Lost Moon Dancer

by qwefg

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Mystery, Moondancer, Science Fiction, Lightning Dust, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Other
Length: 23500

Moon Dancer wakes up in a cold room with no idea how she got there as a machine is telling her she is in space... but that can't possible be true.

Moon Dancer wakes up in a cold room with no idea how she got there as a machine is telling her she is in space... but that can't possible be true.

Published 2016-12-16 02:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-02-11 00:56:40 UTC

Ch1 Waking Up

Those who do not fear the unknown are truly blessed with ignorance for they cannot comprehend just how horribly things can go wrong.

Moon Dancer opened her eyes and gasped for air as she fell to the floor. Her lung worked to take in as much fresh air as she could only to cause her to cough as she struggled to breath. The icy touch of the cold air burned her throat as she struggled to keep her breathing steady.

She tried to calm herself as she looked around the dimly lit room only to see a terminal resting nearby her. The light above the machine kept flickering as if drawing her to it. Her first thoughts raced to what had happened before she was trapped inside this room.

She was in Canterlot… Twilight had invited her to a picnic with her old Canterlot friends. She did remember going to the picnic but her memories were a little fuzzy. Did Minute do something to the drinks when she wasn’t looking?

“Where am I?” she muttered to herself as she felt something pinching her body “What happened?”

She looked at her own body only to see a white bulky suit covering most of her body. She tried to take the suit off only to realize she couldn’t find a way to remove it. Her horn ached in pain as she saw her own breath in the air as the room seemed to grow colder by the second.

The room was almost alien as the cold white metal covered everything. She couldn’t help but shiver as there were a few pieces of ice hanging from the ceiling. She looked behind her and spotted what looked like a large egg shaped coffin that had been made just for her size. There were no windows in the room and there was only one door leading in and out of the room.

Moon Dancer walked over to the door and shouted “Hello? Is anypony there?”

She pressed her face against the door as she couldn’t see anything behind it. She couldn’t hear anypony on the other side of the door. The only thing in the room was the screen as the blinking light continued to flicker above it.

She tried to smile as she told herself “This is probably just some sort of bad prank. Lemon Hearts told me that I needed to spend more time outside… and Twilight’s intervention might have taken it a bit too far.”

Moon Dancer remembered how Twilight had reacted after remembering her old Canterlot friends. While Moon Dancer shouldn’t have been so rude to Twilight about trying to reconnect… Twilight was also kind of at fault.

“Hopefully this is a prank from that pony Pinkie Pie… or Rainbow Dash.” She told herself as she walked over to the screen with the blinking light.

She paused as it sort of looked like one of those large computers that Twilight had in her basement.

Moon Dancer tapped the wall beside and muttered “It isn’t humming… no cracks, seams, or spaces in-between the machine and the wall.” She bit her lip and looked at the mostly empty room “And it also doesn’t take up half the room. Maybe the rest of the computer took up the room on the other side of the wall.”

She looked back at the front of the machine as the screen was there… but no slot for the paper to print out. There were a couple of keys similar to a typewriter in front of her. She carefully used her magic to press down on one of the keys as it went down until a faint ‘click’ was heard.

She looked back up at the screen as she expected to see the button she had pressed only for the screen to show “In death we survive to grant others a chance, but in bowing our heads to those who invade we only offer up the lives of those who will come after us along with our own.”

Moon Dancer shivered the screen flickered for a moment before a new message appeared “Are you awake?”

She looked around the room and shouted “I’m awake! Where are you?”

The message flickered again “Are you awake?”

Moon Dancer frowned as she looked at the machine and pressed the letter Q as it appeared on the screen. She pressed a couple more letters before hitting enter as the screen flashed only to bring up the previous question.

She took a deep breath and slowly typed “I am awake. Where am I?”

She watched the letters appear on the screen as the new message replied “You are onboard the T960 Interstellar. If you have any further questions then please type your questions into the computer terminal in front of you.”

Moon Dancer closed her eyes as she tried to remember what had happened before she woke up in this room. Her mind was fuzzy as the cold air certainly wasn’t helping her thing as she thought back to her friends. She didn’t remember leaving the picnic so it would be safe to assume that they moved her when she accidently fell asleep.

She glanced at the terminal and typed “Where are the others?”

The machine quickly replied “The others are in Cryo status.”

Moon Dancer frowned as that didn’t make much sense “Where are they?”

The screen flickered for a moment as the message still read “The others are in Cryo Status.”

Moon Dancer grunted in frustration as she typed “Bring them to me!”

The screen slowly typed out the response to her demand stating “Current request in unable to be granted due to power issues. Life support can only currently sustain one individual until power is turned back on. Please interact with MAL at the next computer terminal for any further requests and instructions in the next room. To open door please enter OPEN DOOR.”

Moon Dancer pressed harder on the keyboard as she typed “Open door.”

The door slowly hissed as it opened up as Moon Dancer raced outside of the freezing cold room only to find another room with a locked door and a terminal. The young mare rubbed her head as she tried to carefully think about what was going on.

There was one of those events where you placed a group of people in a room as they tried to figure out how to solve the puzzle. The room had a table and a rather oddly shaped couch. It didn’t look like it was built to support a pony as it was a bit too thin as the backrest was a little bit tall. There was a single window of a picture of some alien planet and two moons orbiting it.

She chuckled as who ever built this place must have had a lot of time on their hooves to make it seem as if the planet was slowly rotating outside. With a quick tap against the wall to check for any spaces between the picture and the wall… she was a bit surprised to see that the picture was welded onto the wall.

A little bit extreme to sell this gag… but maybe somepony like Pinkie Pie would be crazy enough to go the extra mile. Thankfully there was another screen on the other side of the room with the same typewriter setup.

She raced over to the machine and typed “Where are my friends?”

The screen flickered as a new message appeared “I am sorry but Life support can only support one individual for right now. If you take the power converter chip on the table behind you…”

“Where am I!” Moon Dancer typed in frustration as she was growing tired of this game.

The screened flickered again as a new message appeared “You are aboard the T960 Interstellar space ship that is currently docked with space station Vigil. This ship was built to create a sustainable atmosphere to help keep it’s crew safe and able to survive deep within the cold void of space. Currently life support has been set for only one crew member.”

Moon Dancer shook her head as she was probably in Canterlot… or Ponyville. There was just another pony sitting outside on the grass and looking through a one way mirror watching her reactions. She just wished that they hadn’t made the room so cold.

She slowly nodded to herself as she said “My name is Moon Dancer.” The screen still had the previous message as she realized she had to type her response “My name is Moon Dancer.”

She tried to focus on the screen instead of the terror her heart was feeling as the message replied “Hello Moon Dancer. Is there anything else you want to ask?"

Moon Dancer shivered as she tried to ignore it as she mumbled to herself “What I want to know is how I got here or what’s going on… but I doubt you’ll tell me that.”

The screen didn’t change until Moon Dancer typed “Where are you?”

“I’m right here.” The cryptic message replied

Moon Dancer felt like rolling her eyes as she decided to play along “Can you please explain?"

The screen flickered for a moment as a new message appeared “My name is MAL and I am the Manufactured Artificial Life created to help guide, protect, and ensure the safety of both the crew and the mission. Would you like a map of the show to show you where to put the power converter chip in?”

She chuckled nervously as she typed “Could you also show me a picture of the chip?”

Moon Dancer stared at the screen as she saw herself… well the back of her body in the white bulky space suit you saw little foals wear on Nightmare Night. So this suit didn’t look like it was strung together at the last minute or bought at a costume shop as it had various items attached to it including what seemed like a bulky… backpack. Not the standard saddlebag design, but something you would see on a diamond dog or a Minotaur.

Oh and there was a red circle drawn around the table behind her. Another red arrow was drawn on the picture pointing at what looked like a one of those large crystal chipboards that looked like it came from an old sci-fi horror play Minute had once shown her. Moon Dancer moved her forelegs as she noticed that it wasn’t a picture… it was a camera watching her in real time.

She quickly turned around and tried to see where the camera was being hidden as she didn’t see anything like the cameras back home… of course those weren’t advanced enough to show her movement in real time.

It couldn’t be the same stage trick the actors used during their plays as that was really smoke and mirrors. If it was a series of mirrors reflecting her image than she would have seen the first piece of glass or reflective surface they had been using inside the room.

Moon Dancer took a deep breath and used her magic to scan the room. There were plenty of spells that could be cast to give the illusion the screen was showing… or maybe it was a combination of scrying spells? She kept casting every type of detection spell that she knew of only to grow more frustrated with each passing second.

Magic was common in Equestria. Levitation spells by unicorns… flight from a nearby Pegasus… yet she couldn’t sense anything. No magical gems or arcane circuitry… She couldn’t even feel the normal magic used by the other tribes as the area around her felt empty.

She tried pushing herself as she extended the reach of the spell past the room she was in. She continued pushing herself as she had no idea what ‘scale’ she was using as she didn’t get any response. Her entire body shivered as she didn’t feel any ‘background’ magic in the area.

Moon Dancer gulped as evil underground bunker hidden deep within the ground of a nearby mountain came into play. After all she couldn’t be up in an unknown space ship because that would be silly… and highly improbable. It was just more likely that… everypony outside wasn’t using magic within her radius meaning she could detect their presence with her spell because they were not actively using magic.

That or a secret society entirely made up of donkeys had built this place in secret and managed to build a series of devices that managed to record her actions and then play it back to her in real time without anypony in Equestria realizing what they were doing.

“Yes…” Moon Dancer muttered to herself sarcastically “Because that make much more sense than the alternative.”

She sighed as she tried to remember that this was all some really big elaborate prank. Maybe Princess Twilight Sparkle had just managed to convince all of Ponyville to help her out with this prank. Maybe this was all a big joke… or some sort of test to take notes on and then send to Princess Celestia… after all the newest alicorn had used a ‘need it, want it’ spell to make a friendship problem so that she could solve it and report back to Princess Celestia.

Moon Dancer chuckled nervously as that had to be the answer instead of wishful thinking on her part. Still she couldn’t help but shiver as she lifted up the ‘chip’ with her magic. It didn’t look like anything she had studied or read about… as there wasn’t a single gem or arcane relay setup to help power, manipulate or anything that matched the computer Twilight had.

She chuckled nervously as she told herself “Maybe Pinkie Pie has a party set up in the next room. I just stick the ‘chip’ into the slot and surprise… everypony throws me a surprise birthday party or something.”

Moon Dancer walked over to the door tried to open it up manually only for it to remain shut. She looked back at the computer and remembered what she had to do to open up the previous door.

She tried to keep calm as she was ready to chew out whoever was responsible for this prank as she typed “Can you open up the door?”

The screen flickered as a new message appeared “Currently ship power only allows a limited amount of life support and power to certain rooms. If there is anything you want from the cryo room than I suggest you grab it before requesting the door to open up. Otherwise the door will remain shut until enough power has been restored to the ship.”

Moon Dancer shouted as she furiously typed “You mean my friends might die!”

A new message suddenly appeared “They will be safe in Cryo. The door to the room will be turned off as the systems will attempt to conserve life support. You just won’t be able to return until power has been restored.”

Moon Dancer sighed in relief as she shook her head as she replied to herself “It’s just a prank… a really bad prank as nopony is in danger…”

She glanced back at the room that she had woken up in as she didn’t feel any better. Looking back at the message on the board her previous words felt hollow as her heart beat continued to race as the previous jump scare still felt fresh.

“Just take a deep breath.” Moon Dancer replied as she walked towards the open door “Remember the Cookie Cutter Theory… the most likely answer is probably correct. It’s more likely this is a bad prank than anything else.”

******

Moon Dancer followed the machine’s directions as she found the ‘power room’ and inserted the missing ‘chip’ back into its assigned slot as the ship began to hum. Warmth started to fill the room as Moon Dancer waited for everypony to jump out and say ‘surprise’ as they scared her half to death.

She slowly tapped her hoof as she waited for the jump scare only for nothing to happen. Moon Dancer looked at all of the strange machinery in the room as she didn’t know how they worked… expect that heat was being restored to the rooms and there wasn’t a single gem in any of these systems.

She used her magic to check for any changes… any signs of magic being used as the heat had to be coming from somewhere. She didn’t find any heating spells or any creatures breathing fire as that process also involved using magic. She chuckled nervously as the only other answer she had was actual fire… or maybe some sort of natural underground heating source like a hot spring or something.

She sniffed the air trying to smell the hint of smoke, sulfur, something to tell her where this heat was being generated. To her despair she couldn’t detect anything. She couldn’t smell anything out of the ordinary. The faint ‘hum’ of the machines beside her that seemed to fill the room told her the machines were working… without any connection or basis on the similar arcane technology used in Equestria.

