//------------------------------// // 2: Cutting Your Teeth // Story: Salvage a Better Life // by law abiding pony //------------------------------// A week went by as Wiggly Sprocket worked feverishly on getting her new home shipshape.  Between borrowing money from friends and stretching the definition of spaceworthy,  Wiggly Sprocket stood on the docking platform overlooking her new ship with pride.  The same could not quite be said with Live Wire.  He swallowed his disgust long enough to continue his clerk job by day, and spending time with his marefriend Winter Gale at night to learn how to be a pilot. To say he was now left little more than a groggy mess would be too kind. Nevertheless, as his father would say... Keep a straight back and a stiff chin. Today made that advise a struggle to abide. “So tell me again why you claim we’re ready to go when I still see holes in the hull?” Getting a bit defensive, Wiggly grumbled at him with a stink eye.  “Look, clown, we had three choices: it looks pretty and we end up in ruinous debt, ugly but flyable, or neither.  I tell ya, the choice wasn’t hard for me.” Letting off a sheepish laugh, Wire waved a hoof placatingly.  “Alright, I get ya, I get ya.  ‘S not like I had any real hope we’d get that new ship smell, but I was at least hoping you’d have to open a hatch to see inside.” Wiggly sauntered over to the cut away section that used to be the freighter’s name and started to step inside.  “Just think of it as extra windows.  Besides, don’t worry so much. Once we get to our first wreck, I can start welding pieces to the hull.”  She fully stepped inside, and then turned around to poke her head out.  “Come on, you’ve crashed with Sparky all week. Check out our bunks!  Hurry, you’re going to love it!” Moved by Wiggly’s sheer joy and enthusiasm, Live Wire cracked a smile of his own and followed after her. However, he barely took a single step inside the front end of the cargo hold to see a difference.  The paint along the walls was clean and fresh. Cargo netting was neatly stowed away, and enough of the internal lights worked to avoid walking into things. Looks like she thought this through. We’ll be able to secure a lot of smaller bits until we can afford actual containers. “Who did the paint?”  Wire gingerly touched the pearly white paint to ensure it was dry before running his hoof along the white and gold wall.  Wiggly stuck her head out from the forward hallway with her signature grin anytime she did something he approved of. “You like it? When Coral heard I was quitting because of our situation, she insisted she got to paint something on it. Given how bad everything was, I may have made a bit of a mistake to tell her to go all out. I did manage to talk her into doing the forward sections and the cargo bay in traditional Canterlot colors. You remember her right?” “Isn’t she that insane friend from work that acts like she eats batteries?” “Acts?” Wiggly led with faux surprise. “She’s more ‘borg than pony so she probably does for real. Now come on, there was one other super special thing I asked of her!” Following her, Wire took note of the increasingly artistic reinterpretation of proper ship painting. Gold swirls and stars started populating the marble white walls and ceiling. Soon, little goldened ponies and starships in scattered unrelated scenes ranging from picnics to space operas.  By the time they got to the quarters, there was more gold than white on the walls. The paintings were highly stylized, but it was all pleasing to the eye. At last, Wiggly all but dragged him to stand in front of their quarters. It was here, three feet from each adjacent door that the artistry stopped with only marble white remaining.  He eyed it all with a sly grin. “Let me guess.  Coral started here and then went wildcat after realizing she was working for you and not some corporation?” “Not quite.  She wanted some, and I quote, ‘suspense’.”  Sprocket tapped the wall button and his door slid open. The room was smaller than his quarters on the station, yet at the same time was more spacious thanks to not housing a bathroom or kitchenette.  But it was not the extra leg room, larger cargo net hammock, or even actual drawers that stole his breath. Oh no, it was the fully colored and photo-realistic recreation of the midday interior of Trireme’s drum back before the war. The curvature of the ceiling replicated the drum, and it was all from a hauntingly familiar angle.  Nostalgia smacked him in the jaw so hard a tear formed. Wire slowly stepped inside while Sprocket kept her eyes on him and his gaze, looking for both recognition and approval. “Come on, lay down to get the best angle.”  She wedged herself past him and pulled the hammock open for Wire.  Blinking away that tear and covering it up with a playful smile. “Alright, alright.”  Throwing himself onto the hammock, Wiggly giggled and jumped in after him, rocking them both about. Looking up at the ceiling stole Wire’s breath. It was only now that the picture was complete. It wasn’t just a random snippet from the drum.  “You remember all those days we used to look up from your parents’ rooftop?”  Gone was Wiggly’s cheer, instead solemn grief colored her words.  She leaned her head onto his, trying to relive those faded memories.  