Frosty's AU Adventures, featuring probably everything!

by TheBobulator

Chapter 6: Spacefarer Frosty

Chapter 6: Spacefarer Frosty

“Just another day in space.”

Date: Records lost.
Time: Unknown.
Location: Sector 21-24.

It had taken much longer than I’d expected, but the taxiship had been the safest option. I rubbed my tired eyes with the back of my hooves and tried to focus my bleary gaze on the small glowing screen built into the wall. Too bad I was still too tired to be literate. With a bit of stumble and fumble, I managed to pull my limbs out of the spacecot and drop my hooves into their respective boots.

My nose nearly mashed into the tiny screen and I cursed the bordering-on-claustrophobic nature of the taxiship’s passenger interior. There was barely enough room to face the opposite wall while sitting, never mind being able to stretch my wings while doing so. With a bit of creative positioning, I managed to be able to stretch one wing at a time while reading the little touch screen.

Besides the obligatory safety warnings and the obnoxiously high price of the cab fare, there was a new little button on the screen that urgently flashed red and green at me. Of course, I immediately pressed it. “Now approaching Neutron Star Station.” Oh good, yet another grating computerized voice. “As a fledgeling station still under construction, all new arrivals will immediately become citizens, regardless of background. As a citizen, you will be assigned a job to perform upon arrival, which may or may not change without notice. Failure to do so will result in ejection through an emergency airlock. For the convenience of Neutron Star Station and yourself, please fill out this quick survey as accurately as possible.”

As soon as its message had been delivered, a form replaced everything on the screen. Proficiency in science? Not me. I marked it down with a single star, that being the least proficient score. Construction? Sure, I put it down for two. Firearms? I put it down for two, since I still hadn’t gotten the hang of using weapons not designed with hoofed species in mind.

By the time I had finished the cursory survey, the taxiship had pulled to a stop. “Eish schtup. Gattat,” burbled the driver.

A little slip of paper ejected from under the screen, detailing the impressive number of credits that had been automatically withdrawn from my credit reserves. Once I managed to get my suit sealed and secured, I kicked open the door and leapt out into the void. It took an extra minute or so to get my bearings as my latent pegasus magic got confused as to where the non-existent ground was.

Luckily enough, I’d been dropped off right next to one of the Station’s airlocks. It was hard to tell whether this was the only airlock, seeing as the station was an unfinished haphazard sprawl of construction and steel. I maneuvered to the airlock door and gently bopped the activation switch.

The radio in my helmet crackled to life. “Station Commander here. Welcome to Neutron Shithole, population twelve. Pick up a matter gun from the suit locker and don’t forget the safety gear. The security team will meet you at Airlock Gamma.”

I was about to ask where that was until I took the time to read the nearly invisible drab gray stenciling on the walls. “Oh. I’m already there,” I muttered to myself. Once I was safely inside, I pressed the large green “AIR” button to recompress the airlock and waited. Air rushed into the chamber, throwing bits of rock and dust all around me, and the little status bars built into the airlock doors slowly changed from red to green.

What I found more interesting were these suit lockers. One of the already had her name on it, and its contents were in the process of being constructed. There were two other lockers, both blank and empty, but names appeared on their plaques and suits appeared in them just as the airlock finished compressing. The last place I’d been at didn’t have all this cool stuff.

Two larger, taller bipedal aliens opened the interior airlock door and opened their respective suit lockers to gear up. Both were clad in the galactic standard gray-and-edgy-black security uniform, complete with blast collar and extra-thick padding for vacuum combat. While one was a strange species I hadn’t heard of, the other one looked suspiciously like a giant walking chicken.

I picked up the matter gun and clipped it to the interface module on my left hoof. The rest of the gear- reinforced safety-orange panels, utility harness with a few multi-tools, and a matter storage backpack all went into corresponding slots on my suit in a similar manner.

“Heer de plan. Brawk an’ me sweep. Keep good to tear down, yas?” the non-chicken-alien slowly grunted at me.

Hesitantly, I answered, “Yes?” The translator in my helmet didn’t filter out the alien’s peculiar accent, so it had taken a second to figure out what he’d just asked.

“Station Commander. I’ll be remotely overseeing the op. A derelict just drifted into the zone and we need to assess it for threats before deciding to draw in to expand or if we’re going to scrap it. You’re going to be the assault builder. Dematerialize a portion of wall and let my security guys take care of the rest, copy?”

“Taken care of.” I immediately responded, making one last suit check to be safe.

The airlock depressurized again and one of the two aliens opened the doors. Since both of them basically looked the same with their suits on, I had no idea which was which. Regardless, I followed them out— once again getting disoriented by the lack of ground— and used my maneuvering jets to catch up to the two security officers.

The derelict wasn’t that far away since we managed to get there without using up more than a minute of my air supply. Somehow, it had managed to park itself right up next to a particularly large asteroid without actually crashing into it. That still meant that we couldn’t access a good quarter of the station from the outside, but since I had a matter gun it didn’t really matter.

Heh, puns.

We floated to a nondescript section of wall. “Entry,” one of them clucked. “Make the hole.”

I shrugged and toggled the thrusters on my suit to bring me close enough to drop a gravity tether on different wall panel. “Gettin’ it done,” I grunted, changing the settings on my matter gun. Material? Wall. Setting? Vaporize. I paused. Or did they want me to tear it down? Just to err on the side of caution, I set it back to Tear Down. Control Type? Wide Beam.

Matter guns worked in weird ways. I swept the gun back and forth over the wall panel to tell its software what I was trying to take apart. Once the entire wall panel had been digitally painted by my HUD, I carefully poked the “Destroy” button on the little screen on the back of the matter gun. Just like that, the entire section of wall vanished with a muffled slurping noise.

A body flew past us as the room explosively decompressed. “Go, go go!” the not-chicken alien shouted, charging into the derelict. The giant chicken quickly followed, guns blazing.

“Station Commander. Get to the airlock and dismantle it on the double! Life signatures are moving to that area, and I’d rather they didn’t make it out of that derelict.”

And here I was thinking that I was done. “Will do,” I sighed, toggling my thrusters to bring me around to the airlock.

I switched the matter gun’s material setting from “Wall” to “Airlock Door” and began to go through the steps to dismantle the door. Unfortunately, before I was halfway through ‘painting’ the airlock, it opened to reveal a suited up raider.

I briefly wondered whether I could use the matter gun as an actual gun when I felt several sharp stabs in my left shoulder. My HUD warned me of a suit breach, which was immediately followed by a new message that read “Life signs dropping. Deploying emergency beacon.”

“Shit.”

Author's Note:

I fixed all the glaring errors, so it should be readable. I don't think this was my best 2am work, but I really don't know how to change it any more.

But seriously, go check out Spacebase DF-9. It's like Sims. IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE.

Comments

[Redemption]

... Why not dead space?

[TheBobulator]

4515256
I thought about it, but I don't think I can write horror. Maybe if I get tired enough.

[TheBobulator]

4540221
I warned you! What else do you want me to do at 4am?

And yeah, cupcakes. It's a sort of stealth reference to another story that uses confectionery devices in lieu of guns and stuff.