//------------------------------// // -16- // Story: Coarse Diamonds // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Ember was a little tentative about taking off her ramshackle poorly constructed and multiple times battered armor that she’d forge back into some amalgam of shape whenever she was in a moment of privacy. Rarity said she needed measurement and rather accurate ones, so here Ember was feeling a bit naked without her armor even if her skin was relatively heat and bullet proof and on top of being highly magic and energy resistant. It was quite hard to hurt a dragon; the entire point of the armor to Ember was to primarily prevent anyone from scuffing her beautiful scales. “Oh my, some of your scales remind me of my cutie mark.” After Rarity pointed it out, the scales at Embers hips were a bit discolored and did in fact look like her cutie mark somewhat. The scales were a bit darker than the rest of the sapphire colorations that was prevalent upon Ember’s body; she also had some discolored diamond shaped marks on her head and tail. Why the poor dear even looked positively shy being the center of Rarity’s attention despite the fact that she hunted people for a living and should be more outgoing. You’d think with a job like that, she would meet lots of people and be less conscious about her appearance. “So what did you have in mind?” “I want some clothing for leisurely activity. Pants, shirts, maybe underwear… I’m not exactly big on clothing at the moment you know. Mostly it’s because I might incidentally ruin them by setting them on fire by accident, anytime I’m on a clothing mandatory planet I’m usually wearing nothing under my armor and it’s kind of starting to make me highly recognizable.” After a bit of thought and wrapping her tail around her waist in a manner most self conscious of her appearance, Ember decided to go with something a little less rough than her life of sleeping in odd and abandoned places. She’s slept on jagged things more than a few times; it wasn’t that much different from sleeping on a pile of gold and jewels. “Just something soft and comfortable that doesn’t chafe; it has to be tough and heavily heat resistant. I can’t stress it enough that they be heat resistant as things catch fire around me easily. Throw in a backpack and make it a nice color, like purple. You’re the expert here, so surprise me! I would also like some winter gear, if I ever need to go to an ice planet again unless the EVA suit can cover for that.” “So exactly how many planets have you been to Ember? I know you’re a very well traveled individual so I’m quite curious. Oh right, Opal! Tell Sassy we have one last customer today and I could use her help in the work shop by starting up preparations for an EVA suit. After I’m done with the measurements we can let Coco out of medical, she might need some rehabilitation so have Vera meet me there.” After Rarity finished giving Opal her orders she turned back to ember. “The EVA suit is good for water planets at least two thousand feet down in depth, another customer of mine confirmed it works very well underwater with the impulse saddle attachment. It has temperature control so it’ll also retain heat on ice planet though I think I would need to adjust for your biology, since you’re certainly a lot hotter than you look.” Ember logically knew what Rarity meant, but couldn’t keep the blush off her face as she looked to the floor and started twiddling her thumbs. Dragons were always warm to the touch and temperature was hardly an issue except in the most extreme of freezing cold temperatures, for comparison a pony would have frost bite whereas a dragon would only feel a bit nippy after an hour in the same climate. The temperature would have to be at absolute zero for quite a while to really start having an effect on Ember; Rarity certainly had an effect all her own as Ember’s tail wiggled slightly against her legs. “I’ve been to quite a few. Planets ranging from dry deserts, icy inhospitable, tasty tropical, slightly arid and completely average ones with multiple climates like Equus. The two types of planets I’m really rather fond of are water and volcanic planets!” Now that was a declaration from Ember that had Rarity confused, wouldn’t a fire breathing creature hate a planet covered in the stuff that made breathing fire impossible? “Don’t look so surprised, it’s almost impossible for me to be blamed for fire incidents I didn’t cause when a planet is covered in at least eighty to ninety percent water. Plus I enjoy swimming, in lava or water.” “Well the fact that you like swimming in lava certainly doesn’t surprise me and you really don’t need to explain your attraction to volcanic planets, best place to find a source of high quality gems cheaply I take it?” Receiving a nod from her friend, Rarity smiled as she finished measuring Ember’s tail much to the dragon’s cute squeak when she grasped it in her magic to measure its length from butt to the tip of feathery styled fin at the end of it. “Who’s the… Rarity-sama, why is the dragon that antagonized Coco here?” Sassy walked