//------------------------------// // Chapter One: Crime // Story: Leaves on the Wind // by Mickey Dubs //------------------------------// Chapter One: Crime “We’re about four clicks out, Captain. No Alliance on your tails, or any other soul for that matter. We’re pretty much alone out here, so whatever you do, don’t start panicking and hyperventilating or that suit’s air supply will run out licketty-split,” crackled a stallion’s voice over the helmet’s built-in communication system. A single reflective helmet popped up from behind a slab of thick metal sheeting, the last remains of a mid-size freighter long since abandoned which sat silently in space as if it had never been anywhere else in its short history. The helmet peeked out warily, scanned the stars and planets which dotted the skies in their vast multitudes for a few quick seconds, and then darted back in to continue its work. “Perfect, Windy. Keep scanning just in case anything pops up and keep me posted. We’re almost done here. What’s your E.T.A?” “About twenty minutes, but I can speed things up over here and shorten that up a bit, if you need,” the voice responded after a moment’s delay. The helmet, along with the stallion inside, bent over further to continue its task at hoof. I think I will pass, Windy. As much as I love my ship, I could use the time away from you. “No rush, Windy. Keep her on course and get dinner started. We’re going to need some grub once this is all over. Celestia knows we’ve earned it.” “Hey, I didn’t think you believed in that sort of thing, boss!” Windy answered, confusion and a touch of excitement lingering on the airwaves as the audio piped in through the small tinny speakers. “Hey Dexxy, honey, when did our fearless leader start believing in the supernatural? What exactly are you two digging out of that hull? It’s not a body is it?” He fired his questions off in quick succession, clearly confused as another body drifted around the corner of the ship’s hull. “No dear, no bodies yet…” a female voice said calmly, glancing quickly between her Captain and the door which they had spent the last few hours trying to open. The stallion's eyes flared, and as they did she pressed a large button on her little computer to relay another message to her partner. “Something tells me the Captain may be rethinking that last part. Best not piss him off,” she stated simply, closing the connection with a press of a button. She gave a small smile to her Captain - one which was not reciprocated - and then floated down the side of the hull, grasping at broken pieces of metal and siding as she passed. Without a sound, she landed right beside him, gesturing to the small minicomputer on her forehoof with a glare. She pressed hers, waiting patiently for him to do the same. Shit, not this spiel again… he thought as he pressed the same button on his own minicomputer, bracing for the worst. ”You know, he really tries to be nice to you. Maybe you should give him a shot, I know he only wants to be a part of the crew…” she said softly, her voice slow and calm, not at all what he had expected to hear out of her. Taken aback for a few moments, he tensed and replied, choosing his words carefully. “He is a member of the crew…but he needs to understand that it is MY crew, not his to arbitrarily create for himself.” The stallion's voice was firm, his face and eyes probing her own for any flicker of emotion. There were none. Just like old times. “He’s a good stallion, Captain, and he wants to-” “No, Dex," the stallion challenged, "he's not 'good' just because you say so. He has to earn that title, and thus far he hasn’t done anything to prove to me that he really is as 'good' as you make him out to be!" “Hasn’t he? He has been piloting this ship for about as long as we have been on deck! He and Cammy keep her up and running smoothly, and he is always there to keep us from going off the wagon plugging every outlaw or backwater degenerate we end up locking horns with. Celestia know you have no clue what’s going on in the engine room, and he at least knows where the wires go...” “Hey, if Cammy hadn’t decided to re-wire the whole damn ship, I might not have had to go in there in the first place.” “Y’know, she was telling me about that incident. What were you trying to blame again? ‘Terrifying’ space monkeys?” “Hey, you weren’t there. I don’t think I was too far off.” She started to chuckle, but a steely glare from her Captain was enough warning for her to silence herself. Constructing her argument for a brief moment, she swallowed and continued. “Regardless, Sir, they got the ship’s engine running better