Prologue
"This. Is. Lame."
Falco shivered in the snow as he surveyed the compound through his binoculars. It was the only building around for miles. Had it not been for the hills and dormant vegetation, he'd have no cover at all.
"Lame or not, we're getting paid three million credits each to steal this thing, and you drew the short straw." Fox's voice rang in his ear over his headset as his beak chattered. Avians were not meant for cold weather.
"Thank you for the reminder," he said through a chattering beak. His active camo blended perfectly with the snow white landscape as he made his way toward the perimeter fence. For something so valuable, the security around the laboratory was pretty lax. He'd been briefed on the object he was to retrieve, and from what he cared to listen to, it was quite valuable. And volatile.
“Stop complaining and get in there,” Fox replied. “That thing is scheduled to move today, and this is our only shot at taking it.”
Upon his drawing of the short straw (which he was certain Fox had somehow rigged), he had been instructed to handle the item with extreme care. Codenamed Drive, it was apparently some new type of propulsion system, though how it worked and what it used as fuel were known only to those who had discovered it. That's what the nerds who hired his mercenary team said, anyway.
As he began cutting through the links of the fence, the crunching of snow attracted his attention. Thinking quickly, he dove back into a bush as a guard patrolled near the fence. Once he'd passed, Falco removed himself from the near-frozen shrub. "Tell Slippy he owes me a drink for not telling me about the guards!"
"Intelligence isn't an exact science, Falco!" the toad's voice chimed in over the radio.
It isn't in your case, is it? Falco thought.
"Did you really expect something this valuable to be unguarded?" Fox asked.
"Forget it." Falco snapped. "Are there any other surprises I should know about?"
"Nothing that wasn't in the schematics I briefed you on already," Slippy replied. While he was an ace mechanic and inventor, Slippy was sometimes lacking as an intelligence gatherer. He would much rather spend his time in the maintenance bay modifying the Star Fox team's Arwing space fighters than looking up blueprints to some hole-in-the-wall science lab on Xenu-forsaken Zeras 12's polar ice cap.
Now freezing and wet, he resumed cutting through the fence. In a matter of minutes, he made his way through the hole he'd cut and into an access duct.
"Before I get any deeper into this place, you want to tell me what this duct is for?" Falco whispered, careful to avoid blowing his cover. A few seconds of silence allowed him to further himself from the cold air outside as he began to peer through the grates to check his progress inside the building.
"Looks like it's used to vent exhaust gases from the research labs," Slippy replied. "Chlorine gas, mostly."
"What?!"
"Calm down!" Falco could hear Slippy's fingers typing away at his station as he pulled up more info on the building he was infiltrating. Information he wondered why he wasn't given before he chose to explore the poison gas pipe. “The duct is only active from 0600 to 1500 hours!”
Falco checked the time: 1400.
Great...
“Okay, you’re coming up on the lab now,” Slippy added softly, as though his voice would give Falco away. “It should be through a grate and air filter on your right-hand side.”
Removing the air scrubber, he spotted a hare in a lab coat scribbling on a notepad beyond the grate. Behind him, on a pedestal of some kind, sat the metallic, nine-billion-credit box. No more than thirty centimeters in length, width and height. Easy enough to carry, but impossible to conceal. Nothing about it seemed extraordinary. It certainly didn’t look like it was worth a few million galactic credits.
Falco grabbed his blaster from its holster, selecting its ‘stun’ mode to neutralize the scientist. Though Slippy may not be much of an intelligence gatherer, he was an incredible inventor. As he readied himself to remove the grate, he heard a heavy door swing open.
“Dexter, you hungry? I was about to grab some dinner.”
Falco held fast inside the duct as another hare entered the lab.
“Yeah, I’ve been cooped up with this thing all day. Let me just set the alarm.” Dexter and his friend left the lab, but not before activating a laser security grid around the item in question. After the scientists had left, Falco removed the grate carefully before griping to Slippy once more.
“Lasers? You didn’t say anything about lasers!”
“What do you want from me?” he protested. “These schematics are four years out of date!”
