48
Fluttershy watched as Mira loaded a pod grenade into her pea shooter and took aim from the deck of the Solar Cutter, she wasn’t sure but that didn’t seem like it was using the pea shooter correctly. She also didn’t quite understand what gave the ship propulsion and the thought was relatively unimportant in comparison to what her new friend was about to do.
Mira took aim and fired her pistol sized weapon; the grenade struck a patrol of seven hornets and exploded into a bunch of tiny red vines that encompassed all of them. Within seconds the small red vines were glowing with a faint red color, before all seven robots exploded. That’s when she motioned for them to follow her as they launched themselves for the airlock.
“Good luck you guys, sorry they dragged you into this mess Fluttershy I know it must be horrible having to face your fears again.” Not getting a response other than a hesitant nod, Janet watched as the equine launched her way after the other five as they made for the damaged hornet carrier. She turned the Solar Clipper around and decided now was a time to become a distraction.
The hornet carrier had a lot of outer hull damage and had plenty of its inner workings exposed to space, but it still surprisingly held a breathable atmosphere throughout and the exposed sections looked to have been sealed off. Why these robots needed a breathable atmosphere was questionable, it was likely because Zurg liked wasting atmosphere or he had planned to capture a lot of Rhizomians alive. There was certainly enough space for at least half a cities worth of Rhizomians on just one carrier, the evil emperor would likely make an example of them.
Fluttershy didn’t close her eyes as she flew forward; it was another situation where she couldn’t afford to let fear get in the way of survival. Everything was so quiet, she could feel her suit wrapping protectively around her in a gentle hug. It was almost like it was alive and technically the suit was only intelligence so far as it was symbiotic with its wearer. The suit being made out of an amalgam of naturally plants and plants in general reacting to outward stimuli, it made a lot of sense to Fluttershy if it could feel what she felt.
Fluttershy carefully landed against the hull and slowly trotted her way across the metal surface, her suit started clinging to it automatically. She walked up the team and saw Mira sitting at some doors that obviously was an airlock; she had learned a lot about airlocks back on the Valhalla and why she shouldn’t be near them. Her ears were twitching wildly and yet she couldn’t hear much of anything except her slight hyperventilation, the suit hugged her again and she calmed down slightly.
As Fluttershy reached the edge of the doorway where the others were standing she heard Kleptchi speaking to Mira about something and pointing to the closed panel that she was trying to pry open with her fingers. Mira moved aside and Kletpchi gripped the panel with her three fingers and managed to get the panel open and there was a mess of wires underneath. After a moment of trying to break the wires apart with all six of her fingers pulling at them she shook her head in aggravation.
“Um… maybe I could help.” That got the others attention, they might not have understood her as the suits couldn’t decipher her language like Janet could do so easily. While they might not have understood her, they definitely heard her quite mumble as she stepped forward. Reach into her suits right saddlebag with her suit covered feathered wing, she pulled out the knife and kept a tight grip on it as she held it out to Kleptchi.
Kleptchi smiled and took the proffered knife from Fluttershy and looked it over, she shrug and turned to the wires and moved the blade to cut one of them and looked at the knife with surprise as it went through the wiring with ease. After that Fluttershy watched as the Rhizomian started crossing several wires and jabbing it at several circuits, the others were looking out for another patrol.
Even though Mira destroyed a patrol so fast that they hadn’t got a signal off, it would be bad not to be wary with so many ways to die in the vacuum.
After a moment the airlock was open and Mira looked into the airlock, she smiled and motioned for the others to follow her. Rhizome based technology was making this somewhat stealthy infiltration go off without a hitch so far, ‘so far’ being the key words to this adventure.
Packing into the airlock they floated there and Roller seemed to be enjoying his freedom of being able to fly around however he liked above their heads. After Kleptchi finished working another panel and the doors closed behind them, a white fog was pumped into the tight space hissing as it came in. After a moment they fell to the floor in a massive heap. Whereas Roller just reoriented his four pipes and carapace and landed upright on the floor staring at the tangle of limbs next to him curiously.
