Imperfect Stasis

by Mocha Star


Hope

Shining scrambled through the doors to the hatch and reared, placing his hooves on the windows to look out. He didn’t see her so he called her name again with no reply.

He found the lever to open the door and pulled it running into the small airlock. The door closed and sealed behind him as he looked out into space and realized how tiny he felt compared to, he stopped his train of thought and shook his head. Pulling a lever to his right and pressing a button he opened the outer doors and took a step out. His boots hummed as they magnetized and a tether attached to his back.

His hopes spiked as he knew Twilight had to have one as well, so he just had to find his way to the chutes. He tentatively began to walk across the hull in the direction he believed they were in. Several minutes later he reached a large tube with recent scorch marks and called Twilight’s name again.

He looked down the dark chute and tried to make out a figure to no avail. He looked around the hull then into space and gasped as he saw her, floating away slowly and towards the event horizon of the FTL stream. He touched the chute and tried to get a new tether but none came to replace the one he had. With a frustrated and scared huff he made his way to the other chute, mere lengths away.

The tether detached from him and a new one attached to his suit and he leapt free of the hull, nearly. He began to poke quickly at the release mechanism for his boots as he looked up and gulped. Freed from the hull he barely kicked off with his rear hooves as he was already floating free and made his way up.

“Horseapples! I need to go that way,” he shouted as he moved away from her at an angle. He tried to run, swim, and even hop as they drifted apart. Finally he sighed and thought for a moment. He had time to think, she was still a ways away from the horizon, the blue glow barely shining off her suit.

He looked around and saw nothing to help him move. No tools, nothing to change his direction, only his tether. He turned and wrapped a foreleg around the cord and tugged slightly and began to move back to the ship. He finally landed and jumped off again, this time towards Twilight. He grinned happily as he floated to her.

The mare was a mere twenty feet away when his tether stopped him in place with a tug and began to pull him back. He cursed loudly and called Twilight’s name, hoping for a response. “I swear, if she teleported back into the ship and I’m chasing an empty suit,” he growled as he noticed the tether swinging toward him, still attached to Twilight.

He reached to grab it and caught it between his hooves with line to spare. He felt the vibrations as the suit pulled farther away and his hooves weren’t useful at holding it in place. He reached to tap his foreleg and activated the boots’ magnetic feature locking the tether to his right hoof and pulling him quickly back to his tether’s limit. With another tight tug he felt the pull and began to drift back slightly, with Twilight in tow. “Retract tether,” he said as calmly as he could and waited as he was slowly reeled back. He touched down and wrapped Twilight’s tether around his barrel with a tight knot and began to walk back to the hatch.

Once inside he pulled her to him and looked into the helmet and inhaled sharply. Twilight was in the suit, but she had burns across her face and her fur was singed badly. “I’ll fix you, I promise,” he said quickly as he closed the outer hatch and entered the ship again with the mare draped over his back.

“You have to be so large, don’t you?” he said as he made his way up the levels and through the doors to the main entrance. Waving his hoof by the panel, the door slid open quickly and he galloped through and to the elevator, dancing in place until it opened. “Medical!” he shouted as he practically jumped in.

The elevator seemed to move faster than it ever had before as he shifted Twilight’s weight on his back and faced the door, preparing to gallop once they opened. The medical bay was only a few rooms into the hall from the elevator and getting her into the autodoc would be easy enough, then he grunted as the thought of getting her out of her suit crossed his mind.

He began to think of where the release was and how to use his hooves or teeth to open her suit just as the doors hissed open. He galloped out and down the hall, into the medical bay and stopped short in the first room. He began to remove his suit and noticed a flashing light on the inside of his helmet before he removed it.

“What the-?” he stuck out his tongue and pressed the button.

“Welcome to the medical bay. Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” a hologram of a white mare wearing an old fashioned nurse hat asked him.

“We’re stuck in our suits and she was blown out into space!” he shouted quickly.

“Oh, that’s not good. Stay still,” she said calmly as the ceiling hummed and their suits opened on all the seams, “there seems to be something wrong with the medical robot, can you disrobe her and take her to the autodoc as quickly as possible?”

He took off his suit and snorted at the sudden scent in the air. It was something he’d never smelled and he didn’t really like it. He moved to Twilight and ached as the scent was coming from her. He began to pull the suit off her and nearly vomited as her charred skin peeled in spots, sticking to the suit she wore. The smell of burnt flesh and fur was almost too much for him, but he endured and scooped her naked body onto his back and quickly moved into the next room.

