Chapter Ten- Pre-Launch
CHAPTER TEN
PRE-LAUNCH
The last three days we spent in Earth orbit passed in hectic activity as last minute preparations rapidly came to a head. One unanticipated source of frustration came from a seemingly never-ending string of well wishers and visiting dignitaries with their accompanying hordes of media correspondents. Well meaning Ponies, I’m sure, but still a collective nuisance. Captain Caper handled his share of it but I still spent way too much time giving guided tours to ponies who were much more fixated on my Augment ancestry (AND my Augment anatomy! Sheesh!) than the mission of the Hermes!
Eventually, though, the last nuisance was put firmly ashore, the ship was sealed up and the last steps to making her shipshape were completed. The day before launch we’d moved away from spacedock and hung poised in orbit. The Hermes stood quivering and alert, the physical embodiment of eighty-five eager Ponies and the dreams of Starfleet. Merry and her communications crew were kept busy as hundreds of messages streamed to and from the ship… good-byes and well-wishes by the score.
Merry alerted us that we had a recorded message all the way from Equestris… from Daddy!
We’d both just came off watch. I settled down into the chair in front of the terminal and punched up the playback. Sunny came and sat in my lap and draped a wing around me, bless her heart.
An instant later I was looking at the achingly familiar scene of our living room back Home. The same sofa with the soft, red-brown synthetic upholstery with the dull green blanket of native mossweave draped across it, Daddy’s Big Chair, and the low table, all of which faced the terminal that was making the recording. The shelves built into the far wall still held the geological knickknacks, mainly prize crystals from the patch of ground Daddy lovingly tended when he wasn’t working for Red Opal Acres Mining Corporation. I could see the 3D capture of the Rarity Nebula in all its violet and gleaming white glory still hanging opposite the room’s sole window still sporting the same cream and brown drapes I remembered. It hadn’t been even a decade since I was there… so why did it feel like so many years had gone? My eyes stung and I guess my breath caught because Sunny laid her head against mine. I snugged her close.
The deep blue Equestrin night showed outside and the stars traced the outline of the Tumbledown Mountains beyond, striking silver sparks off some of their hardest facets. On the table sat a plate of my favorite Rockfarmer cookies, the one thing Daddy managed to be able to cook, and a glass of apple juice. Oh, Luna, how I craved one of those just then!
Daddy came in from the left, stepping around the table after turning the recorder on. He plopped down into his chair with a creak and a hiss of deflating cushions. He was deep red-brown with a thick, black mane that always looked like he was a few weeks past a trimming. His eyes are greener than mine by a shade or so and his brows are black as space and just as bushy as his mane. He wore a set of roomy coveralls that most of us on Equestris wear. In his case they were pale brown. He sat on the edge of his seat and smiled into the monitor.
“Hello, Blinky.” He said, using the nickname
he’d used ever since I was born.
“Oh! Ye have his palette!” Sunny breathed. I patted her bottom to hush her as Daddy continued.
“I just got a delivery this morning from Earth! Everypony is dying to find out what was in it but I’ll be keeping them guessing for a little while longer. It came from Mr. Amber Rose, your… “ He fumbled for a bit trying to find the right word. “ … wife’s Father. He sent along a vid of the Ceremony, a bottle of very fine Byrish Apple Whiskey, and an actual by-Luna letter… though I had a clinker of a time reading it! Does he talk anything like he writes? Do you sound as strange to him? Wow.” He shook his head and laughed. Sunny giggled but kept silent otherwise. Daddy looked sheepish suddenly.
“It just occurred to me that you two are watching this together. Hello, Solar Cross. I’m Jackhammer, but you can call me Jack. Or… Daddy, if you’d like. I’m guessing that Blinky calls you ‘Sunny’ like your Father does so I’ll do the same since you’re part of the family now!”
Sunny cuddled closer and whispered into my ear.
“’Blinky’! Oh that is so verra, verra dear! I love him already!” I gave her a swat.
