What do you get the person in your life after being together for 100 years? Sunset Shimmer racks her brain to come up with the perfect gift that turns into an out of this world adventure and more than they both expected.
Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle have been together since the end of High School. Of course, that was a hundred years ago! Having found themselves still appearing in their mid-twenties because of Equestrian magic Sunset and Twilight have gone to the ends of the Earth and back trying to experience all that life has to offer. But now with their anniversary approaching Sunset wants to do something extra special for the love of her life. Travel to the one place they have not been, outer space! With the help of their eldest daughter, Sunset and Twilight find themselves on the still under construction L2 space station, but not just for sightseeing. There is trouble afoot and the two ageless women have to find out what is going on before the station falls from the heavens ruining their family's fortune, reputation, and many innocent lives.
Sex tag for implied activity, adult language, and innuendos.
What do you get the girl who has everything? Truth be told, that is not an accurate statement. I mean, technically, she COULD have whatever she wants. You know, at least monetarily speaking. We have several million dollars on tap whenever we need it, but that would be irresponsible, as my wonderful wife, Twilight Sparkle, likes to remind me of any time I talk about splurging a bit. Not to mention, calling her a “girl” is not accurate either. I mean, we’re roughly the same age and I’m one hundred and eighteen years old. And a very nice and curvy hundred and eighteen if I do say so myself! *ahem* I digress. Actually, I probably need to explain a few things that might be eluding you, so, how about the cliff notes version? My name is Sunset Shimmer. I was born a magical unicorn in another dimension very similar to this one in a land called Equestria and ended up in this world of humans mostly by my own stupid, short sighted decisions. Bluntly, I was a spoiled brat. I was, still am, incredibly smart, but was also incredibly arrogant. I wanted a crown, I had mommy issues, problems with authority and being told 'no' blah, blah, blah. I was mad about it at first, but then I got some help to deal with my problems in the form of the best friends a girl could ask for. Seriously, the BEST. Eventually, even got the rest of the school on my side and life became a sort of, kind of, normal. What do I mean by that? Normal high school stuff. But also throw in a number of magical mishaps, evil sirens who screwed with peoples’ emotions, magical stealing devices that tore open reality, cursed Equestrian artifacts that cause time to loop, and, oh yeah, a few magical body transformations. Those were always weird. One happening to the amazing girl who would become my crush and then later, my girlfriend, and eventually, my wife. I mean, I’ve always been a bit of a disaster magnet, usually involving fire, but that all came to a crescendo when my father tried to destroy this dimension and the one I came from all so as to attempt to get his twisted, quasi-demonic hooves on my mother, who is an immortal goddess. It got bad, real bad, but we won in the end. Though it did cost us our magical superpowers, but that was not so bad in reality. I got the girl of my dreams and best life partner a former unicorn turned human augment alicorn could ask for. Twilight fixed my paperwork so that we could go to college together and then we got married and made a life together. We had jobs, kids, a house, the whole shebang! (Hehehe SHE bang) A funny thing happened along the way through all that normalcy. I found out that I stopped aging. And, amazingly, so did my wife, Twilight. Kind of a blessing and curse though. Only we stopped aging. Not our friends or our other family members. Not entirely sure why. For me, I would say my alicorn magic, which is always right on the tip of my fingers even if I can't cast spells. For Twi? No idea. She's still working on that. Still, kind of hard to explain to people you are a grandmother or great grandmother when you look like a hot, sexy post graduate. So, we cashed in on all that success we made for ourselves, (mostly Twilight, she founded her own tech company that became one of the largest in the world and makes billions in revenue a year) and stepped into retirement to see the world. Which we have been doing now for the last… hell, fifty years now, I think? Anyhow, got a bit of an anniversary coming up and I want to do something special for Twi and I don’t have a damn clue what.
Sunset Shimmer paused to take a sip of her drink and set her chin to rest in her palm while the large green iguana she had been talking quietly to at the bar helped himself to another protein pellet that had been provided by the bartender. The barkeep had said the lizard’s name was Bart, but that really did not help Sunset’s current mood or what weighed upon her mind.
“You’re cute, you know that? I used to have a pet gecko a long time ago. I still miss him.”
“Bart ain’t really a pet. He’s more of an invasive freeloader that sometimes helps with bugs, but only when he feels like it.” Sunset smiled and nodded, taking another sip. “I didn’t catch most of what ya were mumblin’ over there. So, what’s on yer mind? Ya lookin’ for some action or somethin’? I know a few places that’re smashin’. Places where college girls can get in jus' the right amount of trouble, but not too much.”
“Hmm? Oh, no. I can get plenty of action of that kind. My wife is actually just relaxing right over there by the pool with a book. I imagine we’ll be eating dinner soon and then enjoying plenty of said action afterwards.” The bartender grinned and waggled an eyebrow. “Right, probably oversharing there.”
“I don’t mind.”
Sunset snorted, her chest jiggling pleasantly in her black two-piece bikini. “I bet. Sorry, just a lot on my mind, sometimes it helps to talk out loud. Like I was telling Bart, we have, at least what I call, a big anniversary coming up and I want to do something or get something special, I’m just stumped as to what.”
The bartender nodded. “Well, most ladies love diamonds. I know my wife is always hintin’ at wantin’ a big fat rock. Ya know, bigger than the one she’s already got that is.”
“Yeah, women are bad like that. We always want a bigger one of something.”
It was the bartender’s turn to snort and laugh, smacking his hand on the aged wood that was littered with small gouges and evidence of sea salt spray damage from the beach just beyond. “Oh, I like you, girl. Pick a shot, it’s on me for makin’ me laugh like that.”
Sunset shrugged and pointed towards the twelve year old scotch whiskey. The bartender nodded approvingly. He poured her a double, neat. She could have downed the whole thing in one burning, peat moss layered gulp, but that was no way to drink scotch. Sunset took a small sip and nodded her thanks, relishing the smokey flavor. “So, what do you get the girl who has everything?”
“Hmm…” he said while Sunset took another savoring sip and he scratched at his scruffy chin. She could not quite peg his age. Not a kid, but certainly not that old. Not too shabby in the looks department either, she thought, but she had no intention to explore that line of thought. “When you say, everythin’, you mean that don’tcha?”
Sunset nodded. “Pretty much. We may look young and sexy-”
“Absolutely.”
“Ha, nice! But we worked our butts off right out of college and are now mostly retired. My purple smart sweet cheeks over there, who must have heard me laugh because here she comes, is a certified genius and is still working as a tech contractor though it’s all remotely now. Point is, we can get anything and it all just seems like so much 'meh' to me.”
“Well, at least y’all earned it and didn’t just inherit your good fortune. But back to your question. What’d ya get a person who can get whatever they want whenever they want? I suppose the stars are the limit.”
Sunset paused before taking a sip. “The stars?”
The bar keep nodded sagely. “Sure. Figuratively or whatnot. Or if money ain’t truly a concern maybe even do one of those near orbit flights that I’ve read some rich folk do. See the curve of the world, the sky gone totally black because you's damn near in outer space. That’d be a helluva present, no?”
“Hey, Sunny,” said Twilight Sparkle as she smiled and stood next to her wife, placing one hand on Sunset’s shoulder, rubbing the goldenrod skin gently with her thumb. Her attention was briefly diverted as she curiously observed the iguana that turned to look at her expecting a treat, mouth open and tongue slightly lolled to the side.
As usual, Twilight had her hair pinned up in a high ponytail and her face framed smartly with a pair of black framed glasses. She had, however, relented to Sunset’s urging suggestion and chose to wear a pink and white striped two-piece bikini instead of a one-piece suit. The bra cups were of a tantalizing triangular shape and held together by only one string behind her back and another behind her neck. The side tie string bottoms provided reasonable coverage, but left the hips open that Sunset wanted to glide her fingers over despite the possible viewing public. Though that thought would have to wait since the bottom half was currently hidden under an indigo blue towel wrapped around Twilight’s waist.
“I’m getting hungry, how about you?”
Sunset nodded in agreement. She quickly finished her whiskey and used her phone to clear the bill, leaving a generous tip. “Thanks for the drink and the suggestion.”
“Suggestion?” asked Twilight, glancing between Sunset and the gentleman behind the bar.
“Just some casual conversation,” Sunset casually dismissed. “What are you in the mood for, babe?”
“I read that there is a great Jamaican place on the island, want to give it a try?”
“Sounds good.” Sunset wrapped her left arm around Twilight’s shoulders and pulled her wife close, planting a kiss to the top of her head. Easy to do since she stood a whole head taller than Twilight and had since her ascension following high school. Sunset added a little extra sashay to her bikini covered bottom for show as they walked away, heading back to the hotel. Using her right hand, Sunset tugged at the silky fabric, pulling it across to show off her golden butt cheeks like a thong for a few seconds before readjusting the coverage. Sunset did not have to look back to know the bartender enjoyed and appreciated the sight before turning to attend other customers.
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Dinner had been excellent. Sunset had enjoyed the variety of vegetarian choices in Jamaican dishes and Twilight had partaken in them as well as jerk chicken. The evening had been quiet and relaxing, like so many before over the last several decades. They had talked, made love, and fallen asleep in each other’s arms upon a bed that was soft as a cloud.
The morning sun eventually spilled forth through the curtains, like it always did. Sunset Shimmer looked down at her hand, the one not holding her morning coffee cup. It was perfectly manicured without a single blemish even after years of working as a part time artist and an electrical and sound engineer. Every scratch, every cut, every mark caused by living, working, and raising two wonderful daughters in life had eventually healed. Only the scars she had prior to her ascension and the ones she received during her fight in the In Between remained. It was the magic within her, she knew that, but it still blew her mind. She was an alicorn, after all, even if she appeared human Sunset knew better.
Her mother, Celestia, in a last ditch effort to save them both, had given Sunset Shimmer part of her power to unlock her alicorn heritage. The magic had saved them all, but at the cost of destroying her father and sealing the human realm from Equestria. All the wild magic that had been seeping through the portal was gone and there had not been a single major resurgence since. That had been almost a hundred years ago. It had, in all their opinions, been a small price to keep the world safe from rogue magic. Although Rainbow Dash never let Sunset forget how much she missed her super speed.
