Author's Note

“I was leaving the South
to fling myself into the unknown . . .
I was taking a part of the South
to transplant in alien soil,
to see if it could grow differently,
if it could drink of new and cool rains,
bend in strange winds,
respond to the warmth of other suns
and, perhaps, to bloom”

― Richard Wright

Incursion

The Pioneer looks back towards the bubbled control deck. There, staring back at her, a lone East Indian man stands before the controls. His undershirt is soaked through with sweat. His bald head shines with it. He says something, but even over the live mics on the board he is lost in the chaos of battle. Above, Federal shock troops sweep away a half-asleep resistance in a hail of bullets. They blast open doors and mow down the startled inhabitants they wake only to be met with death. Their sonic grenades render the valuable personnel insensate, ready to be carried off, never to be seen again.

She holds her father’s gun in one hand. The other rests on the floating carriage on the ramp. At her back, she feels the electricity in the air and the heat of the gate.

Time seems to stop. The Pioneer’s sweat-drenched red mane of hair tickles her cheeks but she does not have the presence of mind even to shake her head. The whole world is wrapped up in the silent exchange between herself and this lone genius. He has done so much, worked so hard, sacrificed his time and his health and perhaps even a bit of his sanity…

And she is the only one who can go through.

Whatever either might have said or thought is annihilated with an explosion two floors above that shakes the great room. The Pioneer loses her grip on the repulsorlift carriage but shields the last modicum of her father’s love as she falls.

The Scientist yells through the mic on the board: Run. Just go! Hurry!

And she tries to yell back: Close the door after me!

But she need not have bothered. She struggles to her feet, and as she turns, the control room is breached. Two imposing figures in gasmasks and dura-ceramic armor approach the severely underdressed, infirm man with powerful rifles held high. He does not look at them when they bark an order at him.

He whispers: Go then, there’s another world over there. Go see it.

The Pioneer is halfway up the ramp. As she is bracing to push her supplies through, the door to the Gate Room opens and another masked invader pushes in. He fires two bursts. They tear past her, hitting the carriage. It falters. Her gun, massive as her heart, barks back but in futility. She pushes her supplies through and then she runs through the swirling, roiling, stormy surface that exists between the circular passageway.

The Scientist in the control room is beat with a baton that shocks him into silence and unconsciousness. But not before he has done his last work. He has already set the final command in motion. The board sends loud warnings out. The soldiers look at each other, confused.

The Gate superheats, the great machinery begins to buckle. The failsafe destroys the passage, but not before the Gate rains hot metal, fire, and angry electricity on all four men. The Pioneer is gone and the way is shut.

LOG 1

I made it.

I’m not sure what else to say but that. Sounds stupid as hell, but… I mean, what do you say? One small step for man? First, I’m a woman, and secondly… I didn’t step anywhere. I fell through a fucking hole in the universe.

Don’t let my tone here fool you. I’m… I’m rambling just to keep myself from staring. It’s unspeakably beautiful. Wild as the Arkansas Badlands but without the danger. I feel like this place ain’t seen war. At all. I can’t say that of any place back home.

When I rolled out onto the grass I was weak. My mind and body seemed almost disconnected. It probably took me an hour just to remember my name, and another to sit up again. By the time I was up to crawling over to the Mule and leaning on it, I was soaked with dew and the sun was rising. I propped myself to see my first sunrise on a new world.

And it was beautiful. I wish I knew more words like that. I wish they had sent somebody who could write pretty, flowery descriptions. What a damn waste. They sent a drifter instead of an artist, because all I could do to capture the moment was cry my stupid fool eyes out. It’s nothing like our sun. Nah. Nah, that’s a lie and I know it. Give me a moment.

It’s… It’s everything our sun was meant to be.

