“I’m taking up controls, better hang on to something. Hey, you EDF guys should be getting clear out of here!” It was Gilda’s voice that Rarity was hearing as she woke up strapped into a medical bed with a battered and beaten trio nearby. Rover had several injuries that looked like they would scar, Applejack was show black and blue through her orange coat and Mare-Do-Well was strapped in similarly. “We’ll be fine, Lightning are you ready to pick us up in the upper atmosphere? We really don’t want the gravity well to pull us back in after we expend our fuel. T-minus ten seconds to launch… oh hey the Puffles are actually doing something smart and making a run for it, the Boss Lady will be happy to hear that. Things were pretty touch and go for a while, but we can get medical help upstairs."
“At least let us fly escort!” The voice of a stallion could be heard saying throughout the interior of the cargo loading machine.
“Sure, sure, now out of the way wide loads, the facility is going to go up at any minute down there and I want to watch the fireworks from orbit.” Well Gilda sounded particularly cheerful.
“Excuse me, but I feel a bit dazed. Am I to ascertain that we’re all back on the Centaur-pede?” It was probably one of the worst times Rarity could have woken up, shifting about upset her broken leg and she winced loudly from agitating her injury. She was strapped into a medical bed, but it currently wasn’t filled with any chemicals. Chemicals like painkillers, which would have been nice to have at the moment.
“Yeah, we’ll give you the full story later Rarity, we’re kind in the middle of a life or death situation here and I’m saying goodbye to another one of my mechanical pets. Why do they always blow up so young? She's barely more than a day old too.” Whined Greta sadly before she turned a smile to Rarity. “It’s good to see you’re feeling okay Boss Lady, relatively speaking that you still have a broken leg.”
“I am amazed that this thing can possibly get back into orbit with how heavy she is.” Wait, why was Rubis here? “Lady Rarity, I have something of great importance to tell you!”
“That can wait until later jailbait. Lift off!” The thunderous sound of the entire structure started shaking around them and Rarity blacked out for a moment do to the sudden increase in pressure on the wrong portions of her body. They are accelerating upwards it would seem.
“The facility is going to be detonating in forty three seconds Gilda… we’re going to miss seeing the explosion and it’s a good thing too. At least we’ll be out of range.” Finally good news, after everything they’d been through it was about time things started going their way again. “Keep us on course and we’ll be well out of the blast radius. I honestly don’t know about the Puffles, but I’m sure they’ve had worse.”
“Did I mention that I hate going into and being in space, I’d rather take a solid rock to grow crops on!” It had been harrowing, but Applejack had made it through most of that mess alive and almost entirely in one piece. She had a material round lodged deeply into her butt and the doctor said it wasn’t very safe to remove until they could get better medical accommodations, something the Shining Jewel had plenty of at the moment. That said the farmer was taking the pain pretty well, she should as she was quite tough and had taken a lot of grazing wounds throughout the ordeal before that last parting shot by the last surviving base commander Perja Rensada. At least Flesh Tender was able to help her, she turned to look at the horrible sight floating a tank of medical fluids.
“I could care less right now!” Shouted over the roar of the rockets lifting the six legged walk into the sky. “Even if you were an alien parasite bent on annihilating us all, I’m getting my world freaking record for heaviest thing that can orbital drop and return to orbit on one tank of fuel!”
-
Fluffy Puff, looked towards the large pillar of flames and fire in the distance and turned back to the others, slowly her tongue slid out of her mouth and she let loose one long raspberry. This was returned in happy exclamation, they didn’t even noticed they lost a few of their number and went back to just being happy and cuddly with one another. You know, instead of being portents of doom and destruction when left to run free in a place full of explosives and destructible things that some careless creatures might wander into.
-
Things were rather quiet when they hit orbit and heard Greta sigh with relief, earning all their attentions as she gave them a patented cheery smile that had the corners of her beak pointing upwards.
