//------------------------------// // 14 - Departure // Story: The Stars Beyond The Veil // by Charlemane //------------------------------// Chapter 14 Departure “I heard the alarm! What’s going on!? “I-I don’t know what caused it! One moment everything was fine and then suddenly everything went haywire!” “Thirty-seven percent! Sir! We’re losing containment!” “Throw the emergency failsafe!” “I-it’s not working! Oh goddesses... we just lost the sun!” “We're going to die... we're all going to die.” -3339 EC. Talisman disaster claims Equestria Prime. “And done!” Tickintime declared as she gave the panel a smart tap. The holo projector sputtered in and out, coughing up a brief visual of its startup sequence before finally settling into a quiet, steady hum as it flared to life, drowned out by the cheers everypony present. It was day two of our journey, and Tick’s makeshift receiver marked the end of a great deal of boredom. The collection of holos I had bought turned out to be short lived, more due to consternation than a lack of activity. It turned out that the corny martial arts and action flicks I had picked up were in the grocery’s bargain bin for a reason, and frankly, weren’t as funny as I thought they would be. Not to mention some weird, fetishized romance movie that somehow snuck its way into the mix. Granted, they were fun to make fun of at first, but after enduring three extremely terrible movies we concluded that the rest were probably just as bad and deserved the fate they received a few minutes later, involving lasers and what I’m just going to call team-building exercises. On the bright side, my aim improved! I guess I just needed the right motivation. Though not before Tick made sure I was hitting something relatively similar to a target and not the ship’s bulkheads. After the holos had been exorcised. The ship returned to the bored quiet I had been fearing since the start of the trip. Sure, destroying the holos had been funny for the first ten or twenty minutes, but after hour two, we all sort of realized that we might have made a terrible mistake. Except for the chick flick. We all sort of agreed to never speak of that one again. In the ensuing boredom, Tick had the brilliant idea to feed a comm line down into the living area, planning to connect it to the holo projector if only to get us a source of the galactic news and a link to the M-Net. She scored one out of two. Sadly we couldn’t transmit since the holo lacked any real interface, but it did pick up some of the random channels that were floating around, and really, when you’ve got access to the Net, what more do you need? Too bad the next jump would take us beyond the repeater range. “Nice work, Tick,” I said, eagerly flipping through the channels with my WAND. So far, no dice, just a channel selling jewelry, and static. “Thanks! I do my best.” Tick responded cheerfully, packing up her toolbox and hefting it alongside her in her magic. “I’ll say, and here I thought I was going to miss my soap,” Jess said. “You watch soaps?” Nightshade asked skeptically, poking his head up from the small tin of mash he was eating. The white pegasus merely smiled. “They entertain me,” Jess said. I kept flipping channels. “So, the next jump is out of beacon range, anything you guys want to see before we lose our new toy?” “Do we pick up popular mechanics?” Tick chimed in, taking a seat on the couch and suddenly wincing. The couch must have said hello. She turned and frowned at the rogue piece of furniture, before adjusting her position and settling back down, albeit a bit more wary. I flipped a few more channels, pausing on a couple of news broadcasts, and storing the channel frequencies on my WAND. They would be useful later. “Dunno, most of what I’ve seen is static and… well, less than reputable news casts.” Tickintime sighed, “Well it was worth a shot. Still, I could probably strengthen the connection next time we enter a port. I’ll have to do some work on the comm suite outside, but I should be able to get something working with the right parts.” “You don’t have what you need from that mess in the cargo hold?” Nightshade asked, cleaning his face with a napkin, and tucking it inside the open tin. Tickintime shook her head. “I’d need special equipment, I can’t just go poking into the comms willy-nilly. Not unless you want mark us as hostile to every ship in sensor range.” “Point taken,” Nightshade relented. “Wait! Wait! Go back!” Jess suddenly called. I stopped flipping channels and went back a few. The broadcast solidified into a picture of a beach and an hourglass narrated by some buck in the background. “Eeee!” Jess squealed, jumping onto the couch beside me. “We do get my soaps!” Everypony groaned. “Yeah, have fun with that,” Nightshade said, getting up and throwing his tin into the makeshift garbage can—another Tickintime special—that had been set up next to the fridge. “I’m going to go check on the pilot cabin,” I said, capitalizing on the opportunity to avoid wasting an hour in the grips of daytime television. Extracting myself from between two eager mares, I hurriedly made my way out of the room before I started drowning in sap. *** “Hello, beautiful, it’s been a long time.” I lovingly traced my hooves around the ship’s controls while I finished strapping myself in. The blinking lights and chirping sensors of the Scrap Bandit’s cockpit were like music to my ears as I finally settled into the pilot’s chair for what felt like the first time in weeks. It was plush, or at least in comparison to the harness that used to sit in its place. Sighing contentedly, I took in the sights and sounds with a sort of reverence that only a real pilot could understand. Thinking back to a time before I had my own ship almost gave me nostalgia. Almost. It’s hard to miss a stinking pile of crap. Regardless, it felt right, sitting there. I was finally flying my ship. My ship. Well, jumping it anyway. Typically, when you’re on a long journey there’s really not much ‘flying’ done. Most of your time is spent doing diagnostics or other inane tasks while the Sparkle Drive cools down, tasks which I had grown particularly fond of over the years, despite everything they normally entailed. “You know, I think I’m beginning to understand what my parents saw when I got my first engineering kit,” somepony said. I leaned around the seat to face the sky blue unicorn behind me. Tickintime wore an amused smile, still wearing her drab engineering overalls and hefting a small wrench in her magic. “Do you ever knock?” I said, feigning offense, “I’m having a moment here.” “I know, the googoo eyes were a dead giveaway,” Tick laughed. “Get tired of Jess’ soaps already?” I asked with a smirk. “Nah, It’s a rerun, It played in the Core just last week.” Tickintime shrugged, and then pulled open a panel with her TK. “Besides, I wanted to get a little more work done on my project in the cargo bay.” “What is that anyway?” I asked. Before our movie binge, she had been assembling something with the parts she bought in the cargo hold. I stopped in to watch at one point, marveling at the way her magic could peel off the steel sheets and bend them into the shapes she needed. Whatever