[Forlorn Ascension]|[Rites of Dominion]

by Desrium

Beyond The Clouds

The Iopteryx powered its way past the silver moon, its wings extended forth to form a roughly X shaped formation. At several miles above the lunar surface with the sun hitting it sidelong, the ship was but a shadow except for where its own light shone through its windows and where the bright pink exhaust of its magical boosters was released. The sight was a regular thing for the inhabitants of the lunar colonies. Starfleet ships dominating their non-existent sky was as common as the supply shuttles which kept life on the former-prison of Nightmare Moon comfortable. At one time, being sent to the moon was a fate ponies trembled at. Now voyages to the celestial satellite were commercial and frequent.

Startrot looked out of the starboard observation deck at the specks below. The grand viewing room was accessible from many of the upper deck levels and was located a few segments from the bridge. The deck levels were U shaped terraces where the bottom level was the largest and the top one was recessed, creating an incline beneath the curved window. Stairways and elevators connected each level to the next and looking down from the top allowed one to appreciate the beauty of a simulated park, complete with real grass and trees. The lush expanse not only provided renewable oxygen, but a garden located beneath the treeline provided fresh food for the space travelers of the Iopteryx.

Aside from the relative proximity to Lightning Streak, Phineas enjoyed being in it, for it provided a breathtaking spectacle of the universe on the other side of the ship's screens and hull. The observation deck was only second to actually going out there in a spacesuit or taking one of the Iopteryx's exploration shuttles.While small from miles overhead, the dark rings Phineas saw contrasting the surface of the moon were in fact expansive cities sprawling across the bright sand, home to many ponies who went about their business as ponies went about their business on Earth. Phineas' heart went out to them!

"What a travesty! How could one leave their homeworld only to settle on their closest neighbor? Without seeing the rest of our wonderful existence?"

The engineer raised his PDA and went through its many settings in search of any messages or summons he might have missed while sightseeing and thinking. The device would have pinged or chirped, but he could never be too careful; especially with his position as Chief Engineer and all. When he found that he hadn't been called on to rectify some problem, he went back to staring out into space.

"We just took off," he said to himself, "there couldn't be a problem already."

He blinked a few times and looked uneasy. Unable to help himself, he raised his PDA to his face once more and did a look-over of all of the ship's systems; the great many that they were. No life threatening disaster. He sighed and put his hoof back on the deck's plated floor.

"And I didn't jinx anything... yet."

Phineas fought the urge to go through the system check again. The training and lessons across the span of those many months had instilled in him the skills and knowledge he would require for this monumentous outing. It had always been his dream to fly amongst the stars. Yet he could not rid himself of this underlying stress and fear that something was going to horribly wrong and not even the presence of the seasoned explorer Astartex could consolidate him.

The sound of parting mechanical doors sounded from behind him. A familiar sounding voice reached his ears. "First time jitters?" asked Amethyst Shine as she walked into the chamber. Phineas looked away from the huge window and towards her. She was already at the railing when he did, the mare propping her hooves up on it and looking down at the greenery below and not the stars above. Her cadet uniform was replaced with her security outfit; a black one-piece suit with a red metallic vest, elbow and knee pads and a helmet which had a retractable orange visor that wrapped around Amethyst's face.

"Nah, the engine room's in capable hooves... and hands," Phineas replied. On the basis of his dignity, he did not admit to his nervousness. "I decided I could spend a little time here until I'm needed for something. Why are you here?" he continued.

"First time jitters," Amethyst said, then chuckled weakly afterwards. "You put the time in the academy and before you know it, most of a year has gone by and you're leaving all you've ever known behind. There's a certain... uncertainty when you're dealing with the... unknown."

"Redundancy, thy name is Amethyst Shine," Startrot thought. "Sometimes leaving all you knew behind is a good thing," he told her. "Sometimes, there isn't much to leave behind...but a lot more to gain."

