The Call to Post is Sounding
Post-Equus arrival, day 202
14:53, Canterlot Standard Time
Bridge, Caprica
One more hour, Mark thought to himself as he gave the ship’s clock a glance. He looked about the bridge to see most of the staff giving their consoles and controls lifeless, zombie-like stares.
To say that Admiral Perinski's arrival had been untimely would be like saying the Caprica survived the Driden onslaught merely because of Driden oversight; an extreme understatement. Mark had noticed a marked drop in performance despite the crew having only a half-day at their stations. He found himself needing to repeat given orders two or three times, ponies sitting a little further down in their seats, eyes glazed and ponies’ heads nodding off every once in awhile.
Mark was tired as well, and all the coffee on the ship, he thought, would most likely not help, even if he were to be given it intravenously. He did have high hopes that the second shift would be in better condition. Mark yawned before turning his attention to the helm. “How ya doin’ over there, Wind?”
Wind Burst pointed his muzzle over his seat. “Tired, sir.”
Mark gave a nod. “How about you, Steel?”
“Same, sir. I feel like I could sleep for a couple of days straight,” Steel Hoof replied.
“Silver?”
Silver Star moved her headset off her ear. “I hate to sound like a broken record, but I’m tired, too." She rubbed an eye with a foreleg. "It’s been a heck of a day.”
“And that’s putting it mildly,” Mark said as Silver put back her headset back on. Mark turned to Spitfire. She was seated in Mark’s command seat, quietly dozing. “How are you holding up, Captain?”
Spitfire opened her eyes as she yawned. “Well, I’d be doing a lot better if someone had been asleep and not rolling around for a couple of hours.”
Mark rolled his eyes. “Next time an incident happens, I’ll let you talk to the Princesses, then.”
“Nah.” She shook her head. “I’m good with where I’m at.”
“Hah,” Mark laughed. “That’s what I thought.”
Spitfire was about to give a sarcastic retort when a beeping came from comms. Silver held a hoof to an ear. “Des? I need your help. I'm getting a voice transmission from the Vindicta.”
“Okay. I’ll take over.” Des let a small stream of information flow into her. “Acknowledged, Vindicta. I’ll relay the message.”
Mark slowly strode toward the communication’s console. “What’s up, Des?”
“I just received a flight plan for Hopper designated Lima two-two-seven. The Vindicta is sending it over with parts and crew to repair our slipspace drive.”
“Today?” Mark flipped over his sleeve and looked at his LED watch. “I figured he wasn’t gonna do that until the Vindicta got fixed.”
“Apparently Admiral Perinski had other plans,” Des said. “I’ve already detected flight pod activity. They’ll be here within the hour.”
"Hmmm… he wants us to get moving, and he wants us to get moving now." Mark sighed. “And just when I thought I was gonna have an early night off.”
"Sucks to be the boss, doesn't it?" Spitfire said with a snark.
"At times," Mark replied while fixing his uniform. "I'll meet them in the landing pod. Des?"
"Mhmm?" Des hummed.
"Give them clearance to land in the port landing pod."
"Aye aye, Commander," Des said, giving a mocking salute.
Mark spun back to Spitfire. "Think you can run things while I'm gone?"
Spitfire yawned again. "I think so. Want me to go ahead and transfer command when B- shift gets here?"
Mark couldn't help but to yawn himself. "Yeah, just let them know I'm still on duty until further notice."
She smiled. "That, I can do."
15:01 hours, Canterlot Standard Time
Port landing pod, Caprica
The pressure seal on the Vindicta's Hopper gave way as the side hatch opened. In the doorway stood a man, Mark was guessing late twenties/early thirties in age, standing about as tall as Mark, short black hair, tired brown eyes, with multiple scars strewn about his face. He also was wearing an ill-fitting uniform that did poorly to hide his prosthetic metal right arm. When he stepped down to the deck, a metallic clank could be heard as he lowered his right foot. The ponies remaining on the deck gave him a glance, then returned to their duties.
