AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 229
ARES III SOL 227
It was days like today that made Spitfire curse this planet, curse its lack of air or magic, and above all curse a space suit that didn’t come equipped with proper wing sleeves.
Not that she could have flown even with wing sleeves, but Spitfire didn’t want to hear such rational arguments. She was stuck to the ground like a fallen dart, while the others worked on unloading the main engines from Amicitas. Cherry Berry was policing a small area where two of the three engines would come to rest, while Fireball and Mark set up the cradle (which, annoyingly, had taken two days to build) that would hold the third. Starlight Glimmer was the magic crane that would lift each engine out of its mount inside the tail of the ship, while Dragonfly crawled all over and inside that tail assembly, removing the dozens of bolts which held each engine securely in place.
And what was Spitfire? Useless.
Correction: hopefully useless. Spitfire wanted nothing less than a situation where emergency medical aid was required, especially since any conceivable first-aid situation would also include space suit damage, decompression, and all the other ingredients of a Bad Day without even flying.
This bucking planet.
Spitfire wandered over to Starlight, who had her left forehoof resting across the terminals of a magic battery. For whatever reason Starlight had chosen to use the two emergency batteries from the shipwreck rather than any of the new ones. That seemed appropriate to Spitfire. These batteries had been intended to operate the ship, and after a fashion they still were. “How much longer?” she asked.
Starlight gave her a pained look, then waved her head in the direction of Mark.
“Ugh. How long?” Spitfire asked, this time in English.
“It’s a lot of bolts,” Starlight pointed out. “A lot of bolts in deliberately hard-to-reach places. Give it a-“
“Done!” Dragonfly shouted from the tail of the ship. “They’re ready to slide out of their cradles!”
“-never mind,” Starlight said, reaching down to switch on the battery. “Fireball, Mark, get ready to guide down the first engine into the cradle!”
Fireball and Mark both gave thumbs-up signs.
Spitfire gestured to the battery. “Is that going to be enough?” she asked.
“This battery has ninety percent charge,” Starlight replied, smiling smugly. “I picked up the whole ship, before we trimmed anything, on a twenty percent charge. The three engines should be easy.” Saying that, she switched on the battery, put her hoof on a terminal, and lit up her horn.
The uppermost of the three engines, complete with the smaller-than-normal bells scavenged from the MAV landing stage, slid out of its cradle in the tail assembly, surrounded by a blue glow tinged violet against the pink Martian sky. Steadily, effortlessly, it floated in the air well above the dusty Martian ground towards the carefully prepared test cradle, where Mark and Fireball stood ready to guide the motor down into the cradle and clamp it in securely.
And then, at that moment, the battery terminal snapped off under Starlight’s hoof. The indicators on the battery died. Starlight grunted softly, and then her magic winked out and she slumped to the ground.
Roughly one and a half tons of irreplaceable equipment in motion began to fall. Directly below it and in front of it, Mark stared up at it, moving slowly- too slowly- trying to get out of its way.
And then fresh magic surrounded the motor, a green balefire that wrenched the falling engine away from Mark, twisting it on its side, and dropping it, a little roughly, a couple of ponylengths to the side of the cradle.
Spitfire blinked. The whole sequence of events, from the failure of the battery to the hard landing of the rocket motor, might have taken about three seconds- less than that. But it had seemed-
Something else fell. Martian dust billowed up around an orange and white object next to the tail of Amicitas.
“Mare down!”
“Dragonfly!”
Mark ran for the fallen changeling. Fireball shifted back and forth on his feet, looking first at Dragonfly and then at Starlight, who still lay on the dirt next to the failed battery and its unused brother. Spitfire realized she was doing the same, dancing on her hooves trying to decide who to go to first.
“Fireball!” Cherry Berry’s voice cracked over the comms. “Pick up Starlight. Mark, bring Dragonfly. Spitfire, help me with the good battery. Everybody back inside the Hab. This task is scrubbed!”
