//------------------------------// // 7 - Angular Velocity // Story: Heavenly View // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// It was to be expected, given the precision needed for docking with space stations, but Mesonox was still dumbfounded by how close Gimbal could get to a thing with a ship as large as Heavenly View. She was as big as a house, yet the only reason Gimbal had stopped her a few yards away from Solar Wind rather than a few inches was for safety reasons. Mesonox was standing in the airlock, looking right at the center of Wind’s rotation. It was where she was moving the slowest. Not even walking speed. The hull plating in front of her just sort of rotated lazily. It wasn’t very fast… right here. But once she got further out… Mesonox swallowed. “Are you sure about this, rookie?” Stella asked over her headset. “We can send-” “I’m sure, I’m sure,” Mesonox said quickly. “It’s for the best that it’s me. None of you have felt gravity like this or climbed like this before.” Of course, there was another reason: I feel responsible for this, so I’m the one that needs to fix it. That reason’s validity was suspect, but it was what she felt. “Copy that,” Stella said in a voice that made it obvious she knew of the second reason. But she didn’t press. Maybe she understood. Maybe she just thought this would go smoothly enough for skill to not matter. (Which would’ve been reassuring if Mesonox hadn’t tried to avoid thinking about it so she wouldn’t tempt fate.) Mesonox swallowed again and adjusted the drone pod strapped across her back. She eyed the point of Wind’s hull where there was no lateral movement, only rotational. “Alright,” she said. “Here I go.” And before she could stop herself, she jumped out of the airlock. Wind loomed before her. In the half-second before hitting, she extended her front legs and absorbed the worst of the impact. Her magboots adhered easily and she was promptly yanked into a spin along with Wind’s rotation. She’d been expecting it, but the transition was still disorienting. She blinked, pulled and smacked her rear legs against the hull, and waited for her frame of reference to catch up. “I’m on,” she gasped into her mic. “Waiting for my head to stop spinning.” “But I thought we WANTED your head spinning,” said Glen guilelessly. “The rest of you’s spinning, so if your head isn’t-” “Shut up, Pawn,” said Gimbal. “Waiting for my head to stop spinning in relation to the rest of me,” Mesonox said, grinning. “Which it has, because otherwise I couldn’t roll my eyes at you.” Glen sucked in a breath, staticky over the connection. “Ooo. Tough crowd.” “Changing position,” Mesonox said. She craned her neck to look to one side. Centrifugal force was weird. If she stayed here and detached, she’d just “fall” parallel to the direction Wind was spinning. If she went this way, Wind would rotate away from her if she detached. But if she went that way, she’d wind up rolling along Wind’s hull as the ship accelerated into her. So that way it was; it’d make standing easier. Mesonox took a deep breath and began awkwardly walking along the hull. Magboots were trivial to use in zero-g, but because of her rotation, Wind technically wasn’t a zero-g environment. “Down” was parallel to the surface Mesonox was standing on and that did weird things to her instincts. When she put a leg back down and her magboot suckered itself to the plating, a large part of her wanted to look for something, anything to hold on to, like she was climbing a mountain face. But this close to the center, perceived g-force was small and her magboots were strong, so she didn’t slip. She just needed to take it slow. She edged around until she was on the side of Wind that she wanted to be. She looked “down”; the hull was sheer. She smacked the end of her grapple on the hull and began sort-of rappelling down the side. As she got further and further away from the center, her perceived gravity grew. It was a strange feeling, being that aware of getting heavier. It was like something strange was going on in her ears. When she was about halfway down, she stopped spooling out. This ought to be enough. For now, it’d have to be; angular velocity meant she was hitting 1.5 g’s and her blood was pooling in her feet. Clearing her throat, Mesonox said, “Gimbal? I’m secure. No problems detected with the grapple or my magboots.” Wait, there weren’t any problems with the grapple, were there? She hastily tapped her buttons on her fetlock computer. “Let me know when you want me to attach the booster.” The diagnostics came back positive: no problems detected in the grapple. “Alright, gimme a sec… Confirmed, rotation of Wind is currently… 9.63 