Void Trials

Reflection

Shetland glided through the hallway at a brisk pace. She kept her eyes focused on her target, trying her best to ignore broken drones, cover, and worst of all, corpses she could see out of the corners of her eyes. As she reached the cockpit, she braced herself. With her eyes closed, so she would not have to look at Press´s body, she fumbled through the room blindly.

“Shetland!” Mellow’s artificial voice screamed. He had fallen behind after she abruptly took off and had to update his motor senses to work in the weightless environment, but Shetland's sudden slowdown had given him a chance to catch up.

“Shetland,” he said again. “What are you doing? do you have a plan?”

She nodded, still unable to open her eyes. “Just tell me where the tube is and I'll explain”

“A little to your right…why are you doing this?”

“I don't want to see.”

“You… you knew one of them?” Mellow asked, his voice intermingled with clear concern.

“I don't want to say either!” Shetland snapped at him, then she felt the opening of the long tube connecting the ships. She let out a sigh. “I-I'm sorry. He was my friend”

“It´s okay, Shetland. I can only imagine how stressful that must be for you. So, this plan of yours?”

“Exactly,” she said as she climbed to the smaller pirate ship. “You see, there IS an A.I that can fly a ship, and it's right there”

If Mellow had a mouth, it would have dropped open. “T-The enemy? The intelligence that attacked us?”

“Think about it,” Shetland said, her voice abuzz. “Their A.I. managed to fly this ship from the colony right into our flight path, with no crew on it except for mindless drones which it also manually controls.”

“Wait… you said they came from the colony? why would they send a spaceship our way, manned with just drones? How would they escape if this didn't work?”

Shetland slowed down again, furrowing her brows. “They had to come from there. There is no other way their ship could have been in front of us” She puffed out her cheeks and blew air through her lips. “They must have a second ship. That way they could escape even if this attack failed…”

“Are you really sure they're pirates? It would be incredibly unusual for lowly criminals to have two spaceships at their disposal.”

“It doesn't matter who exactly they are, Mellow! We have to assume their real crew is still in the colony, probably holding hostages-”

“Maybe they aren’t. Maybe they killed everypony,” Mellow said,interrupting Shetland, who turned and looked at him with a shocked expression. “They were fine killing everypony on the ship and-”

“We have to assume, Mellow!” Shetland shouted. her throat felt like it had a little jawbot in it, tearing from the inside, but it didn't matter. “T-there are much more ponies living in the colony than on a ship… there have to be hostages.” She stated again, staring into his glowing visor, as if provoking him to disagree.

“Alright, Shetland… do you have a plan to deal with… lets say around forty to fifty pirates and also rescue the hostages?”

She gritted her teeth. “Only if we can use this ship to arrive. We'll have the surprise factor, if they see their own ship arrive, they won't expect hostiles on it”

“That´s not enough! we need something more!” Mellow exclaimed.

Shetland looked back at him, her eyes lingering on his visor and her expression changed to one of… he could not properly identify it, perhaps sadness. “It´s… all we have Mellow. We just have to hope for the best.” She said and entered the command bridge, briskly walking to the data core. Praying it would work, she took the wire she had plugged out of the cube and reinserted it into the core. Then, as the lights started to glow, she took a step back and leveled her shotgun at it.

“Startup sequence initiated… memory loss due to power outage detected. Attempt repairs,” a voice intoned from above them, much like the captain’s speaker system on their ship. Shetland nervously waited as the voice started to count percentages. “Lock and barricade the door,” she whispered to Mellow. “It could try to fool us”

“Repairs complete. Memory restored,” it paused. “Enemies on ship detected. attempt connection to drone units-” it intoned, but Shetland interrupted it.

“If you do anything funny, I will blow your core to pieces!”

“Connection attempt aborted,” the voice intoned. “Diplomacy route engaged. You have reactivated this unit. I am bound by programming to not reveal or hint towards my end user´s identity”

“I want to know what you were sent here to do.” Shetland asked.

