“Dropping to sublight now,” the stallion said, glancing down at the glowing console in front of him. He looked up and scratched his head with a hoof before jamming the crumpled captain’s hat back on top of his thinning blond mane. “Get me a read on this thing, Domino.”

The midnight-blue unicorn looked at his screen. “Huh. It has no FTL capability.”

The captain swiveled his chair toward Domino and raised his bushy eyebrows, replying in a sing-songy voice. “Well if they could jump to FTL, then we couldn’t get a salvage award, could we, Boots?”

Domino rolled his eyes and hid his white hooves under the console. “No,” he said, nodding at his screen. “They have nothing. I’d be able to pick up a dash drive, even if it was damaged or inoperable. This ship has to be pre-colonization.”

“Impossible!” A third stallion pushed Domino to the side and crowded over the console.

“Dammit, Luminov! There’s only room for two on the bridge, and Captain Long Shot is big enough on his own.” Domino squeezed around the steel-gray mountain of meat and tried to breathe. “Freakin’ biggest ponies always end up in space, I swear.”

Luminov ignored him. “No dash drive. No transponder. No gel-matrix armor.” He pointed out the window with a massive, shaggy hoof. “Look at wear on hull. No markings left, no dishes, no sharp edges. Is no dust out here, but ship looks sandblasted. Must be prehistoric. Literally.” He shook his head, keeping his eyes glued on the massive ship blocking out the stars. “Kid is right.”

Long Shot swatted Luminov with his hat until the stallion had retreated out of the cramped bridge, then jammed it back between his ears. “Do you realize what this means?”

“Yeah,” Domino said, scrunching his white muzzle in thought. “No owners of record. We could sell it outright.”

“No no no,” Long Shot said, tilting the hat farther back on his head. “If this ship was built pre-FTL, then there’s only one place it could have come from.”

“Oooooooh, no.” Domino shook his head. “You’re not going to start this homeworld crap again.”

“Imagine a planet, where the cities don’t need walls. Plants grow, just everywhere! Even food crops! Beds don’t need nets, and every pony’s house has windows that just… open! You can breathe outside without a filter. Can you imagine it?”

Domino sighed and rolled his eyes, swiveling his chair back and forth. “Yeah, it’s in all the foal’s storybooks. Besides, everypony knows that Falax is probably the original homeworld. It was ruined by a plague, or a mutagenic virus, or something. Maybe invasive species from other planets, before they realized how important it was to keep xenogenics away from pony ecosystems.”

Long Shot shook his head. “Can’t be. Falax just don’t feel right.”

Luminov nodded. Domino ran a hoof through his bangs and sputtered, “B-but, you can’t base that on a feeling. All the evidence points to—”

“Y’ever wonder why so many Earth ponies run ships?” Long Shot leaned forward until his muzzle nearly met his reflection before the stars. “The planets just feel wrong. The dirt, the plants, everything. The farm habs feel better. Actual living pony dirt under your hooves. In some of the bigger ones, where they grow trees and the dirt is real and deep, you can almost pretend you’re home. Almost.”

Domino slumped in his chair and crossed his hooves over his chest.

Long Shot traded glances with Luminov. “I don’t expect a unicorn to understand. Falax ain’t home. And neither is this tug.”

Domino sat up and returned his attention to the console, pressing a few buttons. “Aaaaaaand that’s why you named your ship Ain’t Home. I signed up with a crazy Lost-Earther crew.”

“Everypony deserves a home, kid.” Long Shot reached over and poked Domino’s horn. “Even a sparkly bastard like you. What else can you tell us about this ship with no name?”

“Well, there’s no distress signal. Probably never equipped with one, because they expected to be the only ones out here. There’s no life signs at all. No life support either, though it’s got full oh-two everywhere – no hull breaches. If life support is running, it must be at such low levels we can’t pick it up. Not enough to actually, you know, support life. Probably filled up the ship after everypony stopped using up oxygen.”

