Chapter 13
By the time she and her two engineers reach the front airlock, the autopilot is just setting her ship down. She isn’t wearing full powered armor; unfortunately, she isn’t big enough for the pressure-tight powered armor to fit her. She was able to adjust a powered exoskeleton to fit, though, so she’s wearing that. The engineers, though, are wearing full powered armor- and will be able to enter into otherwise toxic or contaminated portions of the crashed ship.
All three of them charge down the boarding ramp, make a ninety degree pivot at the bottom, and thunder over to the crashed vessel. A quick glance at her HUD- thank Equus even the exoskeletons have Heads Up Displays built in- informs her that the fire department has only just acknowledged her call, and started rallying their firefighters.
They enter by use of the armor’s jump assist. Flight doesn’t jump quite high enough- but she’d managed to land hooves-first on the outside hull just below the massive gash they’d picked as their entry point, and so scrambles in without issue.
“Orbital Control First Responders,” Skies hollers on her external speakers, echoing through the ship. “Any survivors?”
Then the lights come on, and the alarms come with them. Her energy beam relay- which had to fold while her ship was in motion- must have finished unfolding and locked on again.
A quick glance at her HUD indicates that she can keep up this level of energy expenditure for about fifteen minutes before her reserves run out and the relay will have to shut down.
No response comes back to Skies’ yell.
She spots a control panel, gallops to it, while the two engineers move to the door and work to force it. She taps it, lets it see her ID chip. Most Equineothame-produced ships will let her in to at least a limited degree with that- but this one simply gives her an unauthorized error. She glances around the rest of the panel… No luck, she’ll have to log in to access any function, even intercom. Somepony must have put the thing on lockdown.
A few presses on the control panel on her foreleg changes that, though, as her ship’s Electronic Warfare suite goes on the offensive- in rescue mode. Both the engineers gasp when their HUDs also indicate the electronic campaign and its progress.
Then it finishes, and breaks straight through the lockdown. The blast door they had two inches open is promptly overridden, and slides open the rest of the way on its own.
The two engineers ignore it, looking at each other.
“Reactor,” Star declares.
Skies nods briefly. “Bridge.”
They both promptly bolt off, through the freshly opened passage.
Flight, seeing the same warning signals on the EW Results display, runs for the door as well.
Their reactor’s containment vessel has been breached. It’s running low on coolant- but fortunately, it’s not below the critical level. All the overflow tanks are empty; they must have already pumped in all the extra coolant stored for this exact situation, and lost it somehow.
And of course, the reactor control systems are fried- it’s a runaway reactor. Estimated meltdown cutoff, the point where a meltdown can no longer be prevented, in about sixty seconds. Star is going for that- probably going to take advantage of the radiation shielding and strength assist in his armor to force the control rods down, take the reactor ‘offline’ enough to cool passively.
Internal sensors are also indicating multiple fires, and screams, on the bridge. That’d be where Skies is going.
She takes herself down to their infirmary, where there are a large number of lifesigns.
After all, there’s another rather significant fire in the hydroponics bay- and not far from it, a ruptured fuel line. It won’t be long before the whole ship goes up in flames. The reactor core should withstand a simple hydrogen explosion from that angle, but it’s likely to be the only part that does. And even then, it’s possible it’ll fracture apart.
As she goes, she remotely triggers the Abandon Ship alarm; none of the bridge consoles are responding to the ship’s internal data network at all, so nopony on the bridge will be able to.
As she runs, she uses her strange horn-aura thing to punch in a few commands; both the engineers have gone out of sight by now, headed in their own directions. Over on her ship, a large door- thank Equus the pirates hadn’t welded it shut- slides open, and her Reactor Recovery Drone launches from it. It’s a battery-operated drone designed to extract an intact reactor core from a crashed vessel before anything else on the ship can blow it apart and contaminate the area with radioactive material. What’s more, it’s even equipped with internal radiation shielding and a small coolant tank, in case it’s a damaged reactor core it’s recovering!