Falco rubbed his temples before dropping into the laboratory to examine the security. As he stepped up to the pedestal, he retrieved a can of fine powder, spraying its contents to reveal the lasers guarding his objective. Plucking a feather from his head with a wince, he released a bit of his plumage into one of the laser beams. He prayed this was simply an alarm-grade lens, and not the flesh-melting variety. When his feather remained intact, he breathed a sigh of relief, though it was short-lived. His test-feather had disrupted the laser beam, causing all manner of alarms to wail.
Falco snatched the drive off its pedestal as the grate he had come through filled with an unknown gas, and a large blast door began to close over the lab entrance. With a quick sprint and a slide, he barely missed being cut in half by the closing blast doors as he escaped the lab with the drive clutched in one arm. His blaster in his other hand, he sprinted down the hallway as security guards gave chase.
“Slippy, how do I get out of here?” he asked urgently, nearly sliding around a corner as lasers began impacting the wall behind him.
“There should be an exit coming up on your left!” The door in question was still a few meters ahead as he continued his sprint. He glanced over his shoulder to see the security guards leveling their laser rifles at him.
This is why I prefer the sky! Aiming his blaster over his shoulder, he fired wantonly, hoping to keep them from shooting him in the back. After a few bursts, he lowered his shoulder and prepared to ram the door to freedom. He bounced off of it, the drive skidding away from him as he fell flat on his back.
“It’s... locked...” he gasped, scrambling for the drive.
As the hum of the guard's laser rifles filled the hallway, a scientist threw himself in front of the guards. “Don’t shoot, you idiots! If you hit that thing, we’re all dead!” Thinking quickly, Falco scurried to the drive and held his blaster to it. As he hoped, the security lowered their weapons.
“Slippy, the door’s locked!” he growled into the radio, buying precious seconds as the guards creeped closer.
“You’ve got a blaster!” he replied. “Freaking shoot it!”
Falco blinked, before blasting the keypad locking mechanism and kicking the door open, sprinting into the open snow and leaping over the three meter perimeter fence as the alarms continued to wail behind him. “Tell Fox to get down here and cover my extraction!”
“Way ahead of you!” Fox said, his sleekly shaped Arwing hovering above a clearing where Falco’s began to slowly fade into view from its camouflaged state. Falco’s fingers tapped repeatedly on a screen mounted on his wrist. The cockpit of his spaceship popped open with a hiss. A few more taps and a small cargo bay opened beneath the cockpit. Falco stored the drive in the cargo hold and jumped into his spacecraft. Before the security forces could give chase, the two mercenaries were rocketing through the atmosphere and back toward their mothership; the Great Fox.
“Boy, it’s a good thing those guards were so under-equipped!” said Slippy as they left the planet’s upper atmosphere.
“Why’s that?” Fox asked, his Arwing pulling alongside Falco’s.
“Your laser cores haven’t been charged in days!”
“What?” they replied in unison.
“That seems like something you should have told us, frog-boy!” Falco snapped.
“Well, in my defense, you wouldn’t have gone on the mission if you’d known that, would you?”
Forget a drink. That toad owes me breakfast, lunch, and dinner!
“Uncharged laser cores?” A familiar voice came over the radios. “How unfortunate for you.” The inherent sneer behind those words could belong to only one pilot: Wolf O’ Donnell.
“Agh!” Falco moaned. “Not now! I knew this thing wouldn't be so lightly guarded!”
“I’m afraid so. If you simply hand over the drive, my team and I will be on our way,” he suggested. “Perhaps we’ll even allow you to live.”
“Not a chance, Wolf.” Fox replied, the tags of the enemy fighters beginning to appear on his long range radar.
“Very well,” Wolf sighed.
“Falco, switch to com channel two,” Fox ordered.
“Okay, we’re both out of ammo and I’m almost out of fuel,” Falco said bluntly. “What now?”
A moment of worrying silence fell over him as Fox radioed his mothership. “Slippy, are there any ion storms near us?”
