Short flight awakened quickly to the buzzing of her communicator. She spent a second glaring at the wall in front of her before turning herself over under the elastic straps keeping her in bed, to face the bedside communications panel. As she went, she decided that if it was anything less than important, it’d have to slide; she must have caught a cold or something. Maybe the flu? But why would it be showing then, over three days since the airlock doors were last opened?
In any case, no matter the cause, she felt terrible. Her entire body felt warm, yet it still seemed to want the warmth of her covers- she was not sweating. And that was not counting the splitting headache, or the piercing burn in her horn. She glared at the comms panel until her eyes came into focus.
Oh. It was her dad. And there was only one reason he’d be calling her: To tell her what to do next. It sorta made sense, even- he was the King of her nation. She sighed, and hit the answer key. “Hi.” He got mad every time she answered and didn’t say anything, but at least he didn’t care what she did say to indicate she’s listening.
“Short Flight,” he greeted stiffly. She was pretty sure he’d only ever seen her as a resource- and she already knew she was an ‘oops child’. “We’ll be waiting in orbit for three days before we head home.”
She nodded. “Alright. While we’re here, we’re going to have to get some fuel.”
“Fuel?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
She nodded again, not that he’ll see; she’d accepted his call audio only. “Yeah. We don’t have enough to get home right now.”
“Uh…”
She tapped a few keys on the comms panel with her hoof. “Looks like I can have a supply ship rendezvous with us the day after tomorrow, a day before… whatever we’re waiting for.”
He blinked, the nervous uncertainty vanishing quickly. “Yeah, that’ll work. We’ll be ready.” He disconnected.
She sighed, and hit the key to finish submitting the reprovisioning request. She’d known the news she was low on fuel would make him nervous; midspace refueling of anything surface-capable was vanishingly rare where she came from, around the one little planetoid he controls. As a result, he’d expected she’d have to descend to the planetary surface to refuel- and her parents’ cargo module was upside-down relative to her ship… which would put them on the ceiling if she had to deorbit. Fortunately for both her and them, not just refuelling but resupplying ships in space, no matter their capability, was the norm here in orbit of Earth, the birthplace of pony civilization.
She closed her eyes, and went back to sleep. She was still tired.
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When Short Flight next awakened to the buzzing of the communicator, she still hurt, but it was different. The headache had faded mostly, and her horn no longer hurt- instead, it felt… Empty, somehow. She wasn’t sure how else to describe it.
Her body was still oddly hot, and she was still feeling sick. What’s more, her hooves now burned like she’d dipped them in her ship’s fission reactor core!
Oh, and she was hungry.
Fortunately, she was still facing the communicator, so she didn’t need to move anything but her eyes to read the name.
It was the supply ship she’d ordered two nights ago, notifying her that it was on final approach and expected to be in her orbit with her in about half an hour.
She blinked at it. Had she really slept for nearly thirty-six hours? She checked the clock; yes, yes she had. She sighed, and reached up to engage one of her Hands.
When the thing clamped onto her hoof, though, it hurt. She cried out in pain, promptly locking it right back into its charging frame, and curled up under the covers, cradling that hoof.
She stayed like that for only about ten minutes, before uncurling and moving to release herself from bed. She could do that without her Hands; as a matter of fact, she’d even docked to other ships without her Hands before. It was a bit of a pain to get around without them, but what did she care? The things were normally uncomfortable- and right then, downright torturous… and she only needed them for fine manipulation of small objects. She could just as easily wrap her fetlocks around the helm; one of the reasons her main consoles were so expensive is that she designed the custom control panels for use with Hands… or with straight hooves.
It was still easier with Hands, but she’d practiced with just her hooves- because it’s not unheardof for a Hands- Hoof Attached Natural Digit System- to fail… or run out of battery. To her knowledge, only one interplanetary-ranged ship had ever crashed because of such a failure- but it did happen, and she herself had had her Hands fail twice that she could remember. She hadn’t been behind a control panel either time, but still.
The pressure on her hoof, when she pressed the release, hurt. Not nearly as bad as the Hands device did, though- and she thanked Equus- the deity of her entire civilization, not just the nation- that she was not planetside. If the spring-loaded release button hurt that much, just standing in gravity would be inequine torture. Oh- and it was oppressively cold outside of her blankets.
