EPISODE SIXTY-FIVE
THE STRESSES OF COMMAND
The Gym is one deck below the shuttle hangar and is actually adjacent to the Galley. It occupies a portion of the outermost areas of that level and contains the most open space on the Ship. The windows looking into space were added during the upgrade. The intent was to provide something of an open-air environment to offset the relatively cramped conditions everywhere else. It contains two playing floors that can be set up for a variety of sports from basketball to volleyball to badminton, pretty much anything one could think to do with the space. There is also a section set aside and stocked with exercise equipment. But the thing that makes it truly special is the fact that it is two and one-half decks high! The highest ceiling in the Hermes.
The reason, of course, is due to the Pegasai among the crew. The rest of us ground-bound types can get by lifting weights or pedaling bikes but a Pegasus needs to fly once in a while.
Mounted high on the walls of that relatively huge space are compact wind and cloud generators that can set up conditions for calisthenic against-the-wind flying or fluffy obstacles for aerobatics. I suppose it's for Pegasai what a pool is for Earth Ponies or Unicorns.
Just then a group of four, Sunny included, were getting together an impromptu game of Cloudball wherein some Pegasus pats a bit of cloud together into a roughly spherical shape and turns it loose. Both sides try batting the thing using only the wind stirred by their wings into the opposing wall where it poofs into fog. A new ball is fashioned and the process is repeated. Well, even wings need exercise!
Down at ground level ten assorted Unicorns and Earth Ponies as well as one Zebra were gearing up for a volleyball game. Looked like Mares against Stallions. I pitied the buck on the receiving end of one of Xantippe's spikes!
I had other business.
Living in almost half gravity has its advantages. No doubt it would add decades to my life since my heart and other organs didn't have to contend with the gravity of Equestris. But if I stayed in it long enough I'd never be able to go Home again and be able to stand on the slope of the Tumbledowns and watch the sun rise over the Sluggish Sea or even take a walk among the boulders seeing what the latest quake turned up. More importantly I'd never be able to sit with Daddy in our Module and small-talk about the events of the day over a plate of Rockfarmer cookies. I don't care if my breasts never get a chance to sag, I'm not giving that up!
The weight machine at the end, right in the corner, is by common understanding Mine. It sits upon a square slice of deck plating under which is a gravity generator. Like the standard models it can produce anything from .001 to 5 'G's. This one was set to a maximum of 1.8 to be attained over five minutes so I could get some stretches in before I got to work.
In a shallow locker against the wall were three more segments each three feet wide. Thin deck-plating on the top with the back a matrix of rare earths, from Earth and other worlds, that have the unique property... when alloyed and treated... of becoming gravitic superconductors. A big improvement over the early days of Star Travel when they had to space hundreds of grav generators out evenly throughout a ship to maintain constant gravity levels. Nowadays we get by with just a few per deck.
The superconductive layer on the back is half an inch wider than the deck-plating in this application to allow me to use a magnetomic dihesion tool to connect the segments. In five minutes time I had a twelve foot by twelve foot grid with the machine in the starboard upper corner.
Before I could activate the gravitic booster there was one more task. Out of the locker I withdrew a set of placards, black with bright yellow stripes each one bearing the notice 'Warning High Gravity'. These I placed a yard outside the grav plates.
Anypony who's been onboard more than a week knows I work out in high-gravity but it's amazing how many of them wander blithely up to the plates to praise or gawk. The border of the gravity field, when focused this tightly, is variable and always extends a short distance beyond the matrix. My career in Starfleet is littered with assorted sprains and pulled muscles on the part of innocent bystanders who should have known better. There was one memorable occasion... after I came up with the placards, mind you, that Caper turned to leave with one of his wings partially unfurled and ended up yanked flat on his butt, injuring his pride and nearly dislocating one wing!
