Yonder Wandered Fluttershy

by Darkonshadows

23

It was a big spacious room filled with many smaller space traveling ships that were meant for combat, it was a place known as the hangar. Fluttershy sat in the vent overlooking this mass wide open place where tons of beings ran to and fro working on damaged space fighters, in a sense these being were just protecting their section of the universe like Fox and his friends did.

“Why did I ever let you two even get started?” Fluttershy lamented as she listened into to the ongoing discussion while she looked throughout the hangar for a damaged stiletto fighter to explore. She slowly moved along towards another vent she was going to enter the hangar from.

When both Katrina and Twilight introduced with one another they didn’t stop their talk about magic for quite a long while and were in fact still going since yesterday much to Fluttershy’s chagrin that they forgot they were both connected through her. At least she had a pair of people she could listen to that she knew personally and it made her hunger for companionship ease off by a large margin. Though the fact that they were still holding a conversation after she woke up from getting some sleep that involved a nice chat with Applejack was quite a surprise to her.

Apparently the talk about magic had gotten worse and even less understandable from the shy ponies point of view when the Aldebaran brought up a place called planet Rat with mystical rodents that had abilities that would match the powers of earth ponies. Despite being old Katrina didn’t seem to want to stop or rest in the conversation on the pursuit of universal knowledge of magic with Twilight, they were both too fascinated by the intricacies of the other to really pay attention to what Fluttershy had been doing since then.

“Um… could you two maybe quiet down a bit?” Fluttershy hated to put a damper on their hours of constant excitement and the fact that Twilight now had a new magic consultant, but she needed to sneak into a wide open noisy place while sticking to the hiding spots she was trying to take note of from the vents. She spotted a stiletto fighter she wanted to peruse, one with damaged weapons that the engineers needed to replace.

“How can you want to be…?” Twilight yawned quite thoroughly and then there was a gasp of sadness from said pony. “Oh right, you’re still stuck out there… Fluttershy I’m so sorry I forgot you, I was just so excited to…”

“I know Twilight and its okay. You’ve just made a new friend and I can certainly understand your excitement as she’s my friend too.” Fluttershy muttered as she knew all too well how excited Katrina and Twilight had gotten into hearing about each other’s theory of the relativity of magic as an existential constancy throughout the universe. In fact their theory that magic was the key to why life existed was intriguing, not entirely as dull as Fluttershy had thought it would be when they were still talking about it approximately three hours ago.

“Oh my yes, I too am so sorry to have forgotten your plight my friend. Magic is such an exciting topic to discuss when there are many other beings out there that have their own form of it.” Not that Katrina had truly forgotten that Fluttershy was the owner of the memory stone, but the conversation that had completely drawn her away from the poor mutated mare was her talk with Twilight about how the stone connected them as races. Ponies were amazing creatures to her as were the Rodentian’s of Planet Rat that she hasn’t heard much of, but knew they were an equally magically gifted people from what her people did know. “I think we should adjourn this meeting of the minds Twilight, you are still young but I’m quite old and could use some sleep.”

“Oh, okay… sorry to have kept you up so long Ms. Felicitous.” Twilight sounded as tired as her new Aldebaran friend did.

“Think nothing of it and please call me Katrina. It has been a wonderful experience so far Twilight.” Katrina chuckled dryly as she cut the connection to the stone, one that both Luna and Twilight could connect to at any time they wanted.

“Good luck Fluttershy, hope you meet some more magical races. I want to hear more about what you’re seeing and please try to stay safe, Rainbow Dash wants to be a space explorer instead of a Wonder Bolt now because of you. She even wants to start writing a book about your adventures. She says you’re already cooler then Daring Do in or out of her books.” With that Twilight cut her own connection to the stone and it went silent causing Fluttershy to sigh in relief.

Fluttershy did not think she would be able to sneak through the hangar with those two going at it; their budding friendship was so amazing despite the fact that they couldn’t talk face to face. All that was left was the sound of several conversations as people repaired ships and the hum of machinery that moved things around.