The soft clicking of keys beneath fingers echoed back in their headsets as Slippy searched. “You’re in luck,” replied Slippy. “This planet’s star is giving off coronal mass ejections as we speak. The next wave will be on top of you in thirty seconds.”
“Falco, do you have enough fuel to start your warp drive?”
You’ve gotta be kidding me.
“Well... yeah, but I’d be completely out afterwards!” he shot back.
“I realize that,” Fox said calmly. “I’m gonna follow you into the storm and engage mine back to the Great Fox. The ions from the star will keep Wolf from tracing your jump and getting the drive.” Falco could see the idea behind Fox’s plan. Though it seemed crazy, he knew his friendly rival was a great strategist and the best pilot out there. Besides himself, of course.
“Okay, but if Wolf can’t trace my ions, that means you can’t either.”
“I know. We’ll follow your emergency location beacon.”
Falco sighed, massaging his temples. “You know it’s called an ion storm for a reason, right?”
“Yeah, you’ll just have to trust me on this,” Fox assured him.
“Ten seconds until ion impact.” Slippy reminded them.
“Ready?” Fox asked.
Falco charged his warp drive, the frost and cold from the planet below now long since melted away. “Yeah.”
In a flash of light and super-charged particles, the two fighters disappeared amongst the pinpoints of light.
Falco watched as the gauges in his cockpit slowly flickered before reading ‘zero’. As he engaged his ship's reverse thrusters, he checked his surroundings. Nothing he could recognize, but a single planet within reachable distance had already begun pulling on his spacecraft. A warning flashed across the screens of his instrument panel.
Re-entry imminent. A soft computerized female voice announced. After a few quick keystrokes, his computer analyzed the available data regarding the planet he was about to crash land on.
“Ninety-nine percent oxygen probability, ninety-nine percent chance of liquid water...” he mumbled to himself, looking past his reflection onto what appeared to be the surface of a planet filled with green plant life. “Could be worse...” Falco readied himself for what he hoped would be a soft landing. Within minutes, the rumbling of re-entry buffeted his fighter as the exterior began to glow bright white.
“Hold together for me, baby,” he exhaled through gritted teeth, fighting with the manual controls to keep the wings level. As he lost speed and altitude, he noticed a dense forest rising up to meet him. Within moments, he was skimming the treetops, the sturdy wooden shafts strengthening the lower he went.
His cockpit screens began calling out their warnings as the hull integrity of his ship beginning to rapidly deteriorate. “Geez, what are these trees made of, lead?” Before long, both his laser pods had been stripped away, and the deafening screech made by the trees he was decimating confirmed one of his worst fears; he would have to bail out on an alien planet.
Falco grabbed his survival gear in one hand and gripped the ejection seat handle in the other. For a moment, his thoughts turned to the precious yet volatile cargo in the hold. Deciding it would be better to survive and recover the drive than to die with his ship, he yanked the striped handle upwards, sending the canopy of the Arwing flying off over his head. Unfortunately, only half of the rockets in the seat fired when they were supposed to, pushing him only halfway out of the spacecraft. As he tumbled out of his ship, his parachute to snag on a jagged edge of the fuselage.
Thinking quickly, he produced a superheated thermal blade from its holster with his free hand and began sawing frantically at the constricted fabric tying him to certain death. Once free, he realized all too late that he was falling with only half a parachute. Cursing his species for evolving beyond the ability to fly, he flapped his arms wildly to try and slow himself down.
He hit the ground legs first, a bolt of searing pain shooting through his right leg as he landed awkwardly on his arm before losing consciousness completely.
Apple Bloom and her fellow crusaders sat idly in their treehouse, tediously planning their next attempt to earn their cutie marks. The walls of their home away from home had been decorated with hoof-drawn pictures of ponies they idolized, things they liked to do, or things they wished they were able to do. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo rested their chins on their forelegs as Apple Bloom paced before them. "Ah dunno, Ah don't think you can just 'become' a psychologist," she said skeptically. "Ah'm pretty sure that's somethin' ya have ta go to college for."
