1 - Critical Failure
“Fillies and Gentelcolts, today we usher in a new era of scientific discovery for all of Equus! With the TunnelDrive, we will be able to explore the beauty of Princess Luna’s night sky as far as the eye can see!” - Spectral Dissociation at the unveiling of TunnelDrive technology, 1084
Astral Sights groaned as the world slowly faded into existence, finding herself cocooned in the pleasantly warm acceleration seat on the ship's flight deck. She must have dozed off while waiting for the system to finish its pre-landing diagnostics, but she was confident that her co-pilot, Night Glow could handle things from here and wake her when they were close enough to their destination.
Besides, it wasn’t every day that she managed to find a spot in the otherwise uncomfortable chair good enough for her to sleep in without feeling that the feathers in her wings were being slowly ground into bits by the hard foam backing. She just needed to find some way to stop that annoying trilling noise in the background and everything would be perfect to continue her nap. She stirred in the seat, trying to find that sweet spot to drift off again.
Something poked her rudely in the ribs, causing her to hiss in discontent. The mare tried to roll over to her sides away from the offender, only to find herself being stopped by the stupid safety harness holding her tightly to the chair. Figures. Just when I finally discover the optimal position for napping that I'd be disturbed. Oh well, I could alway-
“ASTRAL, IN THE NAME OF LUNA STOP BEING USELESS. GET OUT OF THERE BEFORE YOU ROAST TO DEATH!” A hellish sounding voice screamed into her ear, jolting the half asleep mare awake with a surprised sounding squeak. This time, Astral did open her eyes. She let out a choked yelp of surprise as a bright, hungry looking tendril of flame licked the air dangerously close to her face, the intense light and heat radiating from it bringing back unpleasant memories of having her fur singed in the Saddle Arabian desert. Her heart started racing in her chest as the fire inched closer, realising that she had nowhere to retreat to but further into her seat.
“W-what the hell is going on?!” The pegasi asked in confusion as she fumbled with the safety restraints, fiddling with the cover for the release button on the hoof rest. The plastic easily yielded as she yanked it free, slamming the home with a crunching sound.
The thumping of her heartbeat almost deafened the painful screeching from the overheating servos. The locking mechanism protested loudly from the strain, the motors cycling through usually instantaneous sequence with agonizing slowness, only to suddenly fizzle out with a pathetic sounding pop.
"Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap!" Astral yelped as she punched the button in rapid succession, some part of her mind irrationality hoping that hammering it hard enough would solve the issue. The flames were growing closer to her now and despite wearing what she vaguely remembered was an ES-103 - a changeling developed environmental suit purported to weather 'the hazards of space and more'- she swore she wasn't imagining white hot pain starting to creep into her hind legs as the fire licked at her hooves.
Astral wasn’t particularly eager to test if the ‘and more’ part involved slowly roasting a pony with fire. She hammered at the shoulder bars, straining and ignoring the stars creeping into her blackening vision until the rational part of her mind finally forced her to stop wasting whatever precious energy she had left in the useless endeavour.
Astral had aced the mandatory physical tests required for all pilots. Even then, the standards for Pegasi were generously lax when compared to Earth ponies given that they were built for speed and not strength. Even the strongest Pegasus lacked the muscles needed for heavy lifting which in this case, it meant that she was going to roast to death in her chair if she didn’t find another way to free herself soon - all thanks to years of evolution.
“Hey! Some help over here?!” Astral screamed at the batpony dancing with the fires as flames engulfed her legs, the all-too-familiar feeling of tightness from flying too high beginning to grow in her chest as air took on an acidic tang.
She wasn’t ready to die just yet, especially not like a roasted turkey at some crummy slapdash URSA spacedock - speaking of which, where was the crash team? They should have responded by now in their shiny rescue gear, ready to save their flanks from this mess. That’s why they had to pay those absurd service taxes right?
“Idiot! Use the emergency release!” Night Glow shouted back, her voice slightly muffled by the breathing mask she was wearing. The batpony let out a screech, cursing up a storm in some other language as the console she was working on spluttered and threw a shower of sparks into her face. She drowned it with a blast of white gas from a fire extinguisher, creating a pretty cloud that quickly disappeared in the now hellish looking room. “I’d love to help, but I’m a little busy over here too!”
