Soon after the pressure doors locked, Azimuth let out an exhausted sigh, and her pink-feathered wings drooped from her sides. Massaging her head to relieve a mild migraine, she paused to drop her belongings on the room's central table. While her workload during non-combat phases was relatively low, the twelve-hour shifts drained the pegasus more than any strenuous physical or mental activity.
Azimuth’s schedule was fairly predictable. So too were her habits. At the end of each shift, she’d contemplate setting aside an hour at the gym, knowing full well the importance of keeping active when most of her time was spent seated. She also knew that like every day, the thought would be dismissed, and she’d remain in her quarters anyway.
The pegasus wondered if her laziness was somehow attributed to her living arrangements. As an officer, Azimuth enjoyed the luxury and privacy of only dual accommodation in the officer’s quarters. Aside from her bed, Azimuth’s most used item of furniture was the sofa, where the officer would delude herself into thinking a twenty-minute nap would be just that. More often than not, the pegasus would wake several hours later, still in uniform, and her fur matted with sweat.
Heading for her wardrobes, Azimuth unlocked the nearest one, revealing her personal armoury. Each item secured to the wall electronically, keyed to the officer’s VMUI. Two LR-48s mounted vertically, with ample ammunition in containers underneath. Further below were close-quarters weapons, including a sheathed combat knife, and a concussive shock baton. Lying on the floor in larger containers were assorted tools and maintenance equipment related to the upkeep of each weapon.
Hanging her cap on a hook near an empty column of shelves, Azimuth closed the wardrobe, and opened the next one, revealing a pantry and mini-fridge occupying one half of the area. Though low on stock, a few bottles of assorted fruit juices remained, along with some dry snacks. Azimuth was especially fond of the roasted seaweed packs she would pick up from Equestria, and made it a priority to stock up on as much of them as possible whenever planet-side.
The second half contained emergency equipment, such as oxygen bottles, protective equipment, first-aid kits, and backup communication devices. A few leftover shelves held Azimuth’s effects, most of which was gardening equipment. If one were to enter the officer’s quarters, the need for such equipment would be apparent.
Secured to almost every available part of the room on her half were potted plants. Those on the floor, or mounted to the walls contained powerful magnets to keep them in place during high Gs, while smaller magnets with strings held up vines, or climbing plants. Hydrangeas bordered the pressure door. The pale purple flowers of wisterias hung from the ceiling edges outside the bathroom. Aloe, and a wide variety of succulents occupied the smaller wall pots.
It took Azimuth many attempts at trial and error to perfect off-world gardening, learning the hard way what happens to unsecured soil in a weightless or negative-G environment, or the consequences of insufficient support for plants in high-G situations. Reminiscing, she smiled as she went about watering the thirstier plants.
Though not the most elegant solution to keeping soil in place, Azimuth pulled back at the cling wrap surrounding the stems of each plant, carefully pouring some water into each pot. Humming occasionally, she set about performing some maintenance, removing yellowed leaves, snipping away at undesired growths, and sweeping the floors once she had finished, all the while contemplating the equipment and logistics required too transition to a hydroponic setup.
Washing her hooves, the officer emerged from the bathroom and glanced at the pantry. Yawning, she made her way to the sofa instead, spreading across and letting her left wing droop to the floor. Just twenty minutes. Too hungry to sleep, anyway, Azimuth thought.
She thought wrong.
Arc Sabre had finished re-racking his barbell weights on the gym’s deck. Giving the bench a disinfecting wipe that would make a germaphobe proud, the stoic officer left for the nearest elevator.
Stepping in, he headed down to his quarters. Alone in the elevator, his face cracked slightly, as he grew slightly anxious. Upon arrival at his deck, he quickened his pace, glancing around, before opening the doors to his quarters.
His first order of business was the same as any other day. Heading for his armoury, he removed his sword and placed it in its mounting, just below a photo of an older stallion whose mane and coat matched Sabre’s, save for a few grey patches atop his head.
After a quick shower, the unicorn set about tidying up what little there was to tidy. Even a single strand of mane against the glossy floor was no match for the compulsively neat officer. Combined with his minimalism, however, his living space was best described as bland and sterile, lacking even the smallest piece of decoration to give some semblance of homeliness.
Sabre was about to retrieve several items from one of his wardrobes, when a set of knocks against his pressure door made him freeze. Moving towards the exit, he opened the doors, revealing a large griffon with a larger grin upon his face.
“Eyy, ye missed me, sir?”
“Hey, keep it down, Claymore,” Sabre spoke softly. “You know I don’t want others getting the wrong idea about me.”
Moving past the unicorn, Claymore entered the officer’s quarters. “Aye, ye tell me every time. Not sure why yer makin’ a fuss over it.” Looking around, he added, “So where’s the new guy?”
“Right behind you,” another griffon raised his voice just outside. “Just missed your elevator.”
Sabre, gestured towards the newcomer. “Claymore, this is Syzygy. Syz, Claymore.”
Syz whistled. “You highlanders sure are bigger up close.”
“And ye mainlanders are tiny as always,” Claymore countered. “So, Sabre. Ye managed to finally bring everyone together?”
“I did. Crux and the Doc should be here soon.” Turning away, the unicorn approached his wardrobe once more, and rummaged through several drawers. “You two can get settled in, while I get everything prepared.”
“Sooooo, what exactly do you need me to do?” Syz took a seat at the table while he and Claymore waited. “I’ve never done something like this before. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little nervous.”
“I’m sure you’ll learn quick enough,” Sabre called out, his head practically submerged in the bottom drawer. “Seriously, where did I put the damn thing?” he muttered to himself.
