"Hey! What are you two idiots doing? Hand me the fucking wrench already!"
As for what those two idiots were doing, it wasn't really much. Mostly they were just joking around and stalling to see just how angry a certain griffon would get.
A couple of smacks up the head later they realized that that was a horrible idea.
"Relax Nash, jeez" an earth pony complained while rubbing his head.
One would think that one smack would be enough to teach a pony a valuable lesson about bad ideas.
Nashkata, still fuming a little, went back to work under the control panel of the cockpit (alone, again). The ship they were in was basically an old hunk of junk that had functioning systems, thanks to the efforts of its three new crewmembers and the contribution of the shipyard they were still docked at.
Nashkata, who was working under the controls of the ship, was a female griffon. Her feathers, which ran down from her head down through her neck, were a dark shade of grey. Around her eyes, it almost looked black, but that might have also been due to some makeup that she never told anyone about. Her eyes were ice blue and her beak was yellow. Her fur, which covered most of the rest of her body, was a dark navy blue, but her front feet, which were eagle claws instead of lion paws, were yellow, like her beak. Her wings were midnight black. As for size, she was built smaller than most griffons, although she was a bit more… padded in areas due to a lack of interest in any sort of class that required physical exercise, which she despised. What she lacked in physique, however, she made up for in intelligence. She aced most of her classes with flying colors, especially history. She was also incredibly accomplished at ship piloting, to the point where the instructor actually recommended her to this mission.
Nashkata was also very easily annoyed by her two friends standing around telling stupid jokes while she asked for help.
The two persistently and purposefully unhelpful stallions left before they could think of something else to do at the... ahem... "insistence" of Nashkata.
"Well, that was stupid." remarked a grey earth pony as they walked down the hall.
"No kidding. Her smacks hurt." replied the bat pony.
"Where are we headed?" the earth pony asked.
"Down to the shields. Engines and weapons might be up but we're going to die very quickly if we can't get those up."
"Yeah. Any idea what's wrong with them?"
"Looks like power supply," said the bat pony as they walked into the shield generator room, "probably something stupid like a bad power route." The shield generator room was just as dingy as the rest of the ship, but a little less austere. The room extended away and to the right of the door they had just entered, and the center of the room was dominated by a strange contraption on a circular ring. To the back right of the room there was a terminal and a seat attached to the floor. Most oddly, however, was the table in the right corner of the room, if you were still looking at the door. It looked out of place in this military ship.
"Yeah, well at least it isn't as bad as the issue with the oxygen systems was." the earth pony pointed out.
"Don't even..."
"...Yeah."
They popped open a plate near the shield terminal and took a look "under the hood", so to speak. After tinkering around for a couple of minutes they closed the hatch and stepped back.
"Okay Arts, I think you can fire it up!" the grey earth pony exclaimed.
Articule obliged and walked over to the terminal. The terminal was composed of just a screen and a keyboard, a keyboard which Articule used to activate the shields. The generator in the center of the room whirred to life and began spinning rapidly until it had reached a dull hum.
Articule was the bat pony who was responsible for most to all of the fixing done on the ship. He was colored similar to most of his species, but his fur had a strong purple tint to it and his eyes were a deep purple. His wings followed the same color scheme with a deep purple hue. In terms of stature, he was tall but a bit leaner than most of his species. Due to his constant work in engineering, he possessed a remarkable amount of strength. He had landed his spot on the ship with his skills in engineering, specifically his ability to fix old systems long past when they should have stopped functioning.
Flare was the earth pony. His coat was light grey, and his mane and tail were striped with charcoal and the same light grey in his coat.. His eyes were a brilliant gold, the kind that radiated energy and cheerfulness. He had excelled in martial arts and self defense and had the physique to show for it. He was also brilliant with all things weaponized on a ship, a trait that made him invaluable to the mission he had been assigned to.
“Did it work?” Flare wondered aloud.
As if in answer to his question, the speaker crackled to life.
“Nice job on the shield, boys” Nashkata said over the intercom. “Hey, does this thing work?”
Articule looked around and hit a button to the right of the terminal under some slats that seemed to be a communicator of his own.
“Clear as crystal. Now we can hear your beautiful voice everywhere!” Flare interjected, suddenly leaning over Articule’s shoulder and speaking into the comm.
“Fuck you Flare! Go fix the airlock so we can get the hell out of here already!” Nash yelled over the intercom.
Yelling over an intercom, in case you didn't know, ends very poorly for anyone who isn't deaf on the other end of that yell. Especially if they’re in a solid metal room that echoes.