Everything set up, I dusted off my hooves and switched on the grav-plates. They were set up to increase gravity by point three six 'g's a minute for five minutes taking me up the one Equestrin gravity while giving me time to do some warm-ups. I indulged in some stretches and calisthenics to loosen up, biding my time until I could feel the weight of my baggy workout clothes and the air begin to stream down from above. It was a convection current that occurred as a result of my grav-plates. I was at the bottom of a rectangular column of air being pulled downward and reaped the benefit of a refreshing wind that would come in handy later on in the workout. Other ponies nearby shared in the bonus breeze as well and I hardly ever got any complaints... except from the Pegasai!
As I was doing my final check on the equipment... it had been modified to accept my physique and gravity needs so I took special care of that particular piece of machinery... there came an annoyed squawk from above and my vision blurred as I was swept by a very brief, but chilly, burst of fog from above.
“Mind yer contraption, ye great sot!”
I shook off stray droplets that had condensed on my mane and cocked an irritated eye at Sunny who hovered a few yards shy of the gravitic effect, patting another cloud-ball into shape with a wicked grin! Her playmates were busy adjusting the cloud generators and tweaking the breeze aloft, fixing the distortions my impromptu low pressure system caused.
“Damnit, Sunny! We came in here together and you knew I'd be setting up for a workout!” I pointed out, resigned already to the inevitable consequences of my Love in a playful mood.
“Tut- tut!” She admonished. “We started our game afore ye started yer routine so 'tis incumbent 'pon yerself t' no be interferin' wi' another ponies lawful recreation. Marequess o' Queensbury rules 'n all that!”
“I've got your Marequess...” I bit back the rest of the comment and took a deep breath. “Look, just realign your cloud makers and stop being a playground lawyer already!”
But there was just no gainsaying the glint of mischief in Sunny's eye...
“Hoots!” She exclaimed, turning back to the other Pegasai. “Hark at th' High n' Mighty mucky-muck dismissin' th' likes of meself like I was soom poor, ploddin' Earth Pony 'r summat!” She at least had the decency to wink as she turned back to me.
The volleyball game, hardly begun, screeched to a halt as everypony turned to watch.
Well, the quicker it all got over with the quicker I could get back to my workout...
“Yuck it up!” I said, fixing her with a severe glare. “But you'll have to land sometime and when you do you'll see how fast I go from plodding to paddling!”
The volleyball crowd, not wanting to be left out, chimed in with a few jeers on behalf of the ground-bound two thirds of Terran civilization. Everypony wants to get in on the act.
Sunny reared back in hammy outrage. “I'll be takin' that from no Mare! C'mon, Lads n' Lassies! Up th' Rebels!” She flung her cloud-ball in my general direction and swooped up to get a reload.
I let them send a few shots my way... none of which came close to dampening me... before I hefted a free weight and threatened to send it at them discus-style!
The four of them scattered into the artificial clouds!
The volleyball teams threw laughter and cat-calls at the ceiling and soon came under dive-bombing attack from Sunny & Company. Before things devolved into a wet-gym suit show the Pegasai yielded to challenges to come down and play fair. They sent for reinforcements and soon the game went from Mares versus Bucks to Pegasai versus Earthbound. Both sides even managed to put together cheering sections!
I shook my head and let them have their fun while I got on with my workout. I needed it, too!
The Briefing I'd called for after the Watch was... memorable! Jerry and his crew had come up with something truly terrifying. I shouldn't have been surprised, I guess. I'd called for weapons powerful enough to put down a god and I wasn't fussy about the particulars. Well, Jerry came through in spades!
The core of the thing was a standard photon torpedo, basically an antimatter warhead with a short-range warp-capable chassis. The new Mark III's that we carried were rated at a fifty-megaton yield and are the most powerful one-punch weapon mounted on a starship. Not incredibly maneuverable but possessing a longer range that our balephasers, factor in the balefire enhancement and you have a truly awesome anti-ship weapon.
Jerry admitted that his idea wasn't anything original. There had to be Ponies in the weaponry R&D departments in Starfleet that had toyed with the concept but it just wouldn't have been economically feasible. What fleet could afford to carry an arsenal of weapons that cost more than the ship that carried them?