“Which would explain ‘no life signs,’” Luminov said from where he was leaning on the doorway. “I would rather not to go aboard flying graveyard, but we will have to.”

Domino squinted at the stallion. “Why? Can’t we just loop-and-drag? That’s what this scow was built for.”

“Ha! You are still wet behind ears. That behemoth is nearly thirty kilometers every side. No tug has sufficient cable to make dash field that large. See if you can find airlock.”

“Already did.” Domino pointed through the thick glass. “See, it’s a giant square, with what looks like engineering sections on the corners. I only see four airlocks, total. I don’t think it has a conventional bridge, so I’m guessing the information you’re looking for can probably be accessed from any of those tech sections. If I was building this ship, each of those corners would have their own power supply, too.”

Long Shot looked at Luminov. Luminov nodded, his coppery mane bouncing.

Domino looked back and forth between the two Earth ponies. “Sooooooo, how do we get paid if we can’t tow it? I mean, I know you guys want your home planet and whatever, but we need money. We’ve got enough fuel for one more stop, and only if it’s on the way back to civilization. And we’re” —he shrugged— “pretty much out of food. It’s half-rats for the next two months until we hit port. If we don’t get paid there, we won’t be able to break orbit from whatever planet we end up circling.”

Long Shot leaned against a control panel and smiled, his one silver tooth glinting in the blinking lights. “We go in, look around, and figure out what’s valuable. Anypony who owned any of this stuff is long dead, so no guilt, and the law’s on our side. We can stretch our rations long enough to fill our hold with enough stuff to sell. Then, we refuel, buy some more dash cable and come back. Even if we can’t get enough cable… A ship this size? Just making trips back and forth could be a career, if’n we can keep anyone from following us back. We can all make a decent living. Then retire early.”

Luminov pulled a tiny notebook and pencil from a pocket on his vest. “What kind of loot, exactly, are we looking for?”

“You figure anything in there qualifies as an antique? Besides, any of a dozen universities would pay through the nose for any history from before colonization. But first priority is finding any information on the location of Earth, so keep an eye out for star charts, logs, or astronomical data.” He pointed at Domino. “Meanwhile, let’s run a trajectory trace and see where this ship came from.”

Domino rolled his eyes but kept tapping away at his console. “Already started. We’ve got a couple hours of velocity data on it, but if its path went past a star or something, even a tiny uncertainty in our measurement could make a huge difference in the trajectory shift, which of course will introduce exponential error with every additional close approach, so the simulation will have to split into a new calculation based on the uncertainty bounds.” He wheezed and took a deep breath. “We also have no idea when the ship started, so the trace will have to go indefinitely. I’ll just leave it running in the background, since we’re not using nav at the moment.”

Luminov finished scribbling in his notebook, then folded it and put it back in his pocket. “Sounds good. What is our ETA?”

Long Shot pushed his hat back and leaned over his screen. “Fast approach, decel and maneuvering? We’re looking at about eight hours before we drop clamps.”

Luminov backed into the corridor. “Good. Let us prep our suits, then get some rest. Long day tomorrow.”

[scene break image]

Luminov held up a wand and kept his eyes glued to a screen he held in his other hoof. “Air is good,” his voice crackled over the radio. “You go first, kid.”

“If the air’s good,” Domino said as he unlocked the clips around the edge of his oversize helmet, “then why do you want me to go first?”

“Device tests for most common atmospheric problems on ship. Pressure, oxygen, cee-oh-two, flammable organics, nitrates, and most of common coolants. It could miss anything from deadly microbe to recent fart.”

Domino levitated the helmet off his head and took a few tentative sniffs. He smiled. “It kind of smells like flowers, actually.”

Both Earth ponies’ ears perked up in their helmets. Long Shot asked, “What kind of flowers?”

“I dunno.” Domino shrugged. “Flowers. Why? Why are you guys staring at me?”

