Chapter 90
Twilight isn’t going to give up her crew.
“Hold one minute, Fluttershy,” Twilight said. “I’m going to make the jump now. If you don’t hear back from me, it means I’m dead or I won’t be able to make the trip in time. Freeze them. If I live through this… then I’ll update you. The ring is full of air, I can extract it without going to the planet. There’s still time.”
“We don’t need much,” Sunset’s voice cut in over the line. “I finished repairs to the whole atmospheric system. Medical deck is sealed. Rest of the Equinox is still bucked to Tartarus, but… we don’t need to pressurize it all at once.”
“Right,” Twilight said. “So wait… five minutes, let’s make that the order. Five minutes, and you can get to work freezing everypony. Start with the healthiest first. Give them… the best chance we can.” Twilight closed her eyes, shuddering inwardly. She could only imagine the consequences of failure here. Half her friends might die, or maybe all of them. But what choice did she have?
“I’m ready to jump. Spike, I want position, heading, velocity. I’ll need them.”
He responded instantly, with precise readings from the Equinox’s laser rangefinder. So at least the damn stowaway hadn’t flown outside to kick their sensor array to pieces before getting herself killed.
Twilight Sparkle turned in the indicated direction, using the compass inside her helmet. Her air was ticking down again, but that was hardly her first concern. If she missed this jump, she would die in space. Her friends would be frozen, and the mission would be a failure.
“If I don’t… if I can’t do this…” she whispered. “Listen to Sunset, if you can. She… was a captain. Probably knows… what’s going on. More than I do.”
She switched off the radio, staring out into the void. She imagined another, friendlier abyss, outside Canterlot Station. Princess Celestia beside her in space, hovering without a suit or any other protection. She brought her own air, her own shield so subtle the bubble wasn’t even visible.
Twilight herself was awkward and gangly with her newly acquired wings. Her suit felt like it didn’t fit, and she was constantly tripping over herself. If she had new powers being an Alicorn, she’d barely even known it then.
“To teleport further than you can see, you must see space as few unicorns do. You must understand that every division is an illusion. All points are circumscribed through space. We are all everywhere, at every moment. Whether you poke through that everywhere to Canterlot Castle or the station tethered to it, it is the same.”
Her tutor vanished, leaving Twilight alone in the void.
Equus vanished from beneath her, replaced with a world of gray instead of green. The ring stretched out close, another planet unto itself. Strange magic had captured her once, when surely her teleport should’ve gone to nowhere. Would it try to capture her again?
Twilight pictured her diagram, holding it in her mind so firmly that it seemed to appear in the air before her as a physical thing. Four spatial dimensions instead of three, and the invisible shunt that would change her positional values in the three. But where every previous long-range trip was made with profound familiarity with the location, this one was just a ship. A distant, drifting ship.
Her friends’ only chance.
Twilight cast her spell.
Can Twilight land on the Prospector safely? Yes.
Twilight smacked into a steel bulkhead at exactly three meters per second. She grunted and groaned, ignoring the impact alarms from her suit. The metal flung her forward, though not as quickly, and suddenly she was drifting through a cargo bay.
The cargo bay of the Prospector.
Twilight was worn from days of exhaustion, barely even alive at this point. But she wasn’t done quite yet. There was one work yet to do.
Twilight engaged her magnetic horseshoes, landing with a thump on the deck-plating. She trudged forward, passing through the cargo bay door and into the cockpit.
Some of the panels she saw showed red lights, damage from Cozy Glow’s explosion. But there were a few that caught her eye, the most important.
Propulsion: online.
Communications: online.
She almost cried as she fumbled into her seat, strapping herself down and switching to the Prospector’s transmission booster. “This is Twilight Sparkle aboard the HMS Prospector. Equinox, can I have a heading to my last position? I’m going to pump air from the ring.”
Even Spike sounded relieved as he finally answered. “On the way, Prospector.”
Fluttershy cheered into the radio. “You made it!” She was as loud as ever, but just now Twilight found that a relief. “Does that mean the ship is—”
“She’s intact,” Twilight answered. ”As much as we care about, anyway. I wouldn’t want to try a full burn through an atmosphere, but she’ll do. I’m on my way back.”
The next few hours were a blur. Twilight brought the prospector to where she’d exited through the broken docking bay, then tethered the ship with a mining grapple while she ran the huge plastic extraction hose into the broken docking bay. Nothing from the ring attacked her, and after a few hours of work, she was on her way back.
She didn’t have a working docking harness to attach to anymore, but that didn’t stop her. Twilight brought in the Prospector near the lowest level, directly to life support, and attached a different hose to a completely undamaged port.
Then she waited, while the sound of hissing gasses ran through the hoses beneath her and into the Equinox’s atmospheric processing tank.
