• Published 26th Jul 2016
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Coarse Diamonds - Darkonshadows



Not hearing anything in space is not an excuse to never scream at all. Especially when you want to become famous, rich, part of high society and possibly find love along the way doing it.

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-82-

Babs looked a little worried, since all these friendly people she met were gathering in the cafeteria. It had to be about her family and she was beginning to really like Chrysalis’s presence, she hoped Chrysalis knew she felt safe around her. She sat in her seat and some food was placed before her by Mr. Cumin and she immediately started eating. She was really beginning to get used to living among all these people and the food was delicious.

The crew was big enough to run this ship; sure there were only thirteen members, but that was enough for a ship that could house a hundred comfortably. Ember and Babs were onboard as guests making a total of fifteen people onboard the ship and they were all comfortable in the cafeteria waiting on Rarity. Rarity was patiently waiting for them to get settled with food and drink before she started this meeting.

“To start off Opal has some news she’d like to address, it is reason enough for us to finally go down to Applin Five. I’ll start off by saying Lightning, Sassy, Chrysalis, Vera and Babs will have to stay here.” Pausing for a moment, Rarity took in the general mood of the crew, she started making mental notes about what could become problems later. “We’re here to discuss the main reason for going down to the planet into the blizzard stricken zone; we will also be discussing who will be going with me to investigate. Are there any questions before Opal delivers the news to you?”

Chrysalis seemed to be relieved to not have to go down there, as did Vera who was becoming a bit too attached to the Shining Jewel for Rarity’s taste. Chrysalis seemed to have a fear of dying without being in agonizing amounts of pain; freezing to death would certainly be a numb way to go. She would have to talk to Vera and take her on trips and stay by her side the entire time, Rarity knew she would need breaks from being everyone’s therapist.

Sassy, Lightning and Babs seemed upset for three entirely different reasons that Rarity could easily guess.

Sassy was likely upset because Rarity thought she was still too weak to go on this adventure, at least Sassy was getting better physically at an incredible rate and her samurai skills hadn’t seemed to have degraded one bit. She still needed more time as her body had yet to make a full recovery, even if she could put on an impressive display in the exercise room, she needed to work on her stamina and endurance.

Lightning on the other hoof, Rarity could tell she wanted to come along as she was itching for danger even with her ribs still mending for another day or so. When she finally passed the paste on her ribs out of her body, then she would be okay for flying and or other strenuous activities such as going into a volatile situation. Rarity noted that Lightning was getting a bit antsy at being cooped up and would need an appointment with Vera to talk things out; she was definitely a risk to take along right now.

Babs was upset because she was expecting bad news and Rarity wasn’t going to lie to the filly, there was definitely bad news to deliver. At least there was good news that Babs had a lot of family around here willing to look out for her.

Thinking about it some more, Rarity could tell that the filly might have started becoming a little too attached to the crew. Why just recently the filly had played with Rover and the two had lots of fun together playing catch, then there was the fact that Chrysalis had incidentally become something like a mother to the filly. Like every other member of the crew, even Rarity herself was making the poor dear feel at home.

Even if she wanted to keep the filly, Rarity knew her ship was no place for Babs and she was only Babs’ legal guardian in so much as being a Baroness would allow. The laws said she could keep Babs as a guest as long as needed. If any of Babs’ family asked for her, then Rarity would then have to hoof the filly over to them provided that they could prove they were family, that they could actually currently support the filly and that they didn’t have a criminal record with violence related crimes. So far most of Babs’ family was too busy with the current curious crisis of climate calamity to really ask for her. As such Babs was still Rarity’s ward to look after.

“Is it bad news?” Babs didn’t know what she could handle and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what the news was; she still raised her hoof and snuggled against Chrysalis, the Changeling Queen didn’t mind the proximity of so much free love for her specifically. The filly even knew Chrysalis was feeding off of her and she was letting her do so on purpose.

“It’s not exactly terrible news; you have plenty of family around here that can safely take you in. Though the reason I’m going down to the planet happens to be some of the bad news.” If it were up to Rarity, she wouldn’t have to be the one to tell Babs that she might be losing more family. “Now would anyone else like to ask some questions or do we let Opal start her presentation?”

“Are we going on a volunteer basis or are you choosing crew members to take with you?” If it was on a volunteer basis, then Saffron wanted volunteer as she could already guess why Rarity was going down to the planet. Lives were on the line and Saffron wouldn’t be Mare-Do-Well if she didn’t immediately jump at the chance to save someone out of the goodness of her heart.