Luminov stepped forward and grabbed Domino’s head, using his suited hoof to stretch one eyelid open and stared for a few moments. “No lachrymation.”

Domino took a step backward and batted away Luminov’s hoof. “No what now?”

“Some nerve gas smell like geraniums.” Luminov unlocked the rear latches on Long Shot’s helmet, then turned around and waited for his latches to be undone. “Others like fresh-cut grass. If you have ever been around either of those.”

“I’m vaguely aware that geranium is a flower,” Domino muttered. He latched his helmet onto his back and watched his companions do the same.

“Now,” Long Shot said, “we can’t assume we’re the first ship to stop by, and their xenohygiene may not’a been as good as ours. Let’s keep our eyes open.”

Luminov chuckled. “Do not want to get surprised by Durandi spiders again?”

Long Shot’s hoof wandered up to the holster on the chest of his suit. Domino looked down at his own holster and jiggled the pistol inside. “Didn’t our scan show no life signs?”

Luminov didn’t touch his gun. “Some critters hibernate. Or sleep. Or lay eggs.”

Long Shot harrumphed and pointed toward a placard on the wall directly outside the airlock. “Let’s see if we can’t figure out where to go.”

The placard was pristine. Sharp white letters spelled out ‘Airlock B’ across the black-enameled surface, just above a clearly-labeled map. Luminov sketched into his notebook while Long Shot dragged his hoof down a diagram of a hallway. “Past the crew quarters, there’s some offices what might be useful. Power distribution probly’s got a more comprehensive map. And this here arrow? Looks like it goes to the main living area for the passengers.”

Domino scuffed a boot on the metal grating that served as a floor, then let his eyes wander up the dull brown walls, covered in pipes and neatly arranged bundles of wire, with access panels bolted on at regular intervals. “I guess space decor doesn’t change much. It’s cleaner than I expected, though.”

Long Shot walked up to the massive steel door at the end of the short corridor. “I suppose they never used this section much. And if you can invent a ship what don’t need walls and pipes and wires, just feel free to let me know.” He slapped a hoof against a control panel next to the door. “‘Cuz I’m pretty sure most all ships look the same inside, a coat of paint notwithstandin—”

The door whooshed open, flooding the corridor with brilliant daylight. The smooth metal floor gave way to lumpy cobblestones, and the harsh echo from metal walls faded into the faint whispers of open sky.

Luminov held a hoof over his eyes and squinted. “It… It cannot be!”

“It’s not,” said Long Shot. “Give it a second.”

As their eyes adjusted to the light, they could see fluffy white clouds painted on the sky-blue roof, several stories above the surface. There was no single source of light. It was as if the paint itself was glowing.

Domino glanced up, then back at the ground. “Hey, that’s cool. If you don’t look right at it, it looks like the sky.”

“Look at this, though,” Long Shot said as he trotted forward and poked a white picket fence. At his touch, the curling paint flaked off, revealing gray wood beneath. He raised his eyes, taking in an entire building made of wood and stucco. The windows were all wide open, as was the front door. The entire street was lined with similar houses, most of them still standing, more or less upright. He looked over his shoulder at the others. “They used wood like it’s free. We could make a living doing nothing but coming back here to collect wood.”

Domino kicked at a fencepost experimentally, the hollow thunk echoing off the distant ceiling. “I don’t get it. Why hasn’t it rotted after all these hundreds of years?”

Luminov rubbed some paint off a wooden cart where it lay in the road. “Rot is microbial action. Fungal colonization requires twenty percent moisture content in wood to metabolize lignin.”

Long Shot threw a hoof over Domino’s shoulder and pointed upward. “Look at the pitch of that roof. It’s designed to let the rain run off. This ship had weather. And I’m guessing it hasn’t rained since the last pegasus died.”

“Speaking of,” Luminov called from inside a house, “come see this.”

