//------------------------------//
// Chapter 16 
// Story: Just Like Magic of Old 
// by computerneek 
//------------------------------//

“Alright,” Princess Short Flight mutters, taking a deep breath, in her new command chair.  “Everypony ready?”
It’s been almost a full year since her fateful encounter with the pirates, and her ship has become almost unrecognizable.  Sure, the cargo holds are all still there, and even the clamps in the main bay- and the ship even still has the same general shape.
But nearly everything else had been redone, as part of her ‘refit’.
The entire ship is now loaded with all the latest and greatest technology in existence- including multiple pieces nopony outside her ship knows exists, like the strange new fission-fusion plant, Gravity Drive, and Distortion Drive the engineers had come up with.  They’d even been able to rig up an inertial compensator slash gravity generator that would work while running on reaction thrusters!
In the process, she’d had to yell at a dozen different production companies, three of which she had to repeat face-to-face and at ‘volume eleven’ as she’s come to call it, for not allowing thestrals to pick up her parts- even when they had documentation.  Fortunately, NuCoils had not been one of them, though both of the factories located on either side of theirs had.
Now, her ship is finally fully supplied, and fully ready for space.  The thestrals had even gone to the effort to get her hydroponics up and running- so, especially with that gravity generator making it easy, her ship is now a self-contained ecosystem, requiring only electricity to last for a very, very long time…  with good food the whole way, not the dehydrated ‘space food’ she’s used to!
And of course, she’s been wearing her dresses the whole time.  Her wings have grown to full size, but nopony outside her ship knows.  She’s let the engineers and, eventually, the rest of the thestrals, find out, as she’s grown to trust them.  She isn’t wearing a dress right now- nor her Hands.  She hasn’t worn those aboard her ship in weeks, even if nopony else has been able to grip anything without them.  She’s not sure what the difference is.
She gets back a series of yesses, and takes a deep breath.  “Alright.”  She switches her computers into flight mode with one hoof, while the other depresses the radio transmission key.  The thestrals and engineers- who have fast become her crew- insisted that she have this opportunity to fly her ship herself one last time, before they pitch in to play the part of a crew.  Because, of course, none of them have experience with a ship of her class.  “First Light to Orbital Control.”
One thing that has gotten better over the last year, is employee retention at Orbital Control.  Turnover is still pretty high, but any more, she has no difficulty keeping the place fully staffed, day and night.  She’s even managed to hire successful hiring managers!
“First Light, Proceed.”
“First Light, requesting atmospheric departure to standard Fleet orbit two.”  There’s only one thing she doesn’t have fully stocked on her ship- and that’s ammunition.  Especially where she plans on going with her maiden voyage, she’ll need some…  and the Fleet remains the best place to get it.
“Departure burn strength?”
She looks at her sidebar.  “Eh.”  She depresses the key again.  “Five zero flat.”  Fifty meters per second, or about five point one gees, should be more than sufficient to put her in orbit…  without showing off the theoretical fifty-gee acceleration her new, Skies-Star-and-Coils-invented fusion thrusters can offer her.
“Understood, stand by.”
“Standing by.”  Must be one of the new controllers, that haven’t gotten into the swing of things far enough to anticipate her requests- and have all the computations ready as soon as the values are provided.  She looks up at her crew, and smiles.





She can only barely feel the tiny vibrations in the hull of her ship as her ventral cargo airlock, positioned at the very bottom of the cargo elevator she’d used when the pirates attacked, locks onto the enormous Fleet missile collier.
“Docked and locked,” she smiles.
“Wow, you’re good,” Lunar Wing, ex-captain of the Shadouette and now her tactical officer, mutters.  “That was about the vibration I’d expect in a superdreadnought when a shuttle docks to it.”
She grins.  “I aim to please,” she chuckles.  Then she looks up.  “Alright, disabling gravity in three, two, one!”  She strikes the key on the unvoiced zero, and the gravitational pull towards her deck plates gradually lessens to nothing.  She looks sideways at Night Skies, her First Officer, and Shooting Star, her chief engineer, the latter of which is on the bridge- instead of down in engineering- because there isn’t much to do down there right now.  Cold Coils is leading the party down at the airlock, to head off any ‘thestrals aren’t allowed to have that paperwork’ issues.  “I love that gravity generator you came up with.”
“I noticed you didn’t use it for the ascent,” Star comments.
She nods.  “Yeah.  Wanted to see how your nuclear thrusters worked- and they’re nice.  Way more responsive, and easier to fine-tune, than traditional thrusters.”
He claps a hoof with Skies in a move that is still called a ‘high five’, despite Hands having anywhere from two to ten fingers, and the many thousands of years since the ancients had five to a hand.  It might stem from how the most common Hands still have five fingers in the same locations as the ancients had biological fingers, but that doesn’t explain why that move- which is always performed with all fingers retracted- is still named as if done with an open Hands.
She leans back in her seat.  “And when we finish here, I’ll test out your Gravity Drive on something more than gravity generation, and we’ll go after those pirates.”  She looks off into the distance.  “Then after that, Distortion Drive.”  She scowls.
For some reason nopony could figure out, ever since she first ‘levitated’ her heirloom necklace over her neck with her strange horn-aura, everypony it touches- including herself- gets the urge to travel in about the same direction…  for as long as they’re touching it.  No matter when, no matter where.  It seems to always be pointing at the same constellation; the best hopeful guess going around is that it’s pointing at Equestria.
She’s wearing it right now.
Her intercom panel beeps.  She taps the accept key.
Cold Coils looks out of it, looking panicked  “Princess!  Come down here, quick!  They’re trying to seize the ‘thestral-owned vessel’!”
She snarls in response.  “On my way.”  She looks up at Skies.  “If I don’t report back in ten minutes, send the troops in after me.  Colliers never have truly lethal sidearms aboard, nor anything better than unpowered armor.”  Then she leaps from her seat, directing herself to the door and down the passages as quickly as she can.  As she goes, she spots Skies keying in a shortcut to her intercom.