“Perfect… English.” Starlight Glimmer’s voice came over the comms weakly, but it was there. “A… plus…”
“Don’t talk,” Cherry ordered. “We’ll get you inside and check you out.”
“What the hell?” That was Mark, who had Dragonfly’s suit in his arms. “Since when is Dragonfly this light? It feels like this suit is empty!”
Oh, yeah, Spitfire thought. That was Dragonfly’s magic catching the engine when it fell. And she didn’t have a battery…
… oh buck me.
Spitfire remembered something she’d overheard Dragonfly saying, many, many Martian days ago.
For me magic and love are the same thing.
Spitfire wasn’t used to lifting heavy objects in her forelimbs without the use of her wings (seriously, buck this pressure suit), but she made it work, wrestling the presumably good battery onto Cherry’s back and fastening the harness made for it- that Dragonfly had made for it- onto the earth pony’s backpack.
Then the lot of them, four walking, one semi-conscious, and one… unknown… headed for the nearest Hab airlock, paying no mind to the rules about alternating airlocks. Speed counted for more than caution.
MISSION LOG: SOL 227
Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit.
The engine test didn’t come off as planned. In fact, it didn’t happen at all. Everything was going fine until the magic battery Starlight Glimmer was using to lift an engine broke for no apparent reason. (Well, that’s a bit of a stretch; the battery in question was one of the two that survived the crash-landing- specifically the one that was sitting unsecured in the engine compartment and got bounced around like a pinball when the pony ship belly-flopped onto Mars. But as ugly as the battery was, it worked just fine until today, so the question is, why break now?)
Anyway, when the magic quit Starlight was holding not quite a ton and a half of rocket guts about twenty feet in the air and moving at walking pace towards the cradle Fireball and I had built. The thing about heavy objects floating twenty feet in the air over a planetary surface is, they tend not to want to stay there. Starlight’s spell failed, she collapsed, and the engine began falling.
And guess who was right underneath it? That’s right, Mars’s #1 punching bag. This planet has stabbed me, burned me, rattled me around inside a soup can, and tried to suck me out a hull breach, and now it wanted to drop the equivalent of a couple large vending machines on me to see how I’d survive that.
Fortunately, we had two magic-users in our merry crew, and just before I was about to do my best imitation of a used soda can, Dragonfly grabbed the engine in her magic and put it on the ground beside me. She saved my life.
In fact, she might have just given up her life to save mine. Not a good trade. There’s billions of me back on Earth, but she’s the only one of her kind in this universe.
Casting the spell took a lot out of her- by which I mean mass. I was shocked as hell when I picked her limp body off of the ground. She felt like she weighed nothing, and I don’t mean that figuratively.
We got our two wounded back into the Hab and stripped off their suits. Starlight has her usual magic-strain symptoms. She’ll probably be fine. But Dragonfly… well, she’s always been perforated, with cute holes in her limbs and wings and even ears. But now those limbs look like they were made out of lace. There are pits in her torso. Her face is horribly shriveled. She looks like a bug-pony raisin, and that’s no joke.
I suited back up, went back outside to fetch the scale, and put Dragonfly on it. Now, back over a hundred sols ago, I did a set of physical exams on the ponies, with Spitfire’s help. At the time Dragonfly weighed forty-three and a half kilograms- a bit light for, say, a skinny woman of about five foot two, as she might be standing up.
Today? Almost exactly twenty kilograms.
Twenty.
How is she still alive??
And yet she is. She’s breathing, but that’s about all.
Everything else is on hold. At Cherry’s advice all of us, even Starlight, have been sitting around Dragonfly, trying to will love into her.
Spitfire ordered us to rig the good battery for field projection, and that ran for about half an hour. And let me tell you, it was freaky. The rest of the Hab lit up with those vivid pastel colors you usually get when the sparks fly, but Dragonfly turned into a fucking black hole. There wasn’t any gravitational pull, and I was able to put first a screwdriver and then my hand into the field and touch Dragonfly’s body, but all we could see was this blackness that totally concealed the little bug beyond head to tail.