Twenty-two years after the portal had been destroyed, Princess Twilight, Twilight Sparkle’s dimensional counterpart, had rebuilt the mirror and Sunset Shimmer had been able to see and feel Equestria again, as well as show it to her two daughters, Aurora Shimmer and Sunna Sparkle. That had always been a source of joy for Sunset, being able to see her mother and Aunt Luna and share Equestria with her family.
But like their best friends, their daughters, and later their grandchildren, did not stop aging either. She and Twilight, after several long debates, casually slipped from the spotlight, but of course stayed in contact with their children. Even risking in person visits from time to time, usually when they were in Canterlot City when the portal opened. Sunset had accepted the new reality and did not dwell on it too much day to day. Twilight, however, still worked tirelessly to understand the phenomena as an anonymous contractor for her company, Sparkle Technology. She had remote access to the entire network, including some servers almost no one knew about, as well as some of the automated machines, which also allowed her to conduct further research and development in science and technological breakthroughs. They were content in their groove.
Sunset glanced up to see her wife sitting across from her, scrolling on a tablet, a piece of waffle still dangling and dripping syrup from her fork that had not quite made it to the purple skinned woman’s mouth. It was adorable and just a teensy bit sad. Sunset set her coffee aside, quickly leaned over the table, and gobbled up the piece right off Twilight’s fork. Twilight blinked a few times and realized what had just happened and blushed sheepishly.
“Sorry, I just got caught up in reading this memo.”
“Clearly.” Sunset wiped her mouth and took another sip of coffee. “What’s it about?”
“There was a demonstration of next generation AI technology in Tokyo that started yesterday. I… actually wanted to go there.”
Sunset blinked a few times, making a sheepish, 'Oh' face. “Did you mention it and I just didn’t listen?”
Twilight set her tablet down and waved her hands. “No, no! I shouldn’t go to it. I’m sure I would be recognized by at least one or two of the hardcore tech researchers at such a place. That would cause the kind of stir we are trying to avoid. Sparkle Tech had a booth and representatives as well. Maybe in another ten years I can attempt it because it would be theoretically possible that I could pretend to be a descendant of, well, me, and that would satisfy all but the most adamant, aluminum foil hat wear type. Besides, you wanted to see The Keys.”
Sunset nodded. “Okay, just wanted to make sure I wasn’t ignoring what you wanted.”
Twilight reached across the table and squeezed her wife’s free hand. “You always listen to me. Even if you don’t heed my advice, you have always done me the courtesy of listening.”
Sunset lightly squeezed the fingers in her hand. She quickly finished her coffee and set it aside before clearing her throat. “Thanks. Anyhow, I want to go browse the old town shops for souvenirs and possible gift ideas. Think you can keep yourself occupied for about an hour?”
Twilight turned her head slightly while furrowing her brow. “You don’t want me to go with you?”
Sunset lifted the hand that was still in her own to kiss it. “I always want you with me, but in this case I am looking for a gift idea for you and I want it to be a surprise. Do you not realize how hard it is to surprise you these days?”
Twilight sheepishly nodded her understanding. “I guess we have kind of seen it all at this point. But I don’t need anything more than what I already carry everywhere. Just like you… and for what occasion?”
Sunset paused to consider how much to let on. “For the anniversary of when we first met.”
Twilight blinked and then had to adjust her glasses. “Oh! I’m sorry! I did not think that was something we were supposed to celebrate with gifts. Have we before?”
Sunset smirked. “Maybe, maybe not. But this time is special. One hundred years.”
Twilight’s jaw slackened a bit and she took her glasses off for a second to clean them before slipping them back on. Much like how Sunset had done only minutes before, Twilight next examined her hand. Just as young and unchanged as Sunset Shimmer’s.
“One hundred years.”
Sunset nodded and smiled. “One hundred years since we first met at the Friendship Games.”
Twilight smiled nostalgically, perhaps, even a little bit melancholically. Eyes staring at nothing but still seeing so much. “And our lives changed forever.”
“So, you see why I might want to look around, try to find something special or at least give me an idea for one. I promise, I won’t take long.”
“Twilight’s face turned from whimsical to condescending. “I’m not that helpless teenager anymore, Sunny. You know I can survive without out you for a while. Besides, that will give me time to finish clearing my emails and confirm or plans for the afternoon. We are still doing the reef snorkeling, yes?”
Sunset shot Twilight the finger guns. “The weather is hot and so are you. Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Gaaaawd. That was lame, Sunset Shimmer.”
Sunset winked and blew her wife a kiss before rounding the table and exiting the hotel. She walked for several blocks actually attempting to window shop before taking a moment to find a bench and pull out her phone. None of the shops had anything remotely unique that would do for Twilight and such a milestone occasion. However, the bartender (whose name she did not catch) had given Sunset and idea and she knew the perfect person to call to get some information on if it was possible. Plus, she wanted to hear her voice.
After several rings that almost went to voicemail, the line connected. There were a few more grunts and the sound of a person shifting on what sounded like a bed. Finally, after a raspy sigh the person spoke.
“Sorry, Mama, took me a moment to reach for the phone. I’m not sure who plugged it in over away from the table, but that’s not where it belongs.”
“It’s okay, sweetie. How are you doing, Aurora?”
“Meh. I’m good. I get my hot meals with a side of too many damn pills and the occasional sponge bath by an assistant that my grandson hired since I’m apparently too old to properly do anything anymore.”
“Oh, um… sorry?” Sunset paused, but relaxed when she heard her daughter begin to laugh at the awkward pause. “Well, is he hot at least?”
“Pshaw! Shining Sunbright got a female nurse/caretaker for me! I think he did it more for Timber Hill, though at least Timber can get out of the house and around, but nooooo, couldn’t get a cute male nurse for grandma! Hold on a second… what? I’m talking to my mama, mind your own damn business. Don’t look at me like that. I can talk to ghost if I want to! I’ll call for your help when I can’t get up fast enough for the toilet, nosey girl!”
It was Sunset’s turn to laugh. She could easily picture Aurora yelling at the poor nurse who was probably hating her job right about then. “Is it okay you saying that? Won’t she just think you are nuts?”
“Mama, I’m going to be ninety- two years old in a few months. I’m allowed to appear senile and take phone calls from people who are supposed to be dead if I damn well please. Where are you, anyhow?”
“The Florida Keys. Currently sitting on a bench in the tourist trap section of Sugarloaf Key. I always wanted to see Key West, but we always avoided it in the past because Twi said it was a tourist trap.”
“And how was it?”
Sunset smirked and shrugged. “A tourist trap. The outdoor and ocean/beach activities are nice, but the in town attractions are nothing special compared to what we’ve seen or done in Europe or Asia. I guess for domestic travelers it’s a treat, but… yeah. I’ve seen better.”
“Yeah, I can see that. The beach sounds nice at least. I bet you still rock a bikini though.”
“Damn right I do. I even got your mom to finally try one on instead of the one piece suits. Only took me half a century of constantly complimenting her figure.”
Aurora laughed again, there was a bit of a wheeze to it, but not as bad as she had had before. “Got to love Mom, but she just never could get it through her head that she was beautiful too. Her brain always kept getting in the way. I bet you have been getting all kinds of free drinks from the horny boys, am I right?”
Sunset laughed. It felt so good to laugh with her daughter she was nearly to tears and her face was hurting in the best way from smiling too much. “Got one last night from the bartender as a matter of fact!”
“Pfft. Knew it!” Aurora laughed again and sighed. There was a pause before she started again. “I’m glad. I remember when I used to get drinks like that, absolutely owning a two piece that didn’t hide much.”
“Heh, I remember. I also remember glaring down at a few of those horn dogs because of it.”
“Oh please,” Aurora scoffed. “I mean, I appreciated that you cared, but you taught me and Sunna both how to take care of ourselves. We were fine. Though, I do recall that one time at the strip club I was glad you were there.”
Sunset nearly fell off the bench from her bent over snicker fit. “You know I STILL have not told your mom about that! Let’s see if I recall how that all played out… You were twenty-one and wanted to see what a male strip club was like and all your friends chickened out at the last minute. I overheard you saying you were just going to go by yourself and that worried me.”
“So, ever the responsible parent, you grabbed two motorcycle helmets, threw one at me, and told me to get on the back. Then you took me to a place you had heard of and it was… LOUD AND CRAZY!”
“Yep!”
“Then… oh God! Then that one guy came out and stripped down to nothing and was just waving that python right in our faces! Like he was daring us to break the no touching rule!”
“Gotta admit, it was a nice size and I was tempted, but I behaved…” Sunset turned her eyes to the sky and sighed. “Good times, goooood times.”
“I was so mortified at it all and especially how casually you were taking it all! It was the first time I had seen one that was not on the internet and then you started waving dollars around and whistling!”
“Yeah well, I’d seen plenty and was having a great time with my daughter.”
They both laughed and sighed. The silence lingered for a minute while they caught their respective breaths. “Yeah… mama, this has been fun and all, and I know you like to check in on Sunna and I, but why did you really call?”
Sunset smirked. Both her daughters were smart individuals, but Aurora was as razor sharp as she had always been and not afraid to say what was on her mind. Age had not slowed her mind down one bit. Sunset took pride in that.
“I did want to hear your voice, but yeah, I have a crazy idea for a present for your mom and I will likely need for you pull some strings to make it happen.”
“Well, this sounds like a bad idea already. Go on.”
Sunset took a breath and doublechecked to make sure no one was listening to her. “The hundredth anniversary of our first meeting is coming up and I want to give your mom a present like no other and one she will never forget. I want to give her the stars. I need you to pull some strings at the company and get us on a flight to the El Two station.”
“Oh. My. God, Mama!”
“I know, I know, crazy, right? It’s a terribly irresponsible idea, but I really think she would love it!”
“…. You really are a magical talking pony from another world.”
