“Captain, ve’ve—”
The static noise abruptly cut off the signal, just as it had every time somepony tried to speak across the radiolink the last hours. With a scowl, the cobalt-colored mare pressed a wingtip against the earbud, growling, “I thought I had ordered radio silence, Vostok.” She grimaced as the static noise returned. Without bothering to make sure the bridge heard her, she hastily added, “I’m on my way.”
With a hard flick of her wingtip she removed the earphone and placed it on the table next to her half-filled glass. The estimated time of arrival is hours away, she thought for herself as she slowly slid a hoof around the tip of the glass. What’s so important that it’s worth interrupting her? Especially with standing orders of radio silence?
Throwing a last, wistful glance towards the drink—the strong liquid from her private bottle of Griffon Rare lying on a bed of iced rocks—she pushed it away and rose from the cushion. “Computer.”
“Yes, Captain?” answered the sing-song voice of Helion, the ship’s AI.
“Have you found the cause of the interference yet?”
The terminal, covering most of the wall, lit up as she moved closer to it. From there she could overlook nearly everything happening on the ship— from the atmospheric pressure and temperature inside the ship to Actuator and White Rose trying to hide their affair in one of the cubbyholes. With a roll of her eyes she pressed that camera away before it was too late, mentally making a note to get that room cleaned out afterwards. Maybe I should even give them a couple of cushions or—
“I’m sorry, Captain.” The AI interrupted her train of thought. “I’ve been unable to pinpoint the location of the disturbance.”
“Keep looking, it has to be here somewhere.” With her wingtips, she moved the controls as swiftly as any unicorn would, bringing up the data from the bridge. Blinking, she read it through again. “Computer, is this data correct?”
“The requested data is correct, Captain. ETA: five minutes.”
With another flick of her wingtip she scrolled through the data from the start of the journey, going through it with a trained eye. “The entire journey the ETA has been ticking down like normal. Less than ten minutes ago the ETA was set to seven hours and twenty three minutes, and now you’re telling me that we will arrive in five minutes?”
“That is correct, Captain.”
Turning around, she ordered: “Give me the bridge view.” She made her way towards the platform in the center of the room with hasten steps. Barely had she stepped up on it, before she turned back to look at the monitor. Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of the ship that were their destination, hanging there motionless and powered down in the empty space, before they narrowed again. “Computer, ascend me.”
“Right away, Captain. Shall I inform the crew?” As he spoke the platform rose towards the roof, spreading the same twinge of worry through her body as it always did.
Trying to calm down, she continued, “No. I want to get a view of the situation first.” She stretched out her wings. “Computer, my armor.”
“As you wish, Captain.”
From the edge of the platform, a circle-formed wall rose up. Barely had they stopped moving before the blue light from the scanner swiftly moved over her body. Once they had calibrated her position, the mechanical limbs shot out from the walls and started draping her in her thin, golden tinted armor.
When the arms went back into the walls, she quickly looked herself over to make sure that her armor were properly equipped. With a nod of satisfaction, she looked up at the roof above her as the wall retracted back into the platform. With a deep breath she closed her eyes and tried to push away the thought that was always present when she used the platform.
It won’t open and I will be crushed...
The sound of ponies hastily taking their places suddenly drowned the sound of the moving platform. Quickly, she opened her eyes and released the breath she had held. When the platform came to rest on the bridge she didn’t show any of the fear that had washed over her only seconds earlier. For a moment, she stood still and looked over the ponies saluting her.
“What’s the status, Vostok?” she finally asked, waving dismissively to the rest of the crew. As the crew returned to their work, she stepped down from the platform and took the first step towards the transparent dome that separated the bridge from the normally empty space outside. Her eyes didn’t leave the seemingly dead ship on the other side. “We’re not supposed to be this close to her in several hours!”
The bulky, red-tinted stallion turned his chair around to his station again, quickly flicking over the terminal as he spoke: “Ze just appear on sze screen vithout a varning—” a part of the dome was replaced by a transparent map, and the captain quickly averted her eyes to the line on it that represented their travel. “Ass you can see, ve left Kelestia fiftzeen hours aggo—” he zoomed in on the line that represented the travel and moved until it just disappeared from the map. “—szen here, it just... jump.”
She stared at the screen as he quickly moved it to their current position. “How...” she whispered as her eyes moved between the transparent map and the ship outside. With a quick shake of her head, she regained her composure. “Computer, open up a communication link with Argentum.”
As the silence were stretched between the AI and the captain, more and more of the crew stopped working to turn around and look at her. Slowly, the sound of keystroking that normally filled the bridge disappeared, until nothing more than breathing disturbed the silence.