It helped- some. When the battery ran out of juice and we shut it down, Dragonfly didn’t look quite so shriveled or hollowed-out. I put her back on the scales, and she was up to twenty-seven kilograms, which I hope means recovery.
But I can’t help thinking about concentration camp prisoners back at the end of World War II. Thousands of men and women who, through luck or determination, survived Nazi death camps or Japanese POW camps died because they tried to eat too much when rescued. Their bodies couldn’t handle it. I am scared shitless that we’re doing the same thing to Dragonfly. None of us knows what we’re doing, not even Spitfire. Cherry says their bosses back home are trying to get a bug-pony doctor to where they can talk to us as quickly as possible. I hope they hurry, because it’s already been hours.
The ponies actually want to go to the cave and fetch all the batteries, bring them here at once. I said nothing doing. It’s not far from sunset out there right now, and I don’t want anyone to risk being out of sight of the Hab after dark. Also, Starlight isn’t able to make the trip, so they’d be bringing back low-charge batteries anyway. We have a couple of those here, and we can drain those tonight to help Dragonfly further. Tomorrow Starlight might be well enough to transfer charges to fill up a few batteries.
In the meantime, we watch, we wait, and we love.
No TV, no books, no English lessons tonight. Nobody wants to. No potatoes or hay. Nobody’s hungry. We take turns holding Dragonfly’s hoof, watching, and waiting.
Speaking of, it’s my turn again.
Oh boy. Mars does not want them to succeed does it?
I got a bad feeling when she said it'd be easy, but I sure wasn't expecting that.
Son of a bitch...
Dragonfly? Are you okay?
Looks like Mark's gonna get a crash course on changeling biology whether Dragonfly wants him to or not.
Whoever is holding her hoof when she wakes is going to get drained.
8914967
What part of changeling biology is the question...
Both her and Starlight have done Ascension-level life saving events, if she matures into a queen, things are gonna get really fun...
8914983
I would place my bet on Mark
Damn. Double damn. Not only is Dragonfly on the verge of death, but now they're also an engine down. I don't think they could afford to lose that... Something tells me that equestria will have to come to the rescue, else none might survive to the end.
I worry about what will happen when Dragonfly wakes up. I can't imagine having a feral changeling go full xenomorph is going to help their survival chances.
I should also think the political relations between CSP and ESA will be strained as Chysalis, in a need to do /something/ starts second-guessing ESA handling of the situation.
i can see religion is being made from that monument alone
8914995
The engine MIGHT not be a total loss. It was admittedly fairly high at 20ft or so, but in a 1/3g environment. And CSP stuff is based on Kerbal Space Program things, which have rediculous structural integrity (see Amicitas surviving the crash at all), and tend to explode when overstressed (which the engine didn't do, but I can't remember if that element is in CSP or not). I'm sure it'll take major work to even just inspect it though.
Well, looks like NASA forgot to put "Don't stand under heavy, magically suspended loads" in their manual.
Had a flashback to the time a 4X4 transmission fell on my arm. Seeing something big and heavy fall towards you when you are under a car, then pinned with nowhere to go, Glad Mark avoided that fate.
That said, poor Dragonfly. I wish there was some magic that could take away those holes...
Hope she get well soon.
I was worried you'd go soft on them. Well played.
8914995
They might or might not be an engine down; it was only dropped "a little roughly", not obviously broken on impact, but they also haven't been able to check it over yet. I could see it having gone either way, based on what we know so far.
As for Dragonfly, though, yeah. WHAM.
8912111 School today isn't interested in education. Indoctrination into socialist cultism is the primary goal.
8914991
safest bet I think. Unthinking she'll probably drain the ponies dry and Mark can probably take it better than them.
God help her if it's Starlight, that'll probably do some damage in her current state.
