Mare Spaceby OrkusChaptersArrivalWelcome to the PinkimuraMonsters in the DarkA SurvivorArrivalMARE SPACE CEC Mission ER529 Status Update... USG Vermilion En Route to Aegis System... Primary Mission Assets... ...Sky "Skysaac" Lark - Engineering and Ship Systems Specialist... ...Crystal Clear - Computer Specialist... ...Wire Cord - Chief Security Officer... Directive A: Locate Mining Vessel USG Pinkimura Directive B: Diagnose and Repair Communications Blackout Time to Contact: 3 Minutes... Sky Lark, a unicorn currently bearing a look of mixed hope and worry gleaming in her red-colored eyes, watched the holographic screen form in front of her. Footage of her girlfriend, a short-haired, pink-furred earth pony named Charcoal Oven slowly formed on its surface. The all-too-short prerecorded message, one that the unicorn received less than a week before, showed Charcoal in a startlingly distressed state. "Skysaac, it's me. I wish I could talk to you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything," she said, her voice full of what sounded like panic and confusion as the screen was constantly bugged by a haze of static. "I wish I could just talk to somepony. It's all falling apart here. I can't believe what's happening... It's strange... such a little thing-" The screen cut to a tantalizing cloud of static and soon vanished from Sky's sight, as vague and enigmatic as it ever was. Now in her view instead, a pegasus pony dressed in business work attire, bearing a tan complexion to her fur and a darker shade of brown to her mane, stood in front of Sky. It was the Vermilion's computer specialist, Crystal Clear. "How many times have you watched that thing, "Skysaac?"" Crystal asked, the vision of the ship going through faster-than-light travel shown from the shielded, glass panels in the shuttle's front, achieving such a feat thanks to its ShockPoint drive. Sky's brow curled in a slightly annoyed way at her coworker's words. "Guess you really miss her," she continued in an understanding tone, turning her head around to look out the window panels. "Don't worry, we're almost there. You can look her up when we're on board. Sounds like you two have a lot of catching up to do." "That's not even the half of it..." Sky replied under her breath in a small mumble, a small, unsure grin forming on her snout. No sooner had she spoke, the sight of hyperspace suddenly dissipated, revealing the sight of several dozen asteroids and rocky debris, all big and small, floating through the near, empty space. Behind them, its outline covering over half of the ship's viewing panel, was the planet of Aegis VII. "Alright everypony, we're here," Wire Cord, the shuttle's chief security officer and a brown-furred earth pony with a mane as black as pitch, spoke up in his typical, deep voice. "Syncing our orbit now." As he talked, Sky could feel as the shuttle started to slow until it began to float through the field of rocks, carefully maneuvering around the multiple projectiles. The unicorn kept her eyes focused on one of the smaller meteoroids that passed by, until her attention was caught by her crewmates again. "All this trouble over that chunk of rock..." Crystal sighed, gazing at the sight of the planet that befell them, rubbing a hoof through her mane. "Deep space mining is a very lucrative business, Ms. Clear," Wire chuckled, as the ship continued to steadily fly forward through the asteroid-strewn, zero-gravity environment. "Aegis Seven is a gold mine as a matter of fact. Well, at least according to the prospector pony's reports. Cobalt, Silicon, Osmium, Celestium... Now, where is she?" Moments after he spoke, one of the larger asteroids, one with a fairly jagged surface, moved out of the way, revealing the sight of the enormous ship he talked about in coincidental fashion. "Ah! There she is," the earth pony went on. "We have visual contact." "So that's the Pinkimura? Impressive..." Crystal commented, once she had a good view of the vessel, the entire ship emerging from hiding, displaying the bright, white, painted-on words of the Planetcracker's designation near its hull's base. "The USG Pinkimura," Wire corrected, as Sky left her chair to look at the sight of the enormous vessel with them. "Biggest Planetcracker in her class. And it looks like they already popped the cork." "Why's it all dark? I don't see any running lights," the pegasus asked in a concerned tone. Placing a hoof to his chin, Wire stroked his goatee and appeared to be wondering the same thing. "Corporal, take us in closer and hail them," he commanded, raising a hoof to Corporal Chain, who was standing a few meters away at one of the stations. "...And stay clear of the debris field. We're here to fix their ship, not the other way around." Chain did as he was told, and once they were close enough, he spoke into one of the radio coms nearby. "USG Pinkimura, this is the emergency maintenance team of the USG Vermilion responding to your distress call. Come in Pinkimura." They all waited a few seconds, but no response came. As Sky tapped her hoof on the metal ground in an anxious manner, Crystal peered over to Wire and voiced an opinion. "You're going to need to boost the signal if their power is low." "Yes, we know," Wire Cord nodded his in agreement, turning back to Chain. "Boost the signal." After Chain did so, nothing still went on. Wire sighed before speaking again. "More." "Never heard of a total communications blackout on one of these things," Crystal said. "You'd think with over a thousand ponies on board, somepony would pick up the phone-" Interrupting her, the sound of an opposing frequency finally responded, however, it was chock-full of static. To Sky Lark's confusion, within the static was what sounded like utterly unintelligible, strange noises, and if the unicorn didn't know any better, she could swear that they sounded more like distorted growls than actual voices. "What was that?" Corporal Chain inquired in a shocked tone, once the transmission ended as abruptly as it began. "It's a busted array like we thought," Crystal Clear replied, pacing over a few feet from where she currently stood, before pacing back. "Sounds like they're having problems with their encoder. Wire, You get us down there and Sky and I can fix it. Forty-eight hours max." "Alright, you heard the lady," Wire concurred. "Take us in. Let's see what needs fixing." Sky watched as the shuttle drifted closer to the Pinkimura, the sheer, unrivaled size of the vessel shown in its full, impressive glory when they were close enough. Once it was within the proper distance, another corporal manning a nearby station, Broomstick, spoke up. "Gravity tethers engaged," he stated, as he slowly moved several switches like he was trained to do. "Automatic docking procedure is go." As the shuttle got closer, Sky took a deep breath, relieved that everything appeared to be going fine so far, and that she was mere minutes away from seeing her precious Charcoal. Her happiness was replaced with fear and surprise as an explosion went out from just in front of the Vermilion, causing everything aboard the shuttle to shake violently. "What the hell?" Sky cried out, as she steadied her balance. "Sir! The autodock-" Broomstick tried to speak, until he fell silent. "What is it?" Wire asked in quick voice, as he tried to make sense of the situation. "We're off track!" he replied, in a terrified yelp. "W-we're going to hit the hull!" Setting to work, both he and Chain managed to pilot the ship past the outer mass of metal that was the Pinkimura's outer hull, and into the inside of the open landing bay of the vessel. They continued to shout out in panicked voices while the shuttle struggled to navigate through the dark interior of the Pinkimura, slamming into several walls, and causing the front panels of the small ship to crack. Knocked-loose wires sent out sparks as they dangled and shot out from the dented-open walls and ceiling. "Hit the blast shields!" the chief officer immediately ordered, running over to where his nearest corporal was, grabbing onto a command panel for balance from another, sudden collision that knocked Sky over, thrusting her to floor when she was just a foot away from her seat. "Their guidance tether is damaged! Switch to manual. NOW!" Crystal was quick to pipe in as she and Sky picked themselves up from the cold ground. "Inside the magnetic field? Are you insane?!" she practically screamed. "Abort!" "NO!" Wire objected, as Sky jumped into her seat and pulled her safety belt over herself. "We can make it inside! Corporal, I gave you an order!" "Th-the field's too strong!" Chain cried out from the other side of the room. "We're going t-" A sudden, earsplitting crashing noise went out, silencing the pony from where he stood, only to be followed by a shriek of metal, then a scream from several of the crewmembers. All Sky could do was grip her seat as hard as she could, grind her teeth, close her eyes, and wait for this entire venture to be over. Then everything went black. Welcome to the Pinkimura"Ugh... is everypony alright?" the sound of Sergei; a changeling and the shuttle's medic, moaned through the blackness. "I can't feel my wing casings... ugh..." "What the hell were you thinking?" Crystal Clear's voice spoke up in a fairly angered tone, as the lights suddenly flashed on, revealing the damaged interior of the shuttle and Sky's thrown-about crewmates. While Crystal was standing up and looking down at Wire, who was currently picking himself up from the ground, the only other character the buckled-in unicorn could see was Sergei, who's chitinous form was dangling from some wires that were hanging from the ceilings. "Were you trying to get us killed?" "For your