Fluttershy had thankfully been at the top of the pile of bodies suddenly affected by gravity. Poor Triffid was at the bottom of them all, at least his bulk made sure he was relatively uninjured. After they managed to get off of each other, Mira seemed to ask something of Kleptchi as she went to work on the door that would lead them inside, they all kept their protective bubble screens in their suits on. Even if there was breathable oxygen on the ship, they had no clue when they might run into a door with a fail-safe problem and it was better to be safe than sorry.
Their objective, as Fluttershy knew it, was to get to wherever the control room for the ship was and hold that room.
Mira knew Zurg and the piloting controls for these ships weren’t always on the bridge since the guy randomized the placement throughout every spaceship in his regime, plus redundancies that were activate one at a time for as long as they were still capable of being operational. Not only was the single active control room hard to find, it was the reason why the ships were simplistic in design so the control room could be put anywhere and powered. The fact that the hornets bothered repairing it meant that the carrier still had an active control room available; they just had to find the one active room among several other completely inert control rooms.
In essence it was trying to find a needle in a haystack full of false needles, while also being hunted by feral rabid hungry wolves who are staking out the haystack with you inside it. Fluttershy was feeling her suit cling to her again and it was weird that she found it overly comforting, it was a good thing she wasn’t claustrophobic on top of all the other very feasible anxiety ridden fears she had.
Once they’ve gained control they’d then fly it at the other two carriers and set it to explode, the two undamaged carriers were close enough together to be destroyed if the third one blew up next to them and providing they haven’t moved by then. While Zurg was good on design for many things in an evil a manner as possible, his minions controlling the robots weren’t trained for good tactics and likely wouldn’t make the other carriers run. They were separated from the third carrier for repairs and if anything went wrong it wouldn’t affect the other two carriers.
Fluttershy blinked and found her knife being held handle first be a smiling Kleptchi, she took it back and stowed it away in her spacesuits large green saddlebags. The door into the next room was open and the door beyond that one was scouted out as it led to the corridor, Mira motioned Fluttershy forward.
Being the smallest in the group Fluttershy was good for peeking around corners as she didn’t present a large profile. The pony could also hear the movements of robots through her helmet given there was an atmosphere to hear it in, but the echolocation sight was muffled by her helmet making the image she was seeing fuzzy through the walls and floor. She turned to Mira and looked her in the eyes.
“It’s clear, but I think we are going to need a way to communicate without me having to look at each other every few minutes. I can hear them moving and I can even see them too, none are near us at the moment and they are marching around.” There were a lot of places to hide on this vessel, but it would be hard to miss the hornets as they mostly moved about in groups on the floor below, Fluttershy didn’t have a very long range because of her helmet. “Oh and my helmet is limiting my hearing range, it’s one of those side effect of being mutated halfway into a chiropteran that I mentioned.”
“Still, stick close to or behind us. If something comes up we all know what your voice sounds like at least and if it’s something we should know about immediately yell. Oh and thanks for getting us in, now make sure Mr. Wheel doesn’t make too much noise.” Mira turned back to the corridor and motioned for them to move forward. Things were relatively quiet and being a part of a group would hopefully make Fluttershy feel safe.
Fluttershy turned to Roller and patted him on his carapace and she started moving forward with Pwerta and him at her side as the group started to systematically check the rooms. They already found one of the inert control rooms and were searching it over; there was no way to get any power to this room unless another specific room went offline.
After a moment of looking around the room Pwerta spoke up attracting the attention of both Truffle and Fluttershy. Pwerta was pointing out the wires that ran along the walls and floor. Truffle held a conversation with her that the pony was no part of; Fluttershy really wanted her universal translator back in working condition.
Mira came over and joined their conversation after a moment of talk and scanning the doorways into and out of the rooms she nodded and motioned for everyone to follow while pointing at the cables in the walls. There was a chance that the cables led to the other control rooms or the power source connected to all of them.
As they followed along with Mira in the lead, they had to duck out of the way of several patrols, five to six hornets would pass by and then they’d leave cover. There were alcoves in the hallways to hide in or they’d hover against the ceiling, it was nice that the hornets didn’t have any peripheral vision or else they would have been caught because of a few mistakes.
As they followed the large wires into a large cavernous room Mira suddenly halted their progress and Fluttershy’s ears wilted as she looked up at the hundreds of racks each containing an inactive hornet robot.
