0100 Hours Cloudsdale time:
“Lunar 5, This is Cloudsdale, do you read me over?” A unicorn stallion sitting behind a computer said into a radio set, at first there was only static as the signal was sent. Then silence, the stallion’s brow was peppered with sweat, he tried again, counted to 5 still nothing. He was about to go and find the Colonel and possibly a donut and coffee, seeing now that if they lost contact, it would be a long night. Suddenly there was a screech from his headset, as if someone had dropped the mic and pounded it was a shovel, he went to take the headset out, then the screech was replaced by a crackling followed by a curse and a mare’s voice,
“Yeah I read you, add that to the list of kinks that need ironing out Travis. Over.”
Travis sighed, and his horn flared as he added, radio to the steadily growing list of the teething troubles the new space station had, surprisingly this wasn’t unusual as Lunar 1 and 4 had similar issues while 2 and 3 had worse and different ones.
“Added. Check in time missed by about 15 minutes, been down that long? Over...” Travis said into the mic. He waited counting to 5 then the headset crackled and the mare’s voice replied,
“Been out for longer, I swear to Twilight if this keeps happening I’m not waiting for the relief crew I’m hitchhiking back to Equestria. Over.”
Travis chuckled, “I’m sure that you’d get a chance before then. Relief crew will be up in about 4 days at 0900 hours Cloudsdale time. So, you got some waiting to do. Over.” he glanced at the clock, it was nearly 2am, and everypony else was either sleeping, or about to fall asleep, or had gone to get coffee, Travis made a mental note to do the same before to long or he’d sleep till the end of the universe.
“Yeah, no kidding,” she sighed, “I can’t wait to come home, we are going to see that derby right? Over.”
“Front row seats. Over” Travis said, and was about to say more but then the Colonel came in and raised an eye brow and gestured to his ear, which had a headset of it’s own with the little blue light on, signaling it was active and listening.
The large Grey stallion cleared his throat and spoke, “Hello Harmony, how are you doing up there? Over”
There was a slight gulping sound, as if she had realized that he had been listening. Before Harmony said, “It’s going ok, I mean teething troubles and the damn radio being a pain, but life support and the toilets are working just fine... Um... Ho-how are you? Um... Over.” Travis noted the ‘oh shit’ tone in her voice, this wasn’t the first time she’d used that tone.
“Just checking in to make sure your keeping your head clear and focused, you know that this station could mean for the progression of Equestria and it’s interests. Not that I need to tell you how to do your job. Over.”
There was a brief moment of silence before, “Yes, of course Colonel, Over...” then a quieter whisper, “You old hag...”
Travis’s face went pale, while the Colonel went a bit red. “Care to repeat that Harmony? Over.”
“Um... This is Lunar 5, signing off till next check in, over.”
Travis’s face was going blue from the laugh he was trying to keep in, the Colonel looked to him,
“Get that Mare of yours under control, before I have her court-martialed and thrown out of the program. Do I make myself clear?”
Travis took a breath, opened his mouth to speak, but only a wheeze came out. The Colonel raised an eyebrow. Travis composed himself.
“Find this funny do you?”
“No sir.”
“That’s what I thought, remember who signs your paychecks.” He went to turn to his office, but then stopped and gestured to Travis’s desk, which was littered with coffee cups, napkins, and some action figures of the Power Ponies, “and clean your desk up, this isn’t a landfill.” he didn’t wait for a response, he turned and went into his office, but the tension still hung in the air as the rest of the team looked to Travis then the Colonel's office. Then back to Travis. Some snickers were heard but after a while everypony had gone back to their work. Travis got up, and headed towards the breakroom. He would need more than one cup of coffee for this late shift, if this was the mood the Colonel was in.
‘I love you Harmony,’ Travis thought to himself, ‘but you need to learn to control yourself.’
Harmony took off her headset, and placed it on the table, she was about to walk away, when the headset floated back up. Blinking she saw that many things had begun to float as well.
“Butch!” She called, “The Gravity Talismans gone again! See what’s up with it.”