"Is that your story? You joined Starfleet to get the most out of life?" she asked, putting a hoof to the side of her helmet and sliding the visor up from her pink eyes, which were fixed on him.

The silver pony recoiled a bit, unsure of what she meant by that. By one measure, he did join the academy to do just that, to fulfill his dream and be part of something greater than himself. But he had also did it because he knew there was nothing on Earth that truly held him down besides gravity. He was as free as free got before he enlisted in the academy. Disowned with no legal or job obligations, it would have been all too easy for a pony like him to lose direction and fall to the wayside.

"Let's just say I'm here right now because there's not much down there offered to a pony like me," Phineas responded after a moment of thought.

The mauve mare looked inquisitive. "How so? If you've made it through the academy then surely you have a few skills and talents to offer elsewhere..."

"Not what I meant; and I'd rather not talk about it much. Somethings are better left behind and forgotten, you know?"

"I... guess?" Amethyst replied.

With the conversation getting awkward, Phineas took the initiative to dismiss himself. "I hope you feel better soon. I'll go... calibrate something I guess. Nothing's better than efficiency, except for... more... efficiency..."

Amethyst only gave him a questioning gaze.

"Yeah... well... I'll see you around some time." said the silver stallion, who left with arguably unnecessary urgency.

***

It wasn't long before Phineas was moving through the maintenance tunnels, passageways with entrances hidden away from the rest of the crew to ensure the safety of the craft and personnel. True to his word, he had two toolboxes strapped to his flanks, resting over his upper thigh. If his uniform wasn't covering it already, the toolboxes would have completely obscured his cutie mark, the moon in the center of a ring of sun rays as if it were an eclipse.

The walls of the maintenance tunnel were rife with small, multicolored lights and piping running overhead. Terminals flickered with alerts and notifications about system statuses and the sounds of the ship's internal workings were ghostly noises. Rumbling, thumping and hums leaking through the walls from the hidden depths of the Iopteryx; ambiance absent elsewhere on the ship. It would have unsettled the silver stallion somewhat if he hadn't known it was all technology at work. From the sounds he tried to identify the number of machines and components at work.

"Spell matrix converter, energy transfer units, mana accumulators, passive magi-tech array... hmm..." Phineas muttered to himself as he walked down the dimly lit hallway. Eventually he came to a wall panel which he flipped down to get at the machinery it hid: a remote access terminal for the spell-core engine. He set his red tool kits down and pulled out the tools of the trade, his trusty automated wrench and magnetic screw driver. With them he got to work disconnecting the terminal and disassembling it, taking apart each component and mentally labeling them before putting the parts aside for later use. He rerouted wires, changed the overall layout of the device and then proceeded to put everything back together again. It was long, technical work, but once the terminal was back in service, Phineas saw an increase in energy output with less stress on the spell-core on his PDA.

He smiled at his hoofwork. "Performance increase of .00921 percent! That'll get us past the fourth star in the Stare constellation in less than an hour if the thrust is at max!"

"Uh, Chief? We've got a strange energy spike registered here. Captain's a bit worried something's amiss," Prancer reported from the engine room.

"Oh damn," Phineas mused. He really should have told the others what he was going to do, or else fiddling with the ship's internal workings might have raised more than a few alarms. He raised his PDA and replied: "Don't worry, that's just me. I'll be doing a bit of tinkering with the ship for a while, to get the most out of it. First the engines, then the big guns. By time I'm done with them, whatever forces us to use them won't be able to tell if they got a mana blast to the face or if they got caught in a supernova!"

"Tinkering, Chief Startrot?" came the voice of Gem the dragon.

"You know. Calibrations and the likes."

"Anything we can help with?" asked Moonshine.

"Try to keep the ship functional, if not prevent it from exploding outright," the silver stallion replied mentally. "Maintain power levels across the board and shut off the systems that might interfere with something I'm doing. Last thing we need is spell reflux messing with the machinery," he ordered. Basically the same thing he thought only worded more professionally.

