Fallout Equestria: Mothership Eta

I opened my eyes and immediately shut them against the harsh white light. Not the most pleasant way to wake up, but compared to what could potentially befall a lone pony in the wasteland, I’d take it. I willed my eyes to crack open again. Finally, they were able to adjust enough that I could take in my surroundings.

I was unrestrained, and laying on what was, to my surprise, a rather comfortable padded cushion. Score one for the aliens, I suppose. I wasn’t in any pain, just a bit of discomfort in my fetlock, my flank, my… Oh. For fuck's sake, I thought the alien anal probe was just a trope! Of course, just a day ago I thought alien abductions were a trope too.

I fucking hate the wasteland sometimes.

At least the room itself was a step up from what I was used to. Surprisingly large, rooms this size were reserved for only the most powerful of ponies in any of the towns I had visited. It probably wasn’t too different in size from an apartment in Tenpony Tower, not that I had ever been able to see one for myself. Or would even have the opportunity to, now. Blinding lights ran around the tops of the walls. The walls themselves were completely undecorated. Same with the ceiling and floor. There was a doorway, but it was blocked by what appeared to be a clear, shimmering magical shield. A water trough opposite me, and what looked like a bowl sitting on a low shelf next to it. Another bowl on the ground: the aliens' version of an outhouse, judging by the faint stains inside.

So that was it. No hackable terminal, no lock to pick, no convenient ground-level vent that would grant me unfettered access anywhere in this ship. Just waiting for the freaky aliens to come back and do whatever it is they did with captured ponies. And… a voice?

"Hey! You awake yet? Say something!" Certainly didn’t sound like one of my captors.

"What?" I yelled back. "Is somepony there?"

"Oh, finally, you’re up! I knew you’d be up soon, they never use the heavy knockout juice on the newbies!"

I rubbed my head. This voice sounded much too excited given the circumstances.

"Newbies, hmm?” I replied. “I take it you’ve been here for a while?"

“Oh yes! I lost count of the days after they moved me from my first cell, but it was at least a couple hundred at that point. I think I was the first one in this wing. They didn’t like me talking to the others so much. They must be running out of room though, to put you next to me. Or they could be using it as a test, they really like doing those. Anypony’s guess, really. Oh, this is so exciting! My name’s Whispering Meadow, what’s yours?"

Whispering Meadow. Gotta love those ironic names. And of course I’d have to be stuck next to the chattiest pony in the wasteland.

Five days. Five days of his incessant blathering. Five days hearing his entire life story, and what had to be the life stories of everypony he'd ever met. The reason I'd struck out as a scavver was so I could have time away from social interactions, and now I was trapped next to a pony who seemingly couldn't exist without them. Even after the lights were dimmed for what I assume was supposed to be nighttime, the droning coming from the room next to me never. once. stopped.

I was able to at least pick up some useful details out of all the noise. The aliens spoke in some incomprehensible space-language, but there were a few words that almost sounded like they could have been Ponish. They had a rather large variety of creatures captured. Mostly ponies, but there were also griffons, zebras, donkeys, and a few even more exotic beings. What turned out to be the most important fact, though, came a couple hours after lights out on the third day.

"...Rose Leaf and Shadow had been going at it for an hour or so -- that's Shadow Heart the unicorn, not Shadowbeak the griffon -- and I guess Rose must've decided she'd finally had enough. I saw her step right up to Shadow and start beating the absolute hell out of her! Of course, she picked the absolute worst time to do it, there were four of the aliens in the hallway a few cells down. I had no idea they could run so fast on those two legs! They powered down the door and rushed in, and broke them up with those shocky stick things. Good thing too, since Rose had been saying she was going to snap her horn off if Shadow ever gave her a reason! Don't you think it's strange, they do whatever they want to us, but as soon as we do something to each other they fall all over themselves to break it up? Anyway, that was the last time I saw Rose in that wing. Now, Shadow -- the unicorn of course -- she…"

I stopped listening again as I realized something my obnoxious neighbor likely had never considered: there was a way to get the doors open!

The fifth day started out the same as the others. Wake to the cell lights piercing through my closed eyelids. Hear Meadow still talking at me through the wall. Get a drink from the trough and eat the tasteless gruel from the bowl that had been refilled overnight. Take a piss in the outhouse bowl. Sit through another day of ignoring my neighbor. But then… Another voice? Sounded angry. And Meadow actually shut up? What madness was this?

I angled my ears towards the door. I was finally able to pick up what the new voice was saying…

"Metu ŝi en tie, kun la bruna grundo ĉevaleto."

Gibberish. Must be the aliens. Wait, why was the shield over the door fading? I sprang to my hooves, only to see an unconscious blue unicorn mare unceremoniously shoved through the door. The aliens tossed a bundle of clothing in after her, and the shield activated again, all within a couple seconds.

