The Cataclysm
Fragments
ISD Satellite 13-b Lifeboat 1-a
1:48 PM IST, 4/30/59
“Hey, wake up, Karen. We need to get going.” A voice called out to me just as a very annoying and persistent shaking started moving my body around.
I let out an extremely irritated grown before opening my eyes and glancing up at the perpetrator. Seeing the slightly concerned but otherwise adventurous gleam in Michael’s eyes worried me a bit, but after remembering the events last night, I honestly can’t complain. I needed something to do in order to keep my mind off of… that.
Because of that reasoning, I moved to stand up right as Michael put a firm hand on my shoulder. I looked at him questioningly and he replied with, “Take it easy, you were out for a few hours, and I wrapped the head injury. But no sense in pushing yourself until we’re sure it’s healed right?”
I gave a slight nod, “Sure sure, but it is kinda hard to avoid stressing my brain out over this whole thing. I know that look in your eyes though, what are you thinking?”
He smiled at me, though it almost looked like a smug grin from the way I was looking, “When you had that whole outburst about us being ‘screwed’, you failed to take full note of the fact that the pilot’s controls are still undamaged. I tested them just a couple minutes ago and well, despite some minor damage to the ventral thrusters, the thing seems fit to fly out to the… remains of that whole thing. From what I can see, there are still several decent-sized chunks of land left and I figured that chances are, some of that shield tech we saw in the news might have actually been fielded and used to save portions of Earth. It’s a hell of a longshot but it certainly beats moping around while our food reserves drain out and we starve to death in the vast void of-”
“Yes yes, I get it! God, you are the worse at explaining yourself, always magnetising towards the bad and just briefly mentioning the good as an afterthought… But how are we going to keep the engine from overheating and check on fuel reserves and all that shit? Without the readouts from my side, we might sooner find ourselves with a fuel leak than with a civilized chunk of life.”
He definitely was smirking at me now, “I’m well aware, however, I was able to find some of the damaged stuff in the terminal and patch them up a bit using some adhesive. It was enough to get the fuel and damage schematics to pump out and from there we should be able to keep everything-”
“Woah, wait what? Where did you get adhesive? I don’t remember a supply storage in this thing…” I crossed my arms and rose the oh so inquisitive eyebrow, this didn’t seem right at all.
If only to confirm my suspicions, he winced and quickly tried to explain, “O-oh well it was um… duct tape! Yeah, I had a spare roll of duct tape on me when we left hehe… pretty lucky right?”
I was not amused, and my expression said as much.
“Uhhh… it was…” He slumped slightly, “Gum. I patched the wiring up with gum.”
“...You WHAT?!” I shouted, I’m pretty sure that if I were any angrier, or perhaps psychic, there’d be flames rolling off of me.
“Patched the engineering panel with chewing gum?” He replied nervously.
“OF ALL THE STUPID, HALF-WITTED, RETARDED AND ABSOLUTELY INSANE THINGS I’VE EVER HEARD COME OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!” I shouted at the very top of my lungs. I was pissed, hell, I was furious, “What the absolute fuck possessed you to put fucking chewing gum inside one of the most advanced and refined machines this generation has ever produced?! Do you have any idea what sort of malfunctions that can produce to those very systems you restored?! It could tell me that the vessel is totally fucking fine and yet we’ll be missing a god damn oxygen generator the entire time! There could be a fuel leak! The hull might be compromised! The-”
Before I could finish venting my pure, unrestrained rage, a bright flash appeared inside the pod right behind Michael (Who was cowering slightly by the way, hands over his ears and everything). Thinking this to be and explosion, I grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him to the floor with me as he let out a yelp in surprise.
My eyes were clenched shut, expecting a hole in the wall to suddenly suck us out into the deadly emptiness of space. When no such thing occurred however, I decided to glance back over to where the assumed explosion originated from. What I saw however, went beyond all forms of logical reasoning.
Brain, what is that?