it was, it was round… ish, almost orb-like, save for the bits that weren’t… uh… orb-like. You know what, nevermind. “Oh! I’m trying to build a little medibot! I figured since we don’t really have any doctors aboard, we could probably use the added help.” Tick said, levitating out a small tool she had left inside the panel and then closing it with a soft clack. “That, and I really can’t tell what kind of trouble you ponies typically get into, so it pays to be cautious.” I blinked. “Well, you’re full of surprises.” She shrugged. “Not really, I used to work on them for the ponies in Medical. You’d be surprised how many clients a little circuitry expertise can get for you,” Tick smiled, tucking her tools back into her barding. “Anyway, I’m heading back down. Have fun romancing the throttle,” She giggled. “Oh, laugh it up,” I called back as she left, the door closing quietly behind her. Taking a deep breath, I settled into a more comfortable position in my chair, my wings flaring momentarily as I adjusted my balance. Connecting my WAND to the control deck, I hooked into the last few nodes I needed for a complete interface. “Go time,” I said, rapidly flicking switches and starting a full systems test. Thrusters, green; Main power, also green; drone control, no, that was still offline; many of the new systems read green, including the new turrets, which were still set to manual. I bristled at that, but it couldn’t be helped. I didn’t trust the Bandit to auto-acquire just yet. The back-up grid was now online; Sparkle Drive in good condition; communication suite all in order, minus the small glitch that had just been introduced. Navigation was online and optimal. One by one, the remaining systems all reported green. With a big smile, I opened up the sensor suite and started scanning the readouts. We were in open space, and had been for the last few jumps. Jess had switched with me for cabin duty after we left the PC, leaving me in charge of the jumps while she got a few more hours of rest in. In our small pocket of space, there was absolutely nothing around, no debris, no asteroids, no other ships, just, nothing. I would have to do some math, which I hated, but it didn’t look like I’d get an accurate sense of the Bandit’s current capabilities any other way. Easing up the throttle, I tested a short burst on the thrusters first. The ship rumbled forward, the motion marked only by the changing coordinates in my readout. Hooking my WAND into the nav feed, I started plotting the progress we were making into one of the many programs I had picked up to help with navigation, particularly the system diagnostics. I smiled at the results. The thrusters were working beautifully. In her spare time, Tick had done a little optimization on the control node, and as a result, halved the response time. Sadly, the thrust had suffered. With the new systems that Nightshade had installed came new mass. They might have worked faster, better, and stronger, but now they were pushing more. My smile tempered by the numbers I was getting, but ultimately I brushed it off. A moving ship was better than a broken one. Pitching up, I felt the G’s build as I pulled the Bandit into a slow climb and roll. The positioning thrusters worked just as well as before, sans a few.hiccups with the newly mismatched systems, I made a note to tell Tick about that later. Closing my eyes, I let myself drift a moment before finally levelling back off on my original trajectory and killing my momentum. The ship lurched, but held wonderfully. My satisfied grin lasted until a white pegasus came barreling through the cabin door. “ARE YOU QUITE DONE?” Jess yelled, a wild twitch in her eye, and her uniform visibly wrinkled. “I’m checking the capabilities of my ship. I haven’t had a chance to do this since… well it’s been a while. It is standard procedure, you know.” My confident smirk made the bitter look on her face twist a little more to my divine satisfaction. Her grimace turned to dismissal. “Fine, whatever, just give me some warning before you start doing that again, I nearly got skewered by that damn couch of yours thanks to that little stunt.” She rubbed a spot on her side where the couch had said hello. “Yeah, it takes some getting used to,” I admitted. “I think the floor was more comfortable than that smelly old thing,” Jess muttered. “How long ‘til the next jump?” she asked. I checked my readout on the Sparkle Drive before answering. “About ten minutes,” I said. “After this we’re on our own. The emergency beacon won’t be able to reach any repeaters.” Jess nodded solemnly. “I’ll tell the others. Let us know before you punch it; I like my lunch where it is.” “No promises,” I returned. “So much for my soap,” I heard her mutter as the door shut behind her. I returned to the controls and settled in for the remaining flight. ***** The novelty didn’t last. It had been weeks since the last time I had actually been in the pilot, and I had forgotten just how boring it was to be in there. That wasn’t even the worst part. The constant ping and beep of the control board was something of a novelty, but after the first few hours it went from new and interesting, to piercing screech of ear-death that repeated every two minutes or so. Yes, or so. I’m pretty sure the system still had some optimizations left, because the ping of the scanners never took the same time twice. This hadn’t been a problem before the bandit was fixed, there was no air for it to matter. Now, it was like one of those friends who wouldn’t shut up and always thought of the exactly wrong thing to say at the right time. Thank Luna that it was finally over. I powered the Sparkle Drive for our final jump and sat back, eye twitching as the scanner once again mocked me. With a set frown I watched the readout on the Sparkle Drive’s charge slowly rise, anxiously hoping that we’d be able to jump before that accursed ping sounded again. Seventy-five percent. Eighty-five. Ninety. PIING “Final Jump,” I said over the intercom, somehow managing not to scream obscenities at the top of my lungs. Not hesitating a moment longer, I punched it. One bright flash and sickening lurch later, my WAND chirped. Navigation complete. I blew out a long raspberry, slumping in my seat as I more perfectly melted into the pilot’s chair. Yup, another day in paradise. PIING Fuck you, ship. Nightshade did not look happy. “You know, Officer, I’m pretty sure keeping an entire season of that stupid show on your WAND isn’t part of your standard procedure.” Jess looked smug. “You enjoyed it and you know it,” she said, “besides, it’s not just one season.” The look of dawning horror on Nightshade’s face was one I would remember for a while. “Reruns,” Tickintime explained with a shrug, “it turns out she’s loaded with em.” I shook my head, and set the sensors to active. “Let’s just see what’s out there.” The scan only took a few seconds. We were off target, but still within a short burn from our objective, whatever it was. It was also behind us. Trundling the maneuvering thrusters, I set the ship in an easy turn and then leveled off once I was sure I was lined up with target, or at least according to the sensors, we couldn’t