rotations per minute, or one rotation every 6.23 seconds… Data recording starting… now. You are clear to attach, rookie.” “Roger.” Mesonox risked detaching her front hooves from the hull. The grapple wavered slightly as she bounced on the end of its tension, but it held. Slowly, carefully, she pulled the pod from over her shoulder and placed it against the hull. A few quick button presses and readouts confirmed that the pod was as close to Wind’s centerline as she could make it. “Centered. Adhering in 3… 2… 1…” She hit the button, suckering the pod hard to Wind. Nothing happened. “We are… reading NO anomalous energy signatures at this time… stand by.” After a minute, nothing continued to happen. Mesonox had reattached her front magboots to Wind to take some of the strain off the grapple, just in case. No slippage there. The feeling of hanging from the hull was, if anything, stranger than zero-g. She’d trained in zero-g plenty of times. But clinging to a sheer plane by only not-magnetism in a centrifugally-gravitational environment? That was something else. “Still no anomalous energy signatures. Stand by.” And nothing still continued to happen. There was something of a stereotype about batponies hanging from ceilings. As far as stereotypes went, it was incredibly benign, but Mesonox had always been confused by it because she was still a pony, and she still had hooves. The same blunt hooves as every other tribe of pony. And yet, here she was, dangling from the smooth, smooth side of a spinning aethership like it was the easiest thing in the world. Funny how things turned out. “Still no energy. Rookie, you are cleared to begin thrust.” “Copy that.” Finally. Mesonox flipped open the cover to the pod and keyed in some commands. “Starting with thrust at five percent of maximum. Commencing… now.” Boop. The tiny little engine at the end of the pod immediately began glowing as its drive engaged. If Mesonox placed her hoof in front of it, it’d be like getting sprayed by a weak industrial firehose: maybe nothing would get damaged, but it could still hurt. “No anomalous energy… Twilight, ‘anomalous’ barely sounds like a word anymore…” “When did it before?” asked Mesonox. “Listen to it. Anomalous.” “You need to say the word before it gets semantically satiated,” said Glen. “Se-what?” “Semantic satiationnnnnn. It’s when you say a word so much that it, well, it stops sounding a word. Word word word word word word word-” “That sounds like a griffon meal,” said Gimbal. “That’s ‘wurst’ you’re thinking of. Spelled W-U-R-S-T.” “You’re the worst,” Mesonox said, grinning. “Nah, griffons wouldn’t like him,” said Gimbal. “Too stringy.” “That doesn’t matter, wurst is ground meat-” “Ground?!” yelped Mesonox. “Like- mashed? That’s disgusting! Why would-” “Whoa, hold up,” said Gimbal. Her voice had a serious tone that made everypony else shut up. “Still no anomalous energy… but a rotation every 9.61 seconds.” She laughed the humorless but happy laugh of released tension. “It’s slowing.” Mesonox went limp inside her suit, giggling quietly. You could argue that she wasn’t responsible for the crash, since she couldn’t have known. She had a hard time convincing herself of that. But she was definitely responsible for making it recoverable. Gimbal was still talking. “No yaw… And no roll. We’re not making things worse in another direction.” The giggle bubbled over again. Mesonox didn’t want to jinx it, but when it was going this smoothly, it was hard to not think that it was going well. Even if it was right at the start. “You’re good for keeping watch on the pod?” Even with a ship as big and inertial as Wind, small changes could eventually lead to big effects. If worse came to worst, they might need to make a quick change to the pod’s position. And Mesonox was already down at the pod, so… (That was what she told herself, anyway. From the looks the other aethernauts gave her, they probably thought it was self-flagellation. They were probably right.) “For now. I’ll let you know if we need to tap out.” “Please. We don’t want to lose you because you thought you had something to prove.” The connection clicked off. And so, with the universe spinning around her, Mesonox waited. Queen had a problem. Maybe it was a sapience problem, but she felt like it was a “her” problem. That problem kept her glued to her screen. Namely, she liked to watch numbers change. The drone pod’s propulsion was being kept low, so it wouldn’t go out of control quickly, but that meant the change they wanted was also coming slowly. Queen knew she ought to step away, let the aethernauts handle it all, but then the rate of Wind’s rotation ticked down another 0.01 degrees per