than any time that month. You couldn’t have gotten the extra boost you needed without them, and you wouldn’t have been able to pilot the ship yourself to take full advantage of it without his help. He is the best pony for the job and you know it. He wants so much to be a part of the crew, a real part of it, and he gets continually shafted having to pilot the ship, staying on-board while everyone else runs off. If being in that position isn’t downright unfair then I don’t know what is.” She stared at him calmly, cautiously testing the waters of her friend’s eyes. She had seen those eyes so many times before, and every time they frightened her more and more. Those were the eyes of her Captain when things would go wrong, the eyes which always accompanied some sudden turn of fortune or twist of fate, even if they were safe like they were now, alone in space with a task at hoof and more than enough time to complete it in. She lowered her head slightly, giving thanks that her inter-helmet microphone didn’t turn on automatically to record her plea. “You don’t have to be a Sergeant anymore, Sir…” she whispered as her Captain, ignorant to her words, kept his eyes on the door before turning to face her again. “That’s enough, Dex. We need to get back to work. Get the wire placed and everything secure while I go talk to your husband,” he said gruffly, clicking the little button on his minicomputer to silence Dex’s feed while simultaneously pressing another button next to it. “Windy, what's your E.T.A?” “Another ten minutes, Captain. What’s the trouble?” the voice crackled in reply after a few moments. “Nothing, Windy. I just don’t like sitting here any longer than I have to.” “So, want me to hoof it over then?” the voice said, a suppressed chortle barely evident over their helmets’ speakers. They rolled their eyes in unison. “Yes, Windy. Please don’t ever make those jokes again.” “Oh c’mon Captain, lighten up! Geez, the one time we don’t have to worry about Alliance patrols is the one time you get all grumpy...” “Just do it, Windy. I want to get the goods, get off this wreck, and back on the ship. No complications. Just move it,” the stallion growled. Glancing over to his compatriot, he couldn’t help but notice a twinge of sadness mixed with no small dose of anger coming to a broil from behind her visor. *sigh*….if I must… He clicked the button and opened the channel again, struggling to keep his voice sounding somewhat pleasant even as his eyes contemplated murder. “...Please?” “That’s the spirit Cap’n. Be there in a flash!” came their pilot's happy reply before a fizzling *pop* silenced his connection, leaving the Captain alone with nothing but the sound of his breaths and the sizzling of the door by which he stood to distract him. He closed the connection just as Dex broke the seal surrounding the hatch in question. “Full pressure,” she stated happily, glancing behind her at the Captain, surveying the space around them again. “The goods must be intact.” “Great. Dex, get a line on those boxes: We won’t have time to sort things out, so we'll just take it all with us. If we can’t get it through the door then just rip it throu-” Windy’s voice exploded through their intercoms, shocking them both into rapt attention. “A cruiser just pinged us! We’ve got three mid-size gunships bearing down on your position!” the voice yelled hurriedly, and a shared look from Captain to First-Mate confirmed their suspicions. They were humped. “Windy, get the engine up to full speed and get your ass over here now!” the Captain shouted as he pressed the large orange button on his mini-computer, toggling the ship's intercom system from afar. “Listen up everypony, we’ve got a fair bit to do and not a whole lot of time to do it in. Windy’s in charge for now, so do as he says. Disengage the Shuttle One lock to the ship but don’t release the shuttle, we’re going to need to pull an Apple’s Folly and we can’t screw it up! ” He turned and looked back into the hatch to find all of the crates stashed upon a mesh of wires whose edges were sealed around a thick steel cable, creating a jumbled, disorganized, but sturdy net. In one swift movement, Dex grabbed every edge and began fastening them to a large steel cable the Captain was pulling from a drum on his pack. “We’re going to do a WHAT?” his First-Mate screamed through their connection as he brusquely turned her around, rifling through her pack. “An Apple’s Folly. It’s very difficult and we can’t mess it up or we can pretty much kiss our furry asses goodbye!” “And what, pray tell, is this suicidal move we are about to pull?” she gasped as