Starlight partially opened her eyes, but her brain still remained hazy. She knew that something was wrong, that she needed to be awake immediately, but she could not remember why. Instead, she just kept sleeping, wondering why Twilight was standing over her with a stony, blank expression on her face.

“Starlight,” whispered a voice beside her. “Starlight, wake up!”

Slowly, Starlight managed to force herself back into consciousness. It was surprisingly difficult; she had just been concussed to the point of unconsciousness two times in what she assumed were the past two hours. Her head ached tremendously, and everything felt distant and odd. She was only glad she had not suffered a lethal hematoma.

When she realized where she was, though, the hematoma suddenly seemed like the better option. She was being supported by her forelegs and being dragged. A pair of wendigoes were tightly gripping each of her arms, and they were awkwardly walking forward quickly on their hind legs. One of them remained masked, but the other was not. As Starlight looked up at her, she looked back, her pale pink eyes darting down toward the pony she held and then back up to her path.

Looking around, she saw that another pair of wendigoes was dragging Jurneu, who was either unconscious or dead. Zedok and Sbaya were walking on their own, although machinery had been placed on their bodies. Starlight was not sure what function it was meant to serve, if any, but from the rusted and chaotic look of it, she assumed that it was built by the wendigoes. Zedok had an almost comical appearance of anger, as if this whole thing were badly inconveniencing her, but Sbaya was quietly crying. Beri was walking behind them, and although she was free, she was surrounded by wendigoes, some of whom were armed with strange looking weapons that looked at least partially organic.

“My head,” said Starlight.

“Trust me, Star, you’re head’s the least of your problems right now.”

Starlight groaned. “Where are we?”

It was not terribly apparent from her surroundings. Wherever they were, it was cold, and despite how thin the air was, it smelled horrible, like blood and old machinery. It was also dark, but from what little Starlight could see, they seemed to be walking through what could only be described as wreckage. It was as though someone had tunneled through the debris of hundreds of derelict ships, digging a corridor as they went. There was evidence that this had been the hallway of a starship at one point- -from the look of it, perhaps Alliance, though at its age it likely hailed from as far back as the human era- -but it had been cut apart and rebuilt so many times that it now consisted of cavernous channels overlaid with makeshift conduits and rusted plating that reinforced its joints to other sections that appeared to have been hastily and awkwardly added on at later times.

“This…this is their ship,” said Starlight, answering her own question. She watched as many of the wendigoes above watched her pass, staring from perches on the jagged and broken walls around them. “This is a wendigo ship…”

“Looks like it,” said Zedok. “How the hell did they build a goddamn SHIP?”

“I don’t think they did,” said Starlight, looking around. “It just looks like they fixed it.” She looked up at Zedok. “But that doesn’t matter. We need to get off of it. Now.”

“But they haven’t hurt us yet,” said Sbaya, hopefully.

“Yes,” said Starlight, “but they’re probably just taking us to be basted or something.”

“But- -but I don’t want to be basted!” wailed Sbaya. One of the wendigoes reacted strongly to the sudden noise, momentarily panicking and punching the girl in the face. She cried out and dropped to the ground.

“Get your dirty hands off my daughter!” screamed Zedok, kicking at the wendigo. It dodged easily and dropped to all fours, assuming an aggressive posture. Starlight saw him bear his unusually long fangs at her.

“Careful!” said Starlight, pulling herself free from the two wendigoes holding her but nearly collapsing in the process. Not only was she concussed, but the atmosphere was so thin that she nearly blacked out trying to stand on her own.

Zedok, to her credit, managed to control her anger and instead knelt by Sbaya, who was now bleeding from her nose. Sbaya was not critically injured, but was visibly shaken, and Zedok helped her back up.

“My tactical suggestion is that we avoid conflict,” said Beri in an unusually monotone voice. “We are currently on a starship that could contain hundreds or thousands of wendigoes. I am good, but I am not that good. I was damaged in the fight and taken before my system could repair, and although I am capable of escaping, there is a 97 percent chance that all of you would die in the first two minutes.”