The memory of that particular button had somehow eluded her mind until now, despite being helpfully marked out as such in orange and black. Astral squawked in relief as the damned shoulder bars dropped onto the ground and scrambled out of the seat as fast as she could. She collapsed into a heap onto the rubberized flooring as her quivering hooves gave out from underneath her body and watched in horror as the seat become immediately consumed by the inferno.
Maybe it was the shock of it all that made her falter momentarily, or maybe some part of her brain still kept the training she did back in the Lunar Fleet ingrained inside that made her stop to assess what to do. She forced herself to look at the scene around the flight deck, the pit in her stomach growing deeper as her world slowly melted away.
The ship that she had spent the majority of her savings and the last two years on was burning all around her - from the rickety trademark construction style of hastily clobbered together consoles made with wood and copper during the early years of tunneldrive-led exploration to the hoofful of mismatched, carefully machined quality equipment that she had scrimped up for, they were all engulfed in the hungry fires, casting eerie shadows on the walls against the glow from the emergency biofluorescent lights installed in the ceiling. Spiderwebs of cracks ran through the self-dimming viewport; buried behind a layer of soot so thick that she couldn’t tell what was going on outside.
She felt numb as her home melted down around her in a shower of sparks, the pit in her stomach growing rapidly as she realized that she couldn’t even remember how they even got into this situation in the first place. Maybe this is how I go. Down in a blaze of fire and being remembered as another useless spacer.
Astral shook her head, catching herself wandering in her thoughts. The burning materials all around were probably sucking up what precious oxygen was left in the room. She blinked, clearing her mind of the mental fog and numbly stumbling to the spare fire extinguisher near the door. The pegasi cursed as her shaking hooves almost dropped the canister in their grip and hugged the metal cylinder tighter as if her life depended on it. Which it did.
The fires seemed to be dying down by now, and her internal clock said that starport response should be forcing their way through the doors anytime now but they wouldn’t be in the clear until the doors actually opened. Until then, they - no, she - was sealed in here with a rapidly dwindling air supply, courtesy of URSA’s Standard Starship Safety Regulations that was followed to a fault by the ship’s main computer.
The air was starting to leave a metallic aftertaste in her mouth which no amount of swallowing could get rid of. She looked forlornly at the compartment’s empty breath mask storage, then back at the black and red extinguisher in her hooves, silently debating if she really wanted to use it right now.
On a Lunar Fleet ship, the answer to that question would have been a no-brainer. Princess Luna and her endless supply of royal bits made sure that each vessel was fully equipped to deal with situations like these, but here on an obsolete freighter like hers, there was barely enough money to maintain carbon-dioxide extinguishers, let alone the fancy foam ones. Astral shook off her indecision - she’d rather die peacefully, unconscious and choking to death than be painfully roasted alive like some turkey.
The pegasi took in a deep breath of the sour-smelling air, gagging slightly as she ripped the safety pin off. She carefully stepped forward to douse the hungry flames on a nearby console that now looked like charred and melted ice-cream. She blinked madly, her eyes watering from the sharp, unpleasant concoction of burning metal and crystal as she got to work.
She understood why Night Glow was so desperate now as she watched the flames struggle under clouds of sub-zero gas. Fighting the crystal fire was like trying to slay a hydra; for every flame reduced to smouldering embers, another would leap up almost immediately to take its place.
She kept this battle up for what seemed like an eternity, the air growing thinner and darker from the ashes of burning materials. It wasn’t long before Astral found herself fighting for each breath of air and longing for rest. It would be so simple for her to just give up and curl up in a ball on the ground. Fighting fires was the rescue team’s job anyway, not the task of some crummy freighter captain. The mare bit her lip at this thought, gagging at the unpleasant taste of soot on her tongue.
Pegasi physiology meant that she was supposed to be able to survive in much more punishing conditions than her ground-bound kin, but even biology had its limits. Astral let out a scream of frustration as the fire continued robbing her of her livelihood. Her entire body ached for rest and to be free from the now unpleasant and claustrophobic garment meant to protect her from the worst of the heat, but she wasn’t ready to die like this just yet. Especially not by being trapped in her own stupid secondhoof ship. The mare ignored the sweat stinging her eyes as she moved to another burning console, vaguely aware of the needle gauge on the fire extinguisher dropping at an alarming pace as she aimed for its base.