“Nash, be quiet. You’ll break the intercom, and I’m not going to fix it if you do. We’re going to fix the airlock now, but the generator still needs some more work before we can jump." Articule spoke into the comm.
"Just go fix it!" came a less deafening command over the intercom.
Articule walked out the door into another hallway, but stopped Flare when he moved to follow.
"Go check up on the weapons room. I can do this alone."
"I've already checked the weapons systems three times! They're fine!"
"I doubt my ears will be if I'm in the same room you are with Nashkata on the other end of an intercom. Go."
"Ouch!" Flare cried in mock offense. He closed his eyes, put a hoof over his chest, and reeled back in an exaggerated manner. "That hurts -"
Articule was already in the airlock, well away from Flare's theatrics.
"Asshole..."
--------*--------*--------*--------
Airlock and cockpit fixed, the three crewmembers were down in the ship's generator, the most complex and important part of the ship.
"Lot of work for an old rustbucket" Nashkata complained.
"It has character!" Flare knocked on a box that looked rather important, as it had wires running from the generator through it to the rest of the ship, which promptly fell completely apart. "... Damn it!"
"Dipshit. Now Arts has to fix that too! And it's not like we know how to do anything with that generator.”
"Don’t worry. That was already completely destroyed. No hope of even building a new one, the wires are shot." Articule called from inside the generator. He had been working on the generator for the past half hour, and this type of noise was getting old.
"Really? Was that thing important?" Flare asked.
"It was a manual power distribution unit. It's just a backup, as long as the main one in the cockpit works it should be fine."
"Okay Nash, don't get blown up" chipped in Flare.
"Wow, wonderful advice Flare! I never would have thought of that!" Nashtaka sassed back at Flare.
"Happy to help! But seriously, you should think about things like that a little bit more."
"Yeah, because I love the thought of being blown up! I think about it every day!"
"You might want to see a doctor about that -"
"Hey, guys." Articule had emerged from the inside of the still cold reactor.
"Hey is that thing working? I want to get off the station's power and get going." Nashkata asked, peering curiously into the generator.
"I can think of something else you should really get off of before we leave."
"Shut up Flare! No one thinks you're funny!"
"Guys..."
"Uh huh. No one as in to say: you."
"Hey..."
"Kiss my ass!"
"Ok, just bend over and -"
"OI!" yelled Articule, cutting off whatever Flare was about to earn himself another smack by saying. "Give it a rest you two..."
Nashkata glared daggers at him.
"He -"
"I was thinking about the ship, and I realized something: it doesn't have a name" Articule cut across Nash, completely ignoring her attempt at defense that would only start another pointless arguement.
"So?" Nashkata inspected her talons, unimpressed.
"We should give it one."
"Why do you even give a damn?" Nashkata asked, now a little irritated.
"It's important. You'll thank me later."
"Oh shut up with all the 'you'll thank me later' bullshit! You always say that!"
"And you always end up thanking me."
"She never thanks you!" Flare butted in unhelpfully.
Articule gave Flare a look.
"Alright... what about Trash Heap?" Flare smirked.
"I'm not flying a ship called Trash Heap!"
"How about Junk Pile?" Flare gave Nashkata a look and raised his eyebrows twice in rapid succession, earning himself another smack.
"You're going to be sore as hell tomorrow at this rate."
"Nah, this is nothing compared to Royal Martial Arts. That was sore. This is funny!"
"That class... how many times did you break a bone? Five?"
"Only three, I dislocated my legs at least five times."
"No... Oh wait, are you counting that one time you tripped?"
"I thought we agreed never to speak of that!" Flare yelled indignantly over Nashkata's laughter. Articule just smiled.
"So have you got a name or are you just going to stall some more?"
"I wasn't stalling, those were some really good names!"
"I didn't spend one whole week fixing every system in this ship to have you call it a Rust Bucket."
"Yeah especially not after all that trouble we went through to fix the oxygen system!" Nashkata was actually blushing at the memory of that particular... incident.
"... Okay yeah, we need to name this something awesome." Flare relented.
"Something Awesome? That's a terrible name!" Nashkata and Flare were at it again.
This time Articule lodged himself firmly in between them and shook his head. He was starting to regret even having them in the same room.
"I was thinking we should call her something significant to our mission. Because we're running the Tetrarchy's last real hope of survival across the universe, I actually thought we could call it 'The Last of Hope'." Articule suggested.
"No." Flare and Nashkata said at once. After a quick stare in shock at each other for having agreed without a thirty minute argument, Nashkata explained "Too dramatic, and also too complicated. I think we should go for something simpler."