Moon Dancer slowly walked back to the room with the terminal as she glanced at the smooth white hallways… as she didn’t see anypony. No scuff marks on the floor or hoof prints left over as somepony didn’t wipe their hooves. No fallen feathers from any pegasi or strands of hair left from a pony as the suit she wore felt more constricting now.

Nopony was here as her own hoofsteps seemed to echo in the empty hallway as she spotted the closed doors that could only be opened by a command from one of the terminals. Her footsteps quickened as she raced back to the room and waited to see her friends only to find the room empty as the Terminal stood there… waiting for her.

Moon Dancer quickly typed in panic “Now can you give me back my friends!”

This prank had gone on long enough. She was scared so let everypony jump out and say ‘surprise’ as she would gladly scream in terror if only it meant somepony else was here. She couldn’t be up in a space ship looking at a planet she had never seen before. This had to be all one elaborate prank otherwise… otherwise…

The screen flickered for a moment as a new message replied “I am sorry, but I can not do that Moon Dancer.”

A shiver ran up her spine as she typed “Why not?”

The text disappeared as what looked like the image of a paper document appeared on the screen saying “Currently life support is restored, but only a crew of two can be sustained. The crew must be able to work together to restore the hydroponics bay before a third member of the crew can be woken up.”

Moon Dancer looked at the paper grimly as she tapped a button only for a new message to appear “It’s to make sure the crew can work together or to remove internal strife before it becomes a problem to the crew.”

She gulped as her legs gave out. This was… she shook her head “No… it has to be a prank. Just one big joke… It can’t possibly be…”

Moon Dancer typed “But I want all of my friends back.”

The slow dread she had been feeling grew as she tried to banish it as she tried to think logically. What was more likely to be true? Was she trapped on a spaceship or was this all a big prank. Was she Celestia knew how many miles away from Equestria… possibly even the planet itself… or was this a really bad prank… or did Starlight Glimmer do something to her?

She chuckled nervously as that made sense in a slightly cold, but certainly better alternative than the other crazy theory. Starlight Glimmer was just a pony who made a cult out in the middle of nowhere stealing cutie marks to fuel her own magic and adding to her ridicules amount of skills had to be behind all of this.

After all how could a unicorn even know so many types of spells… or learn so many tricks with her spells without being noticed by Celestia or anypony important. Her friend Sunburst was sent to Equestria’s School for gifted unicorns and she was a nobody until Twilight found her creepy village.

Moon Dancer chuckled as this was probably all some sort of evil plan made from Starlight Glimmer… certainly not because Moon Dancer felt a little bit of jealousy towards the other unicorn as Twilight decided to make Starlight Glimmer her personal own student instead of sending the crazy mare to jail or something instead of picking Moon Dancer to be her student… Starlight Glimmer was just as old as Twilight and Moon Dancer so why should she get to learn magic with Twilight if not for some sort of evil mind control spell?

She chuckled to herself as that was probably it… Starlight Glimmer had used a sleeping spell on Moon Dancer when no pony was looking and then stuffed her in that pod before shipping her to that one ‘cave’ that was near her town where she stole everypony’s cutie marks.

Moon Dancer had even remembered asking Twilight why they didn’t just go inside to make sure she didn’t hide behind the tunnel entrance. She continued to chuckle nervously as that certainly made a lot more sense than the grim alternative.

The screen flickered as the machine continued to reply “And currently there isn’t enough food for more than two people. All you have is dry rations for now until power is restored to the Hydroponic systems allowing more water to be treated and for the garden to grow food. Once the systems are working more crew members can be woken up from cryo status.”

Moon Dancer bit her lip as she probably should have paid more attention to what was on the screen than her internal rant and attempt to justify what was going on around her.

She sighed as she typed “Can I pick who wakes up?”

She just had to wake up whoever else was captured by Starlight Glimmer and then warn Twilight. Yes that was all she had to do as this certainly had to do. If she was lucky it was a unicorn who could teleport them out of here.

That or she’d wake up one of her friends from Canterlot… after all if Starlight Glimmer was going through with her crazy plan than she had probably abducted her friends once they started asking questions or something.

There was a slight pause as the message didn’t appear right away as Moon Dancer glanced at the machine only for the next message to appear “So far I only have numbers for the crew. If you don’t know what number they were assigned then I won’t be of much help on telling you which crew members you are looking for.”

Moon Dancer groaned as she furiously typed “We’re ponies! Who in their right mind labeled us as mere numbers instead of listing our names!”

“If you have any complaints or suggestions to help improve travel aboard the T960 Installer space ship then please write down your suggestions and submit them to the ship captain so that a review committee can look over your comments.” The machine replied apparently not catching the point of her complaint.

Moon Dancer glanced at the machine as she tried to figure out what to do next “Can I see any pictures so that I might be able to tell who they are?”

The machine complied with her request as it showed her ten other egg shaped coffins like the one she was previously in except she couldn’t see anypony’s face. Ten coffins as she didn’t know who was inside each of them or what had taken them. She wanted to ask the machine why they were here… but she wanted to free her friends before asking that question.

With a deep breath Moon Dancer picked one of them at random and hoped for the best.

Hopefully one of the other ponies could help her... Maybe Pinkie Pie would jump out shouting surprise as this was all some great big prank. Maybe a member of the royal guard would appear with the knowledge and skill to teleport them back to Canterlot or someplace close.

Moondancer took a deep breath as she selected one of the egg shaped coffins at random as she looked at the room where she had woken up. The camera inside the room allowed her to see what was going on as she couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of the golem like machine staring at her without her notice.

The old egg shaped coffin that held Moondancer disappeared from the room she had been held in as it sealed itself back up before falling through the floor. A couple of seconds later a new egg shaped coffin started to rise from the floor as a cold mist surrounded the coffin. The computer in front of her had various images, words, and symbols appear on the screen as they passed by faster than her eyes could keep track of.

The egg shaped coffin inside the room began to hiss as more mist filled the room as it slowly cracked open. She watched the coffin finally opened up as the real time video continued to play in the corner of the screen as the words and images finally ended.

Moondancer just watched a shepherd dog fall face first out of the egg shaped coffin as the dog was whining in pain after hitting the floor nose first. The machine registered a second crew member as the dog started barking up a storm.

“Can we put the dog back into cryo and pick somepony else?” Moondancer typed into the computer with her head held low.

“The next crew member had been selected… even if the results are much lower than expected” The machine replied “Currently retrieving documentation for crew selection process and awakening sequence."

Moondancer stared at the hoof written document on the screen as she realized what the machine had meant “Do not allow the crew to put members back into cryo. Being placed back into cryo should not be used as a punishment and if the members of the crew are not able to work together than they should resolve the issue… unless an untimely death happens.”

Moondancer face hoofed as she typed “So this dog is my partner unless she dies.”

“Personally I would advise you to kill the dog, but if you feel that it is necessary…” The machine replied and just seemed to be waiting for her response.

She looked at the dog who was sniffing around the room in confusion as the dog had no idea what was going on. Moon Dancer shook her head as it seemed crazy to kill a dog just to get another chance to pick out another crew member. Still the AI seemed to be watching her as if waiting to see if she would actually go through with it.

She felt a shiver down her spine as the previous message must have been a typo or something. There was no possible what that it was asking her to kill the dog just to try again?

Moondancer took a deep breath as she typed in “Can you open up the door so that we can place her into a safe room?”

The door opened up as the dog came racing in before tackling Moondancer. She couldn’t help but chuckle a little as the dog kept licking her face a couple of times before whimpering probably wondering what had happened to her master.

Moondancer stared at the dog as she couldn’t help but wonder what this meant… yet a strange feeling of calmness passed over her body. She couldn’t help but chuckle despite the tears than ran down her face as none of this made any sense.

What was with the keyboard system since only a small amount of races could use it? Who built all of this stuff without anypony noticing? What would she do if she wasn’t in Equestria… if she was on some secret island or in some land past the frozen north tucked away in some creepy mountain Nopony knew about?

She shook her head as she had to stick with the evil Starlight Glimmer theory since that plan made the most sense… That was the most likely reason behind this entire mess. All she had to do was figure out how to free another pony… and then… then she’d have the proof that she was looking for.

The dog sat by Moondancer’s side whimpering as if sharing her thoughts. Moondancer slowly started petting the dog’s head as she replied “Don’t worry dog… I’ll think of something.”

She wrapped herself around the dog as closed her eyes… Sweet Celestia was she tired.

Author's Note

Let me know if I missed any spelling mistakes or any questions you may have.

Ch2 Asking Questions (edited)

Sleep rarely gives us the peace that we seek

Moon Dancer stood in front of Twilight as she asked “So what is it that you want to talk about?”

Twilight smiled as she replied “Remember that talk we had about my decision to take Starlight Glimmer on as an apprentice?”

Moon Dancer nodded as she had already stated why that was a bad idea “Look just because you were able to reform Discord doesn’t mean…”

Twilight shook her head “It’s more than that… I just look back as I couldn’t help but wonder if I could have done things differently in the past. Did I really need to out Chrysalis out in front of everypony? I mean they were trying to find love so maybe if we had tried opening a dialog instead of simply kicking them out of the city.”

Moon Dancer rolled her eyes “They invaded canterlot.”

Twilight nodded her head “So did Discord as he turned Equestria into his plaything when he broke free.”

Moon Dancer sighed “Discord didn’t hurt anypony. He was a jerk and played a lot of cruel pranks, but everypony was able to get over it when he was sealed way. You don’t see Celestia asking if Tirek should have been given a lesson on friendship or if Sombra was just misunderstood.”

Twilight frowned “Tirek was a power hungry tyrant and Sombra plunged the entire Crystal Empire into despair.”

“Like Starlight Glimmer?” Moon Dancer quickly replied “She had brainwashed an entire village stripping them of their cutie marks while she kept her own. She built an entire vault to house all of them and when you didn’t want to give up your cutie marks she ripped them right off you and then placed you in a locked room where she played her propaganda all day trying to convert you!”

She shook her head “Almost like a certain unicorn who stripped away everypony else’s joy while keeping his own. Stuffing their only hope down in a vault and then trying to strip away the last resistance to his return when he tried attacking everypony when he finally entered the Crystal Empire!”

Twilight slowly nodded her head as she muttered “Yes, but…”

“And her reform?” Moon Dancer couldn’t help but snap back “She decided to go back in time just to tear you apart from your friends! Do you have any idea how dangerous that could have been if she managed to find a way around Starswirl Stable Loop theory?”

Twilight shivered as Moon Dancer continued “So now instead of being placed in jail and answering for her various crimes which she had committed without any outside influence caused by cursed relics or by a dark spell as this had all been done by her own free will… she gets to be your student as you teach her magic and lessons about friendship?”

Moon Dancer couldn’t help but feel angry at Twilight. Sure she could understand the reason why Twilight didn’t come to her party because Twilight had been sent to ponyvile… and Twilight had tried making things up to her, but this? If she was taking up apprentices than why was she picking somepony that had caused her so much trouble?

Okay so Discord was a lucky case, but he nearly destroyed Equestria by helping out Tirek. If it wasn’t for Fluttershy being kind to him and accepting him for who he was combined with Tirek stabbing him in the back and showing just how cruel the world could be than Moon Dancer highly doubted that Discord would be anything but that same cruel prankster that he was in history and when he first broke free from his confinement.

Moon Dancer sighed as she looked at Twilight one last time “So… was the reason for this whole picnic was a chance to show off your new student who I just heard about after you came back from your trip in the Crystal Empire?”

Twilight shook her head “Actually I thought you might have been able to help give her a few words of advice. You kind of shut yourself off like she did when… you both lost a friend.”

Moon Dancer took a deep breath as Twilight certainly didn’t compare her to a crazy mare who stole cutie marks. She certainly didn’t decide to throw a hissy fit and think it would be a wonderful idea to torment Twilight and enact some sort of twisted desire for revenge. She didn’t break into Canterlot Castle stealing the scroll to a powerful spell that could cause untold chaos!

Twilight frowned “The reason why I took her in was because I saw that she needed help… and her situation is kind of…”

“Don’t…” Moon Dancer replied with a small hint of annoyance “Don’t say that I didn’t warn you. Let’s just get back to the party. I think we left Minute and Rainbow Dash alone long enough for them to get into trouble.”

Twilight nodded as Moon Dancer walked back to the picnic as Twilight’s other friends were getting along with Twilight’s old Canterlot friends. Moon Dancer couldn’t help but glare at the new unicorn who noticed her gaze and went back to slowly sipping her cup of tea instead of being locked away in a jail cell.