“I have been tasked with finding the ship on course towards Eggnor 4, kill the crew and strip the ship and its cargo of its most valuable parts,” the A.I. answered.

“This seems a bit too helpful, don't you think?” Mellow asked, the small lights behind his visor narrowing.

“It would be standard procedure actually,” Shetland asked. “Except for the killing part. and until now it´s only been done while the ship´s still on a planet. However,” she said to the ceiling. “You've failed. we've destroyed your drones. you can't kill us anymore. you have failed your objective”

“processing… this statement is true.” it said, without even a hint of emotion at the fact.

“So… Shetland said, hoping desperately her assumptions were correct. “It's time to move on to the next thing on the list, right?”

“... This unit could wait for the enemy to perish of natural causes,” it said. Shetland could hear the cooling unit of the core pick up as it thought of the conundrum. It made her grin.

“Isn't it usually the case that unmanned ships controlled by artificial intelligence have a set date after which they have to return, whether or not they have achieved their goal?”

The A.I. did not answer, but Shetland was now sure of her theory. “So, imagine I threatened to shoot your core here to pieces if you don't return exactly when I say it… you could not risk failing another objective willingly, could you?”

The noise of the cooling unit picked up dramatically, just to drop off after a few seconds. “You would be right. Privilege granted. Awaiting your command”

“Excellent,” Shetland grinned. “Now prepare for another power outage.” Then she pulled the wire out again.

“why-” Mellow started, but Shetland interrupted him.

“We need to prepare first. and move a lot of stuff we'll need from ship to ship. Also, I need you to do three things: one, search the ship for anything that could be used for communication and disable it. We can't risk them getting a warning. Two, destroy any drone you see, I think we got them all, but we better double-check that. And three, take guns and get used to them, you'll need to do that very soon, you got all that?” She looked in his visor.

He nodded. “Alright… what will you do?”

“Check out what we can use in the cargo of our ship”

They each went to their assigned tasks. Two hours later, Mellow joined Shetland in the cargo room, she had separated ten big crates from the rest and was just closing an eleventh. He made a noise which would come close to a whistle. “Are we really gonna use all that?” he asked.

“Hopefully not,” she answered. “I've laid out some armor suits, not sure which one's your size. Try them”

As he set out to measure the suits, she added: “Also, i've put the best guns over there… familiarize with them… I think once we push over those boxes we can start.” Her voice shivered tensely.

Mellow moved closer to the large crates. “Do you need help, Shetland? With your leg… and what's in them, exactly?” He reached for one of them, but she swatted his hoof away.

“It´s weightless and I took painkillers, I can do it myself!” She said loudly.

Assuming it was a thing of pride for the soldier mare, Mellow dropped it. “Can I carry those guns over, at least?” He asked.

“Hu- y-yes, you can do that,” she said and pushed the crate out the room, careful to not use her injured leg.

Once again, she stopped in the cockpit at the sight of her friend’s body.

“Do… do you want me to put the bodies away?” Mellow asked softly.

“No…” Shetland said, and pressed her eyes shut. Then she took a deep breath. “Yes… put it away… I need to stay focused…”

Mellow nodded and gently pulled Press´s body on his back. Dead limbs hung from his back in unnatural angles and Shetland’s stomach jumped, but her artificial friend quickly carried the body out of sight. She took another controlled, if shaky, breath.

“He was really close to you, wasn't he?” Mellow asked as he returned.

Shetland nodded and said with a husky voice “He… I knew Press since we entered marine training as foals. I was the only one who had homeschooling by my mom ontop of that, so I seldom had free time. But Press, he would accompany me, and since then I had someone I could pass notes to while mom rambled on,” her eyes had drifted off, looking at a faraway place. “We were the best of friends. Then one day Ciloa showed up, a distant relative to one of mom's oldest friends and Press immediately adored her. She-”

Shetlands voice broke. She gritted her teeth. “I should have saved her! I saw her struggling, reach out with her hoof and then… sucked out…” She stomped her hoof. “She was too far away and… Saw… none of us knew him, we just met him yesterday, but he risked his life, trying to catch her… he´s a hero. and I… I´m not.”