Zedok nodded. She pointed toward the rusted collar attached to her body. “They put these things on us while we were out. I think they’re some kind of biotic suppressor. Not that either of us have enough biotic power to take these things on. Jurneu does, but…” Starlight looked back at the albino unicorn. She saw that he, too, was fitted with a collar, but he was still unconscious.

“Is he dead?” asked Starlight.

“No,” said Zedok. “Which is a miracle in its own right. The amount of feedback he just took should have burned out his brain, but…Star, I need to get to him. He’s alive right now, but I have no idea for how long. Every time I try to, the wendigoes freak out.”

Starlight looked up at the wendigoes, and despite the grogginess in her mind she began to realize just how little sense their situation made. These were not the wendigoes she had seen on Earth so many years ago. They had evolved, and done so quickly to the point where they only marginally resembled the humans that their kind had descended from. Their behavior seemed the same, though: the fact that none of them could speak, or the way that they attacked. Starlight could only assume that they were still the obligate predators that they had once been. Even on the borders of the cavernous, broken hallways, she could see some of them devouring bits of what she could only assume were the remains of the Thebe ship’s crew.

“They haven’t killed us yet,” she said. “Why haven’t they killed us?”

“B…basted,” said Sbaya, sobbing quietly. “I don’t…I don’t want to be basted…”

“Nobody’s getting basted,” said Zedok. “Star, they didn’t put a collar on you. Look.”

Starlight did, and she realized that Zedok was correct. They had not attached a device to her, which she found mildly insulting.

“Do you think you can fight?” said Zedok.

“No!” Starlight shook her head. “I can’t use my biotics anymore, they’re gone!”

“Come on, Star, try!”

Starlight took a breath and tried to activate her horn. She felt it spark slightly before her head was overcome with crippling pain that caused her to nearly collapse. Tears welled in her eyes, both from the pain and from the realization that she was completely useless despite being the one responsible for the capture of her friends.

“I can’t,” she said. “I just can’t.”

They were led deep into the ship, which appeared to be the remains of what had once been an Alliance carrier. From what Starlight had saw, it had mostly been converted into the wendigo version of a city, with the hangers meant for fighters converted into living space or used to house smaller ships that the wendigoes were either in the process of disassembling or had long ago interfaced into the larger ship’s systems to keep it marginally functional.

Their eventual destination, though, lay in a different part of the ship. Although the junction had built over for centuries, Starlight was still able to see the jagged junction to a second, smaller ship of an unfamiliar design. It appeared to be imbedded in the larger carrier; it was not stored in a hanger, but rather seemed to have slammed into it at one point, lodging itself within, just as Starlight’s own ship had in the Thebean lead ship.

At the junction, though, she paused for a moment. Her eyes widened as she saw the peeling, decayed symbol on the exposed portion of the second ship’s ancient, oxidized hull plating: an orange flanked hexagon. The imbedded ship had once belonged to Cerberus.

One of the wendigoes shoved her, and Starlight was forced through what had once been the Cerberus vessel’s docking door. Inside, it had been reconfigured substantially to account for the fact that it was tilted relative to the main ship’s gravity. It had never been meant to be navigated in such a position, but the wendigoes seemed to have found a way.

This ship, unlike the others, had not been built up. This area was clearly not meant for wendigo habitation, and Starlight could tell that their captors were becoming increasingly agitated the longer they were present in this section. The walls of this ship remained relatively intact, dirty and stripped but otherwise undamaged and augmented.

In this strange imbedded ship, Starlight and her group were led to a large room. It had perhaps once been a hanger or a cargo bay, but in its current shifted position, it stood on its side, making it far taller than it was wide. The floor was flooded with strangely clear water that was up to Starlight’s knees, and more appeared to be flooding in from several areas around the room.

Through the dim, bluish light of the room, Starlight was able to see that the room was not empty. Several islands were apparent in the center, and all of them were covered in what Staright first thought were ponies. As she looked closer, though, she recognized their hairless pink bodies and bushy, curly manes and tails. Each and every one of them was identical, and all of them smiled hungrily when Starlight was thrown in front of them. They were clingons.