Wire found himself unable to trust his voice. They had been too young to understand the war. Those summer days were spent on the roof to escape their parents’ fearful conversations about the conflict. He had not felt real happiness since the drum was destroyed.  Now though… He wanted to thank her, but couldn’t bring himself to speak for fear of his voice cracking horribly. His tears betrayed him all the same. Yet Wiggly purposely did not look once it was clear he wasn’t speaking to save him that little bit of embarrassment. So instead they held each other, pretending to be on that rooftop once more.  After a spell, he had wanted to ask how Coral painted it all, how much it actually cost, or where Wiggly got the holo-photo to recreate it. Instead he did the only thing he could. “Thank you, Wiggs.  It already feels like home.” Late the next day, Wiggly Sprocket and Live Wire were preparing the ship to leave. The final checks were done, and enough lights were green that the freighter was able to crawl its way into a low hover.  While Wiggly watched everything like a hawk on the lower deck, Wire was tethered to the wall just outside of the cockpit. The canopy was still missing, so he was forced to plug himself into a cable running from the cockpit to mentally command the freighter. Routing it through a wall mounted datajack had proven impossible with their budget, so he was forced to roll a cable from the cockpit through the door and into the hallway. Sealant foam was all that stood between him and hard vacuum. He also dragged a foam mat over so he had something soft to lean into during acceleration. Now that they were going to be underway, he would have to practically live in this claustrophobic hallway lest the ship fall out of control. He tried not to think about it and focused on the sheer amount of readouts and controls. It had taken a while to get a handle on it, even if it was all in his mind. Wire wasn’t going to try anything fancy. Winter Gale may be a great pilot, but she was a poor instructor. He at least trusted the autopilot could handle most things. Presently though, he was on call with the on-duty flight controller trying to just get out of the door. “I told you, we haven’t been able to buy a new transponder.  Do you know how much those things cost?” “I don’t see how that’s my problem,” the controller retorted firmly. “No vessel is authorized to take off or return without an active transponder.” Putting on his best customer service façade, Wire tried again. “I perfectly understand your position, sir. But perhaps we can reach a compromise. “If you let us leave and come back with a working transponder, we’ll cut Trireme a discount on what we bring back. Say… fifteen percent?” The controller went quiet at first before relying on a dangerous tone. “Are you attempting to bribe an official?” Fully prepared for that, Wire let off a dismissive laugh. “Not at all, sir. All I’m saying is that Trireme knows how important salvagers are. If you report this discount, I’m sure Trireme will reward you.  We get to fix our unfortunate issue, and you get an above board reward from management.” The controller went quiet and brooded for a spell. Every second made Wire increasingly hopeful. “Half. You want me to bend the rules, you make it worth both management’s and my worthwhile.” Wire was incensed by the demand, but he managed to hide it behind a winning smile. “Half it is. Of our first haul.” A side-smirk played on the controller’s muzzle. “Very good. I’ll go ahead and tell the defense commander to ignore your departure. But I won’t bother if you come back without a transponder.” With that, the controller ended the call. The freighter reported to Live Wire that station control was demanding the engines to idle. Sighing in thread bare relief, he complied and sent the acknowledgement signal. Within moments tractor beams removed them from the dockyard and would soon be shoving them clear of Trireme.  As he waited for control to be returned to him, Wire slumped against his mat as the beams pushed them along. He looked up at the dim lights in the hallway. He idly observed the cockpit door next to him. What a mess. A new call sprang up in his vision, one that brought more joy. He answered his sister with a more genuine smile. “Heyya, Sprocket.”  As a fully natural pony, Wiggly’s face was being transmitted by her console’s camera. He could tell she had just recovered from squealing for joy.  “We did it!  We finally did it!  We’re real spacers now!”  She spun in place, which was quite a feat in the narrow confines of the engineering terminal. “What did you tell them to let us go?!  I thought for sure I’d have to fake a reactor leak or something.” “Oh just half of our first haul,” he stated, trying to downplay it. He saw the outraged tirade coming as her eyes hardened. “But hey, it’s just one haul. We’re flying, that’s all that matters, right?.” It took serious effort for Wiggly to swallow her anger. Ultimately, she knew it would only upset Live Wire, and she could just scream into a pillow later. “You’re right. Totally right. We’ll live like alicorns in a matter of months.”  Having shaken off enough animosity, she rubbed her hooves with anticipation. “So, we’re going after our first mark, right?” “That’s the master plan.” After the siblings had registered as salvagers, they had been given the latest map of known wreckage courtesy of the Rainbow Dash and her fighter patrols. Presently, the dead stations were still hot places for quality salvage, and were regularly patrolled by both the navy and pirates. But even the siblings knew the lack of a transponder was a death sentence if the navy spotted them. They wouldn’t even be hailed, simply shot first and not even be scanned for survivors.  