"Rai-ow! Ar- -u there?! Co- -ainbow Dash!"
A familiar pain is radiating up your right wing, the inflamed nerves screaming even into your back and side.
"Da- Pinkie, c- -ittle more?"
You swallow convulsively, then take a drink to clear your throat.
"That's better. Rainbow Dash, are you there? I'm barely getting anything, but I think you should be able to-"
"Twi…'m here," you croak out.
"Rainbow! Thank Celestia! Are you okay? You don't sound too well."
"Just…took a bad fall." You shift, and your wing throbs enough that you let out a groan. "Ugh…I think I dislocated my wing again…that same stupid spot."
"Oh no! Can you move?"
"Yeah…yeah. Just gotta work the ol' magic." You force a bit of humor into the statement, as you also force yourself to stand up.
"Ew. Rainbow, I don't know how you can joke about that, it's awful."
"Eh…" Your right rear leg is still throbbing where it got grabbed, but it can hold your weight. "…if it's either laugh or cry, I'll take laughter." You reach your left hoof over to hold the wing at just…that…angle…and before you can think too hard about it, you slam yourself into the ductwork wall beside you.
Pretty, pretty stars… You're not even sure if you screamed or what, but the next thing you perceive is Twilight, tentatively asking, "Did it work?"
"Yeah." You cough. "I think so." You gingerly spread the wing a little, then clamp it to your side. "Good enough."
"Alright, well, that's good, because you've got to move now." Her voice hardens. "You've got to get out of there!"
"Huh?" You shake your head, trying to clear the fuzz. "I mean, not that I disagree, but what's up?"
"I don't know what you did over there, but something in the gravity tether system has gone wrong. The ring is slowly slipping out of alignment—it's got maybe twenty minutes left before the beams from the surface lose contact, and then its orbit is probably going to decay pretty quickly."
"Oh. Uhhh…" You look down at the cable still wrapped around you. "…I guess maybe that's what the cable I took was powering…though I did fiddle with a bunch of breaker switches, too."
The radio just emits a long-suffering sigh.
You blink, then add in. "Um, we've got another problem, Twi. There's, like, about a kilo of antimatter stored on that thing!"
"What?!"
"Yeahhh it's just kinda sittin' there in that middle section."
"Uhhh…hold on, let me check the probable drop orbits." She pauses. "Wait, no, don't hold on! Regardless, you need to get moving!"
"Right." You walk out into the junction. The way left is blocked off by a pressure seal. The aft section of this deck must be breached. The right ducts are clear. You stretch your wing again, wincing at the complaints of the abused tissues within. Observing your overlay, you see two things: your UEC is at 23%, and there's a note that your faceplate integrity is 73% of normal. Lovely.
You're about to head forward when you hear a garbled transmission. "-ash. Send som- -elp you get- -uited up."
You rush back to where you'd fallen, shouting, "Twilight?! You there? Don't send anypony—there's things over here! It's dangerous! Twilight?"
Nothing.
With a growl, you head forward along a strangely linear duct until you find an air vent. You crouch down and try to get a view below, but can't see much. A couple of whacks with a hoof send the vent cover dropping down below, and you peek out, then drop down into a long, wide hall. It's odd compared to the other decks, with four regularly spaced pressure doors along each side. Aft is the closed central door with what looks like a well lit space beyond, but you move forward.
As you pass a door, out of the corner of your eye you spot a tablet lying on the floor, half in shadow. It's a bit banged up, but you pocket it anyway. While there, you spare a moment to take a curious peek through one of the doors. Through the small window, you can see a single dim overhead light silhouetting what appear to be more cryotubes.
You feel something trying to piece together in your head, but you don't have the time to sit and help it along. Instead, you trot to the forward elevator door, flexing your injured wing every few steps, and making sure to put full strain on the bruised leg. As you reach the door, you pause, staring at it, trying to remember what state you left the elevator shaft in, and wondering if it even matters since the power turned on.