Hm? Oh, that’s just a purple winged unicorn with an oversized cranium. It really isn’t all that surprising…
Oh, well… wait what?!
I could hear a rather strange pounding filling my ears as I watched the ‘unicorn’ speak a few words in a very much foreign language before collapsing to the floor, her body--if the voice was anything to go by gender-wise--making a small ‘Thump’ as it hit the metallic floor. I glanced briefly over to Michael to see that, oh, he had already passed out. Well, I guess I might as well follow along, seems to be the new trend after all right?
Thump
Everfree Forest
Afternoon, April 30, 1059 PE
My eyes flew open as my mind brought memories of recent events close on its fetlocks. A quick glance around confirmed that no, this was not a dream and yes, everything I knew and loved was in fact destroyed.
I sat up groggily and was about to weep some more over this fact before I was interrupted by the Tartarus-damned Tree again, “Bearer, we are glad you are alright, we had almost believed you would have left the safety of our sustained atmosphere in order to reunite with your friends.”
“Well that is still the plan thank you very much!” I snapped at the air, not really having a direction to speak to, “I need to leave this place and find them as well as the princesses before the debris has time to drift further apart! I can still fix this if I move quickly!” I stood up, berating myself slightly for passing out for the aforementioned reason. My determined mind moved towards the shield once more to gaze out over the empty expanse, thinking briefly about how much darker it seemed both with the lack of atmosphere to screen it and the all too apparent hazard it presented. It was a little far-fetched that I could fix a planet, even with the elements and the princesses, it was likely some chunks would be missing at the very least.
But at this point, I didn't exactly have much choice on the matter.
“While it is good that you wish to reunite with your companions, the simple fact of the matter is that we don’t have a way to safely transport you to them. The distance to teleport is too great in our fractured state and even still, the damage done to the planets in this universe is far too great to repair with just a handful of ponies, no matter how strong.”
“Don’t you dare say that,” I said, seething through grit teeth, “Tree of Harmony or not, I refuse to believe that there isn’t a way to fix this. All I need is a way to get to them and work from there, easy peasy!”
“The sheer level of concentration required to maintain and maneuver an atmospheric bubble around yourself is hard enough in hazardous environments, and is made only slightly easier with the presence of outside oxygen that can be filtered in with the right amount of control. The ability to maintain it in a place where there is instead a vacuum constantly pulling at the bubble and the limited oxygen within is effectively impossible. Even if you did have the concentration and finesse, the magical power alone would be very difficult to muster and would likely result in a very quick death.”
“Well then I’ll just teleport myself!” I said defiantly as I gazed out into space.
“We had already stated that the distance to teleport is too gre-”
“Not there! Haven’t you been paying attention to anything? Look over there!” I pointed a hoof over to a small white object in the distance, hoping that the Tree was actually able to see my pointing and not just create an awkward moment.
It was a few moments before they responded, “We did not sense that before. It seems that it has an interior with a breathable air pocket. Strange, but a viable solution to your dilemma. Be careful with the teleport Bearer, we do not wish to risk somepony’s life in an attempt to teleport to such a small object over such a large distance. Any error could result in death.”
Wow, way to put a downer on everything... I waved a hoof behind me as I gazed outward, “Yeah yeah, I’ll just need to throw together a spell matrix that can sustain a longer range teleport and then be off, now hush, I need to concentrate.”
“Of course, Bearer.” The Tree replied before their presence faded.
Now that that was out of the way, I closed my eyes and started examining my previous teleport. It was very close to malfunctioning, even without the anti-magic shield that threw off my destination, I probably would’ve ended up in a very different place despite the intended target.
I shuddered slightly at the thought. It was likely a blessing that I ended up here in the first place. Maybe the Tree guided me here when it thought I was in danger, or maybe the assumed magic of Princess Luna held some slight impressions of her old castle and my attempt to pass through her shield caused me to end up here? Or maybe- No! Focus Sparkle, you’ve got to get to the princesses first!