While it's not clear how much speed the vessel had built up by that point, I almost wonder if Mark could have actually caught the ship. If it has a mass of one and a half tons, with Mars gravity being about .38g in most areas, and assuming Mark meant an American ton (2k pounds), then the downward force would be a little over a thousand pounds. That's not something I'd expect Mark to be able to free lift off of the ground, but he could potentially push it up from the ground if it was falling on him - a back lift, essentially, or a back-braced leg push. The limits for such lifts are absurdly high by comparison, and an athletic astronaut, even in currently-emaciated condition, could certainly manage it for a short period - long enough to halt the vessel and hold it up until someone got it off of him, certainly, if it wasn't already going too fast.
Edit: Eh, thinking it over, I doubt the idea would even occur to him, and Mark almost certainly wouldn't have the time or training to do that kind of lift anyway. I suspect that if Fireball had jumped in to help him, it would have been different. Either way, just something I considered. It's been bugging me since you've twice hammered home the idea that 'mass is mass', even on Mars, as a reason the rovers can't perform much better on Mars. The issue there is that Mars has far less air resistance, and far less weight = far less friction, so the same amount of energy DOES transport matter much farther on Mars.
Food for thought.
Probably a good gamble for Dragonfly. Mark is her primary source of love, and she was already struggling. If he died, she might have died too. And if she does survive this, everyone will respect and appreciate her more.
8915026
I must admit I'm somewhat fuzzy on the timetables here, but - how much time do they actually have to do all the things they need to do if they want to ascend into orbit in time to meet up with Hermes? Because even if the engine is salvageable (it probably is - it survived an orbital crashlanding, it's going to survive this), they will still need to run additional tests on it.
And this is yet another delay. First the cave farm almost dies, reducing their magic production output and requiring more magic to fix. Then they notice Dragonfly's problems and start wasting/venting more magic to help her, on top of their reduced production rates. Now they will use up even more batteries trying to save Dragonfly (and Starlight is once again down, which won't speed things up). Which means slower battery production rate. And who knows what shape Dragonfly will be in after all this (assuming Kris doesn't use this incident and all the magic she is going to soak up from attempts to heal her to evolve into a queen).
How much back will this incident set them? Weeks? On top of all the other setbacks already suffered? How much more can they afford until their Hermes window closes for good?
Wham indeed. I can't help but suspect active malice on the part of the planet. And now, when Dragonfly does come to... well, her body certainly will. Her mind? That remains to be seen.
Oh nooooo
8914989
The worst problem would most likely be that her suit wouldn't fit anymore. Chrysalis has always said that when she's out in space, she feels like the whole universe loves her. Dragonfly has never felt that. Presumably, because she's not a queen. If she ascends...then as soon as they get off Mars and into space, it's plausible that they might gain a full-powered changeling queen, which under the circumstances vastly improves their chances of survival.
That said, I'm not sure how realistic her transformation is under the existing circumstances. As has been previously discussed, there's a fair amount of evidence indicating that the transformation draws on ambient magic, not love. Even if the universe does love her, it's been established that this universe lacks an ambient magic field. And however much Dragonfly has insisted that magic and love are the same thing to her, she's felt on the verge of starvation despite one human who genuinely likes her and several willing affection donors. It's plausible that she might be incapable of completing the transformation until she gets back to a life-covered planet, like Earth.
During a live television interview, perhaps, as hundreds of millions of people watch her in adoration.
8915053
Not in a space suit.
Also, i'd assume metric tons. Its Marks NASA log after all.
8915021
It is safe to say this is not directly based on a KSP Engine. It is about 15 times more massive than its KSP equivalent.
Well, that should be enough to get Chysalis back to Equstria in a day or two.
8915061 With the current planned timetable of fifty sols in transit to Sciaparelli and fifty sols for on-site rocket mods, the goal is to have all rover mods complete and all supplies in place and ready to roll by Sol 450.
Two hundred twenty-two sols remain. That's almost as much time as they've been on Mars together so far.
The thing is, Mars is going to be around for those 222 sols, too.
