//------------------------------// // -55- // Story: Coarse Diamonds // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// “How are things going Opal, I hope Chrysalis isn’t causing too much trouble.” So far this jump through space was going uninterrupted and nothing bad was happening and it had been two hours, Rarity was kind of glad for that and it looked like they’d reach their stop at Antilur Station on time. The trip would take approximately six hours and that nothing had happened on the first hour or two spoke volumes about how nicely things were going. “Nothing report on her that could be troubling to us. Except that she is setting up in the armory on deck two, section two, she is currently accompanied by Lightning Dust. I think they are talking about target practice. Coco is experimenting with the new impulse saddle design in the lab in section three there. Mostly testing the battery output and is making a request for a drone to test it once we reach the space station. We can start production on them soon when it is determined they are within the perimeters that we’re trying to meet. Trapeze, Rover, Bernard and Saffron are using storage for practicing tricks for a show. Coriander is in the cafeteria in section two by himself.” Opal continued down the list and finished off with what everyone was doing and where they were on the ship. “You are here on the bridge of your ship Captain Mom, listening to my report on deck one, bridge section. Greta and Gilda have moved onto outfitting the Caravel Boutique with single barreled turrets in deck three now more commonly known Han Gar and are quiet for the most part. They said something about not drawing too much power from the shields while they given your first ship a tune up, also there are talks of designing a vehicle with my assistance. Sassy is still in medical deck two, section two where Vera is keeping a watch on her progress. Sassy will be able to come out within the next week and a half. All drones are accounted for and active, no unintentional life signs are on the ship and there are no bugs in the system.” “Well for once I might have a jump that goes perfectly.” Leaning back Rarity pulled out a trashy romance novel, paper books were as her namesake would suggest, a rarity. “How are you feeling personally Opal?” “Can’t complain, at least your injuries were closed up by the Elements of Harmony. The stitches have been removed and you don’t have any scars. If only Sassy had been caught up in that harmony magic.” The harmony magic had covered quite a few miles and had saved many a pony, changeling and most life in the general area from life threatening injuries. Opal thought the wave of magic looked pretty from orbit. “Surprisingly everything is going accordingly this time. Sorry about the gala not turning out how you wanted it too.” “Don’t be, it actually gave me some perspective. Also I’m legally a noble now, earning a title is better than just buying it I’d think.” Rarity had Opal look up the laws pertaining to it, Rarity had total governance of her ship with the possible exception of what went on in the hangar. Lightning was however still subject to Rarity’s rules even if she was hired on by Gilda. No one could tell Rarity how to run her ship and there were a list of rules that Rarity had hashed out with the crew through a democratic process. The one rule that all agreed on was to never unnecessarily endanger the ship unless they had several good reasons for doing so, which was on top of having safety regulations for crew members around the hangar. “If things are going well, then I guess I should consider myself lucky. I have a steady income and an allotment of friends that I can trust, well aside from Lightning or Chrysalis. I’m not too sure about either of them.” “Chrysalis I can understand, she’s a bit of a schemer and knows how to plan for an eventuality, mostly for the fact that seems bored a lot of the time.” What Opal didn’t get was the other one Rarity mentioned. “What about Lightning though, what’s your problem with her?” “She’s quite crass and I’ve looked her up, she was definitely tossed out of the Wonder Bolts for reckless endangerment though that’s not the entire story.” It was always a good idea to keep possible threats from the crew themselves in mind and as such Rarity was on top of things. Chrysalis wasn’t exactly the friendliest sort with her history as the Changeling’s leader and Lightning had almost gotten charged with mare slaughter. “The main issue of said endangerment was that she hospitalized fourteen ponies, most with a serious permanent injury or disfigurement of some kind. As long as she keeps her behavior civil, I will have nothing more to say about it. I would like to add for the sake of clarity that Rover’s not very threatening and he smells awful and could use more baths; I’m surprised he even manages to keeps his teeth clean. As far as I’m concerned Rover’s only threat to me is his horrible hygiene.” Rarity had no problem with Trapeze, Bernard, Coriander or Saffron as new members to the crew. She had some issues with Rover, being that he needed to bathe more often and there was not much known about his past except for hearing from him that there were several incidents where several of his previous bosses died horrifically. Said bosses were likely Diamond Dogs doing some exceedingly stupid things. - Coco had just finished putting the touches on the