---

Sharon quickly decides that it’s easier in here to remember the times she had spent with others than to speak with the thing wearing Twilight Sparkle’s face. There’s no positive discourse to be had there, nothing but the snide voice and the sneering tone.

She remembers a time before, when she had been free, sitting on the deck of the HLS Purity before EAS got the Columbia. This was before she and Captain Romero had the same friendship they enjoyed subsequently of course…

“Friendship? Is that what you call what you and he were?”

Sharon ignores ‘Twilight Sparkle’. It’s increasingly clear that, wherever they are, Sparkle can read her mind, or hear her thoughts, or however one wants to put it.

You remember the conversation. It was a difficult one, the way a lot of deep talks with Daniel Romero are. Not the first time, not the last. He was sitting on a recliner, sipping a glass of what might have been whiskey. You remember him being infuriating but you don’t recall why. You remember finding him fascinating, but you’re not sure what triggered it. You recall bits and pieces, but not everything.

“Who and what you were is a memory, destined to fade,” Sparkle gloats. “Surrender to it.”

But you ignore her. Because you know you are not a fading memory. You are not. You are alive.

“Of course you are,” Twilight Sparkle says. “But for how long?”

---

You are Captain Romero, standing in front of your crew. There’s maybe a tenth of your 3,000-being crew here, but what you’re about to say will be broadcast throughout the ship.

It’s important, after all.

“I’m aware that there have been rumours floating around the ship,” you say. “Rumours about Sharon Meyer, about what happened to her and what’s still going on with her.”

You sigh, and for a last fleeting moment you wonder if you’re doing the right thing. Renner didn’t want you to say this to your crew. It was another of the arguments that you’d had - in some ways the worst yet.

“This,” she had told you, “is the biggest news in the war against the Empire ever, and you want to tell the whole damn crew?!”

“Not everything,” you’d reassured her. “The key points. Sharon is anomalous. Docile. Not a threat, but a key piece in the chess game. This might be the gambit that wins us everything.”

“Dammit, Dan,” she had said then, resigned, tired. It’s the same refrain you’ve heard a million times. ‘Dammit, Dan, this is impossible, this is insane, this isn’t right, this isn’t the best way forward’. You respect what she says.

That doesn’t mean you won’t do what you were going to do anyway.

You are silent on a pedestal, the crew waiting on you to speak. Always waiting for you to speak. That’s why you’re the Captain.

“What you’re about to be told is as much as I can declassify,” you say after a moment more to think about it. “Sharon was converted during one of our experiments with the Geas.”

There are murmurs now, confusion. Fear. It is as you expected.

“The exact circumstances of that experiment are classified and all speculation on the topic is banned for the safety of the crew,” you say in a tone you hope brooks no argument. Eyes turn from him to each other. You take a breath. “That being said, I am instigating more stringent safety measures about which Newfoal variants are permitted aboard this ship.”

A brief murmur of approval. Good.

“Some of you are wondering what has been done with Sharon,” you continue. “She has been kept alive for the moment, and we are working with her to learn everything we can.”

Murmurs again. Now disapproval. They’re afraid. They’re wondering - why Sharon? Why not let her go? You might sympathise, but you know why, and they have to as well.

“What is important is that Sharon is not a normal Newfoal,” you say. There is silence - this is new. They are surprised. You take a deep breath. “She has presented symptoms of anomalous behaviours, which warrant further study on our part.”

Anomalous? That word brings with it connotations. Everyone here knows the name Imperial Creed, the rumours of Shieldwall, the horrors of Freeport, the experiments that the Solar Empire has created. They’ve all seen a Newcalf, a Spitter. A handful - your eyes fall on Lucky Strike and her team - have even seen things like the brainfoals, the megacorns and worse.

“Furthermore…” you continue, before pausing for a moment.

This is the part where you’re not sure whether you should say what’s happening. Renner didn’t think you should: she thinks what you’re going to say is too sensitive.

But it’s the truth. And this is a situation where your crew deserve the whole truth.

“Furthermore,” you say again, “I can confirm that Sharon has relapsed into her human personality at least once.”