Sorry if this all seems vague and strange. Ain’t in the right head space. They picked me for this mission because I can handle my self. You have to, in this world. That world. I survived the bombing of Shreveport and the rape of Little Rock. I was born in Amarillo and my daddy hauled ass out of there when the war started and the Massacre happened with me strapped to his back. I ran medicine through raider territory in Arkansas and Mississippi, and I’ve been doing salvage and recovery all over the Republic and on the Concordat border for years. I can shoot a bird on the wing with the Judge from one hundred yards with someone screaming in my ear and one eye shot out ten times out of ten. Perfect person to throw into a potential hostile situation, yeah?

Well, here I am, just starin’ at the world like I’m a child.

And kind of like a child, I’m a little afraid. I want to be honest in these because… I didn’t leave peacefully. I didn’t leave with all of my shit in order, either. Blacksite facility got hit around four in the morning, I’d reckon the time. Woke up right away, wide awake, soon as I heard the first explosion on the ground level. You live through as many fuckin’ Federal raids as I have and you learn to roll out of bed with your guns up and your hangover cured, praise God, hallelujah forever.

Knowing the Doc, the Gate is probably dead. I think he would rather have died than let those bastards have it. I wanna hope he didn’t die… but I know what they do to people. Maybe it’s for the best, you know? God, I don’t wanna say that. No, no it ain’t for the best. Dead is dead is dead. Livin’ is better. But the Gate. If it isn’t totally destroyed there is no way in hell it will be working anytime soon. Maybe they could open one here in like… a week and a half. At the earliest.

I’m the first woman to step outside of our galaxy. Our universe. The first human ever, far as we know. Not countin’ anybody abducted, mind you. I had the thought earlier, as the sun was rising up in the air and the canopy started to hide it from me, that I might be the last one, too. What if the lab is so wrecked that the Republic gives up? They’ll probably assume I died over here. You know what? They’ll be right.

I probably will die over here. The Mule’s lift won’t work, and it’s too heavy to drag, and I don’t have even half of the rations I was supposed to have… only a fifth of the water… shit.

And there go the waterworks. Perfect. Just… Just perfect.

I just don’t wanna die here. I’m used to bein’ alone but there were always people somewhere, doing something, you know? Eventually there would be another person. Even if I just ended up shootin’ at them cause its the fuckin’ tribal salute in Arkansas now at least it would be with another human being.

As far as I know I’ll be the only human being to ever be here and…

LOG 2

Mule Status: About 70% done with repairs.

I’m not a mechanic, but luckily they designed the Mule to be easily repaired by people just like me. I can hotwire a car, kick a generator hard enough to make it work again. I can pick locks, which is always fun, but I ain’t worth a dime if I actually have to fix something. It’s nice to be on top of things for once. Lucky for me the thing comes with a spare lift.

I’ve taken to doing a full inventory. When the raid came I gathered what I could but I’m short in every department but ammunition, and only because I didn’t have that much in the first place. When you have the Judge, you often only have to fire once. I’ve had fights that ended as soon as I pulled the thing. Daddy’s gun has a big voice and don’t take shit from nobody. It helps that it’s like a cannon in your hand, old as it is. .454 Casull is the last argument of kings, he used to say.

So, the list. For posterity, just in case anyone finds my logs or can even listen to them.

The Judge. Thirty .454 Casull rounds and a couple of shells in case I need to shotgun anything.
The Clothes on my back.
The knife on my hip.
My daddy’s old shades.
A half-full fifth of Canadian Hunter, which is a damn shame because it’s awful. It was in the bag when I bolted.
12 full day rations. I’ve eaten two now, so it’s really 10 rations.
Three gallons of water.
My ratty backpack.
The field lab module, thank god it was in the Mule already.
Two canteens.
A sample gathering kit that was with the module.
Old world binoculars.
Proximity alarms to go with the implant the Republic gave me for my brave volunteerin’.
A tiny tent.
A bedroll that’s absolute shit.
That harmonica from Greenville that was in my pack.
A picture of my mother that I pried off dad when he shuffled off the coil with a bottle in his hand. And in his eyes.
A few basic tools.
A useless beacon.
And myself, I guess.

