https://www.fimfiction.net/story/421779/79/voyage-of-the-equinox/chapter-79#comment/958154481544 Though there were many high rated comments with similar sentiments to this one.
Through Twilight’s confusion, one truth surface before all the others. She might be somewhere strange; she might be light-years away from home and ignorant of the state of Equestria. But that didn’t mean all her knowledge and experience was suddenly invalid.
She knew dark magic. Anything that could’ve done permanent damage to her friends would have done something serious to their bodies as well. The fact that they were undamaged guaranteed that this situation was different. They aren’t waking up, that means their minds have gone somewhere.
She’d assumed when Apple Bloom described the Contingency and the city inside it, that it contained compactified space, or some nonmagical equivalent. Maybe the reason it took so little energy and the reason her friends’ bodies were intact were the same.
She would’ve called the Equinox for help, but they still hadn’t answered. She would have to decide for herself.
The first part of her task was easy: load everypony into the Prospector as carefully as she could. There was no way she’d be able to individually levitate them, or anything else so convenient. But so far as she could tell, they were still alive, or at least their basic systems were still functioning.
It took a few hours, where Twilight was increasingly dragging her hooves as her days without sleep finally caught up to her. She couldn’t keep going forever, and eventually she had to curl up in the corner of the prospector and close her eyes.
She woke a few hours later, to panicked shouting from nearby. Twilight sat up, groaning and rubbing her eyes. A glance around the Prospector’s cargo bay told her exactly what she’d feared—nopony had woken up. The shouting was coming from her portable radio.
Twilight levitated it up, squinting down at the screen. It was connected to the prospector’s antenna, using the general channel.
It was Fluttershy’s voice, desperate and afraid. “Twilight, are you there? Twilight?”
She nodded reflexively, even though she knew Fluttershy wouldn’t be able to hear her. “Fluttershy? What’s going on?”
Fluttershy was on the edge of tears. “We’re moving. I didn’t know why, but…”
Spike’s voice joined her in the background. No mystery about how that might be, since they’d both been in medical. “It’s not much of a push. Navigational thrusters, burning hydrogen. But it feels like it’s down towards the planet.”
Oh buck. With only the auxiliary reactors, there wasn’t a chance in Tartarus of going anywhere with the Equinox. The navigational thrusters wouldn’t even be enough to escape the planet’s gravity. But there was something they could do: destabilize their orbit.
Twilight ran the numbers in her head, or tried. She couldn’t remember the exact height of the Equinox, or the precise velocity it had been traveling. They’d taken an extremely conservative orbit, since they knew it might be months before they flew again, and extensive repairs would be needed. “Let me see… whoever’s doing that will have to shut them down every few seconds to stop the nozzles from overheating.” They weren’t likely to run out of hydrogen before they ran out of orbit.
“You have at least three days,” Twilight said, her voice panicked. “We were going fast, and those thrusters weren’t made for major corrections. If they fire too fast, the nozzles will melt, and your problem will be over.”
“There’s something else,” Spike added. “We’re losing access to the computers, one system at a time. But once we started moving, I went right to cryogenics to check. That was the first sector to go non-responsive."
Has Cozy Glow been biding her time, and finally takes control of the Equinox? Yes.
Buck, who else could it be? They didn’t leave her in suspense, in any case. Cozy Glow’s voice came over the radio, as sickly sweet as she remembered. She must be suffering terribly from cryosickness, but she managed to conceal it. “This mission is over now, Twilight. I wanted it to be peaceful. We could’ve made an agreement never to leave system and lived our lives here. But now I know I can’t trust you. I’m taking permanent measures.”
Twilight took her magic off the transmission button, then swore under her breath. “Cozy Glow, listen to me. Your information is out of date. Since the last time you were awake, we’ve run into ponies from a second mission into the system. Something already happened in Equestria. They might need our help desperately.”
Cozy giggled. If she heard the gravity of what Twilight had said, she didn’t care. “There are no other ships in the system. If they really did come here, I don’t need to worry about them getting away. Don’t worry, I’ll let the escape pod launch as soon as our orbit decays beyond recovery. Unless I see somepony coming, that is. I’ve already locked your crew into the medical bay. If I see that prospector come anywhere near me, say goodbye to their air!” The line clicked.
Okay so maybe… my first plan didn’t go quite the way I thought. Twilight sat back, glancing around at her cargo bay of motionless ponies. She had already wired each of the organics into the medical system, to alert her if anything went seriously wrong. Nothing had, though they’d need to go onto life support soon. She had already given each of them water, but eventually they’d start to starve.
If there was one thing Twilight knew, it was that she needed help. Cozy Glow’s appearance might’ve been unexpected, but it also gave her a definite enemy. With a surge of adrenaline came the resolve to keep fighting.
[All options are dangerous]
1. Use her long relationship with Spike to work out a covert way to contact him and coach him through retaking the Equinox from the inside.
2. Violate Cozy’s injunction and try to board the Equinox using a low-altitude teleport.
3. Investigate the Contingency to attempt to free one or more crew-members first.
4. Go inside and see if the Memorial’s defenses can be turned against the Equinox.
(Certainty 230 required)