information, I just saved out flanks, Ms. Clear," Wire Cord replied, as the pony he talked to went about, inspecting the crew to see iof they were all alright. "If we had aborted at that speed and distance, we would have smashed right into the side of the Pinkimura. Now settle down, and let's get to work. Corporals, report!" "Everything's... good sir," Chain responded groggily, pulling himself up from the ground by grabbing onto a nearby railing. "Aside from Sergei dangling from the ceiling, everypony is okay." "I'm not getting any readings from the port booster and we've lost comms and autopilot. It'll take some time to fix," the fully-alert Broomstick went on. "Hmm... let's go see if we can get some extra hooves from the flight deck to help out," the officer spoke back, as Crystal turned around and walked up to where Sky sat, her eyes still wide with shock over what had happened. "Hold still, Sky. I'm syncing up everyone's RIGs with the ship," she said, as she checked a hologram that started to form in front of her, scanning her surroundings before disappearing when its work was done. When it finished, a long, green line lit up on each crewmember's back, where their RIG device was located. "Okay, we're all good. Clean bill of health for everyone." "Sky, go ahead and activate the Epyllion unit," Wire said, motioning to a pod-like device nearby. "Yeah... sure thing," Sky agreed, taking in another deep breath. "Sergei, pull yourself out of those wires. Everypony else, let's move out," Wire then said, making his way to the shuttle's exit. With the others following him, Sky, Sergei, and Crystal Clear were soon the only ones left. "What a mess..." Crystal moaned as she, too, exited the ship. Unfastening her seat belt, Sky got up, and ran a hoof through her short, blue mane, standing up once she had her moment. With a whir of small mechanical gears working their magic, her engineering RIG's vaguely portcullis-shaped helmet formed around her head, covering her white-furred face, ears, and horn until all that was left was the steel form of the helmet. Once it had completed its transition, the multiple lights on its visor lit up in a striking bright blue color, the same as the bright streak that went through her now-covered dark blue mane. Looking around and spotting what she was looking for, Sky trotted over to the pod as the sound of Sergei trying to pull himself out of the wires went on in the background, and approached the terminal that stuck out of its side. After inputting several numbers with one of her hooves, the pod opened up with a loud hiss. Once its barrel-shaped door had spun open, a pegasus-shaped, but clearly mechanical being walked out, its metal hooves making a ka-shunk noise as it moved about and faced her. "Good morning, engineer specialist Sky Lark. I am Epyllion-42," the machine greeted, introducing itself to the pony before it in a computerized male voice. "What service may I provide for you today?" "Just follow me," the unicorn ordered. The robot saluted and did as it was told. As they made their way to the exit, Epyllion-42 took the time to use his jet-like wings to fly up and grab Sergei, allowing the changeling still caught up there to get down safely. Leaving the Vermilion and taking a few steps out with the robot and changeling in tow, Sky turned her head upward and groaned at how damaged the shuttle looked from the outside. "What a travesty..." Sergei mumbled, as he too saw the totaled sight. Epyllion-42 made no comment, instead focusing on his directive. The three traveled through the hangar's railway to where their comrades stood in front of a large, closed door. As they moved down, a dozen lights went on over the hangar, each one displaying words that spelled out USG Pinkimura, followed by a recorded female voice. "Hello, and welcome to the USG Pinkimura" it started. "The Pinkimura was the first planetcracker-class vessel and the oldest still active, with over sixty-two years of continuous service to its name. Just as well, the Pinkimura also holds the record for highest number of planet cracks, with thirty-four to date..." As it went on explain the ship's creator and sixty-two year history in planet cracking, Sergei let out a sniff. "Where's the welcome wagon?" the changeling asked aloud, his voice echoing through the hangar as his own helmet began to form over his horned head, its visor lighting up the same color as the unicorn's. "This entire place seems dead." "On the other side of the door, I'd wager," Sky bet. As they trotted up to their commanding officer, Sky couldn't help but notice the shaken looks on her coworker's faces. Soon, they were in front of Wire and the closed door. "Sky, the power's down everywhere," he stated, as the ship's recorded voice continued to speak in the background. "We need you to hack to the door pad. Are you up to it?" "Yeah, sure," she replied. Once she arrived at the door, a small holoscreen popped up, and the unicorn chuckled to herself. It was foal's play. Upon inputting some data, the two doors willingly parted, sliding vertically away from each other, and allowing the crew made their way inside, entering an empty room. "Where is everypony?" Sky inquired, as she looked around. "I have no idea, but it seems everyone was trying to pack in a hurry," Crystal replied, poking a front hoof toward one of many briefcases that sat in an opened state on the floor, its papery contents strewn about and littering the brown, fabric ground. "There should be a security detail in here..." Wire spoke up, his voice very wary, before his green eyes came upon another sight nearby. "Sky, that security console is still live. Log in and see what you can find, and keep an eye on her Sergei. Crystal, get that elevator over there back online." "Power's dead. I can't," she shrugged in a deadpan, somewhat half-caring voice after a quick inspection, while Sky and the changeling moved into the room containing the console. "Then re-route the damn power!" Wire grumbled in a restrained voice. "Look, if we all cooperate, we can figure this out a lot sooner. Epyllion, do you sense any employee signatures aboard the ship?" "Results inconclusive," the android responded. "My detection sensors can only find them if I have the proper clearance, and the ship's main frequency is not responding to my call for permission to access its employee's ID signatures. My apologies." Wire sighed. "Sky, let's get that computer display up." "I'm working on it," the unicorn replied, speaking through the glass as she just started to access the console's holoscreen. After moving a few things around and allowing the system's applications to load to their proper designations, an image of the Pinkimura itself came into view, showing her teammates on the other side of the glass and herself the ship's current status. Many sections of the ship were a vivid red, boding poorly to Sky Lark. "Uh-oh. That doesn't look good," Sergei said when he saw the readings. "She's taken a lot of damage." "The tram system is offline... getting around's going to be difficult," Wire revealed, just as the vents overhead turned on. "Well... at least the air seems to be flowing again, so that's a start." Suddenly, the lights over their heads flashed out, replacing them with a dim, yellow, rotating warning light and a loud siren. Surprised, Broomstick, Chain, and a few other members of the crew pointed their hoof-held guns upward and around in alarm. "Ah, horseapples..." Sky cussed as she fumbled with the holograph's controls. "An automatic quarantine system tripped. I think it activated when I restarted the filtration system. Give me a few minutes and I should be able to raise it..." "She's right. Everypony relax," Wire agreed, lowering his rifle. "Wait- what was that? Did you hear that?" Crystal suddenly asked in a panicked voice as the she and the others heard an eerie creaking and grating sound of something clearly moving in the vents above. "My scanners sense several life signatures within a ten foot radius of my person," Epyllion voiced, his robotic eyes zooming aloft as well. "How queer." The sound of metal violently breaking, and a solid, organic thump suddenly went out in the dark room next. "The hay?" Chain inquired, looking around. Taking a second off from her work to observe what was going on, Sky peered into the room, and let out a gasp. "S-something's in the room with us!" Crystal shouted again, as both she and Sky noticed a pony-shaped being, clearly not one of the crewmembers, begin to rove around the room, headed in Chain's direction as his back was turned. The being stumbled about on all fours like a pony, but through the misty, dark room, Sky saw something was plain off with it. It wasn't just its ambling shuffle that caught her red eyes, but something was projecting from over its shoulders, like a miniature crane, or a set of... gangling arms? When its hooves... no, wait, the things on its back were its spike-tipped arms were stretched out above Chain, ready to do something clearly terrible, Sky Lark finally reacted accordingly. "Chain, look out!" she screamed. Chain was too late to react, as the being, with a bloodcurdling, pained roar plunged its spike-tipped, shoulder-mounted claws downward, achieving a shriek of agony from her colleague as the foot-long projections repeatedly stabbed and tore through his body like paper-mâché. The twisted creature sent a spray of crimson blood across the glass of the room she and Sergei were in when Chain's limp, savaged body was thrown away like a spent toy. The changeling beside Sky screamed in horror, only serving to add to the chaos that was now unfolding before them. "Celestia's mane!" Wire cried out, as a loud ring of Chain's failing