Heat Death

by ScottTrek

The Valkyrie: Engineering Deck

The hull of the Valkyrie creaked and groaned like it was some terrible living creature howling into the void. After a few million years completely saturated in magic the hull was settling down and releasing residual energy from the time displacement spell. As a result the entirety of the ship was vibrating and resonating, sending winds howling through the maintenance tunnels like the spirits of the damned.

The effect was muffled in the main decks, which were well insulated against anything to protect the crew, but Twilight still ran ahead to close any open maintenance hatches having told Forge, “This is creepy enough without a bloody soundtrack!”

Forge, though personally unaffected by the audio component, did have to admit some apprehension about the environment. With main power offline and whatever backups that were still functioning periodically cutting out the ship was largely dark and gloomy. It was a very different kind of dark than what they were both used to, out in the void there was effectively no light left in the universe, and there was also very little out there to give the blackness context. Within the ship there were countless corners, nooks and angles for their projected lights to reflect off and cast shadows from. The darkness here was inky and cloying, seeming to cling like a black film to every surface. Also not helping was the fact that they were both also used to being able to ‘see’ using other methods other than visible light, but neither had access to those sorts of faculties right now which was quite distressing for Twilight.

Progress had so far had been achingly slow, the sector of the Valkyrie they were in was pretty badly torn up with debris littering the corridors. To make matters worse this particular section was largely secondary and tertiary engineering systems meaning the damage had cause all kinds of chemical spills, radiation leaks and fires.

When they tried to use the airlocks main cargo lift its blast doors had opened to release a torrent of leaked Vernium-E into the corridor. The phasically unstable substance had immediately reacted to Twilight's magic and started sublimating forcing Twilight and Forge to beat a hasty retreat before it spontaneously combusted, or worse open a subspace vacuole then combusted.

The Vernium leak not only mean that the cargo lift system was a no go area but also very effectively cut off access the airlock, for the time being they were trapped inside. The rest of the already maze like-deck flowed suit with corridors blocked, flooded, contaminated or undergoing reality shifts depending on what nearby equipment had been destroyed or damaged.

Twilight should have been able to deal the with the damage; structural, technological and magical, but after the intense magic use of the past few days in contrast to the thousands of year’s inactivity prior had left her badly stressed both physically and mentally. When a unicorn splinched from overexertion it was painful, when an Alicorn did it the results were beyond catastrophic.
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Twilight squinted through glare as Forges flood lights hit something reflective. She deactivated her were-light and walked up. As Forge also dimmed his lights the bright sheen resolved itself into the burnished armour of a Hrath warrior, the race that had been besieging the Valkyrie when it had crashed into a Chaos Star. This particular Hrath’s pillaging and piracy days where far behind it though, as what was left of the combat suit had been skewered on half a dozen sections of torn wall plating. Something was sparking violently behind the amour adding to its hollow, skeletal look.

The junction ahead of them contained another remnant of a Hrath, this one in a much, much worse condition. Twilight felt a pang of sneaking sympathy for the fallen warrior as she bent down to inspect the pile of shredded metal and fossilised gloop, Whatever had killed it had been very thorough.

Worryingly it was the 12th similar sight they’d found in the past hour.

She was surprised to find a single tear welling up, which was very odd since through their history the Htrath had reliably proven themselves to be utter bastards and incapable of responsibly handling power. It was bad to stereotype a race but they made it very easy.

“Twilight unit.” Forge said, shining his flood lights down each corridor of the intersection in turn. “Where do we proceed from here?”

Twilight however wasn’t listening, her attention was riveted to the floor. There was the faintest of stains leading away from the Hrath corpse. The matter was badly decayed so she couldn’t be sure, but there was no doubt in her mind that it was blood. Pony blood. Twilight began to very quietly hyperventilate. This again surprised her, the evidence was minimal at best yet she couldn’t stop picturing the worst. A sneaking suspicion crept into her mind, she’d been having very odd emotional reactions for a while now, and it was very out of character…

“Twilight!” Forge repeated loudly, shaking Twilight from her train of thought. “In which direction do we proceed?”

Twilight looked around for a few seconds and chewed her lip. “Riiiiiiiight ok……..what junction does that wall plaque say this is?” Twilight turned away from Forge, glad that the mechaniod could no longer read her mind.

“34-56-91-Phi.” Forge replied.

“Right, right….Phi you say?” Twilight said, sweating slightly. “Minor detour but we should just need to head this way. There should be a transit station just around the next corner.”

Twilight set off down the corridor, but was forced to stop and sheepishly turn back when it became apart that Forge was not following her. “Twilight unit,” he said, “Are we lost?”

“What? No!” Twilight exclaimed, “The transit station is just along here.”

“You have been saying that for the last half hour Twilight.” Forge said, slowly walking towards her.

“……………”

“…………”
“………….”

“……….”

“Yeah we’re a little turned around,” Twilight admitted. “But we are not lost. I genuinely think it’s this way!”

“Think?”

“Ok so I don’t remember how the layout numbering system works!” Twilight said suddenly irritable. “We’re lost Ok! I’m not happy about it either.”

“Twilight, your heartbeat is showing irregularities. You have also been displaying strange emotional reactions.” Forge said, moving in closer. Twilight began racing as a hot flush overtook her, she backed away from Forge and was about to argue but, there was no point lying to him.

“I think I’m PMS-ing.” She grumbled, “The return to breathing kicked off a few functions in my body that I’d forgotten existed. It used to be disabled so I think it’s a bit backed up.” Twilight glowed with magic for a few seconds before continuing, “I’m fine ok? Just let me get on with finding out way to the central sector ok? I’m fine.”