With a shrug, you try the same button combination that worked on the airlock, but some other buttons flash, and the door stays shut. You grunt, and go through the motions to pull the release lever. Air howls through its emergency vents, until it eventually goes still. You're about to pry the door open when you stop, and try the buttons again. This time, the door slides open
Ducking your head through, you survey the elevator shaft very carefully, looking for any sign of creepy crawlies, but finding nothing. All the other doors are closed. You can feel there's no artificial gravity in the shaft, so you pass through the door, closing it behind you. Your wing is usable enough to guide you down the shaft. You pause long enough to close the door to Deck 5, and then notice one button on its control panel is blinking. A glance up and down reveals that the same button is blinking on all of the doors' panels. You shrug, and press it.
Jets of air shoot in all along the elevator shaft, becoming increasingly audible as the pressure returns to normal. Neato. You're coasting down to Deck 7 when your radio crackles to life.
"Rainbow dear, are you there?"
"Rarity!" Your heart races. "Where are you?"
"Just approaching your entry door now. Are you alright?"
"Yes! I'm fine, just stay there!" You reach the door, and quickly open it, looking down the hall beyond.
"Are you sure? Twilight said you were injured."
The hallway looks empty, so you shut the door behind you and run down it. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'll be there in just a minute. Uhh, find something to brace yourself on; I’m gonna have to decompress that section to open the door."
"Alright, dear."
You close the midway pressure door as you pass, and run through the galley. Your eyes jump from air vent to air vent as you pass, but you don't see anything amiss. Maybe they just aren't exploring this far yet? You reach the aft elevator door with your pry bar at the ready. "You holding onto something, Rares?"
"Yes, love—feel free."
A yank, and you settle to wait for a much longer decompression. A few papers and bits of debris waft down the hall, coming out of the opened doors. Finally, you can open the door.
She's there, waiting, looking stunning despite having recently come out of a stasis pod. It's awkward in the suits, but you manage a hug. After, she looks at you with concern. "Oh, Dashie, what did you do to yourself? Are you sure you're okay? I brought a dose of Inaprovaline just in case…"
"What, the wing?" You shrug. "It's fine."
She looks skeptical, so you wave your wing around a bit, with only a dull ache.
"Remember?" You smile toothily. "I'm a…whatever Twi called it. Physical addict. As long as I keep moving, my magic will heal me."
She rubs her hoof over your shoulder. "Adept, dear, physical adept. And that doesn't keep me from worrying." She looks at the power cable you're still wearing. "Here let me take that."
As she unclips the cable and pulls it off you, you mumble, "Yeah, well, I suppose you had good reason to worry this time. There's some freaky critters running around this thing."
Glancing up from attaching the cable to the dive line, she asks, "Critters? You mean something survived?"
"Ehh…" You shrug. "Not exactly? But sort of. I'm not sure if they're an escaped experiment or what, but it looked to me like they killed the ring's builders, and then the crew of this ship too, when they arrived."
She pushes the cable down the line, and you can see Fluttershy waiting on the Frond to catch it. Rarity stays turned away for a moment, and when she turns back she looks stricken, tears in her eyes.
"Hey!" You wave your hooves. "It's fine, I'm fine. Only one of those creeps got its claws on me, and I kicked its butt!" You decide not to mention the freaky spiders yet. Or the acid for blood. Or the…reproduction methods.
"Oh, Dashie." She sighs, and blinks some of the tears away. Finally she sidles up close, pressing against your side. "I know you can handle yourself. It just…it still distresses me to see you get hurt, or in danger."
You smirk. "Well, Danger is m—"
A quick prod in the ribs. "Don't you dare." She tries to glower, but there's a smile behind it.
You chuckle, and she rolls her eyes.
"I take it that's why you were so worried I might come on board?" she ventures.
"Yeah." You nod. "Those things could be all over the place by now, through the air ducts."