In the center sat one clingon who appeared different from the others. This one had perfectly straight hair, and while the others were giggling madly and incessantly this one looked deathly serious if not outright offended that her sanctum would dare to be violated. Her island in particular was set up like a throne, but not one occupied by her. Instead, what Starlight took for a humanoid statue had been erected on it: a mossy, corroded and bullet-hole pocked image of an oversized human dressed in armor that had been spattered with pink paint and a darker, rustier fluid.

“What is the meaning of this?” said the lead clingon as the wendigoes threw their captives into the room. Zedok immediately rushed to Jureu’s side, opening her omnitool and beginning to revive him. Starlight looked up into the tall room, and saw many pink and blue eyes staring back at her from the balconies above.

“Come now, Pinkamena,” said a deep voice from an unseen source. It gurgled loudly with a long, ragged breath. “We so rarely get company.”

Starlight watched the statue’s hand slowly lift off its armrest and run itself through the clingon’s hair. The clingon Pinkamena smiled and nuzzled the chest of what Starlight now realized was an actual living man, the one who had spoken.

Starlight stepped forward through the water and addressed the enormous armored man. “I am Starlight Glimmer of Equestria,” she said. “Might I ask just who you are?”

“Who am I?” he said, leaning forward. A high giggling came from behind his helmet, making Starlight shiver with how unexpected it was. “That, tiny horse, is something I’ve been trying to answer for so very, very long…”

Jurneu moaned and sat up. He looked around confused, helped up by Zedok. “What?” he said. “Where…” He blinked. “Well. This isn’t good, is it?”

Starlight was glad to see that he was safe, but for the moment ignored him, keeping her attention focused on the alien in front of her. “Am I to assume you are their leader?” she said, gesturing toward the wendigoes.

The man just stared at her for a moment, or at least seemed to. His mask was completely opaque, and though Starlight assumed he could see through it, there was a strong possibility that he was blind.

Then, suddenly, he burst into wild shrill laughter. The clingons joined in, cracking up just as madly, their wide blue eyes racing frantically around the room as they stood on their islands of debris.

“Leader? They don’t have a leader!” shrieked the man in a voice that had suddenly changed several octaves. “They form no hierarchy! They share no compassion, no altruism! Their cooperation- -their cooperation is because of how much they HATE each other!”

One of his arms swung out at almost impossible speed. Something flashed through the air and a large fragment of a dark organic substance imbedded itself in one of the nearby wendigo’s legs. She cried weakly and collapsed into the water. The other wendigoes did not hesitate; as soon as they saw weakness in one of their own, they leapt onto her, tearing her apart while she was still alive and eating the parts.

The enormous man suddenly stood, with Pinkamena scrambling across his back with her clingon agility and clambering onto one of his broad shoulders. He produced a deafening roar and lurched toward the wendigoes. They panicked and fled, leaving their sister trembling and mortally wounded in the cold water, her blood staining it an odd pink color.

The man then turned back to his chair and nodded to his clingon horde. They began giggling and speaking in their odd, high voices as they took to the water and moved rapidly toward the quivering woman.

“So many cupcakes!”

“It’s time to have a party!”

“Don’t worry! Teehee, it’s going to be FUN!”

“Her eyes are just so adorable! I could eat them up!”

The wendigo’s own eyes widened and she tried to escape, but she was too weak. The clingons descended on her and began to devour what was left of her body. Within seconds, the wendigo woman was dead.

“See?” said the man. “They’re just waiting. Each and every one. Waiting for weakness. Waiting for me to weaken. But I never do! I NEVER DO!” He screamed in rage and punched the rear of his stone-like seat, breaking off a corner of the back.

Starlight took a breath, calling on her centuries of diplomatic experience and remaining unfazed by the strange figure’s outburst. “I’m going to ask again. Who are you?”

He turned slowly, and both he and Pinkamena looked at Starlight.

“Who knows?” he said, suddenly sounding on the verge of laughter. “Maybe I was once a man named Kevin who had a very, very bad day with some rather unfortunate green chemicals. Or maybe Cerberus strapped me to a table and kept cutting and cutting until I couldn’t remember who I was at all and EVERY GODDAMN SECOND OF MY LIFE IS ABOSLUTE AGONY!”