And then, just as suddenly as her ordeal began, it was over.
Astral knew that as soon as she looked around to fight the next smouldering wreck, only to find nothing but the smouldering remnants of her life savings. There was no way a pony could haul something across the vast expanse of space itself to earn a living, and that meant she just lost the only lifeline keeping her from bankruptcy and being forced back to some menial nine to five job back home.
Thinking about it made her head hurt and conjured up unpleasant memories of sneering superiors that she tried to banish from her memory ever since resigning from the Fleet. Two years she’d worked her flank off to scrape together a living and now fate had somehow decided that all that effort was for naught.
She gnashed her teeth at that thought, suddenly finding the strength within her to send the nearly empty fire extinguisher flying into the broken viewport with a howl of rage that made Night Glow freeze on the spot. It bounced off the reinforced glass with a hollow sounding thunk and disappeared in the charred husk of the dashboard.
The floor came rushing to greet Astral as her overstrained legs finally gave up from beneath her, no longer able to depend on adrenaline no longer in her veins for strength. Breaking her fall was too much effort in her exhausted state so she whined painfully as her snout crunched into the sooty ground, working more grime into her already filthy coat.
A pair of hooves rolled her over to a more comfortable position and worked more ash into her mane and neck as the ceiling and a pair of silted eyes came into view. She blinked wearily as the batpony shook her, frowning as Night Glow started blabbering something incomprehensible through that fanged mouth of hers.
Part of her knew that she should have been grateful to Night Glow for the concern, but all the batpony was doing right now was making her more irate when she just wanted some alone time to think. “Buck off and let me sleep for once.” Astral growled softly, squeezing her eyes shut and refusing to pay her friend any heed.
The mare realized too late that all that reply did was make Night even more concerned. She weakly tried to wave away the sweaty mask being forced onto her face, fighting the batpony’s every move with her heavy limbs in a losing battle as the seal around her face became airtight. Clean, cool air flowed into her lungs and stung her skin as the batpony stroked her mane, cooing softly. Whatever she did wasn’t helping to ease her mind. Running the numbers in her head only made Astral slowly begin to realize just how royally screwed they were.
The mare didn’t care about what Night or the rescue team would think of her anymore as she let out a raspy choked laugh. She looked into the batpony’s strange, silted eyes for any sign of contempt at what an absolute failure she was for the past two years, only to find none except the reflection of her pathetic looking self.
She looked like a homeless pony, with her sooty mane and singed fur. Without a ship to live in or to work with, she was basically no different than the beggars swept away in the back alleys of Canterlot. “It’s over Night. T-the ship’s gone. Y-you can go home now. I’m fucked. ” She said, running a gloved hoof through the remains of her hard work. Nothing but a fine layer of ash and the occasional lump of misshapen metal remained for her to hold.
More cooing and patting followed, but to Astral it was starting to feel more and more like a halfhearted attempt at consoling her. Just like when they finally got rid of her from the Lunar Fleet. “I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON!” She screamed through the mask in a vain attempt to rip herself from the batpony’s arms, only to find that she couldn’t even muster the strength to try and pry herself from Night Glow’s grip.
Night Glow let out a sympathetic sounding sigh as she hugged the mare tightly, running her hoof through her friend’s frizzled mane as she tried to think of something to say. Most of her knowledge on social norms in Equestria came from shows watched on the dinky little television back home, but the way Astral was acting didn’t seem like anything she had ever seen from a show.
“Ssh, just focus on breathing.” She said as she patted the mare on the head, vaguely recalling seeing some doctor doing the same on an equally hysterical mare. Dens back home were usually crowded affairs, but everypony usually kept to themselves. Night couldn’t remember the last time her mother had done the same, yet alone hug her but if Astral was going to pull through whatever they had to face, that depended on her sticking by her side.