"Well I haven't heard any suggestions out of you!" Sweetie Belle replied.
"We've tried almost every other job in town!" Scootaloo chimed in.
"Ah'm just sayin' we probably shouldn't do anything that might get us in trouble with the—"
A rumble shook the treehouse as Scootaloo hurriedly trotted down the ramp in time to catch the after-effects of a sonic rainboom. "I bet Rainbow is practicing for the Wonderbolts!" she said happily, scanning the skies for the signature rainbow.
She was joined by the other crusaders on the ramp as they too, scanned the skies.
"Cool!" Sweetie Belle gasped, "A shooting star!" She pointed her hoof to the heavens, a fiery comet with a smoking tail scarring the otherwise clear blue sky.
"Wow..." they said in unison.
"It looks awfully close..." Apple Bloom said as they watched shards of the meteor break off from the main body in the atmosphere. Within seconds, it was below the tree line, followed quickly by a dull thud.
A brief silence followed before Scootaloo spoke up. "It sounded like it landed close!" she said happily before turning to her friends. "You guys thinking what I'm thinking?"
Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom exchanged nervous glances.
"C'mon you guys!" Scootaloo insisted. "Don't be scaredy-cats!"
"Okay, let’s go check it out..." Sweetie Belle groaned.
"That's what I'm talkin' about!" Scootaloo cheered.
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS METEOR MINERS, YAY!" they shouted together, bounding out of the clubhouse and following the gentle smoke plume rising from the treetops.
After a few minutes of trekking through the Everfree forest, they came upon a massive trench dug by the falling object. The ditch was easily three Applejacks wide and at least two Big Macintoshes deep. The crusader's eyes widened as they came upon the clearing.
"Whoa," they gasped, looking into the crater. Apple Bloom slid down down into the trench, dirt and rocks sliding with her.
"Are you sure it's safe to go in there?" Sweetie Belle whined. "It could be radioactive or something!"
"Radio-what?" Scootaloo repeated as she followed Apple Bloom into the trench.
With a reluctant sigh, Sweetie Belle followed suit, entering the divide with her friends. "If I grow an extra head because of this, I'm coming after the two of you," she threatened as they followed the path dug by the falling object.
"Don't you mean, 'we're?" Scootaloo replied, earning a chuckle from Apple Bloom.
The trench seemed to stretch for miles into the forest before the fillies came upon what had created it. A smoking hunk of twisted white and blue metal sat smoldering, buried halfway by uprooted trees and dirt.
Apple Bloom approached the object cautiously, though not cautiously enough for Sweetie Belle's liking.
"That doesn't look like a meteorite," she warned, though her pleas fell on deaf ears as Scootaloo joined Apple Bloom in investigating.
"You guys... I think this is a spaceship!" Scootaloo declared, climbing atop a mound of dirt in front of it to view the vacant cockpit.
"A spaceship? As in, a-aliens?" Sweetie Belle asked, backing away from the strange object.
"Yeah!" Apple Bloom said, joining Scootaloo on the dirt pile. "Don't worry Sweetie Belle, the spaceship is empty."
Sweetie Belle carefully climbed the dirt hill and peered into the cockpit, sweeping over the dead instruments and empty hole where she guessed whatever had been flying this thing sat. "See? No aliens," Scootaloo assured her.
The color drained from the unicorn's face as she turned to her friends. "So if the alien isn't in its ship, then where is it?"
The three adventurous fillies pressed their backs against each other, scanning the woodline for anything not of their world.
"Y-You don't think it's an evil alien, do ya?" Apple Bloom stammered.
"I hope not," Scootaloo replied, just as a high pitched beeping nearly deafened the crusaders. Flattening their ears against the sharp screech, they tried to discern its source.
"Oh Celestia, what's that noise?!" Scootaloo shouted, though she was barely heard over the racket.
"Ah, Ah think it's comin' from—"
As quickly as the terrible noise had come, it was gone, replaced by a softer, fading beep that seemed to slowly die. The sound appeared to be coming from behind a thicket of bushes. Nervously, Scootaloo stepped off the dirt hill and headed toward the shrubs.