Fuck. Well, I really shouldn't expect to get out the first time the door opens. Might as well check out my roommate.
Pretty young, probably just barely out of adolescence. Pale green mane and tail, rough coat on her forelegs and face. Pretty good condition for a wastelander. Maybe she was from a settlement? Cutie mark of what looked like razorgrain stalks. Certainly fit in with the settlement theory, and would explain the condition her front was in. I don't think even unicorns can handle razorgrain without it messing up their fur.

I settled down on my cushion to keep an eye on her. Sure enough, within a couple minutes she began to stir. Must be another newbie, if Meadow was telling the truth about recovery time. I moved over to her to block the worst of the lights, a small courtesy I know I would have appreciated when I first woke. An orange eye winked open. I spoke.

“Hi there, my name is…”

"Aaaaaaahh! Get away from me, you pervert!"

I backpedaled. "Whoa, what? What are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what you did, freak! It's bad enough you rape me while I'm unconscious, but you use that hole? What's wrong with you?"

This conversation was not going the way I expected. "Calm down, I didn't even touch you! The aliens are the ones that did that!"

Her eyes narrowed. "Aliens. Right. Do I look like a foal to you?"

"I'm deadly serious," I replied. You had to have seen them. Tall, two legs?" She stared blankly at me. "Forelimbs with five little grabbers sticking out? Hairless except for the tops of their heads?" She shook her head no. "Didn't they have you speak into some kind of recording device?"

"None of that sounds familiar," she said. "Last thing I knew, I had just finished work in the upper fields and I was heading back to town. Then nothing until I woke up here with a sore ass and a freaky earth pony leering at me. Wait, you're an earth pony? How are you even able to speak? Oh no, I'm probably already infected!" Get back, I don’t want your surfacer diseases!”

“...Surfacer diseases?”

“Back! Brown rain, they'll never let me back into the Enclave! If you try to eat me, I swear I’ll geld you!”

This was certainly going well. I considered my options. On the one hoof, her attacking me would certainly bring guards and give me an opportunity for escape. On the other, more reasonable hoof, Celestia knows how long it would take for them to show up, and I didn’t want to risk being gelded. Plus, having her in on the escape attempt made it that much more likely to succeed. That settled it. I had to calm her down and get her to at least listen to my plan.

“All right, I’m backing up,” I said as I did so. “But I need you to explain something to me. Why do you think I’d try to eat you? I didn’t think I looked like a raider!”

"What the buck is a raider? Is that a surface mutant? And no, everypony on the surface is a cannibal! That’s why only the military goes down there!"

"All right, look," I said. "We’re obviously confused about each other, so let’s take a deep breath and I’ll explain what I can. If it makes sense to you, then you can do the same for me. Sound good?" She nodded. "Okay. I’m not a cannibal. The only ponies that eat other ponies are raiders and ferals. If I was a raider, the walls here would have a lot more cuss words carved into them. And if I was a feral, we wouldn't even be talking right now. Ferals don’t have conversations, and they have a lot of missing parts, understand?”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “So maybe you aren’t going to eat me. But the diseases, you’re spreading those right now, right?”

I laughed. “Hon, I don't even have the genital variety. And even if I did, we already established I didn’t take the opportunity to infect you earlier.”

“...Fine. I’m trusting you for now, but I’m keeping my eye on you.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Now, I’ve got some questions of my own. Why were you so surprised that I’m an earth pony?”

"I’ve never seen an earth pony before," she said, still sounding surprised. "It’s all pegasi and unicorns in the Enclave."

“PEGASI?!” I blurted. “Where the fuck do you live that there are pegasi?”

“In the Enclave, that’s what I said! You must know of the Grand Pegasus Enclave?”

I shook my head. Pegasi. This mare was full of surprises. “Let’s step back for a second. Where exactly in the wasteland do you come from?”

“It’s not the wasteland, it’s above the wasteland.”

“Above? So to the north? The Shattered Empire?”

“No, above above. The Enclave is everypony in the clouds above Old Equestria.”

“Wait.” This was making my head hurt. “Are you telling me you live in the clouds? Do you just have pegasi carry you around?”

"Of course not!" she said, sounding amused. "Every unicorn old enough to cast a spell knows how to cast cloudwalking! It’s either that or plummet miles to the ground; nopony's going after you if you fall through the stratus layers!"

They walk. On clouds. "You know, I’m just going to accept that I don’t understand anything about what you just told me, and maybe we can pick this up another time. For now, we should concentrate on where we are and what we can do about it."

"Okay." She looked around. "This doesn’t look like any facility I’ve ever heard of. You were saying something about aliens?"

"That’s the best explanation I have for the creatures keeping us here. We’re captive, and the only way out is through that doorway." She put on a thoughtful expression and started looking around the room. "Don’t bother. I’ve had five days to explore every crack in this room." And to be nearly driven insane by my neighbor, but that was beside the point. "We can’t drop the barrier from in here, so we need it to open from the outside. And I know exactly how we’re going to do that."

"Really. You have a friend out there all ready to help?"

I smirked. "Not exactly. Remember how you said you were going to geld me?"