RIG ripped through the air, proving his demise. "Open fire!" Flashes from the rifles filled the room, illuminating the grotesque figure. Without warning, several more aberrations just like the one they saw jumped down from vents on the ceiling. Like giant ants, they started to swarm toward Sky's remaining crew, lashing out at them with their unnatural extra appendages as they tried to enter the elevator, sending more blood and mangled screams through the air with every attack. "Sky, Sergei, get the hell out of there now!" Wire cried out on the comline. "The door's unlocked! Run!" Crystal's voice implored on it as well. Without a word against it, both Sky and Sergei rushed to the now-open door beside where they stood, and dashed into the hallway, the sound of several of those creatures behind them giving chase encouraging them to run faster. Monsters in the Dark"Run! Run!" Crystal's voice continued to scream through the com, as Sky Lark and Sergei continued to flee through the hallway. They zipped through dark corridors and hallways as vents lining the walls around them seemed to explode as more monstrous, abominable beings, just like the ones they saw before and were currently being chased by, emerged from the walls, emitting garbled moans as their unnatural frames lurched after them. Soon, Crystal's commands were consumed by static as the range was put to its limit. Making a final turn, the pony and changeling saw a cargo lift enter their field of view, and it was as if a miracle had been granted to them. "In there!" Sergei shouted. The two dashed into the lift, and Sky hurriedly pressed a holographic button on it once each was inside. As the doors shut, the creature chasing them disappeared behind the closing slabs of rectangular metal, and the elevator quickly descended. "What... the hell... were those?!" Sergei panted a few seconds later, out of breath. Closing her eyes, Sky shook her helmeted head and gulped in a load of air. "I... I don't kno-" Sky was interrupted as the lift shook to a grinding halt. The doors to the elevator were suddenly split apart, and one of the bellowing creatures from seconds before tried to force its way through, its horrendously rotted and disfigured facial features slobbering a mixture of yellow saliva and putrid green liquid on the metal floor. Sergei screamed again and back up against the narrow wall in terror, while Sky turned about and bucked her back legs out, kicking the fiend's fleshy, furless body away a meager few feet. Recovering quickly, it charged forward again, claw-arms raised to kill the pony that tried to attack it, when the doors to the elevator suddenly, and abruptly slammed shut once more, sending a gurgling screech through the air as the aberration was brutally bisected by the closing entryway. With that nasty business done, the lift began to move downward again, and when Sergei's cries died down, both passengers went silent. The beast's upper body, or, at least what was left of it, lied motionless on the ground they stood upon, though its pale, dead eyes and limbs still twitched. The second the elevator stopped for good and its doors opened, Sky stumbled out, clutching her stomach in a sick fashion, and was only able to make it a few feet forward before her helmet shifted opened, and the unicorn, unable to cope with all that had happened in just the last minute, finally threw up, her stomach expunging its half-digested contents upon the metal floor. Sergei slowly exited and let his helmet collapse back into the armor as well, his revealed face filled more with blank shock than anything else. When a good minute passed, his expression became much more neutral as Sky herself started to recover. "Oh... oh, dear Celestia..." Sky moaned, trying to lift herself back up on shaky lags. "What... what's happening here, Sergei? What the living hell is happening here?" "I'm as lost as you," the medic replied, placing a hoof on her shoulder before helping her get back onto her four legs. "Those... things looked like ponies, or at least once were, but their bodies were... different... wrong. I... I don't know what happened to them. A virus, maybe? A mutagen? By the hive, I've never seen anything like those before..." Sky's head lifted as she remembered something. "Charcoal. Oh, no, no, no... no, no, no..." "D-don't worry about her, Sky," Sergei spoke, trying to calm the unicorn as she started to shake her white-furred, blue-maned head with her hooves in a nervous panic. "You told me she was resourceful, right? It's a big ship, and that diagram of it said a few compartments were still undamaged and using power. I'm sure she got away from those things." Sky Lark went silent, and her small fear-induced convulsion stopped. Taking in a deep breath she looked to her comrade again with a shaken look in her eyes. "I pray that you're right," she said. "Let's... let's see if this room has anything we can use." Looking around, the only sights that befell the two were a workbench, and a closed door near it. Slumped next to the workbench was a long-deceased pony's corpse, dry blood covering various parts of his form. Two, deep gashes stuck out of the unfortunate pony's chest, and it wasn't hard to see his cause of death was from blood loss, judging from the trail of red that lead up to it. It was also clear that before he died, he was able to write four words, in blood, on an area just above the workbench. CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS After taking in the awful sight, Sky noticed something else that was lying on the workbench as she approached it. She couldn't help but sigh in a relieved voice as she inspected it. "What did you find?" the changeling inquired from behind her, noticing her reaction. "It's a... 211-V plasma cutter, by the looks of it," the unicorn answered, adjusting the small device's controls with her hoof. "A hoof-held mining tool that can shoot out a stream of potent energy, and is typically used to cut through less-thick minerals. If used incorrectly, it can just as easily... slice off limbs." "You're planning on using that?" he asked. After finishing her final calibrations on the tool and magnetically attaching its base and trigger to her right hoof, she looked back at him and nodded, before her eyes trailed down to where the deceased pony sat in an unmoving state below the words he had written in his own blood. "The biggest chance we have is to trust what he left behind, I think," she spoke. ""Cut off their limbs."" "The bullets I saw our team fire... they didn't do anything to slow those creatures," Sergei started to agree, though uneasily. "Dismemberment sounds like a tough, but perfectly viable option. I hope." Their conversation was adjourned as a plea went out nearby, on the other side of the door beside the workbench. The two rushed up to it the moment they heard it. "Help! Please, if anypony's in there, let me in!" the male voice cried out. "I'm out of ammo, and there's... there's... oh!" "Don't worry! I'm opening it!" Sky shouted back, finding out to her dismay that the door was as inanimate as a dead battery a second after speaking. She flipped open the nearby electrical box to reroute its power, shifting wires around as the pony on the other side let out a louder cry. "Oh shit, one's here! Let me in! LET ME IN!" the voice shrieked as Sky struggled to fix the final wire. Just as she finished and Sergei inputted the commands to the door, a sick noise resembling the tearing of flesh and a muffled, choked whine shot through the crisp air. Their helmets enveloping their heads once more, the changeling and unicorn looked into the opening doorway before reeling back in horror. Another one of the monsters was the first thing they saw, and it was savagely biting, crunching, and tearing through what little remained of a pony that was once begging for aid; the majority of which had already been reduced to torn-up strands of bloody meat and bits of cloth and bone. Upon noticing movement out of the corner of its eyes, the monstrosity lifted its bare, deformed head in their direction, crimson ichor running down its parted, mandible-like lower jaws as if cruelly parodying spaghetti sauce dripping from a foal's chin, and growled. Jumping to her hind hooves for a better position and quickly raising her makeshift weapon in her front ones, Sky focused its sights on her target and activated the plasma cutter, sending out a burst of blue energy the moment the being charged. Bellowing upon being struck, the beam neatly sliced through both of its front legs, sending it to the ground. Unimpeded, the pair of arm-like projections on its shoulders swiftly planted their spike-claws into the ground, and it dragged itself forward toward its prey. Sky took another shot and cut one of its shoulder-arms off, and as soon as the dismembered limb landed on the ground, the being went silent and still. Not taking a chance that it was completely dead, Sky ran forward with a roar and planted a hoof through monster's corpse, crushing its midsection with a well-placed stomp. Seeing that it wasn't coming back to life, and panting from the rush, her helmeted visage faced Sergei once more as he approached her from where he hid near the workbench. "Dismemberment is a success, I guess," he tried, and failed, to deadpan in a vain attempt to lessen the gravity of the situation. Sky started to respond by reloading the clip on the plasma cutter, sending a spent, burning shell popping from the device to the ground, and sighing in an unamused manner before her muscles tensed up again. "We need to move," she said, looking at the remains of the pony the creature had killed. "We need to try and link up with he crew again, and search for survivors. If