“There will be some chosen, the rest of you who I haven’t listed already can volunteer. I’m definitely going to need either Gilda or Greta for this. They are the only ones that can pilot the… are we seriously calling it the Centaur-pede?” If Rarity could have come up with something better, then she would have by now. She decided to continue think of who else was not negotiable. “Anyway I need at least one of them to pilot it; Ember has already volunteered her services to the cause and will be assisting us on the ground. I’m going to need Saffron as well; she’s the only one with fully operational powered armor at the moment. I think we’ll need it as I’m expecting something dangerous to pop up down there, something is creating this horrid weather and we will need all the help we can get. The rest of you can volunteer, but not all of you can go.”

“I would like to address the fact that I’ve looked into biological natural threats that Applin Five might have.” This reminded everyone that Ember always looked into the ecosystem of the planets she visited and she studied any natural inhabitant of a planet that could be deadly. Mr. Spew was one such deadly inhabitant she looked into and she was now stuck with an Ewesen Sewer Squid for a friend that could spit an acid so strong that it would eat through flesh, bone, scales, chitin and anything else like tissue paper. Nobody dared to threaten Mr. Spew, he made for a really good friend to have and he was really easy to feed as he enjoyed eating just about anything, especially highly toxic things. “Surprisingly there’s only one thing that can be really be considered threatening on this planet and it’s a mostly pacifistic creature to begin with. The threat it presents is not even an active one. I’m not going to bother mentioning what it is unless we see one; they are an uncommon species and are almost considered sapient. So this planet doesn’t exactly have any lethal wildlife to deal with and given it’s an ever green world, all wildlife has likely fled the frozen tundra zone or are currently fighting for survival if they haven’t frozen to death yet. Rest assured, whatever is causing this will be dealt with if I can put a round in it.”

Nobody spoke up after Ember and they all seemed a bit sad that nature was being messed up on the planet. The only one that didn’t seem sad was Chrysalis, because this didn’t concern her and she was a bit callous like that. This planet was of no benefit to her so she didn’t see a reason to offer an opinion.

“Right, if you’re all done, then let me start off by saying we’re going to perform a rescue mission into the tundra zone. Well that’s what we’re initially going to do; we’re at least going to check one town in this general area.” Opal popped up on the nearby screen with a pointer drawing everyone’s attentions to her as she pointed out a spot on the planet behind her avatar. Several figures popped up on screen after that and she pointed each of them out, the first being an orange furred blonde pony. “The only ponies heard to be in this area are Applejack Apple, Big Macintosh Apple, Granny Smith Apple, Apple Bloom Apple, Countess Coloratura and the thing that makes this quite personal, Rarity’s cousin Sugar Belle. This is why it concerns us, Rarity’s cousin was last seen in this area and she reportedly refused to leave when the Apple family decided to stay… mostly because she’s currently engaged to Big Macintosh Apple. Coloratura is a popular pop star and singer that has recently stopped by the planet to visit a close friend, which would have to be Applejack. It is rumored that Coloratura has a thing for blondes and I’m only guessing that those rumors are absolutely true.”

“Wait, cousin Applejack and her family are down there?” Babs looked a little absolutely panicked; she jumped across the table and made her way to Rarity. “You have to save them!”

“That is why this situation involves me personally Babs; one of my cousins is down there too! Their current status is unknown, but they are considered to be alive until proven otherwise and they will be the primary target and why this is a rescue mission. We will save them, if we can.” This information had Rarity worried and yet she wasn’t showing that she was worried for a few reasons, for one she had a lot of resources to work with. She pulled the filly into a hug and started to pat her back. “I don’t like to admit this, but our crew could pass for a pack of well trained mercenaries. I would prefer to be known for my exquisite quality and style in the fashion industry, unfortunately that’s not exactly coming along as I had hoped and I hope my planned visit to Noctus can at least acquire me some attention. At least Trapeze is getting plenty of recognition. So, who’s coming with me?”

“Yeah, I can see us being mercenaries. It would certainly be fun and especially profitable if we did that on top of everything else. We all know Ember gets paid well for her services.” A smirking Gilda intoned with a chuckle. Noticing the stares she was getting, Gilda coughed and held out her talons to Rarity. “You may have a business in clothing Boss Lady, but we’ve been getting pretty good at getting into fights and surviving them. You haven’t gotten us killed yet and you’re clearly an above board kind of mare. You need me as a pilot so I’m in.”