"Scoots, what are you doing?!" Sweetie Belle whispered urgently.
"I think the alien might be back here," she shot back, her sense of adventure not spoiled by the ear-splitting screech it had just made.
"So you're gonna go find it?" Sweetie Belle asked incredulously.
The curious filly ignored her friend’s warnings and proceeded to push the bushes back with a hoof. She had expected to see some kind of monster with tentacles for legs and a million eyes, or a blood-thirsty beast from beyond the stars. Instead, she found a scruffy looking wounded creature, which had similar coloration to a blue-jay.
"You guys, I think I found the alien!"
I
Scootaloo motioned for the other crusaders to join her as she carefully stepped closer to the unconscious creature.
"I think it's asleep," Scootaloo whispered, not wanting to wake it incase it was evil.
Sweetie Belle noticed the creatures leg was bent in an awkward position in comparison to the other one. "I think it might be hurt, too."
After a moment's pause, they stepped a bit closer.
"So... what is it?" Apple Bloom asked.
"I dunno..." Sweetie Belle replied, finding her courage and approaching the alien. "It looks kinda like a bird. I think its leg is broken."
"What are you, a doctor?" Scootaloo teased, joining her.
"No,” she snapped, “But I'm pretty sure legs aren't supposed to bend that way,"
Another pause came between them before Apple Bloom spoke up. "Should we help it?"
"Help it how?" Scootaloo asked incredulously.
"Ah dunno, take it back to the clubhouse Ah s'pose."
"But what if this thing tries to eat us when it wakes up?" Sweetie Belle replied.
"Ah know! We'll go get my brother and sister! They'll know what to do with it!"
Apple Bloom bounded off the ship and headed back toward her house, followed quickly by the other crusaders.
"Applejack! Applejack!" Apple Bloom shouted as she burst through the screen door, her friends close behind her.
Her older sister turned with a start from the lunch she had been making for herself and her brother, while Mac awoke from his nap on the couch.
"Hold your horses sugarcube, what's got y'all so excited?"
"We were in the clubhouse, and we saw a shooting star in the daytime, only it wasn't a shooting star, it was an alien spaceship!" Sweetie Belle explained breathlessly.
Applejack raised an eyebrow. "An alien spaceship, huh?" she asked, glancing skeptically at Macintosh.
"Yeah! With a real live alien and everything!" Scootaloo chimed, hovering a few inches off the ground in excitement.
"Uh, you sure you girls ain't had any of Pinkie's super sugar punch lately?" Applejack asked.
"We ain't foolin' around Applejack! We can take ya to where it crashed!" The youngest Apple pled, her friends nodding in agreement behind her.
"Ah got chores ta do, why don't ya take Macintosh with ya, just in case the 'alien' tries ta suck out your brains," she giggled as Mac lifted himself from the couch and donned his yoke.
"C'mon now," he said, motioning towards the door. The fillies filed outside as Mac joined them on the path to their 'alien'.
The damaged cockpit of the Arwing flickered to life as the computer AI began running post-crash diagnostics. A multitude of screens opened and closed on the display panel before the ship slowly began to dissolve into the background of the forest. After a few seconds, all that could be seen was the trench dug by the falling craft.
Falco's eyes fluttered open after his stasis suit returned him to consciousness. "Uh... what the..." He raised himself up onto his elbows, his right arm faltering, leaving him reliant on his left to keep his head out of the freshly turned dirt. He looked to his right, seeing that his ship—what was left of it—had already engaged its auto-cloak.
He glanced down at his leg and recoiled. Definitely broken. On his sleeve were the controls to his stasis suit. It indicated multiple hairline fractures of his right arm, and a severe compound fracture of his leg. What was worse, the opiate reserves in his suit were running low. Soon, he would be screaming in pain, if conscious at all.
Thankfully, he had followed the standard procedure of the Star Fox team and brought exactly one Osteo-pak with him. Retrieving the glowing blue syringe from his pocket, he stabbed the needle right above his twisted appendage.