Dilithium, that paradoxical substance with its unique multidimensional properties that made faster than light travel possible, was the key. As far as modern science can tell, it is formed in the aftermath of hyper-nova explosions when stars at least thirty times the mass of our Earth's sun burn through their hydrogen. After the fusion process uses up the hydrogen it begins fusing the helium it had been stockpiling during its career. The helium is fused into lithium, lithium to beryllium, and so on down the periodic table to iron. At that point the cycle breaks down. The atomic structure of iron makes it physically impossible to fuse into denser materials and the star in question simply turns off. Now, without the force of the fusion reaction of the core to prop it up, the star collapses in upon itself. In stars less than thirty solar masses, the core is crushed into a neutron star while the outer layers are blown off in a nova explosion. Truly huge stars collapse into a Singularity, the infamous Black Holes that were the darlings of twentieth-century astrophysicists. But in that middle range the incredibly dense neutron core itself is shattered in a truly awesome display of pyrotechnics and the incredibly dense, high energy environment spawns the heavier elements that make planets... and people... possible.
As a general rule of thumb, the higher up on the periodic table an element is, the rarer it is. Federation science has currently identified one hundred thirty-seven elements, dilithium is number one hundred twenty-three... but it is weirder that all the rest combined!
Terrestrial elements starting with Polonium onward are radioactive, spontaneous decaying into less dense elements over the a span of time measuring from fractions of a second to billions of years. Twentieth century scientists suspected... and twenty second century scientists confirmed... that the elements become stable beyond a certain point. Starting with element 121 begins a string of exotic but stable, hyper-dense elements that have since been confirmed to exist naturally... in very tiny amounts. Really tiny amounts as in parts-per-trillion and beyond! Minute quantities all forged in the fires of hyper-novas and scattered across the cosmos.
These elements necessitated new updates to the Periodic Table. A few, like dilithium, occupy that latest series labeled 'transdimensional'. For instance, it should weigh more than forty-four times more than gold... yet one can heft a chunk of it the size of my palm in one hoof at an apparent weight of a little over two pounds! It's mass, according to the latest theories, is distributed across adjacent dimensions. Which, no doubt, explains its most well known peculiarity.
Dilithium has an exaggerated persistence in Spacetime, a durability that spans several adjacent dimensions. A crystal can be shaped with an industrial cutting laser but you have to cut it for a few months before you start to make a mark in it... which is why we use Magic to alter the raw crystals form. For reasons I have no hope of understanding it can be shapechanged... with Magic. Why a perfectly understandable physical substance should be so susceptible to metaphysical forces I'll never know. Blame the Fey, I guess.
The upshot of all this is we have access to a material that acts, in essence, as a catalyst for an antimatter reaction. It participates in the event without changing itself in the process. The reaction chamber in a Time Warp Core is lined with dilithium and it is where the high energy plasma that is the lifeblood of a Starship is produced. Handy stuff, indeed. ...But it gets even better!
Dilithium, properly shaped and enchanted, acts as a lens! It makes that energy, for lack of a better term, coherent in the same way a laser takes otherwise radiant light and lashes it into a tight, powerful stream of wavelengths moving in one direction. Which is why we can cross a light-year on a hoof full of antiduterium atoms. Before dilithium it was hard to squeeze that sort of efficiency out of the old-style synthetic lithium crystals that Starbubble took the Phoenix out with.
Incredible stuff, dilithium. Without it, a balephaser would be a piece of equipment so bulky it would take two Ponies... or one Equestrin... to carry it. And a Starship's balephasers would take up a couple of decks each!
Until that afternoon that was about as weaponized dilithium got... until Jerry produced his latest Engineering miracle.
As mentioned earlier, we were carrying an extra set of crystals gifted to the Federation by my cousins on Equestris. Enough to outfit another ship of our size for its lifetime.