prototype design for the latest impulse saddle; she couldn’t wait for her efforts to come to fruition now that she had tweaked the battery modification on the saddle. Now that she finished that and had a few vanilla impulse saddles made to sit around in stock for sale, she was without a lot to do for the last hour of the journey to their next destination. Visiting Equus had been nice, if only the circumstance were better. Needless to say things weren’t all too bad in the end. Right now Coco had a lot of free time on her hooves and had wondered what she could do with it, her belly grumbled and she rubbed at it with a hoof. It had been a while since she last ate, so it was time to get some food. All she had to do was walk to the middle of deck two to find the cafeteria. “Hello Mr. Cumin, I was wondering if you could make something for me. I’m a bit hungry.” Coco had thought Mr. Cumin was a nice stallion; she became quite flustered when her stomach grumbled loudly. He looked up from the counter he was wiping off in shock and nodded with a small smile on his face. “I’ll see what I can get you Ms. Pommel, have a seat. You’ve got the stomach of a tiger, like my daughter.” Politely Coriander inclined his head to her and when Coco took a seat he asked for clarification. “What kind of flavor will you be having today?” “I’m thinking something a bit bland and maybe lightly salted?” Coco watched as Coriander walked off without another word, she so hoped she didn’t run into Chrysalis again. That Changeling wouldn’t stop talking about her butt, it was quite embarrassing and she didn’t like the queen very much. “There’s nothing I can do about it now, Chrysalis is part of the crew and Rarity said she had good skills in many places. Even if I don’t like the looks she sends my way, I’m not that adorable am I?” Brushing her hoof across the top of the table a bit of dust kicked up and she sneezed that sounded insanely adorable for how lightly she squeaked. She sighed and waited for the food, the table and chairs were kind of new but slightly covered in dust. “See, right there, she’s the cutest member on the crew!” The poor pony jumped at the sound of Chrysalis’s voice and looked to see Lightning and Chrysalis standing behind her. “I guess… I think still Greta is as adorable. Well, if you can overlook that Gilda shrine she has.” Lightning shook her head wanting to get rid of that particular memory. “Greta’s too positive and outgoing, Coco here is a bit of an introvert and shy. That’s classic adorable right there! Plus she always cowers at the sound of my voice, so that makes her a fun pony to cuddle too.” Chrysalis and Lightning sounded like they were getting along, even if they were discussing the idea of who was the cutest crew member. Chrysalis sat down and brought Coco into a hug with one hoof and sniffed her mane before licking her lips, making Coco shudder. “So onto our next discussion who’s the most naturally beautiful member of the crew, we’ve already got the cutest right here.” “I still think Greta is the cute one. As for beautiful I’d have to say Saffron or maybe Gilda. Gilda isn’t cute, but she does have a really nice butt, her feathers are quite soft and she cleans up nicely when she wants to.” Something about what Lightning said caused Chrysalis to release Coco and slam her face into the table to start whining pitiably. Ignoring Chrysalis, Lightning continued on while thinking Rarity was too manufactured in her appearance, so a natural beauty she was not. “Hey, I’m not about to discount Gilda’s beauty based on her personality… then again I do like her gruff and rough attitude.” Coco didn’t know whether to pat Chrysalis on the back to comfort her or move to a different table while waiting for Mr. Cumin to get away from awkward conversations like this. She decided to stay seated and ask a question. “What about Rarity? I think she looks nice.” Plus Coco had been friends with Rarity for a long time. “Yes, but she’s a try hard. I can’t consider her for anything related to natural beauty, Saffron doesn’t wear makeup and Gilda is quite attractive despite some minor flaws.” Here Lightning looked at Coco with serious gaze. “Have you ever even slept with a stallion? Before you ask I have slept with mares too. I’m never going to want children and was a career focused mare, so I made sure the stallions always used protection or else… that was back when I had a little more muscle on me. I can’t really get into a sexual discussion with this virgin about these kinds of things.” “Hey, I’m plenty good in a sexual discussion even if I’ve never had any… well aside from cuddling next to Cadence for one night where I gave her a massage before the failed wedding day.” Chuckling Chrysalis pulled her face from the table. “That was the best night’s sleep that I’ve ever had, don’t think I’ll ever get that chance again after crashing her wedding before it could even happened. Alicorns are really quite cuddly, but even I’m not evil enough to ruin a married couple. Though I’m evil enough to try and steal the bride before hoof though.” “So you’re looking for a planet for your people, how are you going to do that when we’ll most likely be sticking to commercial planets?” Coco asked with a sudden thought about how Chrysalis was going to go about achieving her goals. “We’re not exactly going to go into frontier space you know.” “No, but that doesn’t mean I can’t set up a Changeling