She slowly worked the vent covering she stopped at loose with light pressure and some help from her glass knife; she eventually popped it open so she could crawl out. This particular vent was behind a few cargo containers in the upper hangar area. She snuck a peak around the containers and ducked back as she notice someone look up in her direction before they went back to work on the stiletto fighter they were fixing.

The pony had to wonder how that person could have possibly thought they heard her with all the other noises of work going on in the hangar. Why exactly weren’t nearly as distracting as they should be? Some of these people had to have a good sense of something being out of place to have even notice her, it was kind of amazing to Fluttershy that one even almost caught sight of her.

Then again Fluttershy realized that with her enhanced sense of from her bat mutations she of course was hearing things as being much louder then they naturally were. So maybe it was her imagination that things were to loud for her to be seen or heard, taking even more precaution she clamped her ears down onto her head and carefully worked her way through the upper hangar on hoof.

Fluttershy kept the fact that she couldn’t fly on her mind constantly, mostly to remind herself that unless she could find some more of that sweet cider she wouldn’t be capable of it. Even if she was capable of flight, she’d be going far too fast to really control herself which was not a comforting thought.

Deftly avoiding the sight of everyone while moving about the hangar, Fluttershy found a stiletto that looked to be in working order if still particularly broken. The entire line of damaged stilettos looked almost exactly the same as the next. They were all mostly grey with two adjustable looking stubby wings that from watching others come and go, the long lance like portions protruding from them provided both extra thrust and held powerful laser cannons. They looked to have fins at the back, which would mean they were meant for atmospheric maneuvers. Using fins in space seemed kind of pointless otherwise to Fluttershy since there was no air resistance. The blue shaded bulb shaped canopy window was most likely designed to protect against bright light.

The one that the pony was interested in was the one with the damaged weapons, but the engines still looked to be okay or at least functional. She didn’t exactly know how to get into this ship, was there a door in the back or did you open it through the canopy? She slowly moved around slowly for the ship while making sure to duck out of sight in case there were eyes constantly on the lookout for her.

“This is the captain speaking!” The pony froze and looked around frantically before seeing a button on the small doors underneath the middle thrusters at the back of the slightly damaged fighter, Fluttershy hit the button and the doors popped open. She quickly crawled in with her heart shooting up her throat in fear that she had been discovered. The doors closed behind her once her tail cleared them completely and her heart was thundering in her chest. “We have just intercepted an SOS signal from a nearby asteroid field and we’re changing our heading to intercept the signals location. All pilots currently on duty prepare for launch, we have no idea if this is an ambush or not and are now currently on high alert.”

Fluttershy calmed down at the announcement not being about her and she had made it inside a stiletto so she could study it’s systems to see if she could actually pilot one. She wasn’t exactly ready to steal one quite yet. Now if she could only catch her breath and stop hyperventilating at the suddenness of that voice being heard, she didn’t think anybody saw her panicking and crawling into one of the obviously less then capable fighters. Well less capable when it came to combat, but it could still fly.

Sitting up the quiet pony moved towards the front of the ship, it had a small cargo hold for supplies in case the ship crashed and had emergency rations inside. Fluttershy made a note to take some of the dried food before she left the stiletto. It was not entirely cramped and could easily fit at least three or more of those creatures that Fluttershy was still debating on whether to call them humans or not. They were more to Lyra’s description of humans and less of what Twilight had described.

Of the few problems to start off with of learning how to fly a ship, the first would be how to work one. Another is actually getting it into the air without anyone noticing, which would be clearly impossible at this point since a bunch of people were filtering into the lower hangar and jumping into their fighters through the open canopies. Fluttershy moved to the front of the stiletto she was in and looked down at them entering their ships preparing for that SOS. If she knew anything about naval vessels back in Equestria, that meant someone was in trouble and needed help.

While Fluttershy went over the controls to the stiletto and planted her flank in the seat, the Valhalla had arrived at the area where the distress beacon went off. She looked out from the pilot’s seat and didn’t see much but an asteroid field. She looked over the confusing control panels and wondered what exactly did what. The reason why she was even interested in this particular ship was because of the fact that she couldn’t accidentally kill someone by firing its weapons. Since the weapons were completely broken unless they exploded and knowing her luck something like that might happen, she really couldn’t do much except ram it into another ship and it was still tethered down so the damage would be minimal.