That’s it.

What’s the diagnosis doc? Slow death by starvation if the water is drinkable, delirious death by dehydration if it isn’t. Or, if I’m lucky and I can find food…

Then it’s the Swiss Family Robinson until the cavalry arrives.

Which is, of course, about as likely as high cotton in the slagheaps of Shreveport.

I can’t let myself think like this. I’ll finish fixing the Mule tonight and then… and then I’ll keep moving.

I wanted to say something about the nights in the universe. They are beautiful. Just stunning. I forgot how awesome it was to see all those stars, way up high… I never had the chance to just look at ‘em all before. I was always runnin’. But now I don’t have anywhere to run, and I can look, and I feel like maybe it won’t be so bad, dyin’ here. Maybe it would be better than any way I might go out at home. This place is heaven compared to the badlands or the long roads. Why?

Cause no one has shot at me in two days. Maybe all we needed for paradise was there to only be one of us, yeah?

When Zecora finds the Stranger, she is on her way towards Ponyville.

It is market day. Since finally being accepted in town, Zecora has made a point of never missing market day. She has wares to sell, yes, and it is nice to be of aid and receive it, but more than money or food she cares most for stories. When she left the mountains south of the great desert, she did so to collect them. She had thousands, yes, tucked away in the shrine. But there were more. So many more! Some grand and spanning a dozen scrolls, kept together with great love. Some so small they were encapsulated in a single sentence.

She wanted to know all of them.

When she first noticed the creature, she had been distracted by a bed of Yollis flowers, which were rare but useful. If one knew their secrets, Yollis petals could be used in a half-dozen draughts and Zecors knows them all. But very soon her attention is diverted. The Stranger stirs behind her, watching. It thinks that it is being still, but it is clumsy. Clumsy like ponies are clumsy... no. She pretends that she does not hear, and the creature still does not move. It is a bit smarter than a pony.

What betrays it is the smell. Such a strange odor, and not a good one. Zecora schools her face. She will not give it any sign that she has noticed it's presence, and then she will gauge its intent. She cannot see the newcomer. In fact, she is a bit surprised it has not already sprung.

It continues to fail to attack, leaving her bewildered. Unless... unless it is no creature of the Everfree. One last test. Zecora is braced to swing her hooves and grab the alchemical fire in her bag as she trots away in a random direction.

The Stranger does not follow. After she is satisfied it has left, she changes course of Ponyville and Market Day. The smell of the interloper does not leave her. Neither does the memory. The Everfree is itself a kind of story, and Zecora is the teller.

And yet she has no recollection of this being or its scent.

Log 3

Nine day-rations left. Pills. Bland tasteless pills, but they keep you going.

Today I was on the move. I started by goin’ roughly a mile out from the starting point and just makin’ a big circle around the center. It’s rough if it even connects, but I’m not worried about finding that spot again. There’s no reason to go back, is there?

What I really want to talk about tonight is the creature I saw. First, I figure I ought to explain why seeing anything at all was a surprise. I haven’t seen hide or tail of nothing moving in these woods. I’ve heard bird song, or something that sounds like bird song--hey, it’s an alien world!--but I haven’t seen a single animal.

I was taking some samples of fruit to dump into the field module to test if they were safe to eat when I heard it. The rustling. It’s identical to the sound that deer make sometimes as they walk, so very light, so very very hard to hear, but once you hear it you’ll never miss it again. Not if you want to eat.

I froze.

You gotta understand something here, because I feel like the people who listen to this, or the aliens who listen to this or whoever it is, aren’t going to get what I’m talking about here.

Imagine for just a second: you’re in deep piney woods, rocky terrain, rough in every way. It’s raider country and you have food and medicine bound for Combine, Texas from across the Red River. You’re me when I was still stupid enough to be in the Courier Service and take the damn worst jobs right through survivalist nests and raider country.