They made their way across a lawn of crunchy brown grass and squeezed past a door with hinges rusted in place. The ancient carpet had been crushed to powder where Luminov had trod, his hoofprints leading past a wooden coffee table with a crazed finish, and the wooden skeleton of what had once been a couch.

Luminov stood in front of a bed frame, where the corpse of a stallion rested on a bed of dust and curly fragments of rusted steel wire. His coat was still a cheery shade of green, though his mane was streaked with gray. The drying skin had stretched away from his teeth and eye sockets, giving him a wide-eyed grin, as if the three ponies in space suits had decided to throw him a surprise party for a funeral.

“This is good omen,” Luminov said quietly.

Domino gulped. “Y-you find a dead guy, and it’s a good thing?”

Long Shot picked up a framed photograph from a bedside table, and studied it as he spoke. “Look at his hooves. They’re folded over his chest. Somepony who loved him left him here. It wasn’t a violent end.”

“I mean, I’m all for—” Domino glanced up at his captain, then back down to the deceased “—going out peacefully in your sleep, but if they’re all dead, what does it matter?”

Luminov stood up straighter. “A violent end is not.”

Domino cocked his head toward Luminov. “Is not what?”

“A violent end is not an end. Their souls would seek vengeance.”

Long Shot set down the photograph. “Dove wasn’t always a peaceful planet. Guy kills your brother, it’s up to you to bring justice for your family. Only, when you do, it’s that guy’s brother who goes looking for justice.”

“Uh, no offense to your planet or anything, Luminov, but why not just have the police arrest the guy?”

Luminov turned to leave the room. “There is no police on planet with only few thousand settlers. After population grows, hundreds of years of tradition is difficult to change. Takes a war.”

Domino followed him into the living room, kicking up a tiny cloud of pulverized carpet with each step. “So, you guys had a war that was so bad you became pacifists? Then how come everypony I’ve seen from Dove carries a gun?”

“Is not so simple. Read a book.”

“But—”

“Hey guys.” Long Shot was squinting at a series of faded, nearly-white photographs lined up on top of a mantel. “This isn’t that stallion’s house.”

Domino and Luminov looked at each other, then turned toward Long Shot. He looked back at them. “He’s not in any of the pictures.”

Domino rolled his eyes. “So? Maybe those are pictures of his kids and their families.”

Luminov shrugged. “He died too far from own home. Was impractical to carry him so far, and this house was empty.”

“I suppose you guys are right.” Long Shot poked one framed photograph, rotating it a few degrees so the others could see. “Beautiful family, though.” He sighed. “Maybe I’m just paranoid.”

Domino shuddered. “It is a creepy place. Makes you wanna look for anything out of the ordinary.”

“This entire place is out of the ordinary,” Long Shot said as he trotted toward the front door and stepped outside. “An entire ship what looks like something out of kid’s book?”

“Or a Lost-Earther’s fantasy?”

Long Shot smirked at Domino. “Let’s head toward the end of the street. It looks like there’s a bigger structure up there.”

They proceeded in silence, the rubber hoofpads of their suits muffling the fall of their steps. There were no other sounds. No insects, no unseen rodents scrabbling about, not even the rumble of a ventilation system. They stopped at several of the houses, peering through windows to occasionally find stallions and mares peacefully laid to rest on their beds or reclining in disintegrated chairs. The three of them didn’t speak a word, saying with melancholy glances all that needed to be said.

Hanging lanterns and colored lights decorated the sweeping archway leading into the large structure, lifting the somber mood as they approached. Giant letters above the entrance read “Buck Plaza.” Luminov pointed at a seam within the archway as they passed through. “Look. Hidden doors here. Airtight. This is emergency shelter.”

Domino spun in a slow circle. There were shops and stalls along both sides of the wide corridor, with light fixtures still illuminating faded signs that were tacked above counters or just hoof-painted on the walls. A second level above them was packed with even more shops, connected by walkways over their heads. “Hey, Luminov. What was the symbol on the map for this place?”

“Muffin and shopping bag.”

