//------------------------------// // Chapter 10 // Story: Voyage of the Equinox // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Applejack’s Breakthrough Twilight hardly even saw her friend over the next few weeks. Applejack was a ghost amid the conduits, occasionally emerging in the mess hall to grab a few dry hay-cakes and hurry off again. The work was obviously taking its toll on her—Applejack’s coat wasn’t growing back nearly as healthy as Twilight’s was, and her limbs still shook a little while she walked. At the rate she was going, they might run out of drugs before she ran out of need for them. Twilight cut her own dose in half, hoping that would be enough to keep her healing. And it seemed to be—she didn’t need crutches anymore, and she stopped seeing her own hair in the shower. Twilight spent most of her free time with Spike, who as it turned out had been hurt worse than they’d thought. A chunk of metal hadn’t just cracked a scale, but pierced right through it, meaning without their doctor awake it was all Twilight could do to teleport the chunk out and hope for the best. He didn’t get out of bed, and rarely even seemed to wake up. The lander had many functions they could’ve used, if only their transmitter-receiver array was still working. No doubt a saboteur would’ve disabled the systems that could let them shut it down or control it, but at least she could’ve seen where they were going, and asked them to be reasonable. Whoever had been on that ship, they’d been willing to kill to keep themselves secret. Yet she couldn’t understand their motives—if they were willing to murder, why not murder Spike, then never wake the others? They’d have the whole ship to themselves. Maybe they didn’t think they could fight a dragon. Without Applejack willing to accept her help, Twilight took the time to confirm Spike’s story. He hadn’t accessed the cargo bay at any point during the time she’d been awake. Records went back as normal to the moment of the explosion—then there was nothing. The files were gone, and the backup reels with them. But Twilight didn’t need that for confirmation, and apparently neither did Applejack. It was during a rare afternoon with her in the mess hall that she interrupted Twilight’s reading with a tap on the shoulder. “I thought I should let you know, captain… I’ve had private words with Spike.” Her eyes narrowed immediately. “Spike is in no condition to hear you—” “No,” Applejack interrupted. “To apologize. I don’t think it could’ve been him after all. Standing in front of the explosion like that… well, he’d have known it was there, wouldn’t he? I watched the recording—he looked straight down the hallway without blinking. Never argued with you… he didn’t know. I told him I was sorry. And you too… I was the one who failed, not him.” “Applejack—” She stood up. “No, don’t say it. I should’ve found that bomb. Whoever set the lander to go off like that is a better engineer than I am. But I won’t let it stay that way.” She smiled weakly. “I’ve got the array back online. Ain’t gonna be catching any video from Equestria at this distance… you ought to know that. Actually, didn’t look at the damn thing past makin’ sure the signal was clean. But it’s there. I’m working on the eye right now. Give me another two weeks, and I’ll have it too. Pray to Celestia there ain’t any little rocks headed our way.” “Y-yeah,” Twilight repeated, ignoring the religious suggestion at the end. She lost all interest in her soup, rising too. “You’re amazing, Chief Engineer! Two weeks… I expected you’d take twice that much time.” Applejack beamed. “Don’t call me amazin’ until I get that Prospector right back where she belongs. Don’t think I won’t, either. But for now… Equinox has got to walk before she can run.” Twilight darted straight for the bridge, something she could actually do now. She practically jumped into the coms chair, basking in the even red glow as its three screens came online. She could use the coms from almost anywhere on the Equinox, but nowhere with such fine control as coms. There was a single pending signal, and she reached to confirm it and start downloading the dump of missed Equestrian data. Yet her eyes caught the frequency, and the origin triangulation. It wasn’t coming from Equestria at all. There was no Equestrian signal. And this one was coming from in-system, towards Proximus. It was the Signal, the repeating series of mathematical proofs that built from a few basic primes to higher-dimensional systems that had remained unsolved in Equestria when the Equinox was launched. “I don’t understand…” Twilight said, the next time she had a chance to visit Spike. “The antenna is working—Applejack went out and verified it herself with a probe. We’re not getting anything from Equestria anymore, not even the home ping.” Spike shuddered. He could barely even sit up, and he was sipping broth through a straw. Half his body had at least some kind of bandages. “Must be something on our end,” he said. “I remember getting that signal, right up until… the explosion, I guess. When we got into the system.” Could something be shielding us? Twilight thought. Then she thought about how advanced someone would have to be to do that without their detecting it, and she shivered. But if it was something on their end, Twilight couldn’t find it. Then Applejack kept her word, and two weeks later the eye came back online. Twilight immediately trained it on the origin of the Signal, which was aimed not towards Equestria but towards the Equinox directly. There in the void of space, she saw a glint of metal. A spacecraft, traveling directly towards them on a trajectory that led back to Proximus B. What should Twilight do? 1. Alter course towards the ship. This is why we’re here, isn’t it? The Prospector won’t matter if we’ve really found an alien civilization! They can help us get this mission back on track. 2. Alter course towards the Prospector. It’s closer, and Applejack thinks we might be able to get it back. The Equinox is faster than a Lander. 3. Ignore both and stay the course. If the ones who sent the Signal really want to talk to us, they’ve already waited forty years, they can wait a little longer. The prospector isn’t irreplaceable, we just need more materials. Let the saboteur enjoy their lifetime banishment, they won’t be getting back to Equestria in a Prospector. 4. Applejack suggests an emergency course-correction towards the asteroid belt could allow the Equinox to hide from the approaching ship using some clever prospecting tactics. It will add months and cost fuel, but prevent the Equinox from being discovered by known Equestrian means. (Certainty 150 required)