your face look all weird. The door was bent and twisty like that, but it you could still tell what it was, with a handle and everything."
"Technician Drizzledrop, are you meaning to tell me a mysterious, oblong door merely appeared in the middle of the ship corridor?"
"Major that's not even a fraction of the weirdest thing that happened. I mean, there we are, looking at this door, when Oilspit starts having this panic attack. She starts shaking and looking behind us and starts muttering that the 'black stuff' was going to come get us. I think she meant the oil we found, but I don't know, because she just keeps shaking, and then clutched at her head, and shouts something like 'its going into my skin!' and then she bolts for the damn door! She flings it open before I get a chance to react and runs... inside."
"Inside?"
"Inside, as in the door didn't open up to the other side of the corridor, but instead led to an entirely different place. I could see stone walls and what looked like stalagmites through the door, before the thing slammed shut on its own, with Oilspit on the other side. I tried opening it, but the second I tried touching the handle my hoof went through the door and it just... vanished, like a spark going out. I... I didn't see Oilspit again. I don't know where she went. The door took her somewhere, but clearly didn't want me."
"I see. What happened after this?"
"I'm not entirely sure, honestly. I... I think I panicked some myself, after losing Oilspit. I remember starting to trot, then to gallop, down the corridors and wanting to just find Falcontail and get out, but I couldn't get anywhere. The corridors weren't right and I kept getting turned around. There were too many turns. Too many times the corridors twisted in ways the ship never had before. I kept running until I was having trouble breathing, and by the time I was calm and thinking again I was so lost and turned around I couldn't tell you where I was on the ship. The corridor I was in at that point had a bunch of hatchets on either side and the ceiling felt too low, like I was being pressed in. I tried one of the hatchets and discovered I was in the barracks for the combat fliers on the top deck. Or at least some approximation of that. Maybe... maybe I was having things put into my head. I had this headache, then, kind of like what I had a bit before. I think I was in the ship but whatever was in the ship was messing with my mind. That could be why Oilspit freaked out the way she did. Maybe she was seeing and feeling things I wasn't? Maybe there wasn't a door there at all?"
"Focus, Driz. You opened a hatch and discovered you were in the barracks for the Northwind's compliment of combat fliers?"
“Y-yeah. The fliers usually bunk four to a room. Kinda why Falcontail tended to come to my bunk. The room the hatch opened into wasn’t his, but I recognized it as one of his squadmate’s from the plates on the hatch. I didn’t look in there too long, just enough to make sure there wasn't anypony inside. The inside was a mess, though, like there'd been a struggle. I was starting to see signs of that, of ponies fighting, with blast marks on the bulkheads and... and occasional streaks or drops of blood. What was weird was that all the blood was really old and dried up, like it'd been there for a long time.
I was pretty damn jumpy at that point. Had my laser pistol in my mouth and was stopping every time the hull creaked or I thought I saw a shadow move. I kept checking the crew quarters, hoping to find somepony, anypony. Heheh...when I did I almost accidentally shot his head off, poor bastard. Gearwing literally came up behind me while I was checking one of the quarters. Just called my name right there behind me and I spun around pulling the trigger. Missed him by a tailhair, and I don't think I ever heard him cuss that loud.
Once I was done apologizing my ass off to him and we both calmed down a bit I had to ask him what the hell happened to him and the others. You know what he told me? He told me it was him and the others that woke up in the engine room and it was me and Oilspit that went missing. Seriously, he had the same experience me and Oilspit did, only with us being the ones mysteriously vanished. Said he told the rest of the engine techs to stay behind while he came out to go figure out what was going on."
"How is it possible for the two of you to have identical experiences over the same time period, only with your roles reversed? I'm afraid I don't follow your logic, Technician Drizzledrop."
"Major, in case you weren't paying attention, logic went flying out the damn porthole the second our ship got caught by... whatever caught us. Its was like time and space stopped meaning anything and all the rules were changing, mutating, both outside us and... and I think inside us too. I feel like my perceptions were being altered, toyed with, or... or maybe guided. Honestly I don't even know if Gearwing, the Gearwing I met in that corridor, was real. He talked like Gearwing, looked like him, even swore like him, but maybe it wasn't him? Or maybe it was and we were both just seeing different things, the same way Oilspit saw or felt something different when she went through that purple door.
