Torchwood: Equestria

Chapter 9

The Coin

Tara awoke in a hospital bed, dazed and confused. She couldn't remember why she was here, but the pain in her neck clued her in a little at least. She felt a thick bandage around the entirety of her neck, and she couldn't turn her head much. She glanced over to the window at the side of her room, and saw the morning sun rising in the sky. A light smile appeared on her face. She loved the sight of the sun rising, and often got up early to watch it from start to finish.

"Good morning, officer," a female voice said from the other side of Tara. When she turned to see who the voice belong to, she blinked several times to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. Next to her bedside sat princess Twilight Sparkle, the recently crowned princess of friendship.

"Princess!" Tara was both excited and nervous, having never met royalty in her life.

"Relax, relax, you deserve rest," Twilight told her. Tara calmed a bit in response, laying back against her pillow. "Can you remember anything from last night?"

Tara closed her eyes, thinking hard. "…no, princess. I can't remember anything. I just woke up here with neck pain."

"It's understandable, you had a rough night," Twilight explained. "You remember the strange death of the two ponies the police were investigating?"

"Yes."

"Well, turns out a unicorn got a hold of an ancient spell book, started messing with some scary stuff," Twilight continued. "You helped catch the criminal last night! Though…" She pointed at Tara's neck. "It didn't happen without some injury."

Tara brought a hoof to her neck and rubbed it gently. "Eh, that's the job. Just glad that the city is safe."

"I happened to be in the area, and when I heard about how you so bravely stepped in to help stop the criminal, I wanted to visit you. You're going to get a service medal once you're out of here, which should be soon. You just had a lot of blood loss last night."

"Wow…" Tara was speechless. "Princess… I'm honored. Thank you."

"Don't thank me," Twilight said, grinning. "You're the one that did it, so be proud of yourself. I have to go now, but there's somepony else who'd like to say hi. You just met him last night, so you probably won't remember."

Tara said her goodbyes and gave her thanks once more, then Twilight quietly stepped out of the room. In the hallway, Jack waited for her, and walked up when he saw her appear.

"The memory spell worked," Twilight whispered. "She doesn't remember any encounter with an alien."

"Good, thanks for coming," Jack replied. "We got the culprit bagged and on its way to Ponyville. No more problems here."

"I'll write a letter to Celestia letting her know of your success," Twilight said. "And I'm sure Ruby will be happy to know you all made it."

Jack nodded. "I'll see you in a bit. Keep this up, and you might find yourself the royal member of Torchwood."

Twilight smiled, but shook her head. "I'm just a helper and a facilitator. I know nothing about the stuff you guys are doing."

"Hey, you've already learned some. Everyone starts somewhere."

"I'll stick to being a princess of Equestria, but thanks."

()

After having a conversation with Tara, Jack walked alone among the once again busy Manehattan streets. Fortunately for Tara, the memory loss came with forgetting the pain of her injury, however, he'd shared a fun night with the mare, and he wished she could have kept the memory of their time before the fight began. He played it off while talking to her, and at least created some new memories to share from the conversation, keeping up the flirtatious attitude of the previous night.

Their first mission proved to be a success, though with nearly dire consequences. Jack felt confident of their ability to improve, and work even harder. Wing had now held his own in a fight with an alien creature, at least long enough to keep him on the scene until help arrived. Cazan had demonstrated his medical expertise, keeping Tara alive longer than many of the Manehattan doctors thought possible with her level of blood loss. And while they'd been gone from Ponyville, Ruby likely found some technology to work on that would improve the team's capabilities. Once she recovered enough to join them on missions, she'd help even more.

Though further investigation in both the attack on Ponyville and this murderer needed to begin, Jack felt confident. Walking down the sidewalk, a familiar feeling rose in him from walking by pony after pony, none of them knowing an alien attack had occurred in their very city. He was once again protecting a race that, although brilliant and full of potential, wasn't quite ready to face the threats headed their way.

Jack stopped for a small meal, then proceeded to the Manehattan train station. Cazan and Wing had already returned, but Twilight arrived just a few minutes before Jack, and waited for the same train. They grouped up again, and entered a car of their own. As they returned home, Twilight looked out the window, taking in Equestria's scenery, thinking over the changes to come in her life with housing this new team in her castle. Jack found the most comfortable seat in the car and slept, exhausted from staying up throughout the night.

()

Ruby welcomed the exhausted Cazan and Wing, and let them get more rest before asking them about the events in Manehattan. No new messages had come through, so for the moment, the team could refresh themselves.

The next day, Jack and Twilight now back as well, Ruby brought the Torchwood members into their headquarters, her first project complete. "Jack, this will be like the invention of a pen to you, but Cazan and Wing, let me introduce you to a portable communications device."

