001: Most secure place in the galaxy
“Stupid cock.”
Twilight didn’t have a great day.
Lounging on her severely undersized couch, she tried to count the number of days in her life that were worse than this one and gave up after five.
As always, blinking neon signs outside of her crappy apartment shone right through the cheap blinds, preventing her from properly focusing on self-loathing. Occasional noises from the trucks on the nearby highway rattled the windows from time to time, but thankfully the two rivaling side-by-side pubs across the street had already closed for the night, and Twilight was not in a condition to cast a silence bubble anyway.
She stretched her hand to get a wine bottle from the corner of the room, which was not a difficult feat considering that the room clearly wasn’t built for someone her size.
A typical pony—five to six stone tall—would have to get up and walk. But being slightly above nine stones, she didn’t have to interrupt her moping for something as trivial as an attempt to drown her sorrow in even more alcohol.
During her stretch, the aforementioned stupid cock slid off her lap and knocked over a few already empty bottles on the floor.
Twilight sighed and looked at the source of almost all her problems.
Right now, it wasn’t even that bad.
Barely reaching below her knee.
Only maybe twice thicker than her arm.
Her cock looked almost “manageable”.
Not practical in any sense, of course, especially considering that “below the knee” for a nine-stone high mare is quite a lot, but certainly not too large to ruin her life.
Unfortunately, this was about as small as her cock ever gets.
Taking a long swing from the bottle, Twilight contemplated whether it’s fair to blame something that doesn’t even have a mind of its own.
“Stupid date.”
Now that she thought about it, it was definitely not her brightest idea to accept a date at the restaurant named The Laughing Keg. Even if it wasn’t listed as a bar, the name strongly hinted at the general theme of the establishment.
And of course, her date tried to get her drunk. And of course, he had to turn it into a contest because of his silly stallion’s pride. And of course, he had no chance to win a drinking contest versus someone so much larger than him, let alone a cockmare.
“Stupid me.”
The bottle quickly ran out of wine, reminding Twilight that even they are not built for a mare like her. She heard someone entering the apartment.
“Spi-i-ike! Do we have more wine somewhere?”
The servo-bot entered the living room with a large bag of groceries. He usually went shopping at night, when most of the city sleeps, and Twilight preferred to avoid stores altogether.
“I’m afraid we don’t,” replied Spike after looking around, “and the bottles in the corner were for the Hearth's Warming.”
Twilight put the empty bottle on the floor and tried to stretch her back on the couch, which basically meant moving her legs completely off of it.
Quietly humming with his motors, Spike proceeded to collect the empty bottles.
“How come you are the only good person in my life, Spike?”
Spike took a pause to think.
“You know I don’t really count as a person,”
Grunting, Twilight sat up on the couch and hugged Spike.
“You absolutely do count as a person, and if anyone says otherwise, I’ll kick their butt. Besides, saying that implies that I have no good people in my life, which only makes me feel worse.”
Moving carefully to avoid hurting Twilight with any sharp metallic parts of his body, Spike tried to hug his owner back.
“Do you need someone to talk to? You know I’m always here to listen.”
Twilight nodded and sighed. It took her a few seconds to compose her thoughts.
“So... he blacked out from drinking too much.”
“Uh-huh...” replied Spike.
“And the bar… I mean the restaurant was already closing.”
“Uh-huh...”
“And I couldn’t call a taxi for him with blank credit, and his comm was locked, and he couldn’t drive his own car, obviously...” Twilight started to ramble, but Spike only hugged her a bit firmer.
“Uh-huh...”
“And I was a little bit tipsy myself, so I thought it would be a great idea to just princess-carry him home… since I know where he lives...”
Spike could easily predict several possible scenarios after that. None of them looked particularly good.
“Uh-huh...”
“And we were almost there, and then, he woke up and started shouting ‘Where is my car? Where did we leave my car?’”
“Uh-huh...”
“And I told him I picked it up too and pointed to the levitation field...” Twilight started shivering.
“Uh-huh...”
“And then he noticed that I’m not holding him with both hands… because he was so cute, and I got a little bit of a hard-on, so...” tears started running down Twilight's face.
“Uh… Huh...”
“And then he freaked out! Like, started screaming at me, and calling me names… and it’s not like my cock was even that b.. big! And he promised me before that he doesn’t mind that I’m… a freak...”
“Twilight, look at me.”
Twilight did.
Spike’s mechanical face looked worried and kind. He could express pretty complex emotions, but of course never did so in public, pretending to be a dumb standard-issue servo-bot who has no need to express emotions which it can’t possibly have to begin with.
“Twilight, you are a wonderful mare. That prick doesn’t deserve you if all he cares about is his pathetic masculinity. You will find your love. Not all cockmares do, but you will. Because you are amazing, and anyone who gives you a chance would treasure you for the rest of their life. I know I will.”
