“Let’s see food, water, materials and tools for making space suits and other clothing?” Rarity rattled off in her seat at the bridge where she was busy strapping in, she was happy to finally be a captain of her very own ship. Her chair was at the back of the bridge and there were seats for two other people up front, but with Opal taking care of those stations Rarity didn’t have to worry about needing anyone else working them.
“Check, check and check Meowstress Rarity, it seems we have everything onboard and accounted for.” Opal had a checklist marked off and showing up on the view screen for Rarity’s benefit. “Also I think your parents just arrived on planet since they just got off a ship in hangar seven.”
“Please tell me that traffic control gave us our exit vector and we are ready to leave at any time, because this could become the worst possible thing ever!” Rarity was slightly panicked, she hoped to Celestia or Luna that she could take off real soon.
“We have confirmation for an exit vector, Caravel Boutique ready for lift off just give the…” Opal didn’t get to finish her sentence.
“Just launch already before its too late Opal!” Rarity screeched and received results when the ship jerked and started to slowly lift off the ground on several jets as it slowly rose up through the opening in the roof and turned to point towards the sky. With a flare the two large thrusters at the back of the ship erupted and sent it flying up and through the atmosphere. Upon seeing the stars Rarity smiled and gave a sigh of relief.
“We are successfully space bound Meowstress Rarity, all systems are working perfectly and we are leaving Desserzon airspace. I don’t think your parents saw a ship leaving the planet like a really obvious bat flying out of hell as we were being really discreet about our exit.” Opal brought up a star chart and started to point out the position of their ship relative to their eventual destination. “That small bit of sarcasm aside, I’m setting a course for Ewesen the fifth planet in the Quia System and it will take a few hours once we get to the edge of the system to do a jump. It’s time for lunch so go to the living area; I’m already multitasking by getting CAT-1 ready to work on a meal for you.”
“Thank you Opal, oh and would it be a problem if we were to keep the shields constantly activated?” Rarity unhooked herself from the chair and stood up on her hooves to walk towards the door behind her chair, it slid open at her approach and she entered the main corridor and walked through two doors.
“It shouldn’t be a problem at all to keep the shields going constantly. Since we don’t need to route any power to weapons for the lack of them, it’s giving us a bit of extra power to push around. At least it’ll give our shields an extra bit of oomph to them Meowstress Rarity.” The voice of Opal could now be heard throughout the ship as she was currently wired into its workings and was capable of instant assessments of any problems that may pop up. The AI would be on top of making sure nothing went wrong with the ship and if something did, then she’d fix it as fast as feasibly possible with the two CATs she had at her disposal. “In fact it would be efficient to use that extra power just sitting there for something constructive my lovely lady, so I will make sure the shields stay up until you say otherwise.”
This ship was made with decompression protection in mind so it had multiple doors between every room and emergency secondary hulls that would shut in the rooms in case of breach. The main corridor itself had plenty of doors as well, like the one to Rarity’s immediate right leading directly into the living space. The door slid open and she walked into what would be a place for sleep, recreation and meals. She could already see the hovering civilian grade CAT drone coming in from the other door with the two manipulator arms that unfolded out from under its fins to start gathering supplies for a nice meal.
There were at least two entrances to every room and multiple doors between each, Rarity entered from the main corridor and could have also entered from the left branch corridor like the CAT did which led to the airlock on that side of the ship.
Looking about, Rarity saw the sections in the wall with the pull out beds, there were ten in total ready for use. In front of her was the table and chairs in the middle of the spacious room that could be held down magnetically, there was a small area for exercise near the door to the left branch of the ship. At the far wall was the kitchen area, giant refrigerator and a counter.
“Opal, is the workshop being set up in the cargo bay available yet?” It would be some time before CAT-1 was done with the food given it just started.