“We’re not at a docking berth. Nearest one is… I don’t know how far away it is.” She finally said as the familiar hum of life support kicked in, bracing herself in case the mare freaked out again. Nothing. “You’ve found the first… livable planet near Equestria.” Night Glow continued, letting out a breath that she didn’t even know that she was holding in as she examined the mare’s expression.
“F-found? Were we out exploring? Where are we? Did I manage to pay off the banks after all?”
“You don’t remember?”
Astral shook her head in response. Her memory was fuzzy and she wanted nothing more than to lie in bed for the rest of the day - her hygiene could wait until tomorrow. Now that the fire was gone, the ship should have reconnected power back to the blast doors leading to their quarters. She wanted to get up and leave right then and curl up in her bunk to sleep everything off, but Night Glow seemed intent on bringing her up to speed.
“Well, we were supposed to be delivering some urgent data to the research outpost in Mintaka when the ship found some... gravimetric anomaly? In hyper space. You got all excited and insisted we drop out to investigate for a bit.” She said, pausing to let the groggy mare take in what was being said.
“We found this planet that looked nothing like the lifeless balls of rock that URSA’s been discovering. The ship managed to establish that there was plant life; and an atmosphere awfully close to Equus: 22% oxygen, 77% nitrogen before something knocked out our thrusters and started pulling us out of the sky. Apparently being possibly rich made you forget to engage your restraints until we hit the atmosphere pretty hard, and that was about when you passed out. I was going to let you come to on your own, but I think something broke in the cockpit. I think a thaumic line might have ruptured and then everything started exploding all around, bringing us to about now. That’s the short version.” Night Glow continued slowly, trying to ease the pegasi into drawing her own conclusions.
“So we’re stuck here on an expensive planet.” Astral repeated as she slowly clambered into a more dignified sitting position.
“Correct.”
She pried off the gross respirator, wiping the sweat and grime off her face to the sounds of the batpony’s squeaks of protest. Astral rubbed her throbbing head with a hoof. The air still reeked of burnt wood and metals but it was bearable enough for her that her lungs no longer felt that they were tingling all over. She hastily stripped off the once orange environmental suit, giving her cramped wings some breathing space.
“Great, does URSA know that we’re here?” She asked as she tossed the sooty garment over her shoulder, vaguely aware of the batpony looking away uncomfortably from her body.
“I don’t know. The ship launched the emergency beacon as soon as the thrusters went out but at our speed… well, I skipped the lessons on orbital mechanics so I’m not sure if it’s still up there,” the midnight blue batpony said, pointing a hoof at the sky. “Or somewhere on the planet. We’re at least two days awa-”
Astral held out a hoof to silence the batpony as the pounding in her head intensified. She knew that it was rather rude of her to cut off another pony when they were talking, but she really wasn’t in the mood to do the whole survival planning thing today.
Maybe a Lunar Fleet captain could muster the discipline to plan a course of action and devise some clever way to signal for help with nothing but a few wires and some spell capacitors but she wasn’t in the fleet. Not anymore. All she wanted was a bath and to crawl into her bed right about now.
“Alright, look. We’re either going to die, or we’re not. And I’d since I almost died today, can we save this for tomorrow instead?” she said in irritation as she made her way to the door.
“But-”
“NO.” Astral said as she slammed a hoof onto the door controls, causing the hydraulics protest loudly as they dragged the bulkhead along the tracks. The service corridor leading to their quarters and the rest of the ship was bathed in the same ghostly red glow of the emergency lights but from what little she could tell, the rest of the ship seemed unscathed. Maybe they would find some other gaping problem tomorrow, but the secondhoof Shulker class freighter she owned had a reputation of being notoriously hard to disable.
“Look Night. It’s been a long day, and I’m sure you could use the rest too.” She said, turning back to look at the wide mouthed mare standing in the doorway. “I’m going to take a bath, and then I’m going to sleep. I don’t care how much water we have left or how much food we’re going to eat but based on what you said about this planet’s biosphere, odds are that there’s going to be a water source somewhere near us. Worst case scenario is that we’d need to fly a bit to get enough clouds so I guess it’s a good thing that we have wings eh?” She continued, waving her rather frayed looking wings in the air.