Twilight opened her mouth but found no words to say.
“Besides, there are other ponies who support you. Like your mysterious sponsor.”
Twilight sighed.
“She doesn’t count. She clearly has no idea who I am, and I can’t keep mooching off her forever,” Twilight perked up, ”But in two days I’ll ace the interview, and will start paying my debt off!”
Spike’s expression dropped.
“Twilight… did you read the memo I left on the fridge? They moved the slot. Your interview is in five hours.”
Ding.
A lovely chime resonated in the cabin for half a second, waking Anon up from a strange dream. He vaguely remembered something big, something purple, and something deeply terrifying, but before he could focus on the fleeting memory, clicking and rustling noises from the intercom interrupted his train of thoughts.
Not because the sound quality was bad, of course. It was merely the intendant’s alien accent:
“Dear passengers, the shuttle has successfully landed at Port Zero Zero Three. Orbital control and High Master ZrlqhsXtghzXthaFFzlk himself would like to thank you for using Federation Lanes.”
Anon really hoped he won’t ever need to say out loud the names of the authorities who personally approved his landing. His knowledge of the Federal language was close to fluent, but he could neither replicate the different tones of glottal clicks nor overlay several syllables on top of each other to properly pronounce the traditional noble Ckerrzian names, and somehow a huge portion of the arachnid assholes on the orbital station happened to be high-born and have names that gave him a headache.
High-borns were not supposed to be common even on their capital planet. But apparently, they were common enough here, because for whatever reason, almost a quarter of the entire Federal fleet, including some of their elite forces, was permanently parked in this unassuming system with a tiny crappy sun and a single habitable world. Equis.
Allegedly, it’s one of Earth’s numerous meta-twins, which on the galactic scale is more or less synonymous with “worthless”. Due to the phenomenon called meta-entanglement, which is too far beyond the reach of human science, all meta-twins are supposed to be similar to a spooky degree, from evolution paths of various lifeforms and all the way to certain historical events and even social norms.
Scientists on Anon’s home planet were still scratching their heads over the entanglement of ordinary matter, throwing theories one after another, when Federal scouts discovered Earth and… well… everything else happened.
It wasn’t that bad to be a faraway resource colony, really. Even though giant arachnids were scary enough to deserve an M rating for any movie starring them, they did more good than bad, stopping all ongoing wars at once and establishing a colonial government that was quite a bit more competent than everything humans came up with by themselves. There were even ongoing discussions about uplifting humans in a few decades or at least sharing some amount of common scientific knowledge, which would boost human science by many centuries.
By the laws of meta-entanglement, Equis should be the same. And yet, it was by far the most well-guarded world in the entire galaxy.
The other three passengers of the shuttle—all huge, eight-legged, and utterly terrifying—were already unstrapping themselves, and so Anon decided to be the last one to leave.
Stepping outside, he took in a view of the surroundings.
Yep, looks like Earth all right. The air smells fresh, the clouds are big and fluffy, and the tall trees outside the walls of the military base are just familiar enough to be sure you’ve seen them but can’t remember how they are called.
Two heavily armed soldiers immediately moved towards Anon and took aim.
“Identification card!”
Anon slowly extended a hand with the card in it, constantly reminding himself that Federal soldiers have enough high-precision cyberware in them to be sure they won’t flinch and shoot him by accident. There was a debate back on Earth whether it’s fair to call them cyborgs at this point until the colonial government stopped the discussion as inappropriate.
“Welcome to Equis, Ambassador. Follow us.”
Anon knew what to expect: identity tests, scanners that are checking for things unknown to humankind, a long interrogation, and more scans after that. He had to go through the same unpleasant steps multiple times during his journey, the most recent one being just a few hours ago on the far-orbit station.
The reason was simple: his card claimed he is a Rank 3 Federal ambassador, which from the arachnid’s point of view looked as if a dog entered the White House claiming to be the president.
And while it seemed highly unlikely that Anon was who he claimed to be, the possibility of the federal ID being fake was even smaller, which meant Anon had to answer the same questions to different Ckerrz officials until one of them would agree to take the responsibility of approving his entry.
“What is your mission?”
“I’m not allowed to disclose my mission to anyone with a rank below Exalted Marshal.”
“Who issued your id?”
The questions were entirely pointless—everything Anon was willing to say was already in the system. Technically, the base personnel didn’t even have the right to interrogate him, but complaining to huge alien arachnids didn’t feel appropriate.
Partially because escalating the matter would reveal that the supposed issuers of the id are unaware of the Anon’s existence.
After almost an hour, his entry was finally allowed.
“I request an escort to the capital,” said Anon with a confident smile, just in case any of the arachnids knew how to read his body language.
