Chapter Two
The Price of Freedom
“Today, there is a new star in the sky. Not one of fire and magic, but one of metal, sweat and blood. Today we have accomplished a feat unheard of in all the generations that have come before, a feat that marks the birth of hope for Equestria. Today, at 4:31 this morning, the good ponies of the Equestrian Space Exploration Program announced the successful launch of the world’s first orbital space colony. Today marks the start of a new beginning for all Equestrians. It marks the birth of a future, not one consumed by the destructive will of equinology, but one that will bring peace and prosperity for generations to come. Today, this glorious day of the Summer Sun Celebration, we extend our reach to the stars.” – Launch of Equestria One 2141 E.C.
Nothing could have prepared me to see Junkyard dead. I mean, sure, I had heard about ponies dying before, in the colonies death was everywhere. Ponies died from hunger, ponies died in gang shoot-outs and others from drug overdoses. Ponies died of old age or disease. Death lurked around every corner, but it usually stayed just out of sight. Pegasus authorities did their best to protect young families from the harsh realities of life.
This was my first time encountering death. I had never been that close before. Before it was a great and mysterious other, something that happened to other ponies off in the distance. Now, I stared it in the face, and grim reality rolled over me. I felt sick.
I stumbled into the office restroom and emptied my breakfast into the toilet. It took me a few minutes to regain my sense of self. I sat on my haunches and waited until my stomach finally settled, and then reentered the office taking stock of the scene before me. My stomach churned whenever my eyes passed over the body on the floor.
Junkyard was dead and whoever had killed him was in a hurry. That pony had also raided his safe and made off with the few valuable bits in his office, leaving behind everything that was either too heavy or too impractical to carry. Judging by the wounds he sustained, Junkyard had been shot with a projectile weapon. They were common weapons of particularly low caliber, but still lethal nonetheless.
While it might seem that such weapons would be obsolete in an age where just about everything ran on some form of magical energy, projectile weapons like the old assault carbines and pistols were much cheaper and easier to build in large quantities than energy weapons. They were perfect for clients with a sore lack of funds like two-bit criminals and muggers.
My gaze lingered on Junkyard’s body. I had always hated him, and yet the stallion lying dead beneath his desk represented the entirety of my stable relationships. And now he was gone. For whatever reason he died he probably deserved it, but all the same. Junkyard was a pony that, while not all that pleasant to work with, would pay for what he owed. Well, so long as you were willing to wring it out of him.
If anything I felt I owed him. If it was not for Junkyard, I would have never been a pilot. He paid the fee for taking the aptitude test when I was just a young stallion too eager for his own good. I paid dearly for it throughout the years I worked for him, but, I got to fly, and that in itself was worth the pain.
We had something of a mutual understanding between us. He needed me to fly his ship and bring in the salvage so he could make a living, and I needed him to pay me for my services so I could make rent and still fly. Our partnership was good, if less than friendly. He would screw me over, I would be a pain in his flank, and together we would make a profit despite ourselves. All things considered though, I still got the short end of the bargain.
Whatever Junkyard did to get himself killed, simultaneously killed my piloting career as well. With no employer to sign for exit clearance, the Scrap Bandit could not undock without station security locking it down. Oh the joys of flying ships that belonged to other ponies. My lifelong dream of flying was shattered. I was screwed, Junkyard screwed me over, and this time I couldn’t get back at him for it.
“You bastard.” I told him. Part of me insisted that the expression on his face was actually him laughing at me.
A scream awoke me from my reverie. One of Junkyard’s clients, an older mare in a nicely pressed pantsuit, had just walked in the door and was now recreating what she thought had transpired. Her eyes darted from the body, to me, back to the body, back to me, and then with a shriek she galloped back outside.
I quickly realized that my situation was rapidly degenerating.
To an uninformed outsider, I had every reason in the world to kill Junkyard, and for the Pegasus Police Bureau, only motive was required to convict for murder. I had a witness against me. Add into that in my presence at the crime scene, our infamously hostile relationship, and the fact that Junkyard had conned me on pretty much every job I ever took for him, and my fate was sealed. As soon as the police figured out what had happened, I would be going to jail for a very long time. I needed to leave. I needed to run. I also needed a reason to leave the station or my getaway would be laughably short.
My WAND lit up as I accessed the terminal in Junkyard’s desk. The screen was damaged beyond repair, but the wireless interface was still functional. Somepony had tried to pry it free from the desk before giving up and settled on taking the tablet instead.
Using my WAND’s AR matrix as a monitor, I forged a job dispatch sufficiently vague enough to get docking clearance without raising suspicion, and levitated Junkyard’s limp forehoof to the scanner for the hoofprint. The resulting order was technically valid and would pass inspection, provided my hoax was not discovered before I could undock.
