"What do you mean we're not back on patrol duty?!" Skipper asked in a fit.
We had returned to the ESS with the expectations of being able to go back to our old job: patrolling the trade routes. That didn't happen at all, at least, not according to the tan stallion in front of us.
Aster put his hooves up in defense, "Hey it wasn't me that changed your orders! I just give them to you..."
I smirked while Navi yelled at him, "bullSHIT! You have control of this station, the only person you'd take orders from are those from Celestia or the Administrator of the CSA!"
There was silence that followed, proving that Aster was telling the truth. At that, I dropped my flank onto the ground, speechless.
This has never happened before, where Aster's orders were told to be changed, and not just any orders, but an assignment.
Skipper said with a concealed tone of concern, "So what is the new assignment....?"
Aster was about say something, but we then heard a whining noise as the 10 generators on the station grinded to a halt, ceasing not only the gravitational functions of the stations, but the electricity as well. We were in such pitch black, we may as well had our eyes closed, there was no difference.
Aster sighed in frustration, "This had been going on for the last couple of days or so. It needs to stop."
As if on cue, everything went back to normal, and I grinned as I heard a thump and a groan from a mare who seemed to have a bad time with gravitational fluxes. As I turned around to see that it was Navi (confirming my suspicions), Skipper asked with panic on the rise in her voice.
"So why haven't you contacted the colony? Surely, this couldn't be unnoticed by Celestia herself?"
Aster silently retreated back to his desk, once he sat back into the chair, he replied both sternly and quietly, "Do you really think that we wouldn't have already contacted them?"
"How long ago did you?"
"Approximately 12 hours ago."
My jaw unhinged. 12 hours is a long time, they should've been able to get a message out, even if the primary com system was down.
Silence hung over us for a few seconds, each one feeling like an eternity as each of us absorbed the fact that the Celestial Space Colony might be in a very serious situation.
Skipper broke the silence with a clearing of her throat, "So we've been assigned to go out and investigate?"
Aster smiled weakly, "You took the words right out of my mouth."
A collective sigh grew within the crew, at least we were heading back out once more.
Surprisingly, Star Twirl was the one who asked first, "When do we go?"
Aster just smiled, "Whenever you're ready."
That was the first time in a while I had smiled from one side of the face to the other.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fear is something that you create, I thought to myself. Isn't it?
I opened my eyes, to see that I was staring at a ceiling I hadn't fallen asleep under. My hearing was gone, and I had virtually no control over my body. When it had finally moved, my body, it changed its position from lying on it's back to standing on all 4 hooves. The view before me with my apparent eyesight, was nothing short of both awe and horror.
I was in a white colored cabin of a shuttle, with the side to my left torn out like a meteor had hit it, which is most likely what happened, I watched as ponies flew out through there, and watched as they each exploded into millions of pieces of boiled blood, frozen flesh, and other matters indescribable.
Before me stood one pure blue mare and one pure black stallion.
No, I thought to myself as the two smiled at me, both wit pure terror in their eyes.
"No!" This time it was audible, but I still had no control over my body.
I felt the tug if the vacuum of merciless space, and I knew it was only a matter of time before "it" happened. But for the first time in this cruel event, I could finally move my body.
I slowly crept up to my parents as they struggled to stay in the ship with the same terrorized eyes and the same hollow smile. This is not real, I tell myself, this is all a dream.
But it doesn't matter, another thought came to me, almost as if on its own.
I watched my parents get thrown out into space like rag dolls rendered useless by a month old colt, and exploded into millions of pieces just like the others. But I knew them.
Right when I had seen them explode, the emergency shuttle down procedure activated. A few others and I fell down to our knees and barely wrapped our mind around what had happened.
I opened my eyes slowly, to find my ceiling, hearing, and control over my body to be functional and in place. I rolled out of bed and sat at the edge of it, recollecting the nightmare.
I had lost count of the number of times it had attacked me, it barely affects me nowadays. The first time it occurred, I wasn't on the Titan, and so I was in a private home softly weeping at the distorted memory.
When I was a colt, maybe 4 or 5 years old, my parents and I went out in a shuttle to go and visit Equine as part of a yearly vacation we did. But a meteorite that wasn't detected by the ship's system rammed the side of the shuttle, ripping the impact site off, and along with it, dozens of ponies that had been unlucky to have a sub-malfunctioning Shuttle Shutdown Procedure System on the ship, my parents were two of them.
I shook my head quietly, knocking my dark mane into my face, which I had pushed back so I could see what time it was.
0530 hours
"Ugh," I groaned to myself.
