//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Space Quest // by Kali Azizia //------------------------------// The outcome was never in our favor, Starlight. I sighed as I watched pieces of spacecraft drift by me, the mangled remains of various life forms scattered among them. My life suit HUD blaring all sorts of alarms into my ears and flashing several alerts in my face. "Give it to me strait V.I.C. What are the odds of me getting out of this mess?" In your current state, you will pass the point of no return in approximately 15 minutes. You are also leaking O2, Starlight. I looked down at the O2 monitor on my hoof and saw it flashing a green warning sign, signaling a small breach in my O2 reserves. "Well, would you look at that they went with green for an emergency. I would have gone for a nice bright red, burgundy, hell even pomegranate! I don't even know if that's a color, but good sweet Faust, now I just want a pomegranate." Starlight, at the current rate of the leak, you will be rendered lifeless in 8 minutes. "Your really pumping me up with fantastic news, V.I.C." I'm sorry, Starlight. There is no foreseeable out come you will survive. I sighed again and crossed my hooves behind my head. "Man this sucks right into the brain juice." Blore Q83P Sector CI-54 The lights in my small room snapped on with a small pop, waking me suddenly from my sleep. Good morning, Starlight. Today marks the 1825 day of your banishment. I groaned in frustration and covered my face with a pillow. "How about a big solid no, V.I.C.?" With a sudden snap, my bunk launched me from its hug of warmth and back first into the cold hard surface of the wall. I slowly picked my self off the floor and rubbed my horn. "Ow! That was harder than last time V.I.C.!" I slowly put on my suit and made my way towards the commissary to have my morning breakfast. As I entered the commissary my vision was suddenly filled with the pink sphere of torture called, S.T.R. Hello Starlight! Wonderful day we are having! I sprang back in alarm and threw a punch at the pink menace, but S.T.R. dogged out of the way. "Freaking hell, S.T.R.! Don't just pop up in my face like that you useless pile of crap!" S.T.R. laughed and floated off. I glared at it and made my way to the food dispenser and a few button presses later I was sitting down with a bowl of instant oats. I ate relatively slowly as I watched the stars out the observation window. Starlight, you have 4 solar arrays to repair today. If you want to be able to go to sleep on time, I would suggest you get a move on. I glared up at the celling and snorted. "Oh shove a sock in it why don't you, V.I.C. Go make S.T.R. do it or something." Starlight.. I slammed a hoof into the table. "No! You can't make me V.I.C.! Nothing you say can make me do it!" 45 Minutes Later "Stupid freaking asswipe." I muttered to my self as I unscrewed a small maintenance panel and popped it open. I pulled an Omni-tool out of a side pocket of my space suit and plugged it into the exposed panel. Starlight, you are aware that I can hear you? I snorted and slammed the panel shut. "Oh can it V.I.C." I kicked away from the solar array and drifted through the vacuum of space. I floated down the length of the solar array, my HUD pointing out a few small defects that the Omni-tool had found. Reaching out with my magic, I pulled myself towards the defect. A few minutes later with a wrench and a nice healthy spreading of Nano-gel, the solar array was fixed. Good job, Starlight. You have successfully repaired 2 solar arrays. You have earned yourself a 5 minute break. "Hell yes!" I pushed away from the array and made my way towards the main communication array, located near the midsection of the ship. I pulled a tether cable out of my space suit and hooked it into the array and queued up my helmet's video library. I've had to jump through so many hoops tonight just to get my hands on this crown, and it really should have been mine all along. But let's let bygones be bygones. I am your princess now, and you will be loyal... to me! I smiled and kicked back as the movie I had been watching filled my helmet's view screen. "V.I.C, get a load of this, she uses a powerful magical artifact that could give her untold power in a non-magical world, just to hypnotize the student body and staff to declare war against her home? Oh, oh! And to top off this plot cake, her home is the source of the magic she stole, which contains more powerful magical artifacts than the one she controls? What sense does that make?" That is a major flaw in her plan, but you have bigger things to worry about right now. "Oh?" I said while pausing the movie. "What kind of problems?" I am detecting a fast moving lifeform moving in our location. At its current speed it will reach our destination...now. It was then I was hit in the face by a mass of green tentacles. "AHHHH!" I screamed with my eyes closed tight, beating at the thing attached to my helmet with my hooves. "Get it off, get it off! It a face eater, V.I.C.! HELP!" After a few minutes of beating blindly at the thing, I cracked my eyes open and was met with two large eyes staring blankly into mine. Noticing that it wasn't actively trying to kill me, I relaxed slightly and stopped beating on it. "Your not a face eater, aren't you?" "Chogity." I couldn't help but smile as it spoke, in what I assumed was its language. "Huh, your more like a face...hugger aren't you?" "Pwowh pop pop." It detached itself from my helmet and I could see that it looked like a small green squid, roughly the size of a basketball. Its large gelatinous white orbs that were its eyes staring happily into mine, a small smile on its strangely adorable face. "Your not all that bad for the first living thing I've met in a while. You wouldn't happen to speak real words?" "Chogity whop." It burbled at me. I smiled. "Huh, well works for me." Starlight, we have a problem. I am picking up four unidentified space craft dropping out of lightspace. They are broadcasting a message and have intent on boarding the Equestrian One. I quickly detached the tether cable and pushed off the solar array and made my way quickly to the air-lock, the cute space squid following me closely. "V.I.C., patch the message into my helmet." Attention prison vessel code designation, Equestrian One. You are to submit to a search by orders of the Lord Commander. We are searching for a lifeform, designated S-347. You will turn over S-347 or you will be destroyed I looked behind me at the space squid then towards the fast approaching ships. "Well isn't this a load of crap."