Coarse Diamonds

by Darkonshadows

-26-

The bio cast was an instrument of safety for the injured party that kept their limb from moving and Gilda had one on her arm designed specifically for the comfort of the wearer. She flexed her claws slightly and couldn’t do much else as she sat with her boss lady and the rest of the crew, it would be a week before it could be removed. It was a little shocking how far Rarity was willing to go to keep her and Greta on. Why the fact that Rarity almost bankrupted herself was bad enough, now the lovingly named ‘boss lady’ was on the poor end of things and in need of some cash flow. Gilda was a bit touched at Rarity’s willingness to bail her out and she wasn’t about to say as such, but Greta certainly expressed her excitement.

The remaining money they received after paying off the bail was split between the six of them and they were all quite poor at the moment, at least Rarity still had plenty of food and supplies left to last them a while.

“So, are we going to the Derringer or what?” If being impatient was a crime Gilda would certainly be guilty of wanting to see her hangar. Since Rarity now owned the Carrier Cruiser hybrid, that meant that their contract was in effect and she now had a hangar all of her own and she was a bit restless to get to it. “I want to get to work on getting my hangar in gear.”

They were all on the Caravel Boutique at the moment and Rarity had recently finished Commander Lirutiy’s EVA suit. Rarity and Coco had a bit of a time discussing the helmets design with Lirutiy given Plurts had eye stalks and they eventually worked out a design that worked for her. After helping give a few pointers on helmet designs for plurts, Lirutiy bought a spare impulse saddle and was then on her way back to organizing people into rebuilding her space station. Rarity and Coco were paid for their services and now they were sitting quietly while Rarity calmly snacking away at a sandwich.

“When I’m finished with my meal, there is no need to rush things now.” Quite frankly Rarity didn’t want to rush into things right now and had time to think of the consequences of owning such a big ship as Derringer. Then there were the other nuances to her current predicament of not having a lot of money to work with. Cucumber sandwiches were delectable when you had the right ingredients for them, some tea and maybe a few chips to go along with them; she was just trying to distract herself from all the problems she was going to have soon. “Just give me a moment to finish up and then we’ll discuss getting to it and what we’ll do when we get there.”

First of which was how much money it would take to refurbish Derringer or whatever she was going to name her new ship, her generosity kind of put her in an iffy situation. Of course if Rarity hadn’t paid the bail, then she wouldn’t have gotten the much bigger ship and both Greta and Gilda would have been punished for saving so many lives with their rather dubious actions. The cost of running such a large ship and maintaining it was a lot more money than they had or could even make at the moment given they didn’t exactly have anything approaching a stable income.

Rarity wasn’t about to go back to being a waitress to make ends meet, that bridge was burned as she was going to be a fashion designer and would continue to be one until something could make her think otherwise.

This required a lot of thought, maybe if she offered different services aside from her clothing business? Maybe she could deliver her items or have the customers come to her. Well Rarity would have to think on it later. Even as dainty as her eating was currently, she was running out of food to swallow and time to think. She swallowed the last morsel loudly and everyone was looking to her.

She was the leader of this outfit and while an appealing looking one at that, she had little in the ways of ideas aside from the salvage operations Lirutiy offered for her crew to carry out in exchange for some much needed spare parts and money. Quite frankly it was actually a thinly veiled offer of making Greta and Gilda look like they were carrying out some community service without having to do too much to them even though they didn’t actually have to do it; it was apparent that Lirutiy was the commander of her station with good reason and she was actually looking out for them.

“Yes, well, I think I’ve dallied enough. Opal please get confirmation for our boarding of Derringer, we’ll rename it when we get there as I have an idea for that at least. Aside from that we’ll take Commander Lirutiy up on her offer of assisting in the salvage operations.” Sighing Rarity looked to all the friends sitting with her and doing their own thing here or there while they listened to her every word at the living areas table. “Loathe I am to admit it, but we’re all in the poor house. We won’t be able to hold onto the larger ship unless we can find a suitable income to support it. So if there are any extra ideas for funds that might be forthcoming, I’d certainly like to hear them as of right now. ”

-

Each person of crew’s roster had their own unique talents and abilities; they were four ponies, two griffons and an AI strong.