“You do have to admit that we have a good personal track record so far.” Truthfully Greta didn’t mind them doing mercenary work; just so long as that mercenary work didn’t get her talons covered in blood and was, as Gilda said, completely above board in nature. She didn’t have the stomach for wet working even if she did eat meat. It surprised her that she got along with Ember who was the friendliest wet worker she has ever met. “You’ll need me there to help with repairs, if we need Caravel Boutique then we’re going to need to get out of the snow storm or destroy what’s causing it. Once we go in there it’s a one way thing or a long trip until we can leave. Fixing things would be quicker and that’s what you have me and Gilda for.”

“I don’t mind helping with any problem you run into Boss Lady, I’m open for anything.” At least Trapeze was willing to offer up her services up front. She might not be very happy with getting into a scrap, but she’d do it for a good friend. Trapeze knew Bernard was willing to put up a fight given she was his personal predator bait and knew him so well, she believed even Rover would offer his aid if Rarity needed it. “Wherever you want me or my two stalwart companions to be, we’re there!”

“I’ll have to stay on the ship Rarity; somebody has to take care of Mr. Spew while Ember is gone.” Moving over to the shoulder bound barnacle of a squid, Coco picked up Mr. Spew and cuddled him. The squid certainly enjoyed the attention and being held by her. “Who’s a good squid? You’re a good squid!”

“I am needed up here, I have bellies to feed and that’s what I do best.” Coriander stated simply while nodding to Rarity. “Saffron can take care of herself and she has been doing so for a while now.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t need you anymore father.” Saffron made her way over to her father and cuddled up to him.

“Rover would like to go and dig up some soil of this planet, but I will be helping the great Boss Lady first.” The diamond dog sounded particularly confident about wanting to go with Rarity on this adventure. “Rover is no stranger to being in danger. It’s just that Rover isn’t very good at fighting or protecting others, would have more friends if I were.”

“Are you sure I can’t talk you into letting me come with you?” Sassy wanted to help Rarity and looked ready to make a complaint until Rarity came up to her to give her a hug.

“Sassy, please, don’t insist on going down there.” Staring into her eyes, Rarity hoped that she was reaching Sassy. “I need you to get back to one hundred percent, especially if you’re going to be helping me with a fashion show on Noctus later. Please hold the fort and try to keep Opal calm; can you do that for me? Goodness knows she’s going to panic as soon as I’m out of communications range.”

“Fine, but please don’t get horribly mangled by something because I couldn’t be there to protect you.” Sassy hugged her friend close. “Also try to stay in touch, we know you’re going to find something down there and it most certainly won’t be open for a pleasant conversation.”

“Yeah, communications are going to be an issue. With those snow storms, the interference is going to be quite bad and once you’re on the ground and inside the cloud cover zone.” Directing their attentions to Opal once again she brought up a diagram. “That’s another thing I need to tell everyone, there is a definitely something creating a pattern in the clouds. As you can see I’ve managed to get an idea as to where this problem is being generated from, the blizzards seem to flow from a point within this circle I’ve marked on the planet. This is the secondary objective of going down there, find the problem and destroy what’s causing the weather issues or manipulate it into fixing the weather if feasible. If you don’t do this, then picking you guys up will be quite difficult without someone to pilot Caravel Boutique down there. I can’t remotely control it in those conditions unless I was inside of it personally and I’m too important to the operations of Shining Jewel to leave these systems unattended for long. I might even lose Vera’s name if that happens and that would be the absolute worst thing possible.”

“Right then, Gilda, Greta, Ember, Saffron, Rover and I will be going then down to the planet. I suggest we get prepared and quickly, time is of the essence as we have lives to save. If they can be saved at all…” To help with preparations, Rarity turned to the one who brought extra weapons onboard her ship. “Chrysalis, please get several energy and material rifles and pistols, a rocket launcher or two and the necessary ammunition together. Make sure all the equipment has hoof firing grips. We may need to arm my cousin and her family if we find them. I’ll be busy getting our cold weather gear together. All of you going had better get your personal EVA suits together, especially you Saffron and don’t forget to bring the SUITCASE. Coco, Sassy, Mr. Cumin, I need all of you to gather food to load into the Centaur-pede. We need at least a few weeks worth for all of us. Opal, please download the storm formation patterns to Greta’s data pad and sync it with the current formations; she’ll be the one to track it as we move on the surface. Vera we will need at least one medical bed and least three medical kits. Okay people, let’s get a move on! As for you Trapeze, I need you and Bernard up here to keep my crew from going stir crazy without me around to keep them in line.”



-



“Are you sure this thing can make an orbital drop, especially in the kind of conditions we’re going to be landing it in?” Even as she asked this, Rarity trusted Gilda to get them to the ground safely. What she didn’t trust was what would happen after they got there, she was getting herself strapped in within the lower torso.

