The next morning the storm had dissipated and I stood with Moon Dancer, Midnight and Tempest in a small group, looking up at the ship.
“Well,” I said and shifted my wings, “That could have been a lot worse.”
The ship looked mostly intact, ignoring some buckles in the lower hull where it had… convinced… some trees to get out of the way. One engine nacelle was outright blown in half, but the other one looked somewhat intact. The propeller was missing which considering we went through a forest before stopping wasn’t surprising, but the rest looked okay.
Even the windows of the bridge were intact.
“Could have been,” Midnight said and sank down to sit, “Thank Celestia nopony died.”
“Anypony get hurt?” I asked.
She nodded, “One engineer has a broken rear leg and a pegasus broke two ribs and had her wing dislocated while trying to tie the ship down,” she said, “But it could have been worse. A lot worse.”
I just nodded and sighed in agreement and slowly looked around the clearing around the ship. The guard was in full process of fortifying the area around the ship, using the trees cut down around the ship after the forest.
The sound of splitting trees and digging filled the air as a thick wooden barricade was being quickly erected in a circle around the ship.
As I watched, a thick tree came crashing down.
Which considering the thick jungles all around was something I approved of. Because who knew what lurked out in that thick vegetation?
I fully approved of their wariness.
What I found slightly more annoying was the way that Tempest stuck within three hooves of me at all times, her eyes constantly scanning the forest around the clearing.
I already had Amber doing that from hiding somewhere, I didn’t need a third shadow!
She wasn’t even a member of my Guard.
But considering the possible danger of the jungle, I didn’t complain too hard about it.
I turned to Midnight, “...So… how long would it take to fix you think?”
Midnight shrugged, “Don’t know yet. I talked to Sparkgap, she thinks we can get it up and running again. But we need a new propeller for the engine that’s still there. We also need to fix the mana capacitor for the engines or best we’d be able to do it short hops.”
“And everything else that’s broken,” Captain Jetstream said as he approached us, giving Midnight a slight bow, “Your Highness,” he continued, “While those were the major items, we’ve taken more damage than that. The landing put a lot of strain on the lifting magic as well, it was not made to have power pulled from it like that. We’re going to get it seen too before we’re going anywhere to make sure we don’t have a leak.”
Midnight nodded, “We’re going to be stuck here for weeks,” she said and ears drooped slightly before she straightened again, “We’d better get to it then, Captain.”
Jetstream grinned briefly, “I think you may be a bit pessimistic about our timeframe, your highness. I have the best engineering team in Equestria.”
“And outside, considering we are in the jungle now,” I mused, “We’re no longer in Equestria.”
He chuckled and nodded, “Right you are,” he said and then looked to Midnight, “With your permission, Princess?”
Midnight motioned for him and he retreated and headed back to a group of his engineers pointing towards different parts of the ship.
I looked up at the ship for a moment, stretching my wings, “Well… we better go be useful instead of standing here like a bunch of… nobles. I’ll go help build the fortifications, I can at least help with the heavy lifting or digging.”
With that, I headed over towards the group of ponies sticking split thick wooden quarters of three or so pony lengths of tree trunks into the ground to form a barricade.
Moonglow was overseeing the work and I moved up to her, “So, what can I do to help?” I asked her.
She glanced at me and shook her head, “That’s not necessary, sir.”
“No it’s not, you’re doing a good job and making amazing progress,” before I moved a bit closer, “But I’m feeling a bit useless here. I can’t help fix the ship, but I can help with heavy lifting.”
Moonglow smiled and then gave me a nod as she shifted her wings, “Very well, sir. We could use somepony to help with the splitting of the trunks. How’s your cutting spells?”
“Good enough for that,” I confirmed, “Tempest?”
“...I’ll help lift,” she said and then continued quietly, “I can’t hardly break a tree while picking it up.”
“Not with that attitude you can’t!” I told her with a grin and Tempest actually chuckled.