colony on a planet that’s already inhabited.” The most basic way of waving off the question posed to Chrysalis about how she hadn’t thought much of her plan through this time, it happened like when she didn’t know that butt shaking thing Cadence and Twilight Sparkle did. Thinking of that particular subject she muttered out loud. “Why does it always come back to butts for me? Whether it’s biting me in the butt or my butt isn’t chunky enough to get a good mate.” “Because it’s the one thing you think you lack in being nearly perfect.” This was a rather insightful thing for Lightning to say, it was almost out of left and right field at the same time. “That’s not necessarily true, but you will continue to blame it on the fact that your butt is quite lacking.” “I have no idea what you are talking about; I’m perfectly wondrous to look at. My very visage is that of a regal queen that all shall acknowledge.” Chrysalis put a hoof on her chest and pointed her nose towards the ceiling of the cafeteria, a single sniff and she turned towards Coco. “You’re mane smells real nice today, maybe you should consider growing it out a bit.” “No thank you, I’m already quite aware of why you would ask me to do that.” Everyone on the crew had to know about everyone else and Coco understood why longer hair might be attractive to Chrysalis. “Well spoil my fun, at least Lightning doesn’t care about her mane and I can mooch hair off of her.” Chrysalis turned to Lightning who rolled her eyes. “Sure, but you’d have to pay me for it. I don’t mind having stubble where my hair should be.” Lightning had long ago lost having any sort of pride in her appearance. If Chrysalis wanted to eat her mane then she was okay with it as long as made the Changeling earn it somewhat. “So do you want tail too?” “Also some of the thicker stuff that is between your hind legs if you don’t mind.” Chrysalis didn’t care what part of the body the hair came from, though there were different flavors involved for different places. “Actually, that is something I do care about so I will have to decline that. You can only take from my head and tail only; we’ll haggle out pay later.” Lightning didn’t pay attention to Coco gawking at her and the fact that she was seriously discussing this. “Do you pay more for clean or dirty? Do you prefer cutting it yourself or should I do it at an agreed upon time and give you the resulting mass? You know you can even pay me to have sex with you so you can get your first time out of the way. I didn’t exactly sell my body on the streets, but nothing says I can’t do it with someone who knows what she likes.” “Either or, Dirty has a different more unique flavor, but I like clean more. I like doing the cutting myself so don’t do anything to your mane or tail without my input.” This conversation Chrysalis was a part of was beginning to get rather weird for Coco. “Oh and the longer it is the more fun I can have. Oh and no matter how tempted I am, I’ll have to decline the sex. I’m saving myself explicitly for love and marriage.” “Well where’s the fun in that?” Lightning obviously slept around and had plenty of one night stands. Chrysalis, despite her very provocative nature, was surprisingly and absurdly celibate. “Are we still good for a game of Twisty though?” Coriander couldn’t have brought Coco’s food soon enough because she was trying not to look at the two mares next to her. Eventually they both tried to convince her that a game of Twisty would be fun, she doubted that as Lightning had a smug smirk stating she’d win and Chrysalis had a lecherous smile stating she’d enjoy touching another mare without going too far. - “We’re dropping out of the jump right about… now.” The station appeared before them in the distance in space; it was exceedingly large and far more so than Geoptis was. It did hold a population of hundreds of thousands of people and was a round several hundred miles long and wide. “That’s Antilur Station… though something seems off here. I’ll commence with contacting the station on all frequencies possible, one at a time of course.” “Opal, what seems to be off about it?” As they got closer Rarity started noticing the first signs of something being terribly wrong with it. There were no guiding lights and a bunch of ships were just floating around it with no activity at all. “Please, give me an idea as to what is going on here. I feel a chill up my spine just looking at all those ships just floating about aimlessly.” “I don’t know much and I’m not getting much either. None of the ships floating about the station have any life on them and most of them are military, none of those ships are active at all. Scans are picking up a lot of life readings from the station itself, but not the same amount of activity you would expect from said life. Something is wrong with the scanners and it’s hard to pick out any movement going on in there. In fact the life signs we’re receiving even seem to be popping into existence and disappearing at random intervals.” Opal slowed down the Shining Jewel and kept it distant from the station and the others ships; she directed the scanners at the station. “Life support, gravity generation, energy generation and hydroponics on Antilur Station seem to be working. I’m not getting anything else but that alone. Something is definitely very wrong here Rarity. There are no communications going on around here and this place should be a hub