that guy survived until now, others could still be alive, like you said. Charcoal could be among them." "Then let's go," the changeling replied, confidently. Carefully watching where their booted hooves stepped, Sky and Sergei passed into the hallway in front of them, and the door soon sealed behind them. A SurvivorSky and Sergei continued to walk through the corridors at a slow, cautious pace. The individual lights on their visors illuminated their surroundings as they passed through, shining off of walls, vents, and the ground. "I... haven't really asked, but what station does Charcoal work with on this ship?" the changeling decided to inquire in a soft voice. "She worked with the medical staff, as a senior medical officer," Sky responded. "I... she wanted to work here, on the Pinkimura, because of all the perks that could help her career in the long run, and the fact that the ship was going to be retired when the year ended. Charcoal was unsure about it at first, but I... I... convinced her to go." The unicorn stopped in her tracks as she finished her sentence. "If she... if she's dead, it's... it will be all my fault." "She's alive, Sky. We both know that," her friend spoke back. Before Sky could reply, they both went silent as the metallic sound of something clambering through the vents above went out. They stood still as stone a minute after the noise subsided before continuing on again, a little quieter than before. "I didn't pay much attention to who else works aboard here," the unicorn said, as she used the kinesis module on her helm to gently move a large, metal crate that was in their way. "Do you know anything?" "Not myself, no, but I still have some of the information that security terminal from before showed us," he spoke, as a hologram of the Pinkimura flashed up in front of him and Sky. "It says that... about sixty percent of the crew are ponies, twenty percent are griffons, and twenty percent are changelings. Out of all of the one thousand, three-hundred-and-thirty-two crew, five percent are children, and ten percent of the crew in total were complete, nonworking civilians, or familial individuals related to working crew members. Other than that, the terminal's schematic didn't show me anything else worth much." "Where are we now?" "Nearing a med lab," he responded, as the hologram disappeared. "And after that is an area adjacent to the tram station. It's where we'll meet the others, if they got away." No sooner had he said that, they both took a final turn in the dank tunnel, and spotted a closed door at the hallway's far end. While their steps made small, barely-noticeable clanging noises on the ground thanks to the metal their hoofwear was made of, the two approached it, and Sky went to hacking the door. "Why does your close friends and girlfriend call you "Skysaac?"" the changeling asked, as a minute passed. Sky chuckled. "It was a nickname I got in college," she started to reply. "My granduncle was an engineer like me, and went by that name. When my friends found out and started to call me it, it spread like wildfire, and stuck like glue." When she finished hacking it, the door slid open, and Sky was the first to enter, plasma cutter raised on the defensive. The first two grisly things Sky saw as she entered the small room was what she recognized as the severed lower half of a changeling, it's translucent, greenish blood soaking the nearby floor, and another, blindfolded changeling that sat next to it, clad in a white uniform that was stained with some of the greenish blood. It moved when it heard Sky walk about, somewhat startling her in the process. "Shh... it's okay, Locus. Your supey-dupey friendsy-friends are here to take you away from the necromorphs..." the blind changeling said in a disturbingly calm, light, whispery, tone identifying her as a female. She said this as she patted the other, dead changeling's torso next to her, as if oblivious that half of him was gone. "They'll take you away from the necromorphs, and we'll all be happy... tee-hee. Happy, happy, happy! Just like you said..." Sky slowly lowered her weapon as she approached the injured, unwell being. When Sergei came into the room and had a look for himself, his mouth gaped in surprise from behind his helmet. "By the hive..." Sergei gasped, hurriedly running up to and kneeling down beside the injured creature. He instantly set to work seeing what other parts of her were injured besides her eyes, finding a large gash by her side, and multiple bite marks when his search was done. "We've been waiting for you, you know..." the blind changeling spoke as he examined her, patting parts of his body with one of her hole-filled, chitinous hooves. "Locus said you were going to come, tee-hee." Finished speaking to him, she turned her blind face to Sky, as if seeing her through the stained cloth on her face. "Here," she said again, lifting her other hoof to Sky. "Locus wanted me to give this to you." In it was what the unicorn instantly recognized as a stasis module. As she took the device in her hoof, the injured changeling went into a more relaxed position, and started to enter a small sob, tears streaming down her dry face from behind the cloth wrapped around it. "She's in a critical state with that wound of hers, but I can save her," Sergei spoke, lowering and cushioning the whimpering fellow changeling's head. "Quick, pass me that med pack over there." Sky did as she was told, and ran over to where the medic motioned. Without time to spare, she snatched the small medical canister she found on the nearby counter in her mouth, and dashed back to Sergei, who grabbed the cylinder in his armored hooves, and immediately undid its cover. Quickly pouring some of the cyan-colored gel into one of his hooves, he placed it on the injured changeling's side, where she was most grievously wounded, and translucent blood continued to drain out of. The weak creature let out a small yelp of pain as she felt her deep wounds reseal, and heal up until it was no longer a damaged mess, but mended flesh, and then pure chitin; all thanks to the synthetic magic the healing wares were based off of. Medical gel, kinesis, stasis, and many other tools and modules the ponies of today used were forms of "synthetic magic" that were invented many hundreds and hundreds of years ago, after the magical currents that originally allowed unicorns, alicorns, and the like to use magic mysteriously vanished from the universe, rendering their natural abilities inert. Scientists still have no idea how this event happened, but most attributed it to the death of the aged Princess Celestia, as the history books show it was around that time that magic disappeared. Since then, ponies have relied on special technologies for everyday life, and the resources used to power them were becoming scarcer as the centuries dragged on. "Her condition's stable," Sergei spoke in a relieved tone, checking the hologram and seeing her now-normal heart rate. "She'll pull through, but she needs to rest for a little while." "I don't think we have a little while, Sergei," Sky warned, eyeing the ceiling suspiciously after thinking she heard a noise go overhead. "Well I'm not leaving her. She's blind, for goodness sake," the changeling said, unflinchingly. "I didn't say we should leave her, I'm just saying one those creatures could be lurking around here somewhere, and we have a rendezvous to meet at." "S-y? Sky is th- you?" the sound of Wire's impeded voice suddenly spoke up in Sky's com, the static covering it slowly dissipating. "Are you there, Sky? Come in." "I'm here," the unicorn replied, allowing the image of his face to appear on her holoscreen. "Sergei and I are alive and well, and we found an injured survivor. It's a blind changeling." "I can't believe you made it. Wait, a survivor? A blind survivor?" Crystal Clear's voice went on in the background. "If they're blind, they're dead weight. We can't have dead weight now." "Let me talk," Wire bickered, turning back to face Sky Lark through the holocamera. "Listen, those... those things killed the others. Only Crystal and I are left. We're both holed up in the tram station, and we sent the Epyllion unit out to look for something of aid a few minutes ago." "What the hell do you think those things even were? Were they the crew?" Crystal asked, her face appearing on her own holoscreen. "I think the survivor here called them "necromorphs," or something," Sky answered, turning to Sergei and the blind changeling she spoke of. Crystal let out a sigh. "We're all gonna die here, aren't we?" she inquired in a slightly louder voice. "Keep your voice down," Wire warned his colleague. "You both heard them. They move around in the vents. For all we know, they're everywhere." He faced Sky again, his voice much calmer, but no less quiet. "Listen, half the doors on this ship are locked because of the quarantine, and we need to get to the bridge if we have any hope of finding out what's going on. Now, to do that we need this tram system to be repaired, but we have no way to do it. We need you for this one, Sky." "That's crazy, Cord. You're going to get us all killed," Crystal objected. "If you listen to me, I will get you out. Alive," Wire replied to her. "Now, what's wrong with the tram?" Sky watched the screen as Crystal trotted over to the control panel, and let out a frustrated shrug. "The data board's fried. If you ask me, there's a probably a spare in the maintenance bay. Sky, you're "team" and you are the closest to it. Think you could go fetch it for us?" "I'll get right on it," she said, nodding. "Just give Sergei and I a few minutes, that's all I ask." "Fine, but please make haste," Wire agreed in a semi-reluctant tone, signing out with his next words. "And be careful."