Dilithium is rare. It occurs in microscopic portions on the vast majority of worlds, but megatons of rock and ore have to be processed to get a half an ounce of the stuff! Large deposits of it are very rare and very much sought after in known space, which makes the stuff... as Tyllae would put it... very, very, very expensive indeed!
We mine... and grow... the crystals on Equestris. It occurs there and the conditions are just right to make them rock-farmable. This is the main reason that the Tellarites and Orion Syndicates took such a covetous interest in us. There are still a few on Equestris that maintain that the Federation took us in, not by virtue of our kinship, but to secure a trove of dilithium to power its Fleets. Personally, I prefer to think that the dilithium was icing on the cupcake. If greed was their only goal, the Federation would have 'nationalized', to use the old-style term, the works and appropriated it. Instead, we sell it to the Federation at a tidy profit while still offering a generous discount compared to other sources.
Whatever the reason, we were sitting on something over six billion credits worth of premium dilithium not doing anything at all! As I said earlier, a princely gift indeed!
...Jerry wanted to pack it around a photon torpedo warhead.
It wasn't as simple as merely duct-taping it to the magnetic containment bottle of the payload. The crystals would have to be carefully aligned and positioned to amplify the explosion to create a million-megaton detonation!
I was floored by the idea but he wanted to carry it one step further. He envisioned two shells of dilithium. The first one to amplify the original event, and the second one to re-amplify the first and focus it inward to force a sort of subspace implosion...sometimes I think there's a streak of the classic Mad Scientist in Jerry. Back Home the Eugenics Council would be keeping a very close eye on him! In any event he had run mathematical models that suggested it was possible. The real trick lay in getting the crystals into the proper position and having them last that crucial fraction of a femtosecond before everything went up in a flash of radiation that would be visible in the Andromeda Galaxy!
The best way I can describe the event would be calling it a 'clean' nova. A titanic release of energy without all that ionized high-energy plasma that comes of the stellar atmosphere being blown off into space getting in the way. This bomb, though, would propagate a lot of its energy into the subspace spectrum. More than any controlled experiment or engineering disaster in history!
...Which meant, of course, that its effects would radiate out from Spacetime Zero faster than light. The initial estimates indicated a kill zone two light-years in diameter in which anything made of matter would simply be wiped out due to the disruption...or destruction...of the local spacetime fabric. Lethal radiation and near-terminal spacetime disruption out to five light-years.. Beyond that out to eight light-years a delta radiation wavefront would accompany a severe subspace shockwave that would be instant death to anything using transtators or Time Warp Drives. The delta radiation would decay into the gamma frequencies out to twelve light-years. Life-bearing worlds beyond that radius would have to roll the dice for survival out to another dozen light-years. Subspace communication as well as radio would be impossible for years within that volume of space. Time Warp Drive would be impossible possibly forever since the event would have permanently altered subspace, having created what could best be described as a shoal in continuum.
Any life-bearing world within a twenty-four light-year wide bubble would be killed. The ecology of living worlds beyond that zone for another twenty light-years would be compromised. Such a thing set off on Earth would gut the Federation. Celestia alone knows what the effects would be on stable stars nearby, it was simply impossible to estimate accurately. Destruction on this scale is a thing out of nightmares!
When Jerry finished his proposal, as I recall, the Briefing Room fell silent. Merry spoke first, a hushed, lurid string of language that would have made my old Drill Sargent weep in admiration.
Sekkack reminded us quietly that he was under the impression that to attempt to take on Discord by brute force had been dismissed as impractical as well as illogical. There was no proof that the Prism itself would be destroyed.
Jerry reminded him that there couldn't be any proof since nothing on this scale existed as anything more than a Doomsday Scenario in a Federation war game.
Rocky favored the idea... as a last-ditch effort. He reminded us that any battle plan that favored immolating ones self as well as the Enemy was more properly a Roamulan tactic... and it hadn't worked out so well for them in the end.
Star looked from Jerry to myself for long seconds before sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms before stating,
“Eynope. Got to find a better way.”