Every time you hear the tiniest sound, it could be a knife. It could be a fucking cannibal grinning in some fucking tree lining you up in his grandpa’s rusty old hunting rifle with a big stupid grin on his face. His hands all movin’ with the shakes like he’s got the damn holy spirit. It could be one of those survivalists that drove through Shreveport the day daddy got us out lookin’ for girls to take back for breeding stock. Coyotes. Wolves. Hell, a panther. Anything. It doesn’t matter what because my dad was right when he said that the world wants to kill you and that it will kill you if you let it have enough rope to do the job proper.

What was the creature like? It’s hard to say… if I’m right, I think I may not be alone here and I don’t know how to handle that right now.

Four legs. Grazin’ animal, most likely. What I saw looked like fur. It was either covered or it had long hair so thick it looked like a covering. Maybe it’s domestic and got out in a storm? The covering could be from that, I guess. Looked like a soft black or gray nose… It was grazing in a clearing, I guess, or that’s what it looked like. I thought I saw some sort of tags on its ears? It might have been the neck. God, for the life of me it looked like a horse or a cow or a goat or something under that covering. I can’t help but think of it as some kind of alien horse. That covering… I know it was artificial, and if those glinting things were some sort of tag… it couldn’t do that to itself.

Which means…

Which means there are people of some sort here.

There has to be.

But that thing was eighty yards off, probably. I should have thought of the binoculars before it left, but I was all froze up and didn’t wanna startle it. If I’m wrong, and it’s a huntin’ type, I don’t want it after me. I’d rather not be prey, thank you.

Lucky for me, I don’t think it’s hostile at all. It was sort of… not docile, but it reminded me of the horses the Courier office kept.

I’ll withhold my judgement on whether or not there’s civilization here. I don’t wanna rush into anything. I have to be calm. Treat this like any other ob, that’s how you survive. If it’s all just another job, you never panic. If you never panic, you survive.

The presence of the whatever it was does give me some hope: if I can trap one I can check to see if it’s edible with the field lab and if it is… I might just not starve. I’m about to run the water through as soon as I sign off for the night. Cross your fingers. I’ve put it off long enough. If I can drink it, then I’ll keep making logs. If not? I’ll make one more, sign off, and go find a nice tree to wait under. Set up the beacon just in case.

But if I have even the smallest chance, I’ll take it. I’ll trace the creaks and catch rainwater and set traps and gather. I’m going to survive.

LOG 4

Not sure where to even begin. The things that have happened today… hoo boy.

Right, first: water is fine for drinking. About half of the stuff I’ve gathered from the woods is edible, if not nutritious as it could be… so I can eat. I still have a problem with food, but I have half of a solution. Honestly, we should have seen this coming. Just because it’s nearly identical to home in so many ways doesn’t mean it will be the same in the ones that matter.

Best way to even this out would be to start buildin’ traps. If I can get the occasional critter I’ll be sitting pretty on a mountain of calories. If the plants are good the fauna will be good.

Secondly, Mule is working. It floats again. I’ve got the tether on my belt and it’s followin’ me through the woods decently now.

Today I spent looking for any signs of activity, just in case I’m right about the tags on that animal from yesterday. Paths, logging, crazy cult shrines, anything. The morning passed slowly and I found nothing for all of my trouble. Ended up stopping by a stream and filling my two canteens. Water tastes fine.

Stopped and ate everything I’d gathered along the way and knew was okay to eat. I’m going to try and go without one of the pills today. I want to space them out.

From there, I continued, looking for tracks that might tell me where that creature went… and then I found it. I almost fell into a gorge finding it, but I found it. I know that there are people here, human or otherwise, but people. There’s no doubt in my mind.

Because there’s a fucking castle in the middle of the forest. Goddamn Camelot.