He gritted his teeth as he felt the bones begin to reset in a matter of seconds.
"Ah, this is always the worst part!" He grunted as the snap and twisting of bones echoed through the forest. The few seconds it took his leg to heal felt like hours before his limb finally resembled the unbroken one next to it. Breathing a sigh of relief, he was suddenly aware that he was, in fact, breathing. Though the computer had predicted oxygen on the planet’s surface, it had been wrong before. He brought himself to his feet. Both legs seemed to be working properly, though his right arm was still useless.
Using his good arm to search his pockets, he retrieved his communicator. The small silver orb pulsed a steady red in his palm. "No signal,” he sighed. “Covers the whole galaxy, they said." Cursing the fast talking salesman who'd talked Fox into buying these for the crew, he shoved the inactive device back into his pocket, taking in his surroundings. Forests weren't uncommon, but they usually indicated a fairly underdeveloped planet.
Falco figured he'd be rescued as soon as the Great Fox picked up his Emergency Location Transmitter beacon.
"Damnit, of all the times to forget to install that thing!" He slapped his palm against his forehead in disgust at his own laziness. Fox had warned him against leaving the ELT behind in case he crashed on an unexplored planet. He even recalled his reasoning for not taking it: 'When was the last time we even left the Lylat system?'
He could hear Fox's scolding now. Falco hated being wrong, even more so when others were obviously right. He figured they'd eventually come looking for him, but he had no idea how long it might take. The temperate climate of the forest suited him well, though he knew he couldn't live out here. All manner of dangerous wildlife could inhabit this planet, and would think nothing of making a meal of him.
Reaching back into his pocket, he produced a small contact lens case, placing the contents onto his right eye. The outline of the crashed ship came to life as he walked towards it to inspect the damage. "Fox is gonna be pissed..." he groaned, noting the bent and mangled state of his once-sleek fighter.
Climbing onto what was left of the wing, he retrieved his laser pistol, an emergency survival kit, and accessed the ships navigation computer. As he scrolled through the screens, he came upon his ship's last known trajectory.
"Of course..." he sighed, discovering he had in fact tumbled into a restricted sector of an underdeveloped solar system protected from contact by advanced life forms by Directive 995. The Galactic Council doled out severe punishments for any beings caught breaking this law, and unless he had irrefutable proof his crash was unavoidable, he'd be in big trouble. According to the map, this planet didn't even have a proper name. Simply dubbed, X243.
"Well, at least the ion drive is stable... for now." The indicator screen for the ship's main source of power seemed to be functioning at ninety-five percent cooling rate. Not an optimal rate, but close enough for Fox to rescue him before it reached critical fifty percent, surely. he thought.
He powered down the computer and hopped off the ship. He placed his contact back in its case to conserve the battery. He would need to find shelter before nightfall, assuming this planet actually had a night. Some he had visited did not, which made sleeping rather difficult.
Slinging his pack over his shoulder, he set off into the woods, being careful to remember where his ship had crashed so Fox could salvage what they could after they found him. He was nearly out of sight before he remembered the drive! He turned around, heading back towards his ship when he heard bushes rustling in the distance. He took cover in a growth of shrubs and activated his suit's camouflage. He blended perfectly against the leaves as he had earlier on the frozen planet Zeras 12. Patiently, he waited for whatever was approaching his position to be on its way.
"It's just a little further!" Scootaloo said, leading the way as Mac followed behind the three fillies. She reached the hedge line and pushed the branches aside with a hoof, presenting their discovery to Mac. Or, so she thought.
"Well that's a mighty fine trench,” he said, a hint of annoyance in his tone. “But Ah don't see any aliens,"
"What? What do you mean you don't..." All three crusaders were dumbstruck. They'd just been climbing on the darn thing! The alien was gone too!
"But... but it was right there! The alien was laying over here!" Apple Bloom said, scampering to where she recalled the bird-like creature having been sprawled out. Scootaloo joined her, sniffing around for anything of the alien's that could lead them to him.