8915053 It's more that momentum is momentum. Mark almost certainly couldn't lift six hundred kilos of dead weight, but he could probably support it for a brief period of time. But that six hundred kilos of weight also has fifteen hundred kilos multiplied by about a meter per second of momentum- not counting gravitational acceleration once Starlight's spell fails.
8915089 Nnnnooo, um, 1.5 tons is the KSP weight for a Swivel engine.
The evil telekinetic, psychic Martian cricket Devil ghosts have struck again!
Where's Quatermass when you need him?!
8915053
8915108
Acceleration in Mars graity is 3.71 meters per second.
The distance is 20 feet. Mark is probably not standing fully upright, but rather would be ducking or attempting to run. Assuming his height is 5 feet due to body posture, that leaves 15 feet of distance for the engine to travel before contact.
Plugging that into this calculator, we get 1.6431 seconds to impact. Under ideal circumstances that would probably be enough to get out of the way. Time yourself from a dead stop and see how far you can move in 1.6 seconds even at a casual walking pace without imminent death to motivate you to hurry. In this case however, his first knowledge that anything was wrong would be people screaming over comms. He would then look up, and only then start to move. While wearing a spacesuit, on a planet with lower gravity and therefore less friction with the ground to help him accelerate rather than slip. Even so, I think it's plausible that he might have been able to avoid it. At the very least, he could probably have moved his body out of the way and the engine might have landed on his calves, trailing behind and pushing him forward.
But sticking with the 15 feet to impact, with time now known, we plug the available data into this calculator, and arrive at a speed of 6.0959 meters per second at time of impact.
So a 1.5 ton object hitting you at ~6 meters per second.
I think there would be squishing involved.
Dragonfly, no!
Here's hoping the lovebug recovers, and that she doesn't drain Mark too dry in the process.
Oh dear Hopefully that will at least reset things with Dragonfly, giving her enough love and magic to get back up to full strength and undo how she's been feeling recently. I was hoping Spitfire's decision-making instincts would reassert themselves in the split-seconds of a crisis, as they did with the airlock, but never mind. Could anyone have reached Mark if they dived at him to knock him out of the way?
8915114
If it had a swivel engine it would have had way more thrust.
My estimates based on thrust put it squarely in the O-10 "Puff" MonoPropellant Fuel Engine ballpark.
Wow, Mark is going to feel the guilt train over this, since one of the biggest rules of moving large, heavy objects, which he forgot, is do not stand underneath them. Ever.
8915136
Mark cradled Dragonfly and gently set her down on the bed.
"She looks so peaceful," he cried. "Isn't there anything we can do?"
Spitfire shrugged. "Don't look at me, I'm just...oh, damn it, I'm the medic aren't i? I'll contact home, see what they recommend."
"Actually," Starlight thought out loud. "watching you cry over her...it's obvious you're very fond of her. There might be one thing you can do that would help."
"Anything!" Mark shouted. "She saved my life!"
"Make love to her."
"What?" Mark choked out. "You want me to take advantage of an injured girl?"
Starlight tilted her head in confusion. "Take advantage? What are you talking about? She's a changeling. She lives on love. You'd be doing her a favor."
"That's not..." Mark struggled to explain. "Ok, look. I get what you're saying, but in human culture what you're proposing has very squicky implications."
"Nonsense," Starlight insisted. "It's just like that movie you made us watch last night. Sleeping Beauty, was it? Except instead of kissing her, you'd be-"
"Yes, I KNOW what I'd be doing." Mark shouted, and then looked sadly at Dragonfly. "Would it really help her?"
"Oh, definitely," Starlight said, as casually as if discussing the weather. "You want me to conjure up a wig to put on her?"
"No. Just...could we be left alone for this?"
"Sure, no problem," Starlight replied casually, pausing only long enough to pocket the 5 bits Dragonfly discretely levitated under the table to her.
I wonder if it's going to be Strugatsky's kind of twist when we learn some data about unusual alien body function like hibernation.
PS Oh yeah, condolences to all bugwaifu-fans.
8915159
Starlight is going to feel the other end of that stick.
Don't hover massive objects above other creatures.