******

Moon Dancer woke up as the dog was licking her face. The bookworm yawned as she looked out the window only to see the foreign orange planet and the two moons around it. The cold dread of reality washed over her as she realized that she wasn’t dreaming. That she had been trapped aboard... no trapped within some mountain somewhere on Equs.

Her friends were possibly trapped in one of those cryo pods. She had no idea how she got here and the last memory of Equestria was having a picnic out in the middle of the sun.

“Yesterday I talked Twilight and left after an argument…” Moon Dancer sighed “and now I have no idea where I am.”

Moon Dancer shielded her eyes as she tried to get a glimpse of the sun out in the distance. For some reason it didn’t seem to have the same feel or warmth on her fur like the sun over Equestria.

She shook her head as it couldn’t be real. She wasn’t looking at a window, but some sort of highly detailed painting with an unknown magic woven into it giving it the impression of a window glancing out into space.

The facility she was trapped within… as it certainly couldn’t be a ‘space ship’ was still a bit cold as she couldn’t help but shiver. Maybe the facility’s temperature was bother her or the last memory she could remember of speaking with Twilight had ended in a sour note… which also just happened right before she was fillynapped.

“Take a few deep breaths Moon Dancer.” She told herself “You’ve studied countless spells… reading up on a variety of subjects and while you’re not a powerhouse like Twilight Sparkle you are no slouch either.”

She slowly nodded her head as she tried not to think about how she had only cast most of those spells in the safety of her house or had spent more time researching about things than actually doing hoofs on experience.

Moon Dancer stretched her back as she hopped off the couch and walked over to the terminal as she glanced at the screen. Her only ally besides the dog was the weird machine that she knew nothing about.

With a deep breath she slowly typed in her first response “Uh hey? How are you?”

Alright so it wasn’t the greatest response or question she could have typed, but she had to start somewhere!

A message appeared on the screen “I am fine. I also spent the time trying to figure out which cryo pods may contain your friends… but it’s just an untested hypotheses.”

Moon Dancer quickly typed into the computer “Show me!”

“Each pod weighs X amount of pounds. If an average person weighs more than a dog then picking out any pods that weigh close to your weight should in theory pick out another pony.” The machine replied as it did sound like a good idea

Moon Dancer frowned at the one part that didn’t make sense “What do you mean by in theory?”

There was a slight pause before a new message appeared “A dog was placed into one pods designated for crew members which would leave a small room for error in the event of another unlikely scenario. I have also pulled up and searched through the ship’s restoration plan to try to figure out the necessary requirements needed to release all of the individuals in the pods.”

Moon Dancer nodded as she typed back “Show me.”

The screen flicked before a couple of documents appeared on the screen as a shortened version of it appeared underneath it saying “Restoring power to the hydroponics bay for food and better water restoration will allow for one more crew member to be released from Cryo Status. Restoring power to crew quarters and selecting which rooms to be assigned is recommended as the second option so that you won’t have to use the couch in this room as a bed. Finally restoring power to the kitchen and using crops from the garden area will notify the automated systems that this ship can handle a larger population to unlock any more requirements needed to free the other crew members from cryo status. Of course the work needed to show that the kitchen is in working order requires something to be made as the ship current lack supplies for the kitchen to be of any use so far.”

Moon Dancer sighed as she wanted a way out of this place… or a method where she could simply free everypony all at once. She looked back at the room where the dog came out of and stared at the pod. Sure it was a bit thick, but maybe she could simply try prying one open… or finding a crow bar and forcing one of them open?

She shook her head as she said out loud “I doubt it will be that easy.” As she typed “Can you show me to the room where the rest of the pods are being kept?”

“I must warn you that entering the room without any protection would be dangerous as the room is kept at an optimal temperature for preserving the crew.” The machine replied “Without proper safety gear on a crew member could freeze to death or suffer from multiple accounts of frostbite by just being exposed to the environment.”

Moon Dancer made a ‘tisk’ sound with her tongue as she looked back at the previous room with ice hanging off the ceiling. All she knew about the previous room was that it was freezing cold… and apparently the mist was because the pods were retrieved from an even colder room.

“I’ll have to leave that as plan B until I find some winter gear…” Moon Dancer replied with slight irritation “Still you’re a smart mare Moon Dancer… Maybe there is another solution.”

She typed into the computer “How do we go back home?”

“According to the logs…” The AI paused for a moment “….they are locked? One moment…”

Moon Dancer rubbed her forelegs as she tried to not get worried. Sure it was a silly question, but hopefully she might get lucky. Besides she had to think of what she was going to do if she couldn’t find an easy solution.

Restoring water would be a good idea. She didn’t understand what the rest of the systems it was attached to did… but a pony could only go so long without water. Restoring power to crew quarters sounded like a good idea if there were more ponies besides her. That just left the kitchen being turned back on if she couldn’t find anypony that could help her.

Sure the ‘food’ might be low, but Moon Dancer knew how a toaster worked. If she didn’t find anything she recognized or detect any magic when it was toasting something… then she’d figure out how it was working to get a vague understanding on how the rest of this place worked.

“I’m placing all my hope on a toaster if things get worse” Moon Dancer face hoofed and quickly muttered “If only Twilight was here… She’d know what to do.”

The screen flickered making Moon Dancer looked at the screen “The ship’s logs are locked for until a member of the crew restore power to the command deck. This is to ensure that the crew doesn’t go back into cryo sleep and hand off the mission to ship’s Manufactured Automated Intelligence.”

Moon Dancer frowned as she typed back “How do I restore power to the command deck?”

“The command deck is locked down until other primary systems have been restored like food or water.” The machine replied “Also it would be ill advised to attempt to leave the station until the ship is in working order.”

The mare sighed shaking her head as she just had to go along for now… until a better alternative appeared before her. She just had to figure out what counted as a primary system and if there wasn’t a back door out of this place.

“Can you show me the status of the systems that are online?” Moon Dancer typed into the machine.

She glanced at all the various names as the machine replied “Any systems you wish to know more about?”

******

Moon Dancer yawned as she started getting a vague understanding on how this place worked as she had spent the time reading over some of the systems or figuring how what she could do by simply typing a command into the terminal.

She frowned as she spotted how much time had passed as she hadn’t restored power to any other systems… or figured out where they were. A few of the answers she had received were ridicules… and other parts censored or simply misunderstood. Trying to ask about Luna gave her information about the moon… and asking about Celestia just kept giving her pictures of stars or celestial constellations.

She glanced back at the dog as a question formed in her mind “Are you a stallion or a mare?”

Moon Dancer didn’t think of much when asking the question, but she was getting a little bit bored with some of the machine’s answers and her various attempts to map out where everything was stored in this place and the machine didn’t have much information about the layout of the ‘station’ it was attached to.

The screen flashed for just a moment as a new message slowly came out “Male?”

Moon Dancer blinked before typing back “What was with the delay?”

“It took a little while for the computer to translate Stallion and Mare as most questions are simply… are you male or female?” The machine replied

Moon Dancer rubbed her chin before typing back “Then what did my question come out as?”

She watched the new text appear on the screen “It asked me if I was an animal. I had to check the context of the species to determine what the original question could have meant.”

Moon Dancer slowly nodded her head… before hitting it up against a nearby wall. The machine didn’t understand direct questions about ponies… because pony names could be seen as terms… or items. Her own name might pull up information about Moons… or dances… possibly dances in relation to the moon.

Asking about any of her friends, relatives, or rulers of Equestria wouldn’t work because the machine couldn’t tell the difference between a name and a pony… except that it had asked her for her name.

Moon Dancer took a deep breath as she muttered “I just have to find some way to make it recognize names instead of terms… alright.”

She quickly typed into the computer “How did Moon Dancer get here?”

A picture of a document appeared with various signatures appeared on it. Moon Dancer didn’t recognize any of the names as she certainly didn’t see her name on it. Still she felt the sudden urge to cover up the names with her hoof and not let the camera see the written names either.

Moon Dancer felt her face burn up as she just realized that she was trying to hide information from somepony or something that had brought up the document that she had asked. Couldn’t he simply take a look at the same document somewhere else instead of trying to see what was written underneath her hoof?

Moon Dancer groaned as she slowly typed “Mal can you see this?”

She felt her face continue to burn only for the message to reply “The document is crew restricted. Did it say how you got on board… or which of the cryo pods your friends might be in?”

The image disappeared as Moon Dancer sighed in relief… now she just needed to figure out a quick excuse as she quickly typed “Uh Mal… where’s the bathroom?”

A map and marked all the terminals appeared on the screen as it also marked all the doors she needed to open up manually open up.

Moon Dancer blushed as she remembered her second problem “And how do I get out of this suit?”

Moon Dancer frowned as the message replied “Environmental Safety Suit can safely be removed in the bathroom. There are no cameras so I cannot be of much use… there is also a system in place where you can use the suit as a rest room for at least four days. Please put the suit back on after you are done.”

She rolled her eyes only for a new message to appear “The documents say it’s for your own safety just in case life support is unable to sustain the current population due to unknown reasons as it would be easier/safer for you to wear the suit at all times instead of trying to find a suit when a disaster happens.”

Moon Dancer groaned as she typed back “What if I was an alicorn or a Pegasus and the suit was pinching my wings?”

There was a slight pause nothing happened. She waited in front of the machine until she remembered that a message would only come back if she typed something into the machine.

Moon Dancer paused as she typed it again the same message again before waiting a few seconds and added “Did you get the previous message?”

The screen flickered as the AI replied “It states you typed in a spelling error.”

She frowned and typed back “Where is your dictionary?”

“Apparently uploading a dictionary to the ship’s computer requires crew quarters to be restored.” The machine replied

The unicorn bit her lip and hissed in frustration as apparently the machine didn’t recognize the word alicorn or Pegasus. She knew it recognized pony, stallion, and mare so obviously it knew about Equines…

“Why am I even trying to pull the information up.” Moon Dancer muttered to herself “It’s not like it will help me right now and I already know whoever built this place is keeping secrets.”

She turned her back on the machine as she continued talking out loud “Okay first I go fix the water supply… then I check the garden for something to eat and if the next pony that wakes up that can’t help me then I go to the kitchen before trying to check the storage rooms for anything that could help.”

The screen flickered as the machine replied "May I recommend you focus on the storage room first?"

Moon Dancer stared at the screen "Why do you want me to go to the storage room first?"

"The Storage rooms have a food stored away, spare parts, supplies, Kitchen Assistance Drone, and of course riot control weapons." The machine replied

Moon Dancer chuckled a little as she typed back "I am feeling kind of hungry so looking for food would help."

"There are dry rations in the kitchen, but the Kitchen Assistance Drone may be able to help provide some extra help due to a current lack of working crew members. I would also advise you to take a few Riot Control items. The machine stated as a small shiver went down her spine.

"Are you telling me to arm myself? Moon Dancer replied in shock... and disbelief

She did go to Celestia's school for gifted unicorns so she wasn't a slouch when it came to spells... maybe a shield might be useful, but grabbing a sword or a spear?

"Space Station Vigil has still yet to send a reply as it has nearly reached twenty four hours since we have docked." The machine continued "If there is an accident onboard or some sort of technical malfunction everything should be resolved shortly, but it is better to be safe than sorry."

Moon Dancer glanced at the screen "What would I need to be 'safe' from?"

"Unknown... but will keep you updated on Space Station Vigil's lack of communication until an answer or situation occurs." The machine simply stated as if that was all she needed to know.

Yep... that was enough to make her remember the call of nature.

She quickly typed into the computer “Open doors to bathroom!”

As soon as the first door opened up Moon Dancer dashed out of the room as the dog quickly followed her out of curiosity or to ensure that she didn’t disappear when she left the room. There were plenty of questions racing through Moon Dancer’s mind, but taking off the suit and figuring out if they had a working restroom were her main focus right now.

Author's Note

A small section had been missed in editing near the end of the chapter.

Ch3 Looking for Food

Moon Dancer sighed in relief as she walked out of the rest room. It took a bit of work, but she was finally free of that pesky ‘space suit’ and wearing her old sweater once again. She didn’t care that for some odd reason the suit had been placed over her old sweater causing parts of it to pinch her side. Her sweater was soft, comfortable, and a safe reminder of home as the suit was left discarded in a hamper bin.

The unicorn frowned as she noticed a new message on the nearby terminal and muttered to herself “This would be so much easier if you could hear me.”

She didn’t even bother reading the message as she type into the terminal “The suit was pinching me.”