Macintosh sighed. Sometimes these filly's imagination just got the better of them. He didn't mind. Heck, he remembered when he would make up all kinds of fanciful stories to entertain his Ma and Pa.
"If y'all are done draggin' me all over creation, Ah gotta help Granny and Applejack get started on dinner."
"But—" Apple Bloom protested.
"That don't mean y'all gotta stop playin', just keep an ear out for the dinner bell," he said, heading back to the farmhouse as the distraught fillies followed him.
Sweetie Belle looked back one last time at the huge trench something had dug outside of Apple Blooms farm.
I know what I saw... there has to be an alien around here somewhere!
Falco observed four horse-like creatures enter the clearing. One was quite large—he assumed he was the alpha male. It was possible that the smaller ones were his offspring, or perhaps, his herd.
They seemed to communicate with each other through a series of body and ear gestures, whinnies, grunts and sharp exhalation through their nostrils. It appeared they were intelligent enough to communicate, indicating they had at least tribal level culture. With all of his advanced technology, Falco figured he would probably be looked at as a god to these creatures.
The idea made him grin, but he figured that very thought was one of the reasons Directive 995 was passed. In his survival pack, he fished around for a small earpiece. A universal translator, preloaded with a computer capable of deciphering almost any previously unknown language after listening to only a few sentences.
He quietly installed the device and soon the nonsensical noises the horses seemed to be making morphed into comprehensible speech.
"That don't mean y'all gotta stop playin', just keep an ear out for the dinner bell."
Falco raised an eyebrow. He was correct about the larger horse's role, though the smaller ones seemed to be pre-adolescent versions of the big one. A family, perhaps. As soon as they left the clearing, Falco deactivated his camo. His suit would need to recharge before it could be used again. He knew it would be a miracle if this primitive planet just happened to have a simple fusion reactor lying around.
Luckily, they didn't appear to have noticed his ship. He quickly walked back towards it, reaching a large gash where the cargo hold would have been. “Oh come on!” he grunted to himself. Cursing his luck, he trekked back into the woods, intent on finding shelter before nightfall. He would have to postpone his search for the drive until tomorrow. He prayed nights here didn't last weeks like they did on some planets.
As he wandered, he came upon a vast expanse of trees, neatly aligned and all bearing a fruit that appeared to be a variant of the common apple. He jumped and plucked one from a low lying branch. Opening his survival pack once again, he produced a small, square device with a needle on one end and a digital display on the other. Stabbing the apple, the screen flashed green and emitted a pleasant tone, indicating it was safe to consume.
"Alright, this may not have been such a bad place to crash," he said to himself, taking a bite and continuing on his way. Noting the neatness of the rows, he assumed whatever species dominated this planet had at least discovered agriculture. Falco's lucky streak continued as he came upon a small house situated between the branches of a large tree. Without the use of his camo, he'd have to engage the inhabitant directly. He had a spare translator, though he knew convincing a creature to put something an alien had given them in their ear may prove to be a bit of a challenge.
He slowly climbed the ramp to the tiny house. Peeking his head inside, he was relieved to find it empty. There wasn't much furniture inside, and there even seemed to be a few childlike drawings hung on the walls. Outside the glassless window, he noticed the sun beginning to set. Apparently this planet did have a night, one Falco was certainly looking forward to after such a hard landing. He removed his pack from his back and set out his compressed sleeping space. It was no neuro-bed, but it was much better than the wooden floor. This children's playhouse would have to do for the time being.
He settled in for the night, moving an old desk in front of the doorway to keep any hungry wildlife from attacking him in his sleep. Content with his security measures, he laid himself down, carefully listening for any noise that would indicate danger. He set his pistol and thermal knife down beside him as he lay down. One last time, he retrieved his communicator. "Still no signal..." he sighed, putting it away and trying to ignore the pain beginning to set in from his broken arm. By morning it would be considerably worse, but he managed to bury that thought. Right now, nothing was more important than rest, something he was all too willing to embrace as he promptly fell asleep.