Melody wondered if there was any way to scale down the effect by reducing the initial antimatter charge in the torpedo. Jerry pointed out that it would take more time than we might have to figure out the proper amount... but it was possible.
Evee, conscious of her rank, cleared her throat and said that it all seemed kind of extreme while Bors simply gaped in absolute silence.
Xantippe said nothing, simply bowing her head and clutching her amulet. Well... the Zebricans have reason to be sensitive to the nuances of weapons of mass destruction after their experiences in the Eugenics War. I couldn't find it in myself to hold it against her.
Sunny's eyebrows almost flew off the top of her head as Jerry outlined his proposal. I'm sure she was having flashbacks to the dark days of her own experience in that war. But she kept her peace and folded one hoof over the burgeoning bulge on her abdomen and took Xantippe's free hoof in her own.
“Aye,” she muttered. “Innit wonderful, th' march o' Progress?”
Tyllae was solemn and she turned to look at me.
“Discord hath his Prism and thee wilt have thy bomb. And if thee survivest these days how many more wilt thee have thy kind make, We wonder? We shalt stand by thee in thy decision...but We pray thee remember that the making of a terrible thing spawns a desire to use it! Heed the words of the Fey who stood once where thee and thine standeth now. We hath seen many thinking Peoples tread this path only to follow it to oblivion. We beg thee think long and hard ere thee do this. We love thee and thy kin... yet We fear for thy willingness to contemplate such a work. Aye, aye, aye verily!”
I pointed out to her that no star-faring culture could afford to build more than one of these things. Bankrupting one economy in the name of security was a concept that died in the Twentieth Century. The days, I informed her, of stockpiling weapons of such shocking devastation with no intent to use them were long gone. Our current predicament was unique.
I remember chewing the inside of my lip in silence for a while, the eyes of all upon me...
I authorized Jerry to go ahead. ...Luna help me I said yes! I told him to assemble as many of his Ponies to do the job, even though there was plenty of other important work that still needed to be done. If we couldn't get close enough to the Prism to wrest it away from Discord then there was no other choice but to use every means at our disposal to kill it and him. I made it clear, though, that this was my decision and I would bear the responsibility for whatever came of it.
The meeting broke up... where else can you go after you commit yourselves to building the Ultimate Doomsday Weapon... and we went our separate ways. Jerry to Engineering to set the wheels in motion and the others to their departments. I didn't see any reason to make this some sort of Secret Project. On a ship this small it just wasn't possible. Besides the damn thing would likely fry us as well as Discord... the state of the Hermes Time Warp Drive at that moment made our chances of outrunning the explosion iffy at best. At Warp Seven we would cover one light-year in one and one-third days. We'd need about two and one half days to get to the minimum safe distance. Everything depended on just how fast the subspace component of the detonation propagated itself. Jerry's models weren't a lot of help, giving rates as varied as Time Warp two to Time Warp twenty... depending on the yield which was a direct function of how accurately the crystals were placed and aligned. Too many variables and an appalling lack of experimental data on the subject made the Scientist in me... and the Engineer in Jerry... grind our teeth in frustration.
Jerry had his work to keep him busy. Me, I opted for the Gym. I just had to do something to deal with the stress! The Bomb aside, we were still hopelessly behind schedule for making the rendezvous with the coordinates in Luna's scroll and there wasn't anything we could do about it. There was simply no way the Hermes could muster enough speed to make it in time without destroying ourselves in the process.
As far as using long-range sensors to find the 'Storm among the Stars' we were continuing our run of bad luck. The trouble was we had no way of knowing just what the rock-rubbing hell to look for! Thanks to the arch-whacko of Chaos the entire Pegasus Sector was an astrophysical nightmare. Something had shoved two entire stars light-years out of their charted positions and another seemed to have simply disappeared... was this the 'Ruined Star' Luna mentioned... and we were clueless as to what!
An Ion Storm creates a characteristic radiation wavefront but those are detectable light-years away and while they might be able to sterilize any world they wash across they most certainly do not have the capability to move stars!
