//------------------------------// // The Ship, the Crew, the Critical Mass // Story: The Red Thing in the Sky // by TitanicIsBestShip //------------------------------// Chapter Three: The Ship, The Crew, The Critical Mass Barzano walked back into his observatory. He still had to wait a day or two for the Highlander to arrive at Canterlot’s sky harbor. Celestia had reserved the airship for his use, but he still needed to acquire a crew and a method of stopping the Red Wave. “Argh,” he muttered, “I need a crew of four. Seems like an easily small number, but I don’t know anypony I- oh wait. Yes I do.” Barzano took out a piece of paper and wrote a few names down. He hopped in his small skyrider and headed out for the Frontier. Barzano landed his skyrider directly outside of the Frontier Service’s Outpost 14. He trotted up to the door, opened it, and saw the chaos that was “time off.” Frontier ponies were all over the place, playing cards, engaging in loud conversation, sharpening blades, some even drinking. He suddenly heard a familiar voice speak up. “Hey! We have a guest! Everypony shut up!” a white pegasus said in a commanding tone. “Barzano?” “Hey Cloudbolt. Nice to see you. You get reassigned?” “Oh yeah! They made me outpost spotter after I saved you guys. Hang on, I think somepony else would like to know you’re here,” Cloudbolt said with a smile as he walked out the back door. Barzano opened his mouth to say something, but then stopped and chuckled. “Barzano!” A tan pegasus mare with a creamy yellow and green mane bounded across the room, landing in front of Barzano and wrapping him in a warm embrace. “Nice to see you too, Flarania!” He laughed and returned the hug. “Mmmhmm! Hey, not that I don’t want to see you, but why the random visit?” Flarania asked. “Yeah Barzano, why are you here?” Cloudbolt questioned. Barzano spent the next half an hour explaining the situation to them, further stating that he needed a four-pony crew. “Of course we’d be willing to help!” Flarania said. “It’s for the good of Equestria right? Ya’ know, ‘Save the World’ kinda thing? Yeah, I’m in,” Cloudbolt confirmed. “Alright, great! We need to hurry though, I have to more ponies to ask, and you two need to look at the ship design,” Barzano said. The trio boarded the skyrider. Barzano took the helm and steered them towards Baltimare. “I can’t wait to see your new ship Bar!” Flarania said excitedly. “I actually don’t have a new one yet,” Barzano said, “We’re using the Highlander, courtesy of Princess Celestia.” “Wow, this must be serious,” Cloudbolt said. “Oh yeah, ya’ know, ‘End of the World’ kinda thing?” Barzano told him. They arrived in Baltimare, fuel tanks completely dry. “Who exactly are we picking up?” Flarania asked. “A pony I met here a few days ago, and then we have to head for Canterlot,” Barzano said. “And to be honest, I have no idea where he is.” “Oh, wonderful,” Cloudbolt said, rolling his eyes. The trio searched for quite some time before finally finding a site under construction. Barzano told the two of them to wait as he walked over to a few ponies working on a small pipe. “Michael?” “Oh hey, what can I do for you?” “You remember that fuel I talked to you about? We’re ganna need it,” Barzano said. Michael pulled a pad of paper and a pen from one of his jacket pockets. “Alright, give me the specifics” “Right, I need refined petroleum, approximately a thousand gallons of it” “You realize how much that’s going to be, right? What kind of ship are you using it for?” “Princess Celestia herself has sent me on a mission, and to aid me in my task, she granted me use of the Highlander, a type V steamer. Her burners run off petroleum, not coal,” Barzano explained. “Which reminds me, I need two more ponies to help me crew the airship. You wanna take a crack at saving the world? We could use an engineer.” “Um...I inspect oil pipelines. I don’t build them…” Flarania piped up, “Well, the last ship crashed because of a fuel leak. You could probably see the signs of stuff like that before any of us could.” “Right, and I’ve worked with airships for years, I could fix the problem, well, probably, but it’d be nice to have somepony walking around the ship, making sure everything was working,” Barzano said. “Uh..I dunno. You mentioned something about saving the world. How would we be saving the world?” Michael questioned. “Do you know what atom desynchronization is?” Barzano asked him. “It’s, like, when the harmonics of matter change, and it sorta disappears,” Michael responded. “Yeah, and do you know what a Cascade Wall is?” “Yes…..are you serious about this?” Cloudbolt joined in the conversation, “Yes, we’re completely serious, and if we don’t stop this, Equestria will be destroyed.” “Alright, if it’s for the good of Equestria, I’ll do it,” Michael said. “Great! No time to lose though, we need to get the skyrider fueled and in the air,” Barzano said the the group. A lot had changed in Canterlot overnight. Civilian ponies were all indoors, and the streets were filled with Royal Guards, Frontier Service ponies, sailors, skysailors, and scientists. Once the group had landed, it took them some time to reach the Grand Castle, and even more time to get through the gates. Princess Celestia was in a meeting at the time of their arrival, so the group decided they’d wait outside her room. They didn’t have to wait long, however, as after seven minutes of waiting, Celestia came walking down the hallway. “Hello Barzano, how are the preparations coming along?” she asked, forcing a smile. “Eh, they could be better. I still need a 4th crew pony and I still need the device built,” Barzano responded, “But the fuel’s on its way.” “Device?” Barzano chuckled. “The Elements of Harmony aren’t the solution to everything Princess, I need a certain device built.” “Alright, don’t worry, you still have some time, but tell me what you need,” Celestia told him as she motioned for a nearby assistant to record Barzano’s rambling. “Ok, for the ship, I need a steamstack turbine power system installed. After that, I need a radio telescope built and wired to the turbines. Now the device I’m going to use is going to be a lot harder to create. I need a small chamber built, four inches by ten inches. I’m going to need some composite U235, with a critical mass of 3.4 tons, float-stacked at the bottom, with a small ferrous iron bar running from the U235 to the top of the chamber. This bar needs to have a rail slit in it, and it needs to be magnetized. Now, I need a neutron, a single neutron, placed at the top of the rail slit in such a way that when the magnets engage, the neutron is fired into the U235. Did you get all that?” Barzano asked. “Barzano….” Celestia stared at him, actually shocked for the first time, “You know what you’ve just explained to me is a weapon of mass destruction, right?” “‘Course I know that, what do you think is going to power my resonator? Speaking of which, I need an aluminum box with four geocentric holes, and titanium five inch coils coming out of them. The device needs to be powered, and a very high voltage electrical current needs to run through copper rods inside the coils. The titanium coils must be set on motors, and rotated, thus creating, a Polarized Energy Transfer Device,” Barzano said. “I honestly, have no idea how you plan to reset the harmonics of lost particles with that, but I hope it works,” Celestia said encouragingly. Her assistant was sweating as he tried to write everything down. “It’ll work, it’s what was used to desync the atoms in the first place. Anyways, set a timer system on the device for three minutes after activation,” Barzano said. “Right, well, I need to go calm some ponies down, the Highlander is ready for you, you can start loading supplies and fuel as soon as you have them,” Celestia quickly walked off the way she had come in. The group of four made their way to the Highlander, and each of the ponies hopped on the ship.