So they had to start small. Wire pulled up the map and checked around. Calculating both fuel and water consumption, he found a good start. “There’s a blip not too far from here. No pony knows what it is, but it’s the size of a shuttle.” “Great!  I’ll be ready for it.”   The freighter lurched a bit, rocking Wire in place. Flashing before his eyes, his mental control panel read green. “We’re free of station control. Hold onto your socks, I’ve Ah - this is my first real go of it.” Letting the computer work up a flight path, Live Wire activated the travel drive, and made for their very first derelict.  Even with the travel drive achieving a few percentages of light speed, it took them well over a week to reach the first wreck. Upon arrival, Live Wire brought the freighter in close to a sorry sight. What had once been a passenger shuttle was a few chunks of broken wreckage with small flecks of metal or plastic drifting about. The freighter used to have several floodlights, but only one still functioned, so he directed it at the remains of the shuttle.  The wreckage was even worse after being illuminated. Not only had its reactor exploded, but lately entry cuts. Be it pirates or scavengers, the shuttle was little more than a mass of broken metal. “What do you think, Wiggly?” His sister was already in her pressure suit and was getting ready to leave via the hole where the freighter’s name used to be. She couldn’t afford a proper space suit, so she had to tether her pressure suit to an oxygen cable from inside the freighter. “I’ll know in a bit.” With Wire being forced to remain physically plugged into the flight controls, Wiggly struggled to safely unfurl her lifeline through the open cut. Grunts and small curses escaped her lips until she finally managed to step up to the exit and look at the wreckage properly. Her years at the breaker yards did not paint a pretty picture.  “I’ll have to scan it, but I can already see the damage is pretty bad. I’d put money on the whole electrical system being burned out, so a transponder would be a long shot. I don’t think we’ll be getting much more than metal from this one.” “Do you want to try anyway, or move on?” Rolling her neck and psyching herself up, Wiggly spread her wings and gently pushed off. “We’re already here. Even if all we get is metal, I can still patch the hull.” And over the next several hours, that is exactly what she did. With both scanner and cutter in hoof, Wiggly measured each hole in the freighter twice, then cut the shuttle once. Wire kept the freighter on minimal power, just enough to keep the heat and oxygen running.  For the first hole, Wiggly carefully placed the hull piece into the hole and switched her cutter’s beam. Instead of rapidly slicing the metal, it acted like a welder. Thankfully, her pressure suit protected her eyes until the task was done. A massive, toothy grin cleaved her muzzle as she brushed her work with a boot. The weld was ugly to the eye, but her scanner claimed it would hold just as well as if the hull had never been damaged.  “I’m doing it.”  Tears of joy flooded her eyes as she admired her work. It was like she had been chained to a wall her whole life and she was finally cut free. “I get to fix something! To really fix it.”  She hugged herself with her wings, trying to blink her tears away.  Live Wire groggily woke up from a nap only to jump in fright at seeing the cockpit door wide open. “Sweet Celestia!” He frantically tried to mentally close it, only to hear Wiggly giggling madly.  He stopped, and actually looked into the cockpit. Instead of being open to the void, a new canopy was present. Jagged weld lines were present all throughout, giving it the look of cracked glass.  Sprocket had been leaning back in the chair, and had turned around upon hearing him shriek. “Like what I’ve done with the place?” Live Wire dumbly backed away as the seat extended towards him, allowing Wiggly to get off. “You found a - how long was I asleep? How did I sleep through all this?” “After we finished talking? Eight hours. As for how, you’ve been mostly awake for a week. You needed a nap at the very least.”  Wiggly kept jerking her head towards the seat so he would take it. Yet Wire was still recovering and didn’t take the hints. “Me though? I couldn’t sleep, I was on a roll.”  Dark circles were under her eyes and her sweat stained mane and fur was a complete mess. The euphoric mare was subsisting on little more than excitement and a single pack of vat-grown fish paste.  Live Wire finally caught on to her insistences, only to tease her and instead squeezed his head and neck past the seat to inspect her work. “Was the shuttle in such bad shape all you found were pieces of the canopy?” “Sadly enough, yeah. But hey, I got all the holes patched, except for the back ramp and name panel, so we can finally pressurize the forward sections.” She resorted to patting the extended cockpit seat with a hoof, and was too distracted and tired to realize he was playing with her.  