"Understood," said the others in unison before they ceased communication. It really was strange how they seemed to in synch.

"Did their academy produce androids or something?" Phineas murmured. He gathered his things and made his way down the length of the ship through its hidden corridors. There was a lot to do, but with the others doing their part, the task of configuring the ship's major systems would not be so daunting.

***

The last panel was locked in its place with an enthusiastic slam, an almost mad grin on Phineas' face as he put in its fastening bolts and screws back into their respective places. One week! In the grand scheme of things that was a short time, but it had taken an entire week of Earth-time along with nonstop work to bring the Iopteryx to its peak of mechanical performance. The last plate was more than just a sheet of metal covering some circuitry and devices. It was an achievement in which Startrot's skill and ability came together to make an immaculate product.

Over the days that passed, Phineas had come to think of the Iopteryx as his own. Not in terms of being it's pilot, no. Captain Novashot was more than deserving of that position, showing exceptional awareness of how a craft many times larger than herself can handle various maneuvers. But he doubted that she knew just how that zero G bank and transfer was executed on the basis that he knew. If there was anypony who could make the claim that they knew the Iopteryx inside and out, it would be Phineas Startrot. And he had upgraded it to do more than it ever could previously. It was something the already prideful stallion was greatly proud of.

He was still in the lower levels of the ship when he heard the report over his PDA's communicator.

"Escape pod distress beacon active Captain Novashot, in orbit of a gas giant."

"What do you suggest, Commander Astartex?"

"We retrieve the pod and hope to Celestia that there are survivors on board!"

Phineas was stunned. "Escape pod?" he questioned mentally. Another Federation ship had met its demise somewhere out in territories never ventured? It was almost too horrible to consider but yet there was no other explanation for the distress signal.

"Aye, Star Commander. Lightning Streak, adjust our course accordingly."

With this news, Phineas made his way to the upper decks as quickly as he could. He reached the observation chamber in time to see the Iopteryx make its approach towards the green sphere. Its atmosphere was violent, constantly churning and flashing with alien lightning. An accretion disk had formed around the enormous planet, comprised of natural rocky debris and the sheered hull of a Federation spacecraft, whole sections of the vessel idle in the treacherous field. His heart lurched upon seeing such a thing. The questions of how and why a starship would meet such a grizzly fate came as if they had their own spell-core warp drives. What reason could a captain have for getting so close to such a dangerous planet?

"The same one Novashot has now?"

He frowned at that. The remains were only from one ship, one that was quite larger than the Iopteryx. The commanders of the ship had no reason to fly near to such a violent environment, but more disturbing was the fact there wasn't any indication the ship had taken any countermeasures. It had not raised its shields or used its weapons to clear a path. It was as if it was just guided to its doom with its crew aboard. And only one escape pod managed to survive the treacherous field, carrying only the smallest fraction of the ponies and non-ponies which would have lived on it.

Captain Novashot was not inclined on repeating the disaster with her own vessel. "Bring up the forward barrier at full strength. Deploy midway cannons for good measure!" she ordered over the ship's comms. Readily enough, the ship's magical shield was raised, a hemispherical wall of rippling blue energy which started at the point of the ship's nose and was as wide as the ship's wingspan. Plates on the hull pulled away to free the gun ports. On either side of the craft's midsection the cannons deployed, the barrels of the guns leading up to a narrow rod which ended with a bulbous mass of metal. Around the rods were coils crackling with magical energies like a pair of giant unicorn horns. They swiveled to face potential targets as the Iopteryx went on its way.

Space rocks and hull plating that came in contact with the field fizzled away, the wayward chunks that broke off from them and slipped around the shield were then obliterated by the midway cannons with pink beams before they could collide with the starship.

Like an icebreaker ship, the Iopteryx made its way through the hazardous ring slowly and was even slower than its approach when it neared the escape pod. With a clear mastery over her controls, Novashot brought the Iopteryx to a complete halt.

