Will you do me a favor, piano-man, please? I want you to write me a song.
I'm not the hero they say I am.
Yes, I was the one who was piloting the Antelope when it docked at Ponyville. Yes, there were almost two hundred ponies in the hold after we'd escaped the destruction of Appleoosa Station. And yes, I've had my picture up on every newsvid since praising my actions for saving those lives.
But that's not the whole story. I'm not the one who rescued those ponies. I played my part, but I couldn't have done it without…
Without the real heroes.
And that's why I have to tell you the real story.
Appleoosa was a backwater space station and only one soul in the place would disagree. Just a waypost in open space along Jump Corridor Three, it was a stopover along the interstellar lanes between more interesting locations. It existed just so ships could refuel enroute, for tired crew to stretch their legs between jaunts, and as a pit for the flotsam of space travel to fall into.
Braeburn was that lone pony who would say Appleoosa was important, and not a single soul believed him. Maybe he could have made the place important with his drive and confidence, but instead of running for office he was content to tend bar and talk big. It was a good bar - I might be biased as his only employee but he always treated me well, the place was clean and his prices were honest. That's more than you'd get in most station saloons, particularly when you start talking about backwaters where barkeeps knew they could do whatever they felt like because the next glass of rotgut was seventy lightyears away.
When it happened, there were only two other occupants of the bar - the station was practically shut down. No new traffic was due in for a week; only one ship was in dock and it was so ramshackle it barely counted as a ship. So the station as a whole was in hibernation as everypony stuck to their quiet holding pattern.
The ship, of course, was the Antelope: a tramp freighter older than you or I and held together by tape, aluminum foil, and loud profanity. Even when it was new, the ship hadn't been top of the line. Now it was a quarter-step above the trash heap and struggling to stay there.
Much like its captain. I'm sure Troubleshoes was young once, but much like his ship he couldn't have been much to cheer about back then. He was known locally as the most down-on-his-luck captain in space: what passed for profitable barely paid his bills, his ship was constantly on the verge of falling apart, and every time he limped into port it was with a new tale of how misfortune had nearly crippled him. The last time had been as bad as usual, with his crew signing on to a different ship almost as soon as they'd debarked his. That had been two weeks ago, and Cap'n Shoes had spent most of the downtime in the north corner booth with a glass that always seemed half empty.
The bar's other occupant was another spacer… if you used the term generally enough. Lightning Dust, I'm told, was one of the best pilots in the sector once. Maybe even the best. But performing at that level was tough on anypony and while she might have had the brains and the reflexes? She didn't have the gumption for it. The push to constantly be better, faster, sharper? It got to her. At least, that's why they say she started with the doping. Performance enhancers to hone her already sharp senses to a molecular edge; stimulants to eke out a few more minutes of uptime before she had to bed down; depressants to help her quickly get the sleep her body would eventually demand and let her come back around sooner.
Those were just rumors I heard, though - I never saw anything of Lightning Dust except a jittery mess that could barely hold a cup, let alone steer a starship. She'd washed out, the old hands claimed. The more cynical ones had said her previous captains had overlooked the doping as long as she got the job done, only to discard her when the flow of meds stopped and she crashed down. Now she was just another piece of interstellar debris, coming in between highs to nurse a drink so she could blunt the shakes and blank her mind.
As for me? Well, I was supposed to be somepony someday. Scootaloo, savior of the universe!
...But that was just a dream. And dreams aren't real. I'd wanted to join the Navy since I was a foal, but no matter how much I wanted it? They didn't want me. Physically unfit. Not smart enough, no matter how much I studied. Too willful for disciplined military life. So instead of flying through space, I was sweeping up a nowhere bar in exchange for room and board.
The irony of it all was that while I talk about how Troubleshoes or Lightning Dust were washed up? At least they had somewhere to fall from. I was barely an adult and already at the bottom of the barrel with no hope of climbing out.
