“Hey Mr. Spew, it’s time to…” Ember looked around; she didn’t see Mr. Spew in his bowl as she flicked bits of rock out of her wings from the cooled magma that had stuck to her. He was easy to take care of as he liked filth, yet he wasn’t in his water filled tank onboard her exceedingly small scout ship the Pyrrhic Victory, to say she was slightly panicked at missing her companion was a bit of understatement. She wasn’t exactly used to being responsible for others. “Mr. Spew, where are you?”
Something slapped harshly against Ember’s shoulder startling her, only for her to notice it was just Mr. Spew taking his rightful place. It pointed to the window at the harsh, warm badland style landscape and then made a crude gesture with one of his tentacles while chirping.
“Yeah, okay, I get it.” It had been a few days for Ember, who now had crate full of gems and jewels from lava diving, spelunking in mines and just found littering the ground. Around this time Rarity and her friends would be arriving in the Equon System. She had come to Bliuspyro while Rarity and her crew were still salvaging space around Ewesen. “So where do you think we should go?”
-
“And… we’re here; welcome to the prime home world of Equus long may adorable ponies come from here!” Opal’s voice was heard throughout the ship. “Beautiful ones however are a Rarity and my creator is especially so.”
Coco just shook her head and gave a mirth filled smile as she looked to the ceiling; she quickly pulled on a rather fetching white and ice blue EVA suit. She was quite thankful EVA suits gave pretty good radiation protection; unfortunately it couldn’t protect you from too much in focused amounts and she was about to go outside to test her newest idea to see if they could add it to the product list. Also the faceplate of her helmet would automatically cut out the solar glare that she was going to be dealing with on her space walk.
“Bringing her to a stop with impulse power, we’re within spitting distance of Equus. Before we contact the local officials and take up an orbital spot we have some experimentation to get to for business purposes, Coco report to Deck one Airlock A-2… left hand side elevator middle of section two of the hangar will get you there.” A few moments later Opal spoke again after Coco started trotting away from the Caravel Boutique. “I’ll have CAT3-Tracer meet you there and on standby to rescue you if something goes wrong Coco.”
-
While Coco was making her way to begin experimenting and working on her solar batteries in space, Rarity was busy with keeping track of where everyone was and what they were doing on the bridge of Shining Jewel. It was still a bit hard to take in the fact that she had earned such a massive vessel, capable of holding a hundred and twenty eight crew members. A hundred and thirty six if you wanted to field two extra fighter squadrons, but Rarity wasn’t planning on using this vessel in a military sense even if she did so several hours ago. Aside from the maximum crew value the ship had a capacity for holding three hundred people in a pinch, only in that situation things wouldn’t be very pleasant.
Deck one had officer quarters that were meant for eight people in a well armored portion near the bridge in the third section of the ship, section two had a training slash exercise room with showers attached. Section one was were near where the ships main forward guns and missiles were to be fire or launched from, currently the main gun was a moderately large single barrel material rail cannon that had no ammunition and the missile tubes were as equally empty as Lirutiy had rights to confiscate any viable solid ammunition from the ship.
Most of that was on the inner side of the two corridors running through the ship; on the outer side of deck one were small emergency medical rooms, escape pods, airlocks, maintenance access hatches of which some were primarily to get to another deck and several bolt holes in case of being boarded by those with ill intent. There were still claw marks around one bolt hole where a Xouj waited out a crew member who eventually ran out of food and tried to make a break for it.
Deck two had ninety six rooms for living in throughout the outer side of the two corridors with their own bathrooms and showers, in the pattern of four very small bedrooms connected to a large main room and close to those living quarters were some manual defense turret operation stations. On the inner side there was primary oxygen creation and emergency hydroponics in section one, section two was medical, armory, food storage and cafeteria, while section three had a laboratory, extra storage space, a unique shield generator access point and auxiliary bridge station. Deck two had the largest amount of armoring out of the whole ship for crew survivability, aside from the beds and things that weren’t nailed down or part of the ship there wasn’t much left behind aside from what Rarity and her crew brought with them.
Deck three had fighter pilots quarters along the outer portions of the hangar enough for thirty two pilots, that was about it aside from the repair and maintenance facilities. There was a lot of empty space in the hangar to carry a lot of cargo like the scrap and parts they got from their salvage work.
The twenty six dual barreled high powered energy turrets along the out hull of the ship didn’t lose any stability and or needed too much maintenance after positively percussively pounding the daylights out of some annoying pirates.