Daddy reached out and chose a cookie, dipped it in the juice and took a bite. His eyes, for a moment, were looking somewhere else in time…
“Blinky and I used to have juice and cookies ever since she was this big.” He raised a hoof about waist high. “At the end of the day before we went to bed. She would tell me about her day, whatever was on her mind. Her happiness and her sadness, her dreams. … I watched my little filly grow up over a plate of cookies and these are the best memories of my life.” He paused for a breath, his eyes going bright. There was so much he wanted to say and such a pitiful amount of time to do it. Sending this was horribly expensive, I knew. We weren’t poor, as Equestrin standards went, but we never had a whole lot to spare. Yet he never stinted when it came to me. Oh, Daddy!
Daddy passed a hoof over his eyes and straightened up. “I watched the ceremony again and again. You look so beautiful, um, you both did! Your Mother would have been so proud! I haven’t seen Blinky so happy in such a long time. Oh I wish I could have been there… but I understand. The Colony can just chuck it on the slag heap, I just want my little filly to be happy! It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Well, that and to have just one more plate of cookies with my lit….” He paused again and smiled. “…with my beautiful Mare again.” He frowned, then winked. “… But I reserve the right to call you Blinky, in private of course!” He paused again and swallowed the lump in his throat. Daddy never cried that I saw, though I heard him in his room after Momma died when he thought I was asleep. Earth Ponies don’t waste time crying when there’s a job to be done, and I was his job and his job alone for so long... It’s how we are on Equestris. Luna Love me, but I missed Home so much just then!
“I just wanted to say,” He sniffed discretely, “…congratulations to you both. Much, much happiness to you two. Please come by for a visit some day. I’d like that so very, very much.” He reached out gently and touched the screen. Across the light-years I swear I could feel him stroke the side of my face. I reached out to touch his hand. “I love you… both. Be good for each other. Good-bye, my Dears!” …And the screen went dark.
“What a dear, grand sort he is, too!” Sunny said warmly.
I buried my face in Sunny’s breast and mewled, hugging her tight, so incredibly homesick it hurt! I waited for the tears to stop before I raised my head again. Sunny wiped my eyes with tender fingers, her own eyes bright.
“Nah, nah!” She scolded. “Dinna get all Augment on me, Love! Tis’ all right to cry… ye’d be less than ‘Optimal’ if ye dinna.” She smiled tenderly at the blank screen. “Oh, how can ye no love a laddie like that?” I broke down entirely and we clung together until all the tears stopped.
“We’re goin’ t’ see him th’ verra first chance we get!” Sunny had got rid of her uniform, it having become uncomfortably damp in the meantime, and settled herself back in my lap wearing only her skimpy undies. As a distraction it was a rousing success!
“Sure! We’ll just change the Mission Profile and detour the ship.” I sniffled one last time and made it a point to smile. “Easy as cupcakes! Now why didn’t I think of that?”
She bopped me on the end of the nose with a fingertip.
“Dinna be foalish wi’ yer elders, lassie. We’ll be a-gettin’ Leave sooner or later. Do ye a world o’ good t’ tread th’ ol’ Home Sod again!” She wriggled delightfully in my lap a moment before asking. “So… what was yon about th’ Colony? I get th’ impression that yer no telling me summat.” She waited patiently, looking so adoreable.
I sighed. “Hoo-buck! Ok… well when the Colony was founded there were less than a hundred of us. Only a relative hoof-full could be, um, adapted to the new environment at a time. Ponypower was at a premium. To remedy that all the Colonists were expected to do everything they could increase the population. Large families were needed. It is our, ahem, ‘Duty to Equestris’ to have as many foals as possible to make the Colony grow. Those who don’t aren’t eligible for citizenship.”
She blinked. “Wait, wha’ now? Are ye no a citizen by birth?”
I shook my head. “That’s not how it works… worked… on Equestris. You’re not a ‘First-Tier Citizen’ until you have a family. Until then you’re a ‘Second Tier’ with limited voting rights and fewer particular entitlements. Everypony must work, of course, but ones choice of job is governed by one’s status. There are any number of modifications for education and training, but the bottom line is that your main task is to provide more Ponies for the Colony. Homosexuality is… discouraged… as being ‘unproductive’. Not overtly, exactly, just with an attached social stigma. Reprisals against nonconformists like myself are illegal but as a matter of practicality I, and others like me, are more or less outcast What we refer to as ‘Third Tier Citizens‘. Criminals serving sentences, ponies who Failed The Colony in some drastic way, … undesirables. Our labor for the Colony makes up for our existence. Even an outcast is too valuable to waste. I never would have become a First-Tier Citizen unless I got a personality wipe.”
