Repair the Canterlot 59%
Over the next few weeks, Twilight had one focus above all others: they needed to get the Canterlot back to working order. She would’ve been as happy as anypony else if they had the resources to spare repairing their rooms and making the place feel like home again. But ultimately it didn’t matter how ugly everything was, if the air vents worked and the water kept flowing.
They had already restored a great deal of the station’s manufacturing infrastructure, at least as much as their small population currently needed. Every day she met with Applejack or some other engineer, discussing the parts they’d replaced and how close the station was to operational.
Much of it went over Twilight’s head—the station wasn’t just a station anymore. It had been hastily modified into a starship, without much grace in the conversion. The longer her ponies worked, the more signs of ugly kitbashing they discovered, and the more potential “catastrophic failure points” went onto Applejack’s board.
“We’ll never be done, you know,” Spike said one evening, his alien body appearing from a doorway and taking the portable terminal she’d been reading. A Signaler design Node had built had her request. The ruler of her whole civilization had the right to a few perks. “Canterlot is old. There are thousands of tons of original stone tucked inside, left over from when it was still a mountain city. There are cathedrals, dungeons, labyrinths.”
“All full of ghosts, no doubt,” Twilight finished for him, glaring. But it was hard to look up into the eyes of something so much taller and not feel at least a little intimidated.
“Sort of,” Spike said. “The parts ponies knew about are stacked full of caskets. The ones they didn’t… no idea. I don’t have cameras down there. But with all these sensors under my control, I know how wide things are, what they’re composed of…” he held out the terminal. “Node, Starlight, and I want to talk to you. I know you’ve been putting off this conversation, but… it’s time we had it.”
“There’s so much to fix,” Twilight argued. “I just discovered there’s a blockage in the waste reprocessing—”
Spike reached out, gently touching her mouth closed with a set of delicate fingers. She’d never have tolerated that behavior from any other creature. But instead of rage, she felt only familiarity. “If we wait forever, the rot that came to Equestria will reach us here. We have to use the Highway while we can.”
Twilight groaned, then tucked the flat plastic and glass away into her satchel. “Alright. I assume you’ve been… working together on something.”
“Together,” Spike repeated. “That’s, uh… well, we’ve been working on the same general goals. At… cross purposes. But you’ll see.”
What she found waiting for her was a set of mutually exclusive presentations, waiting in the section of the ship Twilight had come to think of as the “Signaler lab.”
All of Node and Apple Bloom’s work had ended up here, which meant it was packed full of little repair drones and the other unknowable projects they were working on. Spike hadn’t come with Twilight, but he was already waiting when she arrived. Because that wasn’t creepy at all.
Starlight looked like the visitor, clutching a projector and a crystal Datascroll. “Twilight! You have to see the design I’ve been working on. Well, Applejack and me. But she’s… you know her, always working hard.”
“She don’t want this to be a family dispute,” Apple Bloom interrupted. She rested metal hooves on the edge of a large table, which glowed with light from a signaler-style screen set into its surface. “We respectfully disagree, so don’t bring her into it.”
“Right.” Starlight took a few nervous steps towards Twilight, still unsteady even after all her time to heal. At least the necrotic patches on her face were gone. “Princess, I’ve reviewed Node’s specifications for the Stellar Highway, and I believe I’ve designed an acceptable sail for the Canterlot. Applejack took care of the technical details, but I think you’ll approve. It’s highly innovative.”
Node cleared her throat, or at least sounded like she had. With more time and resources on the Canterlot, she’d taken to wearing even more clothing than Rarity. Flowing layers of different dress, with tight sleeves of different colors on both sets of arms.
“Innovative is another way of saying that it’s an engineering nightmare that relies entirely on your, uh… magic?” She held one hand out over her forehead, where a horn might’ve been. “Apple Bloom and I adapted something I’ve seen used on a thousand different ships from galleons to hypercruisers. Yeah, it’ll take longer to build. But you know what else it does? Keep working when your magic runs out. Wouldn’t it be just great for your little magic sail to tear right off the front of this thing, and keep going on its own while your station stops accelerating and loses any way to stop? Yeah, sounds great.”
“That won’t happen, princess,” Starlight argued, settling her projector on the ground and projecting it onto a section of blank ceiling. “There are failbacks, safeties in place. The spell will fail gradually, with plenty of time to repair.”
Twilight took a moment to inspect it, then compared it to the design on the screens. What Node and Apple Bloom designed were effectively two new sections of the station, spread in a system of many cables and support pilons. It probably used as much metal as the rest of Canterlot just holding it in place.
Starlight’s design was much thinner, her sail made of light and spells and crystal. Growing it would take time, but probably a small fraction. Not to mention the cost in material.
“I’ve reviewed Node’s highway specifications thoroughly,” Starlight said. “The Highway will accept this sail.”
“I didn’t day it wouldn’t,” Node folded both sets of arms, interlinking them in a strangely complex pattern. “I just wouldn’t trust my entire population to moonbeams and rainbows. But that’s up to you, Princess.”
1. Use Starlight’s design. Built in one month, but relies on spells to keep working or else suffer terrible consequences.
2. Use Node’s design. Built in six months, these sails will add additional real estate to the Canterlot, but all mining resources during their construction will go to providing materials. They’re safe, tested, and reliable.