I had no time to lose. Storing the dispatch on my WAND, I galloped out of the office and into the streets of the business district. In the distance I heard the sound of sirens rapidly approaching. I started counting the charges in my head. Murder, forgery of official documents, theft, fleeing the scene of a crime, evading arrest, and the list went on.
Whispering a prayer to Celestia, I sprinted down the street and into the passageways that lead to dock 13D. A sentry drone turned to face me as I streaked by. My AR screen lit up.
Pedestrian speed violation – 500 bits. Please report to your local government authority to pay this fine.
Great and there went half my pay, I thought grimly. Then I realized that I wouldn’t be sticking around to pay it. Breaking the law never felt so good. I picked up my pace, and made sure to strike a rather compromising pose for the next sentry I passed. Screw your fines, government!
*****
My helmet was on by the time I reached the airlock. Panting, I slammed a hoof into the door control and it hissed open. I rushed inside and began mashing the buttons on the panel inside, whispering obscenities under my breath.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”
The door slid shut, and a chime played. A sound like a roar filled the room and then quickly died as the environmental control systems depressurized the chamber. A few moments later, the airlock opened and I trotted to where the Scrap Bandit was waiting. Deactivating my suit’s magnets, I bucked to the cockpit and slid in through its customized viewport, for once grateful of Junkyard’s stinginess. I strapped myself in, and then flicked on the C-Band with my WAND, taking a moment to catch my breath before starting procedures.
“Scrap Bandit to Docking Authority, Scrap Bandit requesting exit clearance.” I did my best to keep my voice calm and level, though it still wavered to spite me.
“Docking Authority to Scrap Bandit, please transmit exit credentials.” The voice on the other end said. My heart leapt. The mare on the line was somepony I knew very well. I smiled beneath my helmet, feeling more confident.
“Scrap Bandit to Docking Authority, sending credentials now.” I sent the fake dispatch along with the ship ID. The silence lasted for an eon.
“Docking Authority to Scrap Bandit, permission granted, please proceed to exit queue and await further instructions.” Getting through the exit queue would take hours. It was time to gamble.
“Aw come on Prism, you know I don’t start getting paid until I get out in the black.” I whined. The mare’s vexed groan on the other end of the C-Band confirmed my suspicions.
“Horizon, you know I can’t do that.” Ruby Prism argued, “Last time I let you out early I almost lost a whole shift.”
“Come on Prism, I’m short on rent this month and I really need the extra pay.” I lied. I felt terrible, lying to Junkyard was one thing, but lying to a friend? In my book that was unforgivable.
“Your problem, not mine.” I felt something sink in my stomach. A sound like the magical hum of a containment field started playing in my mind.
“I promise I’ll make it up to you.” I added, wincing after I had said it. I had a feeling that if this worked, I was going to pay out the nose later. If I still had a one to pay through by the time she was done with me. Prism was silent for a long time.
“Fine,” she finally said, “but only if you buy me a round at Carlo’s when you get back.”
“It’s a deal.” I was a bad, bad pony.
“Alright,” she sighed after a moment, “you’re cleared for undock, now get out before I change my mind.”
“Thanks Prism.”
The docking clamps released and the Scrap Bandit floated freely for a moment before I engaged the thrusters and eased the ship past the docking queue. Slowly but steadily, I wove around the various docked ships in the hangar, picking up a little speed as I cleared an overhanging maintenance rig. A clock was ticking in my head. News of what had happened at the office would be reaching the PPB any minute now. I needed to get into space and out of the disruption field before I got caught. I had just crossed through the hangar shielding when the C-Band popped back to life.
“Scrap Bandit, this is Officer Eidlhoof of the Pegasus Police Bureau. Power down your ship now or you will be fired upon.”
Oh karma, how I love thee, I thought. Prism’s voice popped in through a separate line.
“Horizon what’s going on? I just got a notice from the PPB. It says here that you are wanted for...” Prism gasped, “this... oh goddesses this can’t be right...” She breathed.
“It’s not, but I don’t have time to explain right now.” I said, “I’m sorry Prism, but I can’t let you get involved in this.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU C-“ the C-Band popped as I cut her line. The officer’s voice took over.
“Scrap Bandit, this is your final warning! Power down NOW!”
“Sorry officer,” I replied, feeling the adrenaline kicking in, “I don’t feel like going to jail today. After all, it’s Friday, and I don’t want to miss happy hour. I’ve got a few drinks I need to buy.” I threw the thrusters to full power, aiming toward a line of cargo ships waiting to dock. My body rocked against the harness as the ship rocketed forward.
“Y- ...GET BACK HERE!” the officer roared. By the time he could react, I had banked around one of the cargo ships and was speeding toward the edge of the disruption field. The cruiser tore after me. He was right on my tail and gaining quickly, but too far behind me for a good shot.