Even further, all of the ship above their reactor is empty- there used to be an ammo bunker there, but it was jettisoned at some point; there’s a few holes in the surrounding materials, suggesting somepony hit the area with bullets or missiles. That means the recovery drone won’t need to cut through anything dangerous to reach the reactor core.
She orders it to engage the reactor core, but wait the containment step- where it pulls the core into the drone- until Star gives it the resume command. Which, she knows, results in a display to that effect appearing on Star’s HUD. She doesn’t want it ripping out that core until Star is clear of it. Even if Star is unsuccessful in keeping it away from the meltdown cutoff, so long as he gets the control rods in before they fracture too badly, the drone should be able to drag it back to her ship’s Reactor Recovery Bay before it actually starts melting down- and there, a special, anti-meltdown coolant would be pumped into it… and the heat rapidly dumped into her way overpowered radiator system. In theory, even if it’s almost to meltdown when it gets there, her ship should be able to keep it from actually melting down. The rules governing meltdown cutoffs are different in a recovery bay.
Doors snap open and blast doors grind open in front of her as she charges her way down to the infirmary. Internal sensors are indicating a couple lifesigns near the back of the ship as well- in what she thinks is a small armory. However, they’re moving around, don’t seem injured… and seem to be headed towards the reactor as well. Star can work with them, once he plants the reactor control rods and gets the drone to pull it out.
She’s about halfway to the infirmary when a thought crosses her mind- and she quickly pops open the visuals in the area. Most of the cameras are damaged- but she spots what looks like two scratched and dented suits of unpowered armor galloping down the passage. She cuts the visual feed and accesses her way into the ship’s internal comms… Yes, those two unpowered suits are the only slightly more expensive ones with HUD displays and internal comms. She reads their frequencies from their ship’s comms, then tells her own ship’s comms to reach out to them directly.
The response is instant.
“Identify!” one barks.
“Send help!” the other pleads.
“I’m Princess Short Flight,” she transmits to them. “I and two engineers from Orbital Control are aboard to help.” She sends the request, to let them tie into the information network- and give them access to the status of their own ship. “You have a fuel leak and a fire in Hydroponics, but the fire suppression system is toast and it’s too much for a hoofheld device, so we’re evacuating your ship.”
“What-!” the first begins.
She cuts her off, speaking firmly. “Your reactor core is thirty seconds from meltdown cutoff, but I’ve got a recovery drone on the way.” As she speaks, the recovery drone reports in range to begin cutting through the top of the ship to reach the reactor core. Simultaneously, Star reaches the core in question, operates the manual override on the access hatch, and bolts in to start forcing control rods.
They link into her information network one at a time, the less snappy one first, just in time for the drone to finish penetrating the outer hull and lower itself rapidly through a Gravity Drive service passage, down to the only remaining deck between it and the reactor core. At least their fuel hopper is empty.
Then the snappy one- whose equipment, upon link-up, identified her as Dark Snap- then speaks into the comms, sounding a little resigned. “We’re coming to the medbay.”
Then the medbay doors snap open in front of her. The only pony standing in the entire room- thestral, looks like a medic- jumps in alarm.
“How is everypony?” she demands authoritatively.
He seems to calm his alarm, and resumes his work. “The crash hurt a lot of ponies, but nopony’s critical. I think.”
She nods briefly. “Good, we need them out of here.”
He actually looks at her. “What-!? Wait, who-?” His alarm returns.
“Princess Short Flight, working with Orbital Control as a first responder,” she answers him quickly. “There’s a fuel leak and a fire in hydroponics, this-!”
The ship rocks suddenly, and several warnings blaze across her HUD- mostly from their ship, but a couple close-proximity blast warnings from hers.
“Gah! There it goes- now the fuel tank is burning. Only a matter of time before the whole ship blows apart.” The little symbol on her display suddenly blinks- the Recovery Drone completed its post-detonation analysis, having frozen in the middle of extending its arms around the reactor core, and determined that it remains undamaged. As she’d expect; it’s designed to survive almost anything the core it’s retrieving can survive. The core temperature also seems to be stabilizing somewhat- Star’s efforts look to be paying off, buying more time at the very least.