Mellow put his hoof on her shoulder to calm her down. “You couldn't do anything, Shetland. If she was too far away for you to reach then there´s nothing you could have done. It´s not your fault she died. And… you can be a hero. I believe that you can save us”

Shetland turned her head, meeting eyes with his glowing lights. A deep sadness laid in her eyes and she opened her mouth, just to bite her own lip. “W-we wasted too much time. Help me move the crates, but don't open them, you could scramble ammo types…” She said, forcing the words out. He nodded and went off, leaving Shetland to work alone, but now more focused.

Half an hour later, Shetland went over the crates, checking their contents while Mellow waited at the data core. When she arrived he was adorned in a full suit of armor and even a helmet, which managed to bring a tiny chuckle out of Shetland. She reinserted the wire one more time into the core.

“Shall I execute your command now, intruder?” The voice asked.

“Yes,” Shetland said simply. Immediately, she could hear the engine of the ship starting up. She turned to Mellow and showed him two tiny earbuds. “We can stay in contact with these, make sure you have them in your ear once we're on ground and do not take them out, no matter what”

He nodded in understanding and she patted his shoulder. “This is our best chance.” She said, before she moved back to the room in which she'd stored the crates. “Knock here about two hours before we land,” she said and locked the door behind herself.

Landing a spaceship was a hard, almost impossible task. Big freighter ships were not build to land at all: instead, their cargo space was detachable. They would be thrown into a planet's atmosphere, land safely with the use of parachutes and gas balloons and be retrieved by pick-up teams from the surface. Because of the difficulties associated with this procedure, efforts had been made to make it as efficient as possible. On Eggnor 4, the colonists had decided to simply use the huge cargo rooms by connecting them with their pre-existing structures, which made the colony look like a weird mish-mash of glass and metal structures if viewed from above. But then the pirate ship slowly pulled up, and the colony was no longer visible from the cockpit.

Mellow and Shetland laid on the floor of the ship´s gate with their armor´s magnetic modules in effect to secure them to the ground. Mellow said it tickled his hooves. The engines roared and they felt the pull of gravity shift, now not from their sides anymore, but more and more pulling them to what they perceived as downwards. They were landing. Soon after, they felt like the ground had smacked their undersides, the lower jet engines had engaged, slowing their descend. And then it stopped.

Shetland got up first. She opened a crate which was also secured to the ground and pulled out her weapons: a heavy pistol, two assault rifles and a shotgun. Mellow reached out his hoof, but she stopped him. “Mellow, you need to listen very well now,” She said, her eyes staring into his visor intensely. “I have a plan, but it´s very risky, for both of us.”

“I am ready.” He replied simply. “Just tell me what to do.”

“First we wait until a bunch of pirates try and enter the ship, they won't expect an attack. We'll catch them by surprise and then I'll slip out”

Mellow nodded, but her use of the singular did not evade him. “What about me?”

“You stay on the ship and distract them, survive and hold them off as long as possible, they will want their ship back.”

“You- you want to use me as bait?” He asked incredulously.

“Listen,” she said loudly. Her ears picked up the mechanical sound she already knew as the connection tube. “While you distract them here, I will look for surviving colonists; if they took hostages, they probably locked them all in the same room for simplicity. I find them, free them, arm them and then we'll come back and save you. The clutter in the hallway, that´s cover I've built for you. I've also sealed most of the side rooms, so they can come from only one direction. Just hold out as long as possible, you can do it” She swallowed and pressed one of her assault rifles into his hooves. Her eyes darted around and her mouth opened, but then the loud noise of metal hitting metal sounded through the ship, and quickly after someone knocked on the door and a throaty voice bellowed. “This thing gonna open or what, tin box?”