A pair of rogue neutron stars zipping along in orbit around one another might explain the phenomena... but we would have picked up the gravity wave signature long ago. Besides, anything that could drag a star that far that fast by mere gravitation would have ripped it to shreds.
...And what destroys a star without leaving some sort of hyper high-energy event?
No, it was apparent that whatever was happening in the Pegasus Sector wasn't emitting any sort of energy in the electromagnetic or subspace bands. ...Which only left the Arcane energy frequencies.
OK, it's just the Earth Pony in me that made me check out more conventional options for the problem. Given the nature of Discord and his triply-damned Prism it should have been obvious.
I ordered a scan of the Arcane spectrum and we hit pay dirt... more or less.
Scans confirmed that the Pegasus Sector was awash in Arcane energy, basking in the metaphorical glow of a point source that was cutting a shallow chord through the near corner from nadir to zenith at a seventeen degree slant canted toward the Galactic Core. At its nearest approach it would come within twenty-four light-years of us. We would need nineteen-plus days at our current speed to intercept... which would leave us eighteen days late on our rendezvous!
Unfortunately the Sensors couldn't give us anything more concrete to work with. The Source Point... and not one of us doubted for an Andorian minute it wasn't Luna's Storm-Among-The-Stars...wasn't moving at a constant pace. It had gone sublight to Time Warp Nine while we had been observing it. (Our estimate for intercept were based on its average velocity.) The size of the damn thing was impossible to lock down as well. Its size was, to say the least, variable. That was all we could ascertain at this distance... yet another set of variables and missing data to add to our frustration!
For frustrations we had... in abundance! At the end of the briefing Jerry let me know that our last three attempts at replicating replacement modules for the Main Computer had failed. The accumulated damage to our Ship and its systems was taking its toll on our ability to perform the delicate work. His new estimates gave us no better than a one in ten chance of success...
I ground my teeth and bade him and his already overworked crew to continue replicating. There just wasn't anything else for it. We needed the Main Computer to keep the Hermes operating at peak efficiency. In the end I seconded most of the Science Department to Engineering. Research was pretty low on our list of priorities just then anyway.
I was in a pretty sour mood when I returned to the Bridge for a quick stop to update my log entries. Of course I took pains not to show it, no Equestrin worthy of the title would admit that they weren't Up To The Job publicly. Besides, the Crew didn't need to see their Captain as anything but confident and assured. Caper gave me a fine crew and I was beginning to worry about how much longer they'd hold up. I was hoping that all the work we were doing would keep them from dwelling too much on our current predicament... but these were Ponies and not robots. How long could I demand them to keep this up? How long could they keep it up?
Tyllae was one of my better ideas, if I do say so myself. Prior to her re-introduction to the Crew she had assumed the position of a mascot, her antics a pleasant distraction from the hectic pace of the last few weeks. Since she had taken to showing the Other Side of her personality... Faery Pun intended... she'd become something of a celebrity. A living piece of the History that had nearly been forgotten in the last few centuries. The story of Caper and Stimbolt's fate was just that, a story. But Tyllae in all her Elfin Glory was the promise of the truth behind the tales. It was a Sunny predicted, they loved her before and they loved her even more afterwards. I'm given to understand that she spent two entire Watches in the Galley regaling the Crew with stories of Days Gone By... while making sure leftovers were at an all time low!
This One Good Thing I hugged close to my heart as a counterweight against the odds stacked against us when I got to the Bridge. Ordering my thoughts for my log entry I flicked my tail through the hole, put my knees together, and jammed myself into that too-tight chair...
It turned out to be the nugget that broke the mine cart! With a creak and a snap the whole thing tilted back about ten degrees and rotated about fifteen degrees to port. I froze in place, mortified, as I rocked side-to-side in ever decreasing arcs until it stopped.
It was bound to happen sooner or later. I was more than twice as heavy as the damn thing had been designed for and it was a tribute to its makers that it had lasted that long. Still... it was very embarrassing.