"Retrieval team ready?" Commander Astartex asked.

"Ready and awaiting deployment, Star Commander!"

Without delay, the area of plating between the two pylons parted, revealing a large hangar where two lines of five exploration shuttles were stored. One of them had been prepped for the task of bringing back the pod which was a fraction of its size. The shuttle was towed from its hold by floor clamps and then turned to face the exit. That was when the retrieval team aboard activated the thrust and shot out into space, crossing the relatively short distance between the pod and the Iopteryx in minutes. The agile ship came to a stop and its nose split into four. From the opening emanated a magical glow; the aura wrapped around the escape pod and when the shuttle turned back to return to the starship, the pod followed suit as if in a telekinetic grip.

***

Star Commander Astartex, Captain Shirley and several officers including Amadeus and Amethyst stood around the cigar shaped pod shortly after it was brought back. The officers were all wearing armored plating and helmets over their black one-pieces.

It was a dark gray thing, banged up and dented. It had a Federation insignia that was almost completely scratched off of its plating. A yellow ring blinked a few times and with a hiss of air, the panel the ring was on popped up and rolled upwards. A strange fog billowed out from the pod.

Amadeus grunted and raised his weapon, a laser rifle almost as thick as the burly arm which supported it with various knobs and wires running along it. The minotaur looked over to the others, which deployed the hovering disks from the metal pack on their backs. The disks had smaller laser rifles mounted on them, which aimed where their user looked as long as they wore their helmet.

The situation in the hangar bay of the Iopteryx was a tense one. A silence almost as absolute as the silence of space hung in the large carrying hold. Then, it happened.

A scrawny pony, thinner than bone-thin shambled out from the pod. Though the rescue unit was far smaller than an exploration cruiser, one pod was able to seat at most ten ponies. But from this one; there was only this impossibly small pony. A pony whose fur was in patches sporadically over their bodies. Their eyes were bloodshot and glazed over. Their mane and tail had shriveled. Their veins bulged on their tight skin. Their color had drained and their flesh was almost translucent.

They reared up, their broken gaze locked on the roof of the hangar. It babbled in a strange tongue to all those in the room, their voice devoid of emotion or anything to discern gender with. With the deathly silence, the otherworldly language echoed like an occult chant. Amadeus held his gun with a shaky grip but could not bring himself to open fire. His fellow officers -though their helms hid their faces- looked on, confused and uncertain as to how to proceed.

“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” rasped the pony, then it looked down at the group gathered before it. Its red eyes went wide for an instant and with a slow breath, it slumped forward and fell out from the pod with an unceremonious thud against the metal floor.

No one was to be told about what was found inside the pod. Amadeus and Amethyst both could not keep such a secret, however.

They were together in the orange striped hallway not too long after their experience when Phineas came through automated doors. They were the only ones there, and it was there Amadeus and Amethyst told him everything.

Comments

[wackedoutpet]

Wow, I'm really liking this. There's not enough Science Fiction on this website, it's refreshing to see someone making a good effort, and quite an effort with all the words invested.

But I will make some suggestions.

Like, for instance, have you outlined somewhere how the rankings work, the reasons for going into space, the reason the ship has such a non-English name and why, and general design choices? They weren't immediately clear to me, and I've seen a lot of Star Trek, so I'm not sure everyone can follow.

Also, character dynamics are there and well, but they are breezy. A new character is introduced in a chapter, and they aren't exactly reviewed. Extending those dynamics would be good, as is the burden of Science Fiction where new concepts have to be explained for the common man, giving them time to breathe and not explaining why a new character is valuable to Phineas or anyone else is a real benefit. If you create an atmosphere where characters can be characters for a bit, the story becomes more relatable and more enjoyable.

Definitely looking forward to more updates, you certainly have my attention

[Desrium]

1869819

Thank you very much for the input. I will try to take your suggestions in consideration for the rest of the story.