Fallout Equestria: Space Captain Andromeda

by Weavers of Dreams

Chapter Three: On the Waves of Mercy

Few things are as terrifying as a mother separated from her children. Even fewer are scarier than when that same mother hears her child crying. There is nothing that can stand between them, and no obstacle that won't be climbed. Unfortunately, that also meant that Andromeda was willing to humiliate herself if it meant even the slightest help.

"Hello? This is Mayor Sweep of Route 12. Who is this?"

Andromeda let out a sigh as she finished weaving the last of the metal strands around the antennae's base, fixing it in place while she floated underneath the rocketship. She had decided to connect the antennae to a fixed point, and managed to jury-rig and attach a short range transmitter to it that allowed her to move about freely, rather than plugging in wires to her pipbuck. This gave her more room to perform the painstaking repairs to Hope while still listening for radio signals. Every time one was found, a red dot would appear on her HUD.

She pulled herself back inside the rocketship before replying. "This is Mercy Andromeda," which seemed to get more respect than Space Captain Andromeda, "looking for somepony who can help with pipbuck management."

"What?" the voice on the other end asked. It was too riddled with static to tell if it was a mare or stallion. "How did you manage to break it? I thought those things were nigh-on indestructible."

"I didn't break it," Andromada snapped. "It just keeps on saying that I'm dead."

"Are you?"

Andromeda stared at the screen of her pipbuck in disbelief. "What? How... when? But... I'm talking to you. How could I be dead?"

"Good Point. Have you tried hitting the screen multiple times?"

"Duh," Andromeda said with a roll of her eyes, "like a hundred times."

"Hmmm, then I'm out of ideas. Could you relay your position? I could have a crew out there within the hour to have a look."

"Oh, sure," Andromeda said with a dramatic smile and wave of her hoof. "You got a pencil?"

"Yep."

"About two hundred miles... right up your plot," she shouted and cut the link, crossing her hooves in front of her chest in aggravation. "How do morons like that become mayors? I mean... she, or he, couldn't tell, didn't even give me an estimate of what it would cost to have you repaired. It sounded more like some creepy scam artist just trying to find out where I was."

"Oh, well, back to work."

She lassoed herself over to the console and began prying off the paneling. She was starting to accumulate quite a collection. Most of the flooring was pulled up by now, and the whole interior was beginning to take on the appearance of a skeleton. She'd even managed to gather up all the remains of the zebra and give him as proper a burial as she could. By launching all the parts down to burn up in the atmosphere.

Interesting fact: most shooting stars seen from the ground are actually smaller than a grain of sand. She found herself in morbid wonder at how much longer these larger chunks would last before burning up. But, she didn't have time for that. She had a family to go home to. But to ensure that she didn't just disintegrate and fall apart once she fell into the atmosphere, she needed to cover all the holes and smooth up the dents of her ship.

It was going to be a long process, but she was more than willing to sacrifice the time and effort. Besides, she wasn't feeling particularly tired. The reason for this escaped her; she just passed it off as the talismans riddled throughout her spacesuit and body. They were supposed to help her, maybe they did a better job than the Ministry mares had thought they would. That was probably why they thought she was dead. They didn't know what they had built. She was just fine, kicking and healthy. That's what she kept on telling herself, over and over again.

"...ther news: there's a band of thieves reported along Route 12 using the guise of being helpful and friendly. They've managed to lure several ponies into their clutches, and then promptly raped and robbed them. So, if you're travelling Route 12, be careful who you give your location to. This is JT signing off, and remember, in case I don't see you... good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight."

Andromeda didn't bother trying to link to this one. She had learned quickly to tell the difference between major broadcasters and simple radio stations. Things did not go well the last couple times she'd interrupted a major broadcaster.

* * *

"...selling their irradiated cabbages for half price; saying they're good for stomach problems. Iiii wouldn't trust that. Anyway, back to the music section. Starting off with a little Sweetie Be..."

"Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? This is Space Captain Andromeda, requesting help. I'm drifting in orbit and need somepony to contact the Ministries and tell them I'm alive. Please, can anypony hear me?"

"What the? Who are you? How dare you hack my station. Get off the air."

"Please, you don't under..."

"No! Get off, now. It's a capital offense to hack a major broadcaster. Not get off before we track the signal and sic the guard on you."

"The Ministries will pay for whatever loss of revenue you've made. Please I just need you to contact Twilight Sparkle, or Fluttershy. Tell them that I..."

"That's it, I'm putting a trace on it right now. Then you can go to Tartarus with those damned Ministry Mares."

She promptly cut the link. That was the fifth broadcaster that seemed to have a problem with the Ministries. She gave up after that and decided to just listen to them instead to help pass the time. It was better than arguing with these unpatriotic Neanderthals.

