Chapter 14
Chase the prospector, but Spike starts on the device.
Applejack was right about how far behind they had become during the few weeks Twilight let the probe’s program run. The Equinox’s chief engineer made good use of the time—Twilight saw her moving every moment, always at work preparing for their mad gambit.
Applejack performs repairs on damage caused by computer failure. 90% complete.
But Twilight could be of only nominal assistance. The parts of the Equinox that made sense to her were digital. But there was grunt work to do—the kind of dirty labor that she would’ve ordinarily let Applejack handle. The cargo bay was still a disaster, including the huge containers of biological waste.
That material couldn’t just be left to rot, and not just because of the smell. Their nutrition was meant to be recycled as much as anything else aboard. Nutrient paste might be flavorless and awful, but it would keep them alive.
While cleaning the cargo bay, Twilight attempts to find evidence of the intruder. Critical success.
But not all her work was physical. The habitat taught her a little about the intruder’s operation—whoever they were, there had only been one of them, and they had been up for a long time. A full year’s worth of survival rations for a single pony, if she worked the numbers right. But with all that done, Twilight could update the inventory and trawl through the terminal.
It was as she expected—somepony had used it extensively, and they hadn’t been nearly as good at erasing their traces as she was at digging them up. There was a message for their stowaway still in the terminal’s memory. She assembled as much as she could, and read quietly to herself.
Your sacrifice for Equestria will *** *** ***. Though you will not return, foals will read about you in the history books. Thanks to you, we’ll *** *** ***. We *** *** *** *** *** ***. You will not *** *** *** again.
-S
Twilight’s heart sank as she considered what the message might mean—something she had already been dreading. Smuggling a stowaway onto the Equinox, the single most expensive and important ship in all their civilization’s history, would have been immensely difficult. So who was it?
If she was very clever, Twilight might be able to find more in the computer that would confirm the intruder’s identity, perhaps even connect them back with the pony who had put them inside. But there was no time for such an investigation now, when they needed the Equinox to be fully prepared to intercept the prospector.
She still had to be captain. That meant keeping the Equinox on track to rendezvous with the prospector. She kept trying to send messages back to Equestria, kept trying to find the dataline tethering them home, but there was no trace.
And of course, part of being captain meant checking in on her creatures every now and then.
She found Spike tucked away in a far corner of Central Fabrication.
It was the single largest interior section of the Equinox—larger by volume than the reactor or both cargo bays combined. Most of the space was empty, aside from the fabricator arm. It was larger than a pony, sliding along a series of complex tracks that would allow it to build almost any component aboard.
The only thing it couldn’t build was Thaumotech, since every one of those components had to be hoof-crafted by expert engineers. Primarily, that meant the crystal tube arrays used by their computer and the reactor’s compression ring.
“Twi, over here!” he rose from his chair, gesturing her over eagerly. “You’re just in time! It’s almost done!”
Already? Twilight didn’t gallop, she just teleported straight across to him.
Spike had transformed the “home” position of the fabricator arm into his own little workshop. The arm itself moved in regular patterns, printing layer by layer in plastic.
But it wasn’t the fabricator he was watching, but what looked like a hollowed-out bit of furniture covered in a clear plastic sheet. A thick bundle of wire ran straight out from a terminal he’d gutted and into the machine, which belched heat from an opening in the top like it was trying to melt through the deck.
“This is the blueprint?” Twilight couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice.
“No, no.” Spike circled it once, glancing back periodically at the terminal. “I just got creative to save material. But…” he beamed, settling one claw on Twilight’s shoulder. It didn’t shake anymore. His cracked scales were still sealed with medical glue, but they weren’t weeping pus anymore. “I know what it is.” He pointed at the robotic fabricator arm. “What is it printing? Go on, look.”
She did, and instantly recognized what Spike was getting at. “That’s a fabricator shell.”
“Based on our own designs,” Spike agreed. “I think… whoever sent that message somehow went through everything we had, and designed a machine it knew we could build. A new kind of fabricator.”
“But what does it make?”
Spike bent down, lifting the plastic out of the way and vanishing underneath. “Not sure yet. There are lots of steps involved. But the first one here…” he rose, holding something in his claw.