Sunset shrugged and nodded. “Well, yeah. You’ve seen it yourself. I’m not sure why you are bringing that up now though.”
“Because that’s how crazy you are and this is! You want me to get you on a flight to a highly secured, experimental space station that is still under partial construction and has every government watchdog agency sniffing around at all times just so you can let your wife see the stars! You are In-fucking-sane, woman!”
Sunset paused. It really was asking too much and hearing it out loud was putting it more in perspective. She was about to say, never mind, and then ask about Sunna before hanging up. However, before she could say more, Aurora let out a long, clearly annoyed groan. It didn't sound painful, but it also did not sound like an end of the previous conversation.
“Um… are you okay, sweetie?”
“I don’t know if it’s dumb luck or magic… maybe both. You always said you had both and here we are.”
“Aurora, I’m a little confused right now.”
Sunset could hear Aurora shifting about as she grunted and muttered. A minute later she settled in. “Okay, so here’s the truth. I actually could make some calls to both my government contacts and one or two trustworthy family members working for the company and make this happen. But there would be a catch. You would not be going as tourist.”
“I’m a little confused, but go on.”
Aurora groaned again. No, not a groan, Sunset thought. That was clearly a growl. She was clearly agitated, Sunset knew that growl since she was a teenager and it sounded a lot like her own. “I’m still the matriarch of this family and primary shareholder of Sparkle Tech since Sunna sold all her rights and holdings back to the company decades ago. Shinning Sunbright handles most of the day to day operations even though we have that whistle dick, whatshisface as the acting CEO because he looks good on camera. Anyhow, I still get all the internal company executive chain emails. Even the privileged ones. There is a problem going on at the space station.”
Sunset blinked several times and sat forward on the bench. “What do you mean a problem?”
“I mean they are having issues. Technical, software, hardware, you name it. The company people are doing their best to correct them and stay on schedule, but they just keep popping up like the Little Dutch Boy trying to plug all the holes.” Sunset snickered immaturely despite her efforts to hold it in. “Really, mama?”
“Sorry, go on.”
“The government reps and bureaucrats are starting to get nosey and then they will get nervous. I know them and exactly how this will go down if it’s not corrected soon. They did not want to give a non-government controlled entity so much freedom of choice and access to the project to begin with even if the joint venture was the only way it was EVER going to get done. We sold the idea to them on the premise that most of the resources and costs would fall on us if things didn’t work out. Shocking, things get done when you tell them they don’t have to pay for most of it.”
“I think I remember Twi saying something similar and marching a hole into the floor with worry and frustration on all the ‘unknow variables’ or something to that degree.”
“Yeah, that sounds like mom. Anyhow, everything has been going smoothly for the last three years of construction. But now, for the last month or so, there are issues and we don’t know why.”
Sunset bobbed her head and waved her arm even though Aurora could not see the action. “Okay, so what does that have to do with us and my crazy ass plan?”
“Two things. First, mom was the primary proponent for the El Two station to begin with. All our plans, blue prints, direction, recommendations all came from her and her ideas decades ago and I know she worked on the side to see it come to fruition. She would know how to fix what is going on and you are no slouch in the brains department either, mama. You would be able to help too. Secondly, if this station fails and we are left on the hook with no recuperation of expended costs Sparkle Tech will be out of business.”
“Oh. Shit.”
“They sank EVERYTHING into getting this contract and partnership. It’s all on the line. So, for that reason, I am considering your insane proposal, but ONLY if mom is on board. I will get you clearance and cut through most of the red tape that would risk your identities, though I would still recommend you change the ones you are currently using to ones you are not afraid to burn. After that, you go up, fix the problems, have a little fun, and then take the resupply shuttle back down four weeks later with no one being the wiser who and what you really are.”
“Obviously I need to talk with you mom about this, but you know we would do anything for you and the others.”
“I know, mama, but this… if you get caught… I’m not sure I could find you in the hole they would shove you in or get you back to the portal for safety when it reopens. I've got pull, but I was never president. You can always say no, I would rather you say no, and not risk it and we just find another way, but there it is.”
Sunset glanced down at her hand, spread the fingers, imagining the hoof it sometimes was, and closed them into a tight fist. She then stood and began walking at a fast pace back to the hotel. “I’m going to talk to Twi right now, but go ahead and start pulling your strings. We’ll be in Canterlot City by tonight.”
“You shouldn’t come here.”
“All our hard copy credentials are in the city. If we can sneak in an in person visit, we will. Otherwise, we’ll talk tonight and tell you what names you need to get clearance for.”
Sunset could hear Aurora sigh. “You are so certain she will say yes.”
“I have known that woman for a hundred years, little girl. I know her and she knows me. I could tell you exactly how this conversation is going to go.”
Aurora barked a laugh. “Like I said, in-fucking-sane.”
Sunset found Twilight Sparkle where she had expected to find her, at the desk in their suite with the balcony door open letting the sea breeze blow around the room. Though her computer had a touch screen it also had a virtual reality/augmented reality interface. It was not the first time Sunset had found her wife using her goggles and interactive gloves, doing her best impression of leading a tech orchestra or trying to move or grab things that only she could see. Sunset always found it adorable when she was in the zone.
At the sound of their hotel door closing loudly Twilight turned and raised her eyewear, smiling brightly at her wife. The expression quickly changed to one of worry when Sunset Shimmer had reached for their luggage and began to pack their clothes from the provided dresser drawers. Admittedly, starting off by saying, “We need to go to Canterlot City immediately,” had not been the best way to start the conversation. Color had drained from Twilight's face as she had feared the worst and began smacking Sunset in the arm, which she rightly deserved, for scaring her. Once checked out and in the privacy of their rental car heading back to Miami, Sunset explained in greater detail what was going on and what they needed to do.
As Sunset had predicted, Twilight had a small panic attack after explaining her proposal. At least it had not involved striking the driver while her arms flailed and pulled at her hair. Then, quicker than expected, Twilight began weighing the pros and cons of the entire situation. Sunset listened as her wife recited the information they knew thus far while keeping her eyes on the road ahead. After a few minutes, Twilight took several meditative deep breaths and proceeded to contact Aurora for greater details on the situation.
Their daughter forwarded all the necessary company emails and details on what they knew thus far. Twilight, through practice or luck, did not get carsick while reading and caught up in a little over an hour. She next bought boarding passes for her and Sunset to take the next available evening flight home.
Home. Twight thought. Yes, it is still home. At least, in my heart. She glanced to Sunset whose eyes were glued to the road ahead. I’m sure Sunny thinks the same.
“Sunset,” Twilight began, closing her apps and staring out over the water of the overseas highway. “I have a question.”
Sunset spared a glance and smirked. “Go for it.”
“Why did Aurora contact you about this instead of me?” Twilight arched her brow inquisitively when she watched her wife squirm ever so slightly. She did not wish to cause Sunset discomfort, but she had a sneaking suspicion that the fire haired woman had set the current reactive steps in motion. Obviously, she did not need to know, but the timing just screamed, 'Sunset Shimmer half baked plan.' “I won’t be mad, I promise.”
“I wasn't so much worried about you being mad. I just… okay, so I told you all the things Aurora told me and what we need to do, but we got on the subject because I brought the space station up to begin with.”
“Okay, I can see that. But why?” More squirming and fidgeting. Twilight could tell she was debating on what to say. After so many decades she had learned the Language of Sunset Shimmer as fluently as she had the twenty other languages she could speak. “It has to do with the present you went looking for, correct?”
“It…” Sunset sighed and groaned. “It was supposed to BE the present itself. Take you to space. See the stars. I know you have always wanted to go. Celestia knows we have talked about it more than once. Granted, it was supposed to be for fun and now it sounds like it will be more a working vacation.”
Twilight turned her face back to her window in a futile attempt to hide her blush. She had to take her glasses off to wipe her eyes that had started to get misty. She knows me so well. Goddess, I love this woman. “When I was little and my dad and I would look up at the stars with our telescopes, I would name the constellations and individual stars and planets to show how much it all meant to me. I would tell him that I wanted to be an astronaut. That I wanted to do science in space and push the edge of human understanding and exploration. Dad, being dad, would tell me that I could do anything if I studied hard and put my mind to it.”
Sunset smiled, taking a moment to glance over at Twilight who continued to stare out over the ocean, lost in reminisce. “So, why didn’t you pursue that more if it meant so much to you?”
“A few reasons. Mainly because the idea of being strapped to a massive rocket that was basically an intercontinental ballistic missile meant for world annihilation terrified the living crap out of me. Then you add in that the physical training astronauts have to go through and my crummy eyesight. Well, it just seemed like a pipe dream that was too far out of reach in my lifetime and I could still do good work and science here on the ground.” Twilight placed her hand on Sunset’s right leg and gave it a few strokes. The goldenrod woman practically purred at the delightful touch.
“And now?”
“And now, my beautiful, amazing wife and wonderful daughter are going to help me not only go to space, but to the space station that I helped design. No way am I going to let fear stop me from see it for myself.”
Sunset Shimmer beamed, her toothy smile so wide it almost hurt. “That’s my Twilight.”
----------
By the time Sunset and Twilight arrived in Canterlot City it was too late to speak with Aurora. Without hesitation, they instead booked a room at their preferred hotel and turned in for the remainder of the night. It had been a long day of travel and even Sunset was too exhausted for late evening frisky activities.
The next morning, following breakfast, Sunset and Twilight retrieved two new identification cards and credentials from their safety deposit box. Sunset had chosen to risk her Sunbeam Glow alias, since it was her least favorite, and Twilight had selected her Starlight Moondance identification. When Sunset asked if it was her least favorite Twilight simply shrugged, swishing her hand back and forth and made for the exit.