“CAT-2 is working on setting it up, so it’s not yet complete Meowstress Rarity. If you need something to do while waiting for the food, then I suggest you report to the cleansing and medical facilities. We need to log your current medical history with the med-bed by performing a quick check up.” Opal had her eyes on the space around the ship and inside of it to make sure Rarity was comfortable and things were going well. “We are now at full impulse speed and are heading for the edge of the system.”
In space there were three types of movement involved in spacecraft, the first was the variable thrusters which were mainly used for planetary escape and entry or boosting the speed in the second type of movement. They were primarily for atmospheric conditions and not all ships had them, larger spaceships were designed to work without variable thrusters and were never meant to land on planets. Putting variable thrusters on large ships was a huge waste of resources and very costly, as such larger ships were better left in orbit above a planet or would dock with any nearby space station.
The second type of movement was what was currently in use was known as impulse travel which was used for planet to planet travel while in a Solar System, in space momentum once put into motion would stay in motion and impulse travel could quickly speed up or slow down the motions of a ship in space. All ships had impulse power which required very little energy and resources to get anywhere unlike the variable thrusters, but impulse was only a quarter of the strength of thrusters in atmospheric conditions and was the main mode of travel while inside a system.
The final type of movement was only available outside of gravity’s pull, it was known as jump travel and jump travel was highly affected by gravitational forces of a solar system and as such was used to move in the space between the systems quickly. Currently the Caravel Boutique was taxiing its way towards the edge of the Verpo System to begin its jump to the Quia system.
Impulse travel was fast, but not nearly as fast as jump travel, you could get from one end of a large solar system to the other within hours on impulse travel. Moving about space required Jump and Impulse travel to get anywhere and there was a fourth kind of travel called warp travel. Like the pony moving towards the clean looking bed that looked like it was covered in a gel like substance after turning around and going through the door she came through and going straight through another few, warp travel was a rarity and experimental.
“Those showers are okay for most species, but the med-beds looks they were designed for a bipedal species like Caccerans and Humans. Will it actually work with my physiology? I never really bothered to ask Mr. Gitonir about the medical facilities.” Rarity pulled herself up on the closest med-bed and slowly rolled onto her back and spread out her hooves slightly. “I guess I was more focused on the space I could acquire for what I wanted to do than health concerns.”
“Yes, it should work with you and there are only a few species this particular brand of med-bed can’t safely operate on. Now hold still and don’t panic, performing full body scan.” At the sound of Opal’s voice a lid rotated itself into place over Rarity and a ring of light coming from a mechanism slowly moved down the tube Rarity now laid in. The mechanism that was the scanner slowly came back up and then the lid came off; the pony gave off a shudder as she didn’t like the confining presence of the lid. “Information received from the med-bed, you’re healthy, slightly hungry and no dangerous parasites, viruses or diseases were detected in the scan. The scan detected that your immune system is healthy and I’m cross referencing your previous medical history, now the med-beds know what kind of medications you can and can’t be given plus what vaccinations you’ve been given throughout life.”
Med-beds were easy to use, plug in a person’s medical history like what medications are detrimental to them and what isn’t. You would quickly have a machine that can perform miraculous surgeries… or be set to brutally maul you while it has you trapped inside it. It also could fill up with healing chemicals; stuff that you couldn’t possibly drown in unless you were having a breathing problem… the possibility of drowning would only occur if it was filled with liquids that shouldn’t be breathed in. They could be used to keep someone or something biological sedated indefinitely if given enough chemicals to do so; it made for a handy one person brig at the very least and could double as a very effective torture device.
Suffice it to be said, med-beds had both an excellent and equally sordid history. Rarity had been in several and had always made sure that at least two friends came along for each occasion that she needed to be in one. It was to make sure that nothing funny happened, she’s heard of female beings of varying species being raped on med-beds after being sedated. Luckily nothing like that has ever happened to Rarity personally, but it did happen to a friend of hers and the sick guy that did it is now a paraplegic which she didn’t wish on him. Still, what had happened served that guy right for taking advantage of someone she knew and cared about in a karmic fashion. Even if horrible things can be done with med-beds, such as forcing painful illegal cybernetic enhancements upon the unwary that could leave them enslaved to someone who held the kill switch to said enhancements. They were still medical marvels that can save lives and were too good to ban from public or military use, even if there were horrible implications that could be applied to them.