His sentence quickly devolved into something that was not words, at least in any language that Starlight could understand. Then he went perfectly silent and stood perfectly still. Pinkamena stroked his head, and he seemed to calm down. “Or,” he said. “You can call me Pink.”

“Hel…hello, Mr. Pink,” said Sbaya, still managing to be polite even though it was quite clear that she had wet herself. “It is…nice to meet…you…”

Pink slowly turned to her. Then he pointed. “Polite. You are polite. Why are you polite to me, little asari? You hate me. Not that I blame you. I would hate me too if I were still alive.”

“If you’re not their leader,” said Starlight, “then what are you?”

“What am I?” He actually sounded as though he were truly asking the question, and he began to pace the room. Starlight saw that his armor did not actually cover his body entirely. Part of his neck was exposed, revealing gray, scabbed, cancerous looking skin that surrounded a set of what she could only imagine were gills. “To them. With respect to them. Pinkamena, what am I? I can’t…I can’t remember.”

“They come to you when they have questions,” said Pinkamena. “They are like us. They can’t think. But you can. Or could, once. You know things.”

“Yes,” he sighed, as if he was reminded of something profoundly sad. “I am not their leader, but I am…we are compatible. These ships, they have thousands of clingons. Even vorcha in some areas, once. And me. They have me.” He turned to Starlight with a sudden surge of speed, and then took several rapid steps forward.

“You,” he said. “They have questions about you.”

“You can understand them?”

Pink shook his head. “No. Oh no. They can’t speak. Except HER. She can speak…and the other one, but he’s not even real, just a skin, just a skinned corpse…I don’t like her! She was there, she was cutting, she made me, made me- -”

“Pink,” said Pinkamena. Several of his pet clingons swam to his sides, calming him down.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I…I’m not me anymore. I can’t feel the pain if I’m not me. That’s how I did it, you know. How I got away. By letting myself die to become me.” He took a deep, rattling breath. “They, the nhmai, they can’t think. They don’t have minds, but they can build. They understand. Can’t talk, cannot build society, but they can build ships to hunt more ships to gather more food…”

“The pirate attacks,” said Jurneu. “They…they weren’t pirates…”

“Oh no,” said Pink. He looked for a long moment at Jurneu. “I see,” he said. “So very interesting. They don’t even know.” He then turned back to Starlight. “But it isn’t him that they have questions about. They are confused, but not by them. They have no interest in the others. They have an interest in YOU.”

“Why me?” said Starlight.

“I told you. They can’t talk. But they do KNOW. Something about them, when humanity lost sentience it gained something ELSE. They’re afraid of you, and they want my verdict on you and those around you.”

“And what is your verdict.”

“DON’T RUSH ME!” he screamed. Then, in a perfectly calm voice. “My brain is mostly filled with calcifications and tumors. It doesn’t work as quickly as it did before…before they made me. How long ago was that?”

“Three hundred years,” said Pinkamena.

“Thank you,” he said. Then he paused. “How…how am I still here? That long, why won’t they let me die? Are you even my Pinkamena?”

Pinkamena shook her head. “No. She died decades ago. I am her great-great-great-granddaughter.”

“My Pinkies,” said Pink, sounding as though he were on the verge of weeping. “They keep taking my beloved Pinkies…”

“Who keeps taking them?”

Pink paused. “Time. Time keeps taking them. But it never takes me. Like it never took you.”

He sat back in his chair and Pinkamena took a seat on one of the armrests.

“But why me?” pressed Starlight. She herself was not sure what question she was even trying to ask.

“Why you? I don’t know. But I DO know.” He pointed at her, his hand now shaking. “Something about you is not something they know…” he trailed off. “You need to know. You HAVE to know. I’ve seen things, but my mind is broken. All I want is to kill. I want to strangle you right now. Break your little pony body. Then squeeze the life out of those two asari and tear the turian limb-from limb.”

“I’d like to see you try,” said Beri, crossing her arms.

“What about me?” asked Jurneu, sounding surprisingly amused by the occurrences around him.