"Skipper! I told you to get me up when my shift came up!" I yelled, and then muttered to myself, "no wonder I had the nightmare..."
After a few seconds that dragged, Skipper buzzed in through the comms system, "I thought you'd appreciate the extra sleep, guess not..."
I sighed, instantly hating myself, and got up to put on my jacket. After having done so, I walked on over to the door and went through to go take over the piloting duties of the ship.
Thanks to the thoughtful design of the Titan models, I got there in no time.
Despite having an attack of déjà Vù when I entered the cockpit and nodded towards the yellow mare, I sighed as if nothing was old or new, and sat down in my seat.
After a few buttons being pushed, Skipper gave up command of the ship to me, but instead of leaving afterwards, she just stayed there, admiring the sight in front of us, which was the fiery fireball steadily growing in size.
"You know, you can just go and sleep now if you want, I wouldn't hold it up to you."
Skipper just grinned subtlety, and sighed.
Muttering to myself, I said, "Guess that's that," I just watched as the stars became dinner one by one as the Equestrian sun grew larger.
After a few moments that were probably hours, Skipper spoke, "I wonder why we were the ones asked to go to the CSC..."
I nodded slightly and chuckled, getting a slight face full of black mane, "Well, it might be a low priority thing. After all, it is us."
A deadweight fell between us after that; not an uncomfortable one, it was more of the one where a growing anxiety grew and festered. I knew why we were going to the CSC, and I'm sure she did too.
See, the CSC is the outpost near the sun, the place where we get more or less the energy needed to power up Equine and some Equestrian outposts like the ESS or some CSA or LIA. If whatever the reason may be, it shuts down, the majority of systems outside of pre-space cease to function until the CSC resumes producing power. Needless to say, it was imperative we had gone to the outpost to restart the main computers within.
I sighed, and then smiled at a thought.
"So where are they now?" I asked.
I imagined Skipper either closing her eyes and shaking her head or nodding it in nostalgia, "They're probably in their respective turrets."
A length of silence found its way within us, until she asked rhetorically, "Was that all you wanted to say?"
I just laughed at that, since there was nothing else to do about that.
I was about to say something to her, but then I had noticed the distinctive spot on the sun.
"Well, it looks like we're almost there...." I said with a level of anxiety I hadn't anticipated to exist, and her silence didn't make it any better, "Sound the alarm, yeah?"
Skipper quietly cleared her throat, and then spoke into the comms, "Personnel to their stations, we are reaching the CSC soon."
Once she had finished speaking, I heard some clicking and turning of notches, telling me she was switching channels so she could talk to the CSC station.
To say the CSC was large would do it no justice. The command center alone was three times the size of the CS Titan, the three rings orbiting the center alone could rival the ESS. The 3 rings were stacked on each other, but still had space between themselves.
The Celestial Space Colony was tilted in a way which the top ring had the most sun on its dorsal surface, which was needed considering it had the solar panels the CSC is even built for. The second and middle ring held the majority of the generators and power cores that takes the solar energy and convert it so that the other cailities of Equestria can use it. The tird ring was possibly the largest, containing all residential and life sustaining supplies and quarters which the crew and their families dwelled in. Not sure why it was made in the way that the first ring was thin, but a ways out from the Command Center, and had solar panels stretched from one edge of the ring to the other, which was miles of area, like a blanket, and therefore effectively harnassing vast amounts of energy; the second ring was 10 times wider in diameter, and brought closer to the center; the third was more in the middle of the two rings distance wise, but is similar in size to the second ring.
I'll bear any more details secluded, but you should have a grasp of the sheer size of the CSC.
"CSC this is CS Titan Model 26A, we are requesting permission to dock, over," static.
She repeated, "CSC, this is CS Titan Model 26A, we are requesting permission to dock, do you copy?"
After the reply of static, I looked back at her, and she and I knew exactly what the other was thinking in that moment of time. We both knew that the CSC had been attacked.
"I'm going to pull the Titan up to one of the docks, and see if I can't get a manual lock onto the airlocks," I had said to Skipper as I turned around and turned up the engines.
I heard her sigh as she tumbled down into her seat to the left of me, and mumbled out, "Why does this have to happen? I mean, I would've been fine with patrol duty!"
I quietly chuckled to myself, even though we were in the face of a grim situation that was about to unfold, possibly, maybe, who knows.
After falling into its shadow, the CSC, I scanned for any docks on the second ring, considering the residential ones would most likely be guarded.
It may have been luck, maybe not, but I found a dock out of the corner of my eye on the ventral surface of the solar panel ring, and what's more, it was near an emergency offshoot to the command center.