When you hear stories about big events, they always talk about how there was a feeling in the air. Something ominous, like fate was just waiting for a pin to drop and signal all hell to break loose. Maybe that happens sometimes - but it didn't on Appleoosa. It was just another day like any other day. I was sweeping the floor, Braeburn was polishing the glasses, and our two cirrhosis-riddled customers were staring into their glasses.
Then the entire station lurched to the side, as if it had been kicked. I dropped my broom; Cap'n Shoes' glass fell to the floor and broke; Dust caught hers before it could. We all froze, waiting for something to happen next. A movement like that could have just been a large meteor passing the station and briefly shifting the gravity. It could also have been a pirate torpedo. There was no way to tell just from the movement.
And our answer came as the lights died and were replaced by the red glow of the emergency backups. Before any of us could say something, we got our third sign: the slowing whine of the fan motors cycling down.
Any station-dweller can tell you what they fear the most: still air. If the air isn't moving, that means it isn't being circulated and that means there's no fresh oxygen being pumped through the scrubbers. It meant you were going to suffocate to death, probably within an hour. That would sober anypony up fast.
And then we got a fourth sign just to rub it in when the gravity went out.
The bar's tinny radio got drowned out by the sound of screaming as the entire station's compliment lost their minds. Everypony knew how bad it was instantly - we were all dead. Sure we could have run to the escape pods, but what was the point? There was no planet to land on and it would be a week before a ship came into range. The escape pods were all rated for 72 hours maximum, intended for a much busier time and place.
My shock wore off when I heard Braeburn do something I'd never expected: he started praying. Calmly. Quietly. Fervently. Not even asking for salvation - the most upbeat, hopeful and confident pony I've ever known fell immediately to making his final peace before meeting the Sun.
I was about to join him when a different voice rang out over the muffled screams. "Eh, stow that. This ain't my first catastrophe." Troubleshoes pushed off from his booth and started to drift towards the door. I'd never seen the old captain like that before - rheumy eyes set dead ahead, normally bowed back held ramrod straight, hot steel in his lackadaisical voice. "Still got the Antelope, so there's a way off this deathtrap. We just gotta get to it." He paused for a moment, those determined eyes panning to us each in turn. "If you keep your heads and follow me? We'll be out of this alive."
Not dying sounded a lot better than suffocating, so all three of us followed him. As it turns out, we weren't the only ones to have the idea and ran into a lot of other ponies heading to the docks. One of them was able to give us a bit more information about what was happening through her panic: the station's reactor had broken something and gone from 'last legs' to 'critical load'. Several failsafes that had been deemed redundant had never been replaced or maintained, and now the only thing keeping the reactor together was Appleoosa's two engineers who had bravely remained behind to keep the monstrous plasma furnace tamed long enough for everypony to flee.
So the oxygen wasn't a worry because the station was going to rip itself apart any minute.
"Just my luck," bemoaned Cap'n Shoes.
I won't lie. I laughed. It was a moment of normalcy in the madness and panic.
When we reached the docks, it was far too quiet. Everypony who was still able to move had scrambled for the only way off the station - and it didn't take a genius to spot that the Antelope didn't seat even a tenth of the ponies who were milling around. We all wanted to live, but even in that moment the pony spirit shone through: none of us wanted to be the first to break and strike out in desperation. We all knew a fight for the tiny space was inevitable, but all of us? We'd lived on the station together for months or years. Everypony wanted to live, but nopony wanted to doom their neighbor.
Braeburn's star shined through it all. Floating in the gravity-less docking bay, he pointed at the crumbling tramp freighter. "I know what you're thinking! But you're wrong! We can ALL make it!" The crowd rumbled at the lie - but he didn't back down. "Maybe there's not much space in the ship, but it has a cargo bay big enough for all of us and then some!"
Fearful eyes turned to Troubleshoes. It was his ship and their hearts were begging for him to confirm it. The old captain nodded once. "Ain't got life support in there. Gonna be dark, cold and without a bit to breathe."
Before somepony could take that as a no, Braeburn stepped up again. "Break out the vacuum suits! Cannibalize everything that can substitute as one and every ounce of O2 you can lay your hooves on! We don't have much time so hurry!"