“… Well! What a bunch o’ bloody-minded… buggers!” Sunny sputtered. “Th’ verra idea!” She shook her wings in irritation. “How can they get away wi’ summat like that?”
As unfair as the System was, it was my Home and I felt that I should defend it somehow. “Well,” I began, discretely, “Look at it from their point of view. No outside support, no way to leave once they got there. It was do or die… and they weren’t about to die! The first Equestrins hit the ground, dug in, and prevailed. Lucky for us the place is lousy with minerals. Nearly five generations later there are over seventeen thousand of us despite what the Orions and Rigellians could do. A majority of colonies with a lot more ponies don’t make it, you know. …Unless they keep in contact with the Homeworld. We did it with no Magic, only the abilities bred into us. Determination and good old Earth Pony perseverance were all we had.” I realized I was dangerously close to getting up on a metaphorical soapbox. Damnit, I wasn’t happy with the way things worked out but I was still an Equestrin, by Luna!
Sunny had gone silent and regarded me narrowly. “That’s a wee, tiny gene pool. Augmentation or no, how did ye handle recessive genes?”’
“Besides the First Hundred, there were over five thousand assorted frozen sperm and ova from donors on Earth. Every other child was required to be one of those while they lasted. Our Augmentation saw to the rest.” I regretted that bit of information the nanosecond I said it.
“What!?” Sunny shrilled, her wings extending reflexively. I flattened my ears and hoped she didn‘t knock anything off the shelves in the relatively narrow room. “Not only were ye forced t’ have bairns, but ye had t’ hae somepony else’s, too?” Her accent, I noted long ago, devolves in direct relation to her sense of outrage.
“Well,” I said feebly, “They were considered to be yours no matter who produced them.”
“An tha’ makes it right?” If she could have reached the floor she would have stomped. I folded her hooves between mine.
“Necessity made it right, Sunny.” I said quietly. “Look at what the Mares Colony went through during the Eugenics War. And they were only twenty light-minutes away! Survival trumps societal mores.”
That gave her pause to think. The plight of the Mares Colonies was far better known than that of the average Equestrin. However bad it was back on the Homeworld, the Maresians had it worse! (We of Equestris sniffed when we heard their history after we joined the Federation. It’s chauvinism on our part, I know, but it’s hard to feel sorry for a bunch of ponies what had so much more to work with than we did!)
“Besides,” I added. “Most of that had changed since joining the Federation. Equestris still has its own laws and government, but concessions were part of admission. The full citizenship is guaranteed for anypony who joins Starfleet, among other things. Friendship is Tolerance, after all!” I smiled winningly.
Sunny folded her wings and looked contrite, blushing in appealing places. “Aye, well…” She shot me a guilty look. “I was no verra tolerant, wasn’t I? I’m sorry t’ fly off handle like that. I was just so angry f’ yer sake n’ all.” She gave me an adorable look out of the top of her eyes. “Forgive me?”
I nuzzled her nose to show no hard feelings and got a kiss in return. She rested her head on my shoulder.
“Och! What must th’ rest o’ us must’ve seemed like t’ ye when ye left Home!” She mused.
“Well, I read the databases the Federation provided. I knew you just had to be an improvement over the Tellarites!” I chuckled.
“Thank ye ever so much fer that!”
I got serious, or at least sounded serious. “I have to admit that I was better disposed toward Earth Ponies at first. It was nice to see that the work ethic of our forebears survived! The Pegasai are nothing short of amazing with their ability to control the weather. Hoo-buck! Could we use some of that caliber of environmental control! Remind me to tell you how windy and wet Equestris is some day! I had reservations about Unicorns, of course. But it didn’t stop me from getting to know them. Just like anypony else most of them are darn pleasant.” I nodded sagely before adding. “Everypony told me, though, to watch out for those Alicorns. Loco in the coco every last one of them!” I smiled hugely.