“I always feel chills when the lid closes on me; I swear it always feels like I’m lying down in a coffin. I’ve heard that to some it is a coffin.” It was a thankful thing that Rarity knew the lid was only needed in a severe situation or as what she just did a full body scan. Rarity was calm, mostly because the support gel on the bed was comfortable to lie on at least. “Otherwise this med-bed is fine; I just can’t get rid of that sense of dread around them.”
“After what happened to Sassy? Yeah, I’m not going to blame you for feeling like that. ” Opal sounded rather upset and she looked it as she appeared on a screen nearby. “Look at the positives though; the med-bed is a secondary escape pod because it has its own life support separate from the ships. So in case of emergency I can vent this room and you’d be safely inside the med-bed. Though how long a med-bed could keep you alive in stasis out in deep space is anyone’s guess.”
“Yes, well, I’d rather not be stuck on this one any longer than necessary.” Rarity got up off the med-bed and made her way back to the living quarters to find that the meal was just about finished and she sat down to be served a nice meal that tasted just divine. Giving her Artificial Intelligence a sense of taste was a good idea, especially when it came to fashion.
-
They were near the edge of the Verpo system and Rarity was in the cargo hold working on a spacesuit, among just making normal clothing Rarity also made clothing that was functional with technology built into it. Her current project was updating her personal EVA suit, the suit was lavender colored affair with white stripes around the joints and had her cutie marked emblazoned on it in various places. She was making sure the five thin layers of protective materials were all exceptionally sturdy as she wouldn’t want a rip in her suit to be the end of her.
Ponies had to get space suits custom made or mostly unicorns needed custom made helmets that they still had problems getting on; Rarity’s was a custom made marvel as it had a lot of interesting features.
Rarity inserted her horn into the helmet and it went on like a mask, it sucked her hair up into a small compartment and enclosed itself around her head and locked around her neck until she was ready to take it off. She started to pull on the rest of the suit and it fit like a slightly tight glove, which was the point as this was supposed to be a space capable Extra Vehicular Activity suit.
One such feature was that the helmet was sealed off from the rest of the suit as were any of the orifices on her body such as the one between her hind legs were sealed off with a pair of underwear similar to the helmet that would protectively sealed her insides off from space and being immediately killed by decompression. It in fact wearing just the underwear and helmet would keep her alive in space, but her body would still be exposed without the rest of the suit and she would probably need immediate medical attention afterwards due in part to said exposure. She managed to get things to a point where if there was a puncture in her suit it wouldn’t immediately start leaking air. Instead a puncture would leak a quick patch substance that would immediately harden upon contact with cold temperatures such as open space, blood if you’ve been shot clean through or radiation which the substance would block and it was completely medically safe… for ponies at least.
Rarity’s helmet also carried its own oxygen supply that could recycle itself for up to three hours if it ever got detached from her main oxygen tank which was a curve saddle shaped box on her back, said tank could last up to twenty four hours. The saddle shaped box had its own features aside from oxygen capacity; it had impulse flight capability to help maneuver around in space and was detachable for safety reasons. The impulse flight capability was not meant for making planet fall, the suit was something that wouldn’t survive reentry.
“Well the design of my suit is coming along quite nicely don’t you agree Opal?” It had taken Rarity a while to figure a way to design the helmet that allowed her to get her horn in and out of it without much of a fuss and the clasping mask design was perfect. The body of the suit itself was simple to design and streamlined. Making it so that the mane and tail wouldn’t get in the way without having to cut them short was a bit of a challenge, but Rarity managed a suit that looked good and functional. She wasn’t about to cut her mane or tail short for any reason, plus she could sell this design to her people and it would be a well patented success.