really see anything in the current light. “Hey Nightshade, could you kill the cabin lights?” A grunt and a click was the only response I got. Immediately, the cabin descended into a red-lit darkness. I gave the main thrusters a gentle nudge, and then squinted to find my target while I waited for my night vision to adjust. We were in a pocket of empty space, far from any nearby stars. The four of us stood in relative silence as we peered out the viewport, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever it was we were there to find. After a few minutes of searching I finally caught a glimpse of its outline. “I think I see it.” I said, alerting the others. “Where?” Nightshade asked, his eyes flicking around the dark. “Outline, small dark patch in the stars over there,” I said. “Down six, third quadrant.” “I see it.” Jess replied immediately, “What’s our distance?” “Scanner says fifteen.” Kilometers, by the way. Some of the instruments on the Bandit use different systems of measurement. It gets really annoying. Confuses the hell out of me, too, especially since I have to keep bouncing between them. I blame Junkyard for that one. ”Though, knowing the scanner it could be anywhere from five to fifty.” “I still don’t see it,” Nightshade said, squinting in the dark. “If it’s any consolation, neither do I,” Tickintime replied. Pegasus vision at its finest. “I’ll bring us in closer. You’ll see it soon enough.” I gunned the engines, now confident enough in my position to avoid ramming anything. A few minutes later we were well within visual, even if the ship was still too dark to make out against the starfield. I slowed our forward movement, bringing us into a slow float toward the target while we all got a better look at it. Dark and unrecognizable against the starfield, the mass of the… thing, stood out on the field like an ink stain on a black dress. It was large, that much I could tell, not quite as large as the cargo ship Nightshade had dragged me out on, but certainly approaching its size. Smaller details slowly became visible as we closed the distance. The flash of slowly tumbling debris, hanging around its port side indicated some type of weapons damage, and while we couldn’t see the specifics, the cloud of stray wreckage grew little by little as we got a better angle on the ship. When we had closed the distance, I kicked on the spotlight. There was a collective intake of breath. “Holy… wow.” Tickintime, muttered. Spotless. Granted, the ship had been inarguably destroyed, but what remained still looked like it had a lot of kick in it. The damage to the ship had been primarily superficial from the looks of things. What was really interesting, however, was the shape. “What the fuck is this thing?” I muttered, tilting my head sideways and squinting. The design was unlike anything I had ever seen before in my salvaging career. It lacked the graceful curves the horn heads preferred or the stalwart plating of the earth empires. It sure as hell wasn’t a pegasus ship, the angles were all wrong. It didn’t look like it was built for aesthetics, more utilitarian function with a little form thrown on top, but it did look old. Really old. “I’ve only seen this kind of design in textbooks,” Tickintime muttered absentmindedly. “You’ve seen this before?” I asked, curious. She shook her head, “I’m not sure.” I swung the spotlight back and forth over the hull, casting odd shadows where a piece of debris floated in the way. Something caught my eye as it passed and the light brushed against something black and twisted. I snapped it back onto the object. It was a repeating cannon, blasted horribly out of shape, and much, much too large for a civilian craft. “That’s no cargo barge,” I said, quickly discovering two more of the blasted turrets. “That’s a battleship,” Jess finished. Tickintime suddenly gasped. “Back! Go back!” I brought the spotlight back to the area in question, squinted, and then saw it. The ship’s emblem. It was badly scorched, but near the center I could faintly make out a light and a dark object orbiting a purple star. Tickintime’s jaw dropped wide enough to drive a car through. “Tha… th- that...” “You recognize that?” Jess asked Tick. “That’s the emblem of the old empire,” she responded breathlessly. My eyes snapped open as I took another look at it. An old history lesson from my pilot training came to mind. Immediately, I started looking for the other indicators. Five more stars, surrounding the center, check. If I was a betting pony, I would have sworn that the blast mark was obscuring the text, 'Concordia Aeternum'. Frantically, I started running scans. The minutes we waited for the result dragged on forever. When I finally got the result, I took a deep breath. Perfect. Perfect condition. Despite significant damage to the hull, the inside was squeaky clean, and even had some faint traces of power. The plating obscured most of the scans, but from what I could tell, the ship was in great shape, for salvaging, anyway. No wonder Junkyard wanted this so bad. A find like this could be worth some serious bits. The question remained, though, how did he find it? “Fuckin’ hell, Junkyard,” I muttered under my breath. “We have got to get on board that thing,” Tickintime said. A chorus of agreement followed. Easing off the engines, I brought us into a careful park as close as I would dare. “Suit up,” I said. ***** We stood in silence as we put the finishing touches on our gear, crowded into the Bandit’s airlock, with helmets on and nerves high. I slipped my last of the plasma cutters into my suit storage, while I fought off the niggling sensation of wrongness worming its way through my confidence. I set my jaw to chase it away, and checked the straps on my pistol one final time. This time there would be no chances. I raised my foreleg to check the sight against one of the walls, drawing an eye from Tickintime, as she finished adjusting the odd, bubble helm hooked into her utility uniform. “Do you really think we’re going to need that?” Tick asked, glancing nervously at the weapon. I set my leg down, and turned my head and flashed her a smile. “Probably not, but I’d rather be safe than sorry,” I said. “Or dead,” Nightshade added, checking his own weapon before sitting down on the floor. Tick grimaced, passing Nightshade an uncertain glance before Jess intervened, nudging her with a wing. “Don’t let the grouch get you down, girl, I’m sure we’ll be just fine,” Jess said. “It’s not like we have to worry about the crew or anything. Maybe some automated defenses, if even that. We’ll be in and out in no time.” “If you say so…” Tick said, looking away. “If you’re having second thoughts—” I offered. “No! no. I’m... um, I’m good.” With a final nod to the others, I took my position next to the airlock control. “Door opens in, five.” I announced, securing the interior side of airlock. Everyone checked their seals, and then settled back down into position. “Four. Three.” I hovered over the release control, glancing over at Tickintime who gave me a small nod. “Two. One. Zero.” I pushed the button. A loud clang sounded as the door locked in place, followed by a dying whoosh as the air in the chamber