“Denied.”
Anon blinked, thinking about the most polite way to remind a huge cyber-spider that his request is perfectly reasonable for his status. Thankfully, he got an explanation.
“The orders of the Exalted Marshal can not be overruled, but we can contact the locals.”
“I would appreciate that.”
Anon was sweating. He had absolutely no idea what the Ckerrz official in front of him was talking about, but asking basic things he was supposed to know as an ambassador was too risky.
The insane—even by Galactic scale—amount of bribes that bought him the fake status couldn’t buy him access to any information about the planet and the situation around it, and the public knowledge could be summarized in just a few very uninformative paragraphs.
Anon was escorted outside of the base, and the heavy blast door closed behind him, leaving him completely confused.
In front of him was… a meadow. There was simply no other word to describe it. No additional checkpoints outside the wall. No soldiers. No fences, or anything that resembled civilization in any shape or form.
More importantly, no road leading outside, just a vague trail barely visible in the grass.
Anon turned around and looked at the wall: uniform, featureless, without the usual turrets or shock emitters.
It was the first Federal military structure he saw in his life that didn’t assert complete dominance over its surroundings by simply standing and looking like it could destroy the entire planet if it wanted to.
“Huh...”
An idea ran through Anon’s mind that Federals simply discarded him through a fire exit or something like that, no matter how weird it sounds for a military base, but from the inside, it certainly looked like the only entrance. The base wasn’t even that large: just a few buildings and a landing pad in the middle.
Anon expected many things from the most thoroughly guarded world in the galaxy, but not something like this. It’s as if the Federal colonial government, supported by the quarter of the biggest fleet in the galaxy that annihilates any unidentified object larger than a baseball before it can even get close to the planet, just abruptly ended right outside the wall, without any visible traces left.
Hearing a rustling in the grass, Anon turned around again.
A tiny creature resembling a mouse emerged for a few seconds, before running away.
“Uhh...”
He followed the trail with his eyes, noticing that it led towards a nearby grove. A few moments later, something large and bright-red emerged from it.
“That’s… a pickup.”
As it moved towards him, Anon stared at the vehicle. He could swear his grandfather had a vaguely similar model back on Earth. Anon almost expected to see a fellow human in the driver seat, but a yellow and seemingly friendly alien face emerged from the car’s window.
“Ooi!”
Embracing the possibility of offending the natives with an alien gesture due to inevitable cultural differences, Anon waved in a friendly way hoping that the “meta-entanglement” mumbo-jumbo does its thing right and he won’t accidentally flip someone off.
The driver waved from the window in response, and on his alien face expressed something that clearly looked like a smile.
Anon strained his eyes. So far the alien resembled the only picture of the locals that he had access to. An upper body that is similar to a human’s, slightly thicker arms and necks, slightly equine facial features, with a short muzzle, large eyes, and fluffy ears.
Even though locals had very human-like hands, their lower bodies allegedly had hooves, although Anon couldn’t tell while the alien was in the car.
The driver stopped nearby and beckoned Anon closer. Reluctantly, he walked forward.
“Hello, are you my ride to the capital?”
The alien contemplated for a few seconds, then smiled again.
“I Federal speak good no. Equis speak?”
The voice sounded pleasant and vaguely masculine, which looked appropriate considering the overall build.
“Uhh…”
Anon was not prepared for this.
The Federation strongly insisted on including the official language into mandatory education on all colonized words, or the Federal sign language if the population was incapable of communicating verbally. People on Earth who weren't all that great at mimicking some of the arachnid sounds were forced to learn both.
Of course, Anon tried to commission a phrasebook before his journey, but it turned out to be even harder than becoming a fake ambassador. Any information regarding Equis was treated as top secret.
Trying to avoid any difficult words or grammar, Anon slowly continued in Federal.
“I’m sorry. I speak Federal. I need to go to the capital.”
Anon wished he knew the name of the capital, but his hopes that some federal will casually mention it at any point were in vain. The situation was worsened by the fact that he didn't know which country he landed in, and even how many countries there roughly are. By pretending to be a big deal, he made the Federals make a lot of assumptions for himself which he simply had to agree with. Landing at Port Zero Zero Three? Yes, exactly. Whatever that means.
The alien seemed to understand the message.
“Good! Worry no!”
The driver exited the “truck” and went around it to open the passenger door, which gave Anon the chance to look at their—or most likely his—body.
Roughly Anon’s height. Roughly Anon’s build, albeit quite a bit more muscular. The alien had a long tail, dangling between the oddly shaped legs that ended with hooves.
The design of clothes seemed so familiar that Anon couldn’t help but think that the alien is wearing an ordinary plaid shirt and jeans from Earth that were simply modified for the extra leg joints. Looking closer at the alien’s facial features, Anon realized that it was covered in very short fur.