She slipped out of bed, and sent herself drifting towards the door. As expected, the pressure on her hooves to accelerate and decelerate herself hurt- but not nearly as much as standing would. Catching the grab bars to stop herself, or hold herself to a wall, was difficult without Hands- but she could do it. It hurt even more, given that she had to basically clamp her hooves on the bar, but she didn’t have to squeeze all that hard, so long as nothing tried to pull her away from the wall.
Once in the bridge, she floated over to her seat, pulled herself into it, and then strapped herself in with her teeth, using her fetlocks to bring the straps into range. She shivered as she unlocked the ship controls… then paused, looking at the environmental section.
After a moment’s deliberation, she pushed the ‘temperature up’ button for the Bridge zone a few times, and grinned to herself. She may not have been able to bring her blankets to the bridge with her- but she could duct just a little bit of her ship’s reactor core’s waste heat into her bridge, rather than to the radiators outside. She didn’t need blankets to stay warm on her own ship.
Then she turned to the intercom panel, and struck the All Hands key. Her parents’ module was tied to the intercom system by the same cable that provided it with power, so her parents would hear her wherever they happened to be. She glanced at the comms panel while she waited for the All Hands chime to finish. “We’ll be docking with the supply ship in about fifteen minutes,” she announced. “Expect short, low-gee burns in varying directions.” She punched the end key, then leaned back in her seat, shivering.
She glanced sideways at the enviro panel, and increased the temperature a few more times.
She waited those fifteen minutes, until the supply ship got close to their final burn, before unlocking the maneuvering controls- and signalling maneuvering thrust ready.
She didn’t make any burns, though- rather, she made another announcement on the All Hands network, so when her parents later (inevitably) complained about floating in the middle of the room for half an hour before reaching something they could grab onto, she could tell them they had been warned, and should have known to hold on.
She then waited for their ship to signal done with engines, and their comms officer- unlike her, they had a full crew over there- to indicate where she should dock, after which she locked it into her maneuvering display and initiated the approach. Her ship did have some size to it, but it was still the smaller vessel. She’d had so much practice doing this with inexperienced spacers back home that it was almost ridiculously easy.
It took her only a few minutes to ease her ship up alongside the massive supply vessel. Larger ships than hers wouldn’t be able to dock directly; they’d have to keep sending cargo shuttles back and forth, as the potential for major damage to one or both ships from a collision after an ill-timed docking burn would be too great. Smaller ships than hers might have fit inside their gargantuan bay, where they could also give the ship a quick external inspection, and alert her of anything that might be ready to go wrong.
But not hers. Her sleek craft fit snugly between the supply ship’s massive, hammerheaded ends for a lock-to-lock meeting- and massed just low enough to be allowed to do that. She did find it amusing that space-only ships often took hammerheaded shapes with a bulge at the middle, so as to give it a large amount of surface area for forward and reverse thrusters… and reduce its moment of inertia, reducing the amount of effort that must be spent by gyroscopes or maneuvering thrusters to reorient the vessel. They were also excessively expensive, and had so much computer support it was almost difficult to crash them, even if one tried.
Her ship was different. As an atmosphere-capable craft, it had shrouds and blast doors over the maneuvering thrusters, all the main vacuum engines concentrated on its back, and folded wings and atmospheric thrusters.
Finally, her docking port locked onto theirs, and she cut her maneuvering thrusters with the two ships locked together. She then locked out the engine controls once again, and signaled done with engines, before unbuckling herself and making her way carefully out to the airlock she’d just docked with.
Finally, she reached it, checked the pressure seals, and opened the door. The supply crew was very considerate- even though they could have opened the door from outside, as she didn’t lock it, they chose to wait for her.
“Ahh,” the pegasus stallion waiting patiently on the other side muttered. “Is miss Short Flight around?”
She let out a small sigh. “That’s me.”
He blinked. “Okay then. I have to say, that was a pretty impressive docking job- we didn’t even notice until the pressure had already equalized.” Then he scowled. “Did… Did you forget your Hands, or something?”
She ignored the compliment- she got it a lot- and shook her head. “Bad hoofache this morning, so those things hurt right now.”