cycled out. I turned to face the outer hatch and waited for the light to turn green while the other ponies shuffled in position. Ten seconds. Twenty. Green. The hatch unlocked and Nightshade gave it a solid push. Moments later, the gravity disengaged and we all made clambered out onto the Bandit’s hull. “So, any idea what we’ll find in there, Salvager?” Nightshade asked, casting a wary glance at the dead battleship looming ominously above us. I had parked us as close as I dared to the wreckage, and this time, made extra sure to account for any possible drift. The last thing I wanted was to do yet another unassisted free float through dead space.Once was enough. I smiled back at Nightshade, despite how pointless the gesture was with my helmet covering most of my face. “None whatsoever,” I said, “but if it’s good enough to get Junkyard excited, it’s probably valuable to somepony.” “Oh we’ll find something valuable, alright,” Tick chimed in over the radio. She stood beside me on the hull, looking up at the ship with an expression I couldn’t quite place in the dark. “Old world tech is super valuable, heck just finding this ship is enough to warrant placement in a museum.” “Sadly, museums don’t pay finder’s fees,” Nightshade casually replied. I nodded in agreement. “Let’s get to it then,” I said, and then kicked off toward the behemoth above us. My float was gentle. While keeping a wary eye on several shards of debris in my path, I managed to sail freely toward the wreck and land with a soft thump that I felt more than heard. Looking up, I saw Nightshade come in next, and land with the grace of a flying elephant. I felt that one too. “I’m okay!” Nightshade called. “Rookie!” Jess laughed as she landed gracefully behind him, with Tick just a few moments behind her. Landed, we spread out on the deck in a small circle. “Alright, split up and look for entry points,” I called, pulling out one of the plasma cutters and loading it with a charge. “Airlocks, damage to the armor, anything that’ll get us in.” I slapped the charge home and the cutter powered up, the safety light flicking to green. With a silent nod to everyone else, we all split up and started looking. Minutes passed. I scoured the underside looking for a chink in the ship’s armor, or an access hatch of any sort. “Found something!” Nightshade called a few minutes later. Within a few seconds we were all standing next to him, Headlamps flashing over the small impression on the hull. I recognized it immediately. It was an airlock, and from the looks of things, still operational, if barely. A small, orange control panel flickered weakly next to the frame. Reaching out with a leg, I gave it a press. The door hitched, pressing into the surface of the ship, while venting a small amount of gas into space. With a jerk, it slid open with a final, mighty effort before catching on the frame and getting stuck halfway. Nightshade and I helped it along, forcing it open just far enough to fit the rest of us before we all piled inside. Once inside, we all got comfy as Jess sealed the door behind us. The small, dimly lit airlock felt a little cramped with all of us inside it. If I was a betting pony I would wager that it was used as a maintenance port, though the lack of any utility lockers or tool boxes shed some doubt on my theory. I stood next to the door, craning my neck around as I looked for the interior pressure controls as other headlamps bobbed around searching for the same. After some awkward shifting, I found the button on a panel next door, with what looked like warning text written in illegible old Equish. I prodded button to cycle the air and was greeted by the oh-so-comforting hiss of oxygen filling the chamber. I made a quick environmental scan with my WAND’s analyzer. A few moments later I had my report. “The air’s clean,” I said, touching the release on my helm. My helmet came off with a click, caught in my WAND’s TK. I took a sniff and grimaced, “if a little stale.” Nightshade was the next to release his helm, tucking it under the crook of his foreleg. “Thank Celestia, I can’t tell you how much I detest these things,” he complained. “Eh, you get used to it,” Jess said, removing her own, and then sniffed the air and recoiled, “Ugh, it smells like a locker room in here.” “Centuries of stale air will do that,” Tick replied, eyeing the lamp flickering overhead. With a rapid, triple beep, the cycle finished, the interior door unlocked. Nightshade grabbed the handle with his legs and turned, disengaging the locking system with a hearty clunk. With a soft whine, the door slid open and we all shouldered our way into the hallway beyond. “Well, this is disappointing.” Tick said, her headlamp flashing down the corridor. It was an ugly sight, to be honest. Where the exterior looked perfect, the inside of the ship looked battleworn. Years of stale air had taken their toll on the more corrodible surfaces inside the wreck. Rusted steel beams sat next to pristine plastic paneling as we filed in one by one, finally sealing the door behind us. As the door clicked, an emergency light flickered weakly to life in the ceiling. illuminating what little we could see of the area in weak pulses of reddish orange light. “Spooky.” Jess muttered as she looked at one of the rusted braces. “How old do you think this thing is?” Tickintime spoke up first. “Well, if the emblem is anything to go by, this ship could be anywhere from eight to ten centuries old. Or, at least, that would be my first guess. It might be older, but it’s really hard to say without doing some testing. The old empire was around for millennia before the Collapse.” “Huh,” I muttered, flashing my headlamp around the corridor. “Okay Horizon, you’re the veteran salvager here,” Jess remarked, “what should we do first?” I thought for a moment, glancing an odd dark patch on the floor. “This ship is pretty big, I say we should split up to cover more ground. If this ship really is centuries old, then we shouldn’t have to worry about finding anything alive in here.” “And we’re too far from the major space lanes to worry about pirates,” Jess added, nodding to herself. “Makes sense, I guess,” Nightshade replied uncertainly. “Though I’m not too fond of wandering around a dark and forbidding derelict by myself.” “That is a stupid idea… isn’t it,” I admitted. “Ya think?” Tickintime drawled. “Fine, pair up then. Pick a ship section and start searching for anything valuable. Whatever Junkyard was after has to be around here somewhere.” “Junkyard was an info broker. It’s probably information,” Nightshade offered. I nodded, “Look for terminals then. Tablets, cargo manifests—” I added with a sidelong glance at Nightshade, “—anything. The sooner we find it, the sooner we can figure out a way to cart it all back home.” “I can try to get the power online,” Tick offered, “It should at least give us some light to work with.” “I’ll escort her.” Jess offered. “It‘ll spread the combat experience around a bit.” “I’m not helpless, you know,” Tickintime huffed. “True, but I’m very willing to bet I’m a much better fighter than you’ll ever be,” Jess replied with a smug grin. Tickintime rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever, Mom.” “Okay