in brushing her mane, it looks likes she took shower and the glow of her horn immediately settled around the handle of her sword as her eyes narrowed at Ember. “She’s my friend and a paying customer Sassy; she also wishes to apologize to Coco for all the trouble she has caused. So please be a dear and be nice to her.” If her friend were male Rarity was quite sure Sassy wouldn’t have immediately relented and let her magic off the sheathed sword she was carrying quite as fast. “Sure she’s a bounty hunter, but she means absolutely no harm to us.” “I can’t help but notice the sword; you’re obviously a samurai which is kind of rare thing out here. Excuse me for asking if it’s a little awkward that I do so, but did you train for military, freelance or personal? I’m Ember McFlame by the way.” Ember held out her right claw towards Sassy who took it in her hoof and gave it a shake, she had noticed the mare immediately going for the handle of her weapon at the first sight of her and she’s already seen what happened to the Macropussian. Samurai were definitely not something that Ember trifled with or took lightly; thankfully she’s only ever had to deal with two and that neither of them had managed to even cut into her material rifle. Depending on her answer, Ember could gauge this mare’s threat level. “I’ll tell you its very personal at least. Sassy Saddles, charmed to make your acquaintance Miss McFlame.” Sassy knew what Ember meant; someone usually became a samurai to go freelance or working for the military. Rarely did you find a pony or being who trained as one for personal reasons. Even so it was quite hard to get close enough to disarm a well trained samurai and an exceptional samurai would never lose their weapon to anything until it completely shattered, when it came to having personal reasons for having samurai training then you knew you were dealing with a wild card in terms of skill. “Right, I won’t ask anymore about that. I might be here on business, but it couldn’t hurt to talk some more.” Ember sized up the mare slightly; Sassy was of a pretty good stature and was of a tall unicorn build which said something about her reach when she swung her weapon with her hooves. So she was already rating high on Ember’s do not mess with meter. There was the fact that Sassy was also sizing her up as well that led Ember to acknowledging that this mare was just as dangerous as the other samurai she’s face, if not more so that she had trained for personal reasons and not for a job. “So, how did you and Rarity meet? You tell me and I tell you the same thing.” As the two continued to give one another searching looks and talked in a slightly tense atmosphere, Rarity was off to the side ordering Opal to assist them with CAT she named Dos and the rebuilt MAT drone. It led to Rarity wondering if the ship investigators on Geoptis had missed the fact that the MAT drone originally belonged to the crew of the Derringer or did they just leave it to her without question, it was nice to have around either way. Shaking her head, Rarity was out the door and heading toward the front of the ship where medical was, it was time to let Coco out. The poor dear has been in the med-bed for quite a while. - Rarity walked into the room to see Vera waiting for her and the CAT named Uno that continued to point its manipulator arm directly at her, she wasn’t being particularly fancy with naming what was considered expendable machinery. Walking up to the lid of the med-bed Coco occupied, the fluids started to drain much to the earth pony’s relief that she was finally getting out of the funky stuff and the straps detached from her body allowing her to wiggle around a bit. “That stuff really begins to feel icky after a while, also what kind of drugs are you using because I didn’t think I was supposed to hallucinate nearly that much. Rainbow Land with the undead space monsters, the human and that marker thing was interesting.” The lid flipped away after the last of the fluids was drained out and Coco sat up, or at least she tried to. Her muscles were a bit weak from being bedridden for a while. “Though it is not something I’d relish reliving. Well don’t I feel super right now.” . “I’ve been quite assured that the drugs are safe, but they really do have quite the kick. I’m surprised I can even stay coherent while under their effects, at least they’re thankfully not addictive.” This was her good friend and Rarity was worried about her health, she conveyed that particularly well. “It’s good to hear you’re alright Coco, but I must know something. Why you were in such a dreadful state upon returning to the ship in the first place?” “I made a few bounty hunters mad by accident and… let’s just say I got into a really bad bar fight, but don’t worry I’m pretty sure they’ve all calmed down by now.” Her voice was okay, but her body felt a bit bruised and that was the best Coco could hope for after being on the mend for a while. She didn’t cherish the moments of bleeding out and stumbling back to the spaceport. At least she hadn’t been involved in painful neck bending whiplash