I explained what we were going to do. At some point, my cellmate gained enough trust in me to share her name: Dewdrop. More trust was always good; we had to trust each other enough to make it look real without actually being real.
We waited for an hour before putting the plan fully into action. Based on what Meadow had told me, all we needed to do was beat on each other until the aliens came in to break us up. But I wanted to be sure. I couldn’t risk raising their suspicions. Whatever we did absolutely had to fool our captors. We started small. Glancing at each other across the room, then snarls at one another, followed by veiled threats, followed by actual threats. All this time, I kept an ear out for any passing alien patrols, which would signal the time we would “attack” each other in earnest. Miraculously, Whispering Meadow kept his Luna-damned mouth shut the entire time. I guess whatever the aliens were yelling at him earlier scared the absolute shit out of him.

Finally, I heard the oddly regular hoofbeats of an alien. Two, to be precise. I shot Dewdrop a glance, then took my place by the doorway. Our signal.

“That’s it! You’re dead!” Damn, she could yell! I braced myself as she slammed into me. It wasn’t full force, but it was enough to nearly knock me off my hooves! I staggered back, then reared up, screaming back at her. “Oh, it’s fucking on!” She dodged to the side as my hooves impacted the floor. I looked back to see her horn lighting up. I cringed back, but the light spell she had summoned missed me far to the left.

“Merduloj! Malhelpu ilin!”

Fuckers. There they were. I reared up to strike at her again, but made sure to angle my hindquarters towards the door. Sure enough, I heard the hum of the shield powering down. I glanced behind me as my front hooves hit the floor. Perfect. I put every bit of strength I had into my buck and caught my target right in the middle of its barrel. It made a groaning sound, then collapsed, the shock stick dropping harmlessly from its digits.

Dewdrop had cast her light spell right into the other alien’s eyes. Pretty good for a unicorn with limited knowledge of spells. As it was flailing around, I rammed my head directly between its legs. It let out a high pitched squeak, then collapsed into a ball. I wasted no time in aiming a final buck into its head. Something cracked beneath my hooves, and the alien lay still.

“That was incredible!” Dewdrop yelled. I checked behind me. The first alien was still writhing on the ground, and more importantly, the shield was still down! I stepped around the alien and picked up its weapon with my mouth. Its eyes opened wide as it recognized what I was about to do, but it was in no condition to stop me. I heard it cry as I brought the stick down: “Ne! Bonvolu!” Then nothing. Damn, these fuckers made a mess.

“Rusty? Are you okay? What’s going on over there?” I guess Meadow was willing to talk again. And here I was enjoying the break.

I tongued the stick’s trigger off and slid it into my barding. “I’m fine, Meadow. Me and my cellmate here just busted out!”

“Are you serious? Thank Celestia! Quick, come over here, I’ve got to show you something!”

I would have rather taken a bullet to the knee than talk to him any more, but Dewdrop was already on her way over to his cell.

“Hi there, I’m Dewdrop. Are you Rusty’s friend? It’s good to meet you!”

I sighed and trotted over next to her. Meadow stood on the other side of the shield, an enormous grin plastered across his face. He was holding something out towards us.

“Rusty! I never thought you’d make it out, but look at you! Listen, I’ve got something here. Take it, you can use it to get me out too!”

Dangling from his outstretched left hoof was a strap connected to… a terminal screen? “Meadow, what are you talking about?”

“It’s something the aliens stuck on me for one of their experiments. It plugs into their terminals and lets me read their language! And it can even talk back to the terminals! Take it, I know you said you were good with technology, and you can open this door for me!”

I looked at him quizzically. “Meadow, I think there’s a slight flaw in your plan. You do realize the barrier is still up, right?" He gazed back at me stupidly. This dumbass... "That gadget of yours has to be outside for me to use it. It's currently inside, and there's a great big barrier separating the inside from the outside. Understand now?"

"Ohhh, I get it!" Finally, something like intelligence coming from that idiotic face of his. I turned to continue down the hallway, but stopped as he kept talking. Motherfucker... "See, that’s the thing about these shields,” he said. “Stuff like this can pass through the door with no problem! It only stops living things! Watch!”

The device flew through the barrier and landed right at my hooves. Huh. Selective shields. Pretty impressive. I picked it up and attached it to my right foreleg.

“Okay, that’s step one,” I said. “Now how do I…”

“There’s a terminal to the side of the door, just hold your leg close to it and it’ll translate what’s on the screen! You can hack into it and get me out!”

I rolled my eyes. “Meadow, this is alien technology. The chances of me being able to successfully hack into it…” I paused as I waved my hoof in his direction and the familiar password protocol screen appeared on the device. “Well I’ll be damned.”

“Did it work? Can you hack it?”

“Yeah, just give me a second.” Pretty simple five character password. Not that one, but two letters correct. That one? Yes! “Got it!”

“All right, Rusty! You’re the greatest! Finally, freedom!”

I entered the main menu and scrolled through the options. There it was. Now, select, confirm, and…

The concealed ceiling turret popped down and fired a single blast of energy. Whispering Meadow’s body crumbled to ash, his head the last to go. Enjoy your freedom, asshole.