"Alright," she says. “Well, let’s get out of here, then." She sighs, and looks down the hall. "It's a shame it's lasted so long only to be vaporized now, but if they could overwhelm the entire complement of a large military vessel, then I suppose it's for the best. It'll be like a Minotaur funeral for the departed."
Something tickles in your mind, but you nod absently. When you look up at her, she's looking back expectantly. You wave at the dive line. "You first, mi'lady."
She snorts, but hooks back onto the line, then glances back at you before kicking off.
You watch her drift along, but then look around, and close your eyes. Empty spaces in the cryovault. The pressure doors in that hall. The lone engineer in the reactor. A fight to the last, to get to the port airlock. To the port airlock, but after it was closed to keep more monsters from boarding. After they're on the ship, in the cryovaults. There were cryotubes behind that door.
"Rainbow, what's wrong?"
Gritting your teeth, you look back down the hall. Could it…? Could you? A shake of your head. You look back…and your eyes drift across the symbols next to one of the doors. 'Hazard'. 'Explosives'. It was the storage room you'd checked out before. Weapons storage.
You look back down the dive line and, despite the distance, you can see Rarity's eyes.
"Dashie?" Her horn glows, and she glides to a stop.
You take a drink, and roll your neck, feeling a satisfying crack. And then, you close your eyes, and stretch.
Your wings arch wide, straining against aches and pains, quivering, vibrating. You crouch down, flexing your legs as well, the bruised muscles and flesh burning, your breaths heaving.
You stretch until you feel like you're going to fly apart. Until you start to sweat from fighting yourself. Until you feel a white-hot flame spread from your core, flowing out into your body, and you feel like you could breathe fire.
Until…everything stops hurting.
Exhaling violently, you open your eyes and give yourself a shake. A haze of magic cascades off of your body as you fold your wings. You’ll pay for that later, but right now it doesn’t matter. You feel...good. You tap your PDA to bring everyone in. "Twilight?"
"Rainbow Dash, what's going on? You've only got four minutes until the gravity tethers are out of alignment!"
"Okay." You bite your lip. "And what happens then?"
A pause, then, hesitantly, "Well…there will be a heavy torque, as some parts of the station are tethered while other aren't. The gross effect will be to pull the whole thing downwards and send it on a fast equatorial spiral."
You squint. "The antimatter won't go off until it hits the surface, right?"
Pinkie chimes in, "Yup! It'll be over the horizon, too, so it won't be too bad for us."
Now the real question. "Can you send me the orbit data?"
Applejack is the first to speak up. "Rainbow, dangit, tell us what this is about!"
Then Pinkie shouts, "Done!" and data starts scrolling past on your overlay.
"Pinkie!" That was Twi and AJ.
She just sounds a little exasperated. "Well, Dashie’s in a hurry, right?"
"Good luck, Rainbow." That was Fluttershy, barely audible, but you smile as you start poking buttons on your PDA.
Twi, AJ, and Pinkie are arguing, while Flutters is silent and Rares is just looking at you and you don't want to look back quite yet. Finally, a timer appears on your overlay, currently at 3.4 minutes. You quickly stuff everything extraneous into your second mesh bag and hook it onto the dive line. "Alright, girls. Gotta go. I'll be back in a jiffy, so heat up some chalky mud for me, eh?"
They all go silent, as you swing around the edge of the door, and unhook the dive line spool's carabiner. Finally, you look at Rarity.
She's not crying or anything. Actually, is that a blush? Hard to tell for sure from this distance. She simply says, "Sure you don't want some help?"
You wince. She can handle herself, but…you shrug helplessly. "Gotta go fast, Rares."
It gets you a small smile, and she nods.
Five taps on the end of the spool and it starts reeling itself in, back to the Frond.
You pull yourself back up into the hall and move to the door controls.
Twilight tries one more time. "Please, Rainbow. What's this about?"
You smirk, as the door slides closed. "If I'm right? Something awesome."