The autodoc opened and he pushed her in: it sealed itself once she was inside and there was a hiss of air as it sealed. A whoosh of air washed over him as the room was filled with fresh air and he took a deep breath; clearing the stench from his sinuses.

The holographic mare reappeared. “She’s badly burnt and is in need of serious medical attention. Please, state the procedure you want performed.”

“She’s the princess! Do everything to bring her back and heal her!” he shouted at the mare.

“Please enter authorization.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?! What do I need authorization for, she’s dying!”

“The medical procedure is risky and expensive in terms of our limited supply of medicine she’ll need. Please enter authorization.”

He shouted and lifted his right hoof. “Here, now do it!”

“Passcode?”

He shouted and stomped the floor in frustration. “I hate this place,” he grumbled in admittance as he tried to remember. “Okay, Alotta Regina, access code 5, uh, 5-6, no, 53...08! 5308!”

The mare smiled and bowed her head. “Access code accepted, commander.” She looked to the pod as it came to life. Twilight was lifted in a magic field and hovered in the middle of the pod while arms moved from the sides of the enclosure’s bed and began to inject her with medicine. Lights rolled from the bed up to the top of the cylinder and began to dance over her body while a light mist began to form.

As Shining watched, her body was quickly healed. An alarm whistled and red lights flashed in the room. He looked up and cowered slightly. “What’s happened?”

“Her heart is failing, please wait while we resuscitate.”

Twilight’s mostly healed body laid down on her side again and micro-defibrillators attached themselves to her chest. With a deep whistling hum they charged and zapped her. Her body curled and relaxed, the whistle remained as she was zapped again. And again. A needle was injected into her chest and she was zapped for the fourth time.

Gasping and opening her eyes suddenly, she coughed. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as she tried to move her limbs. Straps appeared from the bed and held her down and a small actuated arm came up with a ring at the end and danced in line with her head, sliding the ring onto her horn. A new needle injected her and she calmed just before the light began dancing over her body again. He watched with bated breath as her flesh healed completely and the red lights turned off. “Complete,” the white mare said. “Anything else?”

“Open the thing,” he said quickly as he pranced in anxiety just inches from Twilight. The pod hissed and opened. Before it opened completely he was climbing up and on top of Twilight. “Twilight? Twi? Can you hear me?”

She exhaled quietly and smiled. Opening her eyes she turned her head to look at him. “You, saved me?”

“Heh, yeah, it’s what I do. Couldn't be alone and all that.”

“Now who’s neurotic?” she giggled as she looked into his eyes. “No stallion’s ever saved me before; I like it, but let’s not make a habit of it, okay?”

He chuckled and nuzzled her. “Deal.”

***

Twilight and Shining sat at their table in the dining hall, both smiling and talking over trays full of the best food she could get them. She held a mug of vanilla almond cappuccino in her magic as she spoke from a mouth half full of food.

He held a spoon in his grip that had was loaded with jello and he watched it wiggle and jiggle as he giggled at her story. A few minutes later they fell silent but in good spirits still as they ate. “Shining?”

“Wassup?” he asked then made a goofy face.

“There’s something I need to tell you…”

“Okay,” he asked hesitantly.

“I spent some time yesterday after you brought me back, to look at what they did to me.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he replied taking the jello to his mouth and slurping it all.

“There’s a feature called ‘hold and stay’ build in. It’s a suspended animation feature,” she told him. He swallowed and looked intently, hopefully to her. “But, only one of us can use it. Obviously it’ll be you,” she smiled softly to him.

“Uh, what?”

“You get to go back into hypersleep, of sorts. I’ll wait by your side until you wake up, all 131 years.”

“That’s, very kind of you, but I think you should go back to sleep,” he held his spoon up and glared at her quickly so she knew he wasn’t done yet, “you’re too important to our future. You can’t show up alive and insane. Obsessed over a pony in a pod. You’d lose the respect of at least two of the races there and it would affect you ability to lead for ages. For example, when I do die.”

Twilight looked at him sadly. “Shining, you’re right, but we can spent that time together when we get there and I’ll read everything I can to help me stave off insanity,” she mused.

“This isn’t a joke or up to debate. It’s you that’s going into sleep, you can’t live ages with me on your mind.”

“Really?” she challenged him and her horn lit up. With a flash she was a smaller unicorn again. “Rule of Alicorns, if you don’t have your wings you’re destined to age and die. Now we’re in the same boat and I’m not changing back until you’re in that pod.”

He dropped his spoon and glared at her, she glared back. Neither was speaking or blinking as they challenged each other without words.

Finally, one of them blinked.