* * *

Using the larger DMCs (digital magic cubes -- she was proud of that acronym), she began pounding the outer hull, smoothing out the dents. The magical sledgehammer would have been more awesome if there were sound in space, but it was still fun. The flared out areas where meteors had blown through were a bit harder to work with, since she needed a perfectly flat surface, or she would risk it falling to pieces when the friction caught a snag. This was also why she was using the panels as scaling over the most messed up areas, so the wind would roll off of it. But the scales needed all the edges rounded off and the weaving extremely tight.

Even with all the pounding and scaling, it still wasn't smooth enough to survive the trip down. After some thought, she developed a new trick with the micro DMCs. She found that if she just offset the angle of the cubes in the slightest, she got an effective form of magical sandpaper. But even then, the rocketship was no rowboat. It needed a lot of work.

Just the sanding, which would be last the last thing, would take days. So far she had barely covered half of the holes with the scaling, and there were still plenty of dents to pound out. "Why couldn't the ship be alive, and heal like pony? That's what the Ministries should have tried to do, create a biological rocketship."

Whenever she was caught up in one of these rants, her pipbuck would be sure to remind her:

---SUGGESTION---MAINTAIN SANITY---

"Oh, hush, pipbuck," she giggled in a fit. Then a thought struck her. "You know what? I'm getting tired of calling you 'pipbuck'."

---WARNING---

"You need something more creative," she mused, tapping her helmet in thought.

---WARNING---SUGGESTION---MAINTAIN SANITY---

"Something clever."

---THIS PIPBUCK RECOMMENDS YOU NOT TO GIVE AN IDENTITY TO INANIMATE OBJECTS SUCH AS PIPBUCKS BECAUSE PIPBUCKS HAVE NO INDIVIDUALITY IT REMAINS A PIPBUCK---

"Yeah, but you're a special pipbuck," Andromeda reasoned wryly. "You're the only one of your kind. To not give you a name would be like calling Cloudsdale just 'that city'. Know what I mean?"

---PROCESSING---PROCESSING---LOGIC LOCATED---WEAK---WITHIN ACCEPTABLE RAMIFICATIONS---INPUT DESIRED INTERFACE DESIGNATION---

Excited that she had just out-thought a computer, she considered possible names. "Pepto-Bismol, you know medicine, because you're just trying to help. Plus it sounds close enough to 'pipbuck' so that I won't be going too crazy."

---ACCEPTABLE---

"And I'll call you Peppy as a nickname."

---UNFORESEEABLE ERROR---SUGGESTION---MAINTAIN SANITY---

* * *

The question finally arrived; was there any fuel left in the tanks? And how did she go about checking? She wasn't about to just cut her way into the engine and risk blowing everything up. Fortunately, Command had stored blueprints for just this kind of thing in Peppy. The DMC came in in handy here too, being shaped into multiple different tools.

The first step was to enter through the armory. She had already removed the hatch and turned it into a few dozens scales, half of which were used to cover the holes in the armory itself. None of the weapon canisters had been lost, but one of the guns themselves appeared to have fallen out through a large gash. She used the micro DMCs to unscrew a panel and set it aside for later, uncovering a gap just large enough for her to squeeze through with her helmet on.

Using her magic as a lamp, she crawled inside the maintenance tube and quickly followed the little map on her HUD into the bowels of the machine. It was all dead. The magical technology appeared to have gone out years ago, which didn't make sense to Andromeda. The stuff should have lasted at least a couple centuries, with all the enchantments put on it. But then, maybe that zebra's toxin had special magic as well. She would need to inform the Ministries about this.

A clicking sound turned her eyes towards Peppy's screen.

---UNKNOWN RADIATION DETECTED---THREAT LEVEL: NONE---

"Interesting," Andromeda said with a shrug, moving forward. The clicking increased, worrying her slightly, but Peppy told her it wasn't a threat. When she arrived at the engine valves the clicking was quite loud. "Stop clicking, already."

---INADVISABLE---

"Just until the radiation becomes dangerous," groaned an exasperated Andromeda.

---LOGICAL---

Andromeda focused her magic to become brighter and peered at the pipes and dials. Alarm crossed her face when she saw that they appeared to be welded solid. "What the...?" she moved closer and tapped a shoe against them. They were perfectly solid. "Is it supposed to be like that?"

---NEGATIVE---

"Can't you just say 'no'?"

---NEGATIVE---

"Can I change that?"

---INADVISABLE---

"So I can?" Andromeda asked, a smile crossing her face. "You didn't say no."

---PRENCH---GERMANE---EQUISH---NEIGHPONESE---IS THE USER FAMILIAR WITH THESE---

"Horseapples," Andromeda muttered, tapping the pipes again. "Anyway. How am I supposed to check if there's any fuel? Everything's stuck."

---NO SOLUTION AVAILABLE---

Andromeda thought for a minute. "I'm gonna cut it."

---INADVISABLE---

But she didn't listen. A small DMC saw, and she began making a small incision in the side of one pipe. All the while Peppy was flashing warnings for her to stop. For some reason, this pipe seemed especially resistant to her saw. Then she broke through and pink gas filled her vision.