“Computer, I gave you an order,” she snapped after three minutes of silence, her left eye twitching. “Open up a communication link with Argentum!”
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Helion answered calmly. “But Argentum isn’t answering on any channel.”
“Is the distress signal still sending?”
“Unconfirmed. I can’t get any contact at all, but my scan didn’t show any lockdown or other disturbance in the ship.” The map was replaced by a survey map of Argentum, every room filled with green indicators. “The life-supporting systems are up and running, and there’s no sign of damages on the ship’s body or machinery.”
She looked over the map, nodding to herself. “And the ship’s computer?”
“There’s no signs of it, whether it’s active or not, I’m afraid.”
“Vostok, with me.” Turning around, she started walking to the other side of the bridge and the door leading into the small meeting room there, continuing giving orders as she walked, “Computer, send after Doctor White Rose, Sergeant Stechschritt and Theta. I’m not to be disturbed until this meeting is over.”
ϑ
Actuator softly nuzzled the white unicorn mare’s neck, his cybernetic leg gently moving down her back and coming to a rest under the clothes that covered her flank. No words passed between them; they allowed their bodies to do the talking.
She smiled as she turned around—a move that was more awkwardly in the cramped area than either of them would want to admit—until she stood with her back against one of the many cases that littered the small room. With a light kiss on his chest, she slowly moved her own hoof down to his. With another kiss, she started untie the tool belt running down the side of his oily working clothes and…
“Doctor White Rose, please report to the bridge immediately.”
Surprised at the sudden announcement she broke the kiss, and for a moment they just stood there, the earth pony looking down at the smaller unicorn.
“The Bridge?” he whispered. He regretfully pulled his hoof up from her clothes, with a sigh and placed it next to her. “Ah guess it’s important then?”
She looked up at him with soft eyes, slowly correcting his belt. “I wish it wasn’t,” she admitted, reaching up to give him a kiss. “I’d rather be here.”
He returned her kiss. For the most volatile of moments they stood there perfectly still, until he broke the kiss, and the moment, and pushed away from her. “Ah know. But if they call for you... you better go. Ah can wait.”
Sighing she pushed of the case and gave him a quick hug. “I won’t be gone for long, I promise.”
“Doctor White Rose; Please report to the Bridge immediately.”
He looked her over with a smile. “Look at you, dirtying your clothes like a real mechanic pony.” He snorted as frowned down at her now grime-covered clothes.
She quickly shook her head. “For the love of... Now I have to go and get changed before I get to the bridge and—”
With a quick kiss he interrupted her. “And you won’t get there if you stand here all day, sweetie.” Gently, he pushed her in the side, forcing her to take a step closer to the door leading into the hallway.
She nodded. “I will be back as quickly as I can and then we can—” she gently swept her tail over his muzzle “—return to things.”
“Then Ah would tell you to get those cute little legs moving.”
With a smile she gave him a quick wink before she opened the door to the hallway and, after a quick glance in both directions to make sure that nopony saw her, slipped out, the door automatically closing behind her.
Actuator shrugged as he slowly counted to ten in his head. It would be enough time for her to move down the corridor. Once he had counted it down, he left the small room, not caring much whether anyone saw him or not.
Stopping in the hallway, he took a moment to look down the path of the spot-free and mellow-lit hallway that would take him to the medical care, social area, and dormitories, and in extend to the bridge. With a thin smile, he silently turned around and started walking down the other end of the hallway, towards the maintenance area.
With three sharp voice commands he brought up the screen over his left eye. The screen quickly lit up, allowing him to quickly scroll through the requested data as he walked. One of the perks with the cybernetic leg was the wireless access it gave him to the ship’s computer network. Officially, it only gave him as much clearance as he would get on the computers available to him, but during the eight years he had been stuck with the leg he had extended that authority.
He stopped mid-step, his gaze frozen on the numbers glaring back at him from the screen. His eyes darted back and forth between the three windows, all but one of them showing abnormal values occurring at the same time: just about thirteen minutes ago.
>Engines: 20e5%
>Temperature: 3.3e9 K
>Systems: Okay
“This is impossible,” he mouthed silently as he eyed the values for the fifth time. His mouth went dry as he tried to understand the numbers. A spike in the system, maybe? He quickly dismissed that thought. A spike would never get even close to these values. Nothing on this ship would ever be able to get close to these values! Maybe a failure in the reading system? That would be even more fatal.
With another sharp voice command he opened up a communication link to the engine room. As he waited for it to appear he started galloping down the hallway, remotely opening the doors before him.
