Chapter 100
Reinforce the Reactor 59%
Repairs took about a day, a day Twilight spent helping members of her crew where she could. She spent most of her time with Pinkie in Hydroponics, replanting trays they had left sealed against their long time on the surface. They had at least five months of real food left in storage, certainly no reason to worry about abruptly running out. But the best way in Twilight’s mind to stay ahead of all that was to never fall behind.
Finally—though some part of her still ached slightly at the decision, she pointed out at the stars. “Give us an approach vector for gravitational capture near Proximus C,” she ordered. “If I can get it, I want flexibility in my approach vector. We may end up harvesting from those moons. I know you’d probably want it, Spike.”
“In the sense that I have a thousand constant warnings for every missing bit of armor and every damaged circuit aboard, yes,” Spike answered. “Repair is important.”
It wasn’t just Twilight alone on the bridge. Sunset Shimmer was there, along with Rarity. At least the freezer burned captain seemed to be healing into her implants well enough. She still had the look of somepony surviving only with the aid of medical science, but she never seemed to mind. Twilight would’ve had much less to worry about if she hadn’t seen the number of painkillers in her prescription schedule.
The large projection screen at the far end of the bridge flashed, then filled with the string of numbers that was their course. “Vector calculated at three months, fuel expenditure 13 percent of remaining. Only yellow value in my probability tensor is structural integrity, we’ll want to reinforce before deceleration.”
“Probability tensor?” Rarity repeated. She had barely been listening up until that point, occupied completely with the sensor station. But now she looked up. “Spike dear, that doesn’t sound like you.”
“It wasn’t me,” he answered. “But now it is. The inside of this thing is… huge. No matter how much bigger I feel, there’s always more space. Like a library left behind by giants. I found a subroutine for running probabilistic simulations of outcomes based on known values. It says I can use it on groups of people who don’t know… well, it works best for things with known values. I have all the Equinox’s flight data in here, status information from every system. Linking those together was trivial.”
“If you value who you used to be, I would stay away from anything you find,” Sunset said, finally turning away from the approach vector. “The aliens who created all that were so much more advanced than we are. If you think like them, you won’t be able to think like us.”
Is this true? Yes.
How much is Spike changing from 1-10? 1.
“Your concerns are noted,” he said. “But irrelevant. I am not a dragon anymore. I can’t think like one anymore. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think of myself as an Equestrian. Even if it’s an Equestrian… ship? A ship who diligently plotted your course for you captain. Should we engage?”
Twilight nodded, picking up the microphone from the console in front of her in her magic. “All hooves position yourselves for acceleration. The course we’ve plotted will involve acceleration that will simulate slightly greater than Equus planetary gravity. Spike will give you a ten-count.”
He began counting down. Twilight rotated herself in her magic, settling her hooves onto the surface that would be the “floor.” Rarity had less to do, pressing a lever that rotated her seat. For a few seconds she hung there by the straps—then the acceleration hit her. Sunset Shimmer stood just opposite Twilight, but even so it seemed like she was handling it the worst. Something happened in one eye, and suddenly it was splotched red with blood. Her legs didn’t wobble—they were metal and plastic, after all. But blood dribbled down her nose. She gritted her teeth, breathing heavily.
“Damn,” Sunset took a few steps back. “I think I’ll… go speak to the doctor, if you don’t mind. Ask Rarity about what she found with your telescope.” She left, not actually waiting for Twilight’s approval.
Twilight took a few seconds to adjust, circling to one of the camera-views of the rear of the ship. She watched in splotchy black and white as the glow of highly accelerated gas sped out behind them, pushing them slowly up Proximus B’s gravity well. Finally, she turned. “What was Sunset talking about, Rarity? You didn’t mention, uh… work with the telescope.”
Did Rarity find anything? Yes.
Does she know what lurks in low orbit? Critical No.
“More than just that,” Rarity admitted. She pointed to the console in front of her, and the noise of blurry images she’d taken there. Twilight’s eyes glazed over at the graphs and charts beside each one—something to do with the kind of elements present.
“Sunset Shimmer was right, we can look thermally. Proximus C is a typical gas giant—mostly hydrogen composition, as you can see. But if you look here, you’ll see there’s a little patch, see those numbers?”
Twilight leaned in, nodding. “Looks like the surface temperature jumps from -145 C to something like… -80 C. Only right there?
“There’s an eddy in its upper atmosphere. I’m quite certain there’s a shield in operation—structural, like the one over Canterlot station. Weather control seems likely too, considering the windspeeds elsewhere on this planet exceed any Equus hurricane. But around this patch, cloud patterns suggest it’s calm.”
Hiding in plain sight. They’d scanned Proximus C before but hadn’t thought to look at it like this. Not until Sunset came aboard, and they knew there was something hiding there. “What are the odds this is natural, and we’re… wasting our time?”
“I give it fifty-fifty,” Rarity began.
But Spike’s voice overhead interrupted her. “Marginal, captain. Rarity look at the radiospetographic imaging again. There are fusion biproducts concentrated around that spot not present anywhere else in the atmosphere we’ve scanned. Something is running down there.”
“Yes,” Rarity puffed out her chest a little, staring down at the image. Finally she nodded. “Spike is… correct. I can’t believe I missed that. But my real purpose is to call you to action, captain.”
1. Release a probe. Launched now, it will arrive two months before the Equinox does, smacking right into the planet and taking measurements as it goes.