“Oh you are such a flatterer Opal, give me a status report. Where are all of our drones currently? I would also like to know where the rest of the crew is aside from Coco.” The ship was mostly barren in the respect of the fact that it had been mostly stripped of military equipment and there were only six living people onboard the Shining Jewel. In fact the quiet hallways were quite unnerving to Rarity to glance through on the monitors, as the lifeless hallways reminded her that she almost died on this ship being hunted by monsters and that the previous crew was completely wiped out by them. That is if you didn’t count Greta or Gilda barely surviving.
“CAT1-Uno is still following Vera around, as is my prerogative that I don’t forget she’s there. Our forgettable friend is checking medical and moving a Med Bed or two along with some medical supplies to deck two section two. CAT2-Dos is currently working with Greta, doing some minor maintenance adjustments and checking a few missile tubes and rail cannon up here in deck one section one. CAT4-Scanner is performing a patrol around deck two and is making sure everything is running ship shape and cleaned out. It is also making sure we don’t have any nasty parasites or unexpected boarders running around, this ship is kind of big just for the seven of us.” Opal smiled at Rarity and started showing her diagnostics of the entire ship and flicked out a rainbow colored digital pointer to point things out. “Currently Shining Jewel’s food storage is working optimally, so far no known signs of any other life forms on the ship except the crew. Vera might even be able to get the Shining Jewel’s medical bay up and running soon. This really is a lot of stuff to keep track of Meowstress; it’s really giving me quite the mental workout. MAT1-Mattock is assisting Gilda in Hangar maintenance beyond section three of deck three. Finally Sassy is in the training room of deck one and MAT2-W.I. Progress is with her, she is currently dancing with her sword. I’m going to put it up on screen for you to watch. It’s really quite awe inspiring.”
The screen popped up and Rarity was witness to an elegant display of Sassy twisting and twirling as she leaped around seeming to gambol about the training room. Her sword flashed around her body in a dazzling display and her kimono stayed completely unruffled throughout all of this as she moved with her eyes closed, sliding about and sometimes her body visibly flickered as she started to speed up her swings. What was impressive about all this was that she wasn’t wielding her sword with her magic, but her two hooves. She switched between wielding her sword with one hoof to the other hoof and then both hooves at the same time at random, all while juggling her sword through each fluid movement.
“She’s doing quite an elegant dance and I think the facial scars are starting to grow on her, she’s stopped trying to hide them at least.” Then the show got more impressive for Rarity when Sassy started to wield the sword in her magic and switched to standing on all four hooves instead of two. Sassy became an indistinct blur on the screen as she moved and the sword responded in unusual ways to her quadruped based movements with but the barest flick of her neck. “I think I’ll go see how she’s doing, it looks like she could use some company. I don’t want her to be alone for too long.”
“Works for me as there are no ships on approach from planet Equus and we’re being left to our own devices right now. However, I’m pretty sure Equus Defense Force has noticed us out here.” Opal paused to make sure that Coco was exiting the airlock safely with the CAT3, she then turned back to wave Rarity off as she continued to keep track of everything. “I’ll keep you informed if anything exciting happens; go get some social interaction time with our slightly mental friend Meowstress, oh and make sure she’s stays moderately happy. Goodness knows she could use more hugs and cuddles until we can find her a girlfriend.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll go do that.” Nodded Rarity as she went to exit the bridge, things weren’t trying at the moment and they had plenty of space for improvements or changes to the ship. She was thinking along the lines of flying hotel for smaller ships to stop and get repairs, refuel, possible buy some clothing, get some food in the cafeteria and maybe rent a room for a few nights. It was an interesting idea, because Rarity certainly wasn’t going to use this vessel in a malicious manner unless it was absolutely warranted.
-
“This is Admiral Trap Bar, hailing unidentified ship at the edge of the system.” Trap Bar was a pegasus pony known for his mind; he was good at barring traps from being effective as his name would suggest and was a strategic hero in space combat. He had bright orange fur and his messy dark red mane, bushy eyebrows and was waiting on a response from the ship that stopped at the edge of the gravity well of the Equon system, that of course meant that the ship had just arrived out of jump. Another thing Trap Bar was known for was excessive drinking; he called it ‘tactics lubrication’ on his supply requisition forms. “I repeat please respond, this is admiral Trap Bar.”
