//------------------------------// // Chapter 121 // Story: Voyage of the Equinox // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Build a Habitat 54% In some ways it was the hardest decision Twilight had made yet, with the possible exception of whether or not to trade Equestria’s safety for its freedom. After all, the crew of the Equinox amounted to a small minority compared to the number of shiprats, which the Canterlot’s dubious sensors placed somewhere in the low hundreds. Even if their hugely weakened bodies could survive being frozen (and eventually revived), there was a very real chance that their friendliness with the Equinox survivors would not. Twilight could easily imagine the fear she might be feeling in their place, if a small group of strangers arrived and told them they had to be replaced with creatures they’d never even known. And in some ways what I’m giving them instead won’t be much better. Give up the station you’ve been living on for your whole life to crawl into a tiny habitat because of a threat you barely even accept. There were so many ways for it to go wrong that Twilight could feel the ice thinning under her hooves before she’d even fully made up her mind. Princess Celestia had taught her many things, in addition to saving their entire civilization from extinction and possibly also extinguishing their star. If there was bad news to share, the best thing to do was head it off yourself, so that you controlled the perspective ponies would see it with. She couldn’t stop the gossip after that, only hope she could win ponies over before they turned hostile. Even the Inheritors had been well-behaved, though she still wasn’t letting them out of their cells. She’d work something out with work assignments to deliver in jail, and move on to something more substantial after good behavior. But they weren’t the ones she wanted to talk to. She brought Flywheel, as well as several other of the other leaders he’d nominated for her, to Canterlot Palace. With the Equinox’s own reactor supplementing power for now, she lit the whole thing back up, turned the fountains back on—as much as she could do to restore it to its former glory without the ones living inside who had given it purpose. Her friends were all there, or at least the ones she could pull away from their duties. Spike’s true self was on the Equinox, or maybe was the Equinox in every meaningful sense. And poor Fluttershy had so many injured ponies to treat that she couldn’t be convinced to leave sickbay for even a few minutes. But the rest of them were there. Twilight was the first to arrive, walking again up the empty hall to stand before Celestia’s throne. She could almost see the Alicorn standing beside her, nodding up the steps. This is your time, Twilight. I know you’ll watch over my little ponies. She wiped away tears, then took Luna’s seat, and waited in silence for the others to arrive. Spike’s new body strode in, carrying the requested projector and looking oddly stretched and unbalanced. In the palace. Sitting somewhere so familiar to her, she could almost picture him as an ambassador of a race newly discovered in the badlands, some strange hybrids of Minotaurs and insects perhaps. “You’re brooding,” he said, folding one set of arms. The others kept working, setting up the projector. “You shouldn’t be.” “I’ve earned a little brooding,” she argued. “You want my chair?” His response was laughter. “Are you bucking kidding me? Even if I wasn’t a ship’s computer I’d want nothing to do with it. But I’ll happily give you all the help I can.” He reached down, tossing her something. She caught it in her magic—a sealed can of flower-flavored cola. He’d even refrigerated it to the perfect temperature, and probably scrubbed a layer of dust from the outside. “You think this is… safe?” He rolled his eyes. “I won’t tell Fluttershy if you won’t.” She didn’t laugh, but she did pop the tab, taking a long sip. Despite its incredible packaging, the drink inside had gone flat. But it was still sweet, and didn’t taste like it had started fermenting. She smiled, relaxing slightly into the seat. She could do this. Soon enough they were all gathered, with the shiprats resting in ceremonial cushions they’d brought. Her own crew generally just circled around the throne, or flew low arcs near the ceiling, dodging between the high racks of pods left to obscure the otherwise regal space. “I don’t understand why we need to be… here,” Flywheel said, the only one who would look up at the throne. “Can’t we let the dead sleep in peace?” Twilight shook her head. “This is our civilization, Flywheel. Everypony. You don’t guard a tomb anymore. Canterlot is coming back to life.” She explained again the danger they faced from the coming Hunger, which was easier than she’d expected. Stories of their flight from their home lived on in the minds of these creatures, even if they didn’t well understand them. “Far away, and getting further by the moment, is an incredible fleet called the Flotilla. In it are the ships of thousands of races, a whole galaxy of friends and allies to fight against the end of life. They will take us in, if we can reach them.” “Excellent,” said Soup. Twilight wasn’t sure if that was her whole name, but that was what all the other rats called her. The largest earth pony she’d seen in their group, almost as wide as she was tall. But she sure did earn that namesake. “So we go. The princess uses her magic, and we fly off to join them. A simple thing.” “Yeah…” Twilight said. “Except…” She explained the problem, the acceleration that might last for months, or far longer. Even Node seemed dubious about the highway’s function once they were in motion. The shiprats seemed to expect the worst, and were shocked when Twilight explained their intentions. “We’re going to build a new section for the Canterlot, one that can comfortably host your entire… tribe. Not one of you will be harmed, or left behind. There are too few of us left to make sacrifices like that.” A magnanimous declaration. But once it was made, the hard part waited. They had to negotiate the form the Canterlot’s new section would actually take. 1. The Spartan proposal of just enough to survive. This can be built in less than six months, and attached with minimal risk to the station’s structural integrity. It’s likely to feel little better than a prison to its inhabitants. 2. The Diplomatic proposal, giving the shiprats extremely high-quality accommodations and plenty of space. It will take at least a year to build, and require difficult engineering to attach. But in the end its ponies will have all the same luxuries that ponies will full access to the station would enjoy. 3. The Desperate Rush proposal, hastily welding together many of the starships left in the Canterlot’s drydock. Accommodations within will be poor, and the structural stability of the new section will be just as bad. But it can be completed in a month, allowing resources to return to full repair of the Canterlot sooner. 4. The Thaumic proposal. Rely heavily on experimental shield magic and Signaler alloys harvested from Proximus B. If successful, the new section would actually reinforce the structural integrity of the Canterlot, while providing high-quality accommodations. It will require the same six months as the spartan proposal, but a failure to deploy any of experimental technologies could waste all the material and require the crew to start over.