2. Modify the standard signaling laser to penetrate the cloud cover and hope it’s an Equestrian ship down there that wants to listen.
3. Change the approach vector considerably so the Equinox arrives under much lower burn and on the opposite side of the planet, hopefully making it more difficult to detect.
(Certainty 200 required)
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We’re yellow on structural integrity for deceleration. So if the Equinox takes a few more nasty knocks it may have to fly past proximus or risk tearing itself apart slowing down. Since we don’t have weapons, stealth is the best option.
Let's see what else there is to see. Getting more information with that probe seems highly advisable.
Also, we'll want to keep an eye on Spike's mental state. We don't want him hitting a mentality so alien that the ship and ponies can't understand one another. That won't end well for anyone involves.
Also also, poor Sunset. She may be taking her recovery relatively well, but her meaty bits are still in a delicate state.
Get the probe out there. It'll give us two months to react if whatever is down there is hostile. That said, I don't see why we can't both send a probe, and approach stealthily.
We can send the probe later, but we have to adjust our vector ASAP if we want to keep that option feasible.
Woo! first three digited chapter!
Also, I think sending a probe is the best course of action. Take a look on what's there, and while we wait we do some repairs, or something. Multitasking, yay!
Send a probe. We need information. Two months before the Equinox arrives is a lot; they'd still have 2/3 of their approach time to make another decision. Hopefully one including reinforcing before deceleration. Yellow isn't red, but it also isn't green. Hoping that scale of Spike changing remains low.
I say option 3. Considering how many tgings have wanted them dead up to this point the thing there probably ain't friendly. They can still launch the probe afterwards and get info
If the other team's technology is as good as we think it is, what are the odds that they have already detected the flare of them leaving Proximus B, and know they are coming anyway? Send the probe!
"radiospetographic" is a typo for "radiospectographic".
9736122
I think you mean “radiospectrographic”
Neat.
Lol. So yes, but effectively no.
Well, at least we know that we need to know more.
Probe, definitely.
9736175
Even better!
Translation: Best unicorn floofs proudly.
I say send a probe. If its signal gets jammed, take evasive action.
Not a chance it's an Equestrian ship.
Knowledge is power, send a drone.
And speaking of knowledge, WHY have we not used this months-long trip to interrogate Sunset yet?! After all the trouble we put into reviving her too, with the EXPRESS purpose of learning what she knew?!
9736053
That may be determined by the characters/author based on what the probe finds.
Looks like Sunset might have a hematoma in her eyeball. It's not a painful condition, but it can look dramatic and might affect her vision.
I just noticed that this is over 100k words. Hard to believe isn’t it?
Sending a probe sounds like the best idea. Sunset said something about there being some kind of ark like ship when we first talked to her. This may be that vessel, but we should still exercise caution. Who knows if corruption hasn't taken hold of any crew we may find? Is this even the ship Sunset was talking about? These are questions the probe could help answer without any undue risk for our crew and lovable vessel.
I think I'll vote to send the probe.
We already know the Hunger is really good at finding individuals at a distance and Equestrian tech has probably advanced enough that a stealthy approach would probably be pointless with the Equinox. Probably better to get intel sooner then try a maneuver that might not even work on what they're heading towards and trying to hide from.
We didn’t repair the weapons so a covert approach sounds wise. Plus, I dont like the description of the probes function. It sounds likely sending the probe will end up with it impacting right on whatever this is. I’d rather not fire a projectile at a potentially friendly target, nor at a potentially unfriendly target that it won’t destroy.
The probe can also serve double duty for communications, right? Why not use comms protocols via that?
Why not launch the probe and do a stealth approach? I don't see why we can't do both
So first we fix the reactor that doesn't get shut down, then we launch an obvious probe at a hiding spot... I'm feeling very concerned since we have no weapons, no defences and little repair ability.
If we'd approached by stealth we would have at least had better odds due to the fixed reactor.
Do those of us that went through the old equinox production archives have an idea of what's there? Yes.
Will we tell? Critical No.
This decision tree is an odd one.
I cannot think of a logical reason you couldn't do all three save for the loss of line of sight for the laser or probe. In either instance you could do both before a course correction though by then it may be irrelevant having given up surprise.
9738017
The laser and stealth are mutually exclusive, since anything down there will detect probably detect the laser and know you are coming. But I see no reason we can't do the probe and stealth. Although, there is still a chance you could be detected. Actually, the more thought I put into it, the more it seems stealth is mutually exclusive with the other two, but you could still do laser and probe.
9736978
9736053
I feel that sending a probe and stealth are mutually exclusive, since sending a probe will alert whatever's down there, and something had to send that probe. Though you could do laser and probe.
9738202
I think it knows we're here anyways. That approach isn't so much to remain hidden as it is to avoid whatever is it low orbit.
Might as well gather info along the way
Congrats on 100 updates!
9738202
Laser would gives away the ship and its current position. Unless you mean the probe signaled with the laser
9740064
Both the laser and probe would give away the ships position. I say you can do both, because one doesn't not depend on the other not happening.
Although the probe wouldn't give away the ships current position, it would still be easily detected since the course change to go from in front of the planet to behind it is minuscule.
Given that the moment they leave orbit they will only have the Equinox, I think this is the time to embrace caution and try a stealth approach. They will need time to repair the ship in flight anyway, so a stealthy approach might buy them more time, or at least avoid any ship damaging external entanglements.