Rarity Belle knew that she personally had top tier fashion making abilities and with her flashes of insight and inspiration she could figure out what a person might like with. Her special talent of having an eye for detail and inner beauty would help to meet their needs. Her ability to produce comfortable, affordable and highly effective EVA suits in conjunction with Coco’s accessorizing them with utilities; made for good business. Her failings were her inability to plan far enough ahead and she was a bit too generous sometimes.

Coco Pommel had her specialty in accessories and add-ons, plus she was quite strong for her small frame and that wasn’t surprising given she was an Earth Pony. She was a good friend to Rarity and a friendly face to anyone who met her. Her meek personality was as endearing even if it was her flaw, because she was a skilled hard working mare otherwise that could make clothing just as well as Rarity even if she was a bit more specialized in what she was good at making.

Sassy Saddles came with good combat abilities which could be useful as a form of security for when things went wrong. She could also manage the sale of clothing and or other goods pretty well as long as she didn’t deal with a specific gender and had more special talent in clothing than Coco did. She could work with Coco just as well as Rarity, but her ability to actually design clothing left something to be desired even if she was good at making any design fit just right. She was only allowed to be with Rarity’s crew conditionally as long as she had SNUGGLES member onboard. Sassy certainly looked beautiful in a kimono and would make for a wonderful fashion model, now if only she wasn’t so easily stressed and could keep her cool since she was a mare who wouldn’t appreciate being ogled by stallions. Her hatred for men was of great detriment to her talents as a sales manager as were her psychological issues. Sassy needed constant watching to make sure she didn’t run off or lose herself again.

Vera Blossom was the sister of the more renowned spa sisters Aloe and Lotus. As a crew member she was the go to therapist, psychiatrist and field medic. Celestia and the Blossom family could see Vera at least, so her ability to be ignored wasn’t perfect even if it had a very wide range of odd effects in what she could get away with doing. If Rarity ever needed plausible deniability then Vera could certainly do quite a few things that wouldn’t get her in trouble with the law. Heck, if anyone tried to hold the entire crew at gunpoint, they probably wouldn’t notice Vera if she were to wear bright neon orange and walk up to them with a crowbar while loudly singing Yankee Doodle Donkey before she brought the weapon down on their skulls one at a time. So she was definitely considered and counted as a form of special security measure and would at least be near Sassy at all times. Like her sisters, Vera also had a talent for massage and spa work of the likes that Rarity could appreciate fully.

Rarity wished she could pay Vera three times over the amount of an average wage so she wouldn’t feel guilty about abusing Vera’s spa related talents as much as she was going to. A daily basis of having a walking spa treatment around was enough to keep Rarity happy.

Now onto the first of the two griffons, that being Gilda Gottfrieda who specialized in building, repairing and or modifying vehicles along with various other things as a mechanical engineer. She has good piloting skills and she wants to fly fighters, but it is very apparent that she is more suited to driving space ships that never have to land at all, IE ships like Derringer or larger vessels only meant to work out in space that only need to dock with space stations from time to time. Judging by what was heard in the makings of a distress beacon cobbled together out of junk; Gilda could possibly work with Coco. The gruff griffon already has an excellent rapport with Greta her partner in her recent crime. Her flaw was that she was easy to make grumpy and had aggressive tendencies, but her ability to read the character of others accurately made up for that.

Greta Gollenfer, a griffon who specializes in wiring, programming and more technical aspects of most forms of technology as a technical engineer. She has some hacking ability, was as decent at making repairs or modifications like Gilda and was probably cross training skills with her. She had a strange if somewhat weird fascination with a plasma welder and she was incredibly positive sometimes bordering on impossibly optimistic. She liked the term Garage Griffons and was willing to work with anyone in any capacity. She and Gilda were really old friends from the way Gabby told it, she loves Gilda to the point of ignoring any other possibility of happiness and was mostly okay with big letdowns. Out of all the crew members, even if her boundless optimism was a bit creepy, she was the most mentally stable person on the crew aside from her highly noticeable passive sexual predator tendencies towards her best friend.

The only member of the crew not of flesh and blood was Opal. She was considered sentient and quite rampant, not that anyone would bring it up with her because she’s in constant denial about her rampancy. Taking initiative is an obvious sign an AI has become smart enough to know what was needed before requested or told what to do. She was clingy and overly protective of Rarity mostly putting her creator’s needs before her own or others, but could focus on other things if she feels it is important enough. She could control ships and or mechanical drones very well, plus she was entirely needed if they were going to work the Carrier Cruiser hybrid with a skeleton crew.

