Extra-Vehicular Activity

by alamais

Acquisition

"We're ready down here, Dashie!" Pinkie's waving, space-suited form is barely visible on the dimly lit hull of the Frond. Fluttershy is crouched next to her, only recognizable by the yellow wings clamped to her body.

"Y-yeah. Send it down."

"Alrighty." You check the carabiner one more time, both where it attaches to the dive line and where it's epoxied to a metal table that was floating around in one of the rooms. Then you brace yourself against the hull, and carefully give the table a shove, sending it drifting down the line. "There it goes. Hope that's good enough to patch AJ's room up." After a minute, you clip a mesh bag onto the line, and give its contents—batteries, some wires and tools, and several data chips and electronic devices—a similar shove. "And there goes the rest of it."

You take an awkward seat, legs hanging out the elevator door, as you watch the salvage head towards the Frond. Maybe you're mimicking a posture like these aliens would have had. From the chairs, tables, and a few pictures scattered around the rooms, they were bipedal, and rather tall compared to you. You wonder if you'll find bodies. Then you shake your head, and glance at your suit's visual overlay. "Hey, Twi?"

"Yes, Rainbow?"

"I've only got about an hour of air left, but I'm not tired yet. The suit seemed to agree with you about the air being usable, so I think I'm going to close this door, and open that next pressure door past the galley." You brace for the reaction.

"Are y–" She pauses…long enough for you to wonder if the radio has dropped out. "Okay. If you think it's safe."

"Eh, safe. What's safe, in our situation? I think it's worth a peek." You shrug. "I don't lose much if it's a bust, and I still haven't seen anything that'll work for power."

"Good luck, then." A sigh. "From the response, it looks like the radio will only work in some of the out-facing rooms near the hull. Try to check in when you can, okay?"

"Yup."

You rise, and squint at the door. It takes a little finagling, but it moves a little easier than it did earlier, and you manage to get it closed. There's a similar lever on this side, and you give it a pull, hoping it works logically, as a toggle.

"You still there, Twilight?"

Silence. You are alone.

Pacing back up the hall, you pass by the rooms you've already checked out. Mostly large rooms with bunks, and a distinctly military feel. A storage room, with a lot of things that just have to be weapons. A few extremely cramped offices. A gym. Through the door at the end of the hall is a galley, one that could have sat many dozens. You’d checked the stored food out earlier, and it’s technically edible, though terribly stale. You’d sent a couple of dessicated snack cakes back to Pinkie, for...scientific purposes.

You try to imagine this place lit by more than your suit and a few magical flares. Brightly lit, clean grey metal corridors. People walking around, eating, working. Were they much different from ponies? Of course, you're certain this was a military vessel now, and it's daunting to think about the kind of people that would have fielded such a large, well-equipped force—and this was just one ship.

At the other end of the galley is a pressure door, with the same emergency releases as on the elevator door. You cycle it, the released air rattling around some of the kitchen equipment, and when it stops, the suit reads some external pressure. It still wouldn't be fun to pop your helmet, but you'd survive for a little while, and your air gauge reverses its direction as the suit starts to magically acquire what you need.

There's another hallway beyond. As in the aft hallway, each door is a challenge—both because there’s no emergency release, and because each one releases a blast of higher-pressure air once you pry it open. This section is different, though. You're no Twilight, but it looks like laboratories of some sort. They didn't seem to see much use, some of them still having equipment covered in sealed plastic. One of the rooms looks more like a medbay, with an exam table, scanner, bandages and a stockpile of various fluids. They even had…were those tongue depressors? These aliens had tongues? The thought leaves you oddly disconcerted. The medbay seems much more well-used, and recently, but still no bodies.

The pressure door at the end leads to another, smaller elevator shaft, and this elevator is stuck much higher. You push yourself upward, and pass four more decks, stopping at the fifth. After a squint down at the lower decks, you decide higher is better, and open the door just below the elevator. The air blows by, as usual, if with a little less force, but then your suit starts flashing warnings. Methane? CO2? What happened in there?

You pry the door open enough to get a look.