My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 230

ARES 3 solar day 228

"mark."

Mark, who was sleeping soundly while sitting on his workbench, suddenly woke up and raised his head. He glanced sleepily around the scene in the hab, scanning the rows of potatoes that had just been replanted after the latest harvest, past the sleeping ponies and dragons in their bunks, and finally at the scattered computers. Everyone was asleep except him... Then who was whispering and calling his name?

"mark."

He looked up at the task clock hanging above the kitchen and experimental bench area. It's 2:13 now. It was midnight. Why didn't he go to bed before? Who is it again...

"mark."

This time the murmurs gradually increased in volume and came from behind him. He turned to face Airlock Three and saw...

……No. This is not true. Absolutely impossible.

Beth Johnson, dressed almost as raggedly as he was now, was standing next to the inner door of the airlock, one hand leaning against the metal doorframe. "Mark," she whispered again pleadingly, her eyes wide and her face filled with emotions he couldn't see through.

Alarm bells blared in Mark Watney's head. There's no way this is going to happen. Hermes, where Beth was, had only left the earth along its weird return orbit for about ten days. This must be a dream. Or maybe it's a nightmare. Could this be a replay of The Thing?

But this situation didn't feel like a dream, but could not be more real. A living human being was before him for the first time in more than seven months. And the person in front of him was not a stranger: Johnson was his crewmate, he had spent four years with him, lived and trained together and was almost inseparable, and he was even closer to him than a blood relative. Seeing her right here and now, just a few feet away.

He stood up and walked slowly towards Johnson; although all the reasonable logic in his sleepy mind tried to prevent his action, an instinct more primitive and ancient than logic gave the death order. In the end, human instinct prevailed.

"Johnson," he gasped, bent down and hugged the slightly smaller woman in front of him tightly. Her response was to hug Mark and hold his arm to support her body. "Beth...Bess, I..."

"M--k," Johnson's voice rustled, pressing against his body.

"Oh my God, I really miss you so much." Mark said, "Where is everyone? God, it's really unbelievable..." Words can no longer express his feelings. He couldn't express how much love he felt at this moment, how relieved he felt to have the weight of loneliness lifted from his shoulders.

He put his arm around Johnson's shoulders and tried to lean back from the embrace, trying to look into her eyes carefully.

He saw a flash of solid blue, pupilless eyes glowing in the dim nighttime lighting of the habitat.

Johansen opened his mouth, but what he let out was a hiss like a coiled snake—no, like a poisonous scorpion.

Mark Watney's memory ends here.

Cherry Berry slept uneasily. She had nightmares about members of her team dying - not in a logical way, but suddenly falling to the ground and then quickly stopping breathing. She was still unable to avoid this outcome - this was obvious. She died so inexplicably without even seeing an obvious reason. Naturally, she had no choice. However, they just died in front of her over and over again, as if they felt that the torture was not profound enough, and wanted to repeatedly emphasize that they were about to die, and somehow it was all Berry's fault.

The flickering of the lights in the Hab as it switched from night mode to daytime woke her up. She sat up on her bunk, licked her teeth and blinked her eyes, trying to clear the previous nightmare images from her mind and let her brain function again.

die. yes. No wonder she had such a dream. Twilight Sparkle finally brought Aunt Gardner from Houston to answer the question, and the changeling doctor's answer was very straightforward. Judging from Ting Ting's symptoms, she has now entered the advanced stage of hunger syndrome. Any changeling that was in a position to take measures to deal with the situation would not allow itself to be in such a situation, and the Hive would not allow a changeling to deteriorate to this extent. Action should have been taken long ago. The aunt had only heard of cases of hunger pangs from her teacher, so she knew only a little about it: the pits on the torso marked the final stages of the disease.

There are also other suggestions that Aunt Gardner, being a changeling, may be lying. But where does her motivation come from? Dragonfly is famous in Cocoon's nest - she is definitely everyone's hero. And Berry has known her aunt since the early days of the Changeling space program; the Changelings' first idea of ​​space travel was to throw themselves into the air one after another at extremely high speeds, and the path they ultimately chose changed from some kind of In the sense that she was one of the few changelings responsible for caring for the future astronauts' broken limbs, wings, and any other body parts that might be damaged. Changeling doctors are no-nonsense, steady, and committed to their duties—they never lie about their diagnoses.

(At the same time, their clinical work style can even make yaks feel uncomfortable. At that time, Cocoon hired a group of pony doctors almost immediately after the official opening of the Houston Space Center. This is naturally one of the reasons. )

But Berry just didn’t want to believe it. Dragonfly was one of the first changelings to join the space program. She has been a pilot, an engineer, a leader, etc... By the way, she is also an out-and-out hero, and her deeds have spread beyond the changelings. As long as she participates in every mission, it seems that she can always find a way to "provoke the horse of death" as she calls it, seeking excitement by betting on her own life. But she always won the bet, not only escaped death but also achieved countless achievements. If there is a horse that can leave this terrible planet alive, Berry Bet is the one who should be the one.