While Sunset was specifically unsure how Twilight cycled out their identifications, what she did know was that it was a complex and highly illegal process that she had become an expert at doing and knew better than to disturb her wife while she did so. Years ago, Sunset’s curiosity had been piqued enough to inquire how Twilight was able to complete such a task. The closest thing she received to an answer was, “I have my ways and just be glad I helped lay the foundations to most of these software programs. Otherwise, we might have been caught.” Sunset was not entirely sure what that meant and software programing and hacking were not her expertise anyhow, so she let it slide. She preferred more physical, hands on sort of tasks such as hot wiring a car. They both knew how to do that and it had come in handy once when things got unusually complicated in Hong Kong a few decades ago.
Complicated. Sunset thought with a humorless, mental laugh. Kind of like how things this trip could become complicated. Oh, who am I kidding. This is on a whole ‘nother level of ‘complicated’. Aurora was right, I probably should have just said nothing and forgotten about the whole thing…
“I know what you are thinking,” Twilight said as she finished up her work and set her computer to standby. She turned to look up at Sunset, adjusted her glasses, and smiled lovingly. Sunset could feel her cheeks heating up at the look, even after all these years.
“Oh yeah?”
“Mmmhmm. You are second guessing yourself.” Sunset blinked, mouth hanging open slightly. “You always second guess a big decision when it might drag friends and family into trouble. Remember the family vacation to Mexico that ended with us having to literally run for the embassy? Of course you remember. Your eidetic memory and all. What I mean is, you are still trying to carry all the weight of a decision on your back alone. Just like you have always done, silly pony.”
Sunset chuckled and shrugged. There was no need to argue against the truth. “Guilty. I guess I just get worried about things going sideways because of my dumbass ideas.”
Twilight took Sunset’s hand and guided her over to the bed. She moved to lie down and pulled the taller woman down to lie upon her. Sunset did not struggle against it in the least. She simply followed her wife’s wordless directions and snuggled up close, her head upon Twilight’s chest, listening to her rhythmic heartbeat thump and thump away. It was a soothing, heavenly beat... and the pillows were nice as well.
Silence lingered for several minutes while Sunset snuggled close and Twilight ran her fingers through the long, fiery waves of hair, only snagging a few times. Sunset never was a perfectionist when it came to brushing her hair. Once finally certain that her goddess of a wife was calm and moaning pleasurably at the attention, Twilight whispered, “It will be okay, Sunny. I want to do this.”
Sunset sat up, stared into deep pools of amethyst, and leaned forward for a kiss. Just a small peck of a kiss, but it was all the assurance they needed of one another. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Sunset rolled over so that Twilight could lift her phone and call Aurora to tell her they were ready.
An hour later, Sunset and Twilight were walking along a street they knew all too well. Sunset asked the taxi to drop them off at the street corner as they walked towards the house that had once been theirs. When they had purchased the home, it had been only mostly finished and in need of additional modification and renovation. A custom model that the original owner never finished paying for and was in danger of demolition and starting over from the foundation. Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle saw its potential and made it their own.
Though the trees along the sidewalk had grown immensely over the last century, the neighborhood had not changed much. The houses and property in this part of Canterlot City were considered highly sought after to the point of coveted now. Because of that desire, many of the homes had endured even through additional upgrades and renovations. Some were even older than theirs and were classified as historical and protected from too many such modifications.
Though Twilight and Sunset always wanted to see their daughter It had come as a surprise when Aurora had instructed her mothers to come by in person instead of handling everything over the phone or through couriers. She had assured Sunset and Twilight that it would be fine since everyone else was out of the house at work or school other than herself, her son, Timber Hill, and the support staff who, even if they did recognize them, were unlikely to say anything. Assuming they were just younger relatives with coincidental similarities to some of the pictures on the walls. They knew better than to pry.
One of the housekeepers opened the electric gate and met Sunset and Twilight at the door. They both nodded and said thank you and the woman nodded in kind. The middle aged woman informed them that Aurora was upstairs in her room. She offered to escort them but they declined, knowing exactly where to go. With nothing else to say the housekeeper returned to her duties. Sunset and Twilight glanced at one another and continued up the stairs.
Ever since Aurora moved back in for in home care she had reclaimed her old bedroom. It was not quite as large as the master bedroom, but was respectable in size with a full walk-in closet, room for a home office in the corner, and entertainment center that also included shelves for books. It did have to share a bathroom with the room next to it, which had been Sunna’s, but had more than enough room for both of them. Or had. Sunna still lived with her daughter, Lilly Dawn, out of state. That was a heated debate for another day.
The moment Sunset knocked on the door she heard Aurora call out. The elderly woman was sitting up in her bed with AR goggles on while she worked on two different computers at once that were sitting on two slide tables on either side of her bed, one hand on each touch screen keyboard.
“I’m almost finished here. Give me a moment.”
Sunset gently elbowed Twilight. “She still multitasks like you do.”
Instead of commenting, Twilight chose to walk around the room she had not seen in person in years. The walls were mostly covered with photos of people Aurora had met from her career as a state senator and other political functions. There were also, of course photos of friends and family, her three children taking up the majority of those. Twilight paused at one photo that was tucked in the corner, nearly invisible to those around them of Aurora holding her first born, Twilight Breeze. She was surrounded by family. Sunna was up front with her face right next to baby Breeze while Sunset and Twilight were both hugging their daughters. Behind them, were Celestia and Luna, the retired princesses from Equestria smiling brightly, as happy as could be that they were included in the festivities and that the mirror had serendipitously opened only a week after Twilight Breeze had been born. It was one of the only photos they had in their collection of the two elder alicorns in the human world. Sunset had a copy on her phone and cloud drive.
“You’re all set.” Twilight turned back to her daughter just as she closed the lids on both computers and set the goggles and gloves on the table to her right. “I added your identifications to our official contractor database. That was more for formality at the checkpoints. Dotting the eyes, crossing the tees kind of crap. What was more important was filling in your background logs. In order to be allowed to visit and work at the station you normally would have needed certifications in zero gee training environments, NASA basic aeronautical simulations, and probably a few trips on the ‘vomit comet’ just to test your ability to handle working in a weightless environment.”
Twilight arched a brow. “But the station has artificial gravity, or at least it was supposed to by this point. Did something happen to the gyrocycle I designed?”
Aurora shook her head. “Not yet, but they like having people prepared. Even computer technicians. Truth is, there is no telling what system might fail next. Gravity and oxygen generation failure would be grounds to abandon the station with almost no chance for recovery. Let’s all hope it does not come to that. Anyhow, you have clearance papers in your emails that you will need to present several times, including to get your badges and flight gear. You can’t take any more than a duffle bag worth of clothes and personal items so pack light. You won’t need tools, but if you have any special hardware or software tricks that might fix this I suggest you load them on a personal device. Any questions?”
“A few, but I’d like to start with how are you doing, kiddo?”
Aurora smiled at Sunset and sighed. “I’m okay, Mama. Just tired all the time now and having to always keep an eye on the younger ones to make sure they don’t forget about me. Plus, I have to take like twelve pills a day. This one tastes like chalk covered vomit. And look at the size of this one. If it were any bigger it would be a suppository.” Sunset and Twilight both cringed.
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.” Aurora snapped her pruned, elderly fingers. “Oh, one more thing. Don't get mad, but it might be a good idea if you leave your wedding rings here.”
Twilight quirked and eyebrow and turned her head. “Why?”
“Yeah, that’s not happening,” said Sunset with quiet yet firm finality to her words. “I only take this thing off to clean it or for emergencies. I even leave it on when my hand turns into a hoof.”
“Fine, fine. I was just trying to keep things simple. Don’t go all demon bitch on me. If anyone asks, just say you are married to someone, just not to each other. It’s not a bigotry or phobia thing, before you ask. While not an on the book rule, it is a general company policy not to station couples together in the same environment or department in case relationship issues hinder the work. So, just lay low on that front to preserve your covers and don’t go smooching every chance you get or try to have sex in space. I’m specifically referring to you in this regard, Mama.”
Sunset blew a raspberry. “You’re no fun anymore.”
“It would probably not be much fun anyhow, Sunny. If working properly, the gyrocycle would make the station feel like or close to Earth standard graving. And in a zero gee environment, the lack of gravity and inertial resistance means that a single, unsecured bump or thrust could send you flying across the room until you hit the far wall.” Twilight grabbed Sunset’s hand and took Aurora’s with her other and gave them both a gentle squeeze. “Anyhow, thank you for this, my little star. I know you did not want us to get involved, but we still love you and our family and would do anything to help or protect you. All of you.”
“Also, you mom reeeeeeally wants to go to space.”
“I REALLY DO!”
Aurora smiled and reached out to take Sunset’s free hand as well to close the circle. “I appreciate the sentiment and that you are willing to take the risks. I’m hoping it’s just a bug in the software and that you can fix it fast. If that ends up being the case, there is a resupply shuttle that will arrive at the station in four weeks. You will have privileged access and can leave on that shuttle fading quietly into the background. Otherwise, you will end up staying for the remainder of the four month crew rotation. Try not to do that. It might risk your covers being compromised. Also…”
“Yes?” Sunset asked at the unusually long pause.
“Mama, while mom deals with the computers you should look at as much of the hardware junctions as possible. Obviously checking the whole station will not be possible at this point, but just look for anything strange. And, while I hope I am wrong about this, keep an eye on the crew and how they are behaving. You know, suspicious behavior and things that rub you the wrong way. I don’t want to jump to the conclusion of sabotage, but things were running so smoothly for so long it is not beyond the realm of possible. There is a lot of money and reputation at stake here. You know how some people can get when those two things are at the head.”
Sunset grimaced. “Yeah, we know all too well.”
“I’m sorry if I sound like I am just barking orders at you. Just… I love you both so damn much. Please, watch out for one another.”
Both Sunset and Twilight nodded. Sunset smirked and added, “We always do. Gotta say though, it does feel a little strange to be ordered around by my own daughter. I wonder if this how Celestia feels around me sometimes.”
“I think it's the gray hair and grandma has lots of it now. Us old biddies just get so used to telling people what to do that we come by it naturally. I would apologize, but I figured you would understand.”
“We do,” said Twilight.
Aurora nodded and smiled. “You better get packing. The private plane to take you to the Slingshot takes off in just under two hours.