The man who stepped down from the Hopper, however, stared intently at the nearest pony, a unicorn deckhand. He seemed overwhelmingly fascinated that, before him, stood an actual living, breathing unicorn. The deckhand picked up a spanner in magic, and Mark saw the new arrival’s mouth figuratively hit the deck. Mark cleared his throat to get the attention of the man. “Welcome aboard.”
The man’s attention unwillingly went to Mark, after a quick triple-take. “Thank you, sir. You must be Commander Frude," the man said. Even though he looked worn, his voice sounded as if he was still full of vigor and in good spirit.
"That's me," Mark said.
"Good to finally meet ya, sir," the man said as he held out his metal hand. Mark took it in his own. "I'm Captain Nicolas Brookings, Chief Engineer of the Vindicta."
Mark released his hand. "An honor, Nicolas. Nice to meet someone in a good mood from the Vindicta."
Nicolas gave a small laugh. “Yeah, there's been quite a bit of that goin' around on the boat today, but the way I see it is that we survived, we’re in a place that’s safe” -- his gaze drifted again to the ponies -- “and we’re with some aliens that don’t want to kill us for a change, so there's no reason why not to be in a good mood." Nicolas gave a warm smile. "And please, Nic will do just fine."
It was a nice change for Mark to meet someone with a sunny disposition. "Alright then, Nic. So I'm guessing you're here to get our slipspace drives back online?"
"Mostly, yes." Nic reached back into the Hopper and pulled out a small datapad. "Orders from Admiral Perinski."
Mark took the datapad. I swear, he and I are gonna have some real issues if he think he can order us around. The orders displayed were for the repair crew, detailing what they would be doing on the Caprica. "Mechanical repairs of the slipspace drives and other tasks, if needed," Mark read aloud. He looked back up at Nic. "What about the Vindicta? Are you all patched up?"
"For the time being. Nothing that can’t wait until we get planetside," Nic said, "but that's not the best part. Keep reading."
Mark went back to the pad, skimming until something jumped out at him. "'... to stay aboard the Caprica until repairs are completed?'"
"I figured that'd be the part that would irk you the most."
Mark handed the pad back to Nic. He scratched his eyebrow as he thought. "How many of you are there?"
"Just us four, plus our equipment." Nic threw a hand back to the remaining crewmembers exiting the Hopper, bringing a large metal box with them.
“Well… I think we may be able to accommodate,” Mark said with a hint of frustration. “A little more notice would have been nice.”
“Sorry, sir. He kinda just sprang this assignment on us.”
“I’m not surprised.” Mark shook his head as he spoke. “It’s not your fault, just…”
“Inconvenient?”
“Aye,” Mark said. “The ambassador quarters aren’t being used right now. We could probably fit two of you in there.”
“You could probably fit all four of us in there,” Nic suggested. “We’ve slept in worse.”
"What could be worse than being crammed into a twenty square-meter room with four people?"
Nic laughed. "Being crammed into a twenty square-meter latrine with five others when the subsection lost pressure."
Mark exhaled through pursed lips. "Damn. How long were you in there?"
"Twenty-seven hours." Nic shook his head with a grin, recalling the incident. "The only thing we had going for us is that we didn't have to deal with people's shit, so to speak."
They both shared a laugh. “Well then, we’ll begin making accommodations. Des?”
Des materialized on the deck. “Yes, sir?”
“Do we still have any Combat Deployment Bed Rolls in storage?” Mark asked.
“Yes we do.”
“Excellent. Can you arrange for three of them to be transferred to the ambassador cabin?”
Des nodded. “Of course, sir.”
Mark looked back to Nic. “You’ll all have to fight over who gets the bed.”
“Oh hey, a smart A.I.!” Nic said with more elation than before. “The Admiral neglected to mention you had one of these.”
“I’m not surprised,” Des deadpanned. “I’m Desarae.”
“I think our jobs just got a heck of a lot easier.” Nic clapped his hands quietly in excitement. “With your on-the-fly diagnostics, we should be able to get in and out in no time!”
“I’ll do what I can,” Des said to Nic. She turned to Mark and spoke in Equuish. “After this afternoon’s meeting, it’s nice to not be talked down to like a parasite.”