But to be honest, Cherry Berry said to herself, we all know that her condition is very bad. In this case, do you say this because you have confidence in Tingting, or are you just unwilling to admit that you have lost someone? A fellow crew member?

She could only sigh to herself. Not only was she hungry, she also knew that Ting Ting was too.

I wonder if she survived last night.

Shut up, don't say such nonsense.

There was a small bale of hay piled next to the No. 2 airlock, originally intended for yesterday's dinner. However, no one was in the mood to eat. Berry doesn't particularly want it now, but her stomach drives her to look for food to satisfy her hunger. She slid off the bunk and landed on all fours, slowly walking toward the pile of hay.

She walked over to the hay, dug out her hooves and chewed them, and then she realized something was terribly wrong.

Ponies' spacesuits were scattered in the mud, and the backpack components were disassembled to expose the propulsion system installed inside, as well as their respective crystal batteries. The five large magic energy batteries that were originally placed in the storage area near the No. 2 airlock in the living cabin were dragged out and thrown to the side, all of which fell to the ground. Even the damaged battery was not spared. The broken electrodes were reconnected with a ball on them...

...changeling slime.

Berry looked at the workbench they had cleared before—Dingting was nowhere to be seen.

Berry looked at the spacesuits on the ground again - a certain orange spacesuit also disappeared.

And right next to the No. 3 airlock, Mark was slumped on the ground lifelessly, leaning against the outer frame of the airlock. He was motionless except for the slight rise and fall of his chest and abdomen with his spontaneous breathing, and his eyes were staring into nothingness. Next to him sat the Sojourner, facing the airlock, the round spectrometer "nose" pressed against the door.

Fragmented clues were quickly spliced ​​together, gradually revealing the true nature of the incident.

Finished, finished, finished.

"Change the extravehicular suit!!!" She shouted loudly, completely ignoring everyone who was suddenly awakened by the conditioned reflex formed in hundreds of previous exercises, and got up from the bed with difficulty, groaning. She just stared closely at Mark's reaction to this, but he remained motionless. She stretched out her hoof and touched his leg tentatively, "Mark?" Her voice was much softer this time, "Mark, are you okay? Are you okay, Mark?"

"Bess..." The name just flowed out of his mouth with inertia, and no power or tone could be heard in the words. "Johnson...Johnson..." Mark's eyes slowly circled around Berry - really circled around her, not paying attention to her at all - and then returned to the original dull state.

"What the hell? What happened to the space suit?"

"Who took apart the thruster backpack?"

"Hey, where's the dragonfly?"

"Her space suit is missing!"

"Everyone, be quiet!" Berry switched back to pony language and shouted loudly, "Fireball, Spitfire, carry Mark to the bed immediately. Starlight, can you check the space suit now?"

"I think it's okay," Starlight replied, "My head still hurts a little, but..."

"Dingting woke up last night," Berry said. "I think she went into some kind of weird predatory state, and Mark took the brunt of it. I don't know why she let the rest of us go." horse."

"Because Mark provides her with the most food," Spitfire replied. "She mentioned it to me once. She wanted me to keep it a secret."

"She also mentioned it to me," Starlight added, "which is why she asked us not to discuss her ability to change. She's not just worried that humans will be afraid of changelings. She's worried that Mark will stop because of it. Providing love to her.”

Berry let out a long sigh. "After we find her, we all have to discuss the secret together," she said carefully, "What exactly is a secret, and why we can't hide anything from our fellow crew members!"

"There's no way we're going out chasing her in these suits," Spitfire interjected. "I checked my suit's system power, and it's only 12 percent. She must have drained it. .”

"It's like she drained those batteries." Starlight nodded, pointing to the quartz blocks wrapped in metal casings scattered on the ground.

"You're riding on a horse," the indifferent Berry sighed, and added another sentence in English, "It's so damned!"

Mark remained unresponsive; it was only after they moved Mark to his bed that they noticed the computer was on. Dragonfly left a short note.

First: tell Erin Shields she no longer has to keep her promise. She must tell NASA everything immediately.

Secondly: tell my queen I'm sorry. I kept trying to get through it, and now I had ruined all our efforts, and both the changelings and the ponies were ashamed of me.

I have to save Mark. I didn't think much of it at the time - I just did it subconsciously. But I don’t have batteries – I’m on my own. The last thing I remember is knowing I had the engine down safely before I blacked out.

When I regained consciousness I found myself standing next to Mark who had fallen to the ground. I sucked him dry. I think I borrowed the form from his friend Johansson, but I can't remember the exact process.

Let's just say that if a changeling is hungry enough, or if we are very close to a source of intense love, we will go crazy. This is out of our control. Changelings never starve to death. Our instincts kick in and control us to start eating before we get to this point, without considering whether eating is wise in the circumstances. But it's magic rather than food that I've been lacking, and lately I've been on the verge of collapse.

