Use Spike's help to discover what Cozy was up to 55%
Twilight watched Cozy burn. One too many times she’d trusted that this pony was dealt with—but each and every time, she’d proven her wrong. She wouldn’t be waiting for her to ruin something else she loved.
The furnace eventually went dark, opening to reveal a tiny container of pale ash. Ordinarily their biowaste would go into the greenhouse—but something felt wrong about doing that to the corpse of a pony, even a terrible enemy. She dumped the tray into a sample container, then tossed it aside. She could bury her somewhere on Proximus B, and finally get the stowaway off her damn ship.
Does Spike figure out what happened while searching? Critical yes.
Twilight stepped into the lift when she was finally done, and heard a strange grinding of metal from beneath her. Strange, considering the zero-gravity should’ve meant far less effort on the motors.
Then a voice came in over the lift’s speakers. Not the recordings of Cozy Glow, or her voice manipulated the way Node did it. It was Spike. “Captain Twilight,” he said, voice strangely cold and distant. “I’ve completed your investigation. You should join me in the central computer. We have lots to talk about.”
She started moving upward without having to dial in a floor. The lift stopped after traveling up one level. Twilight winced at the huge hole in the side, its jagged edges obviously cut by dragon claws. She ignored them, stepping forward into the mainframe.
Little had changed since she left it, except that there were no longer any bodies or the debris that might infect any creature who got too close. All the screens were off, except of course for the console that had been broken during the battle.
Is Spike upset with what Twilight did? Yes.
His voice came again, echoing from the room beyond loudly enough that she couldn’t miss it. “I learned what Cozy Glow was planning, captain,” Spike’s voice said again. He seemed to be coming from everywhere. “I learned many things—things you should’ve told me.”
“It was… very fresh for me,” she said, unsure if he could even hear her. But there was only one way to find out. “I wasn’t sure if it was really you.”
“That makes two of us.” Spike’s voice said. The overhead lights went out one by one, until only the dim glow of the mainframe illuminated the room. None of the other important systems had been switched off this time, though the mainframe racks were still fogged up inside. Thick residue on the glass meant that the glowing status lights seemed to light up the whole thing, like thousands of little watching eyes. “I’m still not sure if it’s really me either. But I saw what happened.”
“Everything?” she asked, slumping onto her haunches and looking down. “I had to do something, Spike? I couldn’t let her murder you.”
But he hardly seemed to be listening. “I watched Cozy Glow spend hours and hours at the observation deck, staring down at the return report from our probes. She seemed very interested in Proximus C… but not as interested as she was in sinking the Equinox.”
“I’m sorry,” Twilight said again, just a little louder. “I tried everything, Spike. I didn’t know what else I could do to save you.”
But of course she could never overpower the Equinox’s many speakers. “I watched her open the armory with a stolen keycard. I watched her remove the armor-piercing rounds and a long-rifle. Other things too, you know. She installed IEDs in three places. If we had gone for the thrusters directly instead of the computer, we would’ve been blown to Tartarus and back.”
Could he even hear her? Twilight lit her horn, searching for the security camera. There were a few—but the nearest one was positioned just behind the console, where any crewman’s commands could be observed and recorded.
“Then she came here,” Spike continued, still ignoring her. “Do you know what she was doing? I do. I watched her do it with all those eyes. I wasn’t dead yet, but I can still remember retroactively. Time no longer makes sense. Space doesn’t make sense either. I’m not anywhere, yet I’m so many places at once.
“She wasn’t trying to write a program to destroy the Equinox—there were several of those. Like the one she wrote to thaw anyone who matched her approximate weight a few months after going in, so long as the ship was safe. I think the best one I found so far was the periodic overload of our reactor if we ever left the system. It wouldn’t have blown us up, just caused a series of critical systems failures that would shunt plasma into the reaction manifold and fry everything we can’t replace. We’d freeze in space, and be unable to decelerate when we finally flew back to Equestria. Real devious stuff.”
“You can tell me how you feel, Spike. If you hate me because of it—that’s okay. I wouldn’t blame you. Would you rather stay dead?”
“Maybe.” It was his first response since he’d begun his report. His tone was flat, mechanical. Something told her he was stripping the emotion from it, rather than accurately communicating how he felt. “I haven’t decided yet. I watched it happen from three angles, you know. Saw how determined I was—I died for my friends. You took that away from me, Twilight.”
“I didn’t want to lose you,” she squeaked. “Apple Bloom seemed so alive, I thought… you’d come back like her. That was what should’ve happened. You might’ve even liked it.”
“Apple Bloom was infected while she was alive,” he called, exasperated. “I was already cold when you hit me. Frankly I’m relieved nothing worse happened. If my corpse had risen again to hurt you…” he went silent. One by one, the lights came back on.
Random Event: (Character positive) Twilight Sparkle: The Heal of Success
In that moment, Twilight saw it. A flash of insight, as clear as her view through the tiny window of the star Proximus. She knew how to wake up Sunset Shimmer. She could cast the spell right now, if she wanted.
“While I decide what I’m going to do as an undead monster, you should know what else Cozy was doing. She was writing a message. It reads like a report of everything we’ve done, from her perspective. There’s lots of missing details once we went groundside. She wrote it like it was her last message. She was getting ready to send it… but the funny thing is, she had the directional antenna ready, not the laser. Apparently she thought somepony local was going to get it.”
Twilight wasn’t sure what to make of Spike’s not-recovery—but for now, she thought it best not to prod too much. She had said her piece, even if it felt woefully inadequate. Now she would…
1. Return to the surface and gather all useful supplies for a full evacuation.
2. Cast her spell on Sunset Shimmer now.
3. Try to rescue her friends first.
(Certainty 235 required)