//------------------------------//
// The Station Situation Part 1 of ? 
// Story: Adventures Across Space 
// by zalla661 
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Failsafe.

It was a word made by cadets at the Equis Officer Training Academy in its earliest years. It was something that gained a lot of reputation when a famous spacer named Dallia went into deep space with her freighter and small crew. 

The story goes something like this. Dallia Captain of the Calisto, a older MX-12 cargo freighter, went into deep space on a routine supply run mission to Jansis 2 Colony. The story goes that he ship made a successful H-Jump, but ended up in an unknown region of space. For twenty years the fate of the Calisto remained unanswered until a listening station near the newly developed Jansis 13 station received a degraded transmission from the Calisto. Turned out the ship had came out of the slipstream and into an asteroid field. 

According to the transmission they had a malfunction with the H-Drive that propelled them into an unknown region of space and crippled the ship. The message was abruptly ended when an asteroid collided with the ship destroying it. The remains of the Calisto were found decades later by another MX Logistics Fleet who attempted a blind jump after Thrane pirates tried to steal their cargo.

Since that incident the Thrane and Equis Shipyards Engineers have always tried to balance ships systems with emergency backup systems and redundant failsafe systems. However there was one that wasn’t taken into account. That was weapons.

Trixie rummaged over the damage report for the Hydra for the tenth time in the same day. Commander Tucker from the human ship Enterprise was hard at work with Lt. Commander Pinkie in engineering. Archer and Octavia were in the debriefing room looking over the ship's damage as Trixie thought about the weapon failsafes of her own ship. 

As a master engineer she was suppose to know things like, how to put in a power regulator, or replace an EPS Manifold. Heck, she could even build a H-Drive from scrap and spare parts, if given enough time. Weapons were simple if they were designed right. Disruptors and phase particle weapons had many failsafes. Torpedoes, especially antimatter warhead ones, were outfitted with several safety features. 

Ion cannons were a different matter completely. 

An ion cannon was an over powered particle weapon that discharge a massive amount of energy and antimatter into a condensed stream in a rail cannon that is propelled forward nearly at the speed of light at its target. The damage of such weapons is something captains and crew both respect and fear. 

The very core of how these weapons worked ironically is why Equis Command never fail safed them. By drawing power from the entire ship the idea was if there was a malfunction due to a power feedback it would dissipate over several of the EMP and EPS manifolds and cause minimal damage to the ships. In practice it actually proved true, but not for the Hydra. Trixie overlooked several areas of the ship over the last few hours and found hundreds of power coils and fuses were the wrong type. In this case the coils and fuses were unable to handle the amount of energy discharge from the canon as the feedback went throughout the ship's systems. Instead of dispersing the energy the fuses and coils either blew up or melted to slag and caused power build up over several systems and damaged every systems they were attached to.

Trixie groaned as she looked over one replacement fuse. It was what was known as a Type-33X Microlight fuse. A standard fuse used in most ships through the fleets of Equis Command. The hydra was designed for a brand new line of fuses that were the MK-V Microlight fuses. The Type-33Xs were designed for 3000UI of energy flow, where the MK-Vs were designed for triple that output. In essence the Hydra was flying with fuses designed to run ⅓ the amount of power the ship needed, thus making sustained combat a problem.

To Trixie disdain the Hydra was instead built with every fuse being the obsolete Type-33Xs. This was a direct reason why their disruptors were so ineffective during their first encounter with the Romulans at Jansis 12. 

Trixie made a note to file a complaint to whoever requisitioned the fuses to be put up for charges when they got back to dock. In the meantime the ship was adrift with Enterprise nearby and a crew that was on edge after nothing but mishaps and near death experiences.

Taking moment to look away from the digital display of her ships systems Trixie looked over to Archer and Octavia. Octavia had come back from the cargo bay and was updating Archer and Trixie about what was going on. 

“-we’ve gotten most of the disruptors offline to transfer power to the engines. With any luck we’ll be able to get to this dry dock without any problems.”

Trixie nodded. “What’s left then?”

“We just need to wait for engineering to send word to us about the engines and we’re good to go, Captain,” Octavia reported putting her PDA back in her side pouch.

Archer let out a tired sigh of relief as did Trixie.

“Captain Archer, thank you for lending your team to my ship in our time of need,” Trixie said kindly to the human extending her hoof to shake his hand.

Archer too the hoof in his hand and shook it with a kind smile in return. 