“An all-white unicorn will make an excellent sacrifice to Satin Veil,” he said. “Or I could let my Pinkies have their way with you. I would myself, but I honestly don’t know if I’m a male or female. Those parts of me rotted off decades ago. I don’t even have skin under this armor.” He turned sharply to Starlight. “Eight were born,” he said, suddenly in a different voice.

“Excuse me?”

“You HAVE TO KNOW,” he said, suddenly sounding desperate to retain what little lucidity he had left. “Eight were born, but One was strongest. One was born to rule. The others, they know. They listened…and they heard the TRUTH. I can…I can sometimes hear her…”

“Hear who?”

Pink shook his head. “Not her, it’s not her…pieces. Just pieces of what once was. Steel and crystal and flesh merged once and merging again. Broken thoughts, a Paradigm assembling itself from the ashes.”

“You’re insane,” said Zedok. “What Cerberus must have done to you…”

“Insane…yes,” he said. “A viral ideology. An infectious religion…but I resist. Oh how I wish I could understand, but my mind won’t let me. CERBERUS won’t let me.” He took Pinkamena in his arms, and the other clingons began to return to their island, leaving the skeleton of the stripped wendigo behind. “And you don’t know…because you can’t know. If you knew…”

He suddenly froze, and then stood up. He did not speak, but instead began looking around the room frantically. Starlight at first thought he was looking at the wendigos, but they seemed to retreat from his gaze.

“What is it?” said Pinkamena.

“Can’t- -can’t you hear them?”

“Hear what?” asked Starlight.

“Their screaming…the sound. Starlight Glimmer, disciple of the true falsehood, you must, you HAVE to hear them too!”

“I don’t hear any- -”

“THEN LISTEN!”

Starlight took a step back, and in the silence of the room, she realized that she DID hear something. It was not really a sound, but something like a strange distant whispering that she felt with her body.

“What…what is that?” she said.

“It’s the damned,” he said. “The last of my kind, they’re HERE.” He turned to the wendigoes and roared. “THEY’RE HERE!”

“Who is here?” said Starlight.

“You can hear it! I can’t- -it’s making me deaf! The sound of their engines, can’t you HEAR IT?!”

He suddenly lurched forward and wrapped Starlight in an iron grip. Zedok moved from her position, as if she were ready to fight, but Pink did not actually hurt Starlight.

“The Alliance,” he whispered. “The Alliance is here…”

As the ISSV Antigone moved into position, the synth supervisor watched through the primary viewing port. It was enormous and curved, a screen of nearly indestructible transparent ceramic at the far end of the bridge, framed by the lines of ornate columns that lined either side of the room. He sighed, slouching in his chair and balancing his head on one hand. There was not much to see through the window itself; the nebula was astoundingly dense, and the gas cloud acted like a thick fog making it impossible to see.

That did not stop him, though. The screen was overlaid with the mathematical formulae produced by the ship’s primary and secondary scanning array, and he was able to render the results within his own mind in real time, along with those pictured on the two curving tech screens attached to the shoulders of his centurion armor.

There was a dull, almost imperceptible hum as the Antigone’s particle cannons fired, and the supervisor watched the data change as wendigo ships were instantly incinerated in the beams. They were, of course, returning fire, and although their weapons were unexpectedly strong the hyper-dense surface of the Alliance ship repelled them easily. It was all rather boring.

The only other person on the bridge approached him from the side: a gray-violet pony, dressed in a smaller equine version of the supervisor’s armor with the only primary discrepancy being the transparent mask she wore over her face to allow her to breath the Antigone’s atmosphere. She smiled and inspected the array of pink-violet plates projected from her horn that made up her mobile interface.

“Command-Supervisor, we are approaching their flagship. It appears to be the remnants of a pre-evolution class of Alliance carrier.”

“A human-era carrier?” said the supervisor. “That thing should be in a museum.” He looked at the data passing by him. “I see it…it’s a shame for it to be in this condition.”

“Well,” said the pony, “perhaps we can tour it after our victory.”

“You want to tour a wendigo-infested ship?”

“I said AFTER our victory. When our soldiers have cleaned out the filth. To walk through a historical relic after a victory?” She smiled. “I think it would be romantic.”

Marc Antony returned her smile. “You know? I think it would. Is there any chance we could capture it?”

