Chapter 15
Twilight could see the prospector in the viewfinder ahead of them, with its invisible cone of hyperaccelerated particles blasting almost directly back at the Equinox. But it didn’t matter—the ship could make interplanetary trips in a pinch. But the Equinox could travel between stars. It was a chase the Prospector was doomed to lose.
“We’re in range for disruption,” Applejack’s voice came in only slightly distorted over the radio, echoing around in her helmet. “Just give the order, captain.”
“Once you do…” Spike’s voice was hesitant. “Their engines stop working and we catch right up?”
“Not quite,” Applejack said. “This only works because we’re using the same engines. I… look, there’s no time to explain the technical side. We both stop accelerating as soon as I fire. We’re moving faster than they are, and they won’t have any way to change direction. I fire, and in an hour, Twilight can work her magic.”
“I’m not so sure I can,” Twilight admitted. “I’ve memorized the spell, but… it’s more advanced velocity manipulation with higher inertia than any unicorn I’ve ever known could manage. I’m not a computer.”
“You’ll do fine, cap,” Applejack said. “Last chance to turn back. Not that we should. As much fuel as we burned, ought to get the prospector back for our trouble.”
Twilight watched the retreating craft for a few more seconds. It was indeed getting closer by the moment. Still ignoring all their radio calls, but how much longer would it ignore them now?
“Do it.”
“Killing the engines,” Spike said from beside her, and the shaking under their hooves abruptly stopped. Twilight felt the deck plating begin to drift under her, and she pushed down with magic.
Spike was strapped into his chair, so he wouldn’t be going anywhere either.
“Firing!” A flash of brilliant light emerged from somewhere on the front of the ship, a green and blue aurora that diffused around them in moments.
Twilight saw it on the prospector a moment later—it’s drive went from a focused invisible lance to a struggling white and yellow flame, belching out in uneven spurts that made its trajectory wobble for a second before going out completely.
“How’s it look, cap?”
“They’re not accelerating anymore,” Twilight leaned forward a little, trying to tell what might be going on inside the craft. But it was much too far away for that kind of magic.
“Yee-haw!” Applejack squealed. “Serves you right for tryin’ to steal my…” she stopped abruptly. “Sorry, cap. On my way to the cargo bay now. Spike, remember what I told ‘ya?”
“Steady on maneuvering thrusters.” Spike repeated, a little annoyed. “Pass on the starboard side. I got it, Applejack.”
The engineer didn’t respond. Twilight pulled herself down into the captain’s chair, securing the straps that would stop her from drifting. She was wearing magnetic horseshoes now, just as Spike had his boots, but she’d spent enough time in space to be able to use her magic for most things. What the other tribes called cheating out of unicorns was really just convenience for her.
Twilight lifted Applejack’s spell outline into the air in front of her, focusing on the diagram she had scribbled all over it. “If this spell doesn’t kill me, we’ll have our Prospector back,” Twilight muttered. “Keep an eye on things. I need to memorize.”
“You got it.” Spike saluted with one claw, then rose and began his slow, deliberate walk towards coms.
But Twilight didn’t watch him, or anything else. An hour more was so much less time to memorize than she would’ve liked, even after memorizing in every spare moment.
It felt like seconds before her time was up. “Coming up on the Prospector!” Spike called, his voice nervous. “We, uh… don’t have a huge window here. Looks like our difference in speed is… about three meters per second. Make it count, Twi.”
Three meters per second. And the prospector weighs about two million kilograms…
Twilight stood up, twitching each leg so the horseshoes could do the work of holding her down. She stared out through the window, concentrating on her spell. The Prospector was there, unmagnified now, and getting closer with terrifying speed.
“Eight… seven… six… five…”
“I’m with you, Twi!” Applejack called. “You got this!”
For a few seconds, Twilight’s horn grew so bright that the deck lighting was eclipsed. Everything in the bridge washed away to outlines, and spike raised a claw to cover his eyes.
In the window ahead of them, the prospector glowed too.
Twilight attempts the inertial devouring spell. Failure. Twilight takes spell feedback damage.
A slight pop emerged from twilight’s horn, and her world turned into a scream of pain. She collapsed, but her hooves were still magnetically held to the deck. The glow went out.
Her world overwhelmed with pain, she could still dimly make out Applejack’s voice over the radio. “I’ve got her, captain! This might get bumpy!"
Applejack fires the harpoon. Success
The Equinox rattled and shook, and Twilight was powerless to do anything but watch as the Prospector slipped behind them. The Equinox leaned suddenly to one side, and Twilight could hear its beams and supports squealing in protest at the abuse. What did Applejack do?
The pain was too much. Twilight’s world went white.
Spike, meanwhile, stared on in horror at his now-collapsed captain.
“Bringing them in now, cap!” Applejack called over the radio. “Whoever’s in there is probably banged right to Tartarus, but probably ain’t dead. Now… what do you want me to do? She’ll have her engines back in… just under sixteen hours. And there’s no telling what the pony aboard might have in terms of resources. We gotta act right away.”