Fluttershy tested a few of the buttons and didn’t get much more then the diagnostics screen, some lights and an open channel to Valhalla communications which she didn’t bother to turn off. As she was fiddling around with the ships internal systems, twelve stilettos shot out of the hangar towards the field of floating rocks in space. She idly thought about how Maude would have loved to explore them.

“Sir we’ve found the distress beacon, we’re getting an ID on it now. It’s the famous bounty hunter Samus Aran’s gunship captain, it appears to be incapacitated. It has a damaged reverse thruster, one of the cannons looks to be offline and it seems to have… well, the ship looks to have blatantly rammed itself into an asteroid. There are life signs still onboard, which is presumably Samus and they seem to be giving off very odd reading, I’m receiving no response to hailing frequencies. What should we do sir?” Fluttershy didn’t see any of this and accidentally found the button that activated the engines and quickly turned them off hoping that nobody heard or even saw that.

“We’ll tow her in under high quarantine protocols, as we don’t know what has happened to her. Her life signs are getting weaker so she’s probably become sick somehow. Direz, since you’re already up and going through systems check, we’ll refit stiletto thirteen with a tow cable to bring her in, acknowledge!” After a few moments of silence the captain started grumbling. “I said acknowledge stiletto thirteen!”

Fluttershy yelped as the voice got louder in the ship she was in and she looked around and her ears drooped. She was rather superstitious especially since she just realized that she was in stiletto number thirteen judging by the number she could see on the heads up display of the now active screen before her.

“This is flight leader tango three, Direz the captain is giving you orders so stop slacking off! I can hear you breathing in there! I swear you’re married to your fighter and you better not have been sleeping in it again after what happened last time. Maintenance, attach a tow cable system and reroute power from the damaged gun controls, after that give Direz the go signal to start her mission. Apparently her comm is still on the fritz, we know she’s receiving but she’s not broadcasting very well. We’ll look into it later, now get her out there.” The different and much angrier voice caused Fluttershy to shudder, why oh why did these people have to think she was someone else. “You heard the captain, get a move on fitting the stiletto for the operation procedure!”

“All other stilettos are to patrol the area and watch for hostiles, all ships defenses are now on standby. I’m not willing to rule out foul play, Samus is one of the toughest bounty hunters in the galaxy. Expect space pirates or any of her enemies to make an unannounced appearance, I know they’d love to end her life at this juncture.” The captain’s voice petered out on that pale note.

Feeling a jerk of the stiletto she was in, Fluttershy watched the console show a screen of what was going on outside as several of what she technicians were moving something to the bottom of the ship she now occupied. The docking claw had moved it into position so they could attach what was apparently the tow cable module which was the size of the lance like guns on the stiletto she was in. She did not like where this was going and what may happen; if any part of this ship was exposed to space she’d die immediately as she didn’t have a spacesuit.

After a few minutes of panicked waiting Fluttershy heard three rapid bangs against the side of the ship. On the screen she could see everyone was backing away and the claw was in the process of moving to release the stiletto. If she didn’t do anything and the ship dropped to the floor she’d be found out. The pony hit the button that started the engine and the stiletto dropped a few feet and started hovering.

Looking at the more obvious controls now, Fluttershy saw the handle on the right and the stick in front of her with. Gulping audibly she put her hooves on both of them not knowing how to really pilot this thing.

“Now whatever you do Direz don’t…” Fluttershy freaked out and pushed the handle on her right forward as far as her hoof could get it and the stiletto shot out of the hangar like the rocket powered vehicle it was, with her squealing all the way in fright as she shot towards the asteroid field. “Yeah something is definitely up with her comm. Direz don’t you dare go showboating, this is a serious rescue procedure!”