Twilight’s eyes grew to twice their previous size and her jaw hung open. “Oh my God… the Slingshot?!”
“Well, yeah. How else did you think we were going to launch you, Mom? They only do Canaveral vertical launches for satellites these days. Sheesh, try to keep up with the times.”
“Um…” Sunset knew she was going to regret it, but asked anyway. “I know I should know this, but what’s the ‘Slingshot’?”
----------
As Sunset Shimmer had expected from her comment, Twilight had filled her in on what the Slingshot was. Sunset, in her defense, HAD remembered Twilight describing the project when it was first proposed, but that it had a different name then. It had taken near a decade to build and while Sparkle Tech had provided most of the software for the launch facility, they had sold the designs and manufacturing rights to the government who contracted out several other firms, but only after the location of the Slingshot had been debated and fought over for almost twenty years before ground broke on that decade long build.
“That was why I had no intention of ever seeing the project through,” Twilight finished with a wave of her hand as their back were pressed into their plush seats and the pair were once again in the air. Sunset was briefly thankful that neither she nor Twilight got airsick or suffered greatly from jetlag.
Their cross-country flight had made good time and had landed at LAX Los Angeles for a crew change and fuel. Traveling West always felt odd with the time changes adding back to the clock. After the brief pitstop, they were once again in the air heading for the open water of the Pacific Ocean.
“Location was the hard part you said. Something to do with the noise. The shockwave, right?”
Twilight nodded and settled comfortably into her chair as they started to level off. She always loved the intimacy of the chair layout as she reclined back for the long flight happily being directly across from Sunset Shimmer. It was, admittedly, odd to be riding in a Sparkle Tech company jet again after so many years. Thankfully, Twilight had never insisted on having her face plastered everywhere on everything even as the company founder unlike some egocentric individuals. Otherwise, more people may have recognized her by chance.
“When a speeding object breaks the sound barrier quickly it creates a sonic boom, the shockwave you just said. The idea behind the Slingshot was to negate that shockwave. Make it more affordable to launch objects to space using a unique method that did not require expensive and dangerous rocket fuels. Plus, less stress on the vehicles so they could be reused more often. My first design models were based off the hover trains from Japan. As I understand they only changed a few things. Of course, in order to make those launches affordable, eco-friendly, and even possible it still requires a lot of power and a LOT of runway.”
“Hence, why it is over water.”
Twilight beamed. She loved talking science and technology with her wife. She never had to explain her vision, Sunset was just that smart and imaginative she understood. And even if she did not get all of it, she politely followed along. “The mag-drive rail is over eight hundred kilometers long and completely enclosed. No major country was going to dedicated that much initial cost and open land even with the substantial revenue from regular space flight. But a small island nation where most of its territory is just open water and the rail is high enough not to affect the environment? Absolutely.”
“How long till we get there?”
Twilight could have done the calculations, but she chose instead to just lean back in her seat, take her glasses off, and close her eyes. “A while. These jets do have supersonic cruise, but we have to reach the designated zones for them to get up to that speed.”
Sunset nodded and stuck her earbuds in, clicking the play button on her phone.
Not much had been said on the flight and the crew had no need to disturb their passengers until they were on approach. Sunset and Twilight chose to catch up on some lost sleep through most of the flight and a light meal of snack packs not long before landing in South Tarawa.
While Twilight stretched and grabbed her bag, Sunset took a moment to slip her black, faux leather jacket back on. Twilight would have pointed out that they were on a chain of islands near the Earth’s equator and that it never got that cold, but she knew better after so many years together. Sunset loved jackets. It was just her thing.
“So, what’s the plan?”
Twilight thanked the flight crew with a smile and a wave before answering. “There should be a car out in front of customs waiting to take us to the hotel. After that, we can do whatever we want to relax or prepare. We need to report to the launch site base the day after tomorrow for preflight briefing and just hope the nice weather holds out so we are not delayed.”
Sunset nodded, turning her eyes to the fading daylight where the sun had already retreated. Even from the airfield she could hear the crashing ocean and smell the salt in the air. She was also impressed they had landed so smoothly in such crosswinds and turned back to give her own thanks to the talented flight crew.
“So, another hotel along another beach with the smartest and sexiest woman in the world. Yeah, I’m cool with that,” said Sunset, wrapping her arm behind her wife’s back, the left hand sliding down until she found a handful of butt cheek and gave it a playful squeeze. Twilight giggled briefly before walking towards the arrivals terminal.
The Ismar Company paid a sizable sum of money to a Hollywood studio many years ago for the rights to call their new launch facility located off the shoal island near Temaraira the 'Stargate'. Considering the overall cost that the company and the government paid to build the facility and the technology that went into designing and creating the Slingshot’s rail it had honestly been a frivolous drop in the bucket. A footnote for the tour groups to “ooo” and “ahhh” at, that occasionally flew by or were on boats during non-launch days.
Twilight Sparkle was glue to the side window of the boat as she took in the launch base and the rail in the distance that stood well above the water and stretched out beyond the horizon. “You know, I always wanted to see this place in person.”
Sunset Shimmer glanced over the top of her sunglasses, up at her wife, and then gestured with her eyes to the four other passengers in the crew cabin with them. Twilight understood its meaning and smiled as a thank you for the reminder that they were now Sunbeam Glow and Starlight Moondance and not married to one another.
“It’s okay to be excited,” said a man with dark turquoise skin and curly brown hair. “I’ve been waiting a long time to come here as well. Obtaining my necessary zero gee training hours were harder than I had anticipated.”
Twilight sat back down as the boat began to slow and finally lurched as it approached the no wake zone and drifted towards the harbor docks. The young man that had spoken before held out his hand to Twilight. “Handy Fixit.”
Twilight smiled and took his hand gingerly. “Doctor Starlight Moondance.”
“Doctor, huh?” said the only other woman on the boat, her arms crossed, one leg up on the other. It was the first time she had spoken since they had all climbed in the shuttle boat nearly an hour ago. “Do you work out of our European offices? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”
Sunset once again pulled her sunglasses down so she could look over the top of them and better analyze the woman addressing Twilight. Where as Handy and the rest of the people in the passenger compartment were obviously scientist or engineers the woman scrutinizing her wife was bulky and had the posture and cut of a soldier and was likely part of the additional security team. Despite her initial, silent concern they might be in trouble, Sunset relaxed ever so slightly when Twilight began to giggle bubbly. A trick she had learned many years ago that had an excellent track record of putting scrutinizing individuals at ease. Sunset loved the sound of Twilight's playful laugh, even the fake one. It was weaponized cuteness at its finest.
“I’ve only been to the main campus in Canterlot City once or twice. I’m a contractor. Most of my work is done remotely.”
The bulky woman nodded, setting her legs down and stretching as the boat came in for final docking. “Makes sense. Guess they had to call in all the reserves for this one. That’s why I’m out here on a beach vacation on the tax payers’ dime. Extra security.” The woman turned her eyes to Sunset Shimmer, clearly sizing her up and making assumptions. Most of which were probably wrong. “What about you, amazon? You a doctor too?”
Sunset pushed her sunglasses back up with one hand and grabbed her suitcase with the other. “Electrical engineer. Not a doctor.”
“We’re tied and secure. Hop to it, people. The weather is good and mission control tells me we are on schedule. So, let’s get you suited up and your personals sorted and stored.”
Sunset took the lead only because she was closest to the cabin door. The dock crew pointed to the checkpoint and buildings beyond. In the distance she could see their soon to be ride, the Multi-Use Aerospace Vehicle (MUAV) being inspected by a team of engineers in orange jumpsuits. Overalls? Speed suits? Probably not flight suits for the ground crew. Whatever.
---------
“Bored.”
Lu Jan, who preferred to go by the name, Drago, sighed and rolled his light blue colored eyes at the statement. The two men were outside of the crew station in the cool morning breeze for different reasons. Drago just wanted some fresh air before having to be strapped into a titanium and carbon fiber bullet train with wings again and fired along like a magnetically accelerated railgun round into space, again, where all the air was recycled. “They” say recycled air is just as good if not better than what is outside. “They” did not have the nose he did or likely had ever been to space for months on end for that matter.
His companion was the MUAV pilot and crew captain. Former Air Force captain, Eagle Eye. He had been to space as many times as Drago and had no opinion on the taste and smell of recycled air or water since the conversation had come up in the past when the word "bored" had exited his mouth previously. Eagle Eye had something else on his mind. Which was why he was outside watching the last boat before launch slowly come in for docking.
“This whole crew is nothing but a sausage fest. Seriously, are they really going to send me back up there and not give me some eye candy?”
“If I remember correctly, I think Doctor Daffodil is still up there.”
Eagle Eye shrugged, waving his hand dismissively side to side. “Yeah, she’s okay. I mean, I would totally hit that if I have to, but when I want to crush some pussy I want some curves or at least some decent tits and ass. Daff’s got a nice face and is easy to talk to, but she doesn’t eat enough and is like a surfboard, ya know?”
Drago just rolled his eyes for the second time in as many minutes and grunted. He really just wanted to focus on the tech journal he was browsing while enjoying the sea breeze and not have this conversation again. He and Eagle Eye got along just fine. It was safe to say they were friends on and off the job. They both loved cars, jets, and the fairer sex, but Drago was not as macho or aggressive about it as his over two meter tall, cut like a Roman marble sculpture of a friend. Even his skin tone was an off white, almost marble color as if the gods of old had anointed him a demigod on Earth and blessed gift to all women everywhere.
Yeah, right. Drago dismissed the thought as soon as it popped up. These conversations in general usually made the computer scientist and master programmer self conscious of his smaller, meter and a half stature and more rounded features. It usually resulted in Drago wishing he had worked out more only to be reminded by the pain in his knees why that was a bad idea and no longer really an option. At least he could still pass the physical for his space certifications and modern EVA suits did not interfere with his ponytail, so they did not have to make him get a haircut.
“I’m just saying, man. Months with no pussy is not healthy. You know I’m right.”
