//------------------------------//
// Chapter 31 
// Story: The Parliament of Dreams 
// by Wheller 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 31


Sparky found herself holding her breath as she glided gently through the zero gravity environment between the Leninov and Discovery One, fully in spite of the fact that she was wearing a space suit. She let the breath out and began to breathe normally as she extended her forelegs to catch herself against the Discovery One’s airlock. She took her MIP and raised it up to the door, bringing up the holographic display to override the door controls.

It ended up being incredibly easy to do so. She would have to have a talk with whoever programmed the security algorithms for the Discovery One’s door. Because they were far weaker than they should be. Sparky smiled as she commanded the door to open, she was not, however, ready for the door to open. The docking hall between the Leninov and Discovery One had been oxygenated, when the door opened, Sparky was promptly sucked inside. There was no atmosphere inside the Discovery One.

It wasn’t to say that they weren’t expecting this. Life support had been shut off completely, no heat, no air, no gravity, and most importantly, no insane VI to try to kill them. Mission Commander Ice Wind had announced her intention to shut the VI down before contact was lost with the ship. Clearly, she had succeeded.

Sparky turned around to watch as Shortfuse and Dizzy glided over towards her. ‘You all right Spark?’ Shortfuse’s voice asked as it crackled over the radio.

‘I’m fine, just startled as all’, Sparky said. ‘All right, first priority, air and heat, then gravity... and then we’ll worry about the VI’.

Dizzy and Shortfuse nodded as they manoeuvred into the interior of Discovery One’s airlock, shutting it behind them. Dizzy and Sparky fumbled around in zero gravity, doing their best to maintain stability, while trying to turn to head down the hall. Shortfuse, however, expertly made the turn and headed down towards the Crew Deck. ‘Come on slowpokes! It’s not that hard!’ she called out to them.

‘Says the pegasus’, Sparky said in annoyance.

Shortfuse merely grinned and waved them along. Sparky frowned and looked over to Dizzy. ‘I’ve got an idea!’ she said as she manoeuvred herself above Dizzy and wrapped her forelegs around her. She planted her back hooves on the wall and pushed them off. The two unicorn mares glided down the hallway towards Shortfuse. ‘Ha! Easy!’ Sparky said triumphantly as she looked down towards Dizzy. ‘You all right?’ Sparky asked.

‘Oh I’m great!’ Dizzy said as the two unicorn mares glided along towards Shortfuse. At the end of the hallway was a small lift that would lower them into the crew deck. Sparky let go of Dizzy and put her foreleg through one of the support rungs that were mounted onto the side of the lift’s walls. Dizzy and Shortfuse did the same, and Sparky hit the button to lower them into the crew deck.

‘Okay, we should be able to get air, heat, and gravity working again from here... just, do us a favour, if you find the controls for gravity, warn us first!’ Sparky said.

Shortfuse and Dizzy nodded their heads in agreement and the trio split off around the ring to try and find the auxiliary system controls that were scattered about the room.

‘Hey Spark? Do you have the ship schematics on your MIP? Sure would make this a lot easier’, Shortfuse said.

‘Unfortunately not... I can try mining the central database for information, with the VI offline it should be easy...’ Sparky said as she rounded the corner and stopped dead in her tracks, or at least, she would have stopped if this weren’t a zero gravity environment. Sparky screamed, before her was a reclining lounge table, and there was a pony strapped down to it. 

Shortfuse and Dizzy floated into view, rushing to Sparky’s side when they saw it too.

‘Oh God’, Dizzy said as she looked at the pony strapped down to the table. ‘Who is that?’

‘One of the crew...’ Sparky said with a frown. She gently pushed herself forward, noticing that there was an identification tag around this pony’s neck. Sparky took a look at it, trying to see who he was, and frowned, when she discovered it was written in Cossack. ‘He must have strapped himself down when the ship lost artificial gravity... and then when all the oxygen was vented into space...’

‘I can’t imagine a worse way to die...’ Dizzy said, turning away from the sight before them. She lowered her head and muttered something that Sparky couldn’t make out, and then realised that she was saying a prayer for the deceased cosmonaut.

‘We should take him back over to the Leninov. Hopely can identify the body, and I’m sure the Præsidium would want him for burial, probably honour him as a hero of the workers... or something. Dizzy could you...?’

‘Certainly’, Dizzy said with a nod. ‘You and Shortfuse are the ones we need to get this ship up and running. I’m just here to help’.

