The Sun and the Stars: A Twilestia Prompt Collab

by Fuzzyfurvert

270. Troubleshooters: Tia and Twily: Bold by Ultra1437

by Ultra1437

***

Captain Twilight Sparkle stood in the bridge of her ship, the REN Celestia. Technically, their ship. She shared it with her marefriend, Celestia, who was residing in the newly-dubbed ‘Alicorn Supercharger’ waiting to give it a jumpstart.

The helmsmare sat at her console, looking over her panels. Twilight sat at her own console and looked it over. A gentle humming floated through the room as she watched some of the readouts. Seeing the one she’d waited for start rising she stated, “Reactors powering up. Helm, you should be getting power to the engines now.”

“Confirmed, Captain. I’ve got power.” The pegasus helmsmare called out, strapped into her piloting harness.

“Shield emitter arrays charging.” Her left ear flicked to a stallion at another console as he called out.

“Thaumatronic communications online and fully functional.” A minotaur engineer called out, catching her other ear.

“Great!” Twilight pressed a button on her console before speaking. “Hey Celly, how’s the chamber look?”

“Teleportation matrices and Supercharger capacitor banks ready but uncharged.” Celestia’s voice rang through the bridge.

She quickly replied, “Excellent. Check your readout and charge the banks to around thirty percent, please. We’re launching shortly and I want to test out the teleport matrices before we need them.”

Celestia’s voice called back, “Roger that. Celestia out.”

Glancing about the room, the ponies in front of her all confirmed their consoles checked out ready. She pressed another button on her console, addressing the entire ship. “All hooves, prepare for launch! Repeat, prepare for launch!”

The gentle hum sharply grew into a whine as the reactors worked their way to capacity.

Twilight opened a comm channel with the dockmaster’s tower. “Canterlot Tower, this is Captain Twilight Sparkle of the REN Celestia, requesting permission to leave dock for a test of our teleporter.”

“REN Celestia, this is Canterlot Tower, you are cleared to leave dock. Have a pleasant trip.”

Twilight chuckled. “We’ll try to, Tower, REN Celestia out.”

“Helm, you copy that?”

“Affirmative, Captain. How fast do you want to leave?”

“Fourty percent power to the engines, Helm. Let’s give Canterlot a good show as we leave.” The ship shook as the docking clamps holding it in place released, letting the Celestia’s engines hold its own weight in the air.

“Roger that.” The pegasus mare spread her wings pushed a lever forward with each wingtip. She leaned back slightly in her harness and the ship did the same as it accelerated slowly, merging into the orbital traffic lanes.

Celestia’s voice calmly called out, “Capacitors charged to thirty percent, Captain. Might I be so bold as to ask for a rousing speech before we break orbit?”

Twilight smiled as she contacted her marefriend. “That might be a bit much of you to ask, Celestia. After all, you were much better at them than I ever was.” This brought a chuckle from the rest of the crew on the bridge.

“I suppose I can give a speech, if you guys really want one.” The chorus of cheers from around her gave her her answer.”

Helm, feeling sneaky, broke free from the traffic lanes and made her way around to Canterlot proper. She had the Celestia circle Canterlot’s mountain as it gained momentum and ascended.

She contacted the entire ship again. “Normally, this would be where I would ask our resident alicorn battery Celestia, who’s much better at this, to give a speech. She’s flipped the tables and asked me to give one instead, so I’ll do my best.”

Her tone was somber. “We’re not the first ship to go into space. Not by a longshot. By Tartarus, we’re not even in the first one-thousand.”

From the somber ashes, her voice rose. “But what we are is unique. This is the only ship that can literally teleport to wherever it’s needed, strike a sore spot, and retreat to safety again. The Celestia is not, and will never be, a useless ship. If there’s anything that needs to be done, we can do it!”

She asked her crew, bordering on yelling. “Who are we?”

The crew in the bridge responded. “Troubleshooters!”

She yelled back over the intercom. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you!”

Helm took the Celestia to safely pass by Cloudsdale, still accelerating.

The ship shook slightly as the entire crew shouted their answer back, “Troubleshooters!”

Pumped up, she continued. “That’s better! And now, what do we do?”

“Fix problems!” shouted back.

Twilight was really in the spirit now. “Who’s gonna stop us?”

“Nopony alive!”

Helm could see Equus’ curvature now, they were so high up. She pushed the engines to full power.

“Where are we going to go?”

“Where can’t we go?”

Celestia’s voice rang through the ship, clearly laughing. “Alright, Captain, I think you’ve motivated them. We don’t want them to yell the ship apart, do we?”

Twilight laughed. “Now, are all of you ready!”

The entire ship screamed at her as it flew out past Luna’s moon.