“Well, he’s an engineer, and he solves problems,” Mark said back. “And anything that makes him solve problems quicker is worth its weight in platinum.”
Two of the other crewmembers from the Vindicta joined Mark and Nic. “We’re ready to go, sir.”
“Did you want to go to your quarters first and get settled in?” Mark asked Nic.
“Nah.” Nic shook his head. “Better go to your drives and get a sense of what we’re dealing with.”
Mark nodded. “Very well, then. This way.”
Mark led the small group off the flight pod and into the main corridor. “So where do you hail from?”
“Originally from a small town in Missouri,” Nic answered as he walked through the hatch. “‘bout two hundred clicks southwest of St. Louis. Small farm town, nice rolling green hills with a barn or two still standing upright.” Nic gave passing ponies a quick study. “Very picturesque, almost postcard worthy. I moved into the city when I joined the service. How about yourself?”
“Almost the same, except I’m originally from Kansas.” Mark saluted back to a pony. “The town I’m from was just about in the halfway point between Kansas City and the ruins of Denver.”
“Oh, right along that old roadway system?”
“Yeah. The entirety of that rural area was my stomping grounds.” Mark smiled at the sudden influx of memories from childhood. “I ended up in K.C. when I joined the Corps.”
“K.C.’s not a bad place to go,” Nic said as they neared the engineering section. “Was the Power and Light District still rockin'?”
“Indeed it was, but I was still a year too young to fully enjoy the experience.”
A realization crossed Nic’s face. “Oh yeah, you were the kid that was the youngest to go through boot.”
Mark winced at “kid.” "I was allowed to go through basic a year early, yes. Helps when you have a mother that can pull some strings."
Mark looked to Nic, who seemed to be paying more attention to Mark's crew than to him. A unicorn pilot, Ember Streak, stepped over the threshold of the pilot briefing room, tablet in tow, immediately in front of Nic. They bumped, and took two steps back before making eye contact. Nic held up a hand and let out a quiet "Excuse me."
Ember extended a hoof before looking to Mark. "He just said 'Excuse me,'" Mark said in Equuish.
"No harm, no foul," Ember said back before going beside them and back on his way.
Nic watched as Ember walked away. "I would say there's a Close Encounters of the Third Kind joke in there somewhere, but I can't for the life of me see it."
Mark stood motionless beside him. “Six months I’ve been here, and not once had that crossed my mind until now.”
They resumed their walk. “I’m assuming you saw the rebooted version?”
“Which one?”
“The most recent.”
“Yeah,” Mark said, “as well as the ones before that, and the original. My dad was obsessed with that movie.”
“How was the nineteen seventy-seven version?” Nic asked.
Mark stopped before the hatch leading to the slipspace drives. “Let’s just say we’ve come a long way.”
The screech of the hinges gave way to the chamber housing the slipspace drives, still sitting unpowered as they had for the last hundred days. The party stepped through the threshold, each taking a noise-cancelling headset from a storage locker. “Ya know,” another member from the Vindicta started, “I don’t think I’ve ever been in one of these sections when it was so… quiet.”
“Yeah. I don’t quite know what to do when my ears don’t feel like they’re gonna blow out,” Nic joked back. “Well,” he clapped his hands together, “where to begin?”
“Do you have any diagnostic information from before you took your drives offline?” another party member asked.
“It’s limited, but yes,” Des answered. “I’ll send it to your datapads.”
“Well, if you’ll all excuse me,” Mark said to the group, “I’ll let you have at it. As for now, I have other duties to which I must attend. I should be in my quarters if you need me, help yourself to chow between eighteen hundred and twenty hundred hours, and if you have any questions, yell for Des.”
“I’m assuming I’m going to be in here for a majority of the time anyway,” Des said.
“And, let me be the first to say: Welcome to the system, and thank you for helping us out.”
“It’s our pleasure, sir,” Nic said. “It’s a refreshing change of pace to be able to go to another ship again.”
Mark turned to leave. “If you need anything else, don’t be afraid to call me.”