“What about rescue? The contract we took gave us only a week to complete!” The batpony protested, baring her fangs at Astral as she followed the irate mare down the passageway. “Do you even remember how high the penalty was for failure? You’d barely have enough bits to buy back your ship!”
“Honestly? I. Don’t. Care.” Astral snapped, punching the button leading into her quarters. The door whooshed open, leading to her retreat from the rest of the galaxy. Well, it was her retreat. The various broken furniture and oddities she had once decorated the room with now lay strewn across the floor, making the place look more like a garbage dump than somepony’s quarters. “Look Night, we’re either going to be rich, or we’re going to die. URSA major might be run by insufferable snobs, but I’m sure that even they would let it slide considering that we just made Equestrian history!”
“And what if they don’t?” Night Glow shot back as she bit down on a lip. Seriously? We’re going to die and all she wants is to sleep and shower?
“And if they don’t, I could always write a book or something about this. Look. If ‘My Life Among the Yaks’ could make Three Pence rich enough to get their own mansion and a lifetime of interviews, I’m pretty sure I could write something that’ll get us enough money to buy a bucking ship with a solid gold engine assembly or something.” She retorted as she kicked open a path through the various smashed up items lying on the carpeted floor.
Astral sighed as she inspected the mess, silently grateful that Night Glow at least had the courtesy to stay behind the door. She wasn’t sure what she would have said to make the batpony leave her alone. Probably something harsh. “L-look Night,” the pegasi said, her voice quavering as she stared at their sooty reflections through the wall mounted mirror she had in lieu of a window that somehow managing to be the only unbroken item in her room. “I’m sorry. I just… need some time alone alright? We’ll sort out whatever you think needs to be done tomorrow okay? Until then, feel free to do whatever you want. I just want to be by myself for now.” Astral repeated as she looked at the failure of a mare staring back at her.
Night Glow didn’t protest this time. Her posture did deflate a little as she nodded, shutting the door to her room and finally leaving Astral alone with her thoughts.
The pegasi groaned as the annoyance was finally dealt with, tossing the grubby environment suit onto the wall mounted table and made her way to the cramped shower cubicle set in a little recess near the door. True, their ship might have been ancient, but their quarters had private toilets unlike the later models with communal ones for space efficiency.
Astral carefully stepped around the hoofful of bottles of soap and wingcare products on the metal flooring that had come dislodged from the impact, not bothering to pick them up as she set the temperature to maximum. She closed her eyes, letting her body become doused with warm, steamy water and banished anything related to their present situation from her mind.
Astral watched with morbid interest as the water pooling around her hooves started turning black from all the grime in her fur, silently amazed with how much soot she had in her mane. She grabbed a bottle of shampoo at random, squeezing a generous helping of the fruity gel and started got to working on something that really mattered. No way in Tartarus was she going to bed with a mane as nasty as that.
Buck the water reserves. We’ll sort out whatever supplies we have tomorrow. She thought as she let the water run. For now, she was perfectly content to watch the unappealing slurry of soot and dirt get sucked into oblivion.
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Equestrian spaceships making first contact? I don't think I've read that one before. 👀
9909125
I'll do my best to not disappoint!
hyped
9910326
Thank you for your honest feedback!
9910401
Owo
And then they realize they crashed in New Jersey... "WE'RE DOOMED!!! OH FAUST, WE'RE SO F'D!! EVERYPONY TAKE YOUR RAINBOW FRIENDSHIP CYANINDE PILLS BEFORE SNOOKIE FINDS US!!"
New Jersey's terrifying reputation has spread far and wide among all galaxies...
I'm hooked so far. One thing I might mention is that the shift from Astral to Nights POV and back is a bit abrupt - it took me a minute to switch gears at that part.
9925850
Noted! I'll do less of that next time!
Well, starship crashing, marooned on an unknown planet, no sure help on the way and the MC character shutting down, it's on a good start so far, looking forward to see more of this story. Keep up the good work.
9910928
100% agree with that!
9910326
I rather remember some movies from back in the '60s of a version of Jules Verne-type stories that featured steampunk spaceships--nice dark wooden panels with their brass fittings.
Yeah, those were so cool! That style really would do amazingly well in the Equestrian space program!