“Well it’s over now. We came, we saw and we got ourselves mauled to varying degrees for Rarity’s hero complex. I’m just happy we’re all alive... aside from some crippling injuries and the one exceedingly critically wounded friend.” Shaking her head Greta pulled out her data pad and looked at the words ‘lost connection’ written in big letters on the screen, her smile faintly turned downwards at that. She quickly turned her attention to communicating with Lightning. She looked on the brighter side of things, they had all made it and she could always build another Viral Vixen robot eventually. Though that one might meet a similar fate to all the mechanical pets she’s made, though she really didn’t want to relive the mechanical fish incident and hoped that it couldn’t be repeated. “Do you see us yet Lightning? Let us coast up a bit more before closing in for the tow, we want to make the record legitimate.”
“Roger that, Caravel Boutique is on route for pick up. I’ll swing by in a minute. I hope you and Gilda can fix the damage to the Shining Jewel and maybe figure out whatever is wrong with the white cat of yours Boss Lady.” What Lightning said gave Rarity some cause for alarm. There was something wrong with Opal? Well that sounded like it needed an explanation.
“Is she alright?” Rarity’s voice was obviously laced with concern.
“Define alright, subjectively I think she’s doing okay, she’s just not responding to us verbally or appearing on any of the monitors. It’s a bit creepy.” Lightning could almost be heard shrugging in her seat. “In any case, I have a list of injuries are for the crew while you were gone. Mr. Cumin took some mild injuries, he was kind of a badass with that soup ladle. Sassy is doing fine, didn’t get hit a single time when we were boarded. Now there’s a mare that knows how to move like she was made of lightning, she had them pissing metal trying to hit her!”
Watching the view screen Rarity could see the Caravel Boutique coming at them and it would soon be dragging them back to their battered home, it did need to be painted anyway and the turrets could be rebuilt.
“Anyway where was I? Ah yes, Coco has some bruises after she got physical with some of the boarders. Mr. Spew took offense to all the guys that were attacking Coco, he’s perfectly healthy for the most dangerous thing on this ship. Babs Seed is perfectly fine and healthy, though she had a few close scares. Chrysalis lost a horn, two legs and half her intestines were on the floor when I last saw her, but she says she’ll be fine and all that happy moaning wasn’t doing anything for my sanity. As for the masseuse… what’s her name again?” It seemed like Lightning was trying to recall that Vera existed, at least she had gotten just as far as many other people in trying remember who she was. Said people were all a part of Rarity’s crew who were actively trying to remember that Vera existed and that was always going to be an uphill battle. “Darn it, it’s hard enough to remember that she exists because of that being invisible crap or whatever it is she actually does. That mare is one of the spookiest ponies ever. I’m pretty sure she never got shot at and I’m not exactly sure how many pirates she took out, but I remember a drone pointing her out and she had a completely blood soaked metal kanabo in her hooves. I think it was the one that belongs to Ember. Bernard has several bad burns from energy weapons and is in a medical bed. Trapeze took a hit or two, but she held her own and is already up and walking around. As for me, I’m obviously talking and not limping like everyone else is. Though I did take a shot to my left wing, why do people always aim for my freaking wings?! I wasn’t even flying at the time!”
“Thank you for the information dump Lightning, can you tell Opal to have several medical beds on standby? We got plenty of wounded. Rarity is going to need to have her leg checked and medically pasted back together, a doctor we met said it was a clean break so there’s that at least. The others have varying injuries ranging from simple to bad.” The dry tone Gilda spoke in was rather somber in how it sounded. “Ember was critically wounded though and it’ll take forever for her to get back on her feet with how she looks. Speaking of looks, she doesn’t look to good after what hit her. We need to move her bed to the medical ward. We also have two guests with us and one of them will be taking in Babs, Applejack has had it rough going through all of this with us. Don't know about what the other guest is expecting though.”
“Yeah, I admit it was pretty bad down there, but I’d do it all over again if it means saving our farm!” Applejack sighed and took her hat off, she lost about three inches of her mane and she had been put through a wringer. Even so she was still healthier than everyone except Greta. “I’m only wondering when I can get back to my family, because all of that was nuttier than a walnut apple flip cake with extra pralines and I just want to go home.”
“I hear you, I wouldn’t mind finally getting home myself and there she is... yeah that might take a while to fix.” The flat deadpan and tone Gilda spoke in was one that spoke of many endless nights of effort and aggravation, plus enough coffee to the point that she can bleed the stuff while making numerous repairs all across the ship. “Looks like we’re going to be busy for a while Greta. Get in some rest because after that we’re going to be working nonstop on repairs.”