of activity, no movement from any of the ships either. It’s like they are all dead in space or are ghost vessels. They almost have the same general systems active as the station, but nothing else.” “You said energy generation is still going on here, can you give me some more detail?” The station didn’t look alive and Rarity didn’t want to go in there looking dark like it did, The Shining Jewel was perfectly fine at the moment and she didn’t need to scrounge for spare parts like she did when the Caravel Boutique had been damaged a long time ago. “This situation requires investigating, but only through drones. Nobody is to leave Shining Jewel under any circumstance, unless I personally give them the permission to do so. Try to keep in mind that one of our crew members is a Changeling.” “I will tell everyone that something is up with Antilur Station and that leave is cancelled due to unforeseen issues. As for the energy generation, it’s working perfectly and nothing seems wrong with the power the station’s reactor is putting out. This is odd because that power is disappearing to somewhere and all the other active places are not enough to result in this much going missing into thin air without another system being used in overdrive and I’ve got nothing that results in that being the case. Hold on second, something new just came up on one of the smaller ships. It has a moving life sign on board and it’s so faint I hardly noticed it.” The Shining Jewel turned and started to focus on the ship in question and the screen enlarged to show a small ship that was quite familiar to Rarity. “Is that the Pyrrhic Victory, can you hail that ship to see if Ember is on board? She might be in trouble.” “Right hailing now…” After a minute or so something popped up on the screen, but it wasn’t a brilliantly scaled blue dragon with minor social problems that was a bad-ass bounty beater that Opal didn’t mind being around Rarity. “Is that Mr. Spew?” The squid on screen got slightly happy and waved a tentacle at Rarity. “Are you alright Mr. Spew?” Mr. Spew made a loud chirping noised and seemed to nod that yes, he was okay and he pointed to a readily accessible feeding device. There was also a completely unclean water tank, but that was to be expected as sewer squids loved swimming in filth or so Rarity had learned when she looked it up and wished that she hadn’t. “Have you seen Ember recently?” The response was the squid hopping up and down, Rarity took that to mean that he had seen her. “So is she investigating here?” The sewer squid just gave her a flat stare, all while tipping its conical head to the side as if asking if she were seriously sanity challenged. “Right, well, I guess that should have been obvious given she’s not with you at the moment.” The squid gave off a sad whine and Rarity took that to mean that he was worried about Ember being in there alone. “I know I’m going to regret myself later for this but… would you like to come aboard for some company Mr. Spew?” The little squid seemed ecstatic at the prospect of having people around to spend time with by clapping its tentacles together, because without Ember it was really lonely being by himself. His intelligence was above average for a sewer squid and Rarity didn’t think that came from the familiar bond he and Ember shared. “I hope Ember doesn’t get too upset with us for watching out for Mr. Spew. If I remember correctly she doesn’t know about The Shining Jewel yet. Can we bring the ship on board Opal?” Rarity’s response was Opal simply appearing on screen and throwing her a cheerful salute. - “Why are we picking up the sewer squid again?” Gilda didn’t want that thing in her hangar, the squid that is. The ship was perfectly fine by her standards and she was okay with rescuing the beautiful scout ship that looked like it had its bells and whistles firmly in place. The ship was right next to Antilur Station outside one of the docks; Ember didn’t park it in the docking bay because it obviously wasn’t a very safe place to land her ship. “He’s a friend of my friend and I know about him. Just don’t mean him any harm and he won’t hurt us, whatever is going on in the space station must be dangerous enough that Ember felt she had to leave the poor dear behind by himself.” Rarity watched as they brought the Pyrrhic Victory aboard safely, sure the sewer squid disgusted her on several levels but that didn’t mean she held any ill will towards him personally for it. “We’re also bringing the ship aboard in case Ember left a message on it for anyone. You know, in case whatever is happening here has happened to her as well.” “Sounds like a good enough excuse to me for us to help him out by giving him some company.” Greta poked her head up from one the Caravel Boutique’s new energy turrets. Said turrets were good against missiles, some fighters and a few other things. She pulled down her welding mask and went back into the workings of the turret with Mr. Welder. “Well it’s already been decided anyway. Opal, can you check the ship for any messages she might have left behind.” Rarity walked into the ship and saw Mr. Spew diving back into his tank with a small splash; he squealed happily as he had someone came to keep him company. He was no longer alone or in a silent place. “We very well can’t rule out that that something has already occurred.” “Found it, patching it through the monitor on the ship, if you will look