This was the crew Rarity had to work with and most of this information was what Vera managed to get off of each person when she talked to each of them individually. Vera really wanted to call Opal out on being a rampant AI that was trying to avoid acknowledging the fact that she was, at least Opal wasn’t a very destructive rampant and Vera didn’t call her out on it because she wanted to treat her as she would anyone else she’d call a friend.

As for weapons they had four energy pistols, a plasma rifle with a few clips for it, a welding torch named Mr. Welder, a working MAT drone and a few CAT drones with built in welding tools. As for space combat they had twenty six energy turrets that came with Rarity’s new ship. To anybody else looking their way, they probably looked particularly underwhelming as a force to be reckoned with.

The food and toiletries were the only things going right for Rarity and her friends, they had plenty of that to spare for a while. What they needed was a lot of things to fix up both ships that Rarity was now in charge of. This is why they were taking up the salvage operation offered to them, they put Gilda and Greta at the helm of it for being the leading experts on knowing what scrap was still useful.

-

None of the crew had anything to say about the newly named ship The Shining Jewel, Greta and Gilda knew the ship already and the others aside from Rarity and Opal still needed to get acclimatized to it. Gilda in particular was happy to have her mostly broken Javelin back even if it didn’t have a combat shell and wouldn’t be good for much of anything for a while. They still haven’t even worked out their rooms yet and were already starting to assist in salvaging operations around Geoptis.

“Okay the EVA suit is pressure tested Gilda, you know how to operate the impulse saddle right?” Rarity had asked her crew for ideas and they came up with nothing in the ways of making more cash quickly. Instead of worrying about that, Rarity made EVA suits for those that didn’t have them yet since she had the supplies for it. Everyone in her crew needed an EVA suit, especially Gilda if she was going to continue working towards being a fighter pilot. “Aside from that you shouldn’t really use it until the bio cast comes off, so you’re going to be grounded here on Shining Jewel with Vera and Opal until then.”

“Fair enough boss lady; just let me do something like looking through the scrap. I can do that much and I’ll get us what we need.” Here Gilda rubbed at her blue cast adorning her broken arm. “I may not like it, but my arm does need time to heal. However I reserve the right to use my EVA suit in an emergency even if it will stretch out the suit a bit.”

“Meowstress we’re getting a call from Geoptis, they have another region for us to start scooping up when we’re available. Just thought you’d want to know. We’ll be moving back to Geoptis to offload what we have as soon as Sassy, Coco and Greta are back inside.” Opal was proving to be very useful in helping the salvage operation run smoothly, they didn’t even have to leave The Shining Jewel to scoop up the salvage like a giant space shovel. All they had to do was open one of the hangars doors and fly so that the salvage fell into the ship, they were obviously more careful about the more intact fighters or ship parts and had Sassy, Coco and Greta bringing those in gently. “We still have plenty of room for personal salvage, so a few more rounds like this and we’ll be good on spare parts.”

“Good work Opal, if we can get enough money on top of spare parts to fix some of the problems with both ships, then we can finally move on to setting a course for Equus and getting me into the Grand Galloping Gala. Oh my I need a new dress!” When Rarity started fretting about what to design to wear to such a significant event, Opal just giggled at her plight as she started turning circles and going on and on about how to make a good impression on the right ponies. “I can’t possibly show up to the party without one and I also really need to talk with the princesses about how they owe me this opportunity, I have less than a month to get there and get a ticket to get in no less!”

“Calm down Rarity, focus on the here and now, you can worry about the gala later.” Vera made her way over to Rarity as another pile of scrap rolled down the insides of open door into section one of The Shining Jewel’s hangar.

At the back of the expansive hangar was the Caravel Boutique parked in the repair and maintenance section. They were currently standing in the second part of the hangar while part one was being used to load up the salvage being watched over by Coco, Greta and Sassy. The third part of the hangar was being used to hold the salvage Rarity’s crew would keep and the second was holding onto the salvage that Commander Lirutiy wanted specifically. They were getting some good scrap to hold onto in the third portion of the hangar, but the money they were getting for this job wasn’t that great.