Spike made his way over to where Twilight had fallen, trying to ignore the blood. “Captain’s down,” he said. “What are our options with the prospector?”
1. Have Applejack attach a few more lines and hold it secure enough not to get away. Whoever they are has got to be smart enough to know that their engines will tear us both apart if they try.
2. Have Applejack climb over and disable key systems during an EVA. I know it’s a risk, but it’s the only way to be sure they won’t try to get away again. Might be able to patch the hole I made in their belly while I’m at it.
3. The prospector is too dangerous to save. I could get on over there, plant some mining explosive, then push her away again. Once we’re a safe distance out, we punch a big enough hole through her that we know she won’t move again. Bit of a shame to waste the materials, but at least we know we’re safe again.
(Certainty 150 required)
Stats
Page generated in 0.032 seconds
Total duration
688 users online
1,220,659 hits today, 2,707,512 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
EVA to disable it is the only true option. They already revealed they're not afraid to create massive destruction to achieve their objectives, so tying it down would only invite destruction. And destroying it would be too much of a massive resource loss. Also,
GODDAMMIT TWIGGLES, AGAIN?!?
On a scale of 1-d20 how dangerous it is?
Option two. No balls, no blue chips.
Curious what that roll was like. Speaking of, I say tie it down. We've had many more failures than successes here, so I don't really want to take the risk of EVA
They blew a hole in the ship last time. Disable it before messing with it.
Gonna say, kill it and whatever is inside. The materials can be reacquired but at least the persistent threat to our remaining crew will be eliminated. Also, it sounds like their entire purpose is to sabotage the mission at the expense of their own life if necessary. They WILL try to do as much damage as possible at this point.
Twiggles really needs to take some +spellcraft feats or something. Maybe an item to absorb feedback hits.
Really it is just a bet of whether or not the intruder would rather die than be captured. If they would rather die, then just tying it down isn't a good idea because they might try to get away and rip apart both ships in the process, making a better idea to go with the EVA. If they would rather be captured, it would be safer to just tie it down and not risk the danger of the EVA. I don't think destroying the prospector is a good idea at all.
I am going to have to go with tying it down because I don't think that someone who has gone through all this trouble to sneak onto the ship and stay hidden would let it all go to waste by just dying in space.
Considering we now know this saboteur wasn't working alone- coupled with the odd radio silence from home- they need to secure this one in one piece if at all possible in order to track the rest down.
9279341
Ehh... remember the message? That language sounds like disruption of the official mission is the goal, so they probably WOULD be that suicidal. EVA is a go!
Eva, safest option
Tie it down. If we had Rarety I would have said EVA but AJ isen't good enough.
A bad roll on AJ's EVA probably means AJ's death and loss of the crew's engineer. Tying it down and then seeing the stowaway gun it anyway at least means probably everyone is dead, and the stowaway probably wants to live.
I would say tying it down is good enough on the capture angle, but it sounds like there's significant uncertainty as to how much damage Applejack did while capturing the prospector. The EVA will help assess the damage and possibly allow live capture instead of the infiltrator dying. And, y'know, depending on what Applejack poked something really catastrophic isn't totally out of the question if nobody takes a look at it.
On the other hand, being specifically warned that the EVA option is exceptionally risky inspires quite a bit of fear. I'll sleep on it.
A brief table for those who want to keep track:
This one is tough. We're down a crew member, and it's not likely she'll be back up in time to help with the current situation. Given the message last chapter, we know that the stowaway is nominally working for Equestria, though almost definitely misguided. (I'm seeing a distinct parallel to Starlight here.) Their motivations are mostly unknown; their goals entirely unknown. They had a year to do almost whatever they wanted, but they waited until the ship had entered the system.
Option 1 has the tremendous benefit of waiting until the crew is back at full strength. However, it operates under the assumption that the stowaway will just lie down and accept this turn of events. The window of opportunity here is 16 hours, during which time the remaining crew have to bring in and neutralize whoever is aboard. Oh, and only Twilight has a slight hint of who's aboard. It's not stated that she shared this info with the others.
Option 2 is openly stated to be a risk. But the window of time opens from 16 hours to essentially as long as they have food. Twi would have time to make a full recovery. (Spike too, for that matter.) The hindrances here would come in the form of an EVA suit used by the stowaway, or the dice. You would expect to find a spacesuit in a lander most definately, but the dice will be present no matter what we pick. The Prospector is a mining vehicle, and weapon outfit is not specified. Does come with a fabricator and (I'd assume) some mining tools which, in a pinch, could double as weapons. AJ would to best to go armed and/or have Spike point a few of the flack cannons at the Prospector's airlock. Probably gonna go with this option.
Option 3 would put us back at square one, minus one stowaway, one Prospector lander, and all/most of the fuel. The inability to land on anything will undoubtedly impose crippling limitations on the rest of the crew, as well as their mission. Worst choice imo.