I couldn't trust my senses anymore, and all I wanted was to find Falcon and get off that damned ship. Still, I was pretty stoked to find Gearwing, and after we compared notes we decided two things. One; we stick together, and don't let the other wander off or anything even if it meant tackling and restraining one another. Then two; since we were on the top deck, we needed to try for the bridge. I... a part of me really wanted to still try and get to the hangar, but Gear made a damn good point that if we were going to have any real chance of getting out of this we needed to get to where the ship's helm and sensors were. If I really wanted to help Falcontail, my best chance was by getting the ship itself out of danger.
So we hopped to it and started making for the bridge, which shouldn't have been more than two or three corridor turns away from the barracks. As I bet you can guess, it didn't take long for us to run into another roadblock, and this one was a doozy.
Me and Gear, we turn this corner, both of us trying to ignore how loud the voices coming out of the bulkheads are getting. Loud enough that I can pick out the language they're speaking in, though damn all if I knew what it was. Had this old-timey ancient sound to it, lots of v's and z's in it. Anyway, we turn this corner, that's supposed to be the corridor to the last stretch to the bridge, only instead it opens up into the lower deck cargo bay. We're suddenly on the opposite damned end of the shp we wanted to be, and the cargo bay is... its like twice the size its supposed to be. And it doesn't have any of the cargo it normally has, but instead is cleared out except for two things, a whole bunch of the crew, and this... pyramid."
"Pyramid?"
"You know, kind of like a triangle but with this nifty third dimension to it?"
"I meant, could you please describe this 'pyramid' in more detail?"
"Not sure I could even if I wanted to. My eyes, they hurt just looking at it. It wasn't quite green and it wasn't quite black, but like some messed up prismatic combination of those two extremes and everything in between. It radiated that impossible color like a glow that wasn't a light, but rather a bucket of paint that stabbed your eyes if you tried looking at it too directly. I think it had patterns on it, but I couldn't tell. The floor was covered in a fog, a grainy white fog, just like the cloud outside. Little wispy tendrils of the stuff was floating up and touching the crew..."
"Technician Driz?"
"It was inside them. Inside all of us, but only a hook. Like fishing. Only the more it pulled at you the deeper the hook went. Right to the soul. I... I think that's what it wanted. Not our bodies. I don't think it cared about those. It was after something deeper. I don't know why some of us were less affected than others. Why were me and Gear still kind of us, while so many others were just... shells?
The crew just stood around the thing, twenty or more of them, including Captain Noblemane. I saw her staring into that pyramid with these dead glass eyes that made me want to vomit. Everything about her face was slack and pale, the way a piece of fruit looks after you drain all the juice out of it, just leaving behind the... husk.
Falcontail was there, too, near the back of the group, tranced out but at least his eyes had some spark left in them.
I think Gear tried to stop me, maybe, I thought I remember him yelling at me to stop as I ran to Falcon. Just galloped up to him and started shaking him. I remember feeling cold and clammy as those tendrils started feeling around me, looking for a spot to dig in. I just, I couldn't think straight. I'm pretty sure I was panicking. I was screaming at Falcon and he just wouldn't look at me, and I could see his eyes draining. So I just... I just shoved him as hard as I could. He didn't resist, just fell over like a lifeless plastic doll, breathing but not there.
Gearwing got to me then, gave this hard slap. Screamed at me that we had to run. Those tendrils were starting to cling all over us, barely solid, but enough I could feel their tips, like frozen icicles, pushing at my hide. But I couldn’t leave Falcontail there, you understand? I couldn’t leave him there! I... I spotted the emergency release lever for one of the cargo bay’s loading hatches and it just hit me that a sudden change in pressure ought to make a vacuum to suck out all the fog.
Seemed like a good idea at the time.
I lunged for that lever, buzzed my wings so hard I thought they’d fly right off my body, plucked like the wings of a mosquito. I don’t think the pyramid liked that, because it was like it shaped that wail into a hammer and slammed it straight into the back of my skull. I felt my ears bleeding, and the same warm wetness from my nose, my eyes. I kept going. I just kept pushing my wings to move even as my vision turned red from the blood leaking through my vision. I hit the lever and the hatch flew open, and there was an explosion of changing air pressure. Suction was strong enough to pull out that fog the pyramid was making, and pull a few of the crew off their hooves, but not drag them too far until I could close the hatch again.
With the fog cleared for a sec I could actually see some of the crewponies coming back to their senses, blinking like they’d been sleeping or daydreaming. Falcontail too, I... I remember seeing him raising his head and looking around with this dopey ass look on his face, like he was scared he’d been caught sleeping on guard duty or something.
