//------------------------------// // 44.1 - The Calm Before (Part 1) // Story: Fallout Equestria: Operation Star Drop // by Meep the Changeling //------------------------------// ☢★★ Whirling Gears ★★☢ Despite mom’s insistence that everything was stable, we galloped straight to the transporter room. Not only was mom’s word not necessarily the most “stable” in and of itself, but we were still on a massive ticking clock. The Enclave could fire Star Drop at any moment. “Querry: Having fired a meteor previously, will their engineers not have discovered the multiplicative properties of extra-planetary space?” Mom asked while we sprinted down the corridor. “We can’t count on that,” Rainbow grunted, her eyes flicking back in irritation. “They could think the overcharged shot was a fluke from it sitting around just charging power banks for centuries. Or maybe they don’t care and would be happy to blow the planet up and live on the station forever.” “That doesn’t seem very likely,” I commented. “Ponies seem to like open spaces and nature.” “Yeah,” Rainbow nodded and slowed down to take a righthoof turn. “Which isn’t a problem. It’s a big station.” I took the turn a moment later and recognized this stretch of corridor from the show. The room at the end was our destination. “Soooo, we just beam into the fire control room, kill everypony, and then disable the gun, right?” I asked. “I mean, I don't think we shared a plan, but that seems like the best one.” “Yeah, it is. And that’s what we're doing,” Rainbow sighed, slid to a stop, and facehooved. “I can't believe I forgot… Stress. Just all the stress.” Desi slid off of Loom’s back and pressed the small panel next to the door with her nose. It hissed open, revealing a small chamber dominated by a large white crystal platform with a single elegant console facing it from a position along the left wall. “Interesting,” Mom noted almost the instant the door was open. “The Rainbow Relay utilizes synthetic ruby as the pad. This uses a boro-quartz compound. Why?” Rainbow sighed again. “Look, if you figure out how to synthesize this stuff in one huge flat piece, please tell me. We couldn’t. So we used the next best thing.” I frowned and tilted my head to one side. “Wait… The show has the teleporter work just, anywhere. With the pad being like, just a convenient spot to teleport too. You know, it’s known safe. Is this limited pad to pad?” Desi and Rainbow shook their heads together. “No,” Rainbow answered with an annoyed sigh, like she knew a massive question was about to slap her across the face. “The pad boosts the range. We could beam anypony from anywhere on the ship to anywhere else on the ship, but to get things further away the start or destination has to be the pad… Also, we never got this one working right. Safest malfunction is it flipped a technician upside down. He landed on his neck and… let’s just say the MoI’s insurance premium went way up.” “On it,” Mom said as she trotted into the room. Rainbow blinked once and looked between Loom, Desi, and I. “N— Nopony’s going to ask why we’re risking that or worse?” “Pretty clear this is the last chance to stop the end of the world, so, no.” Loom snorted before shaking her head. “Besides… It’s not as bad as that time you had us take that ancient wizard's gateway.” I looked up at Loom expectantly. “It’s classified,” she and Rainbow said together. I gave her my best Sweetie Eyes. Loom winced and took half a step backwards. “That… worked better when you had skin.” “Noted,” I said as I turned to watch mom work. “Hey, how long will this take?” Mom had pulled a floor panel open and had her head and several mechanical limbs extended downwards into the machines’ recesses. “At least six minutes. This device lacks a spirit, but I can see its principles clearly. Several logic nodes are misaligned.” Desi landed on the floor and trotted into the room, making her way to the console, which she began to poke and prod at. I walked up alongside her, half to see what she was doing since she was the only pony with a full working knowledge of this ship, and also because something about her story didn't quite add up. Desi began tapping at the console’s screen with her nose and the frog of her left hoof, dragging little images of volume sliders around seemingly randomly. “Hey… Desi… If this ship has a teleporter, why did you use like an escape pod or whatever to come down?” I asked as casually as I could manage. “Teleported first,” Desi answered. “Alicorn scared me. Reversed teleport with magic. Computer Mom angry. Launched me in torpedo case. Prevented