Skipper knew where I was looking, and doubt was apparent in her voice, "Are you sure it's fine to go through there?"
I remained silent as my inner-self was conflicted and at war with itself on whether to go by Skipper's caution, or to go and take the risk; I had almost decided not to.
She called my name once, and that snapped me out of my self confliction, and I shook my head affirmatively, "We'll be fine."
Sweat formed on my forehead as I worked the ship into position to latch into the dock, which was not easy considering I had to manually unlock the airlock as well, which meant I had to hit the dock in a certain way that'd trigger the automatic system to allow the ship access. I could only hope I did it right, let alone hope that the cult hadn't tampered with the system.
We had landed into the dock, maunally locking in place and safely entering the ring. Not one of us had not brought a rifle, as well as wearing an EVA suit.
Skipper had motioned Navi to take point, and we carefully, as well as quietly, moved the hundred meters to the offshoot, which was to the right of us, I had seen earlier. The only good thing about being on the top ring was that it was only a catwalk, so we could quite literally see someone else coming from a mile away. But they could see right back at us.
50 meters to go, the clipping of our hooves on the hard steel floor eventually echoed throughout the ring and back to us, at least allowing us to think we were the only ones up here.
25 meters left, we heard a loud groan of metal falling out of place, but after half a minute, we silently agreed it was of no threat, though it did further our alertness and jumpiness.
10 meters, we could see the distinctive airlock door which led out of the ring and down to the Command Center, it bulged slightly inward towards the off shoot, and had a classic sea ship hatch wheel to open it.
5 meters, the blood began to burn and pound with adrenaline as it coursed through my body.
4 meters, my hearing had been nearly entirely impaired by my heart's now powerful thumping.
3 meters, Navi could almost touch the door now, while I was in the rear, hoping my heart doesn't find its way out of my throat.
2 meters, I flinched at the sound of my hoof accidentally skirting the floor, causing an overreaction on my part and reflexively falling almost backwards.
A meter to go, I slide into position at the right side of the seal, and nodded to Skipper that I was in place, the pink mare to my left, on the other side of the door, nodded as well.
I know that the eternity afterwards was only the few seconds of Skipper waiting to call out the command, but it didn't matter, it had felt like a lifetime, eternally waiting, with each heart beat pounding in my ears.
Finally, breaking the deathly silence between us, within the ring, and within fate itself, time rolled forward once more as Skipper screamed out, "Go, Go, Go! Move it! Now!" Again and again, I opened the door and we went beyond sonic rain boom.
I couldn't help my screaming, no one could, it didn't matter, the offshoot was an emergency evacuation tube, so despite the miles of distance to the Command Center, we were there in a matter of minutes, at least it seemed like so. The tube was also very long, and very fragile, so if the cult were here and wanted to, they could destroy the tube with relative ease and pull it away from Command, putting us into space.
We had reached the hatch on the opposite side, blew through, and then stumbled into the command center.
It was bulbous, spherical, in accordance to the rings. It was , as said before, much larger than the Titan; it had two decks: Inferior Bridge, and Superior Command. The bridge held the majority of operations on the station, but the Command was where the brass were. In short, it was the Equine CSA embassy, but inverted.
The tube we had come through from, naturally, went to the lower deck.
To make the gargantuan room bigger, it was deathly silent, and pitch black.
I whispered, "Celestia, this isn't funny anymore...." Which received a collection of hushed chuckles.
I silently smiled to myself since they couldn't see me, then quickly returned to the main issue, no lights.
After a few minutes of clattering, a couple clicks, my light on my rifle emitted it's beam out into the room, revealing various railings and tables as well as consoles. Soon thereafter, three other beams helped to create an adequate amount of lighting.
I sighed after that episode of trying to get light, then moved onto the next issue, getting power back up. I trotted over to the Mai. Console, trying to find a directive towards where I could turn on the main power. Much to my disappointment, and expectation, it would be much more complicated than I had hoped. I had to go to the engineering section and check if the generators weren't maltreated, and the cores were still nominal. I then had to go to the electrical sector and check, re-check, and repeat that again and again all the miles and miles of wiring and electrical cords and power routes.
Or Skipper could just say, "Computer, activate program 'Aster 0-1-1-5-9' on the authority of Captain Skipper, code 1-8-2."
All systems came back online thereafter.
I sighed in annoyance, and muttered, "Or you could do that..."
I smiled weakly as the mares all laughed at my comment on the new found power being online.
But I didn't expect the world to go dark right after, and for me to get knocked out.