Even now I still crave magic. I've drained all the magic reserves here except for you, and it's still not enough. I have to get out of here before I break down again and suck you dry too. I am writing this now just because I feel ashamed of Mark. I am ashamed to have committed such a terrible crime against him. I have also failed you - my team members, my Hive, each and every one of you.

Because ponies will still look for friends who are not worthy of their search, so if you find me, please leave me where I am. My presence is a threat to the mission. Please don't take me on the MAV. You don't want to find yourself surrounded by a wild beast when your rocket lifts off.

I had to leave while I still had the self-control. sorry.

They read the passage in silence. Then they carefully copied the passage into an email and sent it to Dr. Shields.

That afternoon, after their space suits had replenished enough energy to provide them with communication and navigation functions on their way to and from the cave farm, Berry and Spitfire rushed to the cave farm to find Dragonfly. Most of the potato plants had been gnawed away from the ground, a large dark green cocoon—not the squishy, ​​slimy cyst the changelings used to store their victims, but a hard one. A genuine opaque cocoon - hanging from the crystal on the cave wall inside the airlock not far from the life support system equipment box.

The dried changeling slime on the cocoon has two English words scrawled on it: Leave me alone, you go. (LEAVE ME.)

They eventually did, but before leaving they left behind a long, and at least what Berry thought was a heartfelt, affectionate hug.

[15:37] Watney: Dr. Capol, the stars are shining here. Sorry to interrupt the software download, but we have an urgent report. This report is a lot, so please bear with me.

[16:02] Watney: First I want to mention something that none of us have mentioned before; we all exhibit characteristic symptoms of what is called "magic deficiency." The impact is not serious for us ponies. Our fur is a little dull in color and our cutie mark is showing signs of fading. And unless we activate the magic field projection device, the fireball can no longer breathe fire.

But the dragonfly is the most magical of us creatures, and so her symptoms are the most severe. The reason is something we haven't told you before: dragonflies are shape-shifters, able to change themselves into any form. Before the start of the space race and the dawn of peace, they relied on this ability to feed on us ponies and extract the love they needed from us - by pretending to be our relatives and friends and infiltrating our social fabric.

We know that Tingting has been feeling poorly lately, but we didn't know exactly why until recently. She has kept us from knowing about her condition, just as she asked us not to tell you about her shape-shifting powers because she is afraid. Once we discovered that the dragonflies were sick due to a lack of magic, we began taking steps to alleviate the problem. We thought this would solve the problem. We don’t know how serious the situation is, nor do we know that Tingting has something more important to hide from us.

Next we will talk about Solar Day 227, which is what happened yesterday...

Venkat Kapoor continued reading the message, which was described in horrific detail. The final conclusion is:

...Mark is now in some kind of trance-like trance. Only if we repeat and urge him to do something repeatedly will he obey the order and do it. And no matter how hard we tried, he refused to eat. If he hasn't recovered by tomorrow, we'll go through his food bag and try to see if he reacts to anything other than potatoes.

On behalf of Commander Cherry Berry and all our team members, I would like to apologize for the accident that occurred. But please remember that Ting Ting’s intentions are not bad. She was terribly ill and had almost thrown herself in to save Mark's life; she had been forced to do this under such dire circumstances. Of course you can be angry at us for keeping her secret, and we have no problem with that; but we will forgive her for it and for what she did under the influence of her illness.

We will continue to try to retrofit the rover. Construction is difficult without Mark, so we hope he can recover soon. But we still have to take care of him, and we also take care of the dragonfly. We will find a way to cure her. We won't leave her alone.

Please ask Dr. Shields for more details. Any questions you have we will answer.

Venkat reached for his phone, selected a number from the contact list and dialed it.

After two bells, a loud and grumbling response came from the other side, "Venkat, what do you want to do?" Annie was very impatient, "I have a press conference in five minutes."

"Cancel it," Venkat ordered. "Tell them we are preparing a special press release and need more time."

"What?" Venkat could hear the silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, and Anne was stunned. "What press release? This was originally a regular press conference. We didn't receive any news after the rocket experiment was terminated for no reason yesterday. In the end, What happened?"

"I'll explain it to you later. But for now, cancel the press conference and cut off all external information channels. Pay special attention to the Pathfinder dialogue. We need to stop the information there from leaking out immediately. By the way, thank you for fighting for the delay for us. Press conference effort.”

"Xiao Wen, what's going on here?!" Annie's tone became more urgent, "Is there someone dead over there or something?"

Venkat didn't answer.

"...Sun." Annie realized that something was wrong and gasped, "Who is it, Xiaowen? Tell me who it is?"

"Annie, first process our data properly." Venkat said, "Then take a look at today's conversation record. After you're done, get ready to go to Teddy's office for a meeting. I'm going to call him next. "

"But who is it...forget it, go to hell." The phone was hung up.

Venkat leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Yes, what the fuck." He muttered to himself, "Oh my god, oh my god." He calmed himself down, selected Teddy's number from his contacts and called it, and then Involuntarily repeating, "Oh my God, oh my God."