“Yeah, at least it’s not overly bulky; the compartment for your mane in the helmet works well enough to keep it out of your face and it’s design fits with the old style of Solar Guard helmets except instead of the hair sticking out it’s trapped in its own compartment. Restyling is a must afterwards, but that’s a small sacrifice for safety.” Opal liked the design; it didn’t mess up Rarity’s looks although helmet hair was unavoidable casualty of it. “Now all we need to do is get you into the habit of designing combat capable armor. By the way, we are currently entering jump as of right now.”
Entering jump travel could be a relatively seamless thing, other than a small lurch Rarity stayed standing on her covered hooves at the end of which had magnetic clamps for attaching to and walking along the surfaces of ships as long as they were made of metal. There were some alien species that didn’t use metal in their space faring capabilities.
“I’m not taking a military contract Opal; I’m strictly sticking to things made for civilian use.” Not that Rarity had a problem with designing EVA suits for ponies to use that wouldn’t require ugly haircuts, it was just that some ponies were using the current suits anyway even if their hair got in the way. Many mares prided themselves on their personal looks and refused to get short haircuts, Rarity was definitely one of them. Mares were generally fussy about her appearance and manes in general; stallions just didn’t care about how they looked as long as they could attract a mare’s attention so Rarity was mostly designing these suits with mares in mind.
“It wouldn’t hurt for you to have some personal armor. If you’re going to be a fashion designer that goes for both form and function, then you’ll need to protect yourself. Why not something that can function to keep you alive longer if you get into a firefight Meowstress Rarity?” As she asked this Opal put a real time image of Rarity on screen, the mare looked herself over and nodded as her horn looked to be fitting into the helmet perfectly. “Armor can be beautiful too, that or it could have a shield generator. Let’s check the HUD to see if it’s working correctly, follow the marker I’m putting up on your HUD now.”
“It can also be a bulky mess and personal shield generators won’t take more than one or two shots from relatively weak weapons, besides I can learn to do a shield spell. This suit is supposed to be tight fitting and still give you a full range of movement and maneuverability.” She followed the markers with her eyes and even had to do a few turns as if she were on a catwalk before Opal appeared on the Heads-Up-Display inside her helmet with a smiling eyes showing that it was operating within parameters. Looking at her tail it was crammed into a similar compression compartment like her mane currently was and she gave it a wiggle. “It’s comfortable and the HUD is working quite well thanks to your help in installing it Darling. Aside from slightly pulling on my mane, this suit is painless to put on.”
“I’d do anything for you my wonderful Meowstress.” Opal meant it too; she’d do anything to keep Rarity safe, suddenly a slightly serious look crossed Opal’s face. “Rarity…. we have a big problem, report to the bridge immediately and I mean like run your cute flank there now!”
-
It had been a horrible thirty minutes, the shields were down to fifty three percent and there were three light cruisers being driven by space pirates that had caught Rarity’s ship mid jump with an interdiction field that disabled jump travel temporarily. The problem with this is that to even set up an interdiction field required someone who would have to have known the exact route you were going to take, as such this wasn’t coincidence. These space pirates knew that the Caravel Boutique would be flying through that exact particular portion of space and they were now bombarding the poor small ship with energy weapons from their large shotgun shaped ships main cannons and whatever else they had to pin down the smaller vessel.
Opal had immediately put impulse to full and burned the thruster fuel for five seconds the very second the jump was interrupted by an interdiction field, it might have been the reason the space pirates were caught flatfooted that their attempts to disable the ship had missed. Her reaction time to the situation was far faster than what Rarity’s would have been; heck a regular crew of people would have been caught completely off guard. She managed to hack their communications and heard expletives about how she was giving these pirates so much trouble from the sudden evasive actions she took; it was music to her digital ears that made her fluffy white fox like tail wag.