“Negative.” Forge replied, “Your emotional state is causing extreme impairment of decision making. You are currently a liability and are in no condition to…..” Forge may have started that with the best of intentions, but really, REALLY could have phrased that better. As soon as Twilight heard the world ‘liability’ she completely flipped out.

“Excuse me! Excuse me!” She began ranting, “Emotions are making me a liability are they! You think my emotional methods are inferior!" Forge tried to interject but Twilight was in full swing and could not be stopped. "Well don’t get all high and mighty! Don’t delude yourself, we both know damn well that you are a perfectly capable of emotions! You wouldn’t have followed me on this insane quest if you didn’t care!”

Twilight knew she’d made a terrible error the moment the words passed her lips. Forge responded to this statement by whirring very loudly and violently, before tipping over and crashing to the ground like felled tree. Twilight yelped, and raced to Forges side cursing her bloody-minded indiscression. “Oh no no no no!” Twilight yelped as she tried and failed to find any sort of access port to his internals.

Twilight wheeled around in a frenzy, a little too late her subconscious remembered how to reactivate the spell that purged her endocrine system, but the damage was done. She didn’t know the exact specifications of the mini-body’s computer core but there was no doubt that she only had a few minutes before the existential crisis she just instigated caused his program to fragment and collapse. Suddenly inspiration struck Twilight, she leaped up and ripped the Htrath armour from its perch, diving through the gap towards the sparks she’s seen before.

Clambering up and round into the ceiling space Twilight gasped with a minor flush of relief as her suspicion proved to be correct, it was an active EPS line that had been shaken loose from a junction box. Twilight quickly checked the power rating and yanked the cable out. Twilight crashed back down to the corridor, the ceiling panel collapsing under a few frantic blows, depositing Twilight on top of Forge.

“By Discords Beard I hope you’re well insulated Forge.” Twilight muttered before ramming the live end of the cable into Forges eye socket. There was massive flurry of sparks and a thunderous crack as the electrostatic plasma in the line discharged. Twilight, rigid from the backwash of electricity, was hurled from the mechanoid’s body which splayed rigid and let out an unnervingly organic shriek before dropping down limp.

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The corridor was deadly silent as Twilight picked herself up, for a few heart-breaking moments Forge remained silent and still. Then with a healthier sounding whir his computer core rebooted and he came stuttering back to life.

“Rebooting, Rebooting.” Forge crackled, his eye speedily swivelling around before locking onto Twilight. For a few moments Forge stared blankly, then his posture relaxed as his memory unit came back online. “Twilight unit, short term memory storage has been partially corrupted. What happened?”

“Err…This EPS line fell out of the ceiling,” Twilight quickly lied, “Whacked you right in the eye.”

Forge stared at her for a few seconds, but before he could question it. Twilight suddenly gasped, her eyes transfixed on the EPS conduit that dangled next to her. Twilight carefully pulled the sparking conduit into the light from Forges floodlight and squinted at the surface. The markings were badly faded and barely perceivable but Twilight could pick out the handful characters carved into the side.

G.W <3 T.T

“Graviton Wave… you old romantic.” Twilight smiled warmly, hey eyes lighting up as she stood back up and started tracing a hoof along the wall panels, “If that’s here then this should be…” Twilight stopped at the seventh panel gave it a small set of rhythmic taps. A section of the wall panel slid inwards on old, creaking rails. Twilight stuck her hoof into the opening and began rummaging around. As Forge clomped in closer Twilight pulled out in quick succession a half dozen ODN relays, a pair phaser pistol and a dried up bio-neural gel pack, all of which were quickly discarded.

With a sudden cry of glee Twilight whipped out a sealed container. Twilight flapped happily into the air and presented the box to Forge, holding it a few inches from his eye. “Scan this forge, I think you’ll find it contains a mushroom and garlic sandwich.”

Forge obligingly scanned the box, red tracer beams flickering from his eye. “Matter is organic, structural pattern consistent with wheat by-products. 84% probability that it is a sandwich.”

Twilight closed her eyes and began tracing the deck layout with her hoof while muttering; “If Theron’s emergency locker no. 45 is here and we came from the port side, then make-out corner is about 200 meters that way. Follow the mural Whitestar did for Venn’s birthday…” Twilight rotated on the spot and continued, “Turn left there, that corridors reinforced so we can take it straight down till we hit the environment-control substation where Rainbow Bloom proposed to Star Fluff. Cut through there, past this sectors mess hall, follow that corridor and BINGO! There’s an internal monorail station we can follow all the way to Sector Zero!” Twilight’s eyes snapped open and she leapt into the air. “Ohh tell me I’m good!”

Forge gave an approximation of a shrug and replied, “You performed satisfactorily. Let us proceed.” After a few moments he cheekily, "Even if it did require 'inferior emotional methods'." Twilight ginned sheepishly but grateful at his forgiveness as the two strode off down the corridor. As they walked Forge glanced at Twilight and said, “You specifically remember a place where your species go to…make…intimate physical contact? And use that as a point of reference rather than major ship systems?”

“…Yeah.”

“Organic behaviour continues to elude me after all this time.”

Comments

[Europa]

Lovely chapter. A few errors like 'Twilight magic' instead of 'Twilight's magic', or 'site' instead of 'sight', or 'forge' instead of 'Forge', but still amazing, and the plot thickens!

...

Hey, Forge. Psst.

Psst...

This sentence is false.