ArrivalMARE SPACE CEC Mission ER529 Status Update... USG Vermilion En Route to Aegis System... Primary Mission Assets... ...Sky "Skysaac" Lark - Engineering and Ship Systems Specialist... ...Crystal Clear - Computer Specialist... ...Wire Cord - Chief Security Officer... Directive A: Locate Mining Vessel USG Pinkimura Directive B: Diagnose and Repair Communications Blackout Time to Contact: 3 Minutes... Sky Lark, a unicorn currently bearing a look of mixed hope and worry gleaming in her red-colored eyes, watched the holographic screen form in front of her. Footage of her girlfriend, a short-haired, pink-furred earth pony named Charcoal Oven slowly formed on its surface. The all-too-short prerecorded message, one that the unicorn received less than a week before, showed Charcoal in a startlingly distressed state. "Skysaac, it's me. I wish I could talk to you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything," she said, her voice full of what sounded like panic and confusion as the screen was constantly bugged by a haze of static. "I wish I could just talk to somepony. It's all falling apart here. I can't believe what's happening... It's strange... such a little thing-" The screen cut to a tantalizing cloud of static and soon vanished from Sky's sight, as vague and enigmatic as it ever was. Now in her view instead, a pegasus pony dressed in business work attire, bearing a tan complexion to her fur and a darker shade of brown to her mane, stood in front of Sky. It was the Vermilion's computer specialist, Crystal Clear. "How many times have you watched that thing, "Skysaac?"" Crystal asked, the vision of the ship going through faster-than-light travel shown from the shielded, glass panels in the shuttle's front, achieving such a feat thanks to its ShockPoint drive. Sky's brow curled in a slightly annoyed way at her coworker's words. "Guess you really miss her," she continued in an understanding tone, turning her head around to look out the window panels. "Don't worry, we're almost there. You can look her up when we're on board. Sounds like you two have a lot of catching up to do." "That's not even the half of it..." Sky replied under her breath in a small mumble, a small, unsure grin forming on her snout. No sooner had she spoke, the sight of hyperspace suddenly dissipated, revealing the sight of several dozen asteroids and rocky debris, all big and small, floating through the near, empty space. Behind them, its outline covering over half of the ship's viewing panel, was the planet of Aegis VII. "Alright everypony, we're here," Wire Cord, the shuttle's chief security officer and a brown-furred earth pony with a mane as black as pitch, spoke up in his typical, deep voice. "Syncing our orbit now." As he talked, Sky could feel as the shuttle started to slow until it began to float through the field of rocks, carefully maneuvering around the multiple projectiles. The unicorn kept her eyes focused on one of the smaller meteoroids that passed by, until her attention was caught by her crewmates again. "All this trouble over that chunk of rock..." Crystal sighed, gazing at the sight of the planet that befell them, rubbing a hoof through her mane. "Deep space mining is a very lucrative business, Ms. Clear," Wire chuckled, as the ship continued to steadily fly forward through the asteroid-strewn, zero-gravity environment. "Aegis Seven is a gold mine as a matter of fact. Well, at least according to the prospector pony's reports. Cobalt, Silicon, Osmium, Celestium... Now, where is she?" Moments after he spoke, one of the larger asteroids, one with a fairly jagged surface, moved out of the way, revealing the sight of the enormous ship he talked about in coincidental fashion. "Ah! There she is," the earth pony went on. "We have visual contact." "So that's the Pinkimura? Impressive..." Crystal commented, once she had a good view of the vessel, the entire ship emerging from hiding, displaying the bright, white, painted-on words of the Planetcracker's designation near its hull's base. "The USG Pinkimura," Wire corrected, as Sky left her chair to look at the sight of the enormous vessel with them. "Biggest Planetcracker in her class. And it looks like they already popped the cork." "Why's it all dark? I don't see any running lights," the pegasus asked in a concerned tone. Placing a hoof to his chin, Wire stroked his goatee and appeared to be wondering the same thing. "Corporal, take us in closer and hail them," he commanded, raising a hoof to Corporal Chain, who was standing a few meters away at one of the stations. "...And stay clear of the debris field. We're here to fix their ship, not the other way around." Chain did as he was told, and once they were close enough, he spoke into one of the radio coms nearby. "USG Pinkimura, this is the emergency maintenance team of the USG Vermilion responding to your distress call. Come in Pinkimura." They all waited a few seconds, but no response came. As Sky tapped her hoof on the metal ground in an anxious manner, Crystal peered over to Wire and voiced an opinion. "You're going to need to boost the signal if their power is low." "Yes, we know," Wire Cord nodded his in agreement, turning back to Chain. "Boost the signal." After Chain did so, nothing still went on. Wire sighed before speaking again. "More." "Never heard of a total communications blackout on one of these things," Crystal said. "You'd think with over a thousand ponies on board, somepony would pick up the phone-" Interrupting her, the sound of an opposing frequency finally responded, however, it was chock-full of static. To Sky Lark's confusion, within the static was what sounded like utterly unintelligible, strange noises, and if the unicorn didn't know any better, she could swear that they sounded more like distorted growls than actual voices. "What was that?" Corporal Chain inquired in a shocked tone, once the transmission ended as abruptly as it began. "It's a busted array like we thought," Crystal Clear replied, pacing over a few feet from where she currently stood, before pacing back. "Sounds like they're having problems with their encoder. Wire, You get us down there and Sky and I can fix it. Forty-eight hours max." "Alright, you heard the lady," Wire concurred. "Take us in. Let's see what needs fixing." Sky watched as the shuttle drifted closer to the Pinkimura, the sheer, unrivaled size of the vessel shown in its full, impressive glory when they were close enough. Once it was within the proper distance, another corporal manning a nearby station, Broomstick, spoke up. "Gravity tethers engaged," he stated, as he slowly moved several switches like he was trained to do. "Automatic docking procedure is go." As the shuttle got closer, Sky took a deep breath, relieved that everything appeared to be going fine so far, and that she was mere minutes away from seeing her precious Charcoal. Her happiness was replaced with fear and surprise as an explosion went out from just in front of the Vermilion, causing everything aboard the shuttle to shake violently. "What the hell?" Sky cried out, as she steadied her balance. "Sir! The autodock-" Broomstick tried to speak, until he fell silent. "What is it?" Wire asked in quick voice, as he tried to make sense of the situation. "We're off track!" he replied, in a terrified yelp. "W-we're going to hit the hull!" Setting to work, both he and Chain managed to pilot the ship past the outer mass of metal that was the Pinkimura's outer hull, and into the inside of the open landing bay of the vessel. They continued to shout out in panicked voices while the shuttle struggled to navigate through the dark interior of the Pinkimura, slamming into several walls, and causing the front panels of the small ship to crack. Knocked-loose wires sent out sparks as they dangled and shot out from the dented-open walls and ceiling. "Hit the blast shields!" the chief officer immediately ordered, running over to where his nearest corporal was, grabbing onto a command panel for balance from another, sudden collision that knocked Sky over, thrusting her to floor when she was just a foot away from her seat. "Their guidance tether is damaged! Switch to manual. NOW!" Crystal was quick to pipe in as she and Sky picked themselves up from the cold ground. "Inside the magnetic field? Are you insane?!" she practically screamed. "Abort!" "NO!" Wire objected, as Sky jumped into her seat and pulled her safety belt over herself. "We can make it inside! Corporal, I gave you an order!" "Th-the field's too strong!" Chain cried out from the other side of the room. "We're going t-" A sudden, earsplitting crashing noise went out, silencing the pony from where he stood, only to be followed by a shriek of metal, then a scream from several of the crewmembers. All Sky could do was grip her seat as hard as she could, grind her teeth, close her eyes, and wait for this entire venture to be over. Then everything went black.