He winced. “I feel ya. So, what’re we supplying?”
She gestured to the whole ship with a hoof. “Everything, please. My parents will pay for it all, so long as you don’t tell them what all I’m getting.”
He raised an eyebrow.
She shrugged. “They’re the King and Queen of Equineothame. Cargo Seven on the intercom… and you do not want to actually go there, believe me.”
He nodded. “Alright. Do you mind if we check the current states of your stores before we start, then?”
She shrugged again. “Sure.” She grinned. “And once you do that, add a bit of food to the list, because I’m really hungry right now.”
He chuckled, making a few taps on his tablet with his Hands, before spreading his wings to move himself out of the airlock, and position himself in the entryway next to her, out of the way of the other pegasi coming to see what they could fit in her ship.
She wished she was a pegasus- but no, she had to be born a unicorn, like both her parents. Pegasus wings might not produce enough lift for them to fly- but in microgravity, it didn’t take much at all to move them around- freeing both forehooves for carrying or manipulating, since they didn’t need to worry about the handholds.
“So,” he began. “You’re the fabled Princess Flight of Equineothame?”
She blinked. “Wait. I’m fabled?”
He nodded. “Yeah. As a matter of fact, numerous analysts- both in our company and outside- suspect that Princess Flight is the only reason Equineothame still exists, with how unwilling the rulers are to invest in any cargo-moving equipment, especially for their Fleet.”
She snorted. “I wouldn’t be surprised. But fabled?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Some of the crazier rumors suggest you could even fly without Hands! Imagine that!” He chuckled.
She grinned. “Well… I can. Had to get custom consoles, but it’s not that hard.” She shuddered. “I’ve heard too many stories of failed Hands to trust them so completely.”
“Anyways…” He looked down at his tablet. “Uh… They’re telling me your reactor core is depleted?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Has been for a few years, too- but the thing still outputs enough power to keep everything on… Well, at least as much as I use on. So I haven’t really bothered with a resupply. I think she’s still running on the fuel she had when I bought her.” She tapped a hoof- very carefully, and lightly at that, since it still hurt- against her chin. She had her hind hooves pinching the handhold lightly. Then she smiled at him. “If you want to fill the hopper first, the refueling system should have refreshed the reactor core by the time you’re done with everything else- and freed up… Oh, I think that thing holds eighty kilos in the chamber at once.” She snorts. “And that’s only one of three!”
He raises his eyebrow, then taps the tablet a couple times before speaking. “I take it she was designed to accept a Distortion Drive, whenever those get worked out?”
She nodded. “Yeah.” She shrugged. “You know what, my dad’s paying for it, so let’s fuel all of them, all the way.” She smiled at him again. “And top off the hopper.”
He chuckled. “You know that’s expensive, right?”
She shrugged again- she sure was doing that a lot. “Yeah. I also know my dad’s got trillions just sitting around, because he doesn’t like spending it. Might as well find some way to put it back into the economy.”
He snorted. “Alrighty.”
She smiled, looking forwards, at where the other pegasi were starting to bring past large, heavy pallets of supplies. “I wonder how long it’ll be before they figure out the Distortion Drive?”
He smiled too. “Well, that first one’s going to your kitchen, if you want to go eat.” He looked at her very seriously. “Just try and stay out of the pallets’ paths. Without Hands or wings, you won’t be able to get out of the way very fast if something malfunctions.”
She looked at him. “Does that happen a lot?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Just about anything except the reactor fuel carriers are susceptible to failure. For a resupply of this size, I’d expect at least three equipment malfunctions to occur.” He sighed. “They would be about half as frequent, but that brand doesn’t fail passively.”
She shuddered. “Yeah.” By that, he informed her that when something failed, it basically just shut down and stopped doing. Like good Hands, whose fingers were spring-loaded to retract upon failure- and programmed to retract themselves (and self-disable) should the springs ever fail. The ones that don’t fail passively… depending on the failure, those could end up sending pallets soaring down passages at a dead gallop- and she’d heard many stories of ponies that got killed in the following impacts… and a few ships that had to be evacuated because it’d punctured a hole in an exterior wall. A drifting pallet could still be dangerous- but they were a lot easier to avoid, and never intentionally given enough momentum to do any significant damage to the ship.