Now that she saw them, Fluttershy had an insight as to what might possibly happen once they do find the control room. It was similar to what happened to her on the previous vessel she was stuck on, minus the chaos field and possibly with chances of a more lethal explosion.
They were trying to do all this as silently as possible, but Fluttershy heard one of the robots becoming active and she squeaked before ducking out of sight as her echolocation sight still worked even if at a limited range through her helmet. Pwerta followed her lead which led to the others doing the same as a random hornet among the hundreds dropped to the floor and slowly became active.
They hid behind some large cargo containers that held parts and bits of machinery that appeared to be for hornet repair purposes, they watched as it moved around to activate five more in the room before marching off down a different corridor with them.
Fluttershy poked her head out around the container and then turned to all the Rhizomians and Mira staring at her, she blushed at the attention she was receiving and then nodded. It was hard for her to forget she wasn’t alone in this, the fact that she was helping so much made her feel useful to the cause.
Mira got them all following the cables again, after a while they found another inoperable control room. They all sighed as this was going to take a while. Twenty minutes later they were all hiding outside the working control room while being edgy about all the hornet patrols they dodged, they were waiting for Mira to come up with a plan of action to deal with the twenty hornets in the room.
From what Fluttershy understood, they couldn’t afford to destroy anything in the room or else the control room may stop working and then they’d have to find the next control room. Every once in a while hornets would enter the room or exit it, so it was under constant patrol and no one was going to sneak in there… no one except for her that is and she really didn’t want to.
While the Rhizomians were busy talking with Mira quietly, Fluttershy turned to Roller and motioned him forward. He gave off a soft rev and followed along; apparently his friend had an idea of what to do with the swarming robots. It was a good thing they didn’t have the doors under constant guard or else Fluttershy would have been seen slipping in with Mr. Wheel when the next hornet entered the room.
Fluttershy was too small for the hornets to see close up, Roller didn’t exactly count as stealthy but he wasn’t trying to make any unnecessary noise as they entered the room and ducked into an out of the way alcove. They were watching as several hornets stood at the consoles and were working their three mechanical fingers over multiple buttons at insane speeds. The screens in front of the hornets showed screens of the other two hornet carriers and a pack of hornets chasing the Solar Clipper still being controlled by Janet’s avatar.
Janet was wrecking the hornets without having weapons and she was putting on an interesting show with how hard she was pushing the clipper to perform as it slammed its way through packs of hornets. It was soon joined by a dozen other similar looking Solar Clippers all being driven by little red flowers that were loaded with tons of semi activated pod grenades that slammed directly into the thrusters of the other two hornet carriers. The hornet’s controllers must have been pretty confused that Rhizome ships could seemingly pilot themselves when it was just Janet planting an avatar flower in each one to assume direct control. She must have found out what would happen if her avatar was destroyed.
“A plan, I need a plan…” Fluttershy reached into her left saddlebag and pulled out the memory stone held in her left wing, she dropped it into her left hoof. She wasn’t surprise that it was there after she had left it behind on Maurice. She smiled as she hefted the memory stone twice getting a feel for its weight in her hoof; it didn’t weigh very much at all and it was completely indestructible. It had enough mass to make enough noise to attract attention; these machines weren’t nearly as intelligent as the ones on the previous vessel, but they were still just as dangerous. So Fluttershy had a good plan of action. “Roller, can you please take care of the ones I miss and watch out for me?”
The red carapace moved up and down in a nodding motion as the wheel stayed in place, he watched as Fluttershy brought her left hoof back and then hurled it at the corner of the room where nothing important looked to be. The loud clacking noise the stone made as it hit the metal wall and hit the floor attracted the attention of every hornet that swiftly flew over to it and stood in a circle staring down at the memory stone. After a moment the stone disappeared in a small flash, puzzling the hornets until a small green orb rolled into their midst.
They all turned to Fluttershy who had come out from cover to roll the orb into their pack; they never got a shot off when the pod grenade she rolled forward went off entangling them in bright red vines. After a second the vines started glowing brightly before the robots fell to pieces when the ensnaring vines erupted. Before Fluttershy could comment on that going so well three hornets burst into the room from the door in the back, she had come from the right hand side of the room from their position.