18:36 hours, Canterlot Standard Time
Commander’s quarters, Caprica
“I think he’d fit right in,” Mark said as he set aside a plate on his desk. “He lost an arm and a leg, but still has a ‘glass half-full’ outlook, I think.”
“I’m… honestly surprised,” Spitfire said while laying atop Mark’s made bed. “I don’t think I could have had the same chipper attitude.”
“Yeah, neither do I.” Mark picked up a datapad. “Word of our lack of Driden-fighting must have spread through the Vindicta quickly.”
“What about his crew?” Spitfire asked.
“They were mostly silent throughout the trip to the drives, only asking technical questions.” He gave the screen a flick. “It was hard to get a read on them.”
“Could be that they’re confused about… ya know. Us.”
“Maybe.” He looked up. “Well, probably. I think I would be pretty overwhelmed if I just happened to stumble upon an alien civilization.”
“You weren’t when you met Luna.”
“In my defense, I thought I was talking to my own dream,” Mark said as he put his focus back to his tablet. “It never occurred to me that I could be talking to an actual magic-wielding, all-powerful, immortal alicorn.”
Two high-pitched beeps came from the speaker, and a moment later, Des materialized on Mark’s desk. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”
“Not at all.” Mark set his tablet down. “What’s up, Des?”
“Captain Brookings is on his way to your quarters to give a report on the slipspace drives. Also, you have a message pending from Doctor Cervello about your upcoming appointment with him.”
Spitfire gave Mark a concerned look. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Mark reassured her. “I just thought he’d like to know about this after our last discussion.” He went back to Des. “Anything else?”
“Nope, that’s it.” She gave a wave as she dematerialized.
Spitfire pushed herself up before giving her wings a flap and gently landing on the floor. “I’m going back to my quarters to freshen up. Let me know what you two talk about.”
“Of course.”
Spitfire extended her wings again and hovered her way over to Mark, giving him a short kiss before landing again. “I’ll see you later.”
“You sure will,” Mark returned as she walked through the hatch. He picked up the tablet in front of him again, hearing the clanking of Spitfire’s hooves come to a momentary stop before starting up again. Shortly after a metallic knock came from the hatch. “Come in.”
Nic crossed over the threshold, arm behind his back. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Not at all. Just going over requisition orders for when we get back.” Mark again set the tablet aside. “What’s up?”
“We found what is wrong with the drives.” His metal arm came back into view, revealing a very charred piece of circuitry. “The navigation integration motherboards of your drives are totally fried.”
“Ah, well, there’s our problem.”
“Yeah. Thing about it is, this is a pretty rare thing to happen to a drive.” Nic scratched his head. “I was reading the report on your damage assessment, but I gotta ask, what the hell did you do to get your drives in this kind of shape?”
“That’s... an interesting tale.” Mark stood. “Have you had chow yet?"
Nic shook his head. "Not yet, no."
“How about your crew?”
“We brought some MREs with us and they ate those. I’m famished though.”
Mark made an open-handed gesture to the hatch. "I'll walk you to the mess hall. How we got here’ll make a great dinner conversation.”
“Oh?” Nic asked with a huff. He followed Mark out of his quarters.
“So long as you don’t mind a vegetarian diet, yeah.”
“Huh.” Nic gave a questioning eyebrow. “I would have had these… ponies pegged as vegans.”
“So did I at first, until I saw them drinking milk and using eggs in baked goods.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Nic cleared his throat. “Anyway, you were talking about how you got here.”
“Right.” Mark saluted a passing pony. “We had a compliment of three hundred and fifty or so people when we were ordered to go radio silent; a lot of military personnel with some civilians who managed to get aboard in the scramble. After a year and three months of running from system to system, looking for a new habitable planet that was already named ‘New Haven,’ we were caught by a Driden carrier fleet.”
“Were they following you?”
Mark opened a hatch leading into the next section. “Not that we could tell. We had just come out of our jump to the next probable habitable planet, and ten seconds later, there’s a carrier fleet staring us down.”
“Ah,” Nic said. “A case of ‘Wrong place, wrong time.’”