“Ready?” Shetland muttered under her breath.

“Ready!” Mellow confirmed, then he pulled the lever. The door flew open and before either party could identify the other, Shetland opened fire, the screams of surprise and pain bloated out by the rattling of her gun. She only stopped when she was sure they wouldn't move anymore and cast a short glance at the corpses. They were a bit smaller than ponies and looked humpbacked. Their teeth were sharp and their eyes pitch black. Overall they looked more canine than equine.

“Hyenas,” Shetland cursed, but she didn't have any time to ask herself why those of all species would be here. “Get in cover,” She screamed to Mellow, who saluted. “And stay in contact!” He motioned to his ear to indicate that he understood, then Shetland leaped through the tube, her gun raised. No one else was in the big hall, but that would change soon. Shetland dashed through the leftmost passage: the further away she was from the place of landing, the less resistance she would encounter.

It was a good thing she found an even more effective painkiller drug, otherwise she would have been much more hampered. Mellow had warned her she should be careful with those, but right now, they were necessary.

A broken door, with scorch marks on the walls caught her attention, and she moved closer. One  look confirmed this was the armory, stripped completely clean. She opened a random drawer. Nothing. The pirates probably brought all of it on their ship. Shetland cursed. With the armory ruled out, the only weapons she could give to the hostages, if there even were ones, were those she could take off killed pirates.

Her ears peaked up. Someone was running through the corridor. She quickly checked her rifle and went into position. Only a second later, a group of three hyenas, two of them in armor much like Shetland's, popped into the room, in plain view of their target. But Shetland's enhanced hearing had given her a warning they were lacking and she filled the air with automatic fire as her enemies were scrambling to point their weapons at her. One´s shield failed after a split-second, and it fell, it´s chest punctured, together with the unarmored one who, without protection, simply fell in the hail of fire. But the last pirate managed to take cover behind the body of its companion, and Shetland´s magazine ran out of bullets. With a victorious grin, the hyena burst out of cover, and quickly pulled the trigger on Shetland. One shot cracked her shield, a second destroyed it, a third missed. And now Shetland had taken cover and pulled out her own pistol. Then she burst out, both foes quickly aiming to get the deciding shot and with a loud crack, the hyena's head exploded.

Shetland took a deep breath, then equipped her rifle with a new magazine and stormed off to where the small group had come from. In the distance she could hear more gunfire and she hoped Mellow would be able to handle himself. Her direction lead her into what appeared to be the colonists’ quarters: a twisted hallway with doors everywhere. Considering the close proximity, Shetland secured her rifle on her back and switched to a shotgun instead. Then she rounded the corner and-

Wham!

She hit something of her size and she was thrown back, landing unfortunately on her bad leg, which gave in and she hit the floor. She had run into a hyena which had rounded the corner at the same time she had, but this one was unarmored, probably the reason she did not hear it. She got up again, but the hyena did the same. With a startled look on its face, it threw itself on the shotgun Shetland had dropped. With a sudden surge of anger, Shetland threw herself on the pirate, knocking the beast against the wall, her armored hoof pressing against its throat. “Where are the colonists? Are there survivors?” She screamed

The hyena scowled, but Shetland pressed harder and it let out an almost pony-like giggle. Shetland remembered faintly from one of her mother´s lectures that this was a sign of submission under hyenas. She relieved the creature's throat, but before it could try anything, she grabbed her shotgun and held it straight towards its chest.

“Y-yes, t-there are survivors of your colony, pony,” It said between taking greedy breaths.