It was a terrible plan. But it was a plan. It was survival and that was enough. Ponies lept into action, following Braeburn's direction. The barkeep turned back to the freighter captain. "You'll need a crew."
Troubleshoes nodded again - once, sharply. "I will. The Antelope might be small, but she only needs three to fly." His gaze turned to Lightning Dust as she twitchingly floated there. "Can you navigate?"
She'd known he would ask - they were the only two experienced spacers on the station. The others, well, we were all station jockeys. None of us knew how to fly - just her. So even though she was shaking, Dust nodded. "I can." She paused. "That's two."
Her unspoken concern washed off the veteran captain's back like water. And then he looked at me. "You studied." It wasn't a question. "No experience, but you've picked up enough from the books, I reckon. You'll do."
The way he said it was understated and reluctant, but it didn't matter. I could feel my heart swell with pride - Cap'n Shoes could have picked anypony on the station, and he chose me. He felt I was worth trusting to care for all those lives… and with his ship.
It never occurred to me to say no.
I'd have rather died than let him down.
I couldn't find the words to say yes - I just saluted him.
Minutes later as we boarded and the last of the station's denizens loaded into the cargo bay, the station lurched again as something distant exploded. It had to be the reactor - the engineers finally couldn't contain it anymore. And that meant there was no time left.
Braeburn was the last one aboard, slamming the cargo bay closed behind him. He would stay in there for the journey and keep everypony calm - the news never talks about him, but without his leadership I bet half the ponies in that hold would have panicked. And all it would have taken was one bad buck to hole the Antelope's thin hull and sent who knows how many tumbling out into deep space.
In the freighter's cramped bridge, the three of us were belted down to our stations. Troubleshoes in the captain's chair at the helm; Lightning Dust at the navigation console; and me at the engineering board.
We couldn't hear it but we could certainly feel it when the effect of the reactor explosion ten decks below us hit the docking bay. Everything tilted as the station snapped in half and both sides were thrown in different directions.
Troubleshoes groaned in time with the ship's structure. "Of course, it couldn't hold for a minute more. Just had to be that way." He set his hooves on the controls, flexing ready muscles I'd never known were there. He spoke to us - evenly, slowly - but didn't take his eyes off the forward view for a moment. "Once I detach the docking clamps, we won't be in sync with the station's momentum anymore. Five seconds after that, it'll slam into us and splatter the Antelope like an orange. Even if we get out, we'll have to clear the debris field before something hits us. We got one shot at this." He paused and looked at me. "How many do we have in the hold, kid?"
Braeburn had been counting off as we'd loaded, and the captain knew the count as well as I did. "Just short of two hundred."
Troubleshoes licked his lips. "Two hundred souls riding on this. I hope your luck's good enough to counter mine."
Before I could think of something to say back, the disintegrating station fell apart enough to give us a glimpse of open space. Just a sliver as one of the docking bay doors came loose - but the captain had been waiting for it. The longer we waited, the more chance there was that a piece of station would hit us. So he saw that narrow window and took it.
The Antelope dropped out of the docking clamps with a loud THUMP. By the time my brain processed the sound, it was already being overwhelmed by my other senses - half a heartbeat after the clamps released, Cap'n Shoes hit the thrusters and threw them wide. The Antelope wasn't a speedy ship, but he knew how to fly her. She was an extension of him and taking her to full throttle was as easy as telling his legs to run. All three of us were slammed back into our chairs by the acceleration as the ship streaked like a comet through that narrow gap in the bay doors and out into space.
The captain always said he had the worst luck - he lamented it every time something even slightly negative happened, and he was talented at finding something bad about every event in his life. But I think maybe the decades of bad luck had built up for just that moment. Because somehow, against all odds, the Antelope went in a straight line and every tiny shard of the dying station's debris missed her.
We were on full burn for almost three minutes before the thrusters overheated and the safeties took them offline to cool.
Lightning Dust recovered first - she barely needed to recover at all. I took a minute more as my head spun and my heart raced from the massive g-forces we'd been under. So I didn't immediately notice the grim look on Dust's face.