then,” I said as Nightshade trotted up beside me. “I guess Nightshade and I will head to the bridge first and then, once the power’s on, we can spread out and see what we can find.” After a round of agreement, we all went our separate ways. ***** The dark hallways of the battleship proved no more inviting than when we had first stepped through the airlock. As the two of us made our way toward the bridge thanks to the helpful ship maps posted throughout the main corridors, I couldn’t help but notice the decay along the way. The rusted beams only got worse as we entered one of the more humid corridors, a steam pipe had burst some odd years ago and turned most of the corridor an ugly rust red. Our progress from that point on slowed to a crawl. Some of the passageways had lost power, forcing us to slowly pry open the doors with the manual override. Of course it also didn’t help that we stopped twice to check a supply closet or two along the way, but aside from a weird brass mop and a janitor’s purple jumpsuit, we didn’t find anything useful. Overall the trip took far longer than I would have liked. We finally stopped just outside the door to the bridge, silently glancing at each other in the flashlit semi-dark before manually cranking the final door open. “This is Horizon, we’ve reached the bridge,” I called over the comm. A slight crackle answered me, “We’ve just reached engineering as well,” Jess replied, “I’ll let you know if we can get the power up.” “Copy,” I replied. “Remind me why I’m doing this?” Nightshade said with his hoof in the wall as he fumbled on the floor to get the door ajar. “Because I did the last four,” I replied evenly. Nightshade merely grumbled his response as he gave the crank a final turn. The door finally stopped, wide enough to allow us passage. Without hesitating, I shouldered my way in. A red emergency light flickered above the main room, casting everything in a foreboding hue as it dutifully pulsed under its own weak power. Small particles of dust lit up as the beams from our headlamps cut through the air while we emerged onto the lower floor of a two level room. A bank of consoles lined the curving exterior wall, the old seats around them vacant and in various states of decay while a steep ladder led to the upper level, a round, central platform that overlooked the main control deck, and had a sweeping view of the outside space through the massive viewport stretching from one wall to the other. Figuring that was where the Captain’s chair would be, I flapped my wings and set myself down on the upper deck. I was a little disappointed. It was a surprisingly humble thing. Save for a few extra controls, the Captain’s chair looked nearly identical to those on the lower deck, amplified in importance only by the small monitors braced around it, which once upon a time, probably held an at a glance report of everything on the ship. The monitors were positioned above the head of the pony sitting there, high enough to avoid obscuring the view, but low enough to still be readable. Well, readable if any of them were active. The romantic in me started kicking in as I looked over the scene in its entirety, trying to imagine what it must have looked like in its heyday. I pictured ponies sitting in the seats on the lower deck, and the Captain standing where I was, probably dealing with some dramatic world-ending threat. Or not, considering that the wars in pony history had been few and far between. We were more likely to ignore each other than go to blows. I took a deep breath as the image faded, leaving me with the sterile, worn out and empty reality it became—dead screens and all. I opened the comm line for an update. “Jess, what’s the status on that power?” “Give me some time dammit! We’ve only just got here you know?” Tick replied irritably. “I’m still trying to diagnose the problem. Give me, like, five minutes, okay? Ugh, where did they put those capacitors?” The line closed. “Something is bothering me.” Nightshade remarked as he looked at one of the empty seats, and what looked like carbon scoring on the floor next to it. “What’s up?” I asked. “This ship was attacked, obviously, but where are the bodies? I would think if there was an attack there would at least be something here. Blood. Anything.” I raised an eyebrow. That was a good question. “Maybe they evacuated?” I suggested, “I don’t think it’s too far a stretch to think that the ponies were able to get out unharmed.” “True, but, why leave? This ship doesn’t look it took that much damage. It’s still got air, so obviously the life support hasn’t failed, and I don’t think if they got help they would have simply left a perfectly good battleship out in the middle of nowhere.” It was another good point. The damage seemed to be superficial for the most part, aside from having its armament wiped out. Well, and centuries of neglect, but they couldn’t help that. “Hey Jess?” I called again, and waited for a reply. Jess was on the line momentarily. “What’s up?” “Have you found any bodies on your way to the engineering section?” I asked. A moment of silence followed, answered with a sudden crackle, “Come to think of it, no, why?” “We’ve been seeing what looks like weapons fire on some of the walls here, but we haven’t found anything else. Have you seen any on your end?” “Come to think of it, yeah, I’ve been seeing that around as well, give me a sec to take a better look at it and I’ll get back to you.” “Thanks,” I replied. I glanced up at the ceiling, spotting another charred patch by a small vent. Nightshade spotted it too, and stared at it for a long moment before regarding me with growing concern. “Seems a bit of a weird place to shoot, don’t you think?” Nightshade said. I looked at the floor next to me, spotting yet another char mark. “Yeah, seems we’ve got ourselves a bit of a mystery here.” A possibly centuries old mystery, though more than likely, it would be little more than a novelty from our perspective. Maybe I’d have a good chuckle about this with some buddies in a few years. I snorted at the thought, hunched over a few drinks regaling other pilots of my harrowing adventures, ‘Did I ever tell you about the time...’ The S-band crackled back to life, “Alright, I’m seeing a lot of weapons fire here and there, but it looks like it’s mostly concentrated around the engine room. Some of the corridors have them too, but so far they haven’t been as common. I’m guessing there probably wasn’t much traffic in them around the time the fight started. “There’s a pattern to them too. Whoever was shooting—” “—wasn’t shooting at eye-level?” I finished for her. “Yeah, you’ve noticed too, huh?” Jess replied. “There’s one on the ceiling,” I said. “Maybe some kind of flier then?” “Or a crawler,” Nightshade suggested. “Keep a lookout for more, I guess. Second question, Jess, are there any escape pods near you? I’d like to confirm if the crew made it off or not,” I asked, while looking down at Nightshade, who was inspecting a loose vent on the floor. “We passed a few of them on the way here, I’ll go see if they launched. Tick, I’ll be right back.” I faintly heard Tick’s response as the line closed. “Something cut through this vent,” Nightshade said. Hopping off the command deck, I flitted down to his position and set down next to him, craning my neck down for a better look. Sure enough, three of the screws securing it had been sliced through, the remaining one malleable enough to bend freely out of the way of anything coming out of it with little effort. “Well that doesn’t bode well,” I muttered, testing the vent with my WAND’s TK. Working it back and forth, the metal made a soft squeaking noise, distinct, but quiet enough to be ignored in a busy workspace. I trained an eye on Nightshade, who returned my glance with wary confirmation. “Okay, I found the escape deck,” Jess announced over the S-Band a few moments later, “...that’s weird.” “What’s wrong?” I called. “They’re all here.” Nightshade and I shared a look. “Are you sure about that?” I asked. “Yes. They’re literally all here. Not a single pod’s been fired.” “Give me a sec, I want to check something,” I responded, ducking back to one of the doors to check the ship directory. I traced through it to find the engineering room and the pods Jess had indicated. In short order I had confirmed my fears. There was only one escape deck, and Jess was in it. If no one had left the ship, where did the ponies go? “Alright, this is getting weird.” I said. “Where are the ponies? If nopony got off there should be dead bodies, debris, something.” “Maybe whoever attacked them took hostages?” Jess replied, “I’ll keep looking on my end, and see if I can’t find anything else.” Just then, the lights on the bridge flashed, and then flickered to a more comfortable level. I winced as my eyes adjusted to the sudden change. “I got it!” Tick cheered, “Power’s on! Score one for the gear-master!” Nightshade’s head suddenly drooped. “Looks like I owe Jess a few bits,” he muttered. “You bet against her?” I asked with a laugh, “I thought you said your special talent was sensing fate?” Nightshade rolled his eyes. “Fate and chance are two different things. Besides, my ability isn’t perfect, it’s just right most of the time.” He coughed. “When it matters.” “Right,” I smirked. I switched off my headlamp. Some of the lights remained dead, but what was left was more than enough to light the entire room. Then, I looked up, and stopped. “Whoah.” Limited by the headlamps, I didn’t really have a real understanding of the true scale of whatever battle had been waged here. Now, I had no doubt. Several patches on the ground and walls had been coated completely black by the carbon scoring of weapons fire, all at odd angles and some ruining a workstation or two. Most of it seemed concentrated around small openings in the walls and floor, especially vents. The ceiling in particular was a mess of black splotches, some with particular star-like shapes cut out of them. “Jess, what do you see on your end?” “More scoring, a lot more scoring. There was definitely a fight here, but against what I can’t really tell.” “That’s what I thought. Find Tick, stick together and keep searching. I don’t like this.” Jess called an affirmative and the line cut. By the time I turned back to what we were doing, Nightshade was already working on a console, his eyes scanning one a screen, before grunting irritably and moving to the next. I hopped back up to the Captain’s chair and its controls. Pleasantly surprised to find the node to the ship’s main computer wide open. Connecting with my WAND, I started scanning for whatever files I could see. A list of documents began populating my feed, and I started scrolling through them. Most of it was mundane. Ship maintenance reports, multiple disciplinary records for certain crewponies, personnel rosters, medical reports, I spent the better part of five minutes skipping through the files for things of interest, and logging everything for later review. I smiled when I hit the Captain’s log. That was a prize in itself. At the very least it should have information of why they were out here, and maybe some info on any relevant information on what had happened. Sadly, the log had no remote access and it was locked to the Captain’s private terminal. Sighing, I turned to Nightshade. “Nightshade, I need to check out the Captain’s quarters really quick, I think I found a document that might help us out.” Nightshade mumbled something without turning to look, too engrossed in what he was doing to care. I took it as an affirmation and walked through the door leading onto the command deck. I entered a short hallway, which according to the my WAND’s map led straight over the crew barracks and connected to the wardroom. The single door leading off the hallway led straight into the captain’s quarters, which, with a quick press of a button, slid neatly open. I smiled as I entered what looked to be a very nicely furnished room. The room had a plush royal blue carpet flooring, a large wooden desk with a cherry finish, and a pile of paper documents on top. Some of the documents matched the reports from the list I had just seen. A small cigar sat upended next to its holder on the desk, next to a small, opened package of tobacco. Looking for a computer, I found a working node in the small tablet on the desk and connected, taking a seat in the captain’s chair and idly scrolling down to find the latest entries in the Captain’s log while rifling through the desk drawers for anything useful. I was nearly through the third drawer when I found the first interesting file: Mission Report: Investigation of Facility 45191. I stopped my browsing, and stared for a second. Licking my lips, I opened it. ---- Captain Icewind Moor, HMS Valiant, 07153338 Subject: Investigation Report on Logos Facility I have completed my investigation into the activity at the abandoned research facility in [REDACTED] and I am afraid to confirm that your suspicions were correct. There was indeed a break-in at the old labs. Automated records indicate the removal of several projects after the initial destruction of the facility in 2561, including large portions of the surviving infrastructure, which according to records had been previously ruled unsalvageable. Nearly the entire facility has been ripped from the ground. All functioning machinery has been removed and what little we could salvage from the facility’s remaining computers consists of little more than old surveillance tapes of the facility’s projects as well as a few requisition orders for supplies and other materials. This is not to say that we did not find something, however. During our investigation, we did turn up a supply of odd spider-bots which we took in for analysis. From the equipment mounted on their hardpoints, we believe that the bots may have used in the salvaging effort of whoever had the facility stripped. Several of the machines were found littering the facility in various states of repair. We took a few apart and didn’t find anything unusual, most of the tech within them appears to be a holdover from the other projects that had been running while the facility was still in its prime. Records do not, however, explicitly list the bots as part the official projects. I’ve got my scientists working on several theories for their origin, as