Now there is a sudden outburst.

“Impossible!” someone yells.

“No way!” another voice cries out.

“Is she cured?!” someone almost sobs.

“This is obviously big news,” you say to them, holding up both hands to calm them all down. They quiet down slowly, though there is still murmuring going on. “Huge news, in fact. We will investigate what this means, not just for Sharon herself, but for other Newfoals. All of them, if we can.” You take a deep breath. “But I assure you, if there is something we can learn from this, we will. We won’t rest until we discover how, why, and if this can act as a means to cure others.”

A few cheers and yells of approval from the assembled crew.

Good, they’re on side, you think. You smile. Your crew understand - how could they not? They’ve followed you this far. They serve with you on this ship. They’re your crew.

“The Solar Empire has taken a lot from us. From all of us.” You take a breath, and then you smile. Vicious. Victorious. From the stars, you will find victory. “It’s high time we took something back.” A cheer. “It’s high time we did something no one has ever done. We will use this… learn from this. And I swear to you - this ship, this crew, will one day use what we learn to strike a blow at our enemy. We will help to win this war!”

Another cheer, the whole audience. Hats are thrown. People clap, jump, scream. Throughout the ship the cheers and applause are echoed, reverberating throughout this marvel of human and pony ingenuity.

We will win the war, you think again. And Sharon might just be the answer.

---

Two days later, you’re standing in an observation room, watching Sunbeam interacting with Daisy - Daisy is a standard Newfoal you captured months ago, previously held in a secure location before being moved to the Columbia.

The two’s demeanours couldn’t be more different. Daisy is tense, agitated, angry. Sunbeam is smiling, serene. Docile.

So different, but they’re the same thing, you think.

The two of them are in a secure room - padded, with no way of making a makeshift weapon out of anything. There is no way they can escape - the one entrance is a double-locked door, sealed with deadbolts and electronic locks alike, and

“We’re hoping this will reveal something about Sunbeam’s psychology,” Well Met says from next to you. “Hopefully, Captain, we’ll learn how anomalous she truly is.”

“Hopefully,” you repeat.

“What’s your name?” Sunbeam asks Daisy after a moment.

“Daisy,” Daisy tells her. “What’s yours?”

“Sunbeam.” She pauses, tilting her head. “What are you doing here?”

“I was captured,” Daisy hisses. There’s something livid in her eyes, a fury that seems completely absent in Sunbeam. “What about you?”

“I… I think I’ve always been here,” Sunbeam replies, smiling brightly.

“You mean you were one of the crew?”

“One of the crew?” Sunbeam repeats, frowning now in something that might be confusion. “I’m… one of the crew?”

“She doesn’t know what she was,” Well Met mutters, scribbling in his notebook. “Interesting.”

“Is that relevant?” you ask him.

“Everything is relevant, Captain,” Well Met tells you, looking up with a smile. “That she can't remember anything of her previous life? That might be another side effect of her circumstances.”

“How do you like this ship?” Sunbeam asks after a short silence.

“It’s full of humans,” Daisy replies, still angry. She looks around, less like a peaceful pony, you think, and more like a crack addict searching for a fix. “We should ponify them.”

“Really? I mean, probably, but…” Sunbeam is hesitant. “You know, I don’t think they want to.”

“Does it matter what they want?!” Daisy hisses. “They’re humans!”

“They’ve been very nice to me,” Sunbeam says. “They’re not that bad.” She pauses. “They’re not bad at all.”

“They’re humans!” Daisy repeats. “They’re the enemy!”

Sunbeam is frowning. There is something odd in her expression.

“They’re not,” she finally says.

There is a pause.

“What,” Daisy says flatly.

“I said they’re not,” Sunbeam says again. “Not my enemy. At all.”

There is a momentary pause. You look at Well Met, whose eyes are wide with shock.

“That’s not good,” he says. “We need to get security in there no-”

Daisy screeches something unintelligible and leaps at Sunbeam, her hooves going around the other mare’s throat.

“Get security in there!” Well Met yells into the intercom, but you move faster.