“Unfortunately, no. I am reading no active mass-effect engine. It is a stationary installation.”

“A shame.”

“My calculations indicate that we are detecting several structures with signatures consistent with Thebe organization starships.”

“Leave those intact. They will be boarded and taken whole.”

“Of course.” Four’s expression suddenly changed. She directed her attention to part of her interface, increasing the size of the projected plate and analyzing the raw mathematics crossing it. “Command-Supervisor,” she said, “I’m detecting an anomaly.”

“You don’t need to call me ‘Command-Supervisor’.”

“Nevertheless,” said Four, “I am detecting an Alliance IFF signature from the main ship.”

“Half these ships are Alliance,” said Marc Antony. “Or parts of them.”

“No. This is a modern signature.”

Marc Antony suddenly leaned forward, suddenly interested and highly concerned. “Elaborate, Four. What do you mean modern? It can’t be modern.”

“Are you doubting me? My calculations are seldom wrong. No. It is definitely one of ours. Hermes class.”

“Hermes? What is its name? I don’t have any record of a missing scout ship.”

“It does not have a name. It is registered as commercially produced.”

Marc Antony looked at Four, confused. “Commercially produced? The Hermes class is state of the art military equipment. They aren’t exported.”

“This one was. The IFF matches a single known model that was exported directly to Equestria.”

Marc Antony’s eyes widened. “Four, I need a full scan of that ship right now.”

“For identifiable life signs? In progress…and done.” She looked up to Marc Antony. “It’s confirmed. I’m detecting a biotic fingerprint that is associated with the Equestrian High Priestess Starlight Glimmer.”

Marc Antony immediately changed course, punching through the swarm of enemy ships but ceasing fire against the primary base. “This isn’t good,” he said. “This just became a rescue mission. I want a squad on that ship NOW. Four, you take command.”

“Me?”

“Of course you. Is there anyone else here?”

“But I never get to take command of a squad!”

“And you keep telling me how much you wish you could. Well, now is your chance. I don’t trust anyone in the entire universe as much as I trust you, and I need this done right.”

Four blushed slightly. “I won’t let you down, Command-Supervisor.”

“Just remember, ‘Supervisor’,” added Marc Antony. “You’re not a combat unit. Coordinate from the rear and let the soldiers conduct the purge. I want you to do well, but I…I don’t know what I’d do if you got hurt.”

Four smiled. “You don’t need to worry, Marc Antony. I’ll be fine.”

The ship shook suddenly, and the wendigoes panicked. It was an almost surreal sight to behold; all around Starlight, every one of the thin creatures suddenly started moving, scampering and sprinting, but all without making a single sound or direction. They ascended the walls, creeping rapidly toward fissures or vents, splashing through Pink’s shallow pool of water or clattering through vent baffles and grates.

Pink, though, only hung his head and sighed. He slowly moved through the water back to the chair where he had been sitting before and sat down. To Starlight, the way he moved made him look like a profoundly old man.

Jurneu opened his omniitool, and his eyes widened. “He’s right,” he said. “I’m detecting a Cadmus class starship closing in fast…they’re not even disgusing their signature. Ms. Glimmer, we need to go. Now.”

“W…why?” asked Sbaya.

“The Alliance is attacking wendigo ships,” said Beri, pulling herself away from the wall where she had been leaning. “In other words, they’re trying to blow this dump to hell.”

As if to punctuate her supposition, the ship shook, now violently. Starlight heard metal cleaving in the distance.

“A choice, Starlight Glimmer,” said Pink, suddenly, his voice paradoxically frail and booming. “It is not the first you will need to make, nor the last, but chose carefully.”

“Choose what?”

“Starlight, we need to go,” said Zedok, slogging through the water to Starlight’s side as Beri snapped Jurneu’s collar off. “This whole ship is going to collapse if we don’t!”

“Choose what?” repeated Starlight, her eyes still locked on Pink’s stained, opaque mask.

“You can come with me,” he said. “There’s not much left of me, but I know the others. The last remnants of Cerberus, the others that death failed to claim. Come with me, and we can help you defeat her. Or leave, and choose the Alliance. Each a different path, but you may only choose one.”