"How about... 'The Drunken Dragon'? That sounds cool!"
"Except for, you know, the fact that name was used by a way more famous ship in history." Nashkata shot at Flare, ending that idea.
"I was thinking something like... 'The Grey Eagle'." Now it was Nashkata's turn to receive blank stares from her two friends.
"Let's avoid egotism." Articule indicated Nashkata's own grey eagle feathers. Nashkata made a face and all three took a moment to think it through, as they realized that this was not actually going to be that easy.
Articule mumbled something to himself.
"What'd you say?" Flare queried, leaning in to hear.
"What? Oh, nothing. Just... thinking aloud I guess." Articule said distractedly.
"But what did you say?" Nashkata asked, now curious as well.
"I just asked..." Articule's tone shifted from repeating to asking "What's in a name? What are we really trying to do with one?"
"Name the ship...?" Nashkata explained as if she were saying something very obvious to a scatterbrain.
Articule looked up and pushed the matter further. "Why?"
Nashkata looked confused, but Flare was used to this line of conversation. "Because we have to have a title to a ship to get through any regulated portion of space without any unnecessary explosions."
"No. We need a designation for that. We could just pick a ten digit number and use that and already be out of this shipyard. Up until now, that was our plan."
"Okay then Arts, if you wanted to do that then why'd you suggest a name?"
"That's what I was asking."
"Then why are you asking us?" Flare played his trump card in this battle of logic triumphantly.
"Because you asked me to." Articule responded simply.
Well, Flare thought it was a trump card.
Nashkata, who hadn't really been paying attention, finally explained "We should name this ship because our mission is more than just a courier job, it's going to be a struggle to cross half the known stars or so to save an empire that could be on its last breath. Griffons, ponies, dragons, changelings, and all the rest of them will remember this forever, assuming we don't die before we get there. This mission will be remembered as the famous last stand of the Tetrarchy, so we should give this ship a name like every other famous ship in history."
After a good minute of silence, Flare spoke up. "Wow. That's deep."
"Another thing: thanks to Arts, this ship runs, but it's the last of its kind. This ship's entire class was retired decades ago. This is the last Slipper class ship to ever see service in the Royal Fleet. We are the swan song of the class of ships that defined the past century."
"Nash, you're making me feel bad about calling this a hunk of junk. Stop it." Flare pleaded.
"Nash what did you say about the Tetrarchy?" Articule asked, now thinking deeply as well.
"This is its last stand?" Nashkata tried.
"No, before that."
"Um..." Nashkata looked up and made a thinking face.
"That this is its last breath?" Flare offered helpfully.
"Yeah... I kind of like that."
"You mean 'The Last Breath'?" Flare asked. Articule nodded.
"Yeah!" Nashkata agreed, looking back down at them.
"I think that settles it then. We'll call her 'The Last Breath'!"
The three friends all looked at each other and smiled.
"Five more minutes and then we're ready to jump." Articule said through his grin.
--------*--------*--------*--------
"All systems are go!" Articule said excitedly (if you're wondering what that sounds like, imagine a normal voice).
"Everything checks out on the scanners." Nash confirmed, now in her element at the helm of the ship.
"Articule, get down to the shield room. I want you on the manual control, or else were going to get killed. Flare, well hit the weapons. Anywhere else and the shields won't be of much use when you destroy something."
"Hey!"
"Unless you want to stand in here for the interstellar jump?"
Flare took a look at the one seat with a gravity anchor, a device that prevents one from becoming a splat on the walls by causing the user to accelerate at the same rate as the ship. It was occupied by Nashkata. Flare promptly left, followed by Articule.
A minute later, after the final checks to make sure the gravity anchors were all working, Nashkata fired up the engine. The generator had already warmed up and was working fine, thanks entirely to the efforts of Articule.
"Dock control, this is the Slipper ship The Last Breath requesting permission to exit." Nashkata said into a transmitter on the control panel.
"All gear is disconnected Slipper ship The Last Breath, you are clear to exit and make your jump." the transmitter responded.
Nashkata began to slide forward on the accelerator and gently coax the ship out of the docking bay. As soon as it was clear she increased the throttle and got clear of the shipyard before coming to a halt.
"Alright boys, let's see how this bad boy holds up. Jump in five." Nashkata spoke into the comm.
"Finally!" Flare yelled back at the helm through his own communicator. Nashkata scrambled to turn down the volume and reached for the interstellar controls.
The coordinates of the jump already set, Nashkata slid up the interstellar accelerator until it could go no further.
In what looked like little more than a flash of light, The Last Breath was gone, and its crew were off to the universe.