Fluttershy after a few second of having fired out of the hanger finally managed to come to terms to what she had just done and her heart was beating faster then set of bongo drums. She looked around herself in a panic seeing everything moving around her at incredible speed. Looking down around her seat saw some straps, slowly but surely she loosely strapped herself in and tried to figure out how to steer this thing before she slammed into an asteroid. She now knew how to make the ship accelerate, but she didn’t know what the other stick was for until she leaned it to the left and her entire view turned left.

The poor butter colored pony was now even more disoriented and her hoof slammed the stick sideways and to the left. This sent her current mode of transportation spiraling out of control curving towards the asteroid just where an orange football shaped ship could be seen.

“Oh god damn it all Direz, don’t you ever listen to me?” Not that Fluttershy wasn’t all ears at the moment and was currently in the midst of a panic attack, but apparently whoever flew this ship was likely insane. Yet the fact that that person was still allowed to fly, it made Fluttershy balk at the reason her bad flying hadn’t tipped them off yet that she was not this Direz person. In fact her balking at the absurdity of this situation is what brought her back to the present. “Ugh never mind. This is flight leader tango three; stiletto thirteen is almost on top of the target. Continue to scan the surroundings for trouble. Tango to thirteen, I would advise you to ease up on your speed and get a bead on the bounty hunters ship to fire the tow lines, remember that minimum distance needed is two thousand feet.”

A whimpering Fluttershy quickly pulled back her right hoof, but not past the white line that had an arrow pointing forward and an arrow point backwards. The stiletto immediately slowed down to a crawl as it fired some retro thrusters, she gently eased the stick in her left hoof to the right and lined it up with the football shaped ship that was designated as her target, well at least she was out here to saving someone and not killing anybody. How did Fox and his friends fly things like this? It was scary and she had a bad enough time of it from seeing the inside of Pep’s arwing that one time.

“Am I really doing this?” Muttered Fluttershy clearly shocked that she was actually piloting a spaceship, one that did not have an autopilot and had hooves on controls that weren’t heavily complicated. A more complicated ship seemed to have better ability to travel greater distances. Still this would be an interesting story to tell Rainbow Dash later if she survived this little excursion, Rainbow definitely wasn’t the fastest pegasus in the universe anymore. It took a moment to get control of her soon to be a chronic nervous breakdown, she had come this far and she really didn’t feel like dying right now. She better do what she was supposed to, but how was she supposed to fire those tow cables?

After flicking the things on the console with her hoof, a targeting reticule appearing on the screen in some cross hairs centering on the ship Fluttershy was supposed to be towing back to Valhalla. Hitting another button the ship lights lit up, okay she could now remember what buttons made lights shine from the stiletto and saw a vaguely familiar figure through the green tinted windows.

“We’re getting visuals from thirteen that the pilot is confirmed to be bounty hunter Samus Aran and she looks to be unconscious. There’s definitely something very wrong with her.” Fluttershy decided that hitting anymore buttons without thinking would be a bad idea. “You have a firing solution Direz. Pull the trigger already; you don’t need to get a close up of Samus! I know you have your preferences, but now is not quite the time for you to be daydreaming.”

Trigger? Fluttershy looked around for something was supposed to pull and looked at the stick in her left hoof. Seeing the little switch on the centralized steering stick and shivering slightly, she reached up with her right hoof and hoped this was the right thing. She pulled on the small switch thing and four cables with clamps immediately lanced out to snag the bigger ship. Fluttershy perked up, nothing went wrong and now all she had to do was gently turn this thing around and…

“This is stiletto six we’ve got incoming hostiles, it’s the Space Pirates and there is a whole ton of them coming at us!” Why did Fluttershy even bother to get her hopes up that things were going to go smoothly? To compound the problems further Fluttershy just realized she didn’t exactly know how to land this thing or what to do with the ship she just grappled. She also realized that she was now entirely responsible for this Samus persons well being.

Author's Note:

If you must know I've been having computer problems lately, aside from that I read too much fanfiction.

In fact I read a metric ton of fanfiction last one being seven hundred thousand words long, other then that halloween is my month to be me. I'm not promising a faster update schedule after halloween either, but I'll try to pick up some slack.

The extra downtime let me tweak this chapter a bit.

Comments

[StarzGecko]

This is a really great! I wish more people know about this one.