The medic scrambles back up from the floor, glancing around at everypony. “But where-!? Are the ambulance here?”
She shakes her head. “They haven’t even reached the station yet, the slowpokes. We’ll have to transfer them to my ship- I have a bigger medbay. I’ll have to shut off the Energy Beam Relay to move it closer for transfer, though.”
He blinks. “We’ll lose power.”
She nods. “Your reserves should last about fifteen seconds after the disconnection- I should be able to link it again fifteen seconds after power loss.”
“Got it,” he states, and bolts to the side to seize a portable stretcher.
Then Skies reaches the bridge, right about the same time the recovery drone finishes locking onto the reactor and goes to standby to await Star’s command.
Skies immediately gets on the comms. “Five stretchers to the bridge!” she barks.
“We’ll get them,” Dark Snap answers.
Skies isn’t finished, though. “Princess, we’ll need your medbay! Two of them are critical!”
“Roger,” she answers instantly, before looking up at the medic. “You’re needed on the bridge,” she states. “Five disabled, two critical. Somepony will follow you with any more stretchers you need.”
The medic nods, stacks two folded stretchers on top of the one he’d just set up, then shoves it out the door and towards the bridge.
Flight immediately gets on the radio. “Medic on the way with three stretchers.” As she speaks, the recovery drone reports it’s linked itself to the local power network- so she activates the order sequence she’d made for her ship earlier, to move it to line it up airlock-to-airlock for personnel transfer.
“Get a stretcher on wheels and put another on it,” Dark Snap barks. “Shadow Drop, you take it to the bridge and see them safely out, then come back to help us in the medbay.”
Flight winces at the order, but complies- and, since everypony left in here seems to be unconscious, her horn sports its golden aura again for a second, setting up the stretchers for delivery to the bridge… and setting up a couple dozen more stretchers, for the other patients already in the room. She doesn’t want to use the strange ability on other ponies unless she absolutely has to; she doesn’t know how dangerous that might or might not be.
Then she bolts forwards, and starts working to move ponies onto stretchers as quickly as possible- while also hurting them as little as possible.
A few seconds later, the two probably-soldiers charge in with their unpowered armor- and she notices that, like all of the patients, they seem to be thestrals. One of them promptly seizes the two stretchers and rushes back out towards the bridge.
“Princess,” the other greets stiffly.
“The fuel tank is still on fire,” she answers. Then she gets a signal from her ship- move complete, boarding ramp extending towards an external airlock, identified by the crashed ship’s computers. She goes live on the comms. “Rear right airlock,” she barks. “Use the rear right airlock for transfer.”
“What-?” Dark Snap asks, not over the comms. “Why that one?”
She doesn’t bother using the strength assist in her exoskeleton, hoisting a very bandaged thestral onto a stretcher with minimal difficulty, as she answers. “Because that’s where my ship just linked.” She leaps over to the next bed, and starts hoisting the next injured spacer- this one bandaged for what she suspects is at least half a dozen broken bones- onto a stretcher.
Then Star clears the reactor core- which, she’s pretty sure, just barely avoided the meltdown cutoff- and announces clear, causing the recovery drone to immediately start retracting, yanking the core outside of the ship to fly back to hers.
Of course, Skies gets back to her ship first. As soon as they do so, even while she loads yet another thestral onto another stretcher, she pulls up a few of her ship’s internal sensors- and spots the stretchers. Skies, the medic, and Shadow Drop are all pulling stretchers; there’s also two other thestrals- probably from the bridge- pushing the last two stretchers and ignoring the blood spots on their coats.
She does some quick math, and goes on her comms. “Have the medic stay to tend to the injured, warn him to expect heavy acceleration- possibly even a close-proximity explosion- as soon as we finish transferring. Everypony else, return to help; we should be able to get everypony with only two trips.”