It’s ruined and old, covered with vines and moss and tall grass. But it’s still a castle, and enough of it is standing to explore, so explore it I did! I’ll be damned if the place didn’t take up the rest of my day.

Inside I found… strangeness.

Mostly, it was normal sized. Tall doors and big grand corridors and great halls and all of that. Stairs, or what was left of them. I haven’t really gone past the outside complex… I’ll try the center part. The keep, right? Hell, I don’t know.

Sorry. I mean, the record won’t show any difference. I started this log around four, when I’d just scooted along the edges of the keep. It’s definitely a keep, that’s the word.

If you can’t tell, I’m struggling to put words to what I found. Imagine me just sort of stumblin’ around like an idiot saying, “I’ll be damned” and “Well, lookit that,” for like hours at every little rock and knick-knack. That’s what happened.

There were tapestries, but only two, moth-eaten and stained. I think the rags on the floors were the others, a long time ago There were two weirdo unicorns on them. They had like, wings. Is that a thing unicorns have? I mean, hell, they might always have wings for all I know. I’ve read a lot of books, but I got them when I could and I got ‘em piecemeal. I’m not stupid, I just don’t know a lot of stuff that the old world used to think was so important.

But, whatever they were aside… I liked them. They were pretty, I guess. Wow, that sounds lame, but I don’t know what else to say. Beautiful. Majestic? I sat and just looked at them when I found ‘em.

There were other things to. The tower had some weird shrine in it with arms for candles, I guess. I found what was left of an old library… books… a few honest-to-god treasure chest stuffed with all kinds of old shit that is completely worthless to me here. Candelabras and coins with a bust of the weird unicorns from the banners. I guess its like the logo of this place, whoever lived here. Two thrones in a big room that seemed more impressive and central than the others.

But the more I looked, my excitement sort of died off and I started feeling like I was back home again. It’s not a good feeling. My first home town was Amarillo and my second was Shreveport. Home for me means a slagheap hiding the bodies.

Maybe this place isn’t so perfect. This castle is abandoned and half-destroyed, and I’m pretty sure that isn’t an accident. Someone fought here. Armies, I guess. One came and one defended and I think the defenders lost and now their home is a ruin.

I’m sitting between the two thrones, working up the motivation to set up my proximity alarms for the night. I was insulted when they wanted to give me an uplink, like they didn’t think I could keep up with stuff myself… but it’s pretty comforting having a silent alarm only I can hear right in my brain. They won’t know they’ve set off the alarm until the Judge is pronouncing his verdict.

I just… I just got to go set them up. Then the tent. I’ll sleep between the two chairs tonight. Judge by my side, between the judgement seats, get it? I guess. I kept thinking about Shreveport, when I was a little girl. I spent most of it underground, but the very beginning I was aboveground for. I remember the sound and the heat and the people running. I kept thinking about this Republic guardsman, trying to wave runners towards one of the shelters… and a shell hits the building behind him and it just is gone. It didn’t explode so much as it kinda dissolved outwards and he was just not there anymore. He didn’t turn around. It just swallowed him. All these fallen walls and stuff… I wonder if I dig, if I’ll find some poor little skeleton where it happened here, too? And they probably had to do it face to face, with swords or something. It was all knife work here. It’s bad enough when you pull the trigger and you feel the shock go up your arm and you just know that you’ve hit someone. It’s another to stab a knife in from right in front of their face, close enough for kissin’, and you watch ‘em die. It’s… It’s just too much to think about right now.

So the castle is great. The castle’s kind of sad. But It’s also sort of peaceful. I don’t dislike it, even if it makes me think of things I’d rather be forgetting.

Log 6

Today, with my basecamp set up, I focus on my food supply and my access to water.

As for water, I found the castle well, which was mostly dry, and a cistern that wasn’t. Module says that its clean enough to drink, even if there are trace elements in it. Safer than drinkin’ some rivers in Old World America, ‘bout the same as the tap in Yazoo Commons. It tastes kind of bitter.

