//------------------------------//
// Jump 
// Story: Extra-Vehicular Activity 
// by alamais 
//------------------------------//

	You press the spatial grip onto the wrist of your left wing, and wait for it to activate, wrapping around the leading edge and spreading a subtle, glowing field over the rest of the wing.  A second grip goes onto the right wing.  You flex the wing as the field turns on, feeling the old, creaking injury that led to your retirement from the Wonderbolts.  For some reason it never heals, when much worse injuries don't even leave a scar.

You wiggle around to settle into your high-maneuverability EVA suit, and prod the PDA on the right foreleg of it, waking the suit up.  A bit of static hits your vision as it syncs to your visual cortex, and then a bunch of nonsense appears, scrolling past your eyes, diagnostics, sensor readings, etc., before it settles on a simple status overlay.  Then, even as you watch, a target is added to the display, presumably centered on the smaller alien ship.  You focus your attention on the target, and a tag pops up showing the distance to it—currently just over 500 meters.

The helmet slips over your head, and latches click into place.  Finally, you triple-check the seals on your suit: helmet to neck, around each leg, and at the wing ports.  There is, of course, a whole mess of archanotech woven throughout the thing that should ensure proper seals, but it never hurts to be careful; decompression is definitely not a cool way to go.  A prod of the PDA and the whole shebang self-fits and seals, tightening around your joints, shrinking to be hide-tight in some areas, and then you wince as it does other, less-polite things at your rear end.

When everything checks out, you nod.  "Alright Twi, looks like everything's good to go.  How long do you think radio contact will hold for?"

The alicorn's voice has an odd echo, audible both in and through the helmet.  "There's really no way to be sure, Rainbow.  The transceiver we're using is getting plenty of power from the batteries Rarity scrounged up, but we don't even know what exactly the ships are made of.  I wouldn't count on any sort of contact once you head inside, though I'm hopeful."

"Aight, Twi.  Ready as I'll ever be."

"Decompressing your room now…"

A hiss is audible through the helmet…and then it isn't.  A small countdown appears in the corner of your vision, showing about four hours of breathing remaining.  A few parts of the suit puff outwards slightly, and you wiggle and hop around a bit to check your flexibility—seems about right from what you remember from training.  You look around, then poke the data terminal screen to turn it off, and head over to the door.

"…Alright, I think that's as good as the pumps are going to get it."  The voice is now only audible from a point somewhere seemingly behind and to your left.

You prod the keypad to open the door, and walk a short way down the hall, coming to a larger and more elaborate door.  'Airlock 3', reads the sign overhead.  As you enter, a slight tingle passes over you.  You feel the artificial gravity leave your body even as your hooves began to stick to the floor.

From the storage lockers, you grab a couple of bags made of fine carbon fiber mesh, and fold them up into the suit's small saddlebag-style flank pockets.  Then you take a 1000-meter spool of thin, high-strength fiber line, a bundle of mixed carabiners, and a light toolkit.  Finally, you wrap a couple of dark black bands around your forelegs, close to the hoof—the one on the right stops just short of the suit's PDA.  A quick cycling of the airlock, and you step out onto the Frond's hull.

The planet you're orbiting appears utterly dead.  There's a bit of pockmarking from large craters, but the orangish haze at the visible limb of the planet implies there's some sort of clear, cloudless atmosphere.  There are no significant geographical features in the area you can see.  Why in the world did the ringy aliens set up their giant freaky station here?  With that thought, you look up.  The station—or whatever it is—takes up most of your overhead field of view.

From this distance, you can see details.  There are a number of bulges along the length of it, as well as a few projecting outwards.  Separate rooms?  If so, some of them are alone larger than the Frond.  It has an unsettling…almost organic look, with smooth curves overlaid with what you'd assumed were lines of hull plating, but now, closer, you're not so sure.  You shift your focus to the target icon, which is indeed centered on the smaller ship that was docked to the ring.

"Everything looks good on our end, Rainbow."  Twilight sounds pensive.  "I've got us as close to a relative stop as I can."

You grin.  "Alright, egghead."

She can't roll her eyes, but you know she wants to.  You attach one of the carabiners to the end of the fiber line, and then click it onto a ring close to the edge of the airlock door.  The spool of fiber attaches neatly to a loop on the barrel of your suit.

"Dive line secured.  Catch you on the flip side!"

You aim yourself at the small ship, and crouch down on your hind legs, muscles tensed.  You poke the PDA, turning off the hoof grips, and…jump.