“Aye.” Claymore slapped the smaller griffon’s back with a wing. “Jus’ follow my lead. An’ don’t forget to relax. Nothin’ serious goes on here, anyway.”
Sabre returned with a small pouch levitating beside him. “Since we’re waiting on the others, we might as well get you started. Claymore”—he produced a sheet of paper with a template on it, while several dice with different numbers of sides rolled out onto the table—“get Syz started on character creation, while I sort the snacks out.”
“Make darn sure that isolation valve is set,” Sierra ordered, wiping her brow and attempting to return some manner of harmony to her dishevelled mane. The oil and grease that managed to trap itself in the fur of her fore-hooves only served to amplify her bedraggled appearance.
An olive-drab unicorn nearby confirmed the positions of multiple levers for several valves built into a small recession in the deck. Beside it, an access panel was cast aside, while the technicians inspected various components. “Plasma delivery tubes one through six are isolated, and the manifold shutoff valve is closed, ma’am.”
Donning her pressure suit, Sierra squeezed into the bottom of the first torpedo tube via a maintenance hatch. Inside, she secured a line to an anchor point on the bottom edge of the first torpedo tube, then looped it through a harness worn over her suit. Giving it a hard tug for good measure, Sierra adhered her front mag boots to the inner walls of the tube. Pulling herself up, she grunted with each laboured motion. “If this turns out to be a waste of my time, somepony is going to be put on sewage line maintenance for a month.”
A voice came through her earpiece. “Ensign? How you doing up there?”
“Now’s not really a good time, Eclipse. What do you need?”
“Eh, there seems to be some trouble down in utilities. One of the crew mentioned an issue with a power bank, and couldn’t figure it out. Think you can check it out once you’re done?”
Sierra sighed. “Seems like I’m the only pony around here who knows how to fix things. Alright fine. Let the crew know I’ll head down in half an hour, assuming no delays. Still diagnosing tube one. Oh, hey, would it kill you to drop the engines down to quarter-G? Would make my life a lot easier.”
“Best I can do is half-G,” Eclipse replied. After a pause, his voice returned. “That better?”
Sierra could feel her weight decrease. “Better than nothing. Thanks, Eclipse. Sierra out.”
Ascending the torpedo tube, the earth pony frequently paused, confirming the automatic mechanisms in her harness were maintaining the correct line tension, while she attached her safety line to each anchor built into tiny depressions along the tube’s walls.
Eventually, she reached her destination. About a third of the way up the tube lied the plasma filling port, retracted flush with its surroundings. Around the wide, telescopic tube, were several electromagnets, which, like all the other magnets mounted to every surface of the plasma delivery tubes, allowed plasma to flow from Amarok’s engines, without melting the tubes on contact.
Only, something was immediately apparent, as Sierra finished her climb. Shining the light from her helmet onto the port, she could see one of the electromagnets had burned out. Tapping on her VMUI, she overrode several safety limiters and forced the plasma port to extend. After performing a quick visual inspection, she retracted the port and enabled the safety features once more.
“Specialist,” Sierra called her assistant unicorn through her comms. “I’ve located the problem. About a tenth of the plasma port is melted along one side. Looks like one of the electromagnets failed. I’ll mark the tube inop and lock it out, until I can put together a repair team.”
Climbing back down, Sierra returned through the hatch back to the upper torpedo room deck. After removing her harness and packing away her safety gear, she turned to her assistant. “I’m needed elsewhere. Please return my equipment, then update your deck on the situation. Dismissed.”
Watching the unicorn trot off with the equipment floating beside her, Sierra entered the nearest elevator and descended to the utilities deck. While she continued down, she twisted her helmet slightly to one side, until it unsealed. Lifting it away, she attached her helmet to a carabiner on her left side.
Arriving at the utilities deck, Sierra soon caught sight of an earth pony near the problematic power bank. As she drew nearer, she could make out several toolboxes spread out around the area. “Alright, what seems to be the problem?” she sighed, the weariness in her voice becoming more pronounced.
The turquoise pony looked towards the source of the voice, before snapping to his hooves. “Oh, Ensign! I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Specialist Amp.”
“At ease, Specialist. Now, the problem?”
“Right. Well the power bank was running fine on its own, and then it just died.”
Sierra yawned. “Could you be more specific? What were you doing in the time leading up to the event?”
“Not much, really. I was told to go inspect the components of the bank in this section”—Amp unlatched a vertical sliding compartment and pulled it away from the power bank—“but it was just a routine inspection. Bring the bank offline, remove each component, inspect for signs of damage or wear, then return them back where they belonged.”
Sierra studied the circuitry and hummed. “And you’re sure you put everything back the way it was?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sure if there was an issue, the bank wouldn’t have gone online again. Or something might have blown. But it didn’t. Might have been a power surge, but I haven’t been able to identify the cause of the problem. None of the components show issues when tested with a multimeter, either. Only thing out of the ordinary was a low power output, but I figured it was just low ship demand.”
Continuing to look over the exposed components, the unamused officer grew increasingly tired. “Did you reverse the polarity?”
Amp raised an eyebrow and gave Sierra a look. “Really? Cracking that old sci-fi joke?”
“No, seriously. There’s a diode in the corner that’s installed the wrong way around.”
“Wait, what?” Amp glanced at the component in question. Shutting the bank down again, he removed the diode and installed it with the correct ends in the right locations. After activating the power bank, a quick diagnostic indicated everything was running as it should be. “Oh, geez,” Amp groaned at the humiliating mistake.
“From now on, I’m calling you Polarity.” Heading for an elevator, Sierra called out behind her. “Hopefully that will help you to remember something so basic.”