“Actuator, where the—”
“What happened down there, Toroidal?” he sharply interrupted the other pony as he ran through the last door leading to the elevator, grimacing but otherwise ignoring the static that suddenly filled his ear. “These values... did something happen with the gauges?!”
“I don’t know! It just shone up like a bright light and... I tried to contact you, but with the radio silence in effect you can only get to the captain and... How did you open this link?”
“That’s not important! Gather every piece of data from this trip. Ah want every second mapped out.”
“Actuator, that’s—”
“That’s an order, Toroidal!” he snapped as he smashed the button in the elevator. “Ah’m on my way down.”
“...Right away, Chief.” The stallion on the other end sounded resentful, but Actuator quickly shrugged it off.
Using his position to get others to work was something he rarely did, but this was not the time to take things the easy way. Thirteen minutes ago... how could the entire ship not have been affected by it?! A temperature like that would have... well, caused the entire engine room, and a great portion of the ship with it, to melt! He could feel a shiver running down his spine. Even in a controlled setting, those are extreme temperatures!
“Helion,” he ordered as the elevator started descending. “Assist Toroidal with assembling the data, and that quickly. Inform Captain Aerial Strike that we might have a problem down here and that I will contact her as soon as Ah have gotten a picture of it.”
“I’m regretful to inform you that Captain Aerial Strike have ordered not to be disturbed until after her meeting. However, I will get to helping First Assistance Torodial without delay,” the calm voice informed him.
Gritting his teeth, he thought over the possibility to simply override the captain’s order about not being contacted; that was an authority he had given himself years ago. He took a deep breath and shook his head. Overriding an order from the captain like that would turn attention towards him. Questions would be asked.
Questions he rather avoided for now. After all, giving himself authority like this... that would be more than frowned upon. If he was lucky he would just get discharged.
So, resting his head against the wall, he decided to wait until he had seen the entire picture before he did anything. But if it’s something wrong with the engines or system… then I must let her know immediately. The entire ship can be at risk!
ϑ
“You called, Captain.” Every eye in the room moved towards Doctor White Rose as she stepped into the meeting room, their shared weight causing her to shrink back
“I did, Doctor. Fifteen minutes ago,” Aerial Strike said coldly. But you were to busy fooling around with your stallion friend to come here sooner, she added to herself before motioning towards the empty cushions. “Take a seat so we can begin.”
Without a word the unicorn hurried to a seat and sat down, her head hanging low. She didn’t even see the encouraging, fang-filled smile Theta gave her as she passed.
“Well then,” the captain started as soon as she had sit down herself. “As you might have noticed on your way here, we’ve arrived to Argentum several hours early.” As she spoke the screen behind her gave a view of the ship hanging dead in the empty space. “And that—”
“And how exactly did we get here this quickly, Captain?” Sergeant Stechschritt interrupted her.
The silence grew thick in the room as Aerial Strike glared at the sturdier earth pony, who met her gaze seemingly unaffected. In the end, he smiled sardonically and looked away.
Aerial scoffed as she turned her attention to include the diamond dog, the unicorn and the second earth pony as well, the last two fidgeting slightly in their cushions, wishing to be anywhere but here.
“I will let Vostok explain that, Sergeant,” she said after a moment, motioning towards the earth pony, who rose from his cushion and placed himself before a small terminal on the table.
He took a deep breath, fidgeting again with his hooves as the gathered ponies looked at him, before he cleared his throat. “A-ass sze captain zaid, ve’ve already reacshed sze zship,” he started, nervously pressing a few keys on the terminal to bring up the map he had shown the captain onto the screen. “Khow ve got here… I cann not anncvher. A moment, ve vere here—” he motioned towards the place where the line representing the travel cut off, before his hoof moved towards their current position. “—sze nexht, he—”
“Captain!” Actuator’s voice caused Vostok, as well as both Rose and Stechschritt, to jump in surprise. “Ah’m sorry to interrupt.” The screen changed to show the machine room and the mechanic standing there with a worried frown.
Aerial was the only one who seemed completely unaffected, her voice turning poisonous. “Chief Engineer Actuator. This better be important! I’m in a meeting and…” Her eyes turned hard as stone. “Computer.”
“Yes, Captain?” Helion instantly answered.
Actuator scowled. “We don’t have time for thi—”
“Didn’t I command not to be disturbed until this meeting was finished?” She raised an eyebrow towards the screen. “And is not a captain’s command an order of the fifth rank?”
“I can confirm that you did, Captain. You issued a fifth ra—”
“Section twenty three in the seventh section of command give me the right to, in a situation that can endanger the crew of the ship, override any command previously given to prevent anything to happen to the crew.” He slammed his hoof down into the desk, looming over the camera. He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “Right now, we’ve discovered such a situation.”