We weaved between the long lines of ships leading into the hangar. I stayed a split second ahead of my pursuer but my lead was closing rapidly. The police cruisers had military grade thrusters and could accelerate much faster than the measly hackjob installed on the bandit. What the Scrap Bandit lacked in power however, it made up for in mass. On a normal starship the ship’s mass would have turned the engine into a slow, nasty thing, but with the Bandit so gutted of important systems like life support, gravity, and shielding, its mass was small and agile. The ship strained with every turn, but it held together, and took its turns with sharp, if a little unsteady, grace.
Even with the added agility however, the Scrap Bandit was still slower than the cruiser chasing it.
I struggled to maintain the distance, using the ships in the queue as a shield against the police cruiser’s targeting, and forcing him to slow down as he turned. The officer would not risk firing at me so close to the cargo ships unless they had a guaranteed shot, and I was determined to make that a pain in the flank to achieve. I hugged a line of starships and bounced from line to line as clearance allowed, the cruiser in hot pursuit.
I managed to keep him at bay, until the officer’s ship pulled back and off to the side. For a split second I thought that he was giving up, but shook the thought out of my head. No pilot with a speed advantage would willingly give up ground. In a heartbeat I realized why.
Another police cruiser joined the first, cutting in front of me on a hard diagonal. I tore at the controls with my WAND, cutting a sharp dive to avoid a collision. Unlike the police cruisers, the Scrap Bandit had nothing in the way of functional shields, and for me, a direct collision meant instant death. I felt the straps of my harness dig into my sides as the G-forces tried to hurl me out the gap in the viewport. My concentration faltered, and the controls slid out of my WAND’s magic.
I fought for control as the Scrap Bandit hurtled downward, the momentary loss of input causing it to list horribly. The first cruiser was on me in a heartbeat, and brought its cannon to bear on my ship. Its core began to charge. Panicking, I searched for cover.
A tanker had entered the line below me behind a smaller merchant ship. It would do. I pulled the ship into a full dive. The Scrap Bandit shot between two of the ships as the cruisers pursued, the ship jolting as it scraped hulls with the merchant. Both police cruisers careened off to the sides, too big to fit the gap.
I had broken their line of sight, so I changed course and ducked into a small gap between two massive water tankers, forcing the larger cruisers to strafe blind on either side. Bringing the nose up, my ship peeled away in a loop as I cleared the end of the tanker.
The two cruisers sailed past me, drifting wildly as they tried to come about. The heavier police cruisers slowed to a crawl as their engines fought their momentum. The trick had bought me a few seconds lead, and I was not going to let it go to waste. I aimed for the end of the next line and the edge of the disruption field beyond.
Seconds away from the edge of the field, I powered up the Sparkle Drive and input my destination. There was only one safe place I knew that I could go, but it wasn’t close. I figured that was for the better. Cornering around the last ship I hit a straightaway. The ships cleared out in front of me. It would be a race to the edge. The drive was at full power and ready to activate as soon as my WAND told me it was clear to jump. The police cruisers cleared the queue just seconds behind me.
Two pulsing beams of magic slammed into my ship. A warning sign appeared on my WAND’s AR screen notifying me that the ship’s Sparkle Drive had been scrambled. It was still powered, but the interference from the beams was preventing the matrix from activating.
“Oh... Buck Me!”
I was outside the field, and so were my pursuers, their energy cannons powered and leading my ship. I rolled and banked hard, turning in time for two bolts of magical energy to harmlessly sail past. The three of us were dogfighting two on one, and absent of civilian ships, the police had shed their concerns about hitting innocents. Their guns flashed every few seconds as the long barrels of their cannons spat round after round in my direction.
The Scrap Bandit was unarmed, and if the fighting kept up I would be floating dead in a glowing cloud of debris. I needed a plan. I had an idea, but it was stupid and probably suicidal. I had no chance of outrunning the ships, but I had one last ace in my saddle. I decided to run with it.
I led the Scrap Bandit into a sharp turn, the ship groaning around me in protest, and aimed it toward the two police cruisers just as they fired. Two lances of deadly magical energy shot past, one neatly grazing the cockpit. I felt heat warm my body as the concentrated radiation sailed by, taking another piece of the canopy with it. Three seconds and I would be between them. Two seconds. I could see the energy building within the heart of their cannons. One. I gritted my teeth, preparing for the worst. My heart skipped a beat.