“Yeah, but you’d have to repair your EGGS unit first. If you don’t remember, you kind of landed it upside down and it was still in section three when it got damaged a bit by the invading pirates. Greta’s EGGS unit on the other hoof is still viable and wasn’t touched and is upright at the very least.” It wasn’t like Lightning or anyone could get through to Gilda that you don’t land things in such a haphazard manner without it being damaged.
“Shut up and just bring us in will you? You might want to get us a little bit higher so we have some clearance.” The Centaur-pede had successfully made it back into orbit with some repairs needed to the spare limbs that were destroyed by Greta’s tinkering, there was also the armor that had been damaged in the attack and the loss of two of the turrets to those military defense drones. Not that the electric shields were a bad idea to begin with, it was just that they did too much damage to the legs to keep them active for a long time. “Greta anything to note here.”
“There’s nothing wrong here. We’re coming in good and now that I look around, there are a lot of EDF in orbit.” Why wouldn’t there be a lot of EDF in orbit, it made Greta feel a little bit embarrassed to be stating the obvious.
“Why wouldn’t there be? With what those Humans were doing, I’m not exactly surprised about it. Looks like we got half a fleet here.” It was something that Saffron was used to seeing when you kicked a figurative anthill full of mobsters and gang members, It was quite warranted and the survivors of being thawed out were being brought to several ships. The only odd one out that wasn’t on one of the EDF transports was Rubis who was going to be a guest of theirs because she refused to leave Lady Rarity’s side.
“Are you sure you’re a clothing designer?” Rubis didn’t exactly know Rarity, but she kind of got a response of the levels that said Rarity was somebody of some importance.
“Yes, speaking of my creations, how are those parkas I gave everyone?” Being strapped down wasn’t going to stop Rarity from asking, being put under and in fluids would make it impossible for her to talk. She believed they were waiting until they were aboard Shining Jewel before putting her leg through a pasting surgery.
“Trashed to hell and back… what? I believe everyone was going to say it!” Applejack was quite quaint in the way she spoke honestly and the others didn’t look at Rarity, they obviously didn’t want to say anything. “Mine took the least amount of damage and it’s full of holes, I’m more surprised that I’m not.”
“Oh good, how are the EVA suits then by comparison?” Her tone was really quite even and everyone knew how seriously Rarity took clothing. She knew they were wondering when she’d blow a gasket and she’d absolutely surprise them in a most eloquent manner.
“You saw Ember’s get evaporated so you already know that and your aware of what happened to your own considering we had to peel it off of you.” Pausing and looking Rarity in the eye with a quirky smile on her face Greta couldn’t help but chuckle. “All EVA suits took a low to moderate amounts of damage, the most damaged intact EVA suit is Sa… Mare-Do-Wells EVA suit. I ’m kind of surprised that you’re not actively fussing about your mane Boss Lady.”
“In due time Greta my dear friend, in due time. Anyway I’m so glad it worked, the parkas were expendable and were made to soak up the damage the EVA suits would have taken. Fixing EVA suits constantly like I have to do is quite hard I’ll have you know!” Rarity turned her nose to the ceiling and smiled, that smile quickly turned into a frown. “Now what was it that I heard about Ember being alive? I don’t exactly see her here.”
“Yeah, because she’s in the medical bed next to yours and swimming in chemicals. Dr. Flesh Tender couldn’t do anything for her, kind of odd considering his main practice is as a dermatologist and Ember is missing a massive amount of her scales. Dragons being magic resistance is kind of biting her in the butt here, that and her scales aren’t the same as skin and fur. Thankfully she still has her eyelids or she’d be even worse to look at.” Greta looked to the left of Rarity and grimaced before turning a weak smile back to her. “Her life signs aren’t exactly stable, but she’s alive at the least and hopefully the medical chemicals will prevent an infection because she was lying on the floor for a while exposed to the elements until they found her. Trust me, you don’t want to look at her in this state. Even I’m finding it hard to keep smiling when I can see her like this. I’m so glad that none of her limbs have to be amputated and I’m sure she’ll be glad too when she wakes up... if she ever does.”