the Captain grabbed a large chunk of broken metal from the hull of the ship, wrapping the thick metal cord around a few times before holding the edges together to hold it in place. “...And what the hell is that for?” “Grab that welding torch!” he exclaimed, gesticulating wildly with his hoof to the metal gun-like contraption Dex had used to cut apart the door. She slid it over the ground, the lack of gravity negating the weight as the Captain swung it up and around swiftly, dousing the wire in a cool blue plasma flare as he yelled out his rushed explanation. “We’re going to pull an Apple’s Folly: a rescue move I’ve only heard of once or twice. I guess it’s similar to Applejack’s lasso, from those stories we were told as kids. If this wire doesn’t hold or Windy shows up a second later than I need him to, you can pretty much guarantee that husband of yours will be out of a job and our pretty mugs will be the first thing people think of when they hear the word ‘cheese grater’!” Drenching the wire in the plasma stream, her Captain continued his work until the wire, white-hot and melting a little onto the steel crates underneath, was as thoroughly molten together as it could be before the heat was doused by the surrounding space, leaving nothing but the shining steely glint of molten steel behind. “Get outside the ship, Dex: I need you to catch this,” he ordered, Dex nodding before propelling herself quickly through the cut-out door frame with inequine speed. As she hurtled through space, Windy’s voice crackled once more over their relay. “Five minutes out, Captain. I don’t know what it is you’re trying to do, but those cruisers are inbound in the opposite direction, and they're coming in fast! We will need to sweep by and open the doors; you guys can just crawl in or…” “No time, Windy. I’m sending something out, and you need to catch it.” A gasp from Dex behind him, barely audible over the crackling of the cooling metal as it continued to solidify, was followed by a long radio silence. “Umm, Captain, you want me to do WHAT?” “Catch it. We have no time to explain, Windy. You’ll know what to do…” Another glance to his partner whose orange eyes, normally the placid and controlled little pools of color as he had ever known them to be, betraying slight ripple of anxiety. We’ve gotten out of worse spots, you and I, the Captain thought. But you’re right, we DO need him. “I trust you, Windy. Let’s hoof it, alright?” the stallion exclaimed, keeping his eye contact with his First-Mate all the while. Another short silence, and then: “You’ve got it, Boss. Over and out.” The Captain could hear him struggling to keep some grasp of the perilous situation they found themselves in at the forefront of his mind as the unidentified gunships barreled towards them, and he could sense that Windy’s last message had been delivered with no small smile behind those little eyes of his. Regardless, both the Captain and Dex were reassured he would be there soon, and they smiled together, knowing that their little white knight was making its way across the galactic board to rescue them from another tight spot. Closing the connection for the final time, and with a great buck from his well-tempered hind legs, the crate and trailing wire burst clear of the door and hurtled outside to be caught by Dex, her limbs planted firmly on the surrounding metal and her suit’s thruster working overtime to combat his applied momentum and their haul in zero gravity. Clipping the netting to a wire from her pack, she swung the almost-weightless crates wrapped snugly in their wire mesh through the open space as she scrambled for the top of the ship’s hull towards a large flat stretch of sheeting near the bow. Avoiding the many micro-meteorite holes which dashed and dotted the surface, she placed the netting with the crates on the surface and clambered on top as best she could, using her utility belt to strap herself to the main wire before wrapping it tightly around her legs. “Ready, Cap’n!” she barked, shielding her eyes with her free hoof from the glare of their local sun. A sun whose position in space was rapidly moving. A sun which was getting closer. She’d seen this tactic before, and a glance from the periphery of her vision confirmed her fears: this sun had split into three. “Captain, the warbirds are here!” Her voice cracking through his intercom was all he needed to jolt himself into action. Pushing the scrap metal holding their long wire in place towards the door he gave a hearty shove, pushing the metal out the door and, as the wire’s slack took hold, slightly up and out above the door frame. Taking