The shape of the rubber along the earpieces now matched that of a pony, so well to the point that anyone looking would need a second glance to catch sight of it hidden away. The technology aspect of the earpieces were all fully repaired, thanks to some scrap Ruby used from worthless debris beyond repair. "Observe," Ruby said, levitating an ear piece on to her head.

She raised a front hoof and tapped the side of her ear. "Now the device is on. While it's on, without touching it or giving it away, we can talk to each other across short distances. Wing, this is the next step from the telephone ponies just invented in your time."

Ruby offered up an earpiece for each team member, and though using hooves required a bit more fidgeting, they all donned one within a few seconds. All three pressed against their ear, and Ruby motioned for them to scatter. Jack walked upstairs into one of the offices and shut the door, Cazan entered the medical bay, discovering the alien corpse arrived safely when he turned on the light, and Wing walked into storage.

"Now, all of you can hear me, and all of you can respond."

"Incredible," Cazan explained, the only one of the group who'd never experienced anything like this before. "What powers this device?"

"That took half a day to work out," Ruby said. "A mix of something called battery power, and magic. These can stay on for about six hours nonstop before I'll need to charge them again. They have a communication radius about the size of Manehattan."

"That would've made things much easier," Wing commented, coming back out from storage.

"The job got done, we all made it," Jack said. "No point in looking back now."

All regrouped in the center room, and Ruby spoke up. "Now I do plan to get in on the action when my wounds have healed, but any time we're not out on missions, I'll keep working on stuff. Of course, on the backburner of helpful items for missions will be a way home for Wing and I."

The other three nodded, though Jack and Wing took a moment longer than Cazan for their heads to make the motion in agreement. No one took notice, and Jack pushed the conversation forward.

"We've got the tech expert of the team right here," Jack said. "More than I even expected out of getting a member from as far in the future as you." The blue earth pony began pacing around the large letter receiver, looking into the sparkling smoke. "Cazan, I want you to look over that alien first, then go back to our prisoner's mysterious death. Wing, you and I better not make them do all the work, let's bring help wherever it's needed."

And so, the less intense side of Torchwood's work started as Cazan entered his medical room to try and investigate further into the Manehattan incident. Wing stayed in the main room to work with Ruby, and Jack joined Cazan in the medical bay, helping carefully unwrap the discreetly mailed alien corpse. After the final fight, Wing recovered the device he managed to yank away from the red killer, and with the last of the unwrapping done and the alien lying flat on an examination table, the device lay on his chest, mailed in the same package.

Outside the medical bay, Ruby and Wing worked together to haul out broken pieces of machinery that Ruby believed fit together. As they set to work, Wing conversed with the red unicorn, telling her more details of what he experienced in Manehattan.

With gloves over his claws, Cazan pulled off all of the alien's sewage-covered clothing, tossing it all into a bin. Jack donned a mask to help escape the smell, and took the bin away from the table so he could search the clothes.

After washing away the remaining sewage on the alien's body, Cazan reached for a sharp medical blade. The griffon paused for a moment, staring at the sterile tool, catching glimpses of his reflection in the metal. This was not only his first time cutting someone open that wasn't alive, but his first time examining a creature not from this world. He steadied his claw, then brought it down, slowly slicing vertically across the center of the alien's abdomen. A small amount of blood trickled out from places along the path of the blade, and once he reached the waist, Cazan moved to make other cuts in different directions, creating ways to open up the alien and search inside.

"I think I'll check the stomach first," Cazan mentioned. "See if there's any evidence of him using the blood he took for food."

Jack thought for a moment, fishing around inside jacket pockets with his hooves. He recalled something Wing told him after recovering from the fight, and spoke up. "Go ahead and check, but I don't think that's it. Wing said something about the alien just doing this for sport. He'd collected enough blood with the first two kills. As to what he needed the blood for, I have no idea."

Outside the medical room, work progressed on machinery that Ruby began to recognize. Once she started arranging the bigger fragments, she saw the workings of a large teleport device. She didn't know if the storage area contained all the pieces, but with a foundation to build off of, this would be a long term project well worth the time and effort, for she knew multiple applications that could come from the device. Short range teleportation could increase Torchwood's reaction time to more serious incidents, and for Ruby's ultimate goal, teleporting through space was half the puzzle of getting a working time jumper.

In Ruby's actual time, around two and a half thousand years from where she stayed now, time travel was primitive and expensive. Only minimal tests had been completed, and the laws and workings of time, such as how time fluctuates rather than moves in a straight line, and how certain fixed points in time must not be tampered with, were discovered. Whoever snuck aboard her ship had to have something made a few hundred years in her future. To be honest, though Ruby held extensive knowledge on various technologies, she had no idea how time travel worked. She only hoped that if she got close, or found something that could travel through time but was broken, Jack would be able to fill her gaps in knowledge.

