Twilight Sparkle and the Stupid Original Pony

“I see them,” Bear assured me, speaking from security node which had been playing seductive alien music only a moment ago.

“Are you stealthed?”

“Yes, I am electromagnetically invisible, but your fire is easily visible from up there. It is the hottest thing for hundreds of kilometres.”

“Clothes?” interrupted Isha.

“Don’t bother, they’ll be on the ground in seconds. Wake Gloam, please. Bear, initial analysis?”

“It’s not the neighbors. The larger ship in orbit appears to be damaged, it left a noticeable vapor trail behind it. Immediate departure of shuttle suggests either hostility or urgency. The shuttle size and the fact that there is only one argue against attack.” Bear paused. “They just made a course adjustment, they definitely see the fire. Suggest we wait and see what they have to say. I am not able to pickup up any recognizable weapon systems. No recognized IFF either. I have have pinged Terran, Imperium, and Web frequencies.”

“Got it. If they turn out to be hostile, we’ll all lay low and try to buy time until I can portal back home. If I can’t bring you with us—” Bear’s compute module was in the shed, way on the other side of the circle “—eat the planet and meet me back on Terra the hard way.”

“Gloam, wake up there are aliens landing!” I could hear Isha waking my daughter.

“Roger that, contingency instructions understood. Still negative on detecting weapons. If they’re armed its nothing more frightening than pointy sticks.”

Despite this assurance, Bear was tracking the shuttle with a military grade infrared laser; capacitor banks crackled at full charge. Bear’s threat evaluation was a sound guess, but we would know for sure in minutes. Our position was, as he had said, extremely vulnerable.

“They can’t detect that,” he said in response to my glance towards the weapon. As the defense module pivoted, the stars behind were distorted by a cloaking field surrounding it.

A kilometre above us the bright glare of the thrusters dimmed, then blinked off. Only navigation lights and the faint glow of the agrav units remained as they slowed the small vessel’s high-performance landing.

“At least they have good manners on their approach,” Bear commented.

“It looks like a human ship,” Isha said, at my side.

“Definitely human,” Bear confirmed, “and very old. The lifter efficiency is abysmal. Three maybe four occupants.”

Three or four would be plenty, if he was wrong about weapons. I watched the final approach wondering if I would live to face Twilight again.

The shuttle landed some fifty meters from the campfire, almost in the patch of the potatoes we had planted on a previous trip. We walked half the distance and waited. Within seconds the airlock door cycled open – as it rose into the hull I could see that the inner door was opening at the same time. They weren’t even taking time to sample the atmosphere; clearly in a hurry.

Backlit by the lights inside the shuttle were a man, a woman, a young child, and a babe in arms. They all looked unwell, wan in the harsh illumination.

“Ohmygod,” the gaunt man spoke quietly to the woman, “they look human. What are the odds?”

She took a unsteady step out of the shuttle, the smaller child in her arms. A few steps from us she shifted the listless little one to her left hip and raised her open right hand: no weapon. I awkwardly mirrored her gesture: no weapon. Friend.

Finally she spoke, but her eyes betrayed no expectation that she would be understood.

“We come in peace. My name is Diva Landers, of Terra. We need help, please. My babies…”

My smart-assed plan to improvise a speech of tones and clicks was forgotten as I urgently greeted her. “Welcome, niece, how can we help you?”

Her eyes went wide with surprise to hear reply in the words of home. For a moment she stared and then she fainted.

I darted forward and caught the baby as Diva fell – at least the ground she landed on wasn’t rocky.

Holding the now screaming armful I asked the man, “tell me what you need! Are you irradiated, infected, injured?”

He was shuffling out of the shuttle towards Diva, but Isha had already raised her to a sitting position.

“Water,” he gasped, “life support systems onboard are damaged, we lost the water recyc.”

—

“Keep sipping it slowly—” I handed Guy the refilled cup “—or you’ll just blow it out your ass as fast as it goes down and you won’t absorb it.”

He was holding the cup for his son after taking a drink. Bear had suggested an improvised hydration beverage, based on what we had in stock, and it didn’t look like drinking the mixture too fast was going to a problem for either of them.

“Thanks, I know the drill. We all took first aid and survival in preflight.”

He gave the young boy another sip. “Keep going, little buddy,” he murmured and took a small drink after the boy.

Father and son both scowled at the taste, not tempted to drink too fast. If they were sated enough to object to the flavor, I reflected, they must be out of danger. Carrying the cup along, Guy and the little boy walked towards the shuttle.

Diva sat on the ground, leaning against the shed, no longer weeping with relief, but still clutching little Erica to her breast. Our portable autodoc –its diag-cuff was still on her arm, monitoring– had triaged Diva as ‘most urgent’ and drained its entire reserve of saline solution into her veins. The infant’s productive nursing attested to the success of the treatment: Diva’s breasts were back in action. Gloam watched, intently fascinated as the baby took her meal.

“That’s how I fed you, when you were tiny,” I told her.

“And you’ll feed your daughter that way, too, someday,” Diva said.

Gloam put her hands to her chest; she hadn’t yet begun to bud and her dark nipples barely stood out from the surrounding skin.

“What if mine are too small, like mom's?”

Isha and Diva made eye contact and burst out laughing.

“You’ll be better off if they are! These small tits—” I thrust my breasts forward “—fed a hungry Gloam fine and big ones just distract the boys!”

“It’s the truth,” and, “she’s not wrong,” my larger bosomed sisters agreed.

“What’s so funny?” Guy was back from powering down the shuttle.

“Tits,” said Gloam. “Smaller are actually better.”

Guy wisely beat a hasty retreat.

“Imma go make sure I didn’t miss, uh, a thing, powering down, uh, the stuff, uh, somewhere else.”

“Are you still dizzy, niece?” I asked as Guy escaped.

“No, I’m much better, thank you.” She sniffled and looked up. “You know, I don’t look it, but I’m probably five times your age. You should call me aunt, not niece, if your culture uses familial titles that way.”

“Your father, Eric Landers, is my elder brother, which makes me your aunt, so I’ll call you niece.”

“Now my head is really spinning. Is dad alright? He must be nearly four hundred by now.”

“It’s twenty six twenty on Terra, so he’s a young and sprightly five hundred and twenty sumpin years old.”

“What year is it? We were only supposed to be in flight for eighty years.”

“You’re also in the wrong place. The planet you were supposed to colonize was studied by a robotic probe. Turns out it has a chlorine atmosphere and is tide locked.”

“No life, eh?” Guy asked, having cautiously returned from his extra check on the shuttle.

“Oh, there’s plenty of life there. Very nasty life. A whole generation of kids grew up scared of the smell of swimming pools after watching the movie ‘Maws’ about what they found there.”

“How did you get here before us?” Diva asked. “Have they cracked FTL? Is this planet colonized? We didn’t take time to dig into the surface mapping system, we don’t know if the ship was able to capture any useful data for us.”

“Magic hon’,” Isha said, “not spaceflight. The entire population of Gallop is us, here.”

“And five hundred more up in orbit,” Guy pointed out, “on the Longshot 7.”

The ghost ship had found a haven.