a deep breath, he slid his hooves up against the wall on the far side of the door just as the metal weight began to rise. With a great kick from his hindlegs on the wall behind him, he rocketed out of the room like a missile and tackled the metal weight, using his forward momentum and thrusters to swing the weight out and up until it hovered over the ship like a balloon, swaying fifty feet above them in The Black. Once the weight reached its zenith, he gave one last push on the underside, propelling him towards the waiting cargo and its sole occupant. Fate decided to wait until he was just halfway between the two steel masses to turn the tables. Three bolts of multicolored lightning glanced off the bow of the wreck, leaving behind trails of charred and bubbling metal in their wake. The gunships were opening fire and rapidly closing the gap between them, tearing up the miles between them at no small speed. But no sooner had he landed on the crate did their cavalry arrive. “Coming in hot, Cap’n!” Windy’s voice came out loud and clear over the speakers as their familiar engine’s hum grew in intensity, the feedback and proximity of their radio waves screeching tinnily in their heads. No sooner could the two point out the colors of their attacker’s hulls did they see their salvation. Propelled by an everchanging wave of swirling light, their chariot rose over the far side of the wreck like a steel sun, hurtling over the mass of dead and drifting space wreckage with a limber agility and control befitting its skilled helmsman as the ship began its close orbit. A sleek silver capsule, flanked on either side by smaller propulsion engines jutting out from steel wings, swirled and spun to avoid the metal wreck’s flotsam as Windy closed the gap. Green and yellow bolts erupted from the oncoming warships, glancing off the hull above the cockpit. A few feet lower and their rescue would have been put on hold. Indefinitely. The warships, upon recognition of the offending crafts intentions, began more proximal and deadly maneuvers. Engines suddenly flaring with a greater fire, they swooped in towards the foreign craft, threatening to intercept. “Don’t screw this up Windy” the Captain growled to himself, clutching wire with his eyes closed, awaiting the inevitable. The second he closed his mouth, their pilot earned his stripes. One hundred yards out, the silver craft pulled into a lazy roll, deflecting the oncoming laser bolts from its reinforced underside as it swung its port-side engine, with extended over-engine shuttle, towards the wreckage. Just then, the main engine shut off, propelling the craft on momentum alone as the port and starboard-side engines took up the main engine’s slack. “Move, Dex! Move!” The captain shouted over their shared feed, grabbing the metal line in his hooves and pulling himself along and upwards towards the metal balloon above. With equal fervor she followed him, making sure to leave enough space between themselves and the balloon for her husband to work with. Just as the ship passed over the two waiting forms beneath, the metal balloon snagged between the shuttle’s undercarriage and the engines extended wing, forcing the balloon-like shard of metal to wedge firmly between the two. As the connection was made, the starboard-side engine pointed downwards slightly, causing the ship to swing main engine out around the balloon as a focal point. Their closest engine shut down, allowing them a brief chance to scramble up the wire and close the gap between themselves and the waiting craft. The resonating hum of the main engine through the speaker feedback was enough motivation to make a sharp and very prominent point: The engine is charging. Now’s your chance. No sooner had the connection been made did the Captain and Dex scramble up the cable, ducking underneath the port-side engine as more jagged bolts of light erupted from the advancing gunships, tickling the shuttle above their heads with dancing points of reflected light which were just as pretty as they were horrifically dangerous. In a flash, the two squeezed themselves as close to the shuttle’s hull as they could before continuing their ascent to the ship, their space barding’s magnetic hoofpads allowing for some grip on the surface. “Engine’s about 50% from fully charged. Where the hell are you guys?” Windy’s voice came loud and clear despite the rumbling engine’s din, causing them both to wince as their speakers screeched. “Punch it as soon as she’s ready. You leave our safety to me, just focus on the cargo!” was the Captain reply as he drew another, smaller, wire from a drum on