“How many? Where? How do you protect them?” She said, but before it could answer, she added: “If I even suspect a lie, I will pull the trigger first on your thighs, and then your head”

Sweating, the hyena licked its lips and said with a higher-pitched voice: “A-about a hundred and fifty, pony. In the ample hall” It looked at the shotgun, which Shetland still held straight at its chest. “Just from here, take the left a-and walk straight ahead, behind the door with the chairs in front it is! Some of us are guarding them.” It swallowed. “T-That's all I know, don't shoot me!” It cried out, it´s eyes watering.

Shetland squinted her eyes, then she knocked its head with the butt of her gun with as much force as she thought wouldn't kill it and moved on, quickly running in the direction the hyena had mentioned.

“Shetland!” Mellow´s voice suddenly shouted in her head, startling her enough that she had almost fired a shot.

“Mellow! What's your status?” She said quieter, concern in her voice.

“Bad,” he shouted back. “I've had to give up the first position and they're using  my first cover against me now, more of them are coming in-” She heard shuffling, followed by a burst of gunfire and she guessed he had risked a quick look. He shouted: “Around five of them, all armored, Shetland, please tell me you've made progress!”

“I might have found the place they're holding the hostages, please, just hold out a little longer!” She said, then she cut the call. She was standing in front of a big wooden door and, lacking any reasonable alternative, peeked through the keyhole. She could see a large group of ponies a few metres away, sitting on, next to, and under rows of benches which she guessed were aligned in a big half-circle around a stage, on which she could see the back of one hyena standing, loosely holding an automatic weapon, but Shetland was sure there were more she could not see. She quietly took her rifle, then fired a large burst through the door, splintering the wood and, from the screams of pain and alarm, caught one hyena in her volley. Then she jumped to the side, just in time to evade the return fire, from what seemed like two more automatic weapons. She held out her gun and blindly returned fire through another section of the door, but achieved no hits this time. She dared not fire from another angle, lest she might hit the crowd of ponies behind. The Hyenas had no such scruples and blasted their volleys through the wood. Shetland had to dive behind a vending machine in the hallway for cover. She could hear the fizzing of soda cans, as some bullets hit her shield.

She desperately thought of a plan. Surely, this was loud enough to alert every pirate in the vicinity, and unlike before she could not move on, she had to free the hostages! And to make it worse, Mellow called again.

“SHETLAND! I ONLY HAVE ONE MORE COVER LEFT, YOU NEED TO COME SAVE ME!” He screamed, even louder than before, just tuning out the gunfire from both sides.

“I´M WORKING ON IT!” Shetland screamed back, looking around for anything-

Aloud scream bellowed out, at first Shetland thought it came from Mellow, but then she saw through the badly damaged door, a group of hostages had thrown themselves at the hyenas as they were distracted, one had went down under the surprise attack, the other, behind a metal desk for cover, was wrestling with a small pegasus mare who tried to pull the weapon from its paws. Screaming, Shetland stormed forward.

The hyena managed to smash the pegasus's head with one of its paws, then broke  the gun out of her grip and shot a burst into her stomach. He turned to face Shetland, but she already rammed into him, throwing him on the ground. Forgetting all weaponry, Shetland smashed her hoof in its head once, twice, thrice. After a fourth stomp, she heard something snap loudly and she slid off the corpse. A few hostages were cheering, but a big group was already forming around the shot mare. Shetland knew with one look it was too late for her, blood poured out of her body and her breathing was troubled. Unable to follow her last moments, Shetland looked over the crowd. most of them were still shaking in fear, some were smashing on the other hyena, their eyes filled with tears of rage.

“SHETLAND!” The desperate call came from Mellow. “YOU NEED TO COME NOW! I'm on my last cover and they damaged my visor, I can barely see!”  His tone was hurried, desperate, despaired.

“How many are there?” Shetland asked. She had around four weapons she could give to colonists, maybe they could rush back, catch the pirates in between-

“I DON'T KNOW,” Mellow screamed. “AT LEAST A DOZEN, SWARMING THE SHIP, YOU NEED TO COME NOW!”