“Capital go where in?”
Anon deciphered the question.
There were several places he wanted to visit, but he had no idea where they were. Even Anon himself found it hard to believe that his entire journey to the other end of the galaxy that involved enough high crimes to execute him a million times over was based entirely on vague rumors, but he preferred to not think about it too hard.
Verifying the rumors would take a lot of time. He was originally planning to stay in the Federal embassy’s living quarters and was very surprised to discover that unlikely as it sounds, there is probably no such thing as an embassy on this planet, and the only Federal starports—if one could even call them that—are located on several tiny military bases.
He could probably ask for details, but he chose not to. An ambassador asking whether the planet he arrived to has an embassy would probably raise enough suspicion to contact forces he would prefer to not disturb. Somehow, Anon managed to create the illusion that he knows what he’s doing and where he’s going, and he wasn’t about to break it right in front of the Federal base.
“I would be very grateful if you could...” he started and then stopped himself, seeing the confused face of the alien. Simple words, right.
“Sorry. I want to go to a hotel. Hotel. Sleep,” he accompanied the explanation with a pantomime.
The alien paused to contemplate something, probably remembering the right words.
“Worry no! I help!”
The ride was uneventful, but fascinating for Anon nonetheless. They drove through the small grove, then through a trail in the fields by a vast orchard. No matter where Anon looked, he saw an idyllic scenery, reminding him of his childhood, before the Federation came.
The car stopped near a small train station. At this point, Anon was quite confident that taking things at their face value was appropriate: here’s a station, here’s a train, and here are the rails. One doesn't have to understand meta-entanglement between the worlds to enjoy the benefits it provides.
The driver walked Anon to another person with oddly-human feminine features and explained something in his language.
“Excuse me,” started Anon, but the female alien only shook her head in and put both hands to her lips in a cross sign.
The driver turned to Anon with a smile.
“She federal speak no. But she help!”
Together they walked to a vending machine that seemed to sell tickets. Anon was worried that his federal bank token wouldn't work, which would be a Problem with a capital P, but it did, and the ticket turned out to be surprisingly cheap.
The driver said something and the female—probably the station worker, judging by the uniform—gave him a notepad and a pen. The driver quickly scribbled a few lines of unintelligible text.
“Here go. This hotel big.” he pointed at the first row of symbols, presumably the name of the hotel.
Anon nodded. Driver pointed at the second row,
“Good no? This hotel big too.”
Anon nodded again. The driver pointed at the last row, which was significantly longer.
“Good no? Friend. Good friend. Federal speak.”
Stopping for a moment, the driver scribbled a six-point star with a few smaller stars around it next to the line.
“She help. She always help,” with this, he tore off the page and gave it to Anon.
“Thank you, I still have to pay you though,” he said, pointing at the token. The driver immediately made a refusing gesture with his hands.
“Worry no!” he wrinkled his forehead, trying to recall something, then happily exclaimed,
“Welcome to Equestria, friend!”
After some more moderately successful attempts at communication with the driver, Anon figured out that he needs to ride the train all the way to the endstation, and then it should be easy enough to ask for directions with the note that he received from the driver.
It worried Anon a bit that the driver felt like it’s worth mentioning a specific friend who speaks Federal on a planet where everyone was supposed to be fluent. The driver admitted that language learning was his personal hobby—with a whole military base full of aliens nearby—but wasn’t sure how many people in the capital speak Federal besides his friend.
But at least the locals looked surprisingly friendly for a planet that was supposed to be under a complete military lockdown, even if it only looked that way from the outside.
Despite all the issues Anon faced to get here, he liked Equis already. Clean air, beautiful scenery, and no creepy alien bullshit since he left the military base. The landscape outside was nothing but breathtaking, and the train was about to make its first stop on the way to the capital.
“What the...”
A local was falling from the sky on something resembling a pair of large wings. There was no parachute, and it looked like he was about to go splat right on the station.
A few feet above the ground, he flapped his wings and slowed down, landing on his feet. Or hooves, to be precise.
Anon stared at the scene.
Two more aliens landed in a similar manner, looking very happy to make it before the train departed.
Behind Anon, the door opened and a family with two children entered the train carriage. They waved their hands to him in a friendly manner, ignoring Anon's alien appearance, and he had to do a double-take when he saw a toy car levitating around one of the children.
She also had a faintly glowing horn.
Anon spent the next two hours staring outside the window with an increasingly deepening frown on his face.
Farmers levitating apples into wooden carts.
Flying aliens moving unnaturally low-hanging clouds by hand and kicking them to make them rain.
Ordinary aliens casually moving around logs that should weigh at least a ton.
“Worry no? I think worry yes,” muttered Anon under his breath.