Welcome to the Pinkimura"Ugh... is everypony alright?" the sound of Sergei; a changeling and the shuttle's medic, moaned through the blackness. "I can't feel my wing casings... ugh..." "What the hell were you thinking?" Crystal Clear's voice spoke up in a fairly angered tone, as the lights suddenly flashed on, revealing the damaged interior of the shuttle and Sky's thrown-about crewmates. While Crystal was standing up and looking down at Wire, who was currently picking himself up from the ground, the only other character the buckled-in unicorn could see was Sergei, who's chitinous form was dangling from some wires that were hanging from the ceilings. "Were you trying to get us killed?" "For your information, I just saved out flanks, Ms. Clear," Wire Cord replied, as the pony he talked to went about, inspecting the crew to see iof they were all alright. "If we had aborted at that speed and distance, we would have smashed right into the side of the Pinkimura. Now settle down, and let's get to work. Corporals, report!" "Everything's... good sir," Chain responded groggily, pulling himself up from the ground by grabbing onto a nearby railing. "Aside from Sergei dangling from the ceiling, everypony is okay." "I'm not getting any readings from the port booster and we've lost comms and autopilot. It'll take some time to fix," the fully-alert Broomstick went on. "Hmm... let's go see if we can get some extra hooves from the flight deck to help out," the officer spoke back, as Crystal turned around and walked up to where Sky sat, her eyes still wide with shock over what had happened. "Hold still, Sky. I'm syncing up everyone's RIGs with the ship," she said, as she checked a hologram that started to form in front of her, scanning her surroundings before disappearing when its work was done. When it finished, a long, green line lit up on each crewmember's back, where their RIG device was located. "Okay, we're all good. Clean bill of health for everyone." "Sky, go ahead and activate the Epyllion unit," Wire said, motioning to a pod-like device nearby. "Yeah... sure thing," Sky agreed, taking in another deep breath. "Sergei, pull yourself out of those wires. Everypony else, let's move out," Wire then said, making his way to the shuttle's exit. With the others following him, Sky, Sergei, and Crystal Clear were soon the only ones left. "What a mess..." Crystal moaned as she, too, exited the ship. Unfastening her seat belt, Sky got up, and ran a hoof through her short, blue mane, standing up once she had her moment. With a whir of small mechanical gears working their magic, her engineering RIG's vaguely portcullis-shaped helmet formed around her head, covering her white-furred face, ears, and horn until all that was left was the steel form of the helmet. Once it had completed its transition, the multiple lights on its visor lit up in a striking bright blue color, the same as the bright streak that went through her now-covered dark blue mane. Looking around and spotting what she was looking for, Sky trotted over to the pod as the sound of Sergei trying to pull himself out of the wires went on in the background, and approached the terminal that stuck out of its side. After inputting several numbers with one of her hooves, the pod opened up with a loud hiss. Once its barrel-shaped door had spun open, a pegasus-shaped, but clearly mechanical being walked out, its metal hooves making a ka-shunk noise as it moved about and faced her. "Good morning, engineer specialist Sky Lark. I am Epyllion-42," the machine greeted, introducing itself to the pony before it in a computerized male voice. "What service may I provide for you today?" "Just follow me," the unicorn ordered. The robot saluted and did as it was told. As they made their way to the exit, Epyllion-42 took the time to use his jet-like wings to fly up and grab Sergei, allowing the changeling still caught up there to get down safely. Leaving the Vermilion and taking a few steps out with the robot and changeling in tow, Sky turned her head upward and groaned at how damaged the shuttle looked from the outside. "What a travesty..." Sergei mumbled, as he too saw the totaled sight. Epyllion-42 made no comment, instead focusing on his directive. The three traveled through the hangar's railway to where their comrades stood in front of a large, closed door. As they moved down, a dozen lights went on over the hangar, each one displaying words that spelled out USG Pinkimura, followed by a recorded female voice. "Hello, and welcome to the USG Pinkimura" it started. "The Pinkimura was the first planetcracker-class vessel and the oldest still active, with over sixty-two years of continuous service to its name. Just as well, the Pinkimura also holds the record for highest number of planet cracks, with thirty-four to date..." As it went on explain the ship's creator and sixty-two year history in planet cracking, Sergei let out a sniff. "Where's the welcome wagon?" the changeling asked aloud, his voice echoing through the hangar as his own helmet began to form over his horned head, its visor lighting up the same color as the unicorn's. "This entire place seems dead." "On the other side of the door, I'd wager," Sky bet. As they trotted up to their commanding officer, Sky couldn't help but notice the shaken looks on her coworker's faces. Soon, they were in front of Wire and the closed door. "Sky, the power's down everywhere," he stated, as the ship's recorded voice continued to speak in the background. "We need you to hack to the door pad. Are you up to it?" "Yeah, sure," she replied. Once she arrived at the door, a small holoscreen popped up, and the unicorn chuckled to herself. It was foal's play. Upon inputting some data, the two doors willingly parted, sliding vertically away from each other, and allowing the crew made their way inside, entering an empty room. "Where is everypony?" Sky inquired, as she looked around. "I have no idea, but it seems everyone was trying to pack in a hurry," Crystal replied, poking a front hoof toward one of many briefcases that sat in an opened state on the floor, its papery contents strewn about and littering the brown, fabric ground. "There should be a security detail in here..." Wire spoke up, his voice very wary, before his green eyes came upon another sight nearby. "Sky, that security console is still live. Log in and see what you can find, and keep an eye on her Sergei. Crystal, get that elevator over there back online." "Power's dead. I can't," she shrugged in a deadpan, somewhat half-caring voice after a quick inspection, while Sky and the changeling moved into the room containing the console. "Then re-route the damn power!" Wire grumbled in a restrained voice. "Look, if we all cooperate, we can figure this out a lot sooner. Epyllion, do you sense any employee signatures aboard the ship?" "Results inconclusive," the android responded. "My detection sensors can only find them if I have the proper clearance, and the ship's main frequency is not responding to my call for permission to access its employee's ID signatures. My apologies." Wire sighed. "Sky, let's get that computer display up." "I'm working on it," the unicorn replied, speaking through the glass as she just started to access the console's holoscreen. After moving a few things around and allowing the system's applications to load to their proper designations, an image of the Pinkimura itself came into view, showing her teammates on the other side of the glass and herself the ship's current status. Many sections of the ship were a vivid red, boding poorly to Sky Lark. "Uh-oh. That doesn't look good," Sergei said when he saw the readings. "She's taken a lot of damage." "The tram system is offline... getting around's going to be difficult," Wire revealed, just as the vents overhead turned on. "Well... at least the air seems to be flowing again, so that's a start." Suddenly, the lights over their heads flashed out, replacing them with a dim, yellow, rotating warning light and a loud siren. Surprised, Broomstick, Chain, and a few other members of the crew pointed their hoof-held guns upward and around in alarm. "Ah, horseapples..." Sky cussed as she fumbled with the holograph's controls. "An automatic quarantine system tripped. I think it activated when I restarted the filtration system. Give me a few minutes and I should be able to raise it..." "She's right. Everypony relax," Wire agreed, lowering his rifle. "Wait- what was that? Did you hear that?" Crystal suddenly asked in a panicked voice as the she and the others heard an eerie creaking and grating sound of something clearly moving in the vents above. "My scanners sense several life signatures within a ten foot radius of my person," Epyllion voiced, his robotic eyes zooming aloft as well. "How queer." The sound of metal violently breaking, and a solid, organic thump suddenly went out in the dark room next. "The hay?" Chain inquired, looking around. Taking a second off from her work to observe what was going on, Sky peered into the room, and let out a gasp. "S-something's in the room with us!" Crystal shouted again, as both she and Sky noticed a pony-shaped being, clearly not one of the crewmembers, begin to rove around the room, headed in Chain's direction as his back was turned. The being stumbled about on all fours like a pony, but through the misty, dark room, Sky saw something was plain off with it. It wasn't just its ambling shuffle that caught her red eyes, but something was projecting from over its shoulders, like a miniature crane, or a set of... gangling arms? When its hooves... no, wait, the things on its back were its spike-tipped arms were stretched out above Chain, ready to do something clearly terrible, Sky Lark finally reacted accordingly. "Chain, look out!" she screamed. Chain was too late to react, as the being, with a bloodcurdling, pained roar plunged its spike-tipped, shoulder-mounted claws downward, achieving a shriek of agony from her colleague as the foot-long projections repeatedly stabbed and tore through his body like paper-mâché. The twisted creature sent a spray of crimson blood across the glass of the room she and Sergei were in when Chain's limp, savaged body was thrown away like a spent toy. The changeling beside Sky screamed in horror, only serving to add to the chaos that was now unfolding before them. "Celestia's mane!" Wire cried out, as a loud ring of Chain's failing RIG ripped through the air, proving his demise. "Open fire!" Flashes from the rifles filled the room, illuminating the grotesque figure. Without warning, several more aberrations just like the one they saw jumped down from vents on the ceiling. Like giant ants, they started to swarm toward Sky's remaining crew, lashing out at them with their unnatural extra appendages as they tried to enter the elevator, sending more blood and mangled screams through the air with every attack. "Sky, Sergei, get the hell out of there now!" Wire cried out on the comline. "The door's unlocked! Run!" Crystal's voice implored on it as well. Without a word against it, both Sky and Sergei rushed to the now-open door beside where they stood, and dashed into the hallway, the sound of several of those creatures behind them giving chase encouraging them to run faster.