“Look Boss Lady, if I can perfectly land a freaking tank from an orbital drop, with very minor and almost unnoticeable damage to the suspension aside that I’ve already fixed, then I can land this mobile fortress on the planet within the area we need to operate in.” Gilda was a bit surprised that they were cleared for doing this. Braeburn gave them the go ahead if they could pull it off and told them that if they wanted to risk their lives, then he wouldn’t stop them from doing so. “We’ll still need to travel quite a few hundred miles before we can reach the town where the apple family operates near. We’re trying for a safe landing and I can’t exactly miss the thousands of miles of snow, as a heads up there will be a little turbulence once we hit the cloud layer. Does anybody want to get off before I make the plunge? This is your last chance to stay here where it’s safe.”

Nobody answered Gilda; she was currently in the upper torso in the main pilots seat and was getting the Centaur-pede ready to make a leap towards the large green planet with a huge batch of clouds over one part of it. The Centaur-pede had been loaded up and they were ready to make an orbital drop in it.

The rest of the crew that wasn’t going watched as the six legged machine marched its way into section three of the hangar and towards the left door. Said door opened up to space and the machine slowly trundled through the atmosphere barrier to stand close to the edge of door looking down on the planet.

“Just remember to fire off early Gilda; this mechanical beast we built is quite a heavy diva.” Even if Greta were absolutely sure Gilda could land it, she would still strap in and hang on like everyone else was going to. “I’m sure we’ll make it to the ground in good condition, even though I think we might have to perform some repairs as soon as we land before moving on.”

“You know, this is my first time going through an orbital drop.” It didn’t take a genius to notice that Saffron sounded a bit wary of what they were doing.

“Don’t worry; it’s like a roller coaster… only more screaming in panic if something goes horribly wrong. At least if a roller coaster breaks down, there are safeties to prevent a person from getting injured. We don’t exactly have that safety net, but at least Gilda landed something untested in this kind of situation before and this shouldn’t be any different.” It took a moment for Greta to realize that that wasn’t a very comforting thought, especially when she made her next comment. “Now that I say it out loud, where was I exactly going with that again? Look everything will be fine; we’re professionals at building things and this girl is solid. We did agree that the Centaur-pede was a girl right?”

“Hey, I’m not about to get us killed Saffron, I’m awesome and I know it! Now performing orbital jump in three, two… one.” Gilda up in the pilot’s seat pushed the controls forward and the Centaur-pede kicked off the Shining Jewel’s open side door into space and towards the planet. “Let’s jam, oh yeah!”

“This is Braeburn, I just want you to know that you guys are crazy. I also just wanted to say good luck down there on Applin Five and I hope you find our family members in good health.” Braeburn appeared on two different screens one in front of Gilda and the other in the lower torso for the others; he had a brownish orange mane and yellow coat. He was giving them a sad look. “I would have gone with you to help out my cousin Applejack, but I have someone to look out for.”

“Read you loud and clear Burn, so you got prior commitments, we understand. Now don’t distract me, because we’re about to make our drop into the atmosphere and I need to concentrate on this. Now shifting the upper torso to center position. Greta, keep an eye out on the readout and tell me if anything is wrong.” Gilda flicked a switch and the upper torso of the Centaur-pede slid backwards until it was above the mid section of the lower body instead of at the front of it. “Were there any problems with the change Greta?”

“No, everything is fine Gilda; the upper torso has successfully shifted to the middle of the lower torso.” Even strapped in Greta was looking over her data pad and was getting a readout of Centaur-pede’s current state. “Everything seems good. I’m sure you can take it from here and that you know what to do Gilda.”



-



“Well there Rarity goes again, getting herself into trouble.” Sighing Sassy turned about and walked towards the nearest elevator.

“So, she’s been in trouble before and she turned out just fine… speaking of fine, you certainly are.” Chrysalis knew she had made Sassy blush and the mare got onto the elevator a little bit quicker.

Sassy understood that Chrysalis was now intentionally flirting with her and she didn’t exactly know how to handle it, she wasn’t anything special and she still felt quite broken to be worthy of any positive attention. She also didn’t know what to think of the Changeling Queen since she could become a stallion at the drop of a hat, so her emotions were all over the place about this.

“That was a bunch of confusing emotions.” A curious Chrysalis didn’t understand what she had done wrong. Had she done something wrong? Ponies were so hard to read sometimes, especially when they had so many emotions going off at once like that.

“Maybe I can help you with Sassy…” Coco spoke up and it spooked Chrysalis slightly, mostly because she didn’t expect anyone to care about her pursuit of a mate. “She has a few issues she needs to work through and I’m sure me and Vera can help you with helping her.”