I turned over, disassembled, reassembled, and over all reshaped my teleport spell as I looked for ways to improve the distance. What I came up with worked, but with a substantially higher energy requirement than the normal one, there was no way of knowing just how much energy would be needed to traverse this much distance but it was likely to be much more than even Cadence could pump out with ease.
I didn’t like it.
But hey, the world ended, I think it was worth a shot at trying to start the world up again.
I started setting up the new glyphs and pushing magic into them as I spoke, “Alright, I’m going to head over there, if… if anything happens to me…”
“We will try our best to inform your friends and family, courageous Bearer.”
“Thanks…” I took one last moment to breath in even as sweat started to soak through my coat.
Here goes nothing! I released the spell, and I could immediately feel the effects as a ‘tube’ much longer and thinner than my usual teleport spells pulled me inward. The feeling wasn’t new to me, but it was much stronger than I had thought it’d be and the energy drain didn’t help.
To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tree of Harmony made the whole experience more bearable, albeit slightly, because looking back… I think that would’ve killed me.
By the time I finally reached the end, my mind was swirling, my brain unable to keep up coherent thought as I tried to say the sentence I had planned when I was making the spell matrix.
“Buck I’m… Starswirl is the new master of pancakes now…!”
I think that with a simple swap of some nouns you can already guess that what I tried to say was meant as a victory cheer.
Close enough really.
ISS Resonance
1348, 30 APR 59
CLANG
“Sir, are you okay…?”
I glanced up from my desk, looking at the only person in my team that would’ve called me ‘Sir’, “I’d be better if you stopped being so damn formal Thomas, I thought I already told you that informal speech is allowed and preferred for the duration of this assignment.”
It wasn’t a question because I know that I had told him, multiple times.
“Oh, sorry sir.” I groaned, “Sorry Lansky!” I groaned again, “Kyle! Sorry Kyle! Won’t happen again!”
I perked up immediately, “Great! Now that you’ve seen reason we can move onto the task at hand, right everyone?” I pointedly looked at the two sitting next to him that were currently trying to stifle some pretty potent looking laughter.
They gave up on that pretty quickly though, must’ve been another minute before they calmed themselves down again. And what a surprise that my chosen communications specialist was the first to speak up, “Oh come on, Kyle! You have to admit zis is one of ze funniest zings to happen on zis ship since ze cook accidentally lost his pistol in one of ze private’s food tray!”
I managed to keep a straight face, barely, it was a really funny memory, “Be that as it may, Angela, we still have work to do. The captain gave me this assignment,” I tapped my desk for a little bit of emphasis, “asked me to round up your sorry asses, and try to find out if humanity is still standing after the shitstorm we witnessed less than 24 hours ago! I hate to be a downer, but we have bigger fish to fry right about now.”
Angela and our team’s scientist, Anton, looked down at the table. Seemingly sobering up at the thought of all those they lost, and inadvertently causing me to wince as my face started reflecting my own empathy, however little it may have been. I could see out of the corner of my eye that Thomas was feeling the same thing, hell I think I saw a tear or two there as well.
Eventually however, Angela broke the silence up, “Vy us?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean vy us? Specifically us? Surely zere must be better people for ze job on a ship zis advanced and zis large.”
“Well… I would be lying if I said part of it wasn’t because I know you two better than anyone else on this ship, but yet I also wouldn’t be lying when I say that Lonni specifically said you three might be the best candidates for the job anyways. I’m not too sure about dear Thomas here, but I’m certain that the four of us? The four of us can finish this assignment better than any team on this entire ship.” I gave them what I hoped was a winning smile to maybe further emphasize my point, it didn’t feel terribly genuine though, hell I wasn’t even sure why Lonni picked us. Especially considering that I can name at least six occasions where we managed to piss her off with some of our shenanigans.
But it seemed to work, since all three looked at me after that, and I could tell that while Angela was the only one smiling after that, the others were happy to hear me say it too.