I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but I'm very sensitive about my size. While it was pleasant to be considered tall for a change as opposed to Back Home, and strong enough to take care of myself in the face of hazards of my job, the fact that I outweighed everypony around me almost by a factor of three had the effect of making me nervous about doing the most prosaic things. When you spend your life crossing your fingers every time you sit on a chair you get mighty self-conscious! My life beyond Equestris is littered by a lot of embarrassing incidents involving me ending up flat on my butt in a restaurant or even, on one very memorable occasion, a Staff Meeting!
It leaves a body feeling positively fat! I don't know how it works on Earth but on Equestris being fat equals being lazy with all the negative implications of not doing One's Bit For The Colony that entails. I know, I know! It's strictly an Equestrin Thing but that's just how I was brought up. In this modern day and age its just silly to obsess over calories or narcissistic concepts of beauty but I do... and that's just how I am.
None of which did me any good as I sat there swinging to a stop! To give the Crew their credit nopony laughed. Melody and Code looked up in genuine alarm and Gorge offered me a hoof up out of my seat. Everypony else snatched a quick look and got back to what they were doing.
I gave the thing a tug and put it back on an even keel, but it was hopeless. The least little bit of pressure set it rocking back again. Capers' chair... I had just broken my old friends' Command Chair with my oversized butt. I couldn't help a depressed sigh.
“Right.” I said quietly. “Somepony get a hold of Engineering and see if they can't tack this back into shape. If anypony needs me ...I'll be in the gym.”
Which leads us rather circuitously back to why I really needed to vent some stress that afternoon!
I can bench press eleven hundred pounds in the course of a workout to build up a decent sweat and blaze off extra calories. On that particular session, over the course of an hour and a half I had worked up to an even thirteen hundred. That's a decent load for a mining drone. Me, Augment from a high-gravity world or not, I was left drenched in sweat and gasping!
I'd been so focused on what I was doing that I completely lost track of the volleyball game. By the time I'd gone into cooling-down exercises while the grav-plates cycled back to Earth normal I managed to notice that the Gym was more-or-less deserted except for two Ponies... well an Alicorn and a Zebra, to be precise... who hovered beyond the border of my workout area indulging in some classic Ta i-Chi training moves. They were waiting on me, apparently. Sunny was understandable, but I wondered just what Xantippe needed...
I stowed my gear as quietly as I could and cleaned off the machine. I threw a towel around my neck and sat on the padded bench and waited for them to finish. I hoped they wouldn't take too long, now that I was done I was feeling definitely chilly sitting there in my damp sweatsuit. Cramped quarters or not I was seriously considering drawing a jumpsuit from the Quartermaster Replicator and indulging in a hot shower in the Gym's facilities. I'd easily take up two spaces in the group shower but it wasn't as if there was a crowd in there at the moment.
I'd tucked my hooves into my armpits and was just about to indulge in some calisthenics to warm up again when they smoothly slid to a stop. Xantippe clasped her hooves in front of herself and bowed from the neck to Sunny who did the same. The serene expression on her face morphed instantaneously into a scowl as she turned her gaze to me.
“'N what th' bloody blue blazes are ye tryin' t' do then? Ah saw the braw, great stack o' weights ye had on yon contraption! Half a bloody ton, forsooth! Yer lucky ye didna crush yer windpipe or dislocate yer shoulders! Are ye no s'posed t' hae spotters r' somesuch when ye do that?”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Sunny! Who would I get to stand in there with me? Besides, the safeties on the machine are there to keep anything like that from happening. I just needed a good workout is all.” I fetched her a tender swat to her bottom that Xantippe pretended not to notice.
“All in all it was nicely done.” She demurred. Though in truth it came to more than half a metric tonne.”
“'Twas still reckless no matter hae many hairs ye care t' split!” Sunny shot back.
Xantippe leaned in to speak to me confidentially, smiling slightly with downcast eyes.