“Air seems safe,” Spike said, after a minute. “Safe as we’ll get, anyway. Now how about getting me fixed, captain. I’m basically bleeding into space right now.”
Twilight would be resting first regardless, but after that.
1. “It’s our priority, Spike. Seal every breach before we even think of anything else.”
2. “I completely agree Spike, that’s why we have to wake up the others first. What you really want is an engineer fixing you, not me.”
3. “I think we should probably go back to the ring and extract more information first.”
4. Sunset suggests beginning full burn acceleration for Proximus C, promising that they can fix the ship and she can explain everything along the way. “There’s nothing down there we need.”
(Certainty 210 required)
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Woohoo!
They should definitely get the Spiquinox back together before making any major trips. The only question is how much work to put into waking up the engineers first. My gut feeling is to seal up the gaping holes in the hull first, though it's probably worth giving the Contingency a poke if it's relatively simple.
Seal the bull breaches. I think Spike can guide them through that much. More complicated stuff we should have AJ for, but let's stop the bleeding
WHY THE HELL is everyone voting for thawing without even fixing Spiquinox up? He's basically bleeding to death and you want to deny him basic first aid to engage in a high-risk optional side quest which isn't even time sensitive?
I mean, do you want to convince the already upset, injured, and sorta-undead dragon ship who is already suffering an existential crisis that his friends aren't his friends anymore and just see him as disposable hardware? Because that is pretty much where you're going, implications-wise.
Three of those options should be doable all at once.
Set course for Proximus C, and allow Spike to pilot.
This frees up both Twilight and Sunset to make critical repairs(Directed by Spike as needed), and talk about what the hell is going on.
All the while Fluttershy can stabilize the rest, and work with Node to figure out a way to save the rest of the crew.
OH wow. I was certain for a moment that the story- or at least Twilight's story- was about to come to a nasty end.
I'm actually curious now- after a choice is picked, do you do all the rolls for a chapter and then write around them accordingly, or do you just start writing up to the moment of truth and then roll?
I'm undecided between following Sunset's suggestion and repairing the ship on the way, or going back to that treasure room full of information.
All important choices this time around, but in the end I went with 1. Spikes right, he's bleeding, and though you pump the ring to a vacuum, if you don't stop the out gassing you'll be right back where you started in no time. But Twilight needs sleep soon, or she's going to find her body mutinies and she's going to sleep through "IT HUNGERS" showing up.
Twilight coming through in the CLUTCH!!!
Looks like another tight one. Im voting for Proximus C; they can work on stuff on the way, and if Sunset says theres something helpful there, it COULD mean that the thing Twilight saw while on the ring is a pony colony of some sort. Perhaps abandoned but still either way, this here planet has not been nice to us and Id prefer we get away from it until things are much more shipshape.
I've always pushed back against those who want to always go full steam ahead regardless of the benefits of more cautious options. But this time, the daredevils are going to have the right choice.
Consider Sunset.
1. Do we trust her to be competent? She's been frozen for who knows how long; there is literally nothing that could be so urgent after all this time that we can't take the time to guard against slow leaks that are happening now and will not improve under the strain of acceleration. Therefore, it stands to reason that whatever her plan is involves directly improving the situation of the crew, such that getting to it faster is worth adding stress on the current systems. And whatever the destination is, she's confident that it has lasted all this time.
2. Do we trust her to be sane? The above doesn't apply if she's delusional or under the influence of something. I am fairly confident Twilight, Fluttershy, and Spike can spot it if her plan is Looney Tunes. So do we trust her to not be intentionally misleading us to our doom?
I definitely trust Sunset to be competent and I'm willing to trust her to be sane.
I'd say hull-breach is top priority to seal up, at least those they can do so with first anyhow. Seal up the worst of it so the ship and Spike aren't in danger anymore. Anything else that's broken could be left alone for the most part. Everything else can wait at least until they aren't going to be without any atmosphere, again.
Again: Twilight just completely negated Spike's heroic sacrifice and forced him into a hellish existence as an undead/digitized entity fused into an already sabotaged and broken starship. Moreover, she did so out of pure selfishness because she didn't want to let go of him. And now they want to completely ignore his needs and just go off prioritizing everyone else?
That is going to end very, very badly.
NONE OF THE ABOVE
Seriously, StarScribe, are you trying to annoy us with the choices?
Name one engineer that is NOT brain-stuck inside contingency right now.
How do we get them out?
Sunset claims to have knowledge here. Spill it girl. You can have 5 minutes, 10 minutes, etc. It's a 3 month burn to C as I understand the setup. We sent a probe out; do we have any info at all from it? Heading to C can wait.
Information is what we need.