Or the slack one on Troubleshoes'.
He was an old stallion. I don't think there wasn't a time when he wasn't in some form of poor health or another. That acceleration that only made my young body uncomfortable, with him it…
It was quick. His heart couldn't handle it. I suppose it's some comfort that what killed him was nearly instant rather than the slow death by inches in a bottle. And… and I'm pretty sure he knew it, too. Cap'n Shoes knew the Antelope. He knew what her engines were capable of and he knew himself. He chose two hundred lives over his own.
Neither of us that remained spoke for a painfully long time. I wanted to ask Lightning Dust what to do - she had more hours in a cockpit than I had hairs in my mane - but I couldn't bring myself to voice it. The captain's death was too raw and I didn't know if she could handle taking his place. Dust had always been a worse wreck than he had been, barely holding herself together long enough to order a drink. Taking command of the ship seemed outside her reach. And I was afraid she would say as much, because that meant I was in charge and I was terrified of that.
I was also wrong about her. Very, very wrong.
"This is gonna make us go slower," she noted with a lick of her lips. "I'll have to go back and forth between the nav and the helm. I don't know this model of ship, so I'll need you to read the manuals to find anything I can't figure out."
She waited for me to nod before continuing.
"We have to hurry as much as we can, too. They only have so much O2 in the hold, and the suits can't recycle it. Taking the charted path would be almost a day and they'll all suffocate before that, so we need to cut across the jump lanes from Corridor Three to Corridor Four. Ponyville's closest if I freehoof the coordinates and cut corners." She gave Troubleshoes' limp but sizable body a once-over. "Help me move the captain so I can get at the controls."
We stowed Captain Troubleshoes in a rear locker. It felt disrespectful, but that's all we had available. Then both of us took our positions again - to start Lightning Dust was at the nav console to calculate our first jump, then she unstrapped and returned to the helm to set our course.
I had underestimated her, because she was more than brilliant. She was beautiful. Every movement Dust made at the console was a dance. Her flying was art. And this was Lightning Dust at her worst, years after she fell apart from too many drugs and too much stress. Even a barely educated nopony like me could see how amazing she was.
Even though every movement she made was marred by her own trembling.
Time passed. And it was catching up to her, getting worse as we went. The drive needed to recharge between each jump and even though she busied herself with running the next set of calculations, it wasn't just the stress of waiting that was eating at her.
From what I was told, Lightning Dust hadn't stopped her doping. The lack of money had forced her to wean to smaller doses and lower quality, but that just meant something made in somepony's bathroom over a hotplate instead of laboratory synthesized designer drugs. She hadn't had a minute without something in her system in years. Now her supply had gone up with Appleoosa and her strained body was eating through the last of her high at a frightening rate.
It started as twitching - eager, anxious flickers of movement as every molecule of her was on a razor's edge and ready for action. But as the DTs set in and she came down, those twitches turned to the shakes. She shivered from the cold in her seat even as she sweat rivers, scratching at phantom insects in between furious bouts of astrophysics calculations.
After the third jump, we were six hours along. One more and we'd be close enough to Ponyville to at least call for help. At that point, I was more worried about Lightning Dust than the jump. She kept going, but no amount of work could distract from the way she trembled like grass in a hurricane. There was a spot just above her fetlock she'd scratched bloody before distractedly starting on the other side. But her eyes didn't leave the nav board as she started the calculations for one last jump. She wouldn't give up.
The Antelope did, though. Her age, the lack of maintenance and her captain's poor luck came around again and demanded payment - the hard acceleration and the jumps coming as rapidly as we could manage had shook her to the core.
Coming out of the third jump, my engineering board lit up with warnings at the same moment the bridge's emergency siren started to blast. It took a few seconds for me to interpret the messages on my screen - and I felt my heart drop when I did. The Antelope's seals had blown out: four of the seven had ruptured under the stress.
Both of us scrambled to the supply locker. We had a patch kit. A patch kit. So there was no chance of repair and that meant we had minutes at most before the ship's interior lost all heat and air.
There was one other thing in the locker that made my blood run cold: a vacuum suit.