“Suck it up Greta, overall Ember’s still alive and that’s what counts.” Gilda didn’t seem to care, but there was a hint of something her voice that was being hidden in her suddenly sarcastic mood. “Even if her state is questionable, does anyone else have anything to add. We’re about to be dropped off in the land of Han Gar.”
“I got something to say, thanks for saving me back there Rover. I don’t think I could have taken much more of that woman, she was close to ripping me apart at the end there.” Pulling off the helmet of her EVA suit, Saffron sighed a breath of relief. Applejack was instantly looking in her direction as she started to disrobe from her EVA suit, the mare was upset because Saffron was wearing her Mare-Do-Well costume beneath her EVA suit, which included a scrunched up cape that Saffron took a few moments to smooth out.
“Do you ever take that darn costume off?” The sight had Applejack muttering under her breath, this mysterious Mare-Do-Well was becoming rather quite ridiculous to her. Of course she could understand the caution. If Applejack were asked if she knew Mare-Do-Well’s true identity, then she’d be completely honest about it as it was her policy. She didn’t know much about the mare except that she took more than one shot for Applejack’s sake and then kept fighting until she was run ragged. All that was left of that mare’s armor were three leggings as the rest of it was ripped off of her.
“Do not be mentioning it, Rover is glad to be saving lives for once instead of watching them end horribly.” Rover meant every word and everyone knew it, he was kind of simple like that. He had saved Saffron’s life and he was becoming more attuned to his friend’s needs and appearances as part of their pack. Rarity was the leader, but she didn’t need to be the most physically capable to be as such and Rover was becoming closer to them all. He also liked Saffron a lot, because she was an aggressive and strong female. “Though Rover hope that was the last we see of the impossible human. Digging with a broken wrist is not fun.”
“Not likely, I looked back after we knocked her down and she wasn’t there anymore.” The shivering Saffron figured that Pera might have actually escaped the base, especially before it went up like it did. “I’m going to have many sleepless nights over all of this. Don’t worry Rover we’ll get you fixed up, everyone needs some time in medical at the very least. Even Greta whose worst injury is a bruised skull.”
“I’ll start investing in sleeping pills for everyone… well if we can afford them. I swear we’re always one hoof away from bankruptcy.” Well Rarity could simply just sit on a planet and get royalties from her invention for the rest of her life by being cheap and efficient. She could survive on that easily enough, but she preferred not being stuck in one place and didn’t just want to survive. She wanted to be alive and to thrive while doing so. “Give me a day or two and I’ll be ready to start making dresses again.”
“Can we stick to doing simple stuff like that for a while Boss Lady? I don’t think we’d survive another encounter like this so soon. I’m okay with going merchant for a while, though I would like to put in that we’re already pretty good at mercenary work.” Gilda didn’t mind the idea of being a mercenary, they were close to that already with all the scrapes Rarity kept dragging them into.
“Of course Lady Gottfrieda of Han Gar.” Rarity chuckled lightly and winced as her ribs shifted her leg causing pain to shoot up and down her spine. “Someone tell Vera to schedule an appointment for all of us. That is if you can remember where she is without my help.”
Gilda couldn’t say that the Boss Lady lead a boring and sophisticated life. Heck she was quite sure Rarity would be bored to tears by the ideal lifestyle choice she wanted to live and would miss the adventure far too much to quit or settle down. Her Boss Lady wanted to be noble and upper class, well she was doing a spectacular job of being a noble pony that actually did things instead of get stuck in the mire known as politics.
As long as Rarity didn’t turn into a flaming jerk to end all jerks, which was frankly Gilda’s job personally as much as Chrysalis’s job was to be the weird and audacious one, then she would happily have the Rarity’s back on any occasion. She would also silently admit that she had friends now, ones that weren’t a passive sexual predator that kept eyeing her like a piece of well roasted meat when no one was looking and a constant blabbermouth that never shut up. Oh great, now she was missing gabby Gabby and it was all Rarity’s fault for getting her sappy like this. She gripped the controls as the Centaur-pede was dropped to the floor of the hangar, she made it take a few steps forward and despite some issues it was still working and almost immediately capable of another orbital drop.