Starlight glared at him. “I don’t need THEIR help to stop Scootaloo.”

“Then make the choice.”

There was a pause as the room fell silent. Once again, Starlight stared at the ancient man, but her choice had, in truth, already been made. Her silence was followed by the sound of her legs sloshing through the water as she joined her friends and departed in the direction that the wendigoes had fled.

Pink watched them leave, and even once they were gone he continued to watch. Then, slowly, he released a long sigh form his several cancer-ridden lungs.

“She made the wrong choice, didn’t she?”

“No,” said Pinkamena, climbing onto Pink’s enormous shoulder. “There was no choice. Free will is an illusion, you know that. All of her paths lead to the same destination.”

“And what is that?”

“I’m just a clingon. An adorable one, of course, but still just a clingon. How could I possibly know?”

“True,” said Pink. “All paths can only lead to pain.”

He watched for a moment longer, and then, ignoring the blood pouring out from below his mask, spoke a name that he had not uttered in some time.

“Maud,” he said.

There was a momentary delay before the air beside him and a primitive, translucent representation of a gray, expressionless, dress-wearing pony appeared beside him.

“MAUD!” cried all of the clingons in unison, as though they had met the ship’s quant before.

“I am an interface,” said the quant in an absolute monotone. “Checking for updates…” She paused. “Wow. I am ridiculously obsolete. How long was I inactive?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Pink. “Our time here is done. Activate the ship.”

“According to my diagnostic scans, reactivating my core power systems will likely cause a catastrophic mass implosion and kill us all. Booting system.”

Maude’s projected body flickered, and the ancient ship suddenly began to shudder and hum. The lights that had not been active in centuries ignited, and the artificial gravity came online, sending several Pinkies floating into the air.

“System reactivated,” said Maud. “And we didn’t all die. Yay.”

“Pinkies,” said Pink, standing. “Bring as many of you as you can. Purge this ship of the humans. Kill them all.”

“Oh, we can’t kill people!” retorted one of the Pinkies.

“Yeah! That would be mean, and no fun!”

“We just un-alive them!”

“UN-ALIVE THEM!” said several in unison.

Pink wished he had enough face left to smile. The clingons were the only thing that made the eternal inescapable agony of his prolonged existence actually matter. Still, he was unsure if the ship would even be able to fly. He did not especially care, though.

“Tear us free,” said Pinkamena to Maude. “Prepare to mass-jump once we’re clear of this wreck.”

“I understand. I will do it for you, Pinkie. You were always my favorite.”

“And begin scanning communication channels,” added Pink, throwing the dead synth aside. “Get me in contact with Eloth. I don’t care what it takes, I know he’s alive somewhere. So to speak. Events have been put into motion, and I can’t stop them. Our final victory is at hand…”

The ship shook again, but this time, Starlight knew that it was different.

“Oh know,” she said, a horrible thought suddenly occurring to her. “He…he wouldn’t- -”

Her statement was punctuated by the sudden rush of air that indicated that Pink had in fact done exactly what she had thought even a madman like him would never do: there was a profound tremor throughout the ship and the sound of tearing metal as he tore his ancient ship free of the main one, ripping a hole hundreds of feet wide into the stormy and depressurized nebula outside.

The decompression was not instantaneous. Instead, the air from the farther, less-perforated areas of the ships rushed past with such tremendous force that it took almost everything that was not well attached with it. Pieces of equipment, fragments of debris, and even several wendigoes rushed by at high speed.

Starlight herself was knocked off balance by the vibration, although with hooves she hardly had grip anyway. She felt herself lifting off the deck and floating backward. It was a strange sensation, as though she was flying, but the pure terror of realizing where she was flying too extracted any possibility of enjoyment form the situation.

Her trip was cut short, though, as Beri grabbed her. The cybernetic turian then crouched down, slamming her other hand into the thick metal of the floor and digging her rear claws into it to continue to move forward against the current.

Ahead, Zedok knelt down and a surge of blue light surrounded her as she adhered herself to the deck with her biotic power. Jurneu did the same, projecting a powerful half-sphere around him and Sbaya, who apparently did not share her mother’s reaction time or biotic prowess.