“Mmmhmm,” Drago managed to reply, while not really listening.
“Just… whoooaaa…”
It was not often that the veteran was at a loss for words. It was enough to make the butterscotch colored tech look up and then do a double take. The last of the crew had just exited the boat and were walking towards them. Of the six of them it appeared that three were women. However, one stood out among them though.
“Ohhhhh, I’m totally hittin’ that ass.”
Drago just rolled his eyes. He briefly wondered if he could go blind from so much eyerolling. “Dude, seriously.”
“I am serious. Hundred buck says she’s greasing my pole before we get back.” Drago just shook his head, but still held out his hand to shake for the bet.
“I’m going to regret that, I know it.”
Eagle just waved dismissively. “Yeah, you know it. Time to get professional.” The captain cleared his throat and waved to get the approaching group’s attention. “This way people. The quartermaster is behind the desk just to the left, inside. They will issue you your flight suits, which we already have picked for you based on your profile on file. Everyone gets three. While you can bring other clothes to lounge in, you must always be in the flight/jump suit outside of quarters for safety and policy reasons. Sorry, them’s the rules, don’t argue about it.
“Lockers are opposite side on the right. Pick any one that is green and unoccupied. There will be an approved personal effects duffle bag in the locker. Whatever doesn’t fit in the bag has to stay on the ground. No exceptions. Changing rooms are in the back if you prefer privacy. Not everyone is comfortable stripping down to their skivvies in front of others. Get yourselves squared away and then follow the signs to the conference room at the end of the hall for preflight briefing with me, your lovely captain, and the base administrator, Mr. Felspar. You have twenty minutes on the dot, starting now. Oh, and welcome to the Stargate.”
Sunset could practically feel the captain’s eyes undressing her since he had barely looked at any of the others. For the most part she did not mind. It kept his attention off of Twilight, as she preferred, and she was used to it. Plus, he was not bad looking himself.
“I’ll save you a seat in the front next to me. You know, so we can get better acquainted.”
Sunset kept her sunglasses on even though they were moving indoors. Her smile was thin and not at all playful or inviting. She knew that toothy grin, having had it flashed at her for decades on multiple continents. His intentions on what he wanted were fully conveyed. Damn, and he was kind of cute too. Then he had to go and ruin it by opening his mouth.
If Eagle Eye had picked up on Sunset’s displeasure, he had not shown it. The other, smaller man who had not said a word flashed a nervous, if pleasant smile and also headed down the hall. Twilight nudged Sunset and she turned. “Hmm?”
“You need to get your stuff. Everything okay?”
Sunset removed her sunglasses and waved her hand back and forth dismissively. “Oh, the usual. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. Not gonna let it ruin my day.” Twilight considered the exchange, tapping on her chin. She then shrugged. Her wife was more than capable of taking care of herself on such matters and would vent later in private if necessary.
The briefing room already had several others occupying the space as Sunset and Twilight entered. Undercover and pretending to be single was all well and good, but Sunset had no intention of going anywhere without Twilight while under so much scrutinizing security. If they were to become separated now, for any reason, they would have a hard time finding one another. As Aurora had warned.
There were three large individuals along the back wall, now four with the woman who had joined them from the boat. She immediately began chatting with the others having met them on previous trips. Sunset was not sure if they were currently armed, but that was irrelevant considering there were plenty of others outside that were. The Ismar and Sparkle Tech were clearly not taking any chances, it seemed.
“Everyone scheduled for Flight 434 dash Echo please have a seat,” said the only man not wearing a flight suit. “I am Operations Administrator Felspar, for those of you who are new here. I’ve been in charge of the Stargate for the last eighteen months. If anyone wants to check my credentials later, they are on the Ismar company page. It's dry reading, but accurate, I assure you. Anyhow, the room is now sealed, you have all signed your NDA's which are now binding, and I have been authorized by both Ismar and Sparkle Tech administrators to give you all the details that we have not been feeding the press or politicians just yet.
“As all of you know, or should know, the L2 space station has been under construction for the last three years. Most of the early work was handled by preprogramed and remotely operated robots. We got enclosed atmosphere and the go ahead to accept live crew at the same time I was put in charge here and have been moving at a steady, safe pace that has kept financial backers happy and the rest of the suit and ties off our necks. Things were going fine and on schedule until about two months ago.”
Twilight’s hand shot up in the air and she was nearly bouncing in her seat.
“You should have used the restroom already. You’ll get another chance when we are done.”
“Uh, no. I have a question, sir.”
Felspar sighed and groaned. “Not even going to let me finish the briefing first?”
Twilight lowered her hand and blushed sheepishly. “Oh, sorry. Yes, I can wait.”
“Thanks,” he replied, completely flat. “Anyhow, two months ago, techs started detecting errors in the systems. I’ll let our chief computer technician, Lu Jan, explain more.”
The butterscotch man with the dark brown ponytail stood and waved for a second before touching a button on the table, activating the wall screen. “Also, please call me Drago. I prefer it. Um… right. So, we have logged of all the errors and have been analyzing them for a pattern in order to try and isolate the corrupt code. As you can see from the diagnostic screen, they appear random all over the station. As soon as we correct them another pops up somewhere else. It was not too much a concern at first, but the frequency of the errors is increasing and if a critical system fails and can’t be restored quickly we are all going to be piling into the escape capsules and I've been told by others that is pretty much the death nell for this project. Our job is to find what is causing this and stop it before that is the only option left. Hence why we are launching this emergency flight out of sequence.”
“That’s the long and short of it, people. More technical information will be provided to your personal data pads. If all goes well, we get you and our poor lead tech here back to his proper down time on the regularly scheduled resupply flight in a few weeks. Seriously, this guy works his ass off up there and it all falls apart in a little over a month, so we have to send him back and that’s not fair.”
“And don’t forget about me, man!”
Felspar glanced at Eagle Eye. “Yeah, I almost forgot our poor military liaison and captain has drinks to down and cute girls’ hearts to break or something. Boohoo. Let’s get it done, people. The captain will now walk you through take off do’s and don’ts and the gist of how the MAUV works. He’s a smooth talker, but listen to him. He will get you there safe.”
“Can I ask my questions now?” asked Twilight.
“Just hold your horses, pretty thing. We’ll get you and Drago sharing notes in no time,” said Eagle Eye with a wink.
“Okay, seriously, there will be no holding of horses and you are trying too hard,” said Sunset, unable to hold her tongue.
“I’m just trying to keep it smooth and light. No reason to get upset, sweetie.”
“Alright, that’s it,” said Sunset slapping her knees and standing from her seat.
“Sunny, wait.”
“Captain, I trust you are very good at your job or else you would not be here. But let’s just get this out of the way right now, okay? Yes, you are a very attractive man. Yes, we are attractive women and yes, we have vaginas, but you are not going to get to see them because we have a job to do and you are making it hard for me to stay silent with your painful attempts of overcompensating and overblown efforts to charm your way into our panties. It’s not going to happen, sorry. We are married… to our husbands! Who are not here… sadly. Anyhow, we are not interested in expanding on that frontier with you. SO, please, give the 'sweetie', 'hunny', 'cutsie pootsie' shit a rest so we can all be friends and have a good, not awkward time up there, okay?”
Nothing was said for several seconds as eyes shifted about the room. An overwhelming sense of dread washed over Sunset as she considered that she may have gotten herself booted from the mission because of her mouth, stranding her groundside while Twilight would be in space, alone. She glanced down to Twilight who was squeezing the side of her chair so tight that her hands were starting to turn pale. In fact, her whole complexion was starting to lose color and her eyes were the size of dinner plates.
Finally, Felspar broke out in a harsh, barking cackle. “FINALLY! I’m glad someone finally said it. Sit down, Red, you are golden in my book. This guy is great, but has been a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen since they brought him on board. So, everybody got that? You heard the lady. Keep your hands and other body parts to yourself unless asked for. Just like you are supposed to. Anyhow, let’s wrap up the technical minutia and get people ready to fly.”
Said ‘minutia’ was primarily how the Slingshot operated in layman’s terms along with the special chairs they would all be strapped into that were padded with a material called, amorphous gel. While Twilight was listening intently to every word, Sunset had leaned back with her hands behind her head and started counting the spots on the ceiling tiles. She had read and heard the ‘in flight safety brochure’ more times than she could count on various types of aircraft. Since she was not qualified or allowed to fly the MUAV itself, it was all of little interest as long as they got to the station in once piece.
“And that’s a wrap,” said Eagle Eye. “Everyone should use the facilities one more time before we strap you down. The smart nano fiber flight suits you all have on will absorb all your sweat and urine, but the storage pouch only has so much room and you need most of that for the flight. Takes about eight hours to get the Lagrange point.”
“Wuh? Wait! But I still have questions!” Sunset smirked and rolled her eyes as Twilight jumped from her seat. “Are we not going to wear helmets or, or fully enclosed flight suits? What if there is a breach?! We’ll be going so fast! The air resistance alone on the module once we exit the tube will be…”
Eagle Eye smiled and shook his head. “There’s always one that asks something like that.” He turned to Drago who simply shrugged. “I should have made that a bet instead.”
“She’s not wrong that the exit launch before the boosters kick in is the most likely point of failure. That part always scares the shit out of me.”
“EXACTLY!”
Eagle Eye made to reach for Twilight’s shoulder when he paused to eye Sunset Shimmer, who was now arching an eyebrow at the pilot with her arms crossed. The pilot caught the silent message and quickly turned his hand back to himself and raked his short blonde hair instead. “Look, I’ve done this a dozen times for real and hundreds of times in the simulator. I know what I'm doing. Besides, since this is your first time, you will likely pass out once we hit the curve and the G’s kick in. Don’t feel bad, lots of people do even with the special suits and gel chair compensating. There are old fashion barf bags too if it comes to that. Even Red there will probably pass out.”
“You sure about that?” Sunset quipped. “I’m not exactly a delicate flower.”