towards the front.” Opal popped up on one of the screens there. “Then I will get to your feature presentation, replaying message now.” After a few seconds of silence the screen popped up showing Ember wearing the EVA suit Rarity had made for her, only she wasn’t wearing the helmet. Mr. Spew popped up out of the water to look at the screen and grabbed onto the edge of the tank to watch as well. “Okay I’ve been inside Antilur Station several times over the past few days, but those idiots jumped the gun and I didn’t give them the go ahead to storm the place. Now they’ve disappeared too! Hopefully if something happens to me and this message is found, then I have either failed to take care of the danger here or I’m taking my sweet time with getting back my ship which you are likely watching this on.” Ember narrowed her eyes and they became slightly fierce as she pushed her face close to the camera and she looked particularly angry. “Do not go onto Antilur Station without a completely sealed off suit on, for whatever reason a sealed suit is required for assured safety! Without this comfortable EVA suit a good friend of mine made me, whatever has been getting the military scouting drones and the guys that had been behind them would have gotten me too by now. I have an idea as to what is going on here and I’m researching the possible danger, what evidence I have so far should be under the file name ‘Morpheus Scenario’ and the password is ‘Tranquilized Deity’. Though I have yet to get a visual on these things or thing, I’m certain I’m close to finding out the truth of what’s happening here. This is a likely the work of the deadliest sifter drifter classification I’ve ever had the displeasure to encounter, probably an invasive top level bio-hazard like a mechanical or biological grey goo situation, maybe even worse than that. I really hope it’s not that, although if either of those goo types were happening then they would have been far more noticeable then this mostly empty station. Whatever is going on, there’s something intelligent here and it’s apparently a very slow and painful death if you are caught. If I can find out where the missing people are, then I can still rescue them and the victims that haven’t died yet. Don’t mind the sewer squid; he can take care of himself until he runs out of food. Thankfully eating his own waste can sustain him for a time.” “That is so gross…” Rarity felt ill at hearing that. “Yeah, well I can kind of see why Celestia wouldn’t want me to eat ‘THAT’ in front of ponies. Though there is a double standard about that.” Chrysalis’s voice caused Rarity to jump and put a hoof to her chest breathing in and out rapidly. “Did I spook you? Well I would think that the space station is spookier as I’m getting some really dangerous vibes from it. The kind of vibes that say come in, we welcome you to stay. Of course if the station were a spider, then we’d be the flies it’s trying to attract with honey.” “Wait, wait… are you saying that the third thing Changelings can eat is…” The Realization struck Rarity and now she understood why the special dietary needs said ‘other crap’ when a third thing was listed by Chrysalis in her job application. “Oh my dear goddesses please tell me you haven’t kissed anyone with your mouth recently.” “Don’t worry, I cleaned my mouth out with soap, various dental pastes, shampoo, mouth wash and maybe gargled a little bit of bleach while I was at it because I had a thing going. That made my teeth far whiter than they have ever been and my mouth is one hundred percent clean after I rinsed it out I’ll have you know. This is why I will abstain from eating that particular food source as a crew member, even though ponies eat honey from a bee’s behind and guano is actually a delicacy for some Zebra societies.” Chrysalis was completely serious, as her clean grin would attest to. “I assure you my mouth is quite clean, though Celestia was right about the reactions a pony would have to hearing that.” “Please, stick eating to love or hair, because that I can handle. Opal, can you open that file that Ember mentioned?” The file popped up on screen earning Rarity’s attention, she was trying to ignore what she just learned and will eventually forget it with a more pressing situation at hoof. Opal was looking it over quickly. “If you can give me a summary of what it says, that would be helpful.” “Morpheus Scenario, it’s about a rare type of sifter drifter classification that hardly ever shows up. It’s the hardest to kill, stop and or fight without completely and ultimately devastating the place said classification has taken root in. Ember seems to have catalogued this as being the problem currently plaguing the station.” There were several seconds of silence as Opal poured over the information. “The reason why I can’t get a good signal on any of the life signs is because of a byproduct of… consuming massive quantities of energy, yeah that sounds about right. This makes it impossible to track where this thing or these things are in the station at any given time, so we can’t trust scanners to work correctly in any capacity. Drones won’t work either; they are eventually attacked and are found partially or fully drained of their batteries without having picked up a single visual image and are miraculously left mostly undamaged. These particular sifter drifters are of the deadliest classification simply known as ‘Visitant’.”