well as continuing to dissect them for their purpose. Aside from the surveillance tapes, the surviving computers in the facility were either wiped clean, or destroyed. Whether this was done as a precautionary measure or maliciously remains to be seen, but despite their thorough efforts we were able to recover a small number of project recordings. Unfortunately, we were unable to ascertain just which project the videos belonged to as the information had been corrupted, but the revelations inside them were… disturbing. I have documented the recordings in question in a storage cube and have secured them in my personal vault. As soon as we’re back home, I will present a full report on the issue in person. -Captain Moor, H.M.S Valiant. ---- A personal vault? I smiled and looked around the room again for possible hiding places. I searched a few cabinets to no avail, behind picture frames, and even a wardrobe, until I finally noticed a small crease in the floor underneath the desk. Tugging on the edge with my WAND, I was pleased when the edge came up. Pushing the desk aside for a better angle I bent down to inspect the crease fully. Thankful I hadn’t expended my cutter charge, I primed it and began working on the locks, being careful not to damage whatever might have been inside. After a few minutes of cutting, the door released, and I gingerly lifted it off with my WAND and set it to the side. Peering into the small chamber, I found my prize. Inside was a small rectangular box, black, with a matte finish that dully reflected the light of the fluorescent ceiling light. I pulled it out with my WAND, being careful not to bump it against anything as I brought it up to eye level. I probed it with my WAND, willing it for details. The action proved useless. The box simply floated there, inert, and my WAND beeped an error. No Interface Detected. “Damn,” I said, frowning at the blasted thing. I’d have to look at it later. Stuffing the box and tablet into my pack, I returned to combing through the messages in the log, looking for more information. “Aw, hey there little guy,” Tick suddenly said over the radio, “aren’t you just the cutest widdle thing!” My train of thought grinded to a screeching halt. “Tick, what did you find?” I asked warily. “Aw, nothing too special just this cute little bot that- Oh, she has friends…” “Contact on the Bridge! three crawl-whoah!” Nightshade suddenly shouted over the sound of weapons fire. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” “Guys? What’s going on? I… oh, fuck me like a filly.” Jess said. “Krrrik?” I froze. That one was uncomfortably close by. Slowly I turned my head, searching for the source. The room looked empty, until I noticed the small, six legged spider thing looking up at me from the floor by the desk, with its set of eight flickering yellow eyes. It appeared to be damaged, with several of its legs black and twisted by weapons fire. “Krik?” It chirped at me. I stared. “Uh, heh... hi there?” I said back. A small set of barrels extended from its jaws as its eyes turned an angry red and it sprang off the floor to the desk. “Fuck!” I yelled, and flung the severed safe door at it. I missed by inches, the small bot flattening itself on the desk to dodge the blow before leaping at me, legs outstretched. I stumbled back, raised my pistol and fired, my eyes squeezing shut as the bot collided with me and I swatted it away. It sailed a few feet through the air before it hit the ground and rolled, bouncing back onto its spindly legs, and aiming its jaws at me. I dived behind the desk, in time to be showered by wooden splinters as several bullets ripped through the air and impacted the wall behind me with earsplitting cracks. I chanced a quick glance at the impact. Two-inch needles had embedded themselves in the far wall, leaking fluid. “KRRRRR!” The spiderbot had climbed back on the top of the desk, all four of its mandibarrels swinging toward me. I raised my leg and fired again, this time catching it square in the face. The bot took it in the eyes, the impact sending it peeling to the side as it barrels sprayed needles wide, one errant spike pinning the tail guard on my suit to the floor. As it righted itself, I shot it again, this time with a dead-on hit. It careened backward, smashing against the far wall before stumbling around on the floor with a sizeable hole in its torso. It sparked, then exploded with a loud pop showing the room in metal shrapnel. “Report!” Jess yelled over the radio. “Is anyone okay out there?” “Little busy right now!” Nightshade called over the report of his weapon. I heard Tick scream. “Tick?” I called out. There was no response. “Jess! What’s going on out there?” “I don’t fucking know! You tell me!” Jess screamed, “Gods... more of ‘em.” Grimacing, I started working the needle pinning my tail to the floor out. Tikataka tikataka I looked up in time to see another spider bot peeking out of a floor vent. “Alright, screw this.” I shot the vent, twisting it off its hinge and into the bots eyes. It flinched, long enough for me to put two more shots into its body, and about six badly placed ones around it. Its leg weakly twitched around the vent, before falling limp to the ground. My pistol hissed at the extended fire, steaming a little as it cooled down. I checked it briefly before looking back at my hoofwork. “Horizon? Are you still there?” Nightshade called, the sound of his heaving breaths audible over the radio. “Yeah,” I said. With a final yank, I freed my tail from the floor. I brought the needle up for a quick glance before casting it aside, “I got pinned down in the captain’s quarters but I’m okay.” “Great! Cause I’m headed your way.” “Guys I just got back to engineering! We’ve got a mare down!” Fuck. Stumbling to the door, I opened it in time to see Nightshade come barreling into the hallway, sealing the door behind him and shooting the control. Several impacts rang in the air, as several more needles stuck their tips barely through the door and the sound of metal legs skittered beyond and upward into the ventilation shafts. Glancing up, he shot the corridor’s air vent, sealing it shut in time for a metal leg to poke through, before moving on ahead. “Well, at least now we know what happened to the crew.” Nightshade said, warily plucking a still oozing needle out of his mane. A loud thump sounded by the floor vent in the room behind me. The dead bot on the floor lurched as another set of legs fought to dislodge it from below. “We need to leave. Now,” I said. Nightshade nodded and sped down the hallway into the wardroom. With a last glance into the captain’s quarters, I sealed the door and followed after him. I opened the line again, “Jess, are you still with us?” “Yes but-” The radio screeched as a loud shot rang out, overloading the microphone, “these damn things are everywhere!” “How’s Tick?” “She’s alive but unconscious, and it looks like she took a few of them with her. There’s a bunch of bots here that look like they were fri—Oh, COME ON!” Another shot rang out before the radio cut out entirely. Gritting my teeth, I entered the wardroom after Nightshade. The first thing I noticed was the overturned table. Fancy cutlery