“Something like that. Anyway, we were captured, and those damn Dridens took people and kept questioning if there were any more human worlds, and when they didn’t get the answer they wanted…”
“They executed them, right?”
“Yeah. Out the airlocks.”
“On my last ship, we were doing surveillance tagging when we detected people being jettisoned in the same way.” Nic hung his head and gave it a small shake. “Damn shame. There are better ways to go.”
“Yeah. Apparently they had enough with the questioning, so they just started executing. I was with the last group, and thanks to some miraculous luck, I managed to escape with the Caprica here.”
“That still doesn’t explain the damage to the integration boards.”
“Oh, right. We were making an escape jump when our trajectory was blocked by a newly arrived carrier, so we de-synced the drives from the navigation computer and sent individual coordinates to the drives.”
Nic stopped walking. “That should have torn the ship apart, just by the shearing tension of the fields alone.”
“That’s what we thought, too. We even set the drives to go in opposite directions for maximum effectiveness. But,” Mark held up his hands, “ta-da! Here we are.”
Nic resumed walking. “I’ll have to do some research into that. That might give an explanation as to how we got here.”
“Did you try to destroy your ship with an ill-advised, uncoordinated jump, too?”
“Not intentionally. Our navigation systems were heavily damaged and not responding to automation controls.” Mark stopped in front of the mess hall, as did Nic. “It could be we produced a similar event that you did.”
Mark put a hand on the latch. “What are those f-ing odds?”
“Probably too small for us to ever understand.”
Mark couldn’t help but to give a small smile. “Amen to that.” His hand pressed down on the hatch, pushing the door into the mess hall. To Mark’s relief, there weren’t many ponies eating. “Go ahead and take a seat,” he said as he pointed to a nearby unoccupied table. “I’ll get you some chow.”
“Well, thank you, sir. Not usually treated to such kindness.”
“It’s the least I can do for having you help us out. I’ll be right back.” Mark turned and strode to the counter.
“Hey, Ladle,” Mark said to the light brown earth pony mare standing over a pot.
Ladle swung her head to see who called her name. “Evenin’, Commander.” She let her front hooves drop to the ground.
“What’s on the menu for tonight?”
“Tonight we’ve got a garden vegetable medley soup, with a side of bread and crackers and cheese, along with our other various a la carte items.” She looked over Mark’s shoulder to see Nic sitting. “Want me to whip up a couple of trays?”
Mark shook his head. “Just one. I already ate in my quarters.”
“Can do, Commander. Hang tight.” Ladle spun and grabbed a nearby tray in her mouth. Mark focused his attention back to his guest as Ladle worked. Nic was occupied with making an adjustment to his metallic arm prosthesis when his index finger began to spin in place. To Mark’s surprise, he popped off the finger and replaced it with a bit from his pocket, gave it another spin, and changed the bit out for his finger again.
Huh, Mark thought. That’s actually pretty handy for an engineer.
“Order up, Commander.” The mare said after she placed the tray on the counter.
“Thanks, Ladle,” Mark said, taking a smell of the concoction before him. “I might actually just have to have a bowl after all. This smells delicious.”
“Well, thanks. I’ll make you one right away.”
“Hold off on it for now. I may take it to go.” She gave a nod, and Mark went back to Nic, tray in hand.
Nic couldn’t help but to deeply inhale as the soup was set down. “Holy… this smells great.”
“The Earth-type ponies can sure cook up a mean meal,” Mark said as he seated himself across from Nic.
Nic scooped up a spoonful, then looked to Mark. “This is safe for human consumption, right?”
“Yeah,” Mark answered nonchalantly. “I mean, I’ve been eating their food for the last six months and I haven’t had any problems.” Mark patted his belly. “Might’ve even lost a couple pounds.”
Nic returned to his spoon and took a bite, immediately delighted by the flavors. “So which ones are earth ponies?”
“They’re the ones without the wings or the horns.” Mark looked around the room to see if there were any more earth ponies besides Ladle for a comparative example. There weren’t, to his disappointment. “Anyway, you said you and your team found the problem with our drives.”