returns.” “An alicorn scared you?” Rainbow asked with a little grin. “You mean the thing you are?” Desi nodded and then shivered. “She was… too happy.” Loom and I shared a confused look. Dash flinched. “Oh. OHHH… Yeah. Yeah, I’ve heard of that one. Big. Gray. Long flowy blue mane. Will talk your ear off like you’ve known her forever?” Desi nodded. “Never met her myself, but I hear she creeps everypony out… If we survive this it might be a fun pony to track down. Nice simple hunt,” Dash grunted as she turned to look at what mom was up to. Desi kept tapping away at the screen. Eventually, a little picture of space appeared, and the sliders seemed to scroll the view. I watched in fascination as the stars slid by, followed by a good view of the sun, then the moon, then… Star Drop. My jaw dropped as the massive structure filled the picture almost entirely. I could tell it was massive because I could see inside of the big, main, cylindrical section. The station was shaped like a big cylinder, with three large sections cut out to be windows, with a big round tube-like wheel-shaped section stuck on one of the cylinder’s ends, with the opposite end home to three colossal solar arrays that glittered like diamonds. The entire station was painted a bright white, with gold trim on the struts, edge banding, and around the docking ports. It looked almost like somepony had fired one of Canterlot’s towers into space where it sat slowly rotating around its longest axis in the black void of space. My idea of the station’s scale came from what I could see through the huge bay windows which, presumably, existed to let sunlight into the motherbucking nature preserve! The cylinder section had hills, and lakes, and a river, and a forest, and clouds, and even what looked like a small pre-war town built on the inside of the cylinder walls. The station’s curve was so bucking massive that if you looked at just one of the inner sections, you couldn’t tell that the thing was built on a curve. I swore there was even a pillar of clouds along the middle axis as if there would be a sky to look up to. “W— What?!” I stammered. Loom hummed and turned her head to look over the console. “Oh. Yeah. It’s cool, huh?” “WHY?!” I snapped, unable to process why anyone would build something so huge… as a weapon! “Why is this a nature preserve, in space?!” “Easy. I thought the world was going to explode. It did,” Rainbow said, still all the way across the room. “All of the firing controls and systems are in the ring section. And no, we can’t just jettison it, and if we blew it up, we would breach the Sorin Cylinder and kill everything in there… It’s likely the only supply of unmutated crops and wildlife—” “Wildlife?!” I sputtered. “Y— You put animals up there?” “Yeah. It’s a whole mini-ecosystem. Even has a replica of old Ponyville.” “But why though?” I sputtered yet again. Rainbow turned her neck to look back at me. “Nostalgia… foolish hope that I could get the girls to move in with me post-war… Aesthetics… pick one,” she said before turning back to whatever mom was doing. “Problem,” Desi announced with a lack of emotion. Rainbow’s head popped back up immediately. “What is it?” “Station’s shields stronger than anticipated. Teleport is impossible.” Desi answered equally emotionlessly. I took a deep breath. “Desi, I know you a bit. Enough to know you stop emoting when you’re focused. You have a plan to get around this, right?” Desi shook her head once. “Thinking.” Rainbow grit her teeth and also took a deep breath. “It’s… fine… We have to get this thing working anyway. Just… Just everypony else, check your weapons. Get ready. We’re going to find a way.” Vinyl wasn’t here. The realization hit me like a sky wagon. I cleared my throat. “Speaking of getting ready… I’m going to find Vinyl so she can come with us…. Uh…” I frowned and pawed at the floor with one hoof. “Um… Scratch that. Big ship. Hopefully going soon… It would take too long to find—” Desi looked up at the ceiling. “Computer: Locate biosignatures high in radiation.” “One signature located.” the ship’s creepy un-living voice reapplied instantly. “Illuminate path to signature. Purple.” Desi ordered. The light panels set into the wall outside suddenly lit up with a narrow purple band, studded with an arrowhead pointing the way every few meters. “Huh. Neat!” I said with a satisfied nod. “Good job, Desi.” Desi smiled. “Admin access. Very satisfying.” I turned and galloped down the hallway, following the purple line. Hopefully, whatever Vinyl had done, said, or been told, she’d be okay and able to help us save the world.