“So sorry we cannot take your hail~! Da doom doom da da, no one is on comms now~!” It was an automated musical reply by Opal; she recorded it for this very situation as she was too busy keeping an eye on Coco. It had an unusual effect on Trap Bar’s crew as they started humming along to the tune playing over their communications and started to dance to it. The white cat that appeared on their screen was singing into a microphone like a pop star. “We surely would have taken your hail, but clearly we’re going to fail, and I’m sure yours was an important one~! We’ll get back to you, I’m pretty sure that you’ll force us to, so if you’re pirates then please go away~! Otherwise Leave a message, with a name and reason~! I sing, leave a message~! Our systems will start recording at the yowl~! … For the Shining Jewel’s crew is currently very busy, meow. Oh and you have one minute to record your message as of now.”
Opal’s smiling adorable face after she meowed had all the crew of the Indignant Splinter back to their stations after they danced to the short tune looking embarrassed about it. Thirty seconds had passed in absolute silence before Trap Bar managed to collect his faculties and respond, his ship the Indignant Splinter was a large destroyer class vessel surrounded by several smaller cruisers in escort.
“I don’t know what to make of this, but it was certainly catchy. Ahem, this is admiral Trap Bar of the EDF space initiative… we are hailing you since you are an unidentified ship in our system. If you could get someone in authority on your ship to respond to us at your soonest convenience that would be good, otherwise we’ll be investigating your ship if you haven’t responded within the next few hours.” The ship didn’t seem to be doing much other than sitting there and it was of a military hybrid classification, Trap Bar wasn’t about to have his crew approach it yet and he would at least give them some time to respond. Especially after such an amusing message taking system being employed by what was an obviously adorable AI. It was a little too adorable for his tastes. “Well gentle mares and stallions, I guess we’ll wait and see who these people are. They certainly don’t seem aggressive, but I didn’t get this far in my career without a little bit of paranoia and uncertainty.”
“Lieutenant Smooth Flight, set us personally out there facing the unknown. Ensign Call Sign have all other ships scan space and check for other unidentified ships to this system. With the Gala on the way we’ve been getting a lot of visitors lately, so everyone stay on your hooves.” Fun aside, Trap Bar was a good admiral; his small fleet had helped protect Equus when Celestia couldn’t use the sun as a deadly and rather effective deterrent for space bound threats. So far he hadn’t lost a ship yet and he wasn’t about to act aggressively on just a gut instinct, so far his gut told him this ship was benign and he had been wrong before for various reasons. He’s lost good ponies to wrong calls, but the casualties under his command were in the tens and all of them were battle related incidents. “We’ll only need the Indignant Splinter for this one if it proves hostile.”
The ship shaped like a Pegasus wing started to move into position and waited for a response, while the other ships that were shaped vaguely like unicorn horns went off to continue their job of scanning other incoming vessels.
-
Coco enjoyed the quiet of space and was testing the charge on the new rechargeable impulse saddle, before swapping it out with an original basic impulse saddle. The switch took only a few seconds and things were looking good for the batteries, no overheating, no horrible heart stopping voltage, no volatile explosion and more importantly a viable source of rechargeable energy to keep an impulse saddle running almost indefinitely… provided you were near enough to a star to charge it up.
“Well things are looking in order, what do you have to say about it Opal?” Coco wanted to hear Opal’s input on this thing that she worked hard on, especially concerning the fact that it would be a new utility to sell. If it sold well then it would be a good boon to their business.
“… well… it’s decent… it’s not really energy efficient, while moving the saddle uses energy three times faster than it can be recovered. It’s still quite viable at the very least when it isn’t moving, since it recharges at a good pace and the cutoff to prevent overflow is working perfectly. Can’t honestly tell you how to improve it, but it certainly seems like it’ll be a worthwhile venture.” Hearing the sigh and watching the suited mare land on the hull of the ship, Opal felt a bit bad about her honest reply hearing how it might have upset her friend. “Hey, don’t be like that Coco, it’s still pretty impressive piece of work and we’ll see to adding it to our list of utility options for EVA suits.”