“Aye, sir.” Nic wiped his mouth. “Like I said earlier, the navigation integration motherboards were totally blown. If it were any other kind of component, I would say that we could just replace the destroyed components, but with NIMs, it’s a safer bet if we just replaced the entire board.”
Mark brought a hand to his mouth, leaning into it and placing his elbow on the table. “So this could be fixed pretty quickly.”
“Yes and no. Yes in the way that all we need to do is swap out NIMs and have them calibrated. No in the way that you don’t have any replacement NIMs.” Nic scooped up a spoonful of soup. “I already checked with Des.”
“So how do we fix it?” Mark asked as Nic took a bite.
Nic chewed and took a hard swallow. “Well, after checking your stores and equipment, you have all the components necessary to make two new NIMs, but it’ll take some time.”
“How long?”
“A day, day-and-a-half at the most.” Nic set down his spoon. “But here’s the hard part. For the core of the NIMs, we can use the navigation guidance systems of your nuclear-tipped warheads you still have. I ran the idea past Des, and not only are the cores compatible, they’re nearly the same darn thing.”
Mark held out and hand that paused Nic. “You said ‘systems.’ How many are you gonna need?”
“Six, maybe eight, depending on what condition those cores are in.”
Mark sighed. “Well, I was gonna shoot those horrendous weapons into the Sun when we got to Aithon anyway, so go ahead and use however many you need.”
“Aye, sir.” Somewhere in their conversation, Nic had finished his meal. “And just to put you at ease, sir, this isn’t some random idea that just popped into my head. I’ve done this before on the Prospect.”
“Wasn’t that Admiral Perinski’s old command?” Mark asked.
“Yes it was. A power surge hit the ship’s drives and fried their NIMs, just like the Caprica’s, but the Admiral wasn’t too thrilled when I told him about taking components from warheads.” Nic gave his mouth one final wipe. “When I told him the warheads would still be useable but had to be line-of-sight fired, he begrudgingly went with it.”
Mark stood, Nic following suit. “Well, those missiles will never be fired,” Mark said as he picked up the tray and placed it on the auto-wash conveyer. “So you have my green light on this.”
Nic grinned. “Aye, aye, sir. We’ll get started right away.”
20:18, Canterlot Standard Time
Commander’s quarters, Caprica
Mark,
I’d be happy to see you again at any time. Just give me a couple of days notice and I’d be more than glad to fit you in at the end of the day.
Signed,
Dr. Psy Cervello
Mark sat the tablet bearing Psy’s note down in his lap, thinking of his response. He picked it back up.
Dr. Cervello,
I’m giving you my two days notice right now. Unprecedented events have unfolded that I can’t disclose until I receive permission from the Princesses and we’re in a private session.
So much has happened in the last two days alone that I need to tell you. I hope you’re ready to put in a bit of overtime.
Commander Marcus Frude
Post-Equus arrival, day 203
10:48, Canterlot Standard Time
Bridge, Caprica
“Commander,” Des began as she formed beside Mark. “Captain Brookings wishes to see you in the slipspace housing. He says they’ve completed their work.”
Mark looked at his watch. “Damn, they still had almost half a day to go.”
“They worked throughout the night,” Des said. “I just put the finishing touches on the calibration of the new cores.”
“Inform him I’m on my way.” Mark turned to leave. “Captain, you have the comm.”
“Aye, sir,” Spitfire acknowledged.
Five minutes of walking later, Mark was back in the engineering section. He grabbed a noise-cancelling headset before walking through the hatch to see a very exhausted Nic unscrewing a plate in the floor. “I was wondering why the drives didn’t instantly start working when I reinstalled the NIMs.” He removed the plate. “The mains aren’t attached.”
“That was the quick and easy solution when they were on the fritz. Was that not included in the report?”
“If it was, I missed it.”
Mark looked about the section. “Where’s your crew?”
“I sent them back for a couple of hours of shuteye while Des was calibrating the cores.”
The Commander’s hands went to his hips. “You know, we weren’t in a hurry.”