My head just felt like a beaten sack of potatoes and I just couldn’t stay standing. Before I hit the deck I saw Gearwing was trying to get the dazed crewponies moving, to get everypony out of the cargo bay. Falcontail, he came for me, eyes so damned wide. I’ve never seen him scared before. Look didn’t suit him. I felt him grab me, dragging me along. The pyramid was wailing again and so many ponies were screaming now, all at once, some of them fell over babbling... babbling that same weird language. I think I was babbling it then, too. My mouth was moving, making noises I didn’t understand.
I’m not sure what happened next. I tried to walk, I think, but it didn’t work and I felt hooves carrying me. I head energy weapons firing but I can’t remember at what. No, wait...
... I remember figures in white robes. Or, or maybe they were just wearing the fog, like robes? Where they the crewponies who couldn’t get away? I don’t know. I was being carried, and any time I saw a figure in white it didn’t look like they were moving, but kept getting closer regardless. The hoods showed no faces, and I know I heard Falcontail shouting to Gearwing about ‘Turn it off! Shut it off!’... What, I don’t know.”
“So you believe you were being chased by fellow crew members? That there was fighting amongst the crew?”
“Huh? I don’t now. Maybe the pyramid could turn some of them into puppets with its freaky fog? Fuck if I can tell you for sure, I just have fragments of what happened after that wail did a number on my skull. Next clear memory I had was having the terrible tasting goop of a healing potion shoved down my throat in the medbay. Gear and Falcon, along with maybe three or four others, managed to get us all there and we were catching our breaths. Falcontail was feeding me the potion, the jerk.”
“For giving you a healing potion?”
“I’m not serious, really it felt good. It's just I hate the taste of those things.”
“They’re grape flavored.”
“I don’t know what somepony in medical research thinks grapes taste like, but that’s not it. Anyway, the potion helped, but my head still echoed with a buzz of pain. Everypony looked dead tired. A lot of them were mumbling too, even Gearwing and me. Its like our heads got stuck with little snippets of that weird language, just dripping out of our mouths like a freaky case of tourette's syndrome. Falcontail was... pretty pissed off. I think he only knew how to deal with shit like this by getting angry and wanting to blow it up. He suggested we try to hit the armory, load for war, and go blast that pyramid to otherwordly chunks. Gearwing was of the opinion that was a stupid plan and that there was no reason to think normal firepower would do dick. He wanted to still try and go to the bridge to bring the ship under control.
Me, my vote was for finding the nearest airlock and taking our chances making a run for it. It’d only been maybe an hour or two by then, and I didn’t know why we hadn’t slammed face first into a mountainside if nopony was at the ship’s helm. Best guess around the table was that the cloud pyramid thing was keeping the ship from moving.
So we had three options on the table. Attack the pyramid, try to go to the bridge, or bug out. Somepony mentioned just sitting tight and waiting for rescue but she got stared down by the rest of us. I don’t think even she really liked that idea even as she said it.”
“Would it not have made sense to simply follow the lead of the highest ranking crewpony?”
“That would’ve been Gearwing, who as a 2nd lieutenant was the only officer in the bunch. Falcontail was next up as a corporal. Thing is I don’t think Gear was up for taking charge. We were all scared beyond our normal wits by then. Maybe he didn’t trust his own judgement. I mean, what the flaming skies is the protocol for dealing with a situation like that!? Sorry Major but there isn’t exactly a field manual for dealing with freaky space/time pyramid clouds that suck your soul out! Doubt there’s a course for it in the officer training program either.”
“...Indeed, there is not. However there is training for dealing with emergency and unusual circumstances. However I’m not here to critique Gearwing’s performance as an officer, but merely to get your side of the story.”
“From what I’ve been able to piece together I’m pretty much the only side of the story you have. They haven’t found anypony else, have they?”
“No, but the physical investigation is still ongoing and may tell a tale of its own. I will admit that thus far your account, highly extraordinary as it is, does not contradict what physical evidence has been collected thus far. However there are also large holes between your account and what has been found on site. Certainly no signs of any strange pyramids, tendril clouds, or odd space/time anomalies have been noticed by the teams sweeping the ship and the area around it.”
“I don’t think that thing, whatever it was, intended to stick around to give autographs. It came, had its... fun, then left. Left with my comrades and for some reason left me behind...”