“Makes sense.” Domino pointed at various counters and stalls. “That looks like a coffee shop. I’m guessing this one is fresh produce. A bakery. That one’s still full of toys. It looks like you could make one pass with a broom and open this place for business inside an hour.”

Long Shot trotted past a stand with angled wooden shelves. Little hoof-drawn pictures of vegetables had been scrawled onto the front of each section. Eggplants, squashes, carrots, apples. He ran his hoof across the wooden planks. Except for a layer of dust, all of the shelves were clean. “They had to have farms on board, but it looks like there wasn’t anything left at the end. I wonder if something went wrong with their food production?”

“I dunno,” Domino replied. “That grass got pretty shaggy before it died. I know I’d sure be eating some fresh green grass before I let myself starve.”

Luminov chuckled and tapped on a metal sign riveted to the wall near one of the stalls. The edges were rusty and the enamel paint was bubbling from corrosion where it hadn’t already flaked off, but in the middle was a picture of a tan stallion with a short-cropped brown mane and a big smile. The sign said, “No more wait! Let Sparky take your order!”

Luminov put his gigantic front hooves on the counter and leaned over into the employee area, looking left and right. “Hey, Sparky! I want cup of coffee, black.” He turned to the others with a grin. “Do you guys want anything? It is on me.”

Domino chuckled. “I’ll have a cappucino, if you can find any fresh milk. How ‘bout you, Captain?”

Long Shot watched Luminov climb over the counter and start digging around. “Bah. I don’t want no ancient-ass coffee.”

Luminov pulled his head out of a cupboard with a lumpy foil packet in his teeth. He spat it on the counter and said, “Vacuum sealed! Good forever, yes?” He picked up a glass pot, only for the plastic handle to turn to dust and send the carafe crashing to the floor. He tucked the packet of ground coffee beans into his suit’s breast pocket along with his notebook. “Maybe later.”

Long Shot poked Luminov in the chest. “Just don’t complain if that pouch breaks open and ruins your precious paper notebook.”

“Hey guys,” Domino said, staring at a bulletin board. “What do you know about alicorns?”

“Huh?” Long Shot trotted up next to him and squinted at the board. He pulled a set of glasses out of his pocket and perched them on his muzzle.

The largest poster on the bulletin board was the only one intact enough to read. It had probably been laminated at one point, but now was nothing more than wrinkly yellowed paper covered in a thin layer of dust. Rust spots on the corners showed where tacks had once held it in place. The writing was gone, and all that was left was a ghostly blue image of an alicorn with her wings extended.

“Well,” Long Shot said as he stepped back and folded his glasses. “It looks like it might be promoting an event of some kind. Maybe a concert, or a speech. Room for a title on top, and a description or something on the bottom.”

“Yeah, but… Do you think they believed in alicorns?”

“Almost certainly not,” Long Shot said as Luminov trotted up next to him. “If the ponies on Earth knew enough to build a spacecraft, and knew enough to aim it at, presumably, another planet, then they certainly knew enough about astronomy to know that the rising and setting of a sun and moon is due to the rotation of a planet. It would be kind of silly to believe in alicorns once the reason for their existence is negated.”

“You’re probably right,” Domino said as he continued to stare at the poster. “It’s too bad, though. She’s kinda cute.”

Luminov raised his eyebrows and nodded. “True. Is probably artistic theme. Unity rally, or such. Alicorn represents all three tribes at once.”

Long Shot poked Domino in the ribs. “You’re not going to say anything about me just assuming this ship is from the homeworld?”

Domino sighed. “I follow the evidence. And the evidence is going your way at the moment.”

Luminov held up his notebook and compared it to the corridor ahead before tucking it back into his pocket. “And I follow map. Offices are this way.”

As they passed more shops and kiosks, Domino looked up at the blue-painted sky visible through the mall’s glass roof. “It’s starting to get easy to forget we’re on a ship. And this giant floating graveyard isn’t as creepy as I thought it would be, ever since we saw those ponies resting peacefully in their own homes, you know?”