Nic yawned. “Guess we were in the Vindicta way of thinking: ‘If you’re not sleeping, you’re working.’” He pointed to the other panel. “You wanna help me out with this?” Mark walked over to the already-exposed main power line on the far side of the section. Mark knelt, taking the two loose ends in hand. The ends made contact, were secured back into place, and Mark looked up to give a thumbs up to Nic. Nic returned the sentiment before placing the panel back into place, with Mark following suit.
Nic picked up a pad with a wire plugged into a console. “If I’ve done my math right, we’re ‘bout to see some serious shit.” He pressed a few commands, and looked up. “Bringing the drives back onto the main power grid.” After a quick flick on his pad, the drives came to life with a jolt, then began to hum and vibrate the section. Nic furiously gave his datapad commands as the drives reached their idle speed, the humming settling on a B-flat. “Drives are accepting the new NIMs. So far, so good.”
Mark reached up to his ear and switched input channels. “Des, resync the navigation computer with the drives.”
“Aye, sir,” Des’s voice said through the headphone. “Resyncing.” The tone of the drives dropped suddenly.
Mark raised a worried eyebrow at the tone shift. “Is that normal?” Mark asked as he looked to Nic.
“Yeah!” Nic yelled back. “The computer is integrating with the new NIMs. Just give it a second.” The drives came back to their original tone on their own accord. “I think we’re done here!”
“There’s one more test I want to do. Bridge. Slipspace drives are back online. Begin charging for a jump.”
“Acknowledged,” he heard Spitfire reply. A few seconds later, the drives began to intensify their tone. They slowly crept up as more power was fed into them, until they maxed out, the tone now a full octave higher.
Nic checked his datapad. “NIMs are still operating! Slipspace field established at one hundred percent integrity!”
“Bridge! Cancel jump!” Mark yelled over the noise. The drives rapidly came back down to their idling speed. Mark held up a thumb, and Nic did the same with his metal hand.
They exited the section, shutting and sealing the hatch behind them. “Whew! Now that’s more like it!” Nic exclaimed as he pulled his headset off.
“Yeah!” Mark half-shouted in the excitement. He brought himself back down. “I can’t thank you enough for getting our drives back online.”
“Hey, it was nothing,” Nic said as he let loose another yawn. “The Vindicta probably detected that power surge, though.”
“You’re right.” Mark turned to head back to the bridge, certain that Admiral Perinski would be waiting to talk to him. Mark didn’t hear footsteps behind him. He spun, seeing Nic staying right outside the hatch. “You coming?”
“I’m gonna hang out here when we jump and make sure everything else goes like it should.”
Mark nodded. “Good plan. I’ll be back later.”
11:18, Canterlot Standard Time
Bridge, Caprica
“Commander on the bridge!” Spitfire announced.
“As you were,” Mark quickly ordered. “Silver, patch me through to Vindicta Actual.”
“Aye, sir.” She quickly pressed in commands. “Vindicta Actual is on.”
“Admiral?”
A brief fit of static came over the speakers before Admiral Perinski’s voice came through. “Reading you loud and clear, Commander. We detected a power spike coming from your drives.”
“Yes, sir. You have miracle engineers working for you. Our drives are back online.”
“Finally. We’ll meet you at your home planet. Vindicta, out.” When the communication was cut, the dot depicting the Vindicta disappeared from the chart.
“How nice of him to wait,” Mark said as he approached the charting display. “What’s our status?”
“All stations reporting. We are green across the board,” Spitfire rattled off.
“Good.” Mark looked about the bridge. “Well, my ponies, we’re twenty days out from home. What do you say we make the trip back in about a minute?” Excited smiles shone back to him. “Helm, adjust course to compensate for our velocity change.”
“Aye, sir,” Wind Burst said from the helm.
“Charge slipspace drives.”
“Charging,” Des called out as she materialized on the bridge. “Captain Brookings suggests going no faster than ‘C’ times one.”
“Fair enough. Ya get that, helm?”
“Got it,” Wind acknowledged. “Course laid in.”
“Jump drives are charged,” Des said. “Warp field at one hundred percent.”