“How did that occur? Is your testimony reaching its close?”
“Yes. Not much more. I guess you could say things escalated quickly. You remember that oil stuff that me and Oilspit ran into? Well, the walls and vents in the medbay started leaking that stuff. Like, a lot of it. It got on one of the other crewponies and he started convulsing all over the place. I could see the... well, it wasn’t oil, that’s for damn sure, because I could see it burrowing around under his fur. We rushed out of there before anypony else could get that stuff on them, but... but we left the other guy behind. I don’t even know what his name was but I’m not going to forget that sound he made as we galloped out of the medbay. I don’t think a pony’s throat is supposed to make that kind of noise.
By some small miracle we were able to stick together, us few survivors, but we didn’t know where to go. We hadn’t decided on a plan, and now we couldn’t trust even the bulkheads beneath our hooves. At that point we were just trying to stay alive. We weren’t paying attention to where we were running, just galloping down the corridors that i swear had gotten darker and rustier. The running didn’t stop until we ran into a dead end, that dead end being engineering. Yeah, we went through a hatch and there we were, right back where we had started.
Only, now, the engine room was changed. I could still recognize the shape of the room, the engines themselves, but it looked like the room had been infected. The bulkheads had changed, becoming worked over with this strange scrawling that looked like what would happen if you gave a disturbed, hyperactive foal a welding torch and let them go to town on the walls. There was a faint coating of that grainy white fog on the floor, and I could see tendrils reaching the terminals that controlled the engines.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that this... thing was trying to get even more control of our ship. Falcon and the others still looked confused, but I knew. I bucking knew that if we let this continue then the Northwind would stop being the Northwind and become part of whatever messed up horror had caught it. I couldn't let that happen. I told Gearwing that I had a plan and that he needed to turn around and get the others to an escape boat, or failing that just get out a hatch and try to fly to safety.
It was too late, though, that black oily shit was filling the corridor behind us and we were trapped. Gearwing, I think he knew what I wanted to do. He had this really grim look when he told everypony to head for the back of the engine room, near the ceiling where there was a hatch to enter the maintenance shafts between the engines. There's an exhaust chute there that would lead outside, but it'd be a tight fit.
Falcontial wanted to stay. The second everypony started heading into the maintenance shaft but he saw me staying behind, he flew right back to me and planted his hooves like he wasn't going to move. I tried arguing with him but the damn buck was so stubborn. Pissed me off a bit. I mean, what was he going to do? Shoot the freaky fog or oil crap with his laser? Thank the sky for Gearwing, because he gave Falcon a good smack upside the head and dragged his unconscious butt into the maintenance shaft. Gearwing, the last time I saw him or Falcontail was right before they went into the shaft, with me by the main engine terminal. We didn't say much. I just told him five minutes, and he told me 'good luck'."
"I don't understand. Five minutes? For what?"
"For me to set the engines to overload and knock the ship out of the sky."
"So you're the one responsible for the Norhtwind crashing? The engines showed signs of tampering but the investigation couldn't determine the source."
"I don't know how well my plan worked, Major. After they others were away down the shaft, hopefully heading for freedom out the exhaust chute, I had to set the terminal controls to start building a feedback loop of arcane energy into the storm engines. It was a complicated process, as I had to shut down one safety measure after another. The moment my hooves started flying over the controls the fog tendrils started... pushing into me. The oil was dripping into the engine room now, too."
*A pause, followed by heavy breathing*
"Are you alright, Technician Drizzledrop?"
"N-not really. I hit the button to start the overload sequence, then tried to fly for the maintenance hatch. That’s when some of the oil dripped onto me. Right onto my wing. My... left wing.”
“I understand if this is difficult for you, Driz.”
“No, I can keep going. We’re almost done. I just... my wing. That oil shit burned through me, Major. I’ve never... nothing’s ever hurt like that before. It was as if my blood just started boiling me from the inside out. It was all I could do just to keep my eyes open. I could barely think straight. My wing was turning black, Major and I was so desperate. I hit the bulkhead just beneath the maintenance hatch, and I just couldn’t think straight with all the pain. There was a... a plasma conduit nearby, the kind that feeds into the storm engine.
... I fed my wing into it. I tore open the access port and shoved my infected wing into the raw plasma.