“Well guys, we just made history and I hope those EDF guys are listening in because they are witnesses to the largest orbital drop ground vehicle to get back up into space. We’re out fuel, but we still did it.” Now Gilda preened slightly at her accomplishment, she even started to literally preen one of her wings with a smile on her beak as she took care of a loose feather. Once finished she lowered the ramp to let them out and said one last thing over the open communications. “You hear that, we made it back into orbit and we’re the best in our fields of expertise!”
-
Rarity’s medical bed was the first to be moved from the Centaur-pede down the ramp by Greta, this is where she saw Sassy.
“Garters and Garments! I’m so glad that you’re okay Rarity, it’s been rather hectic up here and we all saw when the cloud cover stopped existing. Opal might have had a small panic attack when she couldn’t find you on the surface, but we managed to keep her calm.” Sassy stopped to poke a hoof at her chin a few times. “Well mostly anyway, we don’t rightly know what’s going on with her at the moment as she’s being very quiet. We had some problems with space pirates, but we’ve taken care of ourselves quite well.”
“Isn’t Chrysalis crippled beyond all reason?” Asked Rarity with what seemed to be a tone that was talking about the weather and all the boredom that entailed.
“She says she’s fine and can reattach her horn… that or grow it back. Really don’t know how she’s going to achieve that and I can hardly care, I’ll just chalk it up to being a crazy Changeling Queen thing and just move on with my life.” The look of horror Sassy had on her face as she looked beyond Rarity’s medical bed and grimaced said a lot.
“Is it Ember?” Not that Rarity was worried, but they hadn’t shown her how bad off Ember actually was. “How bad is it? Nobody is telling me anything of her injuries.”
“She looks three fourths dead corpse with smatterings of living and as if she lost a fight with a cheese grater. You can even see bone poking out of her, then there’s the exposed muscles and the ripped up scales.” A look of sadness crossed Sassy’s face. “Quite frankly Rarity, she’s a mess and you really don’t want to see her like this. I can only hope that she can recover from this, she looks like she’ll be down for longer than I was and that’s saying something because dragons are ridiculously tough to put down like this.”
“Greta may I…” Rarity started off as they got closer to the elevator.
“Rarity are you really sure you want to do that?” Looking into the glass at the mare with the broken leg Greta was giving her the best smile she could muster. “Ember is not going to be looking pretty for a long time.”
“Yes.” There was no room for compromise in Rarity’s singular word and Greta sighed before turning the medical bed back towards Ember. “O-Okay… I think I’ve seen enough Greta… Sassy continue watching the hangar.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen enough of her myself. We'll get her up to medical and see to getting several surgical operations going.” Gilda had Ember’s medical bed and brought it into the elevator, they waited for Rover to make his way inside. Applejack and Mare-Do-well were less immediately concerns, they would be taking the other elevator when they got their act together or finished discussing whatever it is they needed to in the hangar. “Including yourself Boss Lady, as that broken leg isn’t going to paste itself back together. We need to get to deck two Kitten.”
The elevator activated silently and without comment from the white furred computer born creature that was adorable. Opal didn’t say much of anything and that even got Gilda worried as she shot Greta and Rarity a look.
“Okay, there is definitely something wrong with Kitten. Not even a happy joyous shout to Rarity only came back with a broken leg and mostly bad bruising.” Gilda knew Opal was likely listening in, she just didn’t care.
“Rarity will get to it after her leg’s been pasted, I mean how messed up can Opal be? The others make it sound like she’s still running things efficiently.” After a pause Greta added. “Though I will admit not hearing her cheerful voice is putting me off a bit. I hope her problem isn’t too extreme.”
“What is hurting Rover more than broken wrist is knowing that Opal is not speaking to us.” Rubbing at the paw in question with a sour expression and a grimace, Rover seemed to be as upset as anyone to not hear Opal’s voice. “She is good friend of everyone here and is family of Rarity, when Rarity is better maybe she feel better enough to talk?”