incident so she could speak normally. “Also I actually feel really sore.” “Well that’s how you’re supposed to feel since it’s been a full Ewesen day darling, Vera will help see to it that you’re cleaned up and walking. We’ve officially hired her on to staff as is mandatory to keep Sassy onboard; she’s our personal masseuse and therapist.” Rarity walked over and smiled as Vera helped Coco sit up. “It’s nice to have you almost back on your hooves dear; we’re going to need more impulse saddles when you’re ready to get back to work.” “That’s good, but is she really going to need that CAT pointing to her at all times?” Before Coco’s question could be answered by Rarity, Opal spoke up answering it for her. “Yes, it is absolutely important that I keep track of her. She’s annoying as all get out to keep track of otherwise and only Rarity can see normally her out of the rest of us.” It was certain Opal could keep it going as long as Rarity didn’t tell her to stop, but she’d have to recharge the CAT eventually and then she’d lose track of Vera Blossom again. The AI was beginning to see the third spa sister as the most notoriously difficult being for her to have ever come across. “It’s not that I don’t like you Vera and I mean no offense, but not being able to keep track of a crew member really irks my programming something fierce.” “Well I guess that settles that, I’ll be seeing to my last customer of the day with Sassy if you need me.” Rarity turned around and made for the back left side of the ship having left Coco in good friendly back rubbing hooves. “Take good care of her Vera.” “Can do, Miss Belle and I don’t take any offense Opal. At least you’re trying and that’s better than what I can say about many others I’ve met who eventually gave up with keeping me in mind.” Vera starting to work out the limpness of Coco’s legs and the mare smiled as her hooves ran over the legs testing the muscles. “Okay, wiggle the tip of your hoof and just the tip.” - Walking back to the cargo room slash work shop, she could see Ember and Sassy getting along together. At least Sassy wasn’t crazily obsessing over her nearly as much anymore, because when she walked into the room Sassy didn’t even bat an eye in her direction and kept talking with Ember. It was nice to see her opening up to other people. “So it’s not really that amazing.” Sassy could be heard saying as Rarity walked up. “I mean it is rather limited in what it can do.” “Are you kidding me? It’s really quite useful, which is why I’m getting one with my EVA suit which I want to come in sapphire blue with emerald green highlight stripes. I want a pattern on it that will resemble my scales and emeralds.” It seemed Ember was in a more pleasant mood than she had been when Rarity left and had warmed up to Sassy. “Anyway I’ve been meaning to ask since I’m a little bit curious, is Coco your girlfriend? You seemed kind of mad at seeing me on first sight.” There was a long pause and Sassy looked away, she looked a little bit upset at the assumption and why wouldn’t she be as she was now strictly attracted to girls. “No, we’re not each other’s special pony. I have some mental trauma issues and I kind of terrorized my friends when I was less than sane. Thankfully they and my family got me some really good help; I still can’t talk face to face my father even though he paid for my samurai training.” Though Sassy did appreciate the comfort of Coco allowing her to hold hooves, she didn’t know when exactly Ember saw it but apparently she didn’t interrupt the moment and that put the dragon in a better light for her. Plus the praise Sassy was getting about her little grappling device was making it easier to become friends with Ember; said dragon was giving her a look of understanding when she mentioned her father. “She was comforting me even though I’ve been a bit of a bad friend to her and Rarity.” “You do realize I’m standing right here right, in any case stop dwelling on it already. You hardly did much more than cause me a few minor injuries and scared Coco half to death.” Both the pony and the dragon jumped and flopped onto their faces at Rarity’s sudden interruption; she giggled at them and moved over to start working with the materials Opal gathered together. “A sapphire and emerald EVA suit? I can do that, while green is certainly not my color it’ll definitely work for you. Sassy take care of Ember’s casual clothing needs, I’ll start work on the EVA suit. You can talk to Coco after we’re done here Ember; she needs a little rehabilitation with our therapist Vera to get herself back into walking shape. So that’s a few heat resistant shirts, heat resistant pants, an EVA suit, two Pinpoint Pullers, an impulse saddle and some special unmentionables for comfort. All of this is going to be interesting to design for someone with your exquisite lithe build. Now do you want your horns to be on the inside the helmet or outside of it? I need to know your preference before I start constructing the helmet. Will that be all you want?” “Inside please and no, I want to ask something else if you know anyone who can