Fuck. I know I had to do it, to keep that black oil crap from killing me, but... I wasn’t thinking. It hurt so much. I don’t know how I kept conscious after that. I don’t even know why I thought crawling into the maintenance shaft was going to help. Even if I got to the exhaust chute I couldn’t fly like that. But I did anyway. I crawled into the dark where my friends had gone and I kept crawling. I heard things in there, inside that tight, dark space, crawling only by the flickering red emergency lights. I heard crewponies screaming, babbling in that strange language. I heard some of them calling out for help, like it was echoing through every part of the ship, and damn me I just kept crawling.
I felt relieved when I found the exhaust chute open. It was right between the two major storm engines and the wind was ripping through the chute and I could see actual daylight. I knew the others had to have gotten through, the chute wouldn’t be open if they hadn’t. So... crazy as it was with just one wing, I pulled myself through that chute and dropped down it, out into open sky.
I remember falling, spinning, unable to keep steady with just one wing. The fog, that fucking cloud that started all this, was everywhere, and for a second I could see it surrounding the Northwind like a bird pecking at a corpse. Then I heard the engines overload. I didn’t see it, but I saw the flash of the storm clouds overcharging. Then there was the ground, spiraling towards me, and I couldn’t slow down, I just kept falling... until...
Major, how am I alive? I should be dead. Me... not my friends. They had to have escaped. They were the only ones left. So why am I here, Major, and they aren't!?"
"Calm down Technician Drizzledrop. There are a number of possible explanations for what you experienced, not the least of which being the potential that any amount of your memories could be the result of hallucination."
"I didn't hallucinate any of this! I remember it... most of it..."
"You said yourself that your memory of events is somewhat fragmented. Consider this, for a moment, if you will. You remember a fog inside the ship, yes? The Enclave has had experience in the past with certain terrorist elements from the Wasteland seeking to attack our vessels and patrol flights, and at times those terrorist elements have used magic or chemical warfare against our obviously superior technological edge. Is it possible the Northwind suffered a gas attack of some sort? The investigation has revealed some trace chemical elements on the hull and interior bulkheads of currently unknown origins. Is it more sound to think that you have suffered hallucinations from a chemical agent... or that you and your crew were assaulted by an otherworldly entity that bends space and time?"
"I... I don't know."
"I don't mean to alarm you or cause you undue stress, Technician Drizzledrop, especially considering the trauma you’ve suffered both mentally and physically. I am merely trying to help you understand that your experiences, while tragic and extremely beyond the ordinary, may have plausible reasoning grounded in reality and that not everything you saw was what it seemed. Moreover, I assure you, you are not dead, and the whereabouts of your comrades is still an unknown factor. While you are the only survivor we found, the search parties are still expanding their patrol radius through the Whitecaps. It is entirely possible that 2nd Lieutenant Gearwing or corporal Falcontail, among other survivors, may still be found. As it stands your testimony has been most helpful so far in helping me grasp what befell your ship. Is there anything else you remember?"
"...No. No the last thing I remembered was dropping out of the exhaust chute and falling towards the ground. My next clear memory is waking up in the hospital here at Neighvarro."
"Then you have my sincerest thanks for sharing this testimony with me, Technician Drizzledrop. I may require you for several more sessions to clarify certain elements of your account with other members of the base command staff, but for the moment I believe I have everything I need. My current recommendation is to put you on a minimum of one month medical leave to recover from this ordeal, at which point you may return to active duty."
"Thanks, Major. You'll let me know if you find anypony else, right? And if they learn anything more about what happened to the Northwind?"
"Of course. I think that will be all for today, you are dismissed, Technician Drizzledrop."
"Yes, Major."
*The sound of hoofbeats and a door opening. A pause*
"Major... I know what I've said all sounds pretty crazy. Maybe you're right and this was some kind of weird chemical attack or magical illusion. I can't say for sure what it all was. What I do know is that patrol route is dangerous. Something is out there. Maybe it's some messed up Wasteland mutants with freaky magic that get their jollies screwing with magic or some kind of pre-war chemical weapon. Or maybe it's something else, something older, worse, and completely alien. Whatever it is, please tell me you'll recommend to the big wigs in command that we change our patrol routes to go around that place? To not send anypony else out that way?"
"I don't doubt our command staff will consider all possible options moving forward, including potential revisions to our patrol routes. I wouldn't worry about it."
"...Right. Good day, Major."
"To you as well, Technician Drizzledrop."
*Sound of the door closing. A long pause. Then a faint wailing noise, just an instant before the sound one last hoofstep and a click.*
End playback.