Wing took a break from helping Ruby to check in on the others. He coughed when he first entered the room, memories of the sewers rising up through his nostrils. He offered to take out all the sewage besides what soaked through the clothes Jack was searching, and promised to return with some air freshener.

Time passed, and work progressed, each member of the team keeping themselves busy. Jack had searched nearly all of the clothing without finding anything, until he rigorously shook the alien's vest to make one last check on it. Something gold and glimmering fell from the jacket and onto the floor, bouncing and sending a pinging noise rang through the room. Jack spun towards the sound and saw some sort of coin, rolling across the floor for a moment, then losing balance and falling to rest flat underneath a counter.

Cazan paused his medical examination at the sound, and looked over. "What is that?"

"I don't know," the stallion replied. "Mind picking it up?"

Cazan set down his tools and walked over to the coin, picking it up with a claw and holding it for him and Jack to examine. The coin was a shiny gold, but didn't look like any currency they knew of. A symbol was imprinted on the coin. Four small circles interlocked in the center of the symbol, and those circles were inside of an equilateral triangle. Cazan flipped the coin, and the same symbol revealed itself.

"Alien currency?" Cazan suggested.

"Unlikely," Jack replied. "Coins are wasteful when you reach a certain level of technology. Might be something personal. Might be a clue."

"Not sure how we could determine its significance."

"Cameras exist at this point, right?"

"Yes."

"Give me the coin," Jack requested. The griffon dropped the coin onto Jack's awaiting hoof, and he bit down on the coin and walked out to the main room. Wing was still outside, and Ruby busied herself with the pieces of the teleportation machine. Jack set the coin down on the counter that jetted out from the letter interceptor.

"Ruby," he called out to grab her attention. "Find a camera and get a picture of this coin. Send it to Celestia and ask if she knows anything. If she doesn't, have her keep an eye out. Might be important."

"Got it," she said back, putting down her work. "Wait, do cameras-"

"Already asked, yes."

"Perfect." The unicorn headed out of headquarters and up the stairway. "Maybe Twilight has one," she said to herself as she left.

()

Galaxy O, Sector 3

46th Century

It had been nearly a year since she'd even looked at her formal dress uniform. It was only worn upon graduation of the officer academy, for special ceremonies and courts, or if you were getting in major trouble.

Honestly, she could care less how much trouble she was in. Her thoughts were stuck on somepony else, nothing else mattered. She looked at her uniform, laid across her bed, cleaned and perfectly ironed, her officer ranks glistening on the lapel. With a sigh, her horn lit up, and the uniform draped over her back. She slid her hooves through the sleeves, buttoned down the center, then walked to a mirror to make sure the uniform sat properly on her shoulders. She made last minute adjustments to her hair, and spent a long moment staring at her own reflection. When a knock came to her door, she shook herself back into reality, then turned to leave.

She was escorted down one of the many long and spacious hallways of the Equestrian Union space station. This station was massive, with permanent housing for multiple admirals, and enough housing and ship docks for several of the Union's biggest ships to park here at once. This station was a bustling hub of communication for the Equestrian Union, orbiting around the planet Sefta 6. She was taken through several more hallways before reaching an elevator, which took her and her escort to one of the highest levels on the station.

The space station, and the officers within it, all belonged to the Equestrian Union's Intergalactic Command. The EUIC was an all-encompassing regime. Anything that had to do with space, this organization was involved. Travel, trade, exploration, scientific discovery, and defense from hostile threats. There were positions for all sorts of ponies and friendly species who wanted to see the universe, through their School for Space Travel and Union Officer Academy.

Upon exiting the elevator, the two walked into a large room, with a high ceiling and many ponies walking this way and that, an endless list of things to do. At the other end of the room, two tall double doors towered above everything else, made of wood for the sake of tradition. These doors were their destination.

She took a deep breath before the doors opened, and stepped off the metal floor outside the room and onto grey carpet. Through the doors, she entered into a circular area surrounded by a raised wooden wall. Directly across from the door and behind this wall, five admirals of the Equestrian Union sat in a row, all looking down at her. In the center of the room, she saw a cushion to sit on, with a small table and microphone in front of it. Her escort veered off to the side, and she continued walking until she stood directly behind the pillow. She rose a salute with excellent precision.

"I report to the Equestrian Union's Intergalactic Command Court as ordered, Admiral," she said, addressing the admiral with the longest time in service.

"Commander Nicole Sky, first officer of the Equestrian Union ship Wanderer," the admiral replied, acknowledging her position. He was an earth pony, with a burgundy coat and grey mane and tail. His age was clear in his voice, yet it still commanded attention. "Be seated."