“Not at all. You saved my planet. Earth and Starfleet owes you a great debt,” Archer said.

“It was Trixie’s pleasure to help. My crew too heavy losses since we left home,” Trixie lowered her head thinking about the few crew members they lost in the last few days. “We left our home with around one-hundred fifty.. We’ll be going back with thirty less now.”

“It’s never easy losing one of your crew<” Archer said sagely. 

Trixie recognized his tone. She heard it from one of the older MAREs Commando XOs. Her name was Firefly V, and she was the sole survivor of a mission gone bad. A hostage situation on a colony opposed to Thrane immigrants from a colony took a school hostage in protest. Firefly’s commandos were ordered to take back the school, after negotiations went south. The end result was catastrophic.

The protesters saw the Commandos coming and had enough time to prepare. The MAREs commandos stormed the school and were slaughtered, but they pressed on determined to save the hostages. The protesters resolve was stronger than the MAREs Commandos determination to save hostages. In the end the protesters used home made explosives and destroyed themselves, the school, and the hostages. Firefly lost her entire squad that day and was the only survivor. She always spoke with a sad longing tone that was filled with guilt of being a survivor. Trixie knew it as survivor's guilt, and Archers tone was filled with regret when he spoke to Trixie about loss. 

Trying to be sensitive, Trixie looked up at Archer who was doing his beast to give a supportive smile as he continued on with his point. 

“You can’t second guess what you did. You did what you thought was the best option. Your crew died to save the others in it. That’s commendable, but you learned from it and you tried your best to make the best out of a bad situation,” Archer said standing up and patting Trixie on her back gently. “If I were you and our situations were reversed, I’d have probably  done the same thing.”

In that moment Trixie and Archer made a connection. A deep emotional connection that could only be made by two individuals who had suffered through the same thing. From behind them Octavia watched when her PDA started to beep. Looking at the PDA Octavia realized Lt. Commander Pinkie Pie was signaling the engines were ready. Octavia nodded behind the human at Trixie getting a silent nod in return.

“Seems like engineering is ready, Captains,” Octavia said walking next to Trixie. “Shall we?”

“Of course. Captain Archer, would you mind joining us on the bridge?” Trixie offered her human friend.

“I would be honored.”

With that said Archer, Octavia, and Trixie went to the turbolift and went directly to the bridge. The lift was slower than usual. It took over two minutes to go up the four decks to the bridge. The lift had to stop on every deck as a safety precaution made by Lt. Commander Pinkie in case the lift railings failed. Thankfully the lift made it in one go and no problems.

On the bridge Lt. Sunset and Vinyl Scratch were working at their stations. Claw was sitting with his arms crossed and a bored look since his console was dead without power, and Lyra was busy with 3rd of 5 trying to get the ships navigation back online. Just as they finished and Lyra turned around she spotted Captain Archer, as he ducked to get out of the turbolift. Her eyes went wide, her mouth turned to a toothy grin, and she shook as her eyes dilated, and she let out a girly shriek of delight that deafened everyone on the bridge. 

In a blur of teal green Lyra dashed instantly before Archer and stared wide eyed and happy at his hands. The unicorn was bouncing in place staring at Archer's hands making him feel uncomfortable. Then without asking Lyra took his hands and started caressing them in her hooves making awkward squee noises as she did. 

“I like you, umm…” The unicorn stared at Archers fingered appendages. “Claws?”

Archer took his hands back slowly and put them subtlety behind his back giving the unicorn a weary look. 

“They’re hands if you must know, miss?” 

“Heartstrings, Sir! I’m Ensign Lyra HEartstrings, communications officer of the Warship Hydra!”

Archer chuckled while Trixie groaned facehoofing her head along with most of the crew. Then suddenly Archer noticed Lt. Claw at his station unholstering his disruptor and not so subtly aimed at Lyra.

Taking a quick step between the griffon and Lyra Archer turned to Trixie, blocking Claws shot. 

“So, um.. Captain Lulamoon. Shall we get this underway? Wouldn’t want to keep our engineers wailing?” He subtly hinted.

“INdeed. Trixie agrees,” She turned to Octavia sticking her nose up slightly a the earth pony. “Of, course, if there are NO MORE OBJECTIONS?”

“Har, har.”

Trixie nudged Octavia making the earth pony blush as Trixie gave 3rd of 5 the order to take the Hydra to the dock. 