help me with it. Do you happen to know someone who could make my ship function remotely? I’m going to need to be able to call The Pyrrhic Victory safely if I’m going to be picking up bounties with it; I’ve also been thinking of installing an AI for it.” Ember rubbed at her spines sheepishly. “I know how to pilot ships; I don’t know the finer details of making them pilot themselves to my location for a pickup.” “Well an AI would be a good place to start, the ship would mostly take of itself then if you got a few MAT or CAT drones to make repairs so you don’t have to. You can definitely automate your ship in that way.” Rarity considered this for a moment. “I think I know someone who could help you with your technical problems, she works for me but she’s currently up on Geoptis if you don’t want to go the AI angle. I don’t know anyone who could make a personal AI for you.” “Ahem, what am I? Because chopped liver is not something I can very well eat as you know Meowstress, I can generate an AI to her specifications. I can’t do it without your express permission though.” It sounded like Opal was a bit testy. “It’s either that or I could design something similar to the dumb AI that the CAT and MAT drones run on. We could also bring Greta’s technical expertise in on this; she practically doubles as a hacker anyway.” “We’ll discuss it later in any case, maybe after you’re done apologizing to Coco.” It was as good as any other idea related to the subject that Rarity had. - “Coco you have a visitor, so please don’t react terribly because you’ve certainly seen her before.” Rarity hoped this could turn out well, but Coco being a bit paranoid would have a rather foreseen reaction. She’d panic horribly and Rarity hoped Vera had the foresight to keep her calm. “Is it Charity Kind Heart?” Coco asked hopefully trying to stand on her slightly wobbly legs with Vera standing at her side looking proud of her; she saw that Rarity was wincing about something. “If it’s not my old mentor, then who is it?” “Uh, hi…” Ember poked her head into the room and Coco leapt towards the nearest corner and started cowering at the sight of her. “Well that’s going to be among the many adverse reactions I seem to be getting today, though it isn’t entirely unwarranted considering what I do for a job. So I’ll take this as the best reaction I could possibly ask for.” Vera was thankfully on top of the situation by pulling Coco into a hug and slowly soothing the poor frightened mare down. She looked towards the dragon, which was awkwardly poking the tips of her index claws together, with a bright cheerful inviting smile. “Thank you, she has been having problems with getting her legs in gear after being in a med-bed for a little more than a day. That definitely sorted out her ability to walk around; she in fact galloped to the corner of this room in record time.” It was a good thing the drone was still pointing out her existence or else Ember might not have heard or seen her, the contact thing only mostly worked with the one she was physically in contact with. “Her light rehabilitation needs have been met with record time; nothing says get up and run like something that scares the pants off you. Dragons are pretty rare off of Equus.” “Yeah, well I’ve been enjoying life instead of sitting on a pile of treasure for the rest of my miserable life like most dragons do. I’d rather collect experiences than massive amounts of tasty treasure.” Ember neither approached nor did she leave, she stayed right where she was trying to be as unthreatening as possible. “I’m not a threat…” “You cut a Ceantir in half and killed several others, how in the universe are you not considered threatening!” Squealed out the rather panic stricken Coco. “As I was about to say, if I wasn’t busy being rudely interrupted by you, I’m not a threat to you personally.” Considering the reaction, Ember knew she would be a bit difficult so she decided to get a bit stern with the mare. “Yes I’m a bounty hunter and yes I’m quite dangerous as one to those who have bounties on them. The Ceantirs were assassins sent after me to do whatever it is they wanted with my dead body, but they had to go over it first and they clearly failed in that respect since I took care of all of them. They were around most likely because I shut down a slave trading ring before it could get off the ground, one that started off with kidnapping Rarity’s little sister. Quite frankly they could have chosen a much better target that wasn’t left near kitchen supplies.” “You saved Rarity’s sister?” Coco looked a little uncertain, but having Vera pet her calmed her down a lot and she was willing to listen to the dragon as Rarity obviously let her in. “I’m also Rarity’s last customer of the day apparently, I feel kind of special. Little Sweetie Belle is a rather rambunctious and dangerous filly, it was hard to calm her down from the fact that her cooking pretty much incapacitated multiple people and needed to be euthanized with fire for the safety of the surrounding area. She didn’t care about the people; she wanted to keep that monstrosity