his belt, clipping the attached carabiner to Dex’s barding as he made his way towards the roof of the ship with his free arm, sliding his hoof into a notch on the roof and twisting. A hiss of compressed air and gas erupted around a several square foot patch of metal as the paneling hiding the ship’s airlock split into halves, the two pieces of metal sliding inward and away to open the airlock fully. “Engine’s ready, Cap’n!” came Windy’s voice over the intercom. ~~~~~ On board, Windy grabbed a small lever with a bright red handle in his teeth and pulled outwards, the lever extending with a few clicks to lock it in place while a small sign above it with the words “Dash!” in black marker taunted him to slam it forward before its time. Just as soon as the lever was fully extended did the engine’s hum begin to increase in volume, the previous rumblings rapidly speeding up into a deep hypnotic drum as the engine kicked into overdrive. ~~~~~ Wrapping his wire to Dex in one hoof, The Captain pushed himself into the airlock with his back legs, hitting the glass beneath while pulling their shared wire with everything he had. His added pull aided in her speed as she swung herself towards the airlock, and just as her hindlegs cleared the metal plates inside her Captain punched a button on a small panel inside the airlock, watching as the plates started to slowly close, making their way towards one another. While the engine spun and droned with a deep thrum, the swirling light erupted. Flares of rainbow light grew in size and speed, orbiting the engine’s interior with a rapidly pulsing and ever-growing shine. From behind, the normally lazy pulse of rainbow light lining and swimming in the open drum formed by the engine had become a veritable hurricane of color, small bolts of lighting flickering between the arms of a miniature tempest before being pulled apart. Prominences of rainbow color erupted from ventilation holes on the outside paneling, arcing outwards like solar flares into space before being pulled back into the spinning maelstrom . Windy’s eyes flickered over the screen at the helm, monitoring the engine’s readouts for any sign of engine failure. A small ping from the helm signaled the engine’s charge was complete, and as he grinned, Windy twisted the lever 90 degrees and slammed it back into the helm with his hoof, the lever handle sliding into a carved notch on the side of the helm. Windy’s face, steeled by the pressure and galvanized by the fact his wife and Captain's lives lay squarely in his hooves, broke slightly as the edges of his mouth curled upwards into a wickedly devious grin. His eyes on the stars in front of him and his hooves twisted around the handles of the craft’s helm, he smiled at the ‘Verse laid out before him, issuing a final farewell to the warships at his heel. “Here’s something you can’t do!” ------ The few inches afforded by the airlock’s closing plates afforded the Captain and Dex a brief glimpse of the greatest light show in space: their ship's glorious Hyper-Boom. The port-side engine fired to life as the craft’s stern exploded in a ring of rainbow plasma, propelling the craft forward to breakneck speed as the funneled light channeled itself into a conical bolt of pure color. The warships behind the craft were inundated in a blinding flash of searing light, throwing their courses askew as the plasma buildup from the engine’s overdrive washed over them, melting metal and bones alike as the ships crumpled in the vacuum, hull and rainbow plasma both dripping away from the accelerating craft as the nozzle of light pushed the Captain and his crew ever forward. The metal balloon between the ship’s extended shuttle ripped open a jagged line of steel on the underside of the shuttle, luckily not piercing deep enough to sever the interior plating and pull the air out from the craft and into The Black. The attached wire took up the slack, pulling the crates on the bow of the wreck along with it with a wrenching jerk as they matched the speed of the ship, floating behind them as the craft pushed onwards. They left the wrecked ship and their previously breathing assailants smoldering from the afterglow of the Hyper-Boom, compartments crumpling in the vacuum as the plasma ate away at their metal hulls. The rest of the wrecked ship, its main body and large portions of debris unaffected by the tumult glinting in the light from the nearest star, tumbled as it always had as the sleek silvery ship above it, with cargo in tow, powered through the darkness and blinked out of sight. A few moments later, it was if they had never existed at all.