“What if something happened that suddenly required you to be in the suit?” The machine quickly replied.

Moon Dancer couldn’t help but smile “Then I’d be dead. If something bad enough to warrant me wearing that suit happened while I was inside the ship then I doubt I’d be able to fix the problem by myself.”

She watched the screen as she knew the machine was trying to come up with a counter to her argument. Of course she knew that she wasn’t in any danger… well that she wasn’t in space and there was still the chance that Starlight Glimmer… or whoever else (but not likely) had fillynapped her could appear.

Moon Dancer shook her head as she had to figure out how to open up another one of those pods and see if any of her friends were trapped inside. What would Twilight do?

“Well she would probably know some sort of spell that could help her out.” Moon Dancer replied with a hint of doubt “But the spells that I know require line of sight… and I have yet to see a window down here. I also don’t have Spike with me who could simply send a message to Princess Celestia or somepony else.”

That just left following the machine’s advice and going with her own judgment. If she didn’t trust the advise she wouldn’t do it… but for now she just had to play along.

She stared at the new message on the screen “Well why aren’t you wearing any pants at least?”

Moon Dancer rubbed her chin as that statement didn’t make much sense because Equestria was used to showing everypony their cutie marks. Sure most ponies started to wrap up when the weather became colder… but she didn’t want to give up her sweater just so that suit wouldn’t pinch her body.

“Why should I?” she typed into the machine

“Do you really need to ask?” appeared on the screen before it flickered showing a real time image of her flank.

Moon Dancer blushed and quickly typed back “First of all you are a part of the ship and since you are a guy should you really make a comment like that? Secondly unless I’m raising my tail nothing will be seen and the only other being on this ship is a female dog!”

There was a slight pause as Moon Dancer took a couple of deep breaths and couldn’t help but tug of her sweater down a little with her magic as her tail made certain to cover everything up. Of course that's when she noticed the camera zoom in on her magical aura that was tugging down her sweater.

The machine must have caught on as it quickly replied “I was just trying to analyze what that light was."

Moon Dancer slowly nodded her head as she typed back “How did you think I was able to use this keyboard? These buttons are far too small for me to use my hooves!”

“It could have been some sort of unknown function from the suit you were wearing?” The machine replied “It does have a lot of features and...”

“What about natural unicorn magic?” Moon Dancer interrupted as she waited for a response.

To her surprise the machine replied “Magic? This is all the documentation on magic that I have.”

The screen flickered as it revealed… stage magic. Tricks built upon misdirection, illusions, and stage props as there wasn’t any real magic involved with it.

She quickly took a deep breath and tried to calm down “Remember the Cookie Cutter Theorem Moon Dancer… which is more likely… the fact the machine was fed false information or that this place was built without any knowledge or connection to Equestria.”

She nodded to herself as she looked back at the machine and typed “How do I fix the Hydroponics System?”

******

Getting the Hydroponics System back online was rather simple. She was guided to the gardening section of the ship and found the designated parts located inside the room. The machine claimed they were in a box on the table located in the room… but there wasn’t a table inside the room and the missing parts were sort of scattered around the room.

On the bright side Moon Dancer felt the grass underneath her hooves as the ‘natural lighting’ system felt good bring some warmth to her body or at least some sense of normality to this strange place. The room itself was split into four sections with a stone sidewalk dividing each part of the room.

On the top left corner of the room stood a tree as an open field of grass with a park bench. The top right part of the room had an open field that reminded her of one of those pictures of a farmer’s field. There were even a few green sprouts sticking out of the ground as she couldn’t help but wonder if they were weeds, grass… or possible crops. What type of crop she had no idea, but she could tell it had green bits sticking out of the ground. The last two patches of the room were just fields of grass… but there seemed to be some work on clearing out some of the grass for more farm land.

As for the missing parts that she had found… they were the same strange ‘chips’ made out of small pieces of metal and wires that she seen before. She didn’t detect any magic in these parts nor did she find any gems or arcane secrets… just small bits of strange machinery that would somehow work when she wiped the dirt off them and plugged them into their assigned spots.

Once that was done she had spent her time waiting for the system to finish booting up as she looked over the various documents dealing with Hydroponics… and subsequently the gardening system. She couldn’t help but feel a little bit squeamish as she saw how they recycled the water from the plumbing system to help improve plant growth without any magic. She really felt nervous when she took a look at the various chemicals used to speed up plant growth.

Sure the documentation claimed they were safe… Moon Dancer started to hope that the next pony she found was a farmer or had some knowledge about farming. She just always put farming down as… earth ponies used earth pony magic and left it at that. It was something she was starting to regret.

This became more evident when her stomach started to grumble as she looked back at the grass and the growing crops. Sure some ponies had ate grass… but was that normal grass, wheat grass, or some sort of specially grown type of grass? All she could remember was that some health diets involved eating grass and her old kindergarten teacher told Bootleg not to eat the grass around the school… only for him to end up sick one day and being sent straight home when he didn’t listen to her.

“What exactly was am I suppose to eat if the food had yet to be grown?” Moon Dancer muttered to herself as she looked for a nearby terminal.

There was some talk about dry rations… some in the kitchen and the extra supplies in the storage room. Some of the plants in the garden were budding… but she didn’t know what they were. Did she want to eat the mystery plants and hope nothing bad happen or take a shot with the ship’s rations?

“What do I have to eat while the crops are growing?” she typed into the machine

“There are dry rations aboard the ship that should be able to satisfy all nutrimental needs of the crew.” The machine replied back to her “Of course most crew members and reports seem to complain more about the taste than the nutrients given. On the bright side the system used to grow the crops is self-regulated so it does not need anyone to constantly look over the plants to ensure they are doing alright.”

Moon dancer sighed “Self-regulated… so this place doesn’t need an earth pony to look over the crops. Of course I’d rather have an earth pony here to speed up the process.”

She looked back at the room and began to wonder how the other races dealt with their method for growing food? Were diamond dogs meat eaters… or did they chew on gems like dragons? Sure griffins were omnivores so they didn’t need as many greens grown to suit their diets… and zebras probably had some sort of weird alchemy potions to speed up the farming process.

“I won’t take earth pony farming for granted when I get back home.” She muttered to herself.

She couldn’t help but smile when the system had finished updating and more importantly… allowed her to wake up another pony trapped in the cryo pods and typed “Show me the cryo pods.”

Moon Dancer looked at the pods as she tried to figure out which one needed to be opened up next. She began to sweat as she tried to figure out what she could say to the pony that woke up. She was the first one to wake up so naturally they’d expect her to know more than they did.

What if it wasn’t a pony, but a diamond dog, or maybe a dragon? She found a dog inside one of the pods and the keyboards didn’t seem to be designed for non-unicorn to be able to use.

“Don’t worry Moon Dancer…” She muttered to herself “Everything is going to be just fine…"

Moon Dancer pushed the button as she stared at the screen waiting for the next member of the crew to be revealed. Fear coursed through her body as she tried to hope that it was one of her friends… than she wouldn’t be alone and she could try to explain what had happened. Maybe she would be lucky as they would know more about what was going on or how they got here?

Of course she didn’t want her friends trapped in this place with no clue on how to go back home as she wanted them to be safe. She wanted them to be back in Canterlot telling Twilight, Celestia… anypony that she was missing.

She stared at the pod both in hope and dread as the mist started to clear as the pod opened up. To her horror a series of books, boxes of herbal tea, various herbs and spices fell out of the pod with a rather irritated looking phoenix… that fell beak first onto the floor.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Moon Dancer replied in annoyance as she banged her head up against the wall.

******

Half an hour must have passed as Moon Dancer was left lying on her back. The ship’s crew consisted up of a lost unicorn, a dog, and one phoenix that was currently pecking at a bag full of bird seeds that was also apparently packed along with it.

Celestia had a phoenix as a pet… maybe there was some sort of magical trick they could do that could help her out? Twilight had Spike to help send letters… but was that a natural ability or a trick/spell that had been taught to him?

She just had a picture of presenting a scroll to the phoenix expecting to see repeat the same trick Spike did to send letters to Celestia only for the scroll to end up as a pile of ash as the phoenix.

“Just look at the bright side Moon Dancer.” She muttered to herself “There are books, tea, and… a magical bird! Surely you’ll be able to figure something out!”

Moon Dancer looked at the screen as the machine had replied “Do you really need a pet dog and a pet bird?”

She could see the point that it was trying to make… she had two useless crew members that were taking up space. Still there were two more tries she could make before trying to go with a more… drastic solution.

“What purpose would they serve?” The machine replied “There are no farm animals around for the dog to look after. While the bird is colorful does it really serve any other purpose than to look colorful and eat bird seeds?”

“Phoenixes are magical creatures and there may be some use for the bird later on in the future.” Moon Dancer tried to explain “While they can be difficult to deal with there are a variety of uses for them… so for now let’s check our other options. How can we retrieve another member of the crew?”

“Well you can either restore power to crew quarters… but we would also have to assign rooms to the current crew.” The machine replied “That or we can activate the kitchen… you won’t have anyone wake up, but we could get you something to eat.”

Moon Dancer stared at the screen as she felt her stomach grumble once again as she typed “Why can’t we use activating the kitchen as one of the chances to add another crew member?”

“Because assigning who should be the ship’s chief can only be done when the first crops have finished growing and have been harvested.” The machine replied “So it would be an easy task to simply assign one of the pets as the ship’s chief or get a Kitchen Assistance Unit… but the crops would still take a couple of days or maybe even weeks depending on what was planted.”

Moon Dancer rubbed her temples with her hoof as she muttered “Deep breaths Moon Dancer… Deep breaths…”

She went through a breathing exercise before replying “Take me to the kitchen… then we’ll deal with crew quarters.”

******

Restoring power to the kitchen was easy as all she had to do was simply type ‘Restore power to kitchen’ right at the terminal outside the kitchen door. Using the kitchen on the other hoof was surprisingly a little bit more complicated than it should have been.

It took only a couple of minutes to find the dry rations the ship had listed for her to eat and a bowl for the dog to eat her kibble out of. The phoenix was left in the cryo room with the bird seeds as Moon Dancer couldn't think of anywhere else to put the bird... and it seemed content enough with the bird seed bags left with it.

Still the unicorn started to notice some more glaring signs that this ship wasn’t designed with ponies in mind. The cabinets were much higher than they should have been as a regular pony would need a ladder or magic or the ability to fly in order to reach some of the cabinets.
The chairs and seats were much higher up than they should have been and the space for a pony to sit in was much smaller making Moon Dancer feel a little bit overweight when she was forced to push two chairs to make enough room for her to sit down in front of the table. The last surprise was a little bit concerning… and dull at the same time.

The first minute or two ended with her panicking as she saw that some of the rations had been listed as meat… pork, chicken, hamburger…. It was only after looking at the actual ingredients between one of the meat packages and the vegetable packages did she calm down.

Apparently they both had the same ingredients written in the cryptic text called military ration… otherwise known as ‘taste like cardboard’ as the ‘flavors’ didn’t really make much of a difference between packages. Moon Dancer’s orange colored powder that called itself carrot tasted like dry flour. Adding water only made it feel and almost take like wet paste. Trying the one listed as chicken didn’t seem to make any difference both to her relief… and slight disappointment.

On the bright side she did feel less hungry as the contents were edible… in the sense that her stomach wasn’t grumbling anymore as she suddenly understood why certain members of the Royal Guard could be bribed with cake as the variety of ‘flavors’ was actually which type of food coloring they markers had decided to use.

At least the bottled water inside the fridge tasted like water. It sounded silly, but at this moment she didn’t trust any of the labels inside this place.

The Toaster she had found was strange… it worked similar to an Equestrian toaster. You set the time and press the buttons and lever to make it cook the ‘bread’ placed inside of it. The odd part was the metal coils didn’t have any connection to a magical source to heat it up so she took apart the device placing each piece onto the table before finding that it was made out of more pieces of metal and wire. After looking over the terminal and some of the safety rules for foals for using a toaster… Moon Dancer had discovered just how the Toaster operated.

The wires connected it to the ship’s power system where they then used the electricity to heat up the metal coils to generate enough heat to toast the bread. Without the wires and the lever on the toaster to connecting the path of electricity to the device than the toaster would not work.

“So the parts I’m collecting and putting back in are being used to help complete the earth for the electricity to move through.” Moon Dancer muttered to herself “But that just leaves the question on where the power source is coming from.”

She lit up her horn as she focused on trying to trace the path of electricity… only to discover that the wires seemed to run through the walls, floor, and even the ceiling above her. The heating of the rooms must have operated on a similar principle like the toaster.