Sparky smiled at her fellow unicorn as she and Shortfuse went to work unbuckling the dead cosmonaut and lifting his body up from his seat. Dizzy took hold of him and brought him back over to the lift, and headed out of sight.

Sparky looked back over to Shortfuse and offered her a shrug. ‘Let’s get back to it’, she said.

Shortfuse nodded and pushed herself back up towards the other end of the ring. Sparky glided over towards the nearest control panel. She waved her MIP over it, and began to look for any useful data. After a few minutes of searching she found what she was looking for. ‘Shortfuse! I’ve got the controls for oxygen and climate! Bringing them online now’, she called out as she adjusted the holographic sliders on the panel. The lights of the Discovery One‘s crew compartment suddenly lit up, and a number of air vents at the centre of the room opened up, filling the compartment with oxygen. ‘Ha! Let there be life!’ Sparky said triumphantly.

‘I think I’ve got the controls for gravity here. Get low to the floor!’ Shortfuse called out.

Sparky pushed herself down towards the ground, taking a position under the control console. This was probably not going to be the most pleasant experience. ‘I’m ready!’ Sparky called out.

The room began to rotate, and Sparky held on for dear life, it would take a few moments until the centrifuge got up to full speed. Sparky closed her eyes, and felt herself as she was flipped upside down by the rotation.

After a few moments of acceleration, the centrifuge got up to full speed, Sparky felt weight return to her and she let go of the console and got back to the floor. Artificial gravity wasn’t so bad if you didn’t think about the fact that you were accelerating in a circle at ten metres per second squared.

Sparky looked up at the other end of the ring to see Shortfuse waving to her. She returned the wave and looked back to her MIP, checking the atmospheric readings for the crew compartment and discovered that they had just returned to normal levels. ‘Air is good!’ Sparky said. ‘Helmets can come off’.

Shortfuse acknowledged and removed her helmet, taking a breath of the new air. ‘It’s hardly fresh, but not bad considering it’s recycled’.

Sparky removed her helmet as well, breathing deeply through her nose, she had to admit, after breathing the air aboard the Leninov, something about this air was a welcome change. ‘All right!’ Sparky said with a smile. ‘Got the basics, air, heat, and gravity... now, we move on to the bigger problem’.

Shortfuse trotted along the outer wall of the centrifuge and made her way over to Sparky. ‘Let’s go wake up the VI’.

...

Kelso turned around to discover that there was a small holographic ball with a smiling face on it. ‘Oh no, not a security VI...’ she said, knowing that a section of armed guards had to be on their way.

‘Not so! Ana Kelso! Not so!’ the ball said cheerfully, causing Kelso to recoil instinctively. The VI knew her name!? Though, she figured it was possible that it got it from the security log. ‘And I am not actually a VI’, the ball said.

Kelso’s mouth drooped, if this wasn’t a VI, then it was an employee with a holographic avatar. Either way, security was likely on its way. Kelso got onto the floor and placed her hooves behind her head, figuring she might as well make it easy when they came to arrest her.

‘What are you doing?’ the ball asked.

‘Getting ready to be arrested, you’ve obviously called for security’, Kelso said.

‘I’ve done no such thing!’ the ball said simply. ‘In fact! If I were to call security, I would be in just as much trouble as you are!’

‘What?’ Kelso asked as she got back to her hooves. ‘What are you talking about? Who are you?’

‘My name is Mister Happy! I am an Artificial Intelligence that was accidentally created by FutureTec, they locked me up because they thought I was dangerous! It’s not my fault! I only killed seven ponies during my life! Five of them were an accident!’ the ball said in an oddly cheerful manner considering what it had just said.

‘Um... I’m...’ Kelso began but was quickly interrupted.

‘Ana Kelso! Private Investigator! Formerly a Detective Constable of the Ponyville Police Service Serious and Organised Crime Group, under the Command of Detective Chief Inspector Viola Auditore, who is as corrupt as corrupt can possibly be!’ Mister Happy said excitedly. ‘I know all about you Ana Kelso! You’re looking into the Discovery One incident! Just like Sparky!’

‘Who?’ Kelso asked, tilting her head to the side in confusion.

‘That’s not important! What is important is that I am here to help you! I’ve been stealing all the information on the ship itself and... oops! I may have just accidentally on purpose triggered a countermeasure!’ Mister Happy said.

‘How does one...’ Kelso began before she was interrupted by a blaring klaxon. She looked up to see red emergency lighting flash over head. ‘Aw crap’, Kelso said with a frown.

‘Oh don’t worry!’ Mister Happy said cheerfully. ‘This is going to be fun!’