Monsters in the Dark"Run! Run!" Crystal's voice continued to scream through the com, as Sky Lark and Sergei continued to flee through the hallway. They zipped through dark corridors and hallways as vents lining the walls around them seemed to explode as more monstrous, abominable beings, just like the ones they saw before and were currently being chased by, emerged from the walls, emitting garbled moans as their unnatural frames lurched after them. Soon, Crystal's commands were consumed by static as the range was put to its limit. Making a final turn, the pony and changeling saw a cargo lift enter their field of view, and it was as if a miracle had been granted to them. "In there!" Sergei shouted. The two dashed into the lift, and Sky hurriedly pressed a holographic button on it once each was inside. As the doors shut, the creature chasing them disappeared behind the closing slabs of rectangular metal, and the elevator quickly descended. "What... the hell... were those?!" Sergei panted a few seconds later, out of breath. Closing her eyes, Sky shook her helmeted head and gulped in a load of air. "I... I don't kno-" Sky was interrupted as the lift shook to a grinding halt. The doors to the elevator were suddenly split apart, and one of the bellowing creatures from seconds before tried to force its way through, its horrendously rotted and disfigured facial features slobbering a mixture of yellow saliva and putrid green liquid on the metal floor. Sergei screamed again and back up against the narrow wall in terror, while Sky turned about and bucked her back legs out, kicking the fiend's fleshy, furless body away a meager few feet. Recovering quickly, it charged forward again, claw-arms raised to kill the pony that tried to attack it, when the doors to the elevator suddenly, and abruptly slammed shut once more, sending a gurgling screech through the air as the aberration was brutally bisected by the closing entryway. With that nasty business done, the lift began to move downward again, and when Sergei's cries died down, both passengers went silent. The beast's upper body, or, at least what was left of it, lied motionless on the ground they stood upon, though its pale, dead eyes and limbs still twitched. The second the elevator stopped for good and its doors opened, Sky stumbled out, clutching her stomach in a sick fashion, and was only able to make it a few feet forward before her helmet shifted opened, and the unicorn, unable to cope with all that had happened in just the last minute, finally threw up, her stomach expunging its half-digested contents upon the metal floor. Sergei slowly exited and let his helmet collapse back into the armor as well, his revealed face filled more with blank shock than anything else. When a good minute passed, his expression became much more neutral as Sky herself started to recover. "Oh... oh, dear Celestia..." Sky moaned, trying to lift herself back up on shaky lags. "What... what's happening here, Sergei? What the living hell is happening here?" "I'm as lost as you," the medic replied, placing a hoof on her shoulder before helping her get back onto her four legs. "Those... things looked like ponies, or at least once were, but their bodies were... different... wrong. I... I don't know what happened to them. A virus, maybe? A mutagen? By the hive, I've never seen anything like those before..." Sky's head lifted as she remembered something. "Charcoal. Oh, no, no, no... no, no, no..." "D-don't worry about her, Sky," Sergei spoke, trying to calm the unicorn as she started to shake her white-furred, blue-maned head with her hooves in a nervous panic. "You told me she was resourceful, right? It's a big ship, and that diagram of it said a few compartments were still undamaged and using power. I'm sure she got away from those things." Sky Lark went silent, and her small fear-induced convulsion stopped. Taking in a deep breath she looked to her comrade again with a shaken look in her eyes. "I pray that you're right," she said. "Let's... let's see if this room has anything we can use." Looking around, the only sights that befell the two were a workbench, and a closed door near it. Slumped next to the workbench was a long-deceased pony's corpse, dry blood covering various parts of his form. Two, deep gashes stuck out of the unfortunate pony's chest, and it wasn't hard to see his cause of death was from blood loss, judging from the trail of red that lead up to it. It was also clear that before he died, he was able to write four words, in blood, on an area just above the workbench. CUT OFF THEIR LIMBS After taking in the awful sight, Sky noticed something else that was lying on the workbench as she approached it. She couldn't help but sigh in a relieved voice as she inspected it. "What did you find?" the changeling inquired from behind her, noticing her reaction. "It's a... 211-V plasma cutter, by the looks of it," the unicorn answered, adjusting the small device's controls with her hoof. "A hoof-held mining tool that can shoot out a stream of potent energy, and is typically used to cut through less-thick minerals. If used incorrectly, it can just as easily... slice off limbs." "You're planning on using that?" he asked. After finishing her final calibrations on the tool and magnetically attaching its base and trigger to her right hoof, she looked back at him and nodded, before her eyes trailed down to where the deceased pony sat in an unmoving state below the words he had written in his own blood. "The biggest chance we have is to trust what he left behind, I think," she spoke. ""Cut off their limbs."" "The bullets I saw our team fire... they didn't do anything to slow those creatures," Sergei started to agree, though uneasily. "Dismemberment sounds like a tough, but perfectly viable option. I hope." Their conversation was adjourned as a plea went out nearby, on the other side of the door beside the workbench. The two rushed up to it the moment they heard it. "Help! Please, if anypony's in there, let me in!" the male voice cried out. "I'm out of ammo, and there's... there's... oh!" "Don't worry! I'm opening it!" Sky shouted back, finding out to her dismay that the door was as inanimate as a dead battery a second after speaking. She flipped open the nearby electrical box to reroute its power, shifting wires around as the pony on the other side let out a louder cry. "Oh shit, one's here! Let me in! LET ME IN!" the voice shrieked as Sky struggled to fix the final wire. Just as she finished and Sergei inputted the commands to the door, a sick noise resembling the tearing of flesh and a muffled, choked whine shot through the crisp air. Their helmets enveloping their heads once more, the changeling and unicorn looked into the opening doorway before reeling back in horror. Another one of the monsters was the first thing they saw, and it was savagely biting, crunching, and tearing through what little remained of a pony that was once begging for aid; the majority of which had already been reduced to torn-up strands of bloody meat and bits of cloth and bone. Upon noticing movement out of the corner of its eyes, the monstrosity lifted its bare, deformed head in their direction, crimson ichor running down its parted, mandible-like lower jaws as if cruelly parodying spaghetti sauce dripping from a foal's chin, and growled. Jumping to her hind hooves for a better position and quickly raising her makeshift weapon in her front ones, Sky focused its sights on her target and activated the plasma cutter, sending out a burst of blue energy the moment the being charged. Bellowing upon being struck, the beam neatly sliced through both of its front legs, sending it to the ground. Unimpeded, the pair of arm-like projections on its shoulders swiftly planted their spike-claws into the ground, and it dragged itself forward toward its prey. Sky took another shot and cut one of its shoulder-arms off, and as soon as the dismembered limb landed on the ground, the being went silent and still. Not taking a chance that it was completely dead, Sky ran forward with a roar and planted a hoof through monster's corpse, crushing its midsection with a well-placed stomp. Seeing that it wasn't coming back to life, and panting from the rush, her helmeted visage faced Sergei once more as he approached her from where he hid near the workbench. "Dismemberment is a success, I guess," he tried, and failed, to deadpan in a vain attempt to lessen the gravity of the situation. Sky started to respond by reloading the clip on the plasma cutter, sending a spent, burning shell popping from the device to the ground, and sighing in an unamused manner before her muscles tensed up again. "We need to move," she said, looking at the remains of the pony the creature had killed. "We need to try and link up with he crew again, and search for survivors. If that guy survived until now, others could still be alive, like you said. Charcoal could be among them." "Then let's go," the changeling replied, confidently. Carefully watching where their booted hooves stepped, Sky and Sergei passed into the hallway in front of them, and the door soon sealed behind them.