second, and holy cannoli that was the coolest thing ever. Queen’s focus was renewed and her attention went back to the screen and then nothing happened for another minute or so and just as her attention was flagging again, tick. But watched pots and all that. Queen was acutely aware of just how long it was taking, how much longer it felt, and the knowledge that the time would pass much more quickly if she left and did something else. But just as she thought of doing that, tick. Tick. Tick. Still no yaw. Still no roll. The rookie probably didn’t need any supervision, and Queen could go and do something else- tick. Tick. Tick. “Queen? How’s it going?” That gave Queen the will she needed to turn away from the screen. She spun her chair around to look at King. Fifteen minutes ago, King had seemed smaller and older in her worry. Now, she was holding her head higher and the thud of her hooves was more confident than weighty. Even if it wasn’t all the way there just yet. “Slowly, but safely,” said Queen. She resisted the urge to look back at the screen. “We haven’t had any problems so far. Rotation slowing as expected. Everything’s quiet.” King tilted her head. “Quiet quiet, or…?” “Quiet quiet. No anomalous readings at all.” “And how’s the rookie?” Queen opened her mouth, but Pawn yelled down the hall, a laugh not quite in his voice, “She’s hanging in there!” King rolled her eyes, but Queen shrugged helplessly. “Well, she is. She’s ironing her first-day jitters out like anypony else and I’ve got nothing she’s doing wrong.” “Good,” King said, nodding. Her jaw twitched in a way like she wanted to say something, but couldn’t think of anything. Eventually, she said, “Let me know if something goes wrong.” She turned to head back to the hold. Queen paused for a moment, then said, “Are you doing okay? Not as Queen to King. As Gimbal to Stella.” King stopped. She turned back around. When she spoke again, her voice was tight. “The… rookie is doing okay, right?” “Right.” Stella spun back to the console, managed to ignore the tick, and opened a connection to Mesonox. “Rookie? Just checking in. How’re you doing?” “I’m doing fine,” said Mesonox. Her voice didn’t sound the least bit strained. “I’ll need to do some exercise once I get back into normal gravity, though. I swear I can feel my legs growing from the blood collecting in them.” “Stressed at all?” “Eh… kinda, not really. Mostly bored. I should’ve loaded some audiobooks onto my computer.” “Good. Keep us posted.” And Gimbal flicked the intercom back off. She raised an eyebrow at King. King was silent for another moment. Then Stella said, “If we don’t do this right, we might need to split.” Gimbal blinked and sat up straighter in her chair. “What?” “If we don’t get the payment for dragging in that salvage-” “I know, but… that’s what you’re worried about?” “Gimbal. Queen Gimbal. I’ve liked working with everyone on Heavenly View. You’re a hecking good pilot and you know how to speak the truth, even if you are a cheapskate.” Gimbal frowned in anger and raised a hoof declaratively. “…Yeah…” she admitted. “And you know Glen and Littora. And the rookie- Mesonox… Did you read her application? She just… loved the idea of working in space. I would’ve loved to get to know her more than just one job.” Gimbal nodded. Mesonox had been one of those ponies to come up to the cockpit to watch the approach to the wreck. Not many people did that. “And besides. I know I haven’t been groundside in a year-” “As an earth pony.” Stella snorted. “Earth pony on the earth or not, I’m still an Equestrian. Land of friendship and harmony. And splitting the crew of Heavenly View up just because of some freak accident feels wrong.” “…We can still be friends in different jobs, you dingbat.” Another snort. “Tell that to my mind. It’s sure not listening to me.” “I knew you didn’t like sitting still, but I never knew it could be this bad.” “There’s a reason I could never be a trawler pilot. Too much waiting for the debris to get cleared up.” Funny, that was one of Gimbal’s favorite parts of the job: just sitting back and watching trawlers swing themselves around the ships. (Only as part of relaxation after the actual piloting to get there, though.) Seeing skilled ponies be skilled was a treat in itself. “Need some busywork? I might be able to talk Littora into breaking something.” “No you couldn’t!” Glen called down the hall. “Oh, for Twilight’s sake, I’m not that bad,” Stella scoffed. “I’m just restless and overthinking. We didn’t have an accident bad enough to force us to call for evac, so I’m trying to focus on that. But until I can get back out and into Solar Wind…” She shrugged helplessly. “I could make up some roadapples to get Mesonox back in here and you out there to replace her,” said Gimbal. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’d just be hanging off the hull, not actually doing anything. It wouldn’t work.” Stella leaned to one side to look at Gimbal’s readouts. Gimbal forced herself to not look as well. After a moment, Stella said, “Even once we get that under control, we’ll need to repair it.” Gimbal waved a hoof dismissively. “Between Littora and Glen, we’ll make it work. And maybe Mesonox will have some ideas, too.” “Yeah. She seems bright.” Stella coughed, and when she spoke again, her voice was a bit more formal. “Let me know if anything changes.” “Will do.” Gimbal and Stella nodded at each other. Then King left the cockpit as Queen turned back to the consoles. Minute by minute, bit by bit, Solar Wind slowed. Mesonox had deliberately turned off her chronometer. It’d make the slowdown feel longer than it really was. The constantly-shifting shadows moving across Wind’s hull had become predictable, almost a timepiece of their own. She managed to avoid counting them. Too much. Wind twirled. Mesonox wondered if she could feel herself getting lighter if she paid attention. But that would involve finding out how quickly Wind was slowing, and that would involve looking at her watch again, so she discarded that idea. Still an interesting one, though. Wind twirled. Mesonox watched the sun spin around. Did alicorns need to brace against anything when they moved the sun? What could they possibly brace against? She’d have to ask Glen about levitation and Neighton’s Second Law. …No, Third Law. The Second Law was about force and acceleration, the Third was about equal and opposite reactions. Wind twirled. Mesonox again wished she’d downloaded some audiobooks. At some point, her helmet’s intercom clicked on. “Hey, uh, rookie?” asked Gimbal. “Can you send your accelerometer data our way?” “Sure, just give me a sec.” It took more than a sec, actually. Mesonox had never used her accelerometer for anything — it was basically a widget installed to make any given model of fetlock computer the complete package — and navigating the menus to find it took some time. But she managed and soon her computer was speaking to View’s. “There you go. Something wrong?” “Nah, not at all,” Gimbal replied. “Just… let me… Okay, your g’s are still about 1.3… Are you feeling tired? Woozy?” “Nope.” Sore, definitely. Beyond sore, maybe. But not tired. “Alright. We still don’t have any significant yaw or roll, so what do you think about sticking more pods on?” Mesonox blinked. They’d considered placing additional pods along Wind’s length if she wasn’t slowing quickly enough, but only after… an hour or so. Something like that. Had she really been hanging off the hull that long? “We ought to be safe.” “Alright, good. Just FYI, King’s gonna jump over and put some pods on the other side.” Mesonox’s ears twitched. Stella? Really? Well, if she wanted to. She was the captain, after all. “Does she want my help putting them on?” “Uh…” Mesonox heard indistinct conversation over the connection before Gimbal came back. “Sure, just in case.” “Alright. I’ll meet her there.” Mesonox began spooling in her grappler and she climbed up, slightly faster than it, just so she could get used to actual walking again. Her gravity transition was less surreal this time around now that she knew what she’d be feeling, even in the opposite direction. Once she detached her grappler, she easily pulled herself around Wind, her stomach flipping as she crossed the axis of rotation. Stella, carrying several pods, had already jumped over and attached her grapple, but she was still very close to Wind’s center. She kept glancing down to the outer edge of the ring, moving down one foot, and spending another minute glancing down. As Mesonox got closer, she heard Stella grumbling frantically under her breath. Mesonox crept over. “Problems, ma’am?” she asked, keeping any laughs from her voice. “This doesn’t feel right,” said Stella. Before Mesonox’s blood could freeze in overthought panic, Stella continued, “I feel like I’m climbing a wall and there’s no hoofholds.” “C’mon. We don’t need them.” Mesonox pulled all but one of her magboots from the hull and dangled from the last one. The centrifugal g’s were still light enough that even that one grip was much more than enough to keep her from falling. “I know. But that’s not what it feels like.” Stella took another step. Mesonox smacked her grapple on the hull and bounded down several yards so she could look Stella right in the eye. “You’ve never been on a wreck that’s spinning like this?” “Not this fast. That’s what’s throwing