Mark took in a deep breath. “Jump.”
To any casual observer outside, the afterburners of the Caprica intensified their glow for a brief moment before the ship disappeared entirely. Inside the bridge, it seemed as nothing new was happening.
Except for the dials. They were moving… unbelievably quick. “Uhhh… we’ve achieved light speed,” Wind Burst said from over his seat. “Sweet Celestia, I’ve never seen that thing move so fast.”
Mark couldn’t help but smile. “Estimated time to arrival?”
Wind Burst gave his console a quick study. “Forty-five seconds.”
“Fantastic. Back in time for lunch.”
Mark felt a tap on his hip. “So… um, how do we stop this thing?” Spitfire asked, a glimmer of concern in her eye.
“Oh, the stopping is the easy part,” Mark said as his eyes were focused back on the chart. “Just retract the slipspace field and we should come out of slipspace at our previous speed. It’s the getting going that’s hard.”
Spitfire looked confused. “It’s like this,” Des said as she held out her hands. A small three-dimensional graph formed from them, with a holographic representation of the Caprica at its center, and a graphical cube around it. “What the drives do is project a field that compresses space and time around us, shortening the distance relative to immediate space and to the destination.” A cylinder formed around the represented Caprica. “Because of this, we can achieve faster-than-light travel without breaking any laws of physics.”
Des’s explanation didn’t seem to help Spitfire’s composure. “Basically, we cheat the universe.” Mark’s addition still had no effect. “Hey, I don’t get it either,” Mark said with a grin. “The only thing I ever flew was a sublight fighter. All I know is that it works.”
“Ten seconds!” Mark’s attention went back to the chart as Wind Burst called out the final leg of their jump. “Three… two… one!”
All the ponies, including Mark, held their breath for but a moment. “Steel, report,” Mark ordered as he broke the silence.
Steel Hoof gazed over his readouts. “Automated systems retracted the slipspace field on time, sir.” He looked up from his console. “We’re twenty-five thousand kilometers above Equus, and in its gravity well!”
A stomping of hooves filled the bridge, along with a few cheers. Mark himself couldn’t help but to let a smile creep across his face. “Wind,” he pointed at the helm, “standard equatorial orbit, two hundred and fifty clicks.”
“Aye, sir,” Wind Burst said as he acknowledged the order.
“Silver, put me through to Celestia.”
Silver Star tapped at her station. “Gladly, sir.”
Mark picked up a headset and pressed it to his ear. Silver pointed to him as the communication was established. “This is Princess Celestia,” Mark heard the voice say in the headphone.
“Break out the welcome wagon,” Mark said into the mic. “We’re home!”
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Finally, another chapter.
...
...
...
No! I have to wait...
Also...the ship is finally back online fully.
your story lives
that about sums up how i feel
I do not like that admiral, he's up to something.
Funny, i just started watching battlestar galactica. im on episode 3 now
so...You changed the name from Galactica to Caprica? i thought that caprica was the name of the colony the Galactica originated from
6648820
No, it wasn't exactly a name change. The Caprica in these stories has very little to do with the Galactica, it's a completely different ship.
Regarding your thoughts after the question: Yes, only that both the Galactica and the Planet Caprica are both as fictional in this story's canon as they are in reality.
You have to keep in mind that this isn't an actual crossover, it only kinda looks like one. As you continue watching the series, you'll certainly notice that. And actually, it's stated pretty clearly in the first few lines of the first story's prologue. Basically, the ship design comes from BS:G, but the series has no actual impact on canon beyond that. As a consequence, matching up names between these stories and BS:G won't deliver any useful results.
Chekhov's gun?
Well now, this is interesting so far. Lets just hope that the Admiral catches a clue.
Update?
Have to ask...Is this still alive?
7345090 Yep... it's just one chapter became two, then became four.
It's a hot mess right now.
7345902 So...You plan to write everything down then post it all?
7345989 We'll see. The next chapter I completely scrapped. Didn't like the way it was going. I'm hoping to get something ironed out here soon.
7354133 Hope you can get it done soon then...Good days to come, mate.