I smiled and stretched my wings for a second, “Come on, let’s go do something useful.”
Captain's log stardate.... wait I'm not the captain and this isn't star trot....
anyways, we have deployed an away team consisting of myself, chief engineer, the doctor, the science nerd, and basically everypony else...
actually the entire crew is now on the away mission.
Should be within
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...Warp drive is out. Journeys that would have been weeks are now years or decades to make now.
My problem: what to do about Commander Hitchel? The leaking mana capacitor caused the earth pony to develop extraordinary mental powers: telepathy, telekinesis, transformational magic, and clairvoyance.
Amber is in favor of killing him, but he turned her knives into soap bubbles, laughing at her.
What can we do?
Do we strand him here, all alone, in the jungle...?
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To Boldly trot/fly where no pony has gone before!
Hopefully we don't get a few "red shirts" killed too soon.
Lord Page might i suggest that any and all red coated members of the crew be given the safest jobs possible aka no guard duty, have them stay away from broken mana thingies that can blow up and lastly no jungle excursions.
Spah creepin' around 'ere...
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"Jungle Trek: The Search for Parts"
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As per usual in hostile terrain with no protection against forign agents. All goes according to plan, red coated casualties expected.
Captain Page signing off
Well i guess they fix the ship, return for repairs to Equestria and redo the trip. There expedition is going to take half a year to a full year if things run smoothly.
Cant keep the injured suffering plus they need replacement.
Odd how the get hit on the most critical part... Design flaw that need fixing?
Than again better now then later on when rations are strained because of months of consumption and general fatigue.
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...Wizard of Oz...
Ah, so he's learned better cutting spells since the time he threw a glorified fruit knife at Chrysalis. (For those playing at home, that was at her canonical first appearance, and the first time he derailed canon)
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Glad to see I'm not the only one getting Star Trek vibes, coincidentally I've been watching Voyager these past few days and I'm seeing some similarities.
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hopefully they don't run into any hallucinogenic plants, exploding rocks, or mind-enslaving cave monsters, the Mugato since they don't have a zebra medicinemare to cure that, or the salt-sucking monster. They probably can deal with a Gorn since its like a mix of bug and dragon...
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Rainbow Dash: “....Wait—’exploding rocks’?....ohshit! HEY! Somepony better wake up the Wonderbolts! Or, better yet, Daring Do! There’s a bunch of unauthorized ponies about to stumble across that old Temple of Vaal we’re using to control the weather! FUCK!! GET EVERY PEGASUS FLYING!! WE GOTTA STOP THESE GUYS!!”
Welcome to the jungle
In the guard training unicorn should have species specialty/specific training like using lightspells and levitation for hours. Training it makes it second nature.
15 years ago i trained my body. Even today my muscles memory is there to remember the body movements. Also when ever i feel my back hurt a specific way funny enough my body and mind can still feel the days long past. Memorys come back and that were the line 'i remember it like it was yesterday' is becoming very real.
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No, no, no, we give them dangerous jobs. They are going to die anyway and telling their families they got killed by a mantacor is far better then telling their families they died from inhaling the fumes from a backed up toilet, or worse yet, an infected hangnail.
With Twilight, Midnight, Sunset, and Moon Dancer - I'm sure just giving them an idea and letting them run with it would probably do wonders for pony tech. I mean, you may not think it's much - what would telling them about some of it, but not how it works, do? But believe me, there's something very important that you have even by naming technologies you know: you know what worked.
Most primers on stuff don't mention the crap that failed to live up to expectations, and you can usually only find that stuff in inches-thick history books. By just remembering technologies in common use, you're already advancing their engineering by decades at least, by letting them skip everything that didn't work.
So, in spirit of that logic, turbofan engines.
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A turbofan engine doesn't even need to burn fuel, it just has to rapidly expand the air, I'm sure magic can do that easily
DBZ TFS reference?
The movie about Cooler on new Namek to be precise.