“So... what do we do now?” Thomas asked.
“Well now we kinda should work on actually finding and contacting one of those beacons…” I rubbed the back of my neck, chuckling slightly, “sappy uplifting speeches aside we really need to find out how their still up and active. Any ideas?” I made the unseen request for Angela to pick up on that, seeing as how she knew the most about this sort of thing.
She perked up upon hearing that, answering my hidden request with little difficulty, “Vell, it’s not very likely, but maybe some of ze communications satellites survived ze explosion? Ve could try to contact a nearby or even distant phone through zem?”
“Sounds like something, probably our most straightforward option actually. I’ll see if I can use the ship’s communications array to reach one of them.”
My hands moved to turn on the computer sitting peacefully to my left, logging into my account and bringing up our standard application for contacting long-distance devices. It wasn’t terribly flashy, and was mostly meant for anyone to use on the ship, so I got on easily enough, trying to find a signal however was another thing entirely. For that I had to call over Angela and Anton, their combined smarts and privileges allowed us to find juuust what we needed, and we all crowded around the screen as soon as the readout showed something that was actually legible.
[WARNING: Extensive Damage to Satellites 23, 14, and 11; Repairs Needed | 3043 Satellites Missing; Investigation Recommended]
Satellite [1]: Linked, 12 Components Damaged, Call Services Disabled, 32 Maximum Characters
Satellite [2]: Linked, 16 Components Damaged, Call Services Disabled, 16 Maximum Characters
Satellite [3]: Linked, 23 Components Damaged, Call Services Disabled, 2 Maximum Characters
13 Communication Dishes Found: 5 Military, 6 Civilian, 2 Other
Satellite [1] and Communication Dish M-1 Selected>|
Thomas was the first to speak up, “So… what do we type?”
“Maybe we should start with a simple greeting?” Anton suggested.
“No no no, we can’t just say ‘Hey! How’s it going?’ when the freaking world ended, that’s just too callous.”
“Vat about asking if zey’re alright? Or if zey need any assistance?” Angela asked.
“The first one I think, we don’t really have much more than what we need to take care of ourselves and we can probably lead into our main goal afterwards.” Thomas looked to me and I took that as my cue to start typing.
Characters Remaining: 2/32
>Hello? Anyone alive out there?|
I blinked, grimacing slightly at how short of a message that was, “I guess you never really notice just how fucking small thirty-two characters are until you actually have to type something up with it… how the hell are we going to get a conversation going with something like this?”
“A looot of patience.” Anton said knowingly.
I glanced over at him, but he just shrugged and turned back to the screen, I did the same and hit ‘Enter’.
1: Hello? Anyone alive out there?
2: Who is this? How are you alive?Characters Remaining: 1/32
>This is the ISS Resonance. You?|
I hit ‘Enter’ again, only to groan in exasperation at the response, “Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me…”
1: Hello? Anyone alive out there?
2: Who is this? How are you alive?
[ERROR: Satellite Deactivated to Preserve Systems, Reactivating in 30 Minutes.]Characters Remaining: 1/32
>This is the ISS Resonance. You?|
I flinched as Angela clapped her hands loudly, “Velp! I guess ve’re going to be in zere for ze long haul, snacks anypony?”
I frowned in confusion, my mind briefly being caught on something before my stomach interrupted it with a all-suffering growl, demanding sustenance, “Heh, that sounds good Angela, I’ll see if I can get a more comfortable seating arrangement too, don’t want you guys leaning over me every time we’re about to send a message.”
“I’ve got a deck of cards I keep under my bunk, I’ll go grab those so we’re not overtly bored during our wait.” Thomas said before walking out with Angela, humming a happy tune.
As soon as I stood up to started rearranging furniture in the somewhat confined office space, Anton sat down and began typing a bunch of gibberish into the computer. I rose and eyebrow in confusion but otherwise let him do his thing, he probably knew more about computers than I did after all.
We were going to save humanity, one thirty-two long text message at a time.