That solved the question on where the heat was coming from… but not how the place was being powered. If electricity was being used to help power parts of this place then where was the electricity being generated?

The dog looked back up at her as Moon Dancer focused on her next task as she typed “Where is the cargo room?”

A map appeared on the screen marking her current position and the path down to the storage rooms.

“May I suggest retrieving the Cooking Assistant Drone and securing the riot weapons first?” The machine replied

Moon Dancer looked at the screen and then back at the dry rations. A part of her mind couldn’t help but wonder if they kept livestock in cryo pods. If they had food packages labeled as meat than there must be some sort of means to help provide the missing meat… or this was just an attempt to scare Moon Dancer.

“Or the pony buying rations didn’t bother reading the labels since they all taste the same.” She couldn’t help but reply to herself “Still there has to be something in the storage rooms that could help me out.”

Still the amount of food stored in this building would help her determine how long this place was built to house ponies. Any text books or instruction manuals would help her figure out how this place operated. If worst came to worse finding enough blankets and a crow bar would help her free anypony trapped in a cryo pod.

Sure she had two more chances… to find somepony else…

“And it would be just my luck that I would get a pig… a chicken or maybe a bag of gold fish.” Moon Dancer told herself “At the very least I might be able to find some flour to bake some bread. Flour is easy to keep fresh right?”

******

Moon Dancer shivered as she made her way to the storage bay as the rooms were cold enough for her to see her breath. Her legs were shaking as she tried to bundle in her sweater to keep warm.

“Well the heating doesn’t seem to reach down here…” She replied as her teeth clattered against each other “So there must be some parts missing that prevent it from being connected to the rest of the building’s heating system.”

Every few steps deeper to the storage rooms seemed to feel as if the temperature dropped another degree. Her sweater did help a little… but she had a sneaking feeling that the heat had been turned off on purpose as some sort of attempt to force her back into the suit she had left behind.

Well she wasn’t going to whoever built this place win as she continued pressing forward to the storage rooms and find what she was looking for!

The next locked door had terminal nearby with a message on the screen that read “Warning low gravity in cargo rooms. Please be careful and watch your step.”

“Yah right.” Moon Dancer replied as she opened up the door “Walking down stairs will make gravity become weaker… whoever wrote that message must have skipped…”

Moon Dancer never finished her sentence as she tripped underneath her own hooves. With an angry grunt she pushed herself and stepped down the hallway only to start tripping over her own hooves again as her sense of balance seemed to be off.

The unicorn huffed in annoyance as she pushed herself off the ground… only to hit the ceiling causing her to slowly drift back down to the floor rubbing her aching head.

“How... How did that just happen?” She muttered to herself in disbelief.

She pulled out one of the packets of rations that had been tucked away in her sweater pocket and tossed it down the hallway… only to see it sort of glide to the end of the hallway with ease. She tossed a second packet of rations towards the entrance as it fell to the ground much quicker... but not as fast as it should have been.

With a deep huff Moon Dancer pushed herself back up as she tried to deal with her new terrain. As she progressed down the hallway her steps kept growing lighter as she was starting to hop across the room as if it was some sort of trampoline. Near the end of the hallway she was almost ‘flying’ through the air as she managed to reach the doorway and the terminal nearby.

Without any hesitating she typed “What is happening down here?”

“Is there a problem due to the cold?” The machine replied.

Moon Dancer frowned as she typed back “Yes there is, but I’m more concern with why I’m nearly flying across the room with each step I take.”

There was a short pause as Moon Dancer was currently hugging the terminal to keep herself steady. It felt unnerving to not have the reassuring grip of gravity keep her safe. Maybe if she was a Pegasus she would be alright as she could simply fly… but this hallway bothered her in ways she couldn’t explain.

There were no enchantments weakening the effect of gravity… and Moon Dancer couldn’t think of any other way for the apparent lack of gravity to be made. Sure you could fall at a certain rate making it seem as if gravity grew weaker, but that was just a trick of perception. Even then that wouldn't explain why gravity seemed to return to normal going back towards the entrance of this hallway.

In fact a part of her was torn between tearing the floor apart and trying to ripe out anything that looked 'odd' in an attempt to find the very well hidden spell... or trying to find some way to study the phenomenon and write a paper about it.

“There seems to be some damage or missing parts to the storage room.” The machine replied “Nothing life threatening, but you may want to be careful since some of the ship’s cameras are also damaged.”

Moon Dancer nodded as apparently she wasn’t going to be told the answer to her question “It’s probably chaos magic… Nopony has really studied it in detail due to the lack of chaos magic to study… and Nopony want to have Discord's assistance to help study chaos magic.”

That was the answer she was going to use to explain the phenomenon as she focused on the task ahead of her. Grabbing the ration pack with her magic Moon Dancer opened up the door and tossed it into the new hallway to test the strength of gravity in the hallway. Sadly the unicorn watched the food packet disappear into the distance without even touching the floor.

With a deep breath the she pushed herself into the next hallway and ~~collided into~~… reached the first cargo room door. She held onto the new terminal in front and punched in the command to make the door open up. The unicorn was rewarded with the sight of floating crates… Large metal crates as big as her body just floating in the air as if they were clouds.

Moon Dancer chuckled nervously “Deep breaths Moon Dancer… just take deep breaths. Just pretend you are practicing for the unlikely chance that you will also turn into an alicorn in the nearby future.” Her horn started to glow “Or you could simply try pulling the boxes over to yourself!”

Her arcane glow managed to grab one of the crates very easily as it didn’t require a lot of effort to pull one to her. The only problem was that the box quickly started to accelerate faster than she had planned as it came rushing towards the doorway.

Moon Dancer ducked behind the wall as the box flew out the door and slammed against the nearby wall as the sound of metal scrapping against metal could be heard out in the hallway. She looked back at the box in a mixture of surprise as it wasn’t damaged… and fear.

She had nearly sent that object flying at her and after hearing it crash against the wall Moon Dancer was afraid of what would have happened if that box had hit her. Would the impact be weaker due to the lesser gravity or would it not have mattered since the box had stayed firmly on the ground after it flew out of the room.

Moon Dancer took a deep breath as jumped over to the box that had come from the room. She used her magic to unlock the box and push open the lid only to find a dead body. An unknown body that certainly didn’t belong to Equestria curled up in what looked like the fetal position… She didn’t know what the creature would have looked like when it was alive since somepony had tried incinerating the body after it's death, but the corpse certainly didn’t belong to a pony!

Moon Dancer slammed the lid shut in fear only to now notice message writing on the top of the lid “Potions are death. Space is Life. It is better to die free than to live in shackles.”

So like any highly educated pony who had went to Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns… she ran to the nearby terminal typing/screaming “Can you see anything down here?”

There was a slight pause before the machine replied “The ship’s cameras are down in that hallway. Is there a problem?”

Moon Dancer glanced back at the coffin and the dead body. The dead and heavily burnt body could be seen as she slammed the lid shut once again. Her hair stood on end as she didn’t know if she should be screaming in terror or be thankful that she had already visited the restroom prior to coming here.

“Not yet…” Moon Dancer lied “I nearly hit myself when I tried to drag a crate out of the room.”

“Be careful as some of those packages can be heavy or have fragile contents.” The machine replied “Here is the location of a few carts to help you push the items along and remember to be careful and take into account of the increase in gravity when moving the items out of the storage area.”

She couldn’t help but chuckle nervously as she replied “Thank you.”

There was a dead crew member inside a metal box as she had no idea what had happened! She had no idea what she was suppose to say! If this was a horror novel saying you found a body was the last thing you were suppose to do, but at the same time finding a dead body in a mystery novel meant you had to tell somepony because it was important!

Moon Dancer took a deep breath as she walked into the room and check the boxes for any more unpleasant surprises. As long as they didn’t have anything written on the lid then they were safe.

She carefully pulled them out of the room and placed them onto the carts after opening them up to make sure they were safe. Most of the crates had simple labels as she found more weird parts, bags of dry sand labeled as food along with some vitamin supplement pills.

She did find three boxes for the Kitchen Assistant Drone as one of them was empty for some reason… in fact only a few of the boxes were full and most were half or nearly empty for some odd reason.

The riot weapons that she had found were also rather strange. She did recognize the standard shield and police sticks… even if the shield was made out of a strange material that she could see through and it as nearly big as her. Some of the items looked more like foal toys as it could have been possible that they were accidently placed with the rest of the riot gear.

Moon Dancer sighed in relief as she did manage to find some flour, a few frozen vegetables, and some other stuff to help make something if she had a cook book.

“Get the kitchen working and try to free somepony.” Moon Dancer told herself “Once that is done then you can worry about the creepy crate. For now just bring everything to the kitchen and then take it from there.”

She glanced back at the crate “Just forget about the crate as…”

Moon Dancer sighed as she took a deep breath and inspected the creepy crate she was planning to leave behind. She also mentally prepared herself to cast a shield spell just to be safe and certainly not because she was scared of what might be lurking with the body inside the creepy crate as she cracked open the lid once again.

The body wasn’t much to look at as it seemed as if somepony had tried reducing the body to a pile of ash. Still she could make out some of the figure as the bones seemed to suggest it was bipedal. The… hands? Hooves? Possibly fins? The front limbs of the creature were either melted together from the intense heat or they were naturally supposed to be together.

The skull seemed to be misshaped, but that could have been due to the intense heat melting the bones and distorting it. It was more likely that used to have been a diamond dog since dragons could bathe in lava.

“Maybe diamond dogs helped build this place.” Moon Dancer muttered to herself “They are good diggers… but why was she or he placed in this crate?”

Her horn lit up as she scanned the body for anything unusual only to find a small piece of melted metal on one of the bones. She gulped as she tried to pull it out of the box only for bits of ash to start getting kicked up into the air. Moon Dancer let go of the item and waved her hoof trying to keep the dust and ash away from her mouth. Only after the everything had settled back down did she try sticking her head into the crate to get a better look at the piece of metal.

She could make out a few letters before she pulled herself away from the crate and closed the box shut. Without wasting any time she typed into the terminal “What does IC3C mean?”

“IC3C stands for Incendiary Class 3 Container. These are marked for dangerous and highly volatile compounds that are used to remove dangerous contaminants from an area.” The machine stated “In the event of a dangerous biological contaminant one should use an IC3C to cleanse the area.”

Moon Dancer gulped as she typed “What classifies as a dangerous biological contaminant?”

“Unknown disease. Unknown substance. Illegal Substance.” The machine replied

Moon Dancer felt herself starting to sweat as she typed “What is Illegal Substance?”

“Information is restricted.” Was the only message that appeared.

Moon Dancer looked back at the coffin “Is there an illegal substance here?”

“Illegal Substance is not aboard this ship.” The machine replied “If one should be found than deploy a IC3C device to destroy the containament to ensure the safety of the crew. The IC3C will generate enough heat to destroy all traces of Illegal Substance.”

Moon Dancer slowly nodded her head as a new message appeared “Why have you asked for this information?”

The unicorn panicked as she typed “I found an item labeled IC3C.”

“Please be careful with IC3C and do not pull the pin on the device. As long as the items are secure in their packaging and the pin stays on the device that the IC3C will not go off.” The machine replied “You may leave the IC3C in the storage room or bring it with you if you wish.”

Moon Dancer chuckled as she glanced back at the coffin… there was somepony or something here before Moon Dancer woke up. The only question was what happened to the creature in the coffin… and what was strong enough to melt bones? What ever the substance was it had to be small enough to fit inside the crate with the corpse."

She quickly shook her head “Now you know why only professionals mess around with alchemy and why there are so many warning signs when dealing with certain items.”

She opened the box full of riot gear and pulled out one of the riot shields before slipping it onto her back. She had no idea what she was going to do with it… but she felt safer having it with her right now. There were two more rooms that she hadn’t checked, but she had spent enough time down here.

All she had to do was get the kitchen working or assign room numbers to try to free another pony and if a room had an item labeled IC3C near it… she’d quickly turn around and look for a different room to search.

Looking for hope

Moon Dancer brought the Kitchen Assistance Drone into the kitchen as she tried to forget about the corpse in a box.

Mal was rather helpful as he had step by step instructions on how to build the device… it was a little bit annoying trying to find side 2A forelimb instead of side limb 4B which wouldn’t connect to 2A connecter socket. Eventually Moon Dancer managed to put together the drone and took a few steps back to admire her work.

“Is there a reason why it looked like some sort of giant metal spider?” Moon Dancer asked herself out loud.

