Chapter 9
Twilight knew Applejack wouldn’t be happy even before they reached the docking platform. But whatever else might be said for the former prospector, she had good common sense. Whatever distrust she might still be feeling towards Spike, she didn’t show it.
“Here to join our little investigation, eh’? Guess you didn’t quite get to finish yer beauty rest.”
Spike chuckled weakly, showing no sign of his emotional weakness earlier. I’m glad I didn’t tell him that Applejack was the one who discovered all this. It would hurt him even more to know that she’d been involved. Maybe this way he could pretend it had nothing to do with her, and keep their relationship relatively normal. Please Celestia, no more dragon oaths.
The airlock to the lander showed all green, just like it had over the computer. For that reason Twilight hadn’t brought a space suit, though she did carry a gun. The crystal sticking out the back was bright enough to double as a flashlight, and the plastic bullets inside wouldn’t pierce their hull if it came to shooting.
“Did you get any readings out of the lander?”
Applejack shook her head. “Nothin’ that would interest ‘ya too much. She’s readin’ as 11% more massive than she ought to be… like she’s got a full cargo bay. Pulling about 3% more energy, too… but that’s within tolerances, so the computer didn’t neigh at me.”
“Lifesigns?”
“None,” Applejack glanced quickly over her shoulder at Spike, then back to her. “But you said it would be a cryo pod. But I haven’t tried to open ‘er up yet. Figured it might be best to have your authorization to be the one giving the order, just in case.”
Twilight nodded. “Something tried to…” she hesitated. “Hurt me. When I opened the cargo bay. Before I scan my card, I want you to go over the docking system like it was one of your family’s haulers. No, better.”
“Can’t do better than an apple hauler,” Applejack muttered, moving past her to the docking ring. She dropped to her knees, opening the hatch with her mouth and sliding goggles down over her eyes.
Applejack searches for sabotage to the docking system. Failure
But she was barely down five minutes before she rose to her hooves again, flipping the colored lenses out and away from her eyes. “Nothin’ there, captain. She hasn’t been touched.”
Twilight nodded, then levitated her master keycard out from her pocket and into Spike’s claw. “Applejack and I aren’t as sturdy as you are, Spike. I hope you don’t mind if I ask you to open it. Just in case.”
Applejack’s eyes widened. Behind Spike’s back, she mouthed something, probably ‘Not him’ though it was hard to be sure. Twilight ignored her. She hadn’t had the chance to verify spike’s claims of innocence yet, it was true. But she didn’t need to. His explanation made sense, and he was her dragon. If she couldn’t trust the one she’d hatched from an egg during her first day of High Officer’s training, who could she trust?
“Of course,” Spike said, taking the key without flinching. “My scales are pretty tough. You’d be surprised how many little explosions we made it through together.”
“We’ll be right around the corner,” Twilight said. “Where we can still see,” she added in a whisper.
“This is a mistake, Twi.” Applejack hissed into her ear. “I know he looks fine now, but we haven’t made certain of it yet. If there’s one thing you don’t do when yer’ away from home, it’s puttin’ someone who ain’t all together in charge of anythin.’ Even scrubbing dishes could start a fire or somethin’.”
Twilight shook her head. “It wasn’t him.”
Spike scanned the keycard, and the outer airlock slid open.
Everything happened in a rush. There were a few flashes of light from the end of the tiny hallway, followed by the unmistakable “hull breach” alarm. Air roared past them towards the bulkhead, lifting a cloud of debris from the floor and some of Applejack’s tools from beside the airlock and tearing them right out into the bulkhead.
Spike staggered back, sparks showering from his front as little tears opened in his jumpsuit. Behind him the docking bulkhead slammed shut.
Then Twilight felt it—a slight shove against her hooves, one that pushed against all the Equinox. Her center of gravity briefly faltered, and she nearly fell over—but her worry over Spike was just too severe. She ran to his side anyway, tearing away the remains of his jumpsuit. There was a little blood from where a few scales had cracked, though nothing too serious. He looked up, wincing weakly as he met her eyes. “Good thing it was…” and he fell limp, unconscious.
The rushing sound stopped, along with the sirens. Applejack hadn’t followed her—instead, she’d crossed to the little balcony above the dock, and the viewing window there. There, she would have an excellent view of their landing craft, taking a nice chunk of the docking tube with it as it drifted into space. Applejack swore, and for once Twilight didn’t even think of reprimanding her. “Well… I’m loathe to say I told ‘ya so…”
“You told me there was nothing to worry about,” Twilight hissed, glaring at Applejack. But she didn’t leave the words to linger long—they were all in trouble. “Chief Engineer, bring me a medkit, as fast as you can gallop. After that… I want you to make sure nothing else is going to blow us up.”