“Alright! Celestia, prepare to teleport two hundred kilometers straight ahead!”

“Affirmative.” Ten seconds passed before Celestia spoke again. “Ready to teleport, Captain.”

“All hooves brace for teleport.” Everypony on the bridge grabbed onto a part of the Celestia.

Twilight keyed the intercom again. “Hit it.”

The entire ship flashed gold for a split second before lurching slightly to the side as it re-entered reality.

Twilight called out. “Status report, everything green?”

Helm replied first, “Engines idling.”

The call came in from engineering. “Reactors down ten percent power, but still within margins and recovering quickly.”

“Comms still green across the board.”

“Shields down, but recharging quickly.”

Celestia spoke, “A little woozy from using that much power, but I’m still good down here!” Before her voice cut out, she started laughing heartily. The laugh spread through the crew, considering the teleport a success.

“Crew, we’ve had our first successful teleport!” She announced. ‘Just think, when we get proficient enough, we can do that like it was second nature!’

Helm called out, “Captain, you may find this interesting. Take a look out the window and try to find the moon. Or Equus.”

Twilight did just that, finding a speck resembling a planet in the distance. “Helm, where are we?” She called out.

“My best guess, instead of teleporting us several hundred kilometers, we were teleported several million kilometers.” Twilight returned to her console, checking the reserve banks and verifying they were untouched.

She called up Celestia. “Celestia, how much of your reserve do you have left?”

“Most of it, why?”

“We’ve got a little more troubleshooting to do with the teleport matrices. It seems they amplify the distance far more than we realized.”

“How so?”

“We’re nowhere near Equus anymore. Helm says we’ve gone about ten thousand times further than we were supposed to go.”

“Ah. I’m guessing you want to go back?”

Twilight tried to keep the stress from her voice. “Yeah, that would be nice. Teleport when you’re ready.”

“Will do, Celestia out.”

She keyed the intercom for the entire ship. “All hooves, brace for teleport. The teleport was a little more than a success. We’re headed home.”

The ship flashed gold, and reappeared near Luna’s moon.

“Helm, bring us home.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

“When we dock, I’ll have to go over the matrices again,” Twilight wondered aloud.

The minotaur engineer spoke up. “Captain, permission to speak freely?”

She looked over to him. “Granted, Star Torus. You should know by now that you don’t need my permission.”

“Then with all due respect, ma’am, don’t touch them,” Torus replied.

“Why is that?” She cocked her head to the side slightly.

He fought off a grin at how adorable she looked, even if she was a thousand years his senior. “Ma’am, this is space. We won’t need to make short-range jumps to be anywhere in the universe. We need the efficiency to be anywhere.”

She nodded in satisfaction. “Fair enough, Torus. We’ll have to have more practice runs like this for Celestia to nail down her distances, though.”

Helm spoke up, cutting off Torus’ reply. “If that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes. We need the best, and shortening our maximum range won’t do us any good.”

“Agreed.” Torus chimed in.

“If that’s what you really want, then I’ll leave them alone.”

Helm looked to Torus, nodding sharply. “We do.”

---

Celestia hugged Twilight as soon as they were both safely on the docks again.

“Sorry about the bad teleport, love.” Celestia looked away ashamed.

Twilight brought a hoof up, forcing Celestia to look back at her. “It wasn’t your fault. I designed those matrices too well. You’ll just have to put less power into it.”

Twilight nuzzled her. “Besides, we’ll all get better with practice. A few more runs like that, and the Celestia will be good to go for real.”

Releasing Twilight, Celestia stood. Flapping her wings once, she spoke. “Remember what tonight is?”

Twilight stood next to her in an instant. “How could I forget? We have date night once a week!”

“Good. Now, since it’s my turn… try to keep up!” She launched into the air, quickly accelerating.

Chuckling lightly, Twilight took off herself, trying to make up the distance.

Author's Note:

Sequel to Science Fiction

Comments

[Fuzzyfurvert]

Rare is the prompt that needs epic sweeping music.

This is that prompt.

[Jonesly]

5105513

Can't go wrong with Two Steps From Hell.

[ultra1437]

5105527
An excellent choice! Far better, and more appropriate, than the Weird Al playing in my headset as I wrote it!

[Hyzaku]

Love this. It feels like a perfect start to a longer story.

[Overlord Sparkle]

I wonder who they're fighting

[Hobbestc]

I half expected them to get lost, lol.

[ultra1437]

5107714
Thanks, it kind of is! I write little things and large things. Mostly little things, though. There's a third prompt coming down the pipe already, too.

5109020
Ah ah, that would be spoiler talk. We don't want any of that happening now, do we?

5110621
That may just happen, but who knows? I certainly don't at this point.