That’ll keep me going awhile, and the cistern will refill with rain… which reminds me: the sky is getting darker. I think it’ll rain soon.

Oh! Also, noticed some more markings when I was out. There’s a sun and moon motif on the castle well. After seeing it I noticed it everywhere. The tapestries with the weird unicorns have it to, what’s left of them. Sun and moon, day and night. I like that.
Food is a bigger problem. Water is water, and I can rely on nature to lend me a helpin’ hand, but my luck is sour with gatherin’. Half of the fruit and stuff I’ve tried the field lab on are poisonous or I can’t digest them. Those I have found are mostly not really that helpful--just digestible enough to give me calories but not enough to live on unless I was eating nothing but them nonstop all day long.

I need to find a source of food. Either I find some local plant I can grow more of, or some… See, I’m getting ahead of myself. Cultivatin’ shit is gonna take time. I need something to keep me going past the day my day-ration pills give out.

Short story is, I’m going to set traps. I had a few of the fruits I’m calling Waterfruit for breakfast and then gathered vines from the walls. It’s surprisingly sturdy, way more than I expected. I still wish I had managed to find rope in the Outfitter’s office but these will work.

There are three ways to hunt. You can stalk prey, you can bait or trap, and you can wait. Stalkin’ is badass and all, but it takes too much energy, which cuts into how much you’re gonna get from a successful kill. On top of that it’s hard even with animals on Earth I know aren’t going to turn on me. Also, I can’t find nothin’... disregarding that bird that I saw this morning in the courtyard.

Waiting works. You build a stand or sit in a tree or something and you wait for them to come along and go all sniper on ‘em. But if you have no idea what the habits of prey are… like me, than its pointless. You’ve got to set the stand up strategically, and I woudn’t know where to begin.

Traps it is then. Sometimes people will put out a salt lick or corn and let hogs or deer come find them. You keep replenishing anything eaten away, do that for a while… and then one day you stalk it out and you kill the freeloaders. Sounds kind of harsh, doesn’t it? A little expensive, too.

But I’m good with traps. I can make like a dozen different kinds, from harmless to brutal. My favorite? An old Apache trick. Dig a little hole and then you put sorta sharp sticks all facing inwards towards a hole in the middle… that’s what it looks like. The idea is that you cover it up and when a deer or some big animal bumbles by they’ll step in it and not be able to figure out how to get out. The sticks will keep them there. A human could probably worm out, but a hog? Nah.

My least favorite is probably the drowning snare, even if dad always said it was merciful. The idea is a little noose that the critter steps into hauls it into nearby water, weighted down with a big rock. You can guess the rest. Deep enough water and it drowns in a minute. A little panic and then nothing, instead of maybe an hour or more of pain and fear and suffering. So I get why dad thought that…

I probably sound really cold-blooded. The truth is that I ain’t looking forward to this. When there was still an America, folks went hunting for fun, they tell me. I don’t understand that at all. Just because I have a bigass hand cannon doesn’t mean I like shootin’ people or even animals with it. Everytime I pull that trigger I do it because I know I have to, or I die. Every single time I’ve hunted, it was to survive between towns and between jobs. I don’t like it. I like the feeling of success when I nab something big, and I like venison, but I don’t like shooting it down. I don’t like wounding a buck and then trailing it, knowing in my heart that it’s hurt now and I did that. I made it hurt… and that feels awful. Being sorry doesn’t help. It doesn’t mend the bullet hole and it doesn’t make the poor thing bleed out faster.

But I don’t want to die. I can’t die yet. I’m twenty seven. That’s just too young to die, even in a world like mine or this one. Not yet.

So I have to. I don’t want to hurt anything out there… but I’m going to starve. I could hold off and wait until I’m desperate, but if I do that, I decrease the chances I catch anything while I have the strength to put it out of its misery and actually test and eat it.

I’m sorry, new world. But you do whatcha gotta. That’s the savage way.