Where is Sweetie Bot if we need her?
I voted for option one.
We had risked much to get the ship back, but we won't risk anything more than necessary.
Edit: After reading the other comments option two might have been the better choice...
Small note:
In the first option you didn't color the number in the beginning is not colored, but in the two others it is.
I recommend to stay consistent.
...Or simply ignore it, since it is actually meaningless.
Definitely nervous. I went with 2 because it has the highest returns if successful and Im worried others are right that the stowaway will either panic or actively want to damage the ship. But we will see.
9279180
Twiggles
derpicdn.net/img/2012/6/24/18379/medium.png
I don't see why they can't reprocess the hulk. (Well, other than fuel concerns.) Still, EVA's too risky and whoever that is seems fanatic enough to take down the crew with them.
I'm not so much for option 2 as I am against options 1 and 3.
1) whomever is in the prospector is on a suicide mission. Engaging the thrusters while tied down will just help them sabotage us further. They won't care if it kills them.
3) We went through all this just to destroy a valuable resource? No, I think not!
Though the word "dangerous" next to the option worries me greatly. ...especially with our magical safety net down for the count. N-nope! Glory to the bold! Lets do it!
I'm all for #2. because 1) they still need the Prospector for a landing craft and potentially parts and mats. and 2) It is becoming even more apparent that they Need to know who the stowaway is and why he/she is there. (it would really suck to find out that they left to save the aliens just to realize that they left Equestria open to a new more dangerous Equality Cult...)
Geeze, of course the spell cast roll fails. How stereotypical, Twilight.
Dangerous EVA, I guess.
9279679
I'd feel a lot better about the EVA if Twilight was conscious. But it occurs to me that "tying the ship down" may involve harpooning it a whole bunch of times. Applejack already expressed concern over the damage the first one did.
Even that might not convince me if I thought the fugitive could be counted on to be a rational actor. But it's possible that they will panic. It could be that their previous actions were due to panic!
I wish I knew when Twilight would wake up. I wish I knew why, specifically, option #2 was marked "dangerous". I wish I knew how destructive "tying it down" was going to be.
Absent all this information, I think I'm gonna roll the dice.
I'm voting for #1.
If the mission of our stoaway was to make the mission a failure,why didn't he/she just kill them while they were cryoginized?
9280102
I'd considered that question myself, and the best option I've got is that they want to dissuade future mission attempts. That would require making the ship's fate look like an accident. They were awake for a year, but didn't act until they were in the system. I think that supports my theory. At worst, their actions delay the project for a while, and at best, public opinion in the program is so shaken that it never gets off the ground again, crossed out as "just too risky." That allows our stowaway to have free reign to do whatever they want in the system.
9279999
Same, it's possible all the actions the stow away has made were really all pre programmed and they are still in cryo. Thus the prospector would not know to not try to get away. And the ship is too valuable to lose so screw option 3...
I wish that there was an option to just fire a harpoon into the lander's hull and kill the intruder with vacuum depressurization.
I'm not sure that I'd vote for it, but then that could also open up the option of negotiating with them. "Hi. You tried to kill us. We have a harpoon aimed at your hull. Start talking and hope we like the answers."
... but yeah. Option 1 puts their communal fate in the hooves of someone who already showed a willingness to set up deathtraps, and 3 defeats the entire purpose of chasing the lander. There's something to be said about the sunk cost fallacy, but at this point if they lose both the resources in the lander AND the resources they wasted chasing it, I suspect they're in at least as much trouble as they would be without Applejack.
I just hope that AJ plays option 2 smart.
I'm gonna have to go with option 2. Option 3 is too costly and might just lead to the failure of the mission, also defeats the point of the whole chase. Option 1 is too risky as whoever is in the lander is most likely going to fire the thrusters as soon as they can, I say this due to them having already shown that they would rather die then be discovered and their clear goal of sabotaging the mission so that it fails. I just hope that Applejack has heard of the concept of tethering herself to the spacecraft.
my reaction reading the choices:
"That seems like a poor choice."
"That seems even worse."
"THE LAST ONE IS EVEN WORSE!"
And thats not a bad thing.
Nice balance on the questions this time around. Not really a clear pick out of any of them. You're getting better at balancing these and making them all a bit more desirable or undesirable
Option two. We don't know if the one inside has a deathwish or if not.
Option 1
If they didn't care about their life they would have just blown up the ship and be done, but they lived in the ship for about a year and made an apparent escape plan. Unless they EVA to the Equinox, the saboteur is stuck in the lander.
Not knowing the exact condition of the captain is greatly troubling. We have no medic awake, and neither of those who are awake have experience with Magic feedback. The situation looks grim to me.
My mind keeps thinking about how at some point there to be a max acceleration and burning your engines would do no good. Plus when you taking gravity into account. I know it’s a story, but gravity assists would would’ve save them a lot of fuel