The strange lightweight object reminder her of a golem. The parts or 'skin' of the golem was kind of flimsy and it didn’t take much to break or bend a piece. The head looked as if somepony had found a large light bulb and put a lampshade on it. The limbs resembled spider legs that were attached to the base of it's body. The abdomen of the machine ended with a small exposed metal rod that was suppose to somehow connect to what looked like an electric socket on the ceiling.

With a deep breath she used her magic to slowly lift the object up into the air and plug it into the ceiling. There was a faint click sound as the head lit up. The mechanical limbs came to life as mechanical claws similar to a novelty crane game’s claw popped out opening and shutting themselves a couple of times.

The machine turned to face her as the red eye stared at her. All of the mechanical limb were pointed at her as a slight hiss came from the machine. Moon Dancer took a few steps back as it looked like the machine was about to attack… only for the light to suddenly die as the machine went limp.

The moment of panic died down as the drone powered down as a new message on the Terminal appeared “Are you alright Moon Dancer?”

Moon Dancer took a deep breath and typed “It was just surprised me. A little warning would have been appreciated.”

“Do you want me to start up the drone again?” The machine replied

“One moment…” Moon Dancer typed into the machine as she looked back through one of the crates. She smiled as she found a novelty chief hat and stuck it on the drone. Hopefully that would make the machine less intimidating “Alright now you can.”

The machine started back up as it stared at her as a new message replied “Could you move the boxes over here to be sorted?”

Moon Dancer nodded her head as she used her magic to carry the boxes over to the drone. The machine started sorting the items as Moon Dancer took a deep breath. The drone was… kind of creepy, but at least it wouldn’t…

“And there is a rail system for the drone to move around on…” Moon Dancer muttered to herself as she spotted the drone installing it’s new means of transportation onto the ceiling.

“Unfortunately the rail system used to connect the Kitchen Assistant Drone does not allow for the unit to leave the kitchen due to the doors blocking it.” The machine replied

Moon Dancer glanced at the terminal as… she didn’t type out her concerns/fears and yet… did it hear her?”

“I saw the worried look on your face.” The text replied “While it may take some time to get the kitchen set up we can assign room numbers to the current crew to allow for another crew member to be woken up.”

Moon Dancer nodded her head as… that did make sense. There were hidden cameras all over this building so it was reasonable to assume it noticed the look of panic and simply guessed what she was concerned about.

Besides… she had to try seeing if any of her friends were trapped aboard this ship.

******

Assigning the crew quarters was simple. She just walked to the hallway listed as living quarters and typed “Activate Living Quarters” before simply assigning them at random.

Moon Dancer didn’t bother looking at the rooms for two reasons… the first being that there would be nothing of value that could help her in the rooms since obviously the crew quarters had yet to be assigned. The second reason was because she could always change the room quarters after she woke up the next to ponies.

If the kitchen needed food other than the sand flavored dry rations than the frozen veggies and flour would be used to make something in order for the system to work. Then with an actual crew she would figure out who got what room.

The unicorn couldn’t help but smile to herself feeling proud… right up until she reached the terminal controls for picking out another pod. Then the fear set back in as she tried to figure out which pod would be best to pick. Her first try got her a dog… the second a bird… she had no idea how the system worked much less who could come out of it.

Moon Dancer took a deep breath as she selected one of the pods at random as she watched the machine do it’s job… until a warning sign appeared causing her to sigh as she took the items inside the room along with the phoenix outside before getting back to work.

The bird was currently sitting on her back and grooming itself as Moon Dancer muttered “I’ve got a bird, a dog… all that’s left in a fish or some sort of analogy for a unicorn.”

The phoenix happily cawed causing her to sigh “And to think a week ago I’d be jumping for joy at having a phoenix for a pet.” The bird pecked her forehead “Don’t take it personally! I just meant that this place is kind of creepy.”

The phoenix nodded it’s head before looking over her shoulder. Moon Dancer just simply nodded to herself as apparently the phoenix could understand her. It was a nice fact to know, but not one of any use to her at this moment as she went back to selecting a pod at random and praying to Celestia it wouldn’t be another dud.

The old pod was discarded at the system removed it from the room as a new pod came out. A cloud of mist poured off of the next pod as Moon Dancer waited to see what would be revealed. After a few seconds a new warning signal appeared causing her to groan.

“Open Door” Moon Dancer muttered as she typed before marching straight into the room “Did I forget a box of cracker jacks or…”

She paused as she stared at the new cryo pod. The glass reveled the face of a Pegasus that looked similar to Rainbow Dash. Her fur seemed to be more of a light blue… and her mane seemed to be sort of have yellow and a shade of ora…

Moon Dancer promptly face hoofed “This is the pony called Lightening Dust. The one that Rainbow Dash was talking slash complaining about during the party. Some sort of wonder bolt drop out.”

She shook her head in slight frustration before simply shrugging it off. Maybe this was another Pegasus as it would be highly unlikely that this pony just happened to be the same pony that Rainbow Dash was talking about before Moon Dancer was fillynapped. All she had to do was find what item was prevent the machine from working and simply…

The unicorn’s eyes went to pinpricks as she noticed a flaw with the cryo pod. All of the previous ones looked like egg shaped coffins. This one apparently had a part torn off as a few items seemed to be missing from the exposed hatch.

Moon Dancer rushed over as she muttered “No… No… No…” She slammed her hoof onto the floor and shouted “Ponyfeathers!”

She could see the exposed hatch that was supposed to blend into the machine… if not for the fact that there happened to be a few screws left on the ground as some of the parts must have fallen out of the machine.

Moon Dancer walked back into the previous room as she prepared to find a crowbar or something to help force the pod open. She had finally found another pony only for that pony to be stuck in one of those egg shaped coffins.

The nearby Termainal had a new message as Moon Dancer muttered “What is it this time?”

She looked down at the new message “Damage Cryo Pod is missing key parts. Place obtain new Regulator module into machine.” Moon Dancer rolled her eyes as another message appeared “Moon Dancer there is a problem with the next crew member.”

Moon Dancer sighed “You already told me about the missing regulator.”

“That was an automated system message.” The machine replied “The real issue is that the missing part is not a part of our inventory for some reason. The box that should have contained the parts does not have any of them.”

Moon Dancer nodded her head “So I should get a crowbar and manually force the pod open?”

There was a small paused until the next message appeared “A ten percent chance of survival could be tolerable if we prepared the medical room for an emergency transfer.”

Moon Dancer looked at the message in disbelief as the hairs on her neck stood on end. The phoenix apparently noticed her shock as it promptly flew off down somewhere down the hallway. Moon Dancer just kept shaking her head as that couldn’t possibly be true.
“Ten Percent? Isn’t the pod just stuck?” Moon Dancer typed with a growing sense of dread.

“That was the reason for the error the automated system gave you?” The machine replied “I mean it may be stuck or registering an error due to some random part… but the regulator is the device that helps safely allows the crew member to awaken.”

Moon Dancer gulped as she looked back at the pod. The Pegasus seemed to be asleep… surely it couldn’t be that bad right?

Still the cryo pods didn’t seem to have any enchantments as more of the strange pieces of metal and wires seemed to be used to make the machine operate. Since this thing wasn’t built by a unicorn or a magician she had no idea how it worked.

“How big of a problem is this missing part?” Moon Dancer slowly typed into the machine

“On the grand scale… minimum. The pod will ensure the life signs are stable. The crew member will be safe just as long as they are kept within the cryo pod.” The machine explained “The issue comes when trying to wake up or ‘free’ the crew member inside.”

There was a picture of a cryo pod on the screen and a few warning signs as a more text appeared “Due to the missing regulator the crew member can suffer a variety of health problems during the wake up procedure, but the most prominent or dangerous problems would be temperature shock or the sudden acceleration of the subject’s metabolic system and various other organs that could cause the death of the crew member.”

Moon Dancer gulped as her back up plan of simply getting a bunch of blankets and a hammer to free the others in the cryo pods… suddenly seemed like the worst idea she could have possibly thought of.

“Why are crew members even placed into these things if they are so dangerous?” Moon Dancer frantically typed

“Because they are easy to use, long safety record, and of course as long as you have the needed parts they won’t be any problems. This ship was given over two hundred regulator parts if anything broke. For some reason we are missing our entire shipment.” The machine grimly reminded her “Would you like a copy of all the other failed methods before the pods or a copy of further detailed copy of how the cryo pods function?”

Moon Dancer shook her head as she tried to think. There was a pony, but her pod was damaged… well not so much damaged, but missing a key part that they should have had in stock. The boxes… the boxes that seemed half empty or entirely empty… they were suppose to have spare parts. The spare parts they needed to fix this situation!

Moon Dancer started to panic “What do I do? What do I do? Is there a spell that I know that could help… or maybe there’s a spell book on board… no I wouldn’t be that lucky, but maybe there is a book that came with the phoenix?”

She bit her lip “But it would be an advance spell… an advance medical spell. Do I want to try testing a spell I hadn’t cast before on a pony that could die if I fail? I mean ten percent chance of survival… barring any other medical problems. What are those other medical problems!”

She glanced back at the screen as a new message appeared “I may have found a way to help solve the problem.”

“Why didn’t you say so sooner!” Moon Dancer typed/shouted

“That was because you were trying to figure out what to do as you didn’t notice the message on the screen.” The machine replied… with what felt like sass.

Did the machine actually mock her or… no it was just stating a reason. It was Moon Dancer’s fault for panicking before simply asking for an alternative solution than smashing the pod open.

“What do I need to do?” Moon Dancer quickly typed.

There was a long pause as she waited to see what it was going to say “There is a shop on Space station Vigil that does have a large stock of spare parts. It is near the air dock and you could pick one up rather easily due to this being an emergency.”

The unicorn blinked as she typed “I could just walk a few steps and pick up a new part? Why did it take you a while for you to reply if it’s that simple?”

“Because space station Virgil has yet to response to any communications sent to it.” The machine replied “You would have to go there by yourself as I would have a very limited way to observe you much less be of any assistance.”

Moon Dancer weighed her options… walk down to a store and pick up a spare part since it was an emergency… or sit here and try to figure out a way to free another pony from a damaged pod.

“Can’t we just borrow one of the spare parts from the other pods?” Moon Dancer replied as… honestly that should have been her first idea.

“It can be done after sending the pod back to the other storage area and an empty pod is sent back up just as long as the pod is safely secure.” The machine replied

Moon Dancer nodded her head… until she remembered the exposed section of the cryo pod. No lid and a lot of exposed parts. Would a part fall louse if it was sent back? Would there be any damage if one piece got chipped?

Moon Dancer shook her head as walking into the ‘space station’ and picking up a spare part was probably easier than trying to find some way to remove the lid on another pod just to find a spare part before trying to see if the Pegasus pod was damaged during the second transfer.

“I was just checking for a plan B.” Moon Dancer replied “So can you point me towards the shop?”

“Only after you come back to the kitchen for your needed equipment.” The machine replied

She sighed as she bitterly typed back “You want me to wear the suit before heading out?”

“I want you to carry one of the weapons for your own safety.” The machine replied to her shock “It is better to be safe than sorry, but I would advise you to bring along the suit. The weapon is non-negotiable if you want directions.”

Moon Dancer rolled her eyes as she walked back towards the kitchen. On the bright side she wasn’t going to have to wear that suit. As for the supposed danger of the ‘space station’ it was an attempt to scare her. The ‘space station’ was probably connected to the exit of this crazy complex and sooner or later she would have tried exploring it latter… preferably with more ponies, but she wasn’t too worried.

Besides if worse came to worse she could simply walk to wherever they stored the cryo pods and find one of the empty pods. Then she would simply pry the needed part out of it to fix the Pegasus pod.

Everything was going to be just fine.

Looking for trouble

The difference between hope and denial is often just a hair's breath away.

Moon Dancer stood in the kitchen as she glanced at the drone. The machine had told her about the shop which shouldn’t be that far from the ‘ship’ that she was on. She just figured that the machine would give her a can of pepper spray, a vest, and maybe a small club.

Instead the machine had somehow managed to get it’s… talons? Claws… Hooks? What was the technical term for those metal limbs?

Her train of thought stopped when she saw it preparing a harpoon gun “NO! We do not need a harpoon gun to walk down to the store!”

Moon Dancer shouted as she tried to put away the large weapon as the drone somehow manage to look at her oddly.

She grunted as she used her magic to type the message so that the machine could ‘hear’ her response. The screen flashed as a new line of text appeared… as the drone was starting to sort the weapons from the crate.

Moon Dancer took a deep breath as she read the machine’s reply “The space station may be hostile. The fact that they have yet to make contact or send a greeting protocol after I sent a message to confirm one of the ship’s crew is going to board their station is troubling.”