Roller revved loudly and rammed the three hornets to the floor taking out two of them immediately by the force of his impact. The third being the furthest away only took damage to one of its legs; it sat up and tried to get a shot off at either Roller or Fluttershy only to get hit with four thorns that caused it to start melting into a pile of useless slag. None of the equipment in the room was damaged and it was all still operational.
Mira started making quick orders, Truffle, Triffid and Kleptchi spread out to cover the three doors leading into the room as she looked to Fluttershy looking impressed with the pony. She patted Fluttershy on the back instead of yelling at her in an angry and said something that sounded rather comforting. After that Mira went to the consoles while asking something of Pwerta making the Rhizomian join her.
Fluttershy quietly poked her hoof at Mira’s legs as she looked at the screens to see several Rhizome vessels were harassing the hornet carriers without a single Rhizomian coming into the line of fire.
“Huh, oh Fluttershy what is it? We’re about to ram this carrier into the other two, then we’re going to set the self destruct.” Things were going pretty well and Mira had not given thought to the one problem as Truffle started firing thorns down his corridor as blasts of energy whizzed by him.
“How are we going to get out of here after we set the carrier to explode? Won’t the hornets swarm the ship and try to keep us onboard now that they have an idea that we’re here?” After a moment of staring at the indescribable look of slight unease on the aliens face, Fluttershy wasn’t sure she liked the answer as to how they were getting off this ship alive.
Pwerta grabbed both of their attentions when she yelled something, they turned to the screens of the control room and saw hornets were activating and dropping from their racks in the cargo area they passed earlier, Mira turned back to Fluttershy.
“Yeah, that’s the tricky part about all this Fluttershy. The limited time we’ll have to get off with hordes of killer robots breathing down our necks, I’ve done something like this often enough that I forgot I wasn’t with my friends for a moment. For now though, I’ve got to steer the ship. So please don’t cause any more trouble, you just about gave me three separate heart attacks back there.” Mira turned back to the controls rooms console and started to operate the ship, she was Buzz Lightyear’s co-pilot and knew how to fly several kinds of vessels. She was especially handy when it came to flying Zurg’s ships once she could get to the controls of them without them exploding in her face. The ghosting powers that had saved her in all those incidents would have been really useful right about now.
Triffid and Kleptchi were now firing and sparingly throwing pod grenades down the corridors as they were starting to attract more swarms of hornets. Truffle sitting in his position by his door threw a pod grenade before a nasty shot ripped into his left shoulder causing him to scream out and fall onto his back spilling turquoise some blood on the floor, he continued to fire his thorn rifle in his right hand despite the pain. His suit had taken enough damage that the planet matter covering his shoulder had become thin enough to be punctured.
Pwerta was immediately on it moving towards the injured Rhizomian tossing her own pod grenade down that hall as she ran up to Truffle; she slammed her suit fist over controls to the door, damaging the panel enough to force it to shut and lockdown. They definitely weren’t getting out that way, after a moment she rummaged through her backpack then pulled out two plants.
“Roller I want you to please stay here in this room and keep the tall yellow things out if they get in, okay?” Hearing an affirmative revving noise from her favorite wheel based animal, Fluttershy quickly joined Pwerta by taking the roll of flattened plant into her hooves. She watched as Pwerta held the other plant in her six fingers and squeezed it tightly. It started squirting a foul smelling sickly yellow substance over the wound, after that Fluttershy started quickly wrapping up Truffle who wouldn’t be able to move that arm due to the numbing and cleaning agents that was just freshly squeezed into his shoulder. After Fluttershy was done, Truffle’s suit grew over the bandages and was once again sealed up.
While they were helping Truffle, Triffid took a shot knocking him back slightly, but he stood his ground and kept firing even while his suit looked lightly scorched all over. Kleptchi ducked out the way of a barrage of energy blasts from the corridor they just came through. The two were getting swarmed and hammered badly, their suits wouldn’t hold up much longer. At least the control room was taking very little damage compared to the walls in the corridors around it that were getting struck with acidic robot melting thorns.
They had definitely just kicked a hornet’s nest; stealth was no longer an option for them.
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So Truffle is indeed the Redshirt...
According to earlier chapters fluttershy is a 300lb pony so how big is everyone else to make her the smallest