A SurvivorSky and Sergei continued to walk through the corridors at a slow, cautious pace. The individual lights on their visors illuminated their surroundings as they passed through, shining off of walls, vents, and the ground. "I... haven't really asked, but what station does Charcoal work with on this ship?" the changeling decided to inquire in a soft voice. "She worked with the medical staff, as a senior medical officer," Sky responded. "I... she wanted to work here, on the Pinkimura, because of all the perks that could help her career in the long run, and the fact that the ship was going to be retired when the year ended. Charcoal was unsure about it at first, but I... I... convinced her to go." The unicorn stopped in her tracks as she finished her sentence. "If she... if she's dead, it's... it will be all my fault." "She's alive, Sky. We both know that," her friend spoke back. Before Sky could reply, they both went silent as the metallic sound of something clambering through the vents above went out. They stood still as stone a minute after the noise subsided before continuing on again, a little quieter than before. "I didn't pay much attention to who else works aboard here," the unicorn said, as she used the kinesis module on her helm to gently move a large, metal crate that was in their way. "Do you know anything?" "Not myself, no, but I still have some of the information that security terminal from before showed us," he spoke, as a hologram of the Pinkimura flashed up in front of him and Sky. "It says that... about sixty percent of the crew are ponies, twenty percent are griffons, and twenty percent are changelings. Out of all of the one thousand, three-hundred-and-thirty-two crew, five percent are children, and ten percent of the crew in total were complete, nonworking civilians, or familial individuals related to working crew members. Other than that, the terminal's schematic didn't show me anything else worth much." "Where are we now?" "Nearing a med lab," he responded, as the hologram disappeared. "And after that is an area adjacent to the tram station. It's where we'll meet the others, if they got away." No sooner had he said that, they both took a final turn in the dank tunnel, and spotted a closed door at the hallway's far end. While their steps made small, barely-noticeable clanging noises on the ground thanks to the metal their hoofwear was made of, the two approached it, and Sky went to hacking the door. "Why does your close friends and girlfriend call you "Skysaac?"" the changeling asked, as a minute passed. Sky chuckled. "It was a nickname I got in college," she started to reply. "My granduncle was an engineer like me, and went by that name. When my friends found out and started to call me it, it spread like wildfire, and stuck like glue." When she finished hacking it, the door slid open, and Sky was the first to enter, plasma cutter raised on the defensive. The first two grisly things Sky saw as she entered the small room was what she recognized as the severed lower half of a changeling, it's translucent, greenish blood soaking the nearby floor, and another, blindfolded changeling that sat next to it, clad in a white uniform that was stained with some of the greenish blood. It moved when it heard Sky walk about, somewhat startling her in the process. "Shh... it's okay, Locus. Your supey-dupey friendsy-friends are here to take you away from the necromorphs..." the blind changeling said in a disturbingly calm, light, whispery, tone identifying her as a female. She said this as she patted the other, dead changeling's torso next to her, as if oblivious that half of him was gone. "They'll take you away from the necromorphs, and we'll all be happy... tee-hee. Happy, happy, happy! Just like you said..." Sky slowly lowered her weapon as she approached the injured, unwell being. When Sergei came into the room and had a look for himself, his mouth gaped in surprise from behind his helmet. "By the hive..." Sergei gasped, hurriedly running up to and kneeling down beside the injured creature. He instantly set to work seeing what other parts of her were injured besides her eyes, finding a large gash by her side, and multiple bite marks when his search was done. "We've been waiting for you, you know..." the blind changeling spoke as he examined her, patting parts of his body with one of her hole-filled, chitinous hooves. "Locus said you were going to come, tee-hee." Finished speaking to him, she turned her blind face to Sky, as if seeing her through the stained cloth on her face. "Here," she said again, lifting her other hoof to Sky. "Locus wanted me to give this to you." In it was what the unicorn instantly recognized as a stasis module. As she took the device in her hoof, the injured changeling went into a more relaxed position, and started to enter a small sob, tears streaming down her dry face from behind the cloth wrapped around it. "She's in a critical state with that wound of hers, but I can save her," Sergei spoke, lowering and cushioning the whimpering fellow changeling's head. "Quick, pass me that med pack over there." Sky did as she was told, and ran over to where the medic motioned. Without time to spare, she snatched the small medical canister she found on the nearby counter in her mouth, and dashed back to Sergei, who grabbed the cylinder in his armored hooves, and immediately undid its cover. Quickly pouring some of the cyan-colored gel into one of his hooves, he placed it on the injured changeling's side, where she was most grievously wounded, and translucent blood continued to drain out of. The weak creature let out a small yelp of pain as she felt her deep wounds reseal, and heal up until it was no longer a damaged mess, but mended flesh, and then pure chitin; all thanks to the synthetic magic the healing wares were based off of. Medical gel, kinesis, stasis, and many other tools and modules the ponies of today used were forms of "synthetic magic" that were invented many hundreds and hundreds of years ago, after the magical currents that originally allowed unicorns, alicorns, and the like to use magic mysteriously vanished from the universe, rendering their natural abilities inert. Scientists still have no idea how this event happened, but most attributed it to the death of the aged Princess Celestia, as the history books show it was around that time that magic disappeared. Since then, ponies have relied on special technologies for everyday life, and the resources used to power them were becoming scarcer as the centuries dragged on. "Her condition's stable," Sergei spoke in a relieved tone, checking the hologram and seeing her now-normal heart rate. "She'll pull through, but she needs to rest for a little while." "I don't think we have a little while, Sergei," Sky warned, eyeing the ceiling suspiciously after thinking she heard a noise go overhead. "Well I'm not leaving her. She's blind, for goodness sake," the changeling said, unflinchingly. "I didn't say we should leave her, I'm just saying one those creatures could be lurking around here somewhere, and we have a rendezvous to meet at." "S-y? Sky is th- you?" the sound of Wire's impeded voice suddenly spoke up in Sky's com, the static covering it slowly dissipating. "Are you there, Sky? Come in." "I'm here," the unicorn replied, allowing the image of his face to appear on her holoscreen. "Sergei and I are alive and well, and we found an injured survivor. It's a blind changeling." "I can't believe you made it. Wait, a survivor? A blind survivor?" Crystal Clear's voice went on in the background. "If they're blind, they're dead weight. We can't have dead weight now." "Let me talk," Wire bickered, turning back to face Sky Lark through the holocamera. "Listen, those... those things killed the others. Only Crystal and I are left. We're both holed up in the tram station, and we sent the Epyllion unit out to look for something of aid a few minutes ago." "What the hell do you think those things even were? Were they the crew?" Crystal asked, her face appearing on her own holoscreen. "I think the survivor here called them "necromorphs," or something," Sky answered, turning to Sergei and the blind changeling she spoke of. Crystal let out a sigh. "We're all gonna die here, aren't we?" she inquired in a slightly louder voice. "Keep your voice down," Wire warned his colleague. "You both heard them. They move around in the vents. For all we know, they're everywhere." He faced Sky again, his voice much calmer, but no less quiet. "Listen, half the doors on this ship are locked because of the quarantine, and we need to get to the bridge if we have any hope of finding out what's going on. Now, to do that we need this tram system to be repaired, but we have no way to do it. We need you for this one, Sky." "That's crazy, Cord. You're going to get us all killed," Crystal objected. "If you listen to me, I will get you out. Alive," Wire replied to her. "Now, what's wrong with the tram?" Sky watched the screen as Crystal trotted over to the control panel, and let out a frustrated shrug. "The data board's fried. If you ask me, there's a probably a spare in the maintenance bay. Sky, you're "team" and you are the closest to it. Think you could go fetch it for us?" "I'll get right on it," she said, nodding. "Just give Sergei and I a few minutes, that's all I ask." "Fine, but please make haste," Wire agreed in a semi-reluctant tone, signing out with his next words. "And be careful."