The unicorn glanced back at the harpoon gun “But maybe we could try limiting it to safer weapons?”

“The harpoon gun is completely safe.” The machine replied to her shock.

She looked back at the very sharp tip of the weapon and the… strange handle and trigger built for a race with fingers. “How is that weapon safe?”

“Unlike modern fire arms where you can simply shoot a bullet… there is a less likely percentage of unknown damage that could be caused by a small metallic projectile that could pierce multiple hulls and result in the loss of life support.” The machine stated “In the worst projected scenario a harpoon will either be stuck in the offending assailant or just somehow manage to pierce or damage one wall or hull.”

Moon Dancer slowly nodded her head as she didn’t know what ‘modern’ weapon the machine was talking about… or how a harpoon gun was considered safer when compared to them.

Thankfully she knew how to rephrase her questions “Actually I was referring to ensuring both me and the possible assailant survive. We do not know what is happening and I don’t want to hurt somepony that just happened to be frightened.”

There was a long pause before the harpoon gun was finally placed back into one of the crates “It is your call. Please keep the Riot Suppression Gun nearby at all times. If you feel you are in trouble simply pull the trigger and keep the nozzle pointed away from any parts of your body at all times.”

Moon Dancer nodded as this felt much better… until she was given a small toy space gun with a white glass sphere. Still it would be better than carrying around a harpoon gun. The drone finished giving her a few more items… improvised saddle bags made from old sacks and a few round hoof ball sized objects with labels that read ‘handle with care’ or simply ‘danger’ written on their sides.

She simply placed the items in her poorly made saddlebags before the terminal showed her the directions to the shop.

******

Moon Dancer stood outside the final door to the ‘ship’ before she would reach the ‘space station’ in this infernal complex. With a deep breath she prepared herself for the trip ahead of her. She had a shield, and a descent list of spells that could defend her if anything tried to attack her. She had a slight idea on how this place worked so she wouldn’t be caught by surprise by anything unusual.

“Just remember I can barely accesses any of the cameras near the docking bay doors so if there is any trouble I won’t be able to help.” The machine warned her. “Also just be careful in the hallway… it was built more for fashion than design.”

Moon Dancer simply nodded her head. She had her sweater instead of that pesky suit and she was about to wake up another pony. She could do this.

“I'm still going.” Moon Dancer typed “Open Door.”

The large doors in front of her hissed as various lines of text raced across the screen. The doors slowly opened up revealing what looked like a glass hallway. There was a solid metal floor with two small ‘walls’ by her side that were just short enough for her to stick her head above.

She could see the same view that the picture inside the building had shown her… expect it almost felt as if she was walking amongst the stars around her. Whoever built this place must of wasted a fortune just building this hallway as she couldn’t help but gaze in awe at her surroundings until she reached the end of the hallway.

Once she stepped through the iron doors they slowly sealed themselves shut. A pressurized hiss went off as Moon Dancer looked at the other part of the strange complex she was in.

The walls were more of a dark and almost seemingly rusted metal as her hooves seemed to echo across the room. The lights were more dimly light as the entire room seemed to be set in a horror movie tone. The terminal looked the same… albeit a little bit darker and more rust looking, but it seemed to be working just fine. The entire area felt as if Nopony had even bothered cleaning this area as they let the dirt and grime simply build up.

Moon Dancer remembered the directions she had to take… but she decided to give the machine a test “Show me to the shop.”

The message replied “Please state valid response.”

Moon Dancer frowned “Where is the shop?”

“Please state valid response.” The message replied once again.

Moon Dancer rolled her eyes “Where can I get a regulator piece?”

“Please state valid response.” the machine replied without missing beat.

“Maybe he’s just pretending to not hear me.” Moon dancer mumbled to herself “Well the shop isn’t too far away.”

******

Walking down the hallway was simple enough. There didn’t seem to be any real damage beside lack of upkeep… or a cleaning crew. How could anypony make one side spotless and another side feel like it had been abandoned for years was beyond her. Certainly they could have spared a few bits to hire somepony to get a mop and a bucket around here?

Something hit her hoof and flew across the floor for a short distance before clicking as a voice replied “The captain believes in the mission more than any of us, but he won’t tell us anything. Why are we bringing these supplies to this place? Why are we censoring so much stuff that is common knowledge? I mean just about every screen savor I can find says ‘Potions are death. Space is life.” And yet they are marking it as an unknown illegal substance.”

Moon Dancer glanced at the small rectangular device. The voice sounded female… and increasingly worried. She even had a slight accent that she couldn’t place… as if Equestrian was her second language.

“I guess that’s why I’m making this report.” The voice continued “We have no idea what the cargo we are carrying… or the reason why the eggheads want it. We are not allowed to say anything about this place to the folks back home… and I think the captain shot someone who talked about quitting when we got back to…” The voice stopped as their breath started to quicken as Moon Dancer could hear the slight sliver of fear in the speaker’s voice “…well you know where.”

There was another pause as if the speaker seemed to be waiting for something to happen to her. After nothing had apparently happened there was a soft sight before the voice continued “Still the captain claims that she’s alight… that and Pam was just given over to the station councilor. Funny how she’ll send someone to ‘psychiatric help’ when having complaints the crazy rules Vigil has, and yet she refuses to tell the egg heads that she had yet to turn on the ship’s AI. Something about worrying about the machine starting an uprising and killing us all.”

There was a small chuckle “Yah because killer robots are going to be the ones who kill us. Of course just by saying that the next group that comes here will end up finding my body hacked apart by a dozen buzz saws. Still at least it’s safe up here… even if this place seems a little bit cramp.”

There was another click as Moon Dancer used her magic to lift up the device. There didn’t seem to be any magic coming from it… or any normal methods used to contain spoken messages since it was in fact smaller than a hoofball. Still she quickly tucked it away as she could mess with it later.

Moon Dancer walked down the hallway and turned the corner only to see a poster on the wall. A potion bottle was left near the image of a small house that apparently was on fire. The colorful liquid killed all the flowers nearby with a grave stone with ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ written on it.

Besides the poster was far simpler one that simply read “Potions are death. They run everything around them. Tell your nearest law enforcement agency if you see someone with a potion.”

She shook her head “Alright… well I at least know what I’m not suppose to touch down here.”

She couldn’t help but smile as off to the right was a small shop with big glowing neon letters that read “Vigil Outpost Store! We're on the lookout for whatever you may need!”

Moon dancer walked to the door only for a small chime to go off as the doors automatically opened allowing her to step inside. She looked down at the floor and smirked as a carpet had been laid down… to probably hide a pressure system that was used to operate the door.

She couldn't help but chuckle at the simple device that had surprised her before taking a notice at the inside of the store as dozens upon dozens of colored boxes filled the shelves. She didn’t recognize most of the items, but the sheer amount and variety of items surprised her. Though she did find it odd that where cashier should have been was an empty seat as the store seemed to be empty.

“Hello?” Moon Dancer asked out loud “Is anypony here?”

She slowly walked around to the other side of the desk and found a knocked over bag of chips and a broken mop that was covered with various scratches as some sort of black tar seemed to be smeared across the broken handle.

The unicorn looked away from the desk as she told herself out loud “It’s probably another trick. It’s just something to give you a sense of unease without any actual danger Moon Dancer. This is just a theme park haunted house… with actual food instead of plastic fruit.”

She took one of the plastic packages of sliced apple and opened it up. They did smell fresh... well fresh in the sense any plastic sealed item could smell as she popped one of the pieces into her mouth. There was a slight cold tingle as the apple slices were still could and they hadn't even dried out!

Moon Dancer smiled at the actual taste of flavor as she said to herself "It's defiantly not made out of wax!"

Using her magic she opened up her saddle bags and started grabbing anything that looked valuable. She started off simple as she took some basic items like the strange ink pens and paper to write on. Then she slowly grabbed more items that looked important even if she didn’t recognize their names. Of course she did fill up a large portion of her saddle bags with snack food as she wasn’t planning on eating more of that sandy substance without something that had a little bit of flavor.

The shop seemed like a normal convenient store even if the store seemed built for somepony Celesta’s size instead of a normal pony. She could only imagine how hard grabbing some of the items would have been if she was an earth pony.

Of course her favorite part of the store had to be the freezer section as dozens of frozen vegetable meals were on display including various boxes and brands of ice cream. There was also a rather nice freezer bag she could place them all in to keep the items cold that seemed to be made out of some sort of special type of fabric.

Moon Dancer had nearly filled up her saddle bags, but she had yet to find the regulator part she had been searching for. She did manage to find a sign labeled “Storage room” that unlike the store’s pressure sensitive doors … this one had a terminal with some sort of card stuck into the machine. Moon Dancer pulled the card out with her magic only to watch the screen turn off.

“A security measure…” Moon Dancer mumbled to herself “Without anypony standing near it?”

She pushed the card back into the terminal as it started back up again. Without wasting a second the unicorn typed “Open Door” into the machine as the doors opened up. She quickly pulled the card out of the machine and waited a few seconds… and sighed in relief as the doors were still left open.

“Okay the storage room probably has the missing parts.” The unicorn told herself “All I have to do is find a box labeled regulators.”

She stepped inside as the growing sense of unease grew. The various boxes that filled this room were all brown without any distinct markings. The lights in the room were far brighter than the ones in the store as Moon Dancer had a hard time looking up at the ceiling from the intensity of the lights above her.

“Is there Anypony in here?” Moon Dancer asked out loud “… Well if Nopony is in here I’ll just take the parts I need and leave without paying.”

She waited a couple of seconds before shaking her head “Funny… that always seems to get somepony’s attention in a store. Still if the previous part of the building was empty why should this place be any different?”

******

Moon Dancer had spent the next half hour traversing the room trying to find the regulator parts as she left a small trail of garbage made out of empty snack bags and other various food containers… because she had to make sure they were edible and not made out of sand. They were not as good as the stuff back in Canterlot of course and she did need to make some extra room for those missing regulator parts to fit in her saddle bags.

As for the missing parts… it took a while for her to navigate the labyrinth of boxes to find where the regulator parts were stored and the first three boxes were empty or filled with garbage. So naturally when she pulled out the fourth box she jumped for joy to find it filled with the missing parts she needed.

She used her magic to take as many parts as she could and filled her saddle bags. Sure she could carry the box with her magic, but it was far easier to carry them in her saddle bags than to use her magic to carry the box over the same distance.

“Magic is good for short sprints. Not marathons.” Moon Dancer reminded herself “I could just put the box on the shield and pull it like a sled.”

She removed the shield on her back and placed it on the ground and prepared to make an improvised sled she could pull until she saw her shadow growing larger despite the fact she was standing still. She slowly turned her head around ready to greet the pony only to see a strange canine like creature she hadn’t seen before.

The term ‘unnatural’ was the only thought that crossed her head despite the fact that the creature’s body seemed mechanical in nature as a few exposed wires seemed to spark across it's body. She couldn't tell what gender it was, but the body seemed similar to that of a timber wolf as some of it's limbs seemed... splintered or jagged in a sense. Most of it's body seemed to be covered in a black tar like substance that was spread across it's body like a second skin... or possibly a suit?

Moon Dancer took a step back as the creature’s head stared at her. Instead of a regular wolf like head the creature’s face was more oval shaped as a single soft yellow light could only be seen. A sickening sound filled the air as two wings came out of the creature’s back… except that these wings lacked any feathers as if something had plucked out all of the feathers from it.

Moon Dancer gulped “Are you in charge? I asked if anypony… any dog was here as nopo… I mean no one answered.”

She slowly turned around and started to pick her shield back up only for the creature to prepare to pounce as the soft yellow light turned red “Potions are death. Space is life. The price of our safety is our own vigilance.”

Moon Dancer nodded her head “I’m sorry I if I…”

She screamed as the wolf like creature jumped at her as she quickly summoned a shield spells blocking the creature only for the black goo to splash against her spell causing her horn to ache in pain.

Moon Dancer quickly switched to the riot shield as she tried to remember any self defense lessons from Celestia's school for gifted foals as a sickening sound filled the air. The monster’s head seemed to either be growing a jaw or tearing it’s own mouth open revealing a dozen sharp rusty gray metallic teeth. Both theories were equally horrifying to her as monster continued it's assault.

Her spell broke causing the creature to land in front of her snarling “To bow our heads kills us and those who come after!”

Moon Dancer tried to open her mouth to ask why it was attacking her, but she didn't get a chance at the monster lunged forth trying to bite her. In a panic Moon Dancer moved the riot shield in front of her blocking the creature's attack before unleashing a powerful blast of magic sending both the creature and her shield flying back as the monster slammed against the ground.