Eagle Eye chuckled. “Got nothing to do with how tough you are. I’ve flown with men and women of all shapes and sizes. If the body can’t get blood to the brain, then you blackout. Pure and simple. Without training on how to keep that from happening your height is a disadvantage. Trust me.”
“I’ve flown before.”
“Sunny,” Twilight tried to warn, but Sunset did not take her eyes off the captain.
Eagle Eye arched his brow. “Oh yeah? What flight wing?”
“I didn’t say it was a military aircraft.”
Eagle Eye smirked victoriously and started to turn away. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. No civie pilot’s license can match what we go through. So just sit back and enjoy the ride… Although, if you are feeling so sure of yourself how about a little bet trainers like to make with cocky FNG’s like yourself?”
“Sunny, seriously. Don’t. Just let it go.”
“Tell me what you are thinking before I say no.”
Eagle Eye pulled out his wallet and unfolded a hundred dollar bill. Paper money was not unheard of, but it was exceedingly more rare as time marched on in their ever advancing, technological world. “I’m going to stick this in the back pouch of the seat in front of you. If you can reach forward after we exit the launch tube and grab it before we level off it’s all yours.”
Sunset glanced down at the bill and then back up at Eagle Eye. “That’s it? I’m clearly missing something.”
“Oh, you’ll know it when you feel it.”
Despite it all, Sunset smirked. “Because that didn’t come out sounding dirty at all. Fine, I'm in. What do you get if I can’t reach it?”
Eagle Eye shrugged. “In this case? I get the satisfaction of watching you on the monitor trying to grab this and having you humbled, Red.”
“I have a name.”
“I like Red, because I can tell you don’t.”
“Oh, we are going to get along like sunshine and rainbows, I see.”
“Sunse- er, Sunbeam! Would you please give it a rest! You are distracting the pilot responsible for our lives and it is stressing me out!”
Sunset had not realized that with each quip and challenge she had inched closer to Eagle Eye to where there was only a hand’s width between them. She grimaced and turned back to Twilight with genuine abash, her eyes apologetic. Sunset wanted to hug her wife. She wanted kiss her and properly apologize for letting her competitive nature get the better of her, but that would have to wait. Sunset quickly recovered her cocksure mask before turning back to the two men that were both still standing side by side. On second glance, there were others scrutinizing the exchange as well. Too much attention, Shimmer. Turn it down a notch or two.
“Right, sorry. I guess I had too much coffee this morning. I’ll go do that empty the bladder thing and we can get this mission started.” With nothing else to add, Sunset sidestepped and quickly exited the room, wishing she had kept her sunglasses on.
Twilight let out a sigh. She smiled sheepishly and picked up both hers and Sunset’s bag that she had forgotten about in her haste. “Sorry about that. She’s always been like that. Anyhow, I did want to go over more of the technical side of the station schematics if there is time.”
“It’s all good. We’ll have plenty of time to talk shop once we are on the way. Remember, it’s eight hours and that is after we break atmo,” said Drago with a pleasant smile. One Twilight happily returned. She nodded to them both one more time before following the others out of the room.
Eagle Eye leaned in next to his friend and whispered, “I’ve got a theory on those two. Wanna make a bet on it if I’m right?”
Drago rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time and started to walk away after Eagle Eye took his fingers and began to ‘scissor’ them together. “Dude, you probably already owe me a hundred bucks from earlier. Do you really want to keep going?”
“That bet ain't over and I'm Just saying. I’m picking up some clues. We can talk about it more later.”
----------
The MUAV was roughly twenty-four meters long and shaped like a cross between a hovercraft and a bullet train locomotive. The front was smoothed and rounded for maximum aerodynamics with the back and sides being extra reinforced against the exit shockwave and to protect the four large secondary boosters. The wings were currently folded up, but would deploy once they exited the Slingshot. There were no windows. Windows would cause structural weakness and it did not need them.
“I know you explained it to me, but I’m not sure if it’s good or bad that there are no windows,” said Sunset as she found her seat and wiggled a bit back and forth to try and find a level of comfort, sinking in ever so slightly. It was an odd sensation and more than once Sunset had stood up to make sure her coverall flight suit was still dry. Twilight pulled her wife down and the amorphous gel reshaped to accommodate her backside like ooblek slime kids would make in elementary science class. It was cold at first, but it quickly matched her body temperature. Twilight risked holding Sunset's hand a bit longer than in order to reassure her wife that the gel was in fact not eating her. After a nod and a smile, they both began to strap in like the other passengers. Like most modern airplanes, there were two seats per side with a central aisle. Drago and Handy Fixit were oppose of them and they too were busy fastening their six-point harnesses. Sunset did not know the rest of the passengers well enough to know their names yet so there was no point trying to turn her head back to see them.
“There have been numerous psychological studies on the effects of windowless environments such as underground structures or submarines. Humans in general feel more at ease being able to see out, but the MUAV designers were more concerned with safety so they had to go. Instead, it has cameras." Twilight pointed to the walls and curved ceiling. "The cameras located along the hull can project what is going on outside easy enough and generate a picture perfect view for passengers without having to look through thick glass or around structural pillars right onto the screens around the walls thus putting our minds at ease. And, of course, the flight crew have an even better view.”
Speaking of said flight crew, Sunset thought.
Captain Eagle Eye waited until all the passengers were strapped in and the hatch was sealed before he met with a crewman for final checks. Sunset tried not focus too much on what they were saying since it did not involve her even though they were standing nearby.
“Looks like we are good to go.” Eagle Eye casually waved the hundred dollar bill he had shown Sunset earlier before stuffing it part way into the seat pouch in front of her with that same smug smirk on his smooth, shaved face. “You’ll know when we’ve hit the curve. You’ll feel yourself pressed into the seat like a four hundred kilo gorilla is sitting on your chest.”
“For how long?” asked Twilight, unable to contain the higher pitch her voice jumped.
“Typically, we max out around six G’s for about thirty seconds and it gradually eases up as we speed away from the ground and level off. Most of you will black out in that first minute or so. Also, you are going to need to take those glasses off just in case.”
With one final wink, Eagle Eye casually made his way back into the cockpit and sealed his cabin door. Sunset rolled her eyes. It’s a shame he has the personality of an alpha griffon during mating season because he does have a nice body.
Twilight placed her glasses into her case and pulled out her lab/AR goggles that were also prescription. “I still think we should have helmets or oxygen masks at the least. Especially with passing out being a real possibility. This just seems like a poor, careless overlook.”
“Twi, you are getting yourself all worked up again.” Sunset bit her tongue as purple eyes went wide for a second. “I mean Star, yeah, Starlight.”
Twilight decided to close her eyes and try to focus on her breathing. It was then that she heard what sounded like a prayer coming from the seats to their right. She glanced over and saw Handy holding a set of beads between his hands. His eyes were closed, but words were still slipping past his lips.
Drago glanced over and spotted Twilight’s piqued curiosity. “Don’t look at me, I have no idea what he’s saying.”
“It’s Hindi,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Kya tum theek ho jaoge?”
Handy paused and blinked, turning his wide eyes to Twilight. “Aap Hindee bolate hain?”
Twilight smiled and nodded. “Haan.”
There were a few gasps as the spacecraft lurched a bit. While logically they knew it was simply the crane moving the vehicle to the rail it was still a bit unnerving since the projection screens were still off. There were several tinks and latching sounds followed by a thud, and finally, silence. The cabin lights briefly flickered out before coming back on slightly dimmer and the walls seemed to disappear as the screens began to project what was out along their sides. Twilight settled back into her chair as did all the others. She pulled the shoulder straps down as tight as comfort would allow.
Sunset leaned over and quietly whispered. “Remember to breathe, babe. And also, I love you.”
Twilight took a deep breath and mouthed the words back. They briefly squeezed each other’s hands before turning their eyes to the exterior screens.
“You know, it kind of reminds me of a roller coaster. What was the name of that one we went to that was all dark except for the blacklights?”
Twilight took another deep breath. The breach canopy was lowering and locked into place with a hiss. It would take a few minutes for the excess air to be evacuated from the tube and the electromagnetic system to charge to full capacity. Eventually the MAUV would lift from the rail, held in place by guide bars while it was propelled farther and faster.
“I guess in a way it is like Space Mountain,” Twilight finally replied. “Except no amusement park coaster can go as fast as this thing can. No air resistance, no drag, no friction from the rail beyond the safety guide bar. We hit one thousand KPH in less than a minute and twelve thousand KPH by the time we exit the tube… And that is before the rockets kick in. We need a total escape velocity of over twenty-four thousand KPH to break the Earth’s gravity.”
“Right, six G’s of force. Gorilla on my tits.”
“Now you see why I wanted a helmet!”
“At the speed we will be going a helmet wouldn’t save you,” said Drago before he winced at Twilight’s wide eyed expression. “Sorry, I’m not helping.”
Sunset smiled. “At least you said sorry unlike your buddy up front.”
“Yeah, sorry about him too. He’s actually a good guy, but also a bit of a dick head. And by that, I mean he is always thinking with his dick. Still, this is my third launch and I’ve had Eagle as my pilot every time. I trust him.”
“FLIGHT FOUR THREE FOUR ECHO, THE SKYS ARE CLEAR AND THE WINDS ARE CALM. YOU ARE CLEARED FOR LAUNCH.”
Sunset took the risk and placed her left hand over Twilight’s right without hesitation or concern of who might see them. She was willing to bet other first time flyers were holding hands as well. Twilight took comfort in the contact and laced her fingers between Sunset’s, squeezing the appendage tightly.
“I guess we’ll see.”
“LAUNCH!”
It almost did not feel real, Sunset pondered at first. She felt herself pressed into the chair and the gel adjusted accordingly. The smart flight suit also clamped down on her legs and abdomen to keep more blood in her upper torso. When Sunset turned her eyes to the screens all she could see was a blur of blue. The sky and ocean might as well had been two sides of the same coin. Slightly different color tones, but indistinguishable. If there was a stray cloud or object upon the water they were gone before even registering as a blur let alone an actual object.