A soft rain fell on the roof of Agent Bentgrass' stately mansion in the swamps of New Mareleans. Being the sole heir to his family's vast fortune certainly had its benefits. As an agent of their Majesties 'special services' division,(known colloquially as 'Division 6') he was rarely afforded time off. Not that he ever wanted any. His current vacation had actually been forced upon him by the Director of Special Services herself, after it was brought to light that he hadn't taken a day off in five years. It was an order he had no choice but to obey, lest he lose his job.
On his fourth night, (or perhaps his fifth, he wasn't sure) he found himself in his lavish study. A fire crackled and popped merrily as he sat in his favorite high-backed chair. Strains of soft Ave Mareia echoed off the polished cherry wood paneling as he sipped a vintage port while studying a first edition of Aristrotle's most famous work: Nicomachean Ethics.
A knock on the door pulled him from his literature as his stalwart butler Farnsworth appeared at the doorway. "Master Bentgrass, a Deputy Director Notch here to see you."
Bentgrass sat his book next to him with a sigh. "Show him in."
Farnsworth bowed. "Of course, sir."
In a few moments, a piebald unicorn in a sharp black suit shook his mane gently as he strode towards the main room. "Ugh, this weather! Does it do anything besides rain? How do you stand it, Agrostis?"
Bentgrass gave a half smile, holding out his hoof. "Simple. I stay inside."
A sharp laugh came as Notch gently tapped the outstretched hoof with his own. "First vacation in five years, and you spend it indoors—" he leaned down to inspect the cover of the book Bentgrass had set beside him, "—reading philosophy?"
"If I cannot better Equestria, I might as well better myself." He raised an eyebrow. "Besides, if you're going to force me to take a vacation, the least you could do is leave me alone."
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut your vacation short—not that you'd mind," Notch replied, reclining on an elegant victorian couch across from Bentgrass.
He smiled. "You know me well. Please, sit," Bentgrass insisted. "Can I get you a drink?"
"Scotch, no ice." Notch answered, much to Bentgrass' surprise.
"Off the wagon again, I see."
"If you dealt with half the crap I do every day, you'd do it too," he shot back, reaching into his jacket and retrieving a plain looking file folder. Farnsworth returned with a glass of vintage scotch on a silver tray.
"Will you be needing anything else, Master Bentgrass?" he asked curtly.
"No, take the rest of the night for yourself, Farnsworth."
"Very good sir." After his butler had left, Deputy Director Notch got down to business.
"This assignment came straight from the top."
Bentgrass arched an eyebrow, picking up the file stamped 'Most Secret' before him and looking its contents over.
"We've had reports of an alien spacecraft landing near a small town south of Canterlot. Ponyville, if I remember correctly."
The agent set the file on his lap to scrutinize his superior. "Aliens?" he repeated dryly. "Are you sure this isn't some sort of punishment?"
Notch smiled, reclining on the couch and sipping his scotch. "Not at all. The princess asked I put my best stallion on it."
"And why is wandering about in the middle of nowhere, investigating what was most likely a meteor of top priority, exactly?"
"Flip to the back," Notch said. Bentgrass moved passed the initial reports until he came upon a collection of photographs. "These photos were confiscated from two pegasi testing out a new camera they’d bought when the event occurred.” Notch explained. ”They’ve already signed confidentiality agreements."
Bentgrass raised his eyebrows in amusement as he continued looking over the images. What they contained was certainly no meteorite. He closed the file and set it on the table in front of him. "So what exactly is it you want me to do?"
"Go to Ponyville, interview witnesses, and, if possible, investigate the crash site. A team of agents has already been dispatched to find and secure any and all debris from the craft, though they haven't been able to locate it yet."
"A dozen stallions in suits searching the woods around town? Have you forgotten the meaning of the word, inconspicuous?"
Notch threw back the rest of his scotch, setting the empty glass on the table. "Your train for Ponyville leaves at seven a.m. tomorrow," he said, tossing a one way train ticket onto the coffee table. "Don't be late."