The Hydra’s engine roared to life and slowly the wounded ship limped to the dock rings. Then as was told by Archer the rings of the dock expanded and became elongated to take the Hydra’s full length and height. It started round but became more of an oval shape as they Hydra slowed down as it entered the docking area made by the station.

As the Hydra came to a slow unsteady stop, the entire ship shook as the power core shutdown and the internal alarms sounded off. The ship was now dark save for a few red lights offering some help to the disgruntled crew.

Several unicorns lit their horns with bright magical light as they scurried like bugs in the dark, trying to regain the ship's main power. Trixie and Archer remained perfectly calm. Without a word Trixie went directly to the turbolift with Archer and went down to the cargo bay. 

ONce there Archer and Trixie boarded a small bomber. Archer had to sit cramped in the back seat with little leg room. The bomber was larger than the fighters, but even so it was designed for smaller ponies not full grown humans. Archer was by no means a giant for a human, he was average standing about 5’ 4”, but the bomber was still too small for him. 

Regardless he managed to keep his head as the bomber flew out of the badly damaged cargo bay. Trixie flew the bomber around the station once and overlooked it. A bright light overcame the tiny ship blinding Archer and Trixie momentarily. Trixie struggled to keep the bomber level and not crash into the station. Once her vision cleared she then spotted a mechanical umbilical extending out from the center most piece of the station and changed form to fit the bomber. She looked back at Archer who seemed rather calm by what happened.

“It was an intensive scan,” He said. “The station scanned us to determine the best suitable atmosphere for us.”

“You destroyed this station once before you said?” Trixie asked, taking the bomber to dock with the umbilical. 

“I did. After we saved my crewman we had to make a hasty exit. We destroyed the station, or so we thought.”

Trixie nodded taking the bomber in slowly to not crash it. Using her magic she created a barrier around the top hatch of the bomber and used it as a sensing guide. Since the ship had no external sensors or cameras this was standard practice for all pilots and crew able to fly bombers or fighters.

Carefully she positioned the bomber sideways and with her magic managed to align the umbilical with the bomber and attached it with ease. With a slight shake the umbilical magnetically sealed the bomber to it and equalized the pressure. Trixie powered down the bomber which gave a low humming that died down. Then she used her magic to release the seal from the bomber and opened the hatch above Archer. 

The human stood up slowly, as to not bonk his head on the console above, and pushed a small button and opened the sealed door to the umbilical. Once they climbed out, and played a balance game with changing gravity, the two made their way across the umbilical towards the station. The umbilical and the core of the station were very much the same. Clean white walls with bright white lights all around. It was so clean it was as if the station was brand new, there wasn’t even a single scuff mark on the clean white floors. 

The room was different from what Archer remembered. As they entered the central chamber there was a digital display of the Hydra, much like the engineering 3D display that was on the Hydra itself. It showed the entirety of the Hydra, deck by deck, even down to the individual bolts in the superstructure of the ship.

The console that displayed it was hexagonal in shape with tiny spike like features about six inches tall pointing at the image of the Hydra. Trixie and Archer both assumed it was image emitters of sorts. Behind the console and opposite of the doorway they came through, there was a large panel the size of the wall with a digital display of the Hydra in a 2D side view format of its power systems.

“This is impressive. It got all this data on my ship from one intense scan?” Trixie asked looking it over. 

“Yes. It is a very complex station,” Archer admitted with a hint of amusement in his voice. “A bit more than I expected, even though I encountered it once before.”

Trixie nodded looking over the Hydra’s systems when she noticed the ion cannon displayed on the console. She touched it and it enlarged the image of the canon and several parts to it. Then she made an amazing discovery. Ths tation also knew about the correct fuses and breakers that were needed to fix the canon and details on how they were made.

“Did this station download our entire data drive?” She asked alarmed seeing this.

Archer looked over the display and nodded. 

“Yeup, the station did the same for us. When we encountered it it said it’s purpose was to help, meet, and catalog all new species it encounters. It’s truly a wondrous and terrible thing.”

Trixie looked back at the console nodding in agreement. “Yes, indeed.”

Then the panel on the wall suddenly drew back startling Trixie to draw her disruptor with her magic. She took aim at it, but Archer held his hand up signaling her to not attack. Reluctantly Trixie holstered her disruptor as the console opened up and a digital display came out from the opening. 

Then a female mechanical disembodied voice came from the display said, “Please select your inquiry.”