Applejack ran to do as she was told, while Twilight busied herself with a few simple medical spells. It seemed spike’s collapse was mostly shock—his injuries were not that serious. She’d bandage him up, then…
1. Exhaustively search for sabotage. Whoever did all this knew the Equinox well enough to trick Applejack. But I know the computer, and she’s harder to fool. I’ll find the trail they missed.
2. Care for Spike. Not only is one of my crew injured, but staying at his side will make sure he can’t do anything, if he was the one behind anything that happened so far.
3. Investigate the Cargo Bay. Whoever ruined the cargo bay is probably floating away in the Prospector right now, but that doesn’t mean we might not be able to learn something useful from what they left behind. A full inventory should show us some of what they planned, and if we’re lucky they left some of their own possessions behind too.
4. Breakthrough. Applejack is feeling deeply ashamed about not discovering the sabotage before it cost the lander, and so she works in an absolute frenzy to put right what she’s done wrong. If chosen, her brief surge of engineering genius will repair both the transmitter and the eye, along with detecting any sabotage to those systems.
(Certainty 150 required)
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Yikes.
Hmm, I want to say Twilight search for sabotage, but in the end I vote have Applejack get the transmitter and sensors back online. Whatever this is might be outside...
Option 4
Option 4
Breakthrough. More benefits in the long run!
With the last option, the thing i personally think is best about it is that it says "along with detecting any sabotage to those systems." That, is why i believe it is the best option. Of course doing this means Applejack will probably be exhausted afterwards, and will probably not be a part of the next few chapters, where we might need her.
This is a very hard decision to make that is for sure. I think I have to join most people here and say number four. Take advantage of AJ and get as many things going as possible. And the big thing is even with that going on that is mostly a AJ task, while she is doing that Twi could be taking care of Spike/keeping a eye on him. Of course I think that has been handled by now. I mean if he wasn't there one of them could have very well died. Spike only really lived because he was a dragon. He took a huge bullet for them. The thing I find to be the most telling is that AJ doesn't feel bad that someone got hurt. But that SHE missed something. She is putting all of that above someone how is suppose to be a friend. I think honestly, and we are starting to see the traces of it, this may cause more tension between AJ and Twi than it will AJ and Spike seeing how Twi is doing all she can to keep Spike from knowing of AJ's mistrust in him. But I think Twi will be even more so in Spike's corner seeing how he almost died there and if she didn't trust him her or AJ could have been the ones hurt. I am kinda loving how there is so much internal tension going on before even all the girls are up. And when they all are up I wonder how they will go once they are told about all of this that just happen. I think Twi once she is sure Spike is stable and okay she needs to look over the ship, she needs to make sure everything is okay as AJ works to make up for her failures that has caused a crew member to be injured.
Breakthrough
9246330
Yeah that's what I'm not getting about this choice. Unlike the others, these options aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. At least, not from where I'm sitting. You could do Breakthrough, and any of the other options. (Personally, I'd go for consulting the computer. Just because it's a ship designed for travel of trusted ponies doesn't mean there wouldn't be any cameras on the vessel right?)
Ther isn't a chioce. 4 all the way.
But AJ allredy showing signs of "space insanety" is not good.
And am I the only one that geting Tharsis vibes in this fic? Oh wait thats intentional.
For you that don't know of Tharsis. Here is Quill18 doing a playtrough.
Be sure to vote in the poll! I don't think just saying what you want to do here counts.
That said, as they say in the Lone Wolf LPs, we have an Applejack and wish to use it.
Aaaaah Spike just fainted, he's probably fine!
I vote option 1
Seriously pool results? Seriously?!
Man The suspense of the story is one thing but that pool at the end is like a whole new story and riddled with surprises. And like Pinky says, everyone loves surprises
Something's pretty weird there. They're talking about having ways of detecting life on the pioneer remotely, which failed. Applejack immediately jumps to the reasonable conclusion that it failed because the stowaway is in the stolen cryo unit, but that conclusion seems a lot less reasonable after the booby trap ejected the pioneer from the ship.
It seems like a big risk for no real reward for the stowaway to set things up like that - they're in cryo, so they can't react to anything unexpected, but they also don't get any benefit above just leaving as soon as the Equinox has finished accelerating towards the gas giant (unless they would count assaulting the crew as a benefit, I guess).