Then her ship informs her that their reactor core is safely inside the recovery bay- and has been stabilized, though the radiators are running at maximum to cool it down. At about the same time, Star thunders into the medbay, and immediately sets about transferring thestrals.
She was right, they only needed two trips. The moment the last pony gets back onto her ship, she orders the autopilot to take off and depart at speed. The airlock door snaps shut behind her, and gravity shifts suddenly- but everypony was ready for it and she, Star, and Skies are all completely unaffected by it. She then helps move the last few stretchers to her medbay, keeping an eye on her HUD.
Then she sees it. A sheet of flame coming out that hole. “Brace!” she yells, into her comms as well. The medic is wearing a comms headset from her medbay, so he’ll hear it too.
Then the ship they’d just evacuated becomes an instant fireball. The blast hits her ship- but her computers knew it was coming, so the blast only got to see the heat shields and the engines. The ship vibrates as one of the atmospheric engines takes a hit, and goes into shutdown. She scans her HUD nervously for about three seconds, at which time the blast dissipates… and the computer decides it’s safe to reopen the hatches protecting the VTOL engines. She’d only lost one of her four forward atmospherics to Foreign Object Damage, and those engines are completely unnecessary for VTOL operation.
Then she lets out a breath, and goes on the comms for the last time. “Alright everypony, we’re home safe. The danger’s past.”
One of the two from the bridge, that she rather suspects is the captain, takes a deep breath. “Well,” she mutters, “the immediate danger is, at least. Pretty sure blowing up a reactor core isn’t safe on the long term either.”
She smiles back at her. “Your reactor core’s in my recovery bay, and it’s already been stabilized. You won’t need to worry about that.”
“What-? But-! But nopony had time to get it out!”
She shrugs. “No pony, but my Reactor Recovery Drone had plenty of time.”
The captain blinks a few times. “... Oh.”
She smiles at her again, before resuming on her path back to the medbay with the stretcher. She’s not surprised the mare is so surprised- Reactor Recovery Drones are pretty rare, and very expensive. They can still avert disasters, though- the reason she saw fit to install one two years ago.
Stats
Page generated in 0.016 seconds
Total duration
951 users online
505,936 hits today, 2,054,621 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.®
Now that was a good bit of work. Well done! Now then, what provenance brings a shipload of thestrals to our humble shores?
Her ship does indeed have all the good stuff.
I like Flight, she plans. Almost as much as if she HAD been allowed to take classes.
10124642
10124914
Yes- she doesn't skimp, does she?
And on that note, it might actually be a good thing she wasn't allowed to take classes... because she's spent all that time isolated in space, immersed and (largely) alone in this dangerous environment, rather than in a (rather disastrous) educational institution that would have (unintentionally) taught her not to care...
A few notes-- you may want to call that special coolant a neutron absorber; probably a slurry of Hafnium or similar, for more of a scientific basis.
What fuel are the ships using? Without fusion, that implies some sort of actual rocket fuel (since the reactors just run off of some sort of radioactive metal that won't need replacing at all for a while--and thus no fuel tanks), but at least some of that's more flammable than explosive. But that raises the question of what she was using as fuel earlier, since she apparently could go a long way in between refueling.
And of course fuel on its own isn't really that dangerous. Perhaps if there was also an oxidizer leak? If it was a hydrogen tank, though, it makes sense. That stuff really doesn't like if it's compressed and heated, so the tank could have exploded from thermal expansion and then lit off.
10161735
She specified a hydrogen explosion, suggesting hydrogen fuel.
As for the oxydizer thing... that's why the ship didn't go up already. It was burning atmospheric oxygen, then the first explosion happened, and the hydrogen tank was ruptured and burning hot... when the bigger explosion came later, that's when an oxygen tank ruptured, and the two mixed. Boom.
And yes, hydrogen is rocket fuel. The Space Shuttle used it, and there's a rocket- forget which one- which burns only hydrogen.