Nicole stepped forward and sat down on the cushion, adjusting the microphone in front of her to match her height. She looked around the room, seeing that other officers sat with pads and pens off to the side, and directly to her left, the rest of the Wanderer's crew sat, also in their dress uniforms.

"Commander, you know why we are here today, and from the preliminary reports you do not appear to have any responsibility for the problem we are dealing with," the admiral continued. "Yet this problem is serious, and must be discussed."

Another admiral, the only female present on the board, spoke up. "Two and a half weeks ago, your ship was scheduled for a routine stop at the planet Clairview, Galaxy O, Sector 5," she began. "Your ship never arrived at that planet, instead jumping to Cryon 2. At that point, your commanding officer, Captain Ruby, went missing in action."

"Please tell us of the events that happened that day," the burgundy stallion requested.

Nicole took another deep breath. "Everything on the computers looked correct before our jump," she started. She trembled slightly in her seat, her thoughts on all the horrible possibilities of what could have happened to Ruby by now. "After jumping, I determined that the ship had been hacked to take us to a different destination. The computers displayed that we'd arrived at Clairview, but I'd been there before, and I knew that wasn't the case when I looked out the window.

"I reset the system, and detected the hack. Captain Ruby asked me to scan for signs of life, and I found a pony in our second cargo bay."

The male admiral on the left end asked a question. "Do you know when this pony got on board your ship?"

"Records later showed that he had been on the ship for several hours before the jump, hiding," Nicole explained. "He also hacked our alarms that would have alerted to somepony new aboard the ship; they were shut down. Once I told Captain Ruby where he was, she took her laser pistol and went down to investigate."

"And what happened next?"

Nicole gulped. "They both disappeared."

A small murmur went through the room, and the burgundy admiral rose a hoof for silence. "Did you ping Ruby's communicator? Scan the planet for her bio signature? Nearby ships? Anything?" This is where this report confused the admiral the most. Sometimes ponies were lost, taken for ransom or as prisoners of war. But even if they became lost, there was a starting point. Some place to start looking.

"I checked everything," Nicole told the admiral. "No response from the communicator, no sign of her on the planet below, I even contacted the planet's local authorities and ordered a search. There were no ships anywhere near us. Klaefon are the only ones we know of with ship cloaking technology, but their territory is nowhere near any of our sectors in this galaxy, nor would they let a pony teleport on board one of their ships."

The board of admirals looked to each other for a few moments, whispering beneath the level the microphones would pick up. When they turned back, the burgundy admiral spoke again.

"Commander, every single member of our fleet is important to us, and we would search to the ends of the universe for the lowest ensign or private that just put their uniform on. But this is an even more serious matter. Captain Ruby is one of the best officers in this Galaxy, and will without a doubt make admiral before her retirement. We need to get her back, but we need something, anything, to work off of. How could somepony disappear without even a clue as to what technology they were using?"

Nicole didn't respond immediately, her nerves building. "Admiral, there is something," Nicole said. That small comment grabbed the attention of all in the room, and the Wanderer crew leaned forward as well. Nicole had told no one about this. "Something I found after the preliminary report was sent. I was going over the energy readouts over and over again, desperately trying to figure out what sort of device this pony used to get off the ship with our captain. And… I think I found something." All the admirals looked intently at her, in need of any clue they could get their hooves on. "If I'm right… I think they traveled through time."

Gasps rose from every corner of the room, particularly the admirals. "What you are describing is impossible," the female admiral stammered. "You can't just fit a time machine in some box. They're too large."

Nicole shook her head. "I would not even be presenting this to you all if I hadn't checked multiple times. Once I matched up the reading to a time travel signature, I was dumbfounded as well. But I am saying with the utmost certainty that it is the case."

A long break in the conversation came, the admirals talking with each other, trying to sort out the possibilities. Daniel, Luke, and Rufus looked at each other with fearful expressions. Finding Ruby when they had to search out a specific location was simple enough. Searching out a specific time? Was it even possible?

The admirals turned back to Nicole, who now had several tears running down her cheek, the reality of the situation hitting her again. "Commander, this is dire news indeed," the burgundy admiral started. "Thank you for your time. Unfortunately, that is all we can discuss for now. The five of us will require a more private conversation with you, but first we must go over some information. An escort will bring you to where you need to be tomorrow, and we will converse again. Just standard work uniform, be ready the same time you were this morning."

"Understood, Admiral."

Nicole stood, walked backwards off the pillow, and saluted again. As she walked out of the room, her tears did not continue. Another meeting meant that the admirals had a possibility. Some way of finding Ruby and bringing her home. But the need for privacy… Nicole knew there were things the Equestrian Union dealt with above her pay grade, and she wondered at what events, mysteries, or horrors she'd be introduced to the next day.