“Please tell me we can jump soon Opal.” Rarity had strapped herself into the captain’s chair and saw on the view screen that they were in a big pickle. Speaking of pickles, the ones she had for lunch were just divine and made for a good last meal if this was it. The ship shook and rattled with each successful hit and it caused Rarity to whine and complain slightly. “I thought there hasn’t been a successful pirate attack in Verpo System in quite a while.”
“We’re not exactly in the Verpo System right now are we? No space patrols between systems and warp technology is still said to be in testing. Rumors say its far better than impulse, but there are still apparently some kinks to it to work out.” Opal flatly stated and Rarity nodded to it. “Any idea’s how to get out of this, because we need five more minutes before I can start a new jump and these guys are hounding us. The shields aren’t going to hold up for much longer, we’re down to forty… wait make that twenty two percent effectiveness. If they get our engines, power core or jump module we’re goners.”
Rarity had to consider her options… wow there really wasn’t very many options to consider here, these space pirates had her dead to rights and all she had was an escape pod and slightly pumped up shields. Even if she were to use the escape pod they’d still… wait a minute, she just got a very interesting idea. Escape pods did have their own impulse ability, but they were never anywhere near as good as the ships they escaped from and they wouldn’t get you very far either.
“Opal dear, I know this may seem a little odd of me to request of you, but prep the launch of the escape pod. I’m not going to get into it, but if you could use it to…” Rarity trailed off and rolled her left hoof at the screen as Opal suddenly gained a fierce and relatively feral grin as she appeared, her artificial friend was a vicious taskmaster and she loved her for it.
“I’m on it Meowstress Rarity! I can see where you’re going with this, but I’m going to have to warn you that we won’t have an escape pod after this. Are you sure you would like to continue with this course of action even knowing it might kill someone, namely us or more importantly you?” Opal was asking to get a recording as proof that she had not gone rampant. Most of the rampancy protections on her didn’t work anyway, but she was emotionally devoted to Rarity so it didn’t matter that she could have done it without asking. What matters is that no one else figured out that she could have done it without asking, especially Rarity as she would take the news that her AI was not fully under control very well. If not for Rarity’s programmed in sense of taste, she probably would have gone completely rogue and would have been destroyed a long time ago.
“Opal, I am asking you to calculate the maximum amount of damage you can do with that escape pod and then apply it to the space pirates chasing us with extreme prejudice. Oh and if you can do so before our shields can go down and I die in a fiery explosion or are captured by these horrible people, then that would be very nice if you will please.” Rarity gave the screen a pleading look even as she spoke calmly and concisely. “That thirteen percent efficiency on the shields is quite unnerving, so please be a dear and get on that. I’ll even take personal responsibility for anyone that dies, as I like the idea of myself continuing to be unsullied by pirates and alive. I’m giving you full permission to do this and anything else to get us away from them.”
“Three, two, one and… done Meowstress Rarity!” Opal said gleefully as the ship started to twist sharply and maneuver it so that she could get the escape pod lined up while still being evasive. The escape pod was soon jettisoned going at its full impulse capability.
The three light cruisers that were lined up behind the small ship blasting away beams of energy at its aft section didn’t bother to shoot on the pod. In fact the middle of the three ships swerved slightly to the right to avoid it and Opal’s smile widened as the escape pod suddenly veered into the left side of the ship at an increased speed.
What followed was a powerful chain reaction. The escape pod exploded after ramming harshly into the left side of the middle vessel causing it to fishtail in a horrific manner. The middle ship’s guns fired into the ship on its right while its rear end busted the rear end of the ship on its left. Two ships were disabled in space and one just took a lot of friendly fire damage, it gave Caravel Boutique enough time for the jump system to become useable. This is why you don’t line ships up near each other in a row in space.
“I’m now activating the jump system, well it looks like we… what the hell!” When it looked like they were going to get out of this without a single bit of direct damage to the ship and just entered jump, Opal’s unladylike expletive and scared face was the last thing that was seen by Rarity before she blacked out.