“Why would you help me, what exactly do you get out of it?” There had to be a catch and Chrysalis was wary of it, no pony has ever just done something nice for her without expecting something in return. “In fact, you’ve hardly spoken to me since I joined this thing you call a crew.”

“Well I might get to see my friends smiling more often and if you can make Sassy happy then that would most certainly be a good thing.” While Coco may have refrained from interacting with Chrysalis, she would now at least try to get to know her better. She seemed intent on getting Sassy’s attention and Coco figured Sassy needed all the love she could get. “If you can promise to not make things worse for her, then I’ll at least be open to the idea of helping you.”

Mr. Spew just gurgled something unintelligible, but it sounded rather profound. Babs trotted up to Coco’s side and looked up imploringly at Chrysalis to accept that offer; she wanted to see Chrysalis smile more too.



-



With a heavy thud and a large shockwave of snow being blown outward in a circle, the Centaur-pede had landed and the six legs strained slightly under the weight. A few seconds later the machine stood straight up and the upper torso slid into a forward position and then took a few steps to get out of the impact site.

“Well it looks operational to me Greta; we need to get our bearings and there are absolutely no landmarks out here. Opal can you still hear us up there?” Gilda slowly turned the upper torso three hundred and sixty degrees, nothing but snow and clouds as far as the eyes could see. It wasn’t currently snowing, but it was only a matter of time before a blizzard hit them. “We could use some coordinates from our position.”

“Right… with… need to… sending coordinates…. safe.” It was obvious that Opal wasn’t able to get a clear signal through the clouds and it was garbled. The screen lit up and the coordinates for the frozen over town still made it through.

“Right, we at least got that much and at least we won’t be getting lost down here.” The machine was slow to turn, but the grumbling Gilda eventually had it pointed in the direction of the marked location and slowly pushed it to start moving forward. “Well that’s at least a hundred miles from here. Well better get started on setting things up. Let’s see, set the autopilot, automatic stop if something is detected and an alarm, turrets set to active targeting for threats if something is detected. There that should handle things for the moment.”

Gilda pulled the straps off and got up from the chair and moved around it to head for the ladder down the spine of the machine, at the bottom of the ladder she opened a hatch and climbed down into the lower torso where everyone was waiting for her.

“Is there anything of note that we should be worried about Greta?” Dropping to the floor Gilda wanted to be absolutely sure that things were going well as the machine started to move on its own.

“We took a hit to the shields, but it was within expected parameters. All spare limbs are in working condition and we’ve made a successful landing.” Perusing her data pad, Greta was paying attention to the counterclockwise blizzards leaving from a central point on the globe she had upon her screen. “No blizzard system is heading in our direction yet, I’m glad Opal still managed to get the coordinates through to us. Any communications signal we get out here now will be highly suspect and will need to be investigated, our impact zone is approximately here inside the tundra zone. We’re a bit far too south west of where we need to be, but it’s not like we were going to land directly on our target anyway. Current heading is north east.”

“Well you heard the hen, get settled in people. It’ll be a while before we reach those coordinates, if anything happens before that then you better get ready for a fight.” Gilda moved over to the screen in the lower torso and manipulated it to show them the surroundings outside of their warm and comfortable position in the lower torso. “I have the Centaur-pede on autopilot and if anything comes up like terrain problems or threats, then we’ll definitely hear about it. Nothing should be able to sneak up on us in this snowy wasteland.”

“Rover is having question, what happens if the upper torso of the great centaur machine gets destroyed?” The best way to handle a long wait was to ask questions and Rover seriously wanted to know what would happen if they lost the upper torso.

“Glad someone finally decided to ask that, the lower torso can be operated from here if we lose the upper torso.” Shaking her head Gilda settled in and leaned against a wall in the open space of the lower torso. “I don’t want to lose the upper torso, but it’s far better than what would happen if we lost the lower torso. I have nothing to do until we arrive or something gets in our way, did anyone remember to bring cards?”

“Trust us, we already thought of something like that happening.” There wasn’t much that Greta didn’t think of when it came to building this machine with Gilda, except that there seemed to be a rather common misconception that she wanted to get out of the way. “What you have to keep in mind is that this thing wasn’t mainly built for combat, but it was made to handle it at the very least.”

“That is nice to know, like how Rover always knows where cards are. I am finding them all over the place with Ms. Star.” Reaching into his red vest, Rover pulled out a fresh pack of cards. “I am just hoping that they aren’t all those queen things though, it would be quite hard to be playing a game like that.”

Author's Note:

My birthday is a few days away and I'm feeling quite lethargic, been alive for quite a while.

I'm really getting on in years.

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