8915074 They must feel like I did for years, except on over-drive. For our family, any time things seemed to be going smoothly, we became paranoid... because it always meant some new tragedy or massive unexpected expense was coming. And the eerie part is that something always did come within a few weeks, always something we couldn't prepare for.
But thanks to mixture of pessimism, insanity, and delusions of grandeur beyond all mortal comprehension, I was able to endure!
8915188
She shouldn't quite as badly though, if Equestria's rules are anything like Earth's. She had the right of way to get the load to the right spot, and the rest of the group knew it. Mark messed up by being under it.
8915037
Really? You think that schools are all about socialist indoctrination? That's just thoroughly inaccurate, and doesn't even make any sense when you consider that public schools have curricula generally defined by the state (assuming we're referring to the US educational system), which has a vested interest in preventing any form of socialism anywhere in the world.
They really should have had one on standby after the last time they called. Or at least patched Chrysalis through directly or something. I mean I get that Changelings don't have many doctors, but it's ridiculous they can't get someone there to talk. And really this sort of ultra-starvation at least is something they probably have experience with.
There's a massive amount of love from everyone involved here.
8915024
Isn't not standing directly under heavy loads being moved even by a mundane crane in all sorts of safety manuals?
8915194
In a world where you can levitate things before you can walk, safety is going to be implemented differently.
Don't levitate scissors while running,...(You will stab someone)
Does Mark know Dragonfly can shapeshift yet? Just wondering.
I know bughorse will be fine, (probably) due to being a main character, but how fine will she be?
8915206 You haven't watched public schools closely, have you? Especially not high schools and colleges. Socialism and even communism are actively promoted in many now.
8915172
*snerk* funny.
If she was having a hard time controling her actuons befofe this... whats going to happen when she wakes up?
8915300
If you're so certain that communists have taken over the educational system, then do expand on the point. I've not seen anything to indicate such outside of the fever dreams of paranoid right-wing media personalities, so if you'd care to provide reasonable examples of this alleged socialist/communist indoctrination, I'd be more than willing to discuss concrete cases.
8915188
Actually, she was levitating it to the cradles, which was the job she was given. It is Marks fault he was standing in the path. Mark knew which direction the engine would be going.
Starlight was doing her job correctly.
That seems wrong.
That is horribly painful.
When did Mars suddenly aquire a conductive dust electric battery terminal shorting capability?
8915321 William Ayers. A terrorist who escaped prosecution for murder on a technicality, was employed in UIC from 1987 to 2010. He wrote a thoroughly pro-communist book entitled "Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism" in 1974.
And he's just the most famous one.
I can find you quite the laundry list of pro-communist educators from colleges. They're quite foolishly outspoken and easy to identify. Only the truly ignorant can pretend they don't exist in droves.
8915334
This is my opinion and mine alone.
More than one person can be at fault.
NASA should have included an equipment check in their manual. And designed a safe method. At fault
I think Spitfire was observing and basically in charge of safety (if anyone is). As a pegasus should be aware of the danger of dropping things from height. At fault.
Not at the scene. So, not in a position to do anything in time. She is the leader and should be in position to lead. Now Starlight had to split her focus between leadership and magic. At fault.
Starlight was negligent. She should have told mark to get out of the way. Instead she told him to actually go there. At fault.
Dragonfly while not directly involved in this, should not have tried to redirect the engine. She should have moved mark. She can blame herself for her situation, but i don't think she is at fault. She was not in a position to be prepared and acted on reflex, and saved marks life.
Mark definitely should have known better. At fault.
Fireball is a dragon. Can probably lift that engine alone. Should not need/want Marks help here. Still, not known for his brains and not used to cooperation of this nature. Probably just did as he was told. From me, he gets a pass.
Mass stupidity does not need a scapegoat. Plenty of blame to go around.
Obviously it was Mars that was ultimately responsible.
EDIT: fix mistake, clarity.
8915387
Yup, thanks. Fixed it.
I need some sleep.