//------------------------------// // Chapter 108 // Story: Voyage of the Equinox // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Send boarding crew to Canterlot Station 43% “You realize how stupid it is for you to be going on this mission,” Sunset said, glaring at her just outside the docking bay. “This is why we have crews. This is why we delegate. We trust them to do these sorts of missions for us.” Twilight glanced briefly down the open door to the Prospector. Her crew was already waiting inside—Node, Rainbow Dash, and Apple Bloom, and Rarity. Between the four of them, they would cover just about any skill the mission might need, without sacrificing some critical capacity that would otherwise doom the Equinox if they were somehow lost. Granted, morale might suffer a fatal blow if they were lost. Considering how thin they were all stretched at this point, Applejack in particular. “They probably won’t be able to receive messages from the Equinox,” Twilight said. “They’ll be on their own.” Sunset shrugged. “And you’ll be okay with that, because you delegate this important mission to the most capable ponies you had.” Does Twilight insist on going herself? No. Twilight sighed, slumping onto her haunches. “You’re right. I… wanting to go is selfish. I have a crew for a reason.” “Exactly.” Sunset walked past her, calling into the opening. “Captain Twilight is leaving the mission to you! You can prep for takeoff, Rainbow!” The pegasus emerged from inside a few seconds later, looking between them with concern on her face. “Is that true, Twi? That doesn’t seem like you.”: “It’s not,” she admitted. “But Sunset is right. We don’t know what’s down there, and I’m the only alicorn we have. If something awful happens and I need to save you, the best place for me to be is somewhere I can do the saving.” “Not that you’ll need to,” Rainbow said, puffing out her wings just a little. “Because I’m the best pilot that ever lived. I’ve been training for like… months, maybe? Or years? On the best simulator ever. I’m going to just dominate, you’ll see.” Considering the winds down there, you better. Twilight reached out, settling a wing on Rainbow’s shoulder. “Good luck, Rainbow. Bring everypony home safe.” She met her eyes, nodding once. “You got it, captain.” Twilight watched them go from the bridge, tensing into her seat as the Prospector got closer and closer to Proximus B’s opaque atmosphere. Rainbow was right, she was the best pilot for the job. She could do things with spacecraft that Twilight could only understand in computer models. “Going down,” Rainbow said, her voice twisted by only a hint of static now. “We’ll keep an open channel all the way in.” “Rodger that, Rainbow.” Does Rainbow fly them in safely? No. RANDOM EVENT: The Agree of Disruption Twilight could see that something was going wrong before Rainbow actually said anything. The information came buzzing back across the Equinox’s sensor connection with the prospector. An above-average density of changed particles, some slight deviations to the flightpath. Inconsistent altitude adjustments. Then the pilot’s voice, sounding a little panicked. “Uh… Twilight? I think we might be having some…” on the channel behind her, several alarms started going off. On Twilight’s sensor displays, the Prospector veered violently, dangerously close to the acceleration threshold on unconsciousness. Rainbow was trained for high-g maneuvers, but the Prospector could take only so much. “What do we do?” “Get out!” Twilight said. “Emergency burn, right now. Buck the docking, get out of there!” “Already on it!” Rainbow said, over the sound of more alarms. “Alright ponies, buckle yourselves the hell in and say goodbye to your breakfast!” Her voice vanished into the roar of the prospector’s engines. Twilight held against the seatbelts in her chair so firmly that her hooves started going numb. “There’s nothing you can do, captain. Either they’ll survive, or they won’t.” The voice that spoke from behind her was Spike’s, though it didn’t seem like it came from any of the familiar ship’s speakers. She glanced backward, eyes widening at what she saw. It was very much like what she’d seen from Node, a bipedal creature with mostly naked skin and four manipulating arms. Its eyes were wide, and its hair a sharp purple just like Spike’s scales. For as strange as he looked, the voice was identical. “You have a body,” she said. She kept glancing back to the readout, but the Prospector’s signal was gone into the static of its emergency burn. Either it would resolve out the other end, or… it wouldn’t. “I’ve had one for a few days now,” Spike said, settling into the science chair and adjusting the jumpsuit around his collar. He wore a uniform just like the one he’d once worn to formal functions, covering much of this strange body’s naked skin. “But I don’t feel the need to… use it, very often. The focus in one point is distracting. The Equinox has a wider scope of sensors. A body manipulates my senses into… caring too much about a single viewpoint.” Twilight looked back to the screen. “You didn’t make a dragon.” “No designs for one,” he said. “And since the materials available wouldn’t have the traits of a dragon, making something with my old shape seemed… pathetic. Maybe one day, I can get a design that approximates it. Honestly, the Equinox is a better approximation of a dragon than this. Thick scales, sturdy, long-lived…” His expression changed. “I’m getting a signal from the prospector.” Can Rainbow pull back out into orbit? Yes. “We’re bucking out!” Rainbow’s voice came back over the radio, heavily distorted. “Captain, uh… I think we might need ourselves a lift. Prospector’s drive section is half melted, and I had to ditch some cargo to lighten the load. But we’re out. I think the station holding Canterlot tried to grab us!” “We’ll set a course,” Twilight answered, voice grim. “We’re coming, Prospector. Sit tight.” She nodded towards Spike. Without a word of explicit instruction, she felt the dull rumble of the Equinox’s engines kicking on. There was no need to calculate vectors or plot a course out of orbit—Spike did all that on his own. “Looks like they’re badly damaged,” Spike said. “We’ll need considerable time to try another mission like that, and lots of repairs. Or…” 1. Time doesn’t matter, repair the Prospector and try again. It’s the safest way. 2. The Equinox is larger, and its engines dwarf the Prospector or the Canterlot by weight to thrust. We’ll do this ourselves. 3. Twilight didn’t study teleportation not to use it. She’ll make a long-range jump directly onto the Canterlot. [dangerous]