“Do not let yourself be bossed, she's only mad that her team lost!”
“Dinna be so smug!” Sunny brandished a finger at the serenely smiling Zebra. “ We lost by only one point n' ye only got that by virtue of a bloody foul! 'Struth! Th' things some ponies will do t' win a friendly game!”
“Oh?” I looked to Xantippe for explanation.
As usual, she never raised her eyes to mine... though she did slip Sunny a playful glance.
“The rules must be different from race to race.” The Zebra nodded thoughtfully. “ But I never learned how to play using my face! I wonder if this is one of the jewels of the Marequess of Queensbury rules?”
“Aye, Ah never saw it comin'!” Sunny admitted. “Ah was in th' second row, a prime spot t' stop an incomin' spike ye ken. Whin Ah saw her go up n' swing her arm, Ah got ready. Ah heard th' 'wap' when she hit the ball... then all I saw was bloody stars! Faith! It was like a bloody photon torpedo! Whanged off me noggin' n' soared off! Crosswind got a piece o' it n' tipped it back into air but 'twas already in th' exercise equipment whin Sunstrike made a try at it but 'twas a lost cause. Still, th' laddie kept it from endin' up in yer lap so 'twasn't in vain after all. Oh...” Sunny dug me on the arm. “Incidentally, we're a-blamin' ye fer th' loss. If 'tweren't fer yer bloody no-fly zone th' laddie might had it!”
Xantippe made a scoffing, coughing noise. When we looked at her she said.
“If I were to suggest a word, I would say, um... merde!”
Sunny had to explain the word to me, I never studied Prench. We all laughed.
“OK. Well everything that happens on the Ship is the Captain's responsibility isn't it? I'll tread carefully around any Pegasai I come across in the future!”
“Oh Ah dinna ken ye've anythin' t' fear from th' Aerial Mafia, Lass. Yer reputation precedes ye!” She winked at the smirking Zebra.
“Yes, they've decided to be beware, lest they end up like your Command Chair!”
I felt my ears droop. “Well, crap! That didn't take long, did it?” I sighed. “As long as they continue taking orders from 'Captain Fatso' I ...”
“Och! This again!” Sunny appealed to the ceiling for help. “Th' only appreciable fat on ye is 'tween yer big, hairy ears! How could anypony wi' yer overweenin' insecurity end up in command of a bloody starship is beyond th likes o' me! If yer too blind t' th' facts o' yer bloody biology...” She narrowed her eyes at the softly chuckling Zebra.
“What's so bloody funny then?”
“At the risk of joining this affray I only wish to say...” Xantippe pointed one delicate finger my way. “Before I end up in the doghouse you might want to pay attention to your spouse! I am very much afraid that you are being played!”
“Wha d'ye mean...?” Sunny narrowed her lovely eyes at me instead and I gave her a wink!
“And I'm told that I'm easy! That volleyball must've scrambled your brains, Toots! I should take you back home and give you a thorough, ah, physical... just to be sure.” I waggled my eyebrows meaningfully until her scowl melted away.
“Aye well there's a lot t' be said fer that isn't there. Just remember that Ah'm th' Senior Physician here, ye've got a bit more t' learn 'bout playin' Doctor!”
“I make up for in enthusiasm and stamina what I lack in technique.” I admitted. “But even you have to admit I'm a conscientious student.”
“That ye are but there'll be no Docterin' whatsoever 'till ye take a shower, ye great smelly lump!” She wrinkled her nose up and gave me a kiss on the end of mine.
“That is my cue to bid you adieu.” Xantippe laughed, but then grew solemn. “I have, however, set myself to a task. There is a thing I'd like to ask.” She hesitated and snuck a peek up into my eyes for a bold instant before dropping them again as she continued.
“As the Captain of a ship in space you possess, or so I am led,” She lifted her eyes resolutely to meet mine. “The legal capacity for two ponies to be wed. I wish to ask, as a favor to me, if you would perform the ceremony.”