Butch was the main maintenance Pegasus of Lunar 5, with an earth pony named Spanner as his assistance, but almost as talented as Butch. Harmony was the main scientist aboard, she operated most of the digital components along with the earth pony Circuit Breaker, the main officer aboard. The last few of the skeleton crew, were 2 unicorns, Syringe and Pulse who acted as medical ponies and obstacle watch, the second task was to make sure that Lunar 5 wasn’t in the way of a asteroid or meteor that could damage the space Station. The last was a Buff and Strong earth Pony Stallion, named Rudder. Was the main pilot for the spacecraft, and flight engineer of the group. Harmony with a sigh of slight frustration went to find Butch
Harmony, being a Pegasus it wasn’t to hard navigating in almost zero G. She just flapped her wings and steered her way through the corridors of Lunar 5. She glided past navigation, glancing in to see that she wasn’t the only one who was a bit annoyed at the fact that gravity didn’t exist anymore. Pulse, was trying his best to keep an eye on the radar and use his magic to grab all the floating papers and coffee so it didn’t damage anything, the green stallion looked over. Smiled sheepishly, then went back to his feeble task.
Harmony glided around a corner, and found Butch's cabin door, using her wings as a sort of airbrake she coasted to a stop in front of his door. She raised a hoof to knock when suddenly she fell. Hard. There was a crash from the command center and a loud thud followed by what sounded like a mug shattering.
"FUCKING DAMNIT" Pulse yelled. "I just mopped yesterday!"
Harmony got up and slammed the door open, only to find the room was empty. She heard hoof steps and she turned to see Butch trotting up the hall a burnt out gravity talisman balanced on his back.
"Sorry, but it was going to go sooner or later, so I thought I'd replace it." Butch said innocently.
Harmony was about to say more, when alarms suddenly went off, Spanner poked up through a floor maintenance hatch down the hall with grease on his face and forehooves, being the smaller of the 2 repair ponies, he would fit in spaces normally hard to reach, but the little pony had a nervous look on his face.
"Butch, did you unplug the projectile radar from the aft antenna?" he asked in a worried tone.
Butch shook his head, "No, I didn't I can't reach it you know this." Gesturing to himself to prove his point.
"Well some pony did!" Spanner said, "good thing there are no asteroids in this area." The alarms didn't stop.
Then Pulse's voice came over the stations loudspeakers, "Code Red, Code Red. Meteor shower coming from the north east at 45 degrees down, impact almost immanent, this is not a drill, repeat, this is NOT a drill. All personnel to safe room immediately, trying to establish contact with Cloudsdale."
The 3 ponies looked at each other, then they started galloping to the safe room. They arrived to see Syringe and Circuit Breaker already there, prepping the atmospheric suits, should they be needed. Spanner quickly prepped the doors for airlock when Pulse slid around a corner, tripping and falling over, then the large orange stallion of Rudder came down and scooped him up and tossed him on his back. Making a mad dash for the safe room. Butch and Spanner began to close the door just as Rudder dove through and slid to a stop right next to Syringe. All 7 ponies waited and listened, they could hear thuds as most of the projectiles bounced harmlessly off the hull.
"Guess there's nothing to worry about..." Syringe said, the cyan and navy blue maned unicorn looked more and more nervous as the seconds ticked by. Eventually the thudding stopped. After a minute or 2 all the ponies relaxed and Captain Circuit Breaker was about to give the all clear when they were all thrown to the side by a massive impact, the sound of grinding metal and wires snapping heard even deep in the belly of the space station. The ships computers righted the ship and kept it from crashing to the moon, but as the violent thrashing stopped Cpt. Breaker ran to the rooms computer and began to do a systems check.
After a few minutes, he turned to his crew.
"Bad news, We got hit bad, almost everything is down, I've sent a distress call to Cloudsdale hopefully they can get a crew up there soon. We have enough oxygen for 5 or 6 weeks and enough food to feed a battalion for a month, so I think we'll be fine, as long as we don't go insane." he sat down hard, pulled out a piece of gum, and began to chew, as the others looked at each other. Not sure what was to happen next.
Harmony pondered to herself, how bad was the damage? Could they fix it? Did the message get though to ground control? Would they die up here in the vast emptiness of space? Somepony would come to investigate why they haven't made any transmissions sooner or later. Right?