“It’s kind of beautiful out here… if only I didn’t know I was a few centimeters from instant death.” Turning to the drone, Coco tapped her helmet with a hoof as to express her meaning. “I’m not exactly that great an inventor; I’m not even that great in fashion scene on my own and… I kind of miss Ewesen. First time I’ve been away from that planet for so long, it’s going to take some getting used to traveling around with Rarity and everyone else.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot of beauty out there, now if only it wasn’t so hazardous to the health of my friends and loved ones.” Mumbled a slightly coy Opal, she moved the drone closer to Coco, to look over the test saddle. “We all do what we can Coco, you’re good at accessorizing and that talent has apparently translated nicely into technological accessories, we’ll have Greta tweak it later. I can sort of understand you missing Ewesen, that tropical climate and those lovely shining lakes would be hard to leave. Nobody is really forcing you to do your best but you, you have some really high standards for yourself in your work effort alone and I’m sure Rarity really appreciates that. Considering Meowstress Rarity has just as high standards for her appearance, you both have a lot in common. Besides fashion is fleeting, friends are forever!”
“Thanks Opal, you know how to cheer a mare up.” In fact Coco started giggling profusely at what Opal had said. “I wouldn’t tell Rarity that fashion is fleeting if I were you, it’s serious business to her and you and I know that better than anyone. I’m coming back in and I will do some more tests later after Greta gets in her few tweaks, but preliminary findings are looking moderately good.”
“Roger Roger, why do I feel like rolling around and shooting at people with laser swords after saying that?” Digitally nodding to herself Opal just decided to focus on other things, like what Greta was doing in what passed for her bowels at the moment. This ship was her body and her job had gotten far more complicated as Rarity’s personal aide, hopefully she could still record her show in case she missed it while she was in the middle of something else.
-
The training room had a lot of empty space in it, a wall that you could hang targets for shooting practice, place in the ceiling to hang punching bags and the empty floor where they could install a mat. Renovating this entire ship was going to be costly and Rarity knew it. This was where Sassy now stood in a stance preparing to stab it forward as MAT2 held up two thick round plates of metal in front of her. Rarity looked on curiously as she stabbed forward at the two plates and put a hole in both of them without actually physically connecting with either of the plates; she was even standing a few feet away from them.
“Wow, I think that was rather impressive Sassy.” Politely applauding with a few stomps of her hooves Rarity then walked up to Sassy who frowned and looked away.
“It wasn’t impressive at all and shouldn’t be applauded.” Something was off about Sassy when she said this, she actually sounded sad about this.
“Why whatever do you mean darling?” It looked to Rarity like an impressive feat of skill, Sassy didn’t look like she built up any muscle and was still strong enough to do something incredible like that. “You punctured both of those sheets of metal without touching them.”
“That’s not what I was trying to do Rarity-sama.” Okay so Sassy was upset all of the sudden and Rarity didn’t know exactly what she did to cause this. Having picked up on her friend’s confusion Sassy spoke up. “Berets and bonnets Rarity, I’m trying to train in control here!”
“Could you please explain things so it’s a little clearer for me dear, I’m afraid I’m only trained in pistols and know what’s good in that respect.” Rarity moved over to Sassy and pulled her into a hug which was returned immediately, the way Sassy held her was quite needy for the few moments that they stood there together. “I would want to know what I’m apologizing for after all.”
“I’m trying to train in emotional control, tighten control of my skills and have better control of myself in general so I don’t endanger you again.” Looking over to the MAT drone repairing the plates of metal, Sassy closed her eye inhaled through her nostrils and then exhaled out her mouth loudly in a sad sigh. “I was actually trying to only damage one piece of metal without touching the other. Needless to say, I failed. Having a special talent that can translate into combat skills is rough.”
“It’s still impressive that you didn’t put a hole in anything else in the room with that thrust and that it didn’t have any magic in it all.” Rarity wrapped a hoof around Sassy and patted her reassuringly. “You’ve become really strong Sassy, the exercise seems simple enough and I’m sure you’ll get it eventually.”
“Maybe, but the advanced version of this exercise is far harder than that.” Pointing a hoof at the two pieces of metal Sassy watched as the MAT drone held them up for her, she motioned for Rarity to move out of the way and she took a stance once more. “In fact it’s important that I learn how to do the harder version of this exercise, very important.”
“What does that entail?” Truly curious was Rarity as to where Sassy was going with this, her right brow was thoroughly raised. “Excuse me for my ignorance, as I want to learn what you can do Sassy.”
“Oh, it involves hitting the second metal plate.” Sassy was concentrating too much to go in depth; she wanted to see Rarity’s face when she explained it in full. She stabbed forward and put holes in both plates again and motioned to the MAT to fix them, it went to work as she turned to Rarity.