You’re through the observation room door and outside the cell door in six seconds. It takes ten agonising seconds for the palm-scanner to unlock the electronic lock, and the three deadbolts take another five seconds.

The door opens, and you run into the room. It takes a further three seconds to grab Daisy and throw her bodily from Sunbeam. By the time you’ve done so, two security guards burst in with tranq guns - Daisy goes down with two darts in her chest.

Sunbeam is shaken and hyperventilating. You kneel down next to her.

“I don’t know what I said,” she says. “S-she shouldn’t have… I didn’t…”

“You’re alright,” you say to her.

She smiles brightly, the empty platitude seemingly exactly what she needed to hear.

“Well Met!” you yell. He enters, eyes wide in horror. “Get her looked at.”

“Aye, Captain,” he replies. “Right away.”

You look back at Sunbeam. “You’re going to be fine, Sunbeam. I promise you that.”

“Thank you,” she says sincerely, smiling up at you. “Thank you so much.”

And like a brick hitting you you’re reminded of what she is. Of who she was. You stand, feeling the blood leave your face.

“Carry on, Dr Met,” you say quietly, as you leave the room.

---

It’s much later, drinking alone in your office, that you manage to work out the things you learned.

Sunbeam doesn’t automatically consider humanity the enemy. She might follow Celestia - in the same way a Christian follows God - but she doesn’t act like a fanatic.

It’s like the difference between a lunatic fundamentalist and a regular old church goer, you think, but it’s a difference that shouldn’t exist. Outside of Slow Newfoals, there were never reasonable Newfoals. The weaponised ‘fast’ potion (which very quickly became the only potion) removed the original personality very quickly.

This is… unprecedented, you think.

The facts are leading up to one conclusion. It’s not a conclusion many of your colleagues would agree with - indeed, not a conclusion that all of your crew will be happy with - but it’s the only one you’ve got.

Alright, you think. It’s time to bring in the PHL’s R&D.

---

“WHAT?!”

“Captain, I must protest -”

“YOU ARE FUCKING KIDDING ME, DAN!”

“- the PHL and UNAC are at best uneasy around us, and at worse actively hostile -”

“You want to let them aboard Columbia?! You seriously want to have them aboard our ship?! God knows what they could do!”

“- depending on who they send we could be opening ourselves up to a serious security breach -”

“And that rat-bastard Gardner would have a field day!”

It’s interesting, you muse, to be sitting here as Victoria Renner screams in your face and Lucky Strike calmly states a dozen reasons why your idea is a bad one. It’s like watching television but you’re in it: surreal, to the point of comedy.

“Look,” you finally say, holding up a hand to forestall further complaints from either of them. “I get it. Us and the PHL don’t exactly get on -”

“Unless you mean get on like oil and water,” Renner cuts you off. “Sir, there is nothing we need from them about this, and they won’t be able to -”

“We don’t know that,” you cut her off. “You don’t know that they’ve never seen this. And you don’t know whether they’ll have insight.”

“You think they will?” Strike asks.

“I think it’s worth the attempt,” you reply. You lean forward. “Don’t worry about men like Gardner. UNAC and the PHL might be getting increasingly tight in their organisation -”

“Understatement,” Renner says flatly. “There are units of UNAC troops that are easily more than fifty percent PHL attaches now. Their Agents and Operatives are all over the country.”

“And they’re on our side,” you remind her gently.

“There have been at least a dozen cases of PHL and UNAC killing troops on our side that’d disagree with that assessment, sir,” Lucky Strike says flatly.

“But as an organisation, they’re on our side,” you reiterate. “Whatever the deal with individuals in their organisation is, we’re in this together. And like it or not, they’ve got the experts. We need that expertise.”

Neither of them like it, you can tell. But this isn’t a conference, but a briefing.

“Strike, prepare us for some guests,” you say after a moment. “Renner, get us docked at one of our secure points near Boston.”

“Near Boston.” Renner closes her eyes. “Fine. Aye sir. Whatever.”

She stalks out, her leg clumping against the floor.

“Are you sure about this, Captain?” Lucky Strike asks.

You smile. “Completely.”

It’s amazing how easy it is to lie.

---

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