One vacuum suit.
Captain Troubleshoes' luck was coming back to us one final time - when his previous crew had left, they took their suits with them. So there was just one. His.
I couldn't make that choice. And I couldn't ask her to. There was only one way to do it. "Heads or tails," I asked.
Or would have, if she hadn't hit me from behind.
When I woke up…
I'm… I'm sorry. I need a minute.
…
…
Alright. Okay.
When I woke up, I was in the suit and belted down to the captain's chair.
Lightning Dust was in front of me, strapped in at the nav console. One hoof on the board, one holding a little photo of a blue-maned mare I didn't recognize, a smile on her lips, and… and ice on her still face.
Captain Troubleshoes took a gamble - he knew the odds were bad, but it was his life versus two hundred. Lightning Dust, she… there was no gamble. It was one of us or the other. It should have been her, but she picked me. She could've made that last jump and gotten everypony home without my help, but she decided to give up her life for mine.
I'll never forgive her for taking the choice from me. And I'll never be able to thank her enough for doing it.
She made sure we'd get home, too. Even as she froze to death and suffocated, she finished the jump calculations - faster than any record, too, I'd bet. She'd left them up on the screen by her station, step by step so I could fly the ship the rest of the way. At the end of the instructions, she left her last words.
If any old shipmates ask after me, tell them I died clean.
I only cried a little.
I wept for hours once we arrived in Ponyville, but I couldn't spare the time before that. Every minute I spent feeling bad was one less of oxygen for the ponies in the hold and I had to make sure the sacrifice was worth it.
The rest of the trip was a blur for me. Keeping it all down left me numb, but I followed her instructions to the letter. And they were perfect.
Coming out of the jump, the Antelope groaned in protest - but it didn't matter. I could see the bright green surface of the planet, and Ponyville Station's smaller silver form orbiting above it.
The rest is a matter of public record: I hailed the station on the emergency frequency, they talked me in through the landing, and we were swarmed by technicians and EMTs the moment the docking bay repressurized.
I spent the next two days in a hospital bed - I'd broken two ribs in the initial acceleration, taken a minor concussion from Lightning Dust's punch, and needed time to have a good cry.
After I got out, I found that I'd been turned into a hero. I kept hearing how it was my bravery that saved all those lives. The story kept getting retold and nopony mentioned Troubleshoes or Lightning Dust or Braeburn. Every new time I heard it, I was more and more responsible for what happened. And it spread fast.
That's why I wanted to give this interview. I've got to set the record straight. I'm not a hero - I just did what I was told and followed instructions. The real heroes are the ones who paid the price without even thinking about it.
It's the two engineers who's names I still don't know that stayed behind on the station to contain the reactor breach long enough for the rest of us to escape.
It was Braeburn, who rallied the panicked mob and then spent hours in that dark, airless cargo bay keeping everypony calm.
It was Captain Troubleshoes, who laid down his life to give two hundred others a chance.
It was absolutely Lightning Dust, who sacrificed herself so that I could live even when she was the smarter choice.
I don't deserve a word of the praise I'm getting. I know it's only being said because I'm a more acceptable hero - the plucky young spacer who washed out of the Naval Academy but rose to greatness in a crisis. They don't want to glorify a dead junkie or a no-name bartender. I'm a better face to put to the story.
Hopefully, you can change that. You can make sure that Troubleshoes and Lightning Dust and the engineers will be remembered like they should be - as heroes.
The stories about me should fade away anyway, once I leave.
A letter came in from the Navy yesterday, telling me that they'd reconsidered my old application because of, and I quote, 'extraordinary circumstances'. They offered me a spot in the next training class.
I'm turning them down. I got a better offer.
The Antelope is mine now - Troubleshoes didn't have any family. And the stationmaster said that they'd repair and update her as a thanks for what I did. So I think I'll take to the starlanes as a tramp freighter captain, just like Troubleshoes was. It isn't an easy life, but it made some pretty fine ponies out of him and Dust. It sounds like a good path for a young nopony like me.
All I need is two friends to fill out her crew.