me off. This fast means more g’s.” Stella took another step. “If it’s this fast, it usually goes to more advanced crews.” Part of Mesonox wanted to spend at least a minute unpacking that last part. Instead, she said, “It’s easier if you don’t go down headfirst. If you also use your grapple, it’ll be more like you’re rappelling down a rock face.” “I was never one for rappelling.” But when Stella turned around and started inching down backwards, she was able to move two steps at a time rather than one. Then three. Mesonox couldn’t hold back a sigh. “Give me one of the pods,” she said, holding out a hoof. “I’ll put it on myself.” If acting like that was insubordinate, Stella didn’t say anything. She just passed one of the pods over. Mesonox stuck her head through the strap and bounded down Wind, way towards the end. Once she was at about the same position as the first pod, she said, “Queen, I’m placing another pod. Are you monitoring?” “Huh. Already?” asked Gimbal. “Did you take one of King’s?” “She was moving too slow. You know kings; they can only move one space at a time.” Gimbal giggled across the radio. So did Stella. “Roger that, rookie. Monitoring you now.” “Roger.” Mesonox ran through the procedures again and placed the pod against the hull. “Centered. Adhering in 3… 2… 1…” She hit the button, suckering the pod hard to- “Waitaminutestop.” Without thinking, Mesonox detached the pod from the hull again. She didn’t even need to hear the tone of Gimbal’s voice to jump into this state of mind. It was almost certainly the strange energies Gimbal had seen earlier, possibly caused by the pod. Awkwardly keeping it close with one leg, she began punching in the controls to- “Hold on stop again. Just stay there.” Mesonox bit her tongue. Stay here? With unknown energies building up beneath her? One of her hooves twitched as she wanted to reach for her fetlock computer. She almost wanted to bolt anyway. But she- “Okay, you’re safe,” said Gimbal. Her voice sounded a bit strange, like she was thinking about something else and wanted to get back to that as soon as possible. “We were detecting some anomalous energies, but they’re gone now.” “You’re sure?” Mesonox asked, looking down at her hooves. Suddenly, the hull that was meant to withstand atmospheric re-entry didn’t seem all that strong. “Positive. It started growing slowly when you turned the pod and dropped like a rock when you turned it off. …It didn’t even alter Wind’s trajectory at all.” “This isn’t going to blow up beneath me, is it? Should, should I move?” Mesonox instinctively moved in a way that would’ve been shifting her weight if done on Equus. “…Nah, the readings are back to normal. So hold off on putting the pod back on, but just staying there is fine.” Stella’s voice came in over the line. “Did you see what sort of energies they were?” “Not on the screens I had up, but View’s sensor suite was recording, so I can just bring those up.” A pause on the line. Not quite silence; Mesonox could hear Gimbal making little sounds with her mouth as she probably flicked through menus and readouts. She didn’t move, just in case. Part of her still felt like the hull would erupt beneath her. (Next to her?) A very small part, true, but a part nonetheless. Her stomach was still bubbling with- “Oh, wow,” said Gimbal. Her voice wasn’t horrified; more that of someone who’s just discovered something very interesting. “Wow. This is… Wow. Pawn and Knight will be DYING to see this…” “Something wrong?” Stella asked. “Not really,” Gimbal said. “But these readings are… complicated. I can’t make heads or tails of them. OI! PAWN!” Mesonox winced at the feedback and instinctively clapped her hooves to her ears; they bounced off the helmet. Above, Stella flinched; her scowl was visible even through the helmet. After a moment, she heard Glen say, “Say it louder, I don’t think they heard you in Zebrabwe-” “Take a look at this,” Stella said. Silence. Then, in a voice normally reserved for viewing centerfolds, Glen murmured, “Oh, my, my…” “I’m not sure, but I think it’s like the anomalous energies that we first detected right before the crash,” said Stella. “What do you think?” “I think that we’ve got some testing to do,” said Glen. “Get Wind’s rotational velocity down so we can work without having to make like mountain goats. And then… We’ll see.” Mesonox looked up at Stella. Stella looked back down at her. And through the faceplates, Mesonox saw Stella quirk a smile. Mesonox smiled back. She reeled herself up a few yards and started the routine of placing a pod again. No strange readings this time; onto the hull it went. They weren’t out of the woods yet, but they had a path. Baby steps.