Pulling himself back into the hallway and coming to a stop above his original spot, he earned a supremely exasperated scowl from Sprocket.  Wire went about filling the repaired sections with atmosphere.  “It’ll be nice to have more than a three by ten hallway to look at from here on out. Coral’s art is great and all, but I can only stare at the same scene for so long.” Sprocket rounded on him and gave him a stink eye he feigned ignorance of.  “She did get a bit carried away. But hey, you can get a great view from the cockpit.” Wire took a long look at the seat in question, mostly so he could grin without her seeing his face, and then turned back to his sister.  “I don’t know, I kinda like just floating about.  Who needs a cockpit anyway when I can just plug myself in out here?” Finally cluing in on his teasing, Wiggly pounced him, and play-bit his ear with an exaggerated growl like a character in an old show.  “You are going in that chair, mister!” Dramatically overplaying the pain, Wire tried to pull free.  “Oww!  You’re going to pull my cable out if you keep that up.  We’ll spin out of control! Sprocket spread her wings to partially stabilize their movement.  “You can just put the ship on standby, don’t give me that!” “You’ll never take me alive!” he challenged with a quick jerk that got his ear free as she tried to speak again.  “Captain Proton will never surrender!” Fully getting into the act, Wiggly wrestled with him just strongly enough to try and get him to remove the cable from behind his ear before she could go all out.  “You are in no position to stop me now, Captain Prrrroton!  Queen Arachnia has caught you in her dastardly web!” A single alert flag from the ship was all Live Wire noticed before the lights went out.  The wrestling came to an abrupt halt as the siblings looked up.  The hum from the reactor stopped, and the muffled hiss of maneuvering thrusters pushed them both against the wall and started to slowly spin the freighter as it moved away from the wreckage.  The thrusters cut off shortly thereafter. “Wire, what’s going on!?”  Sprocket felt a frightful chill crawl down her spine as red emergency lights winked on.  She was still hugging him out of protective fear. Gathering his wits, Wire quickly saw the issue.  “Passive sensors detected a return that didn’t have a transponder signal with it.  I set up a panic alert just in case this happened. It’s supposed to make us look like just another derelict.” Baring their own situation, that only meant one thing in their eyes: pirates.  Wiggly pushed herself over to the pilot’s seat and clung onto it to try and look outside.  Wire held onto a railing in the hallway to keep from getting jostled about.  “Do you think they saw us?  Our speakers aren’t blaring that warcry of theirs.” Wire kept his eyes closed, as it made it easier to focus on what the ship’s sensors were showing him.  “Didn’t know our speakers even worked.”  The faint blip of color on the thermal sensor kept moving perpendicular to them at great speed.  Wire had no idea how to gauge size or distance as his control suite was threadbare at best.  His tense expression as the small signature flew past them only made his sister sweat that much harder. “Wirrrre?” Blinking, he let go of the breath he was holding.  “I think we’re good.  Whoever they were, they either didn’t see us or care enough to bother.” Exhaling hard enough to float up to the ceiling, Sprocket gazed down at her brother who was just as relieved.  “Okay, as good as it was to patch up the hull, we need to replace our weapons.” “Assuming we can find any that would work for us, and that you could mount it with no equipment, and we find ammunition, I don’t know the first thing about making fire control software.”  Rubbing her chin in thought for a short while, Sprocket spread her wings once more to float into the middle of the hallway.  Her brother went about correcting the spin and bringing the reactor back online.  “We may not know how, but the navy does.  I bet the Rainbow Dash has plenty of coders who can help us.” “I’m sure they do, but why would they help us?  Winter Gale is a pilot, not the captain, we can’t just stroll up and say ‘hi can we have some software?’.” “No… but…”  Wiggly Sprocket developed an inspired grin.  “If we make it worth their while, I’m sure the Navy would be more than happy to help arm us.  Look on the map and see where the closest battlefield was.”  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Wire asked with growing worry.  “Winter once said the navy mined battle areas before and after combat.  Tractor mines are no joke.” “You mean the Starhold Mark eighteens?” Wiggly replied with a smug grin.  “I was given a few of those nasty things, but a breaker doesn’t get to choose which job you get.  We just cut it and be grateful.” “That sorta thing wouldn’t fly if we were still linked with the wider Initiative.” Wire shook his head at the idea of a cutting beam going anywhere near a mine.  “But at least those you cut were deactivated.” “True.”  Wiggly tapped her toolbelt.  “But you’d be surprised just how much my scanner picks up when you jailbreak it.  Such as the method of detection.  I can get us past the mines if you can get us there.” Live Wire gave her a look of unfathomable disbelief.  “You’re kidding.”  A pause did not see her expression change.  “You have to be kidding.”  Still no change.  “By Terra you’re not kidding…”