“One can only hope Rover, one can only hope.” As they got out of the elevator and immediately made for the medical ward on deck two they entered to see Coco with bandages wrapped around her head and Coriander had bandages around his midsection they were both glad to see Rarity was alright and they both flinched violently at seeing Ember’s body.
“Is my daughter as badly injured as that?” Coriander asked with a hint of worry, behind him Coco was opening and closing her mouth trying to find words for what she was seeing.
“Ember is the actually the worst of it, you’ll see Mare-Do-Well soon enough. She’s currently talking with Applejack in the hangar.” It might have become Greta’s new job to break bad news to people, she was pretty good at it as she tried to keep her tone as polite and upbeat as feasibly possible. “Aside from a badly burned hoof, getting shot a few times and having a few stab wounds, she’ll definitely make a full recovery. She’s the next worse off if you don’t count the Boss Lady’s broken leg or Rover’s wrist. Okay let’s get everyone situated, Are you okay there Coco?”
“I’ll be fine…” The rather calm sewer squid clutched in Coco’s hooves was squeezed to her chest a bit tightly and it didn’t seem to mind the pressure of the hug and just gurgled at the mare holding him. It didn’t take long for Mr. Spew to gurgle in sadness upon seeing Ember’s form in her medical bed. “I’m sure we’ll all get better eventually Mr. Spew… though I’m a little jealous of Chrysalis’s ability to write off all of her injuries as if it weren’t a real issue.”
“Hey guys, can I get a horn up on the injury competition here or what?” Chrysalis said cheerily waving around her broken off horn with her right hoof and smiling as she sat on a table that was on the far side of the room, she had all four legs on her body and didn’t looked to have spilled half her guts out. It took a moment for Chrysalis to realize they were all glaring at her. “What? Was it something I… oh… yeah, that would be a bit of a downer. I really don’t understand dragon physiology very well, but is Ember supposed to look like she was tossed in a blender set to mince? Speaking of, can I have her butt if she doesn’t make it?”
Scrutinizing her form a little further, Rarity could see the tenuous sinew barely attaching Chrysalis’s front left leg to her body. From her position in the medical bed, Rarity could also see the front right and rear left were fine so Chrysalis’s other leg that got torn off would have to be rear right one.
“Chrysalis if you weren’t still healing, I would definitely throttle you. Even if you would enjoy me choking you into unconsciousness. So please do us all a favor and don’t say anything.” Hearing Sassy get angry with her made Chrysalis shut up quickly and stay resolutely quiet, she was still attempting and failing quite horribly to earn Sassy’s affections.
Chrysalis had won some points with Sassy when she helped out with the invading pirates, but she just lost some of them as she didn’t seem to understand lines and not crossing them. Sometimes she really shouldn’t say anything at all.
“Yeah, the last day or so has been pretty horrible for all of us… except for Chrysalis apparently. She kind of lives for this kind of stuff.” Coco looked over to Chrysalis who nodded sagely as she spat some goo onto her broken off horn and put it back on her head. “Glad to see you’re doing okay Rarity, considering everything that happened.”
“Give me a day or two to get back on my hooves Coco, until then start fixing all of our EVA suits and get to work on making several wedding dress designs to show my cousin.” Instead of focusing on what looked like Ember’s corpse, Rarity tried to get things back to a brighter topic. “We’ll be sticking around for the wedding. I think we’ll still have plenty of time to make it to that fashion show on Nocturne, maybe even quickly enough to take part in it. Oh and can someone tell Babs that we brought a family member of hers here?”
“I’m going to miss the little snack, especially after all that effort I put into corrupting her too. I even got her cutie mark to appear and everything!” Chrysalis looked up when she heard Sassy walking up to her, Sassy lifted her right hoof and slapped Chrysalis across the face violently. After having fallen to the floor, the Changeling Queen sat up and smiled brightly. “Can I have another one of those? It felt nice to have you hit on me for a change.”
“You really shouldn’t encourage her darling.” Was the last thing Rarity managed to say as her medical bed quickly filled with fluids and she awaited her pasting operation with a calm demeanor. It was so nice to be back home on the Shining Jewel, now all she had to do is find out what was wrong with Opal and give everyone time to heal from this latest adventure.