“How’s the seizure of that Thestral vessel going?” a Commander asks, looking at his Lieutenant Commander exec.
“It should be-!”
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?”
Both stallions scream in fright, but they can’t hear their own thoughts over the Princess’s yell, echoing throughout the ship.





“...THESE THESTRALS WENT AFTER THE PIRATES YOU IGNORED…”
“Ahh…  Do…  Do you think we should help the Missalius pacify the Princess…  or help the Princess berate them?” a Lieutenant Commander, in the command chair of a Corvette-class warship that also happens to be resupplying, mutters to his exec.
His exec, a Lieutenant, shugs her wings.  “Personally, I’d rather wait for her to stop yelling before we come closer at all.  Then whatever it takes to make her less likely to start yelling again- which would probably be to help her berate them.”





“...been nothing but helpful!  They’re ponies too, just like you and me, and…”
Admiral Mantle Core speaks up first, voicing the thoughts of every admiral in the conference room for the first time since the strange noise had penetrated the bulkheads.
“By Equus does that filly have lungs!”
“How…”  High Admiral Timber Wolf looks towards the lowest-ranking admiral present.  “Who is she angry at?  And how loud is it where she is?”
Vice Admiral Night Mare blinks, before scrambling to open a channel with her panel, out to the massive superdreadnought’s bridge.  The High Admiral had seen fit to grace her ship with the Meeting of the Admirals this month.  She quickly reaches her tactical officer.  “Can you hear the Princess yelling?” she begins.
“Loud and clear, Ma’am.”
“Do we know who she’s angry at, and how loud she’s yelling- and if not, can we find out?”
“Ahh…  About that.  However she’s yelling, it’s not just sound.  There’s forty kilometers of vacuum between us and her ship.”
Every admiral in the room speaks simultaneously.  “What.”
The tactical officer smiles briefly.  “She’s…  Yeah, it would seem she’s docked to the Missalius for resupply.  And, judging by the yelling, they thought they’d imprison her crew.”
“Something tells me,” High Admiral Timber Wolf mutters, “she’ll get them back.”
“Ahh…  Do we know why they tried that?”
“Judging by the yelling, I’d say she’s put together a crew from somepony that’s discriminated against- like the Thestrals.”  She scowls.  “Actually, probably thestrals.  I’ve heard of several instances of her yelling at various ground facilities this last year for refusing to serve the thestrals she authorized to retrieve parts for her ship.  Three of them, I understand, involved her physical presence…  and had impressive noise levels.”
“Alright,” Timber Wolf states.  “From now on, neither us nor any ship in the Fleet will discriminate against any pony, Thestral or not.  As the Princess says, they’re ponies too.”  She sighs.  “And anypony caught discriminating will be punished as if they had been discriminating against a Unicorn.  I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not give her reason to yell at me like that.”  She looks towards Vice Admiral Night Mare, and the still-open comms channel.  “Let’s also get ahold of the Missalius as soon as they start responding again- I’m sure they’ll have some shock to deal with- and have them give her everything she wants, free of charge.  As an apology.”  A pause.  “And the next time we see pirate activity, let’s go after them, to hay with the cost.”





Orbital Controller Long Flight looks up, after going off duty some fifteen minutes late; one of the night controllers had called ahead to report that an accident was going to make her late, so he’d volunteered to stay on until she arrived.  There’s a fairly indistinct yelling coming from the sky- and while he can’t tell what’s being said, he does recognize the voice.
Then he looks down at his wife, who had gone off duty on schedule- none of the nightshift engineers had been delayed- and waited for him in the lobby.  They speak in tandem.
“Somepony angered the Princess.”