“Just don’t get too relaxed, kid,” said Long Shot. “We still don’t know why they all died. For all we know, it could have been a plague, and we’re all infected now. Or maybe there’s space bugs, waiting for us to drop our guard.”

“Or maybe,” said Luminov as he stood in front of a chalk signboard advertising the daily specials of the Café du Vide, “they were all murdered by serial killer who posed the bodies at his own whim.”

Domino shuddered. “Why would you even say tha—”

“Awww shhhhhyeit.” Long Shot stepped up to the seating area and worked his jaw back and forth like he was chewing on a rock.

Over a dozen ponies were seated in the café, some with coffee cups or the dessicated remains of a sandwich resting on a plate in front of them, others with menus propped up in their still-colorful hooves. All of them were thin, with ribs and hips clearly visible through the tightly-stretched skin, and each of them with the wide-eyed grin they had seen on the first stallion.

Domino squeaked, then cleared his throat and whispered, “D-do you think… They died this way?”

Luminov stepped closer to inspect one of the corpses. “Do you think they all fell on metal rods to hold up their bodies?” He looked back at Domino with one eyebrow raised, then turned his attention back to the mare who was seated in front of the rickety table. “There are wounds on body, but are sewn up. Stainless rods and wires. Built to last.”

“You don’t,” Domino said with a look over his shoulder, “d-don’t think the killer is still here, do you?”

Long Shot laughed. It was a dry, shallow laugh. “Those bodies been dead for longer than a lifetime. Even if he was the last one alive, the killer would have died of old age long, long ago. Besides, the scan showed no life signs.”

“Still, is not good omen.” Luminov backed away from the table and bowed his head slightly before turning to face the others. “Let us get to offices and conduct our business. If we return to this ship again, perhaps we can lay them to rest as we find them. Will be good for their spirits, and for ours.”

Long Shot started trotting again. “That’s something we can discuss if we decide to come back. Let’s go.”

They trotted a few more moments in silence, their ears pricking at every noise, real or imagined. Echoes of their own hoofsteps came back to them in multiples, from every direction.

The corridor widened as they neared an intersection. A defunct fountain stood empty, its bottom lined with crusty coins. On opposite corners stood a cinnamon roll stand and a confectionery, each with a few tables in front. But in the center of the intersection stood the structure that captured the attention of all three stallions.

A concrete planter, full of living, blooming roses.

Long Shot licked his lips. “H-how are these still alive? All the grass is dead.”

“Probably,” said Luminov, “this is watered automatically. Fountain has plumbing. This too, maybe?”

Domino took a tiny step forward and sniffed the air. “I’m not a flowerologist or anything—”

“Botanist,” Luminov corrected.

“I’m not a botanist, but how long do roses live?”

Long Shot spoke quietly. “I grew up in a farm hab. They claim to have an apple tree almost three hundred years old. Maples don’t live to a hundred. There’s rumors that some kinds of cedar never die. But I don’t know nothin’ about roses.”

Domino reached out toward the thorny bush with one hoof, and gingerly poked a blossom. “Is it possible that this thing has just been growing wild, ever since… you know?”

Long Shot glanced at Luminov. “Should our sensors have picked up life signs from this bush?”

“I honestly do not know. Could be is just very big ship to scan. Could be sensors only look for ponies on ship. Or pony size creatures. I do not know about” —he waved a hoof at the tangle of green— “this.”

“It looks like,” Domino said, stepping closer to the planter and poking a branch with his hoof, “this has been trimmed. It… It’s weeping. This is a fresh cut!”

All three stallions turned around, their muscles coiled to gallop back to the airlock, when they were instantly frozen by the sight of a purple alicorn standing directly in front of them. The garden shears in the crook of her hoof glinted in the artificial sunlight as she took a step toward them with a blank expression on her face.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2: Retrograde Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes