Flight glanced sideways at the comms panel when it chirped.
The last few months had gone… Smoothly, overall. Their sudden change of course had prompted a lot of drive activity behind and ahead of them as well- but by exceeding the other ships’ top speeds, they’d managed to leave them behind without ever entering missile range. It had been fairly close, though, and Flight had guarded the hull polarizers for several minutes while a couple of unmarked battlecruisers fought to gain ground and, eventually, lost.
After the confirmation that they were being followed, they had maintained the raised maximum speed with periodic course changes for close to three months before reducing back down.
Finally, they had launched their own recon probes into formation around them, monitoring for anything that might be trying to tail them. Fortunately, the things had almost stupidly long design lifetimes- another remnant from her great grandfather’s time- so all they needed was charging every week or so, and they could stay on station for almost a full year before needing service.
And now, they were picking up a distress call.
She glanced quickly around her bridge, but she was the only one. As expected; Willow, who was on shift with her, was using the bathroom.
So she reached down and tapped a key. It was a plain text message.
Shadouette to anyone in range, we’ve lost Gravity Drive and are running out of food, is anyone out there?
A quick AI-powered analysis on the signal pattern suggested that they were still quite a ways away from her- and the signal had come from mostly straight ahead. She tapped a few keys, typing out a reply.
First Light to Shadouette, what’s your solar altitude?
She paused after typing it out, without sending it. That was always the first step in deep space rescue; a skilled astrogator could combine the directions the two signals had come from, their timestamps, and the ship’s solar altitude and solar delta to figure out what its course was, and so how best to intercept it. Willowstone’s discipline wasn’t astrogation, but Flight felt that she would be up to the task.
But, she wanted to check with her before breaking radio silence.
Right on time, the door hissed open, and Willow trotted in. “Hi,” she greeted calmly, moving towards her console. “Anything happen?”
“We picked up a distress call,” Flight told her. “They’re mostly ahead of us, but I don’t know how far or which way they’re moving.”
Willow tapped on her console for a few seconds. “Hmm. Doesn’t look like they’re anywhere close to us. Go ahead and ask for their solar altitude.”
“Alright.” Flight tapped the send key. “Message sent. I guess we’ll see where they’re at, if they answer us.”
About a week later, Flight reentered the bridge from a bathroom stop of her own to find Willow tapping away at her console. “Another sim?” she asked.
Willow shook her head. “Not when I’m alone on the bridge,” she told her calmly. “The Shadouette responded. They’re only moving at point three cee, to our point seven five, and their base course is fairly close to ours, about three light-days ahead. We can perform a rescue without losing too much of our time advantage on the mission.”
Flight trotted over to her panel to look at it as well. “Woah, they’re pretty eager for rescue, aren’t they?” She paused. “A ship small enough to fit in one of our bays without occupying the one we need for the Enterprise. They’ve got no tactical talent, but an engineer, a medic, a chef, an electronics specialist, an astrogator, and ten soldiers, of which five are injured and locked in stasis pods. All other crew were lost to battle damage or injuries, since they lack gravity. About two weeks of food remaining as they are.” She looked up at the windshield. “An electronics specialist, huh?”
Back in the day, her sister had always held an extremely high opinion of any pony that managed to earn the title of a ‘specialist’. “The difference between an engineer and an engineering specialist is that the second of the two is truly AMAZING at it,” Bubble had told her. “It takes a TON of study and work to get anywhere close to that level. If you ever get your hooves on one, don’t let them go unless you absolutely have to.”
“They’re all thestrals,” Willow noted.
“All thestrals?” Flight muttered, scanning the message again. “Yeah, they did mention that, didn’t they? Um…” She paused. “I don’t see why we can’t pick them up anyways. I’ve met a couple thestrals back in Equineothame, and they’re not all that bad. Actually, both of them were really amazing janitors with the gait of a spacemare.”
“You would make them janitors?” Willow asked.
“Well no,” Flight answered. “I imagine we can treat them as passengers- guests, if you will- for a while, and if we like them, maybe we can let them join us as crew. If we don’t, we can just keep them in that bay or something, feed them the rations they need, and dump them in Equineothame orbit or wherever with enough fuel to get to a station.”
“Huh,” Willow muttered, looking at her console.
The silence stretched on for several seconds.
“Alright,” Willow continued. “We can do that. It’s going to take us five or six days to make the rescue, and cost us about two on our profile.”
Flight looked at her console. “Alright, let’s do it.”
“First Light to Shadouette, do you copy?” Flight sighed after releasing the transmission key. This would be their first verbal contact- and, exactly as Willow had suggested, she was bouncing her signal off a recon drone for safety. It was far too easy to pretend to be something different over text communication- for example, she had made herself out to be a civilian vessel.
Which, the First Light technically was a civvy vessel- that was to say, it was under the command of a civilian. The ship itself was classified as a warship- the flagship, and only vessel, of a new class, the ‘Atmospheric Devastator’.
There was close to a minute of silence. Rather predictable, considering the ships were still a good eight light-seconds apart. It had been several hours since one of Willowstone’s recon drones had spotted what they were fairly sure was the Shadouette- and now, they had it on shipboard sensors.
“Shadouette to First Light, we copy,” somepony answered. They sounded stiff and formal, yet Flight also detected relief in the voice. “If you’re close enough for verbal contact, you probably have us on sensors?”
Flight raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
Willow nodded, examining her panels. “Signal is coming from that ship alright. Looks like their comms suite was gutted during combat- they must have lost most or all of their long-range comms equipment. It looks like they’ve cobbled something together to connect a datapad to one of the surviving antennae- they’re lucky we got close enough to hear their text messages. Especially since they would’ve had to go on a spacewalk to be able to type a message or check for replies, unless they’ve relayed it to a tablet inside.” She paused. “The voice signal is coming straight from their bridge, I want to say they’re directly transmitting from a datapad. We’re not receiving it at the ship, only through the drones.”
Flight nodded. “And that’s with our high-power comms suite.” She depressed the key. “We have you on sensors, alright. What happened over there?” She released it. “How much weapons capability do they have left?”
“Just about none. I’m not seeing any weapons hardpoints, and it looks like their missile bunker was jettisoned- but they’ve got one surviving point defense cluster, looks like it only covers the forward firing arc. They also seem to have lost a lot of sensors- I want to say they’ve lost all aft sensors too. We could probably bump into them from behind, and they wouldn’t know until we made contact.” She paused. “Looks like their hull polarizers are shot as well, there’s lots of laser damage.”
The panel chirped. “We went after some pirates,” the mare on the other end muttered. “Killed a good number of them, but they had better equipment than expected, so we had to flee. They gave chase, and didn’t give up until they had crippled us. They even shot out our hydroponics.”
“Meaning you’re on bottled life support?” Flight asked.
“That won’t last forever,” Willow scowled.
They waited patiently.
“Uh- Yes,” the mare muttered. “Our CO2 scrubbers are still working, but we don’t have an oxygen renewal plant, so we’ve been burning our LOX for that. Still got way more than we need.”
Flight glanced at Willow. “Think they’re safe to rescue?”
“Looks like it,” Willow muttered. “We don’t know what the condition of their armory is, but their shipboard weapons and sensors have been gutted.” She paused, briefly, and continued. “And their engines. I think they still have some of their maneuvering thrust, but their main engines and Gravity Drive are all blown to bits.”
She nodded. “Alright, let’s pick them up.”
It took a very long time to close the last of the distance to the tiny warship.
Coils peered out the window, then back at her panel. “That thing’s not atmosphere-capable, and never was for that matter, but it’s just small enough to fit in one of our secondary bays.”
“First Light to Shadouette,” Flight transmitted. “Do you copy?”
“We copy, First Light,” the answer came. “Are you guys coming…?”
Flight smiled; they were coming up behind the tiny warship. “Yup, we’ve got you in sight. Think we’re close enough for a video connection?”
“Uhh… Sorry, we’ve actually lost all video comms facilities. Um… I don’t see you anywhe-!” There was a pause, before the mare’s voice came back, now flavored with awe and excitement. “Are you coming from behind us?”
Flight chuckled, glancing out the windshield as the nose of her ship came even with and passed the nose of theirs. “We are.” Right on schedule, the computer initiated the deceleration burn to bring them to a halt relative to one another, side-by-side.
“... Oh.”
“Welcome aboard the First Light,” Flight greeted, as the first few thestrals launched themselves down from the opened airlock. The Shadouette was safely inside her bay- but it was the opinion of not just Shadouette’s engineering survey but Star and Coils’ external inspections that the ship would likely suffer catastrophic structural failure if gravity was exerted on it, so she’d kept the gravity all the way down to a mere 0.01g- enough to make it difficult to get stuck floating in the air, but not enough to really damage anything.
The first one landed smoothly in her mag boots, and bowed. “Thank you for rescuing us,” she greeted. “I am Night Skies, Captain of the Shadouette… and the only surviving engineer of the same.” She looked to the side, as her crew landed in a row next to her. “This is our electronics specialist, Blacklight; our astrogator, Astral Eye; our medic, Mending Shade…”
Flight calmly allowed the formalism to wash over her, and paid close attention to their behaviors. Most of what she saw was relief- though at least some didn’t quite manage to hide their displeasure at being rescued by a non-thestral vessel. After all, just a few years before, the number of nations in which it was legal for thestrals to ascend into the cosmos, control a starship, or do basically anything else in space, had reached zero.
Nearly fifteen minutes later, once the formalities were all done and over with, Flight took a deep breath, and let it out. “Alright. I read your engineering report- you said you expect a catastrophic failure, up to and including a hydrogen explosion, should the vessel experience full gravity?”
“Yes, Captain,” Night Skies answered.
Flight scowled. She had introduced herself as the Captain of the First Light, but hadn’t told them that she was the crown princess of Equineothame. “Well. We’ve got a bunch of space in our tanks, so why don’t we transfer what we can and dump the rest overboard?” She looked up at her. “If at all possible, I’d like to be able to recycle or re-use every bit of it.” She looked back out at the ship. “Can I leave that to you guys to take care of?”
“You’re going to recycle it?” Astral Eye asked, looking up at it almost sadly.
Flight nodded. “Unfortunately, that’s all there is left. It would cost about five times as much to patch it up into passably functioning order than to just build a new one.” She sighed. “Nevermind that I don’t think I have the materials on board to do either of those, but still. Besides.” She grinned. “Impress me, and I’ll see what I can do.”