“Why… yes you’re right, still though we have to get there at the soonest convenience will allow. I need to convince the princesses to let me into the gala in exchange for not signing off on my breach gel like they should have a while ago.” Being mad at the princesses wouldn’t be right to Rarity; well at least until she actually heard their reasoning as to why they hadn’t done so yet. “I still have to come up with dress ideas. I have so many ideas flowing through my head right now, why I could just scream at all the possibilities of what to wear! Should I use something in an avant-garde style or perhaps maybe a more traditional ballroom style?”

It was really quite simple and not at all a hard process to put a name down on a document, then again Rarity thought the princesses probably had other problems to worry about given they sent a relief fleet to the Quia system to help out with Ewesen’s highly beleaguered local Planetary Protection Patrol.

“Yeah, you do that.” Gilda muttered as she poked her good talons through a mess of debris looking for something good to keep. “All the while the rest of us are all busy here and this might be the only way to keep your business going boss lady. Priorities, checks yours please!”

“Oh, sorry darling… I am getting a bit ahead of myself. Hmm…” Focusing on the task at hoof, Rarity scanned the metal parts scattered about the pile in the first hangar section before her. Having an eye for detail was helpful, she decided to point something out to Gilda that she thought looked interesting. “What about that piece there Gilda, is that one worth something?”

“What are you… hey, that is actually a pretty good one and it’s entirely intact too so that’s less work for me and Greta later on. Not that I can do much right now anyway.” Gilda wrenched what Rarity pointed out from the pile with her good arm and passed it off to Vera to put it in the third section. Said pony had a designated pointing CAT drone following her everywhere. “We need more things like that if we’re going to make a new jump module for the Caravel Boutique, after we get enough personal salvage I’ll go over the stuff we’ve gathered personally.”

“Already cataloguing that right now for your convenience, I’m thankful that Lirutiy left us those three extra drones to work with. I’m having them check and clean up things in the decks one and two.” Opal was happy to be up two more CATs and another MAT drone that was practically a CAT drone in all but name and slightly better armoring. “Remember if you need assistance; don’t be afraid to ask me for a little drone support down there on deck three.”

“I’ll keep that in mind Kitten, how’s it going out there Greta?” The EVA suited griffon outside the atmosphere barrier probably wouldn’t be able to hear her in a vacuum if it weren’t for Opal directing communications between them. As such Greta’s voice came back on the speakers in sections one and two of the hangar that Rarity and Gilda currently occupied.

“Everything’s okay here; we’re getting a lot of neat stuff… I just wish some of it didn’t involve dead bodies.” Dead bodies that were going to be put to rest, it was hard for Greta to keep up her cheerful nature due to the macabre sights they picked up every now and then. Every escape pod and or disabled fighter that had life had already been picked up days ago after the fighting was said and done.

“I’m with Greta on that one; some of them died horrifically and I think see another one. If you don’t mind I’m coming in, because I’m going to throw up now.” Coco flew towards the atmosphere barrier coming in low, once she passed through the barrier she fell to the floor once gravity asserted itself. She quickly made her way over to the others and pulled off her helmet looking green in the face. “Opal I could really use a bucket here.”

The second MAT drone with no combat capability floated down from a hatch leading up to deck two and came over to Coco. It dropped off the requested large empty bucket that was needed and Coco immediately went to work on spewing into it as the MAT drone went back to cleaning duty up on deck two. Seeing this, Rarity walked over and started rub Coco’s back gently while using her magic to keep Coco’s hair out of her face.

“I’m a bit worried about you being out of a suit this close to open space Gilda, you do know what would happen if the atmosphere barrier faltered right?” Greta came in and dropped to the floor as well, to start picking at the pile of scrap. “At least we made sure it was working perfectly before we started.”

“Shawls and scarves, I think that’s enough of a load for now Rarity-sama. We’re all in and ready to head on back to Geoptis Opal.” It didn’t look like Sassy was taking things easily either as the front door to Shining Jewel’s hangar started closing and the ship turned back towards Geoptis. She came walking up to Rarity taking off her own helmet looking just as green as Coco did. “Even I’m a little bit disturbed about all the bodies we’re finding out here… Coco-chan please be a dear and move over a bit. Oh and grab my mane too while you’re at it Rarity-sama.”

Yep, things were certainly looking alright for Rarity’s crew, even if they weren’t happy to be dealing with corpses as salvagers. Ponies weren’t good around such sickening sights such as mangled twisted bodies without distractions to keep them from thinking about it too hard.