“That doesn’t sound so hard, as you’ve already done that.” Although Rarity could feel the question on the tip of her tongue before she spoke it, she was wondering how hitting both would make the exercise harder than hitting the one. “What’s the catch of the advanced exercise?”
“I have to hit the second plate… without damaging or touching the first.” An amused smile came to Sassy’s face as she saw Rarity’s wide eyed look and when her friend went to open her mouth Sassy held up a hoof. “Before you say anything, it is actually possible to do as I’ve seen it before. It’s just really hard to pull off. It’s a ghosting strike, the ability to hit a target behind something like say a personal energy shield. For those that can do it really well, it is quite exceptionally useful in a hostage situation. Although it’s going to be a very hard for me to learn, my translated special talent is not in slashing, cutting or severing as it is in stabbing, piercing or puncturing things. So you can imagine the boost I get from my special talent getting in the way of that as it overpowers any form of thrusting attack I perform.”
“I’ve never thought of a special talent as having a negative consequence like that. It certainly gives me some things to think of in terms of my own special talent.” It did lead Rarity to wonder. What exactly are the negative connotations of having a good eye for beauty and detail? Maybe seeing things in too much detail could be a bad thing or seeing things you’re not supposed to, and then there’s seeing the beauty in a violently efficient monster so yeah she had some downsides of her own. Maybe it was also the ability to see the ugly alongside the beauty of things or did she intentionally ignore the ugly side of things? “So spears, knives and rapiers would be quite lethal for you to wield?”
One last thrust and this time the second plate only had a slightly smaller hole in it this time, Sassy was happy with even that much marginal progress.
“Also table legs, fire pokers, crowbars, my own hooves and just about any elongated thing that can be thrust forward, as such I need to train to make sure I’m less lethal about it when I need to be.” Sassy cuddled up against Rarity and smiled brightly when she didn’t step away. “Counteracting or controlling my special talents translation into combat isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do. Thank you for coming to see me Rarity.”
“Meowstress Rarity, report to bridge and bring Sassy along with you while you’re at it. She looks like she could use some rest after all that training.” The slightly chipper voice of Opal sounded out as she needed someone else to be on communications. “We got a call from the EDF, they tried hailing us but we were all a little too busy. I need you to call them back and inform them of our business here as they don’t seem like they would be happy talking to an AI. Apparently security around Equus has risen a bit with the onset of the Grand Galloping Gala; a few dignitaries have likely already shown up for this shindig.”
“Please don’t be so crass Opal, it’s a soiree if anything and Celestia is the gracious host.” Rarity reprimanded as she continued on with a solemn looking Sassy following after her.
-
“We’ll put in word of your name to the princesses, we can’t exactly guarantee anything.” Trap Bar had a gut feeling the people of this ship were going to be trouble. He didn’t know how they were going to cause it, just that they were even if they didn’t have any solid ammunition and twenty six high end defense turrets. The AI’s message was explained, but he still didn’t trust the cute cat as far as he could throw it as there was something off there. Even if he couldn’t exactly put his hoof on why it bothered him so much, he had a job to do and they didn’t seem to have any ill intentions so he couldn’t hold them at range forever. “You can take up an orbital position, no funny business or my ships will fire on yours. We will need to run a background check, also since you came from the direction of Ewesen I would like to hear word of what’s going on over there. If anyone else comes from that way and tells the same story I can maybe trust you some more.”
“That’s all I can expect really, the princesses should know my name as Luna is personally testing a product of mine. Please tell her that Rarity Belle is here. Also if you need any EVA suits I would be happy to take any orders while I’m in orbit for the time being. We’re still in testing on the rechargeable solar battery pack. It is not even technically available despite being on our list of utilities for sale.” Rarity was handling the suspicion quite well and was taking it with a grain of salt as she had yet to actually do anything wrong. “As for what happened at Ewesen, well it was quite a mess. I ended up taking refuge in Heppren Square Hospital in Drixsto, afterwards I did some salvage work for Commander Lirutiy and it was quite gruesome. Several cities on the planet were swamped with monsters and the last bit of the MOM was thankfully destroyed before it could hit the planet, so things were mostly alright when we left except for the casualties to the local Plantary Protection Patrol fleet.”
Rarity could have bragged about assisting in the securing of the hospital, but she didn’t and it would put her in a better light later on.