as a pet.” Ember was not acting particularly stoic, but what she said was taken as humorous judging by the giggles she got. “I’m not kidding, I had to kill what she cooked up and she definitely has the makings of a mad scientist. Just remember that anybody can become dangerous under the right set of circumstances, so please try not to demonize me as I to have feelings. I just wanted to drop in and apologize by saying sorry for getting you caught up in the crossfire like that, plus give your business a little boost since I’ve hit a decent enough windfall recently.” “It’s okay, really.” This was quietly mumbled Coco who felt like a heel now for being so scared of the dragon, one that didn’t look as scary without all the ugly jagged badly patched up armor and might even be nice in personality. Except when she was on the job, the fact that she could callously end life was still something for Coco to be afraid of. “You still cut a Ceantir into two cauterized halves and it haunts my nightmares. Luna is having problems with trying to help me through it; she already has problems with being incapable of helping or getting into Sassy’s dreams.” The rest of the day went surprisingly well despite Coco’s aversion to being around Ember. - The rest of the day was dragging on; Gilda couldn’t believe the stuff they had to clean out of the fighters they were working on. So far she and Greta have managed to get seven squadrons worth of fighter’s space worthy by themselves once more, it would help with the remaining chunks of the Mass Offensive Meteor on the way. Rarity called and asked them how they were doing which was nice of her, Gilda could respect that she was taking their employment seriously to check in on how they doing personally. “What the hell is all this crap anyway? This large needle thing looks like a stinger, this bit looks likes the tip of a tentacle and I don’t even want to know what belonged to the sphincter looking thing, but I’m not touching that with my bare claws. I need a ten foot pole over here stat!” Cleaning out the fighters was not exactly one of Gilda’s job descriptions, but she did the work all the same and the jumpsuit she was wearing was stained in various oils and other disgusting things she didn’t even know the logistics of. She figure if she so much as lit a match or caught a bad spark right now, she’d pretty much light up like a Hearths Warming tree, one that was badly on fire and setting the surrounding area ablaze as well. “I’m not a freaking janitor damn it!” “To answer your question, those are some bits of the enemy we’ll likely be facing as soon as tomorrow. They did a number of the interception the assault fleet did. The increased defensive prowess the MOM has is definitely a new one on us as well.” It was a little alarming to Paul Strag that the MOM had powerful enough defenses to shred so many of their fighters and he was here to tell the two griffons the news since they have been too busy to hear it themselves. “Just dropping in to see how you two are doing. The answer to your question is being released to everyone, since this is quickly becoming everyone’s problem. Look it up when you get some time to do so, we’ve released all the data we got on them from the assault force to everyone including civilians. Some civilians aren’t taking it so well.” As he walked away, Greta slid out from under the fighter on a creeper and pulled her welding mask away from her face. “Want to take a break Gilda?” It was a little concerning that they had been working so hard, especially with the fleet as damaged as it was when it came limping back from the first encounter with the MOM. “Want to? No, definitely not, of course I can go on for another fifteen hours like we were all about to be blown up by humongous bombs made of living flesh and thousands of monsters. I live for the smell mechanical engineering and coffee; my dreams of wanting to be a pilot don’t exist at all and this is my life now!” If Gilda wasn’t being sarcastic, then it wasn’t a good day to Greta. “Need to? At this rate, probably need a good few hours to get my mind off all this disgusting alien crap I’ve cleaned out of these fighters. Okay calling it in, the Garage Griffons officially take a small siesta right now!” “Oh you’re using their nicknames for us!” Squealed Greta as she clasped her claws together and brought them up to the side of her face with a warm cheery smile on her beak. “It’s absolutely great that we’re getting so much recognition for our work that they’re willing to nickname us.” “Remind me to killjoy you extra hard in the near future, mark this one down as incomplete and leave the list of issues it has for our replacements.” The rather grumpy Gilda deadpanned. She quickly stashed the tools she had away in a nearby box and hopped down from her perch on top of the fighter. “Now get your data pad running and find the information he was talking about, I want to see exactly what we’re dealing with here. I didn’t just spend the last nine hours cleaning their gunk out of these fighters to continue being ignorant about what they are.”