Normally she would have asked if it was alright, but nearly being attacked twice by the same creature made her panic as she ran towards the exit of the storage room trying to escape. Her heart was racing as the only thoughts that entered her head was escaping from this place as she followed her trail of discarded wrappers out of the room.

The mare smiled as she nearly reached the exit only for something to grab her leg and drag away from the exit.

Moon Dancer turned her head as she screamed as the plucked wing like limb from the wolf monster had wrapped around her left hind leg. The black substance on the limb started to smear across her fur causing it to sting, but that wasn’t nearly as terrifying as the fact that the monster was trying to use the other wing to wrap around her other legs.

In a panic the unicorn threw the toy gun she was given to defend herself at the monster only for it to catch toy with the spare tendril. The nozzle of the toy was pointed at the monster by chance at as a white foam like substance spewed all over the monster causing the creature to howl in pain as it threw the object across the room.

Moon Dancer quickly caught the device with her magic and pulled the trigger at the limb that was holding her. The foam like substance hit the limb causing the monster to release its grip on her leg so that she could escape.

She out of the room and straight over to the terminal typing “Close Door” as the doors sealed shut trapping the monster behind the large metal doors. Her magic quickly tore the keycard out of the terminal and shoved it into her saddle bag as the sounds of the monster thrashing about on the other side of the door could still be heard.

This continued for a couple of minutes as she watched the door in terror. The only weapon she had was kept pointed at the door as if the monster was about to burst straight out of the door in a blind furious rage. Only when the sound of the monster thrashing about stopped did she finally sigh in relief believing she was safe… until she remembered she forgot the box full of Regulator parts inside the room.

“Please let them be okay. Please let them be okay.” Moon Dancer shouted in a panic as she searched her saddle bags “Please, please, please… oh thank sweet Celestia their okay.”

The unicorn sighed in relief as she put away the spare machine parts and looked down at her rear legs. There was a small ring around the leg that had been grabbed as the fur seemed burnt… or damaged. She didn’t know what the creature was… or what it was covered in, but she had a healthy suspicion that it wasn’t safe.

“I should probably wash it out…” Moon Dancer muttered to herself as she used her magic to retrieve a bottle of water “And I probably should have looked around a little bit more for anypony else.”

The cool water washed over her leg as she felt a small sense of relief as the black substance seemed to wash away. Her mind raced with questions as she tried to figure out just where the creature came from. Was it in the storage room since the doors were locked shut when she arrived or had it somehow walked into the store when she wasn’t paying attention?

Something wet hit her on the back of her neck as she touched it… only for it to feel sticky. She tilted her head up only to see a large spider like creature covered in black goo. Parts of the ceiling panels slowly broke apart forming the monster’s legs as the lights on the ceiling started to disappear only to form the monster’s eyes.

The monster stared down at her and spoke in a similar mechanical voice like the wolf monster “Potions are death. Space is life. Death is for those who betray us for their own folly.”

“Ponyfeathers!” Moon Dancer shouted as one of the monster’s legs swung at her.

She grabbed her saddle bags and ran out of the store in panic before turning her head back. Unlike the Kitchen Assitant Drone that reminded her of a spider… this one looked like an armored spider chasing after her. The front half of the body was covered in rusty metal leaving the exposed almost pitch abdomen dripping with a similar black substance like the wolf monster had. A few dozen smaller hoofball sized version of the metallic spider seemed to crawl out of the black goo.

“Potions are death. Space is life.” the smaller spiders recited in creepy unison

“No time running now!” Moon Dancer shouted as she ran

She head the monster speak in unison “Our survival is achieved by the efforts of those before us.”

That was when one of the smaller spider monsters smashed against the side of the wall causing her to look back. The large spider was still chasing after her expect that it was using one of it’s spare limbs to hurl the smaller creatures at her. Most of them hit the walls or the ceiling being crushed upon impact, but some of them survived and started racing after her.

Her mind was in a panic as she couldn’t think of a spell to help her out, but she knew the foam stuff worked against them. She quickly sprayed one of the smaller spiders that had landed in front of her trapping the creature under a layer of foam. The unicorn prepared to run through the foam only to smash into it as she just realized why the monsters tried to avoid it as it felt like she just tried ramming a brick wall.

“Keep foam away from self.” Moon Dancer muttered to herself as she turned her head to see the two small spider creatures lunging at her.

She screamed in terror as she summoned a shield spell to protect herself as the two small spiders collide against it. She could deal with them trying to tear though the shield, but the murky black substance that continued to drop from their bodies was another story as her horn started to ache.

Moon Dancer grabbed the foam gun with her mouth and pulled the trigger as the foam like substance smeared across the front of her shield as it felt like a cloud was being placed right against her spell which didn’t felt as nearly as bad as she was expecting. Once the shield spell dropped the monsters tried tearing into the foam like substance with far less success than they were having with the foam as it didn’t have any problems with the black ooze that dripped from their bodies.

Part of her mind was both amazed at the weapon she now wielded and horrified that she had nearly mocked the friendly machine thinking that this part of the complex was safe! She didn’t know what happened aboard this part of the building, but it was clear to see that something went horribly wrong.

Moon Dancer turned tail and ran as she could hear the monsters trying to tear their way through the temporally wall she had made. Her breathing grew faster and faster as she recognized part of the hallway as the entrance to this crazed complex. She turned down the corner and panicked as she prepared to type in the needed command only to see that the door had been left open!

That was when the sound of the wall shattering echoed through the room as a mechanical voice seemed shouted “In our struggle we shall triumph. With our knowledge we shall stop the ignorant. With our victory we shall reclaimed what has been lost and punish our vile foe!”

Moon Dancer turned towards the hallway as one of the monster crash into a nearby wall. She looked behind her just to see one of the small spider monster land behind her as the second one tried to catch up only for the doors to suddenly slammed crushing the monster.

The walkway seemed to start to shake causing the other monster to look back at its comrade that apparently didn’t make it. Moon Dancer just continued running through the hallway just as the door almost slammed shut on her tail. There was a loud hiss as Moon Dancer turned around while trying to find something to fend off the monster… only for there to be silence.

She noticed a message on the terminal “Hostile life form has been dealt with.”

Her first thought was a moment of relief as she had made it safely back to her side of the complex until she realized that the monsters were just right outside her door.

Moon Dancer quickly ran over to the machine and typed “We need to find some way to get the monsters away from the door!”

The screen flicked as it showed Moon Dancer running into the room as small spider monster that was left behind… only for it to suddenly fly… no jerk to the right? She rubbed her eyes as the recording looped showing Moon Dancer making it safely inside the room… just when another door opened up off to the right as the spiders had suddenly flew out of the hallway against their own will.

Moon Dancer gulped as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end as she typed “What happened?”

“Unknown hostile life forms have been found aboard the station.” The machine replied “Current cause or reason for how they came aboard Space Station Vigil is unknown.”

Moon Dancer shook her head as she clarified “What happened to the ones outside the door?”

“Unknown hostile life form could have still proven a danger to the crew so the controls to the airlock had been overridden allowed for the quick and safe disposal of the hostile life forms with minimum risk to the crew.” The machine replied “Thankfully you did not stop to see what had happened to the first hostile life form and continued running to safety.”

Moon Dancer gulped as she looked at the door. The large solid door that had apparently been made to shut before she had typed in the command. “Where are the hostile life forms now?”

The screen flicked revealing both of them floating in space… floating in space without any sort of protective gear.

“A cleansing agent may be needed to be used on the Space Station door as the door only crushed one of the hostile life forms.” The machine replied “The hostile life forms that had attacked you should burn up in the atmosphere of the nearby planet during the re-entry process if the cold vacuum of space has not killed them already.”

Moon Dancer gulped a little bit louder as the machine just explained to her what had happened in the same way a pony would talk about the weather or how they had cleaned their house.

The unicorn looked down at the screen as she typed “How did you open up the doors and do all of this?”

“Your hypotheses of the use for the extra crew members had been proven to be successful.” The machine replied “Crew documentation, registration, and authorization for one Dog had been useful to give the necessary commands needed to help rescue you.”

Moon Dancer slowly nodded her head “The dog typed in the commands?”

“I typed the commands into.” The machine stated “The dog just was an easy authorized crew member ID that I could use with or without her input. Somehow the avian had finished registering itself as the ship’s gardener without my knowledge. An explanation for how the avian was able to do that would be helpful for future reference.”

Moon Dancer wasn’t so much concerned that the phoenix somehow managed to work one of the terminals… but that the machine was in control of this part of the… of the…

She shook her head as she couldn’t believe it as the room was silent. The very first monster continued clawing at the door when it was covered in the foam like substance. The other two monsters continued attacking until something distracted it… most likely the realization that they were about to be shot out into space.

Moon Dancer chuckled nervously as that couldn’t possibly be true.

She grabbed weapon she and she typed “I need to clear the spot right now. Open door.”

There was a small pause as Moon Dancer counted the seconds. They seemed to drag on as various sounds came from the door, but none of them were clawing, howling, or the sounds of a monster scratching at the door. Once they finally opened up… she saw the damage.

A black almost skeletal… or metallic limb was left in the door apparently torn from the creature’s own body. A trial of black goo was left on the walkway and almost ‘smashed’ against the guard staining it black. Off to the direction of the creature had disappeared on the screens.

Moon Dancer knew it was foolish to even think such a thing was possible as she used her magic to try to get a better look at the image in the distance… only to see the monsters floating away. Her legs started to shake as she realized it was real. The monsters had been shot out into space. The ‘hallway’ wasn’t a fancy decoration.

Then she heard scratching. She turned her head towards the other door as she could hear metal grinding against metal.

Moon Dancer ran back into the room and typed “Close door! Show image on other side of the hallway!”

The door closed as she could hear it hissing… as the image of the large spider monster took up most of the screen. The monsters legs were pressed up against the door as it was slowly tearing off thin strips of metal. She felt sick as smaller versions of the spider seemed to be crawling in and out of the black goo on the large spider’s abdomen. The monster itself seemed large… in the fact she knew to run from it. Now that she had time to look she was horrified!

The beast just barely fit into the hallway as it was massive!

The screen flicked as a new message appeared “Disengaging from Space Station Vigil until needed.” The room seemed to shake a little “Air lock has been disengaged. No hostile life forms are aboard this ship. Moving ship to safer distance near landing port C7 and will wait near the airlock instead of docking to it for now.”

The camera image stayed on the monster spider as it continued slowly tearing through the door. Moon Dancer couldn’t help but stare at the monster waiting for the machine to find some way to stop it! Maybe activate some sort of backup system that sprayed the foam over everything or flood the room with water. At this point she would be happy for some contrived system that always seemed to appear in the Daring Do novels!

The monster managed to tear a small hole into the door as the room seemed to shake. At first she thought it was some sort of spell or explosive that she had been hoping for, but there wasn’t any flash of magic or explosive flare.

Instead the monster started to flail about in a mad panic as the smaller spiders were trying to run away. The door finally broke as the monster’s body seemed to disappear for the room as all the smaller spiders seemed to be sucked out the door.

Moon Dancer closed her eyes for a few seconds expecting to hear something smash against the wall… only for silence. The room was now empty as the nearby doors in the previous room had been sealed shut. The screen flicked revealing the monster spider creature… floating near a metal hallway with screens inside the room. The outside was regular steel as the ‘wallpaper’ merely showed what was outside the hallway as the spider monsters drifted away without anything to grab hold of.

“The ship will not be docked for a few more minutes.” The machine replied “Unless there becomes a need to go aboard the station I would highly advise leaving the ship close, but not in direct contact with Space Station Vigil for now.”

She just looked at the screen in numb terror as the ship just moved past the part of the station it had been docked to. This wasn't some sort of underground complex built by some random faction on Equestria's soil or seem place on the planet. No this physical impossibility was actually real otherwise somepony had somehow rigged up an entire complex underneath a mountain with an absurd amount to magical runes, spells, and enchantments to allow for the subtle and easy ability to swap out each room within the entire underground complex with other pieces depending on the situation.

Sadly that idea seemed rather implausible right now.

A new message appeared “Was your mission a success?”

She looked down at her saddle bags and found the missing regulator parts “It was a success.”

That was what she typed, but in many ways it didn’t feel like a success. It felt like a joke… a really bad horrible joke in which the audience was pointing at her and laughing at her. Everything she thought she knew didn't matter as she had no idea what to do!

She turned her head back towards the cryo room as… she needed somepony to talk to. She needed to forget about what happened aboard the space station. She needed an actual pony to tell her that she wasn't crazy... or that she wasn't going insane.