A dozen!? The blood froze in Shetland’s veins. She swallowed, cold sweat running down her face. She looked over the colonists, some of them seemed brave enough, but none of them appeared like soldiers. A DOZEN! Shetland’s breath quickened, her throat was dry. She may have taken on three at once before, but she always had the element of surprise and superior armor.  She would not surprise this group, and she had no armor for the colonists. She took off her helmet and swiped the sweat off her forehead and licked her dry lips. Her hoof was shaking.

“I-I'm sorry, Mellow,” She said, holding her helmet and the microphone in it close to her mouth.

“WHAT?” Mellow screamed back. “Y-YOU CAN´T LEAVE ME, YOU HAVE TO SAVE ME, SHETLAND. SHETLAND, SHETLAAAND!”

Unable to bear his voice, she pulled the earbud out of her ear and threw it into the corner. She swallowed, her hooves shaking so bad that she dropped her helmet. She rummaged in her armor´s pocket and pulled out a tiny device, which quickly extended an antennae. It's only purpose was a singular, red button and a tiny switch. She turned the switch and a small green light on the top of it went on and shone onto the button. Shetland´s lips silently formed the words: “I'm sorry”.

She pressed the button and all she could hear through the sudden barrage of noise was the quiet crackle coming from the corner, which had replaced Mellow´s voice.

She dropped down, her stomach twisted, she felt nauseous. Something wet and salty dripped from her nose onto the ground. The hostages gathered around her, unsure what to make of her strange behaviour. She felt bile climbing up her throat. Her skin felt cold. She dragged herself into the corner, the atrocious crackle picking up as she moved closer to the dreaded device. Shetland closed her eyes and stomped on it. With all her willpower, she swallowed down her gall. She looked towards the gathered and confused ponies. Questions like “what happened?”, “Who is she?” and “are we safe?” flew through the room, as well as concerned ones, asking if Shetland was okay, if she needed medical help. Instead, she spoke up. “Listen up, ponies” She said loudly, surprised how steady she could make her voice sound. “I need volunteers right now, pick up the guns, we will chase the bastards off this place!”

Her demands were met with instead obedience and moments after, she had an entourage of three recruits.

“The rest of you, stay here, barricade the door!” She commanded, then she turned for the hallway and chased back the way she came from. Almost immediately, they saw a group of two hyenas, but instead of opening fire, their eyes widened in fear, and they ran for the next door. But Shetland wouldn't give them the opportunity, she fired her guns into their backs, dropping the hated foes, then she quickly led her group past. Whenever they saw the enemy, they seemed to be fleeing, only one group tried to return fire. They were cut down. It seemed the commanding officer of the intruders had called for a hasty retreat.  Shetland chased after them with blind fury, rapidly cutting them down as they tried to run. Then, from the hangar just in the next room, they heard a roar. Storming in, they saw the second pirate ship, its engines starting as they fled the colony.

However, the sight that made Shetland drop her weapon and sink to her knees, that made her  quickly assembled team scream and panic, was the sight of the burning wreckage that had both destroyed and saved Shetland´s life only half a day ago. The fires slowly caught into the room, smoke seeped into the room and made taking a breath difficult. The colonists screamed, some of them ran, trying to find a way to combat the fire. Shetland threw off her helmet. Despite the screams and the fire, her ears were filled with a quiet crackle. Her leg hurt. breathing hurt. She violently threw off parts of her armor until she got one foreleg out. She turned up her bag and pulled out a small syringe as her expression twisted into a joyless smile. She set it to her leg and pushed, and as the drugs flowed into her veins, her pain stopped, and slowly, the horrible crackle was replaced with the calming sounds of her heart.

ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-, ba-, dum, ba.... dum… ba….

Something cold touched her cheek. Screaming filled the air, close to her ear, but Shetland simply smiled as she closed her eyes. The pain was gone, and the melody of her heart soothed her to sleep.

ba-, ba…., dum, ba…, …, …