The beams of the drive jammers crossed as my ship sailed between the two cruisers. There was a bright flash as the magical fields cancelled each other and the warning sign on my AR screen disappeared. I punched on the Sparkle Drive with a hoof and prayed to Celestia. The ship shuddered and shunted horribly. For a grave moment I thought the drive was going to explode. A powerful field burst to life around the Scrap Bandit, pulsating with energy. The field shined like the sun, the light building in intensity as the police cruisers struggled to retarget me. Then, in a blinding flash of arcane magic, my ship vanished, leaving the two cruisers and the distant station behind.
The universe dropped out from under me. I felt myself pulled in a new direction, one that was not in any direction I could properly describe, other than simply, away.
*** ***** ***
“It felt like being flushed down the loo.”
Those were the famous words of Spring Dawn, one the first astronauts to successfully test the Sparkle Drive thousands of years ago. I had to admit, she was right.
The Sparkle Drive was the product of an ancient engine design that used highly advanced teleportation magic for faster than light travel. It was named after the legendary scholar, Twilight Sparkle, who first theorized that objects and ponies could be successfully transported en masse with sufficient magical power. It was not until 850 years after her death, however, that her theory could be tested.
In 1979 E.C. a landmark experiment was performed to test Twilight’s theory. It involved seven volunteers, decorated members of the Equestrian Space Exploration Program (ESEP), who boarded a land based starship equipped with the drive’s prototype. Upon first activation, the results were at first concluded to be disastrous. The drive had activated successfully, but after the brilliant explosion of magical energy, the drive had left a perfectly spherical crater at ground zero, 30 meters in diameter. The Twenty minutes that followed passed in absolute silence as the control room desperately waited for a response to their pings. The mission was nearly declared a failure, a tragedy that had cost the lives of seven brave explorers, when the radio crackled back to life. Spring Dawn was on the line and her message was simple:
“Spring Dawn to mission control. We made it. It felt like being flushed down the loo.”
The success of the Sparkle Drive enabled the launch of the first orbital colony, Equestria One, during a time when overpopulation, war and famine threatened to extinguish the races of Equestria. The invention of the drive proved to be the salvation of the planet, and it all happened because of a brilliant little librarian.
Well, if there was a feeling of being a piece of space feces flung halfway across the galaxy, I had just experienced it. The universe righted itself as the Scrap Bandit popped into existence with an explosion of light and magic. Travelling via the Sparkle Drive always made me feel strange. I suppose that there was something about folding the fabric of space-time to travel many light-years in the space of a few seconds that the body simply did not agree with.
Slightly dizzy from the jump, I took a moment to let my head settle and gazed out the Bandit’s viewport to the starscape beyond. Luna Six was gone, and the colony’s hulking frame with it. In their place, the stars shined in the vast open reaches of space, some veiled in a myriad of nebulous clouds, like gems in a sea of tranquility. I marveled at the sight, staring for a few minutes as my heart rate returned to normal. I was alive, and I had escaped, at least for now. It was a good start.
Something was off however. As beautiful as the scenery was, my intended destination was nowhere to be seen. I used my WAND to bring up the ship’s star chart. It flickered a few times before it finally produced a holographic layout of the galaxy, and using the ship’s sensors, gave a rough approximation of my location.
I had moved in the right direction, but I had undershot my destination by a factor of six. Knowing the Scrap Bandit, I was not surprised. Junkyard did build it out of leftover parts from his salvage yard, and what was available there was not usually high quality. According to the map, I was still within the Pegasus cluster, but even with readouts of my intended destination the authorities would be hard pressed to find me. I was heading to the Earth Pony Rim worlds, a sector that was decidedly outside the PPB’s jurisdiction and notorious for being uncooperative with other governments.
Before I could go anywhere however, I needed to ensure the Sparkle Drive would survive another jump. Unlocking my harness, I made my way to the back of the cockpit and into the access corridor beyond. Next to the airlock, I opened up a small hatch in the floor that revealed a short ladder down to the maintenance deck. I floated down, being careful not to bump my head.
The Engineering deck of the scrap bandit was modular in design. It consisted of a small workspace squeezed between the cargo bay, the thrusters, the sparkle drive and auxiliary storage for whatever didn’t belong in the cargo bay. The sparkle drive was located near the back inside a small, cramped room. It was an intimidating piece of arcane tech that emitted a steady, rhythmic thrum when it was powered.
To my immense relief, the Sparkle Drive was undamaged, as far as I could tell anyway. I wasn’t exactly a tech. All I really knew was how to fly, not how to fix the damn thing if it broke. I was a pilot, I pushed buttons and made things go. It didn’t take a genius to see when something was wrong after all.
I looked up at the drive and smiled. Standing before me was freedom as much as it was worth. I had no food, no water, and only 24 hours of breathable air before the scrubbers in my suit would start failing. I also had a warrant for my arrest and likely had my pilot’s license permanently revoked within pegasus sovereign space.
I had a working ship however, and with that, I could do anything.
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