“Hold on,” said Jurneu.

“I am currently doing that,” retorted Beri. Jurneu ignored her sarcasm and sent out several tendrils of energy, cutting several heavy, rusted pieces of equipment free from the walls. They were pulled backward by the strong wind but caught in a narrower region of the corridor. The plug greatly reduced the wind, but did not stop it entirely. Beri was able to set Starlight down, but Starlight was already beginning to experience the symptoms of a thinning atmosphere. Her vision was graying on the edges, and she was profoundly out of breath and on the verge of panic.

“We’re losing atmosphere,” warned Zedok. “With a hole that big? It’s like taking a .44 to a hanar!”

“I know,” said Jurneu, keeping his shield bubble assembled. It was keeping an atmosphere around him and Sbaya, but it was far from perfect.

“B…Berry,” said Starlight.

“Not a problem,” she said. “I don’t need oxygen.”

“But I do,” wheezed Starlight. “I can’t…I can’t run…”

“See?” said Beri, picking up Starlight. “I told you. Organic bodies are pointless. Nothing but wasteful meat sacks. You can’t even survive without an atmosphere. Genetic inferiors, all of you.”

Beri pushed forward, carrying Starlight with her. They did not get far, though, before a wendigo leapt out from behind the next corner. For a moment, Starlight stared, her mind slowed down by the low oxygen to the point where she could not understand why its legs were missing or why there was so much blood as it tried to claw its way toward them, trailing its entrails behind it.

Then several tall figures moved gracefully into view. They were far larger than the wendigoes, and their heads nearly scraped the ceiling as they moved silently through the corridor, unimpeded by the low oxygen or the presence of wendigoes. Their bodies were hard and armored, but at the same time they still appeared thing. Starlight did not need adequate oxygen to be able to tell why: their armor was not worn over their bodies like a second skin. It WAS their skin. They were synths, and they had forgone the affectation of wearing synthetic skin, hair, and eyes, instead embracing a far more tactically prudent surface of heavy armor and anodized paint identifying their occupation as Alliance soldiers. The only other coating that their mechanical bodies seemed to have was a spattering of fresh blood.

One of them stepped forward toward the escaping torso of wendigo. The injured creature looked up at Starlight, and Starlight realized just how young she was. At the same time, looking into those pink-colored eyes, Starlight instantly knew that the wendigoes were not as unintelligent as the others seemed to insist.

The synth did not care. He brought his foot down on the creature’s head, crushing it. The body shook and tremored, but then failed completely. The synth then turned its attention toward Starlight.

“Starlight Glimmer,” it said, its voice sounding almost horrifyingly human. “I am Central-Operator Gregor Johannsson. I have been tasked with your retrieval.”

“Like hell you have,” said Beri. Even though her body was entirly mechanical, Starlight felt her tense, ready for attack. The synths seemed to understand this as well, and Starlight saw them brandishing their weapons, which consisted of heavy dark-colored swords encased in hissing energetic tech plasma.

“Identities confirmed,” said one of the other synths. “Spectres Beri Tyros and Jurneu GX7114. The asari are unidentified.”

“Stand down,” ordered Johannsson, his almost skeletal looking artificial face directed at Beri. “Lower the High Priestess, or we will be forced to terminate you.”

“No,” said Beri.

“Don’t be an idiot!” hissed Zedok, who was already gasping in the ever-decreasing atmosphere. “What are you going to do? Poke them to death? Yell at them? We don’t have weapons.” She dropped to a knee, not out of surrender but from the inability to remain standing.

“I have to agree with Ms. Vuhlig,” said Jurneu. “I also recommend a tactical surrender.” He instantly lowered his biotic shield, leaving Sbaya to grasp her throat in the suddenly much thinner atmosphere. “Oops,” he said. “Sorry.”

Beri still hesitated. The standoff between her and the synths seemed to stretch out in time for what felt like minutes. Then, slowly, Starlight felt Beri’s grip loosen.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she groaned. “Fuck all of you.”

Author's Note

Pink is another "cameo" character from a story I must have wrote almost ten years ago. I like the idea of him having a special clingon that keeps him focused. To me, it's cute.