…Damn telekinesis! I never saw that powder-puff coming. I was spitting scented talcum powder all night!
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2495602
just a quick question from a fellow Trekkie/er, how are you defining "first gen trekkER"? I think of myself as a trekkIE, because I've never been to a con or part of a fan collective physical group, and that trekkIE belongs to the people that watched the over the air original broadcasts of both TOS and TAS while starting the convention concept itself. I got hooked with a 79-80 repeat of TMP.
2511981 Well, IMOHO, a first-gen Trekkie is someone who enjoyed TOS when it was on during Prime Time on NBC running opposite NBC's abysmal 'Lost in Space'. *spits*
Practically speaking, though, ANY fan of any Trek is a Trekkie and that's Good Company I don't care who you are!
(Though I'm less than thrilled with all the Trek revisionist history that's become status quo with the latest movies and series. Really! What was wrong with the original timeline from Roddenberry's day?
) (...Thus saith the guy with the Pony crossover story
)
2511981 I watched it first run, 66-69. Didn't go to a con until 1980, when Walter Koenig was at Origins in the Philly area.
TrekkIE sounds too much like screaming groupies, while TrekkER sounds a little more sedate and thoughtful. According to what reading I've done through the years, the less "hysterical" fans prefer TrekkER.
In other words, me. I'm awesome that way.
2512619 I understand, but if I want complications, I'll play Starfleet Battles. Or I'll gouge my eyes out with a spoon. Tough call.
2512594
that's easy enough to explain. after the flop that was Enterprise AND the last next G movie, the franchise was considered tired and ready to die. JJ was brought in to liven it up. we're lucky, 'cause it COULD have been Michael Bay instead!
PS, gave yerself away, boss, with a "merf" and a paw...er HOOF-fasting
Verdigris strikes me as a geewunner, a phrase coined by TF fans to diss anything not transformers TOS. I'm a multifan
2513128 I'll admit I still have TOS (includes the Flimation series) as my first love, but I warmed to TNG and DS9. Most of the movies (Why Nemesis?
)
Enterprise and Voyager, though ... (urge to seriously harm Piller, Berman and Braga rising).
However, that doesn't stop me from enjoying good Trek cross-overs.
2513040 Ah, SFB!
I've whiled away many an hour pitting the various ships vs. one another! Had a horrible moment in the Defense game when my hapless Federation Destroyer got hit with 4, count 'em, 4 Type-R Romulan Plasma Torpedoes! The horror...the horror! (That was before I got a deck of the damage allocation cards... thot I'd sprained my wrist with all that die rolling!
) (I know I could have just written the ship off but there's something morbidly fascinating about watching a ship die roll by roll...
)
2513128 I admit nothing! Culpable deniability, THAT'S the American Way!
Well, ok, I'm a big anthropomorphic fan. too!
....And (Dare I say it having read the other comments?
) a fan of Enterprise. *waves cease-fire flag frantically!* It was a good effort at a 'pre-TOS history' show... if only they didn't indulge in quite so much revisionism.
2514655
author, CHILL. just be careful with the anthro references, there's bronies who detest the reference to the other community because of its rep.
>> verdigris why does nemesis suck? forgot about Galaxy Quest? That affectionate Parody is considered not only part of trek canon by some fans, but is the one that broke the sequence of "even number, good, Odd number, bad" trek movies. to the point that some of us have been working actual game-models of the Protector!
2514655 The revisionism is what killed it for me. After introducing what couldn't have been, I just walked away. Later eps were all right, but I just couldn't get into it. The only one I actually liked was the one where Surak's katra ended up in Archer for a while. Too bad there weren't more like it.
2516262 I didn't watch much, but what I saw didn't ring true. And come on, "the first time" Riker?
Continuity? Wat dat?
2516262 Oops! I didn't realize such antagonisms existed. I'll make sure to keep an eye on such for future reference. ...But aren't the FIM stories basically anthropomorphic anyway? Thank goodness I didn't elect to do a clopfic!