Children of Stardust: Cradle of Serenity

by The Atlantean

2. Thawed

I felt thawed. Shaking my head free of birds, I felt cold blood - wait, COLD?

That jerked me awake. Not only was I freezing, but the blood that was supposed to warm me up wasn’t doing its job. My face pulled up from my desk - oh, that’s colder than me! - and immediately went for the temperature control. It read “100 MARE” in bold letters.

The door banged once. I felt it shudder through the stale, icy air and shivered. My first attempt at reaching it ended quickly as my weak legs gave out and I faceplanted. That gave me time to look around while I picked myself up again. It was depressing: the room’s seemingly millennia-old blue paint had faded away, leaving a sky-like tint. My green couch was one giant, rotten, yellowish egg.
Everything that wasn’t wood had remained much the same, while anything organic - besides me, obviously - had rotted in however long my unplanned nap was.

I finally opened the door. Outside in the hall, Mayflower looked like an icicle. She was shivering and soaked to the bone. I grabbed my robe and rubbed her down, turning her into a green Fluffle Puff. The mare nodded her thanks and saluted, her freezing hoof shaking uncontrollably. I shook my head and she put it back down. Her keratin hooves audibly clattered against the metal floor.

“Reporting for duty, Captain.” Her teeth chattered louder than the engine. Speaking of which, I couldn’t hear its hum.

“Not now,” I managed. “This ship needs to warm up.”

May pointed out the window. Off in the distance, the circle of a distant star shone brighter than it should, meaning we were in a solar system. “We could get closer to the sun, Captain.”

“Go for it. If anypony else is awake, tell them to ignite the boilers. Celestia knows how long they’ve been cold. If anything, we’ll at least get hot water.”

“Hot water…” May said wistfully.

“I know. Just do it. Come on, let’s get to the command deck.” I was starting to feel warmer already. It must be the blood flowing through my veins, heating back up.

I half-dragged, half-was-dragged-by May through the white halls of Stardust. Once on the command deck, we saw Sensor Technician Moonstone pick herself up from her console. The light grey Unicorn’s crater-grey mane was stuck to the computer until she used a heating spell on the ice-covered hair.

“Moonstone, get the boilers running,” I ordered. “May and I will aim for that star off the starboard bow.”

“Sir, there’s a small terrestrial¹ a few thousand miles to port. Skimming its atmosphere should heat us up faster than the star.”

“Provided there is an atmosphere.”

“There is, sir. Says it here: mostly methane, nearly cold enough to condense itself. But a few passes should warm the ship.”

May and I exchanged glances. The Earth pony mare nodded. “We should, Captain.”

Once again, a huge decision weighed down on my shoulders. First the ice collection around Amore, now this. “Do it. May, fire the boilers. Moonstone, find anyone awake and snuggle them with heat spells. I’ll stay here and fly.”

The two acknowledged the order and hurried to their respective tasks. In the meantime, I toured the command deck. Behind the engineering console, a Unicorn was frozen, inside as well as out. Her face, despite being blue, was clearly recognizable: she was one of the Sapling twins - Acacia, I thought. The other one, Juniper, was our chief supply officer.

“Tweeter? Snowflake? Tabby?” I asked. It came out as a terrified squeak. Here, in the dim emergency lights, I was more alone than ever.

“Anypony?”

----------------------------

The normal lights came to life - and two seconds later, fizzled out again. I sighed. When Stardust was running again, we’d have to go through every light bulb on the ship and replace it. I felt a pang of sympathy for whoever ended up doing it.

I was currently behind the pilot’s console, having moved the Pegasus Lightning Blaze from his usual seat. He was awake, albeit barely. I’d plopped him into my own chair because at least I installed a butt-warmer in it before we left Equus.

The terrestrial planet was getting farther away, but then I heard the engines start their fiery reaction, slowing us to a near-suborbital trajectory². Oh, this was going to be fun. And hot. And horrifying. And fun.

----------------------------

“Coming up on atmospheric entry, Captain,” Lightning said. He’d thawed enough in the last few hours to resume his normal duties. Everypony else, however, remained ice cubes.

Not for long. I reached for the ship-wide communications circuit. “All hooves, listen up. We’ll be entering the atmosphere of a terrestrial planet in a few minutes. I need all loose items to be secured and for everypony to hold on. Thank you. Copper out.”

Stardust shuddered, orange flames licking the hull. She wasn’t built for atmospheric entry, I knew, but if we could just get enough friction to thaw, we’d be fine. I hoped our own trajectory wasn’t going to degenerate enough for us to crash. That would definitely make us have a bad day.

All around me, ice turned to water. Ponycilces came alive again. Some were violently jolted out of their icy prisons when they were bashed into the wall. The fire grew and grew, temperature rising every minute. With only one boiler lit, we wouldn’t have enough engine power to escape sudden death if May miscalculated our trajectory.

Then, the fire receded. The shuddering stopped. A black view littered with stars filled the window. We’d made it. I wanted to jump like a filly getting her cutie mark.

By Celestia. We’re alive!

Author's Note:

¹referring to an Earth-like planet, with a rocky crust one can walk on (ex: the inner planets of our solar system)
²the path a spacecraft takes when areobraking: essentially, the path isn't suborbital, meaning it will not hit the ground. It's also not quite orbital, either, because it skims relatively deep into the atmosphere in order to get friction from hitting the air molecules

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

If the main OCs in this story were voiced, what would they sound like?

[The Atlantean]

8608986
Copper would sound however the reader reads his voice. It's the reason I chose to make this story 1st person.
Mayflower would sound kinda like a mermaid - take Ariel, for example.
Moonstone would sound like Twilight, but with more Rarity.
Lightning would sound electric, almost like he had some kind of robotic hint to his voice.

I'll add that kind of thing in the next chapter. Hope this clears a few things up!