On the other hand, if we assume the reason it seems fishy is because it is fishy, the whole scenario works as a really good way of convincing the crew that there was a stowaway who escaped, when really the stowaway is still on board. The plan would allow the crew to learn about the stowaway, deduce the reason they couldn't detect them was cryo, and then deduce that the stowaway was on the Pioneer when it jettisoned. Allowing the crew to see the clues in a different order would be more likely to end with them wondering if the stowaway was still on board and testing the "lifesigns" scanner more closely.
The only thing it would even require would be for the stowaway to have messed with whatever the "lifesigns" detector is, and doing that also seems like it would be both essential for hiding and the best method of avoiding running into any crew, so it's something they should absolutely have done anyway. It's not like anyone would have been looking for sabotage before this, or looking too hard at systems that seemed to be working, or that didn't seem to be all that urgently important.
In light of that, I'd kind of like to see Twilight exhaustively search the computer for sabotage, but this poll seems to be a runaway victory for Applejack instead...
Option 4. Killing two birds with one stone seems like the best option here.
Option Four, because it does not preclude Twilight from pursuing options on her own. Plus, it's amazing what engineers can do when pushed. (Thinks back to all the 'improvisations' done to the 631 prior to overhaul...)
If the saboteur were on that lander, they're gone now. We should focus on the mission and getting the systems repaired. ...Unless they left other nasty surprises. That thought alone is making me want to have Twilight turn what's left upside down to figure out what they were up to. Don't know which to pick.
Well I'll just go with some old advice given to me when playing FTL: Faster Than Light - When in doubt, pick the colored option.
Side note: Withdrawing my theory on the stowaway being the CMC. They would never pull a stunt that was both lethal and malicious like that. Stupid and dangerous, sure. But not lethal and malicious.
The Breakthrough seems like the obvious choice given the special nature of it, though I am a little concerned about not being able to vote for Care for Spike.
I love the story and how it’s reader driven.
I voted investigate just to be contrary. I suspect the 'special'/colored option is almost(?) always going to get dominated in the poll.
As an example relevant to this chapter:
Spike
Spike is cleared in my mind. 1) He took the key card "without flinching." 2) He just threw away all the work "he" did. One could argue he did this to get back into the good graces of Twilight and Applejack, but "he" literally had one chance at doing something with the backup cryogenics, and he just threw that chance out the airlock. Without flinching.
As for the vote, if the sensors come back online, they can at least track the lander as it drifts. Let it get too far and that opportunity may be permanently lost, along with the lander. And if the resident(s) in the lander is/are friendly, then the ability to establish contact would be critical.
The cargo bay is essentially a crime scene now. No crew member could disturb it without seriously raising suspicions. It can wait.
Spike was the one who had the lander constructed. That wasn't part of the original ship. So that means whatever went down aboard ship happened after departure. Likely long after.
9246835
I doubt that Twilight would so badly botch her magical medical examination that she thought injuries were minimal when in fact they were life-threatening. I'm more concerned that the special option is "too good to be true". Fix the eye and the transmitter and any remaining sabotage, all in one fell swoop? Applejack is still recovering from cryo and has a canon tendency to push herself into severe counterproductivity under certain circumstances. Even if everything in the description comes to pass it's a Pyrrhic victory if Applejack spends the next month in sickbay as a result.
#3 is perhaps the "safe" choice. #1 is even more conservative but I don't think it's likely that the place is too riddled with booby traps: the ones we've seen sensibly guard points of entry.
4 seems to include option 1 as well as fixing a few of our previous choices. Im also going to assume that while Aj is doing that twi isnt just going to drop spike on the floor and take a nap so option 2 also kinda in there. Option 3 is something that will need to be done eventually but it can wait a bit longer.
So thats how you decide what happens next. Neat. Lets hope the dice stop screwing them over sometime soon.
I'm not a huge fan of the format, but the story is good nonetheless.
(In actual "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, you get the immersiveness from knowing that the choice is yours, and you can re-read to try different paths. Here, the trappings of CYOA reduce the immersiveness of the prose, but without the corresponding gain of having that level of choice... also partly because it's not in second-person, which puts the "you vote on what happens" at odds with building a sense that "characters who are not you are making decisions".)
Methinks the Chief Engineer doth protest too much....
Hm. Another hard choice.
My choices are dwindled to 1 or 4. I am still not convinced Spike did the sabotage, and since he is mostly unharmed and not in life-threatening condition there would be no need to stay by his side. If it were possible I would have Twilight do choice 1 while Applejack do choice 4, two people doing two different things to find traces of sabotage. But if I had to pick one I would pick choice 4, then we would have both our sensor/scanning equipment and communications repaired; without the saboteur's work.
Once I am sure that everyone is safe and systems aren't going to blow up would I make the choice to investigate the cargo bay.