Also, is anyone else reading Schlock Mercenary at the same time as this story right now?
How long can we afford to spend trying to get someone that knows how to work these systems back online? EquiSpike is important, but the difference between "now" and "30 minutes" is not critical. Especially if Twilight says "I need to rest first".
What I recommend:
1. While Twilight sleeps, Fluttershy and Sunset compare notes and try to figure out how to wake people up.
Sunset probably does not know anything about contingency, neither it nor the chair seems to have been used by her people.
2. Once Twilight wakes up, we can worry about how much time to spend trying to get Apple up for repair work.
3. Heading to C is not a "must do" thing.
4. Why does Sunset claim to know that there is nothing of value on the surface?
We lost spike once, and damn it, we’re not gonna let him be hurt again! Fix the ship!
9662443
I believe Spike's request was out of concern for the ones who breathe air. He's not going to die from depressurizing.
9662448
Sunset claims to have information that justifies both 3 and 4. And this might not be much difference, but if Spike and Sunset can set course while Twilight recovers it's more like 12+ hours than 30 minutes (versus "now").
All these options are shit. If he can wait 8 hrs for twilight to rest, then robospike will be fine enough for them to work gradually on him, and the others are stable without being frozen now. They can work on to no spike using shit from the ring and going to c is a non concern. So I say just take your time and pump sunset for info without going anywhere you can work on spike periodicly, but don't be an asshole to him lest he go Hal:9000 and twi was an asshole for not letting him die a hero and turning him into a conflicted machine
Fix your own house before you lose something, like the capability to breathe. Deep Space is NOT your friend! Option One.
I audibly breathed out.
We don't know how to get them out of the Contingency, that might be another 10 chapters on its own. Meanwhile Spike LITERALLY DIED for us - we patch him up.
Seal breaches, wake ponies, get information. Proximus C can come after... or at least wait until Sunset explains herself.
Seal those damn holes first, all that effort will be for naught if the gases get out again. Option one
Alright Twilight, it's now or never to be not screw up this roll.
Oh shit, there we go. Thank you merciful dice for your kindness this day.
The hull breaches seem like the next biggest priority. Get Spaceship Spike sealed up and then we can think about the girls and Sunset.
Yeah stop the hemorrhaging. Sunset has plenty of time before making us go to another planet, let's not be hasty.
Yeah, let's get those breaches fixed first.
Taking Spike in this condition anywhere could risk further damage from damaged systems being abused or leave Spike open where something critical might get hit entering through one of the holes.
Besides, ignoring Spike when he is injured might have Spike rebel against the crew and Spike is the ship computer now. Not a healthy thing to have your computer turn on you when you already have several problems. It might be better if Applejack or Applebloom did the repairs, but that might not be an option if Spike doesn't get at least basic care to stabilize him.
This is about the point in FTL where I start frantically searching for a merchant star to fix my hull, so that seems like a smart idea.
9662343
Hmm because he is not really?
If he vent all air he is STILL alive... as he is a entity that resides in an electronic system. His criticality are energy and integrity of the computer core. He can go hard vacuo and be fine. if he is leaking other things like coolant or the like it would already have been a problem... Having a competent engineer is not a bad idea. What would REALLY be needed are CLARIFICATION. That is something I'm hating of this choices... they are missing obvious things, like "Hey Spike, I think it would be better to revive AJ for the repairs as she is a competent engineer, do you think it would be ok,? Or are there things that you would prefer to be addressed right now?"
*exhales enough air to fill the Equinox*
Good chapter, as always.
About the choice:
I voted for waking her friends.
The ship is not in imminent danger (I think). And the longer her friends are like this the more dangerous for them (I think).
Also, Sunset can still explain what she knows without us heading to Proximus C (I think).
But what does Sunset mean with “There’s nothing down there we need.”? Won't we need the air? And whatever else there is on information?
Or does Sunset lure us away on purpose?
*triumphant fist pump*
WOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!
Aw man, that roll was scary.
9663514
Did you nest one set of spoiler text inside the other? Because if so, that's pretty neat.
Sure looks like he did
9664539
Yes, I did.
It works like this:
They can seal up the hull on the way to proxima C, it's not instantaneous.
9663514
See, this guy agrees with me. I mean, he disagrees with me, but we agree on the fundamental questions we need to ask ourselves when deciding which way to vote. (9662420) We just came up with different answers. Assuming the foregoing is more or less accurate, that's great, because it means the only thing we need to argue about is the "facts". (i.e. whether we should trust Sunset to not be foolish and/or intentionally misguiding us).
2. We need trained professionals on every front at this point. As long as they can seal up and section off the damaged areas, then they should be fine. Getting the crew back will also be a burden off Twilights' mind, and we all know she operates better with friends backing her up.