-

The Vorager collapsed to the ground riddled with holes and missing a large portion of its head which was now a melted pile of liquefied flesh slopping onto the ground. Mr. Spew insisted on traveling with Ember who once again found herself on fighting on her back amidst a field of dead monsters, there wasn’t a single movement around her at all now.

“Do you need water?” Ember asked pleasantly as if she hadn’t been fighting for her life on her back again for the umpteenth time since she arrived on Ewesen. The sewer squid nodded and chirruped happily before leaping off her shoulder and bounced one more time to start eating a bit of the Vorager that had just tried to swallow the dragon whole. “Right then, I’ll get on that once I catch my breath and check my ammo. Well, I need to reload again as I’m completely tapped out except for three shots, just great. You know what; I’m going to just start carrying pouches loaded with rocks that I can just pour into my gun at the rate I keep expending them.”

Ember used her rifle to leverage herself up onto her tired feet. Nothing within five hundred feet of her moved very much aside from the deadly Mr. Spew, as everything else within five hundred feet of her was either on fire, melted, twitching, blown apart, cut cleanly into cauterized chunks or violently dismembered in ones case when Ember used her claws to physically ripped it apart.

The ripped apart one was when they actually managed to separate Ember from her beloved rifle for all of five seconds, didn’t help them much when she started wildly breathing fire and then tore that one Ant Heads limbs off one at a time in a particularly gruesome fashion. She even used one of its limbs to club it to death. Mr. Spew didn’t seem to care about Ember sudden volatile nature during that time and kept his favorite perch safe in the intervening inferno caused by the relatively pissed off dragon.

The total body count during this one outing? Well Ember just brought down fourteen Voragers, one hundred and thirty seven Ant Heads, twenty two Vasps and a single shamroid that somehow survived landfall long enough to be used as a grenade in the recently finished conflict that only involved Ember and Mr. Spew as combatants. The people who came to assist the bounty hunter who was thought to be in over her head had instead decided to stay well out of the fighting and were quite intimidated by the currently blood soaked Ember in the horribly tattered and practically shredded armor.

Ember ignored the onlookers at the moment and took out a water bottle to pour over her sewer squid before she started collecting rocks. She had a noted irritable look on her face that was only visible because she left her helmet sitting on a nearby rock after having ripped it off to start breathing death everywhere.

“Hey, are you guys my relief effort? Well if so, then get to work on surveying the area for any more hostiles! What I wouldn’t do for a towel right about now.” The irritated Ember got an immediate response from the various people just watching her dumbly as she went about collecting rocks. They left the dragon known commonly as ‘Flamethrower’ throughout the bounty hunter community to her own business and set up a perimeter, they didn’t want to upset the dragon any further after seeing what she was capable of. “Like they really need me to tell them to do their jobs, I’m so going to a volcanic planet after this. All the gems I can eat for days from digging at a lava beach. I probably need to get a water tank for Mr. Spew first.”

-

“Do I really have to agree to that?” Princess Cadence asked flatly as she looked at Celestia, what was being asked of her was not exactly world ending but she didn’t want to go through with it.

“While not exactly necessary, it would certainly help if I were to acquire Chrysalis’s services in the matter I need her for.” Celestia was the one that had to convince Cadence to agree to it and she continued to be vague about what she needed Chrysalis to do exactly.

“Fine, but you need to take Twilight as your plus one and make sure she actually has an enjoyable night. No standing around greeting everyone so you can avoid every pony by staying at the entrance.” Cadence counter offered. “You have to actually make an effort with her!”

“I have no other choice then, agreed.” Turning away from the love alicorns happy squealing form, Celestia addressed Chrysalis who was busy playing tiddlywinks with Luna. “What say you Chrysalis?”

“I’ll do it, but I want it in writing.” Chrysalis wouldn’t settle for just a verbal contract on this. She proceeded to bounce a bit off Luna’s flank that went into the cup; she then gave the princess of the night a sultry wink that caused her to start blushing.

Author's Note:

I might or might not put out one chapter before going on hiatus, that said here's a chapter with some recap.

An audience of one is still an audience.

Comments

[Razzy]

Looks like they might make it out alright. Love me some large space ships.

Yeah, I imagine ponies would be queasy around bodies. On the other talon, I imagine the two griffins wouldn't think twice about eating a sandwich around corpses. :B

That last part with the princesses and Chryssie. XD