Applejack sat at the table, drinking a fresh cup of black coffee. The soft whirring of devices gave the backdrop to her own humming. The occasional screen flickered and fizzled; several did all at once when Rainbow Dash snagged herself in low hanging cables.
She yelled out in frustration then, finding some iota of calm, hung there like some kind of colourful and fuzzy adjutant. She gave a wriggle, just on the offchance it’d work to get her loose. It didn’t.
“A little help?” she muttered.
“In a sec.” Applejack sipped at her drink. Dash grumbled.
“Why’s our command centre so...so darn closed in?”
“Well maybe if you stopped trying to fly inside here, this wouldn’t happen.” Applejack tapped her chin with thought. “What do you think Dash: Orbital or Planetary?”
“What?” The pegasus gave an emphatic wriggle, but the thick cords and cables did little more than play along with her efforts. “Does it matter?”
Applejack sighed and set down her coffee, only half drank. Half full or half empty didn’t matter. What mattered was that there was caffeine in there that wasn’t yet in her. She felt that beyond this solid truth, perspectives were a bit surplus. She took to freeing Dash with little energy, but with the skill of one well versed in the perils of ropes of all sorts.
“It does matter,” she went on to say as Dash dropped with a light, airy blast from her wings. “There’s distinct advantages to both, and I’d like it if our command centre, as in, the centre from which we command and are inside of right now-”
“I get it, sheesh.”
“-had that kind of advantage.”
Dash struck out in a few stretches, the farmer went back to musing over her hot drink.
“Don’t sweat it, Applejack. Weren’t we like, both in first place when Derpy announced the placement scores? Well, I certainly was anyway. We got this in the bag.”
“It pays more to be catious than cocky, Rainbow Dash. And one of those wins of yours would be counted as cheating if you pulled that stunt again. Not that I blame you, I watched the cast...”
“Yeah, that guy totally had it coming.”
“But that’s not the half of it. Darla has to stay at home, ever since that warmachine found she had a heart for peaceful farming. I just don’t have it in me to take her away from that. Otherwise, it seems that Fluttershy apparantly has cheat codes, Rarity already has a base up and running, Twilight lost on a tiny yet humerous technicality but is still absurdly powerful...and on top of all that, Pinkie Pie.” The drones of machinery filled the silence best they could.
“Pinkie Pie what?”
“I don’t know,” Applejack whispered. “That’s just the thing. She tied for first as well, and there’s no predicting what angle she’ll be coming at us from. So I’d like to be ready for as much of everything as possible.”
Dash stirred the air with a few easy wing strokes. “Okay, okay, I get you. Don’t get cocky, yeah, it’s still anypony’s game, yeah. In that case, I say we go Planetary. Armor, cannons, hay, we’ll be armed with canon! Can’t go wrong with that.”
“...leave the jokes to Pinkie Pie.”
“Oh come on, that wasn’t half bad.”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “Ok, in fairness it wasn’t. But leave the fourth-wall jokes to Pinkie Pie.”
“Fine,” Dash snorted.
“And frankly, I was thinking going for Orbital myself. It flies, you know. Planetary’s can’t.”
“Yeah, which means I could get stuck with running escort for a flying glacier. I hate escort quests.”
“We all do, Dash. We all do.” She took a heady draught of the hot black nectar. “All the same, it stands to reason. There’s more utility with the Orbital.” Applejack knocked back the rest of her coffee, sighing out a breath of steam and roast beans. “Come on.”
The pair of mares stepped outside. There was the hiss of airlocks and blast doors, then brilliant daylight. Rainbow Dash exploded into flight.
“Yes! Outside!”
“We agreed on the Orbital upgrade then?” Dash did a few knife-edged turns, exhilerating in her own flight. Even ground-bound Applejack smiled and eased up.
“Yeah, sure, whatever. Do it.”
“Done,” she said, and pressed a big green button. A minute of growling hydraulics and shaking earth later and it was over. A huge signal dish was perched atop the new Orbital Command.
“Oh look here, it starts with enough energy for a function. I’m gonna test one.” Applejack pressed the ‘extra supplies’ button.
First, nothing seemed to happen. Then Dash yelped somewhere in the sky overhead and she looked up. “What the-” the pegasus cried out. Applejack held her hoof up in front of her.
An Apple made apple pie landed perfectly balanced on her hoof, steaming with moisture and scrumptiously fresh. There was a note attached.
Have a nice day Applejack. Love,
Granny XOXOXO
P.S. the pie might be hot from atmospheric reentry baking, so don’t burn yourself.
P.P.S Be sure to share some with that nice pegasus what hangs around here and sleeps alot, you know the one. I don’t think she eats proper, so you be sure to feed her good.
P.P.P.S. Don’t ruin your supper.
P.P.P.P.S. Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh say hi.
“Love you too, Granny,” Applejack whispered under her breath. Dash landed next to her, her jaws helplessly trying to form coherent words.
“What...what the...”
“Want some pie?” Applejack asked. Dash considered, seemed to decide that the answers weren’t worth her sanity, and shrugged.
“Yeah, sounds good. I’m pretty hungry anyway.” She glanced up at the huge satelite dish. “I hope we get HD channels with that,” Dash said as they wandered back inside.