and various other implements littered the floor next to a shattered vase and two dead spiderbots, the latter of which was still twitching on the floor. Nightshade crouched low next to a cabinet, and motioned me to position across from him. “Get the door,” he ordered, wheeling about on another bot crawling out of a nearby ceiling vent. I rushed to the door and sealed it just in time for catch another bot by surprise, wedging it between the door and the frame. I shot it point blank, and kicked the dead husk back into the hallway, before pinging my WAND for a way back to engineering. Immediately tags started popping up in my field of view. Directions. First things first, we needed to go down. “Okay, there’s a ladderwell down, two corridors away from here,” I told Nightshade, while he sealed vents one after another. “It looks like it leads straight past the barracks and into the crew mess. Should be a straight shot from there to engineering.” Nightshade nodded, “Which way?” I pointed at the the only door remaining in response. He nodded and moved over to it, bracing against the wall next to it, and readying his pistol before hitting the control. Together, we breached. Mercifully, the corridor was empty. Not for long. We ran through as quickly as we could, passing doors and praying we wouldn’t have to crank any more. Wheeling around our final corner, Nightshade peeked in before waving me forward. We descended the ladderwell in uneasy silence. We entered the barracks. Half the lights in the barracks were dead, some still flickering as they tried to overcome the damage they had taken from weapons fire. Nightshade led the way, weapon at the ready while we paced through the dead room, our pace quickening as the telltale scritch of metal on metal rapidly approached us from all sides. We didn’t even have time to seal entrances. Little bots started worming their way out of vents everywhere, crawling out from under beds, or even coming out from the ceiling, their yellow eyes multiplying by the droves with each passing second. “Just run!” Nightshade yelled. We broke into a flat sprint, wheeling around a pair of chairs and knocking a small card table out of the way, just as the red angry glare that followed us started shooting needles. A mug shattered behind me as it caught a needle dead on, fragments smashing against the wall amidst the whizzing of small projectiles. “Come on! Come on!” Nightshade said as he beat the door control, and overturned a nearby bookshelf for protection. The door beeped and slid open, the two of us piling through it in time to see the bookshelf get overrun by a flood of the little monsters. A needle clearing the air above us before the door finally shut, followed by the staccato cracks of the bots’ final farewell. We took two heaving breaths before continuing our sprint. Swearing up and down the corridors as we made a mad dash for engineering. ***** We emerged onto a battlefield. Dead bots littered the floor in piles among shattered railings and fallen cables. Jess sat panting behind a makeshift barricade of steel chairs, peppered with so many needles that it looked like a large cactus. For a fleeting second I thought she was going to shoot us before she lowered her weapon and motioned us toward her position while keeping a wary eye on practically everything at once. “There you are,” Jess called out. “I was beginning to think you didn’t make it.” We settled in behind the barricade, Nightshade taking up a secondary firing position, while Jess gave the battleground another wary glance. I noticed Tickintime sprawled out the ground on the behind Jess, her sides heaving slowly. A few needles littered the ground around her, some freshly slicked with blood, intermixed with whatever poison the needles were laced with. Jess must have seen me looking, because she tore herself away from the barrier and put a hoof on my shoulder pad. “She’s okay,” she assured me, “I found her over by that pile over there.” She pointed to a spot a few steps beyond the barricade. Blackened bots littered the floor in a wide circle where a large blast mark still glowed hot red and feathered at the edges. “She probably gave them one hell of a shock too.” I smiled, though it felt more forced than genuine. “There’s a safe spot further back,” Jess added, wiping a little bit of lather off her face, “It’s just a little deeper in, over in the gen room. Cover should be better there too. Follow me.” With a final glance over the barricade, she looped a foreleg around Tick and heaved her over her shoulder. I stepped up to help, supporting the weight in a partial carry while Nightshade brought up the rear. Together, we limped our way further into the gen room, ears flicking at the sound of the distant skittering in the background. We settled down around the main generator, an electric buzz filling the air as we passed some unseen barrier that made my WAND go screwy. I felt my coat bristle, the little hairs on my neck standing on end in response to the raw, ambient energy pulsing from the glowing core above us. Jess and I set Tick’s unconscious body on the floor next to us. Nightshade made a spot check for vents, and once satisfied they were shut, sat facing the only exit, weapon ready. “The bots have been avoiding this area. I think it probably screws with their sensors,” Jess said, visibly relaxing and tending to a small slash on her suit with a tube of epoxy. “I know it’s been screwing with mine,” The tube in Jess’ TK wobbled slightly. “At least we won’t have to worry about a surprise attack,” I said, and then glanced back down at tick. The mare moaned, slurring something incoherent while staring vacantly at the ceiling lights with unfocused, dilated eyes. “She’s seen better days, I bet.” “And she’ll probably have a bitch of a headache when she wakes up,” Nightshade said as he walked over. He very carefully sniffed one of the needles, before looking closer at the mare’s eyes. Chewing his cheek he thought for a moment. “Sedative,” Nightshade announced after examining her, “pretty weak too, by the looks of it. She should be back up in another hour or two.” “Great,” I sighed. “So we’re just stuck here till she wakes up?” “Pretty much,” Jess replied, sitting down next to the generator and checking her rifle. The silence dragged. “So… bad idea?” I asked. Jess laughed, “Very.” “Eh, could have been worse,” Nightshade said. At our looks he continued, “We could be exploding. Again.” I laughed, “I think we might still have time for that.” “Hey Horizon, sync your map with mine, I want to see if I can’t find us a way out once our little gearhead wakes up,” Jess said. I nodded and sent the map info to her WAND. It chirped, and Jess turned away, muttering to herself while she began looking over our position. Setting myself down underneath a control board, I futzed with my calibration on my WAND while idly watching Tick’s chest rise and fall. Distantly, I could still hear the skitter of metal legs against the deck, but for now they seemed to keep their distance. We were safe, for now, but also trapped. Just like the cargo ship. I chuckled a little bit, thinking of the nostalgia. “Every. Fuckin. Time.” ---- 72% Remaining...