It was about as thick as a pony’s leg, a perfectly round cylinder, clearer than any glass Twilight had ever seen. “That looks… almost like a Thaumotech blank.”
“Almost,” Spike agreed. “I think the principle might be similar.” He pointed at the wall, where a dozen pages of fabrication blueprints were stacked one above another. Twilight skimmed and saw that Spike had managed to lay them out in functional order.
The machine was going to work on the crystal blank, slicing it into disks, then running each one through dozens of discrete steps.
“Do you have enough to finish?” she asked.
“Well…” Spike hesitated. “Not without stripping some important spare parts. Applejack said she’d space me if I tried.”
“We’re not in any hurry,” Twilight said. “Just do what you can with what we don’t need.”
But as the central fabricator airlock shut behind her, there was a renewed spring in Twilight’s step.
Their mission might be floundering, but at least in one respect there was progress. The Signalers had spoken, and their message was meaningful. If they could make sense of that, a little miracle like catching the prospector should be easy.
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Well, that's not concerning at all...
...but at least there's good news to offset it!
So, what we got to work with is a message from one "S." Now, the original incident that woke Spike up was listed as "Danger Code Sombra." Not-so-subtle foreshadowing, or in-universe danger warning? But that raises the question of who would Sombra be communicating with? (If the comics come into play here, I'm going to be out of my element.) Other than Sombra, we've got Sunset and Starlight. Immediately, Starlight seems in a good position to sneak herself or someone else aboard, given her close connection to the Equinox program. The lesser questions which will have to be answered eventually is, which one is where and why did they do it? If they're working together, Twilight's definitely gonna have her hooves full.
On the other
hoofclaw, Spike starts with an S, too, and he joins Sombra as the second candidate on my list to not have a second initial. I'd dismissed him as a candidate for sabotage earlier, but there's still the tiniest bit of doubt in the back of my mind.Other possible candidates are Star Swirl, Stygian, Sonata Dusk, and Sweetie Drops. Sweetie Drops has the added bonus of being an agent and thus almost definitely trained for infiltration. But don't take this paragraph too seriously; at this point I'm probably just grasping at (s)traws. (Bon Bon would be advising anyways, not infiltrating. And the Dazzlings are a trio, not a pair.)
Yep. Sounds like a variation of microchip manufacturing. Not sure if it's using silicon and the scale is smaller (we typically use crystals with 150mm (5.9") or 300mm (11.8") diameters these days and 450mm (17.7") is proposed), but those first steps sound like growing a crystal of high-purity silicon and slicing it into wafers to be etched.
I bet those "dozens of discrete steps" are a multilayer photolithography or electron lithography process.
Friggin' finally, Twiggles!
Next time Twilight, don't use narrativium-based data recovery methods that conveniently reassemble only enough to raise more questions.
(Still, about time they rolled a nat 20.)
In any case, it looks like the Signalers plan on dragging them up the tech ladder... but they don't have the resources to both make the trip and run the ship. It'll have to wait for when (and if) they can resupply.
S-, huh? STAAARLIIIGHT!
On the other hand, a better fabricator? That lends a lot of credence to these being benevolent aliens. I hope.
Huh. I voted against this choice, but that blueprint turned out to be pretty helpful. A couple good rolls on Twilight and Applejack's part, too.
9277765
In the interests of completeness, "S" also might be Shining Armor, Sweetie Belle, or Scootaloo — though there's no indication in the story they have any reason to be hostile to Twilight's mission. Or if we're really going crazy with speculation: Scorpan, Silver Spoon, Spitfire, Soarin, Snips, Snails, Suri Polomare, Sapphire Shores, Sassy Saddles, Somnambula, or Steve the wedding changeling.
Some nice successes, and an improved alien fabricator. That last bit could either be very useful or absolutely terrible.
Got some good rolls this chapter!
That's an odd way to say [what I assume to mean] "crew".
Great, not just a stowaway but a conspiracy....
It's making a chip manufactory?
Our precision tools were built my tools not as god, which were built by worsetools, going back to rocks. The crude fabricater builds a better fabricator and integrated circuits on silicon. it would be funny if the new fabicator build an other fabricator. It could be fabricators all the way down.