The initial pressure eased as they must have hit maximum horizontal velocity that the mag rail was capable accelerating the vehicle to. However, less than a minute later Sunset felt it all tighten up again as they scenery changed and they began to climb. They were entering the curve.
It was gradual for the first few seconds, but then, the pressure built. The angle of ascent growing steeper. Sunset heard Twilight beginning to struggle to breath, her grip tighten around Sunset’s hand. The suit began to tighten painfully around Sunset’s chest and it made her breasts hurt as it crushed them. She clenched her teeth, but had to remember not to squeeze Twilight's hand back or she would break it. Sunset wanted to close her eyes as they started to feel like they might get sucked to the back of her skull, but she wanted to keep her focus on that silly prize that she did not need. Still. Eagle Eye had challenged her. She was not about to back down now.
The MUAV suddenly lurched forward violently, throwing everyone forward against their seat straps before crushing them back again twice as hard as before. Twilight wanted to comment how they had just exited the tube and hit the atmosphere like a massive, magnetically accelerated artillery shell and then the boosters kicked in and they were now a ballistic missile heading for the last great frontier. However, it was too difficult to say all that and Twilight struggled just to breathe let alone attempt to speak. The world was growing dark and the sounds of rattles and voices were distant, fading.
Next to Twilight Sparkle, Sunset slowly continued to reach out with her right hand for the chair in front of her. For some reason, Sunset’s mind conjured up a memory from long ago when she had been a filly and Celestia had thought it would make for an appropriate response to sit upon the seven year old unicorn throwing a fit about having to go to bed early. She had thought she would die from the weight of the ancient alicorn. Her mother’s great, big white plot and barrel had nothing on what she was feeling at that moment however. It felt as if the world itself were drowning Sunset in an unseen force... because, as she considered, that was EXACTLY what it was doing.
“S,S,Sun… ny…”
Sunset glanced to her wife who was also struggling to keep her head up, but then slumped in her harness, the gel keeping it from falling to a painful or dangerous position. Twilight Sparkle had passed out. Sunset glanced to her right and Handy also looked to be out and Drago was using some sort of breathing exercise, but only barely hanging on to consciousness himself.
With tremendous effort, against gravitational forces that felt like they were trying to liquify her bones, Sunset leaned forward and snapped at the money a few times before finally clasping it between her fingers and settling back into her gel chair. She smiled smugly knowing the captain saw her grab it or would review it after they leveled off.
Sometimes it’s just not fair how awesome it is to be an alicorn in a human body.
The pressure, finally, began to slowly ease off. Sunset turned her head and looked to the projection screen. The sky was gone. There was a faint blue glow on the screen below them, curved, with no distinguishable land masses. It was growing smaller by the second. It took Sunset Shimmer a moment to come to terms with the fact that said glowing curvature was the planet Earth.
Then, one by one. The stars began to make themselves known as the ambient, reflective light of the Earth faded. Sunset nudged Twilight a few times and she slowly came to, blinking her eyes and taking a deep breath. Twilight fluttered her eyes a few times. Relieved that they were, as far as she could tell, still alive.
“Sunny?”
Sunset smiled warmly. “We’re okay.” The smile broadened to a tooth grin. “We are officially in space.”
Twilight admired the view on the screens and a smile crept across her face. She had to lift her goggles to wipe her eyes as they felt damp with moisture. After a few minutes of glancing about she finally turned back to Sunset and had to resist with all her might from kissing her wife passionately. The straps assisted her in maintaining that restraint. Just as well. Holding hands was one thing, but kissing your fellow passengers was a bit of a giveaway.
“Thank you for this.”
Sunset shrugged and maintained her smug, mischievous smile. “Sure, this is good, but hopefully we will get a chance to see it all from the station view too. Maybe even borrow some suits and walk outside for a bit. Front row seats to the universe, ya know?”
“Oh, sweet lord. I don’t know if I have the courage to do an actual EVA.”
Sunset held up the hundred dollar bill that she let float out of her hand for a few seconds before grabbing it again. “With me by your side. We can do anything.”
For safety and practicality reasons all the MUAV crew passengers had to stay strapped into their seats. Each seat however was equipped with communication devices to allow each seat to speak with one another or participate in a group chat. No one had to speak loudly and with ambient noise cancelling ear buds there was little risk of people talking over one another.
Sunset Shimmer settled in, listening to her music while tapping her foot and bobbing her head. She would have preferred to keep her hands busy as well with a sketch pad or sheet music, but the books on her phone would do if she needed them.
Twilight had paged Drago not long after they had settled into cruise and the two had been reviewing a detailed list of the system failures, the procedures used to fix them, and brainstorming how it all might tie together. If there was a pattern at all.
“I’ve gone over this thing six times,” Drago said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Sorry if I sound aggravated, but I haven’t found a pattern of any kind.”
“No, you have nothing to apologize for. I would have done things exactly as you and the other techs did. It looks likes errors in the source code, but the system restart and root access to the trouble code to rewrite it should have been the end of it. Continued failures to other systems suggest a virus or time released worm program.”
“I had those thoughts as well, but when we examined the systems there was no malicious code. I even went as far as to cut the hyperlinked data feed with home base for twenty-four hours to see if it was coming from Earth, but a system failed even when we were radio silent.”
Twilight nodded. “Suggesting that it is not coming from outside, but inside.”
Drago nodded. “Which is why the majority of our cargo are clean servers and data boards to replace as many systems as possible. The company thought it would be better to just replace as many systems as possible rather than just keep hunting down the problem.”
Twilight grimaced, picturing Aurora’s angry, twisted face. How much of this had come out of her family’s personal fortune? “At an astronomical price I can only imagine. The hardware alone before factoring in the transportation cost.”
“Ohhhh yeah.”
The door to the cockpit opened and Eagle Eye floated out, using the handrails along the walls to stabilize himself. He used a switch by the door to flick the cabin lights on and off a few times like an elementary school teacher would do to gain the class's attention. “Okay, we’ll be arriving at the station in the next two hours. First order of business will be to get your gear stored and I imagine most of you will want to change jump suits having been in them for that last several hours. Maybe even use the mist showers. Since we’re on schedule, I imagine the station supervisor will also want to meet the new faces and have everyone together for a meeting at dinner to discuss the rules and work hours. That’s at seventeen hundred hours. We use a twenty-four hour clock system synchronized with Eastern Seaboard time zone to better communicate with Sparkle Tech HQ since, you know, not really any day or night out here.”
Eagle Eye paused to glance directly at Sunset Shimmer. She stared right back and arched an eyebrow, daring him to say something. Instead, he just blinked a few times, his expression more apprehensive than she was anticipating, before he turned and returned to the cockpit. Sealing the door again.
Sunset shrugged. Guess I scared him. Not the first time, won’t be the last.,, Hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass.
“Sunny,” Twilight poked Sunset gently to gain her attention. “I’m going to need you to check some of these hardware junctions as soon as we are allowed to. See if they are physically damaged or have been tampered with.”
Sunset nodded. “No prob. Just send the information to my email notes and it'll get done.”
Sunset replaced her earbuds and emersed herself in music once more.
----------
The first thing Sunset Shimmer noted when the L2 station came into view on the wall monitors was that it was not the shape she had been imagining. Her mind first, naturally, imagined a round sphere the size of a small moon with a trench running one side of it with a hopefully better defended exhaust port. Then, she imagined a cube where resistance was futile. Finally, she imagined a ring world. However, none of those famous fictional stations had been accurate.
Instead, the L2 was mostly shaped like a tortoise shell. It had flat sections and rounded sections and seemed to have a hump that gently swelled to one side. At the head of that swell was where the MUAV docked with one of what appeared to be a docking tube. One latched onto the passenger door, another latched on lower and was most likely for cargo. Just like on an airplane, when the belt light went off, everyone scrambled to unbuckle and rush for the aisle to leave.
Sunset grabbed her bag, which had been Velcroed in under her chair just like everyone else’s. After checking herself, she was pleased to find that the bottom of her flight suit was completely dry, as advertised. Despite having been strapped into the gel chair for most of the day. Twilight took note of her wife checking out her own backside. She had to fight the urge to stare.
“Everything okay?”
Sunset giggled a bit and smiled. A rare darkening of blush gracing her goldenrod cheeks after she noted that more than one passenger had been admiring the view as well. “Yeah, just felt odd how the suit absorbed the sweat and everything else. And of, course, the gel moving about. Felt like that stuff was trying to climb up my butt a few times.”
Twilight giggled as well. “Oh, good. I thought it was just me and I was too embarrassed to say anything.”
“No, it does that to everybody,” said Drago, sheepishly. Handy nodded in agreement as well.
Twilight was slightly disappointed they could not see any of the station or stars from the airlock or docking tunnel. Captain Eagle Eye stopped at the end of the door and turned back to the group. “Okay, for those that have never been here. Once you pass through this door there is artificial gravity created by this big moving wheel that spins around the inner hull. There are gaps in the wheel to allow people and objects to pass through without it having to stop. However, you still have to pay attention or it can hurt you.”
“The gyrocycle,” said Twilight. “Gravity generated by a spinning object creating a type of polar magnetism just like planets and satellites do, grounding objects. It was central to the design of the station and when working optimally maintains a consistent point nine gee field throughout the majority of the station. Some fringe areas have a lower gravity.” All the eyes in the docking tunnel turned to Twilight. “… Or, so I have read.”
“Right. Anyhow, the thing does have built-in safeties that won’t let it crush you, but if the emergency stop engages it’s a pain to get it restarted and everyone and thing not strapped down floats. I'm told they test it at least once a year, but don’t be that guy… or gal.” Eagle Eye turned the release handle and waited while everyone stared at the moving section when an open gap appeared from the top and eventually revealed an opening to the station. He passed through and beckoned others to do the same. Just under one minute later a new solid section moved into place.
“That seems kind of unsafe,” said Sunset.
“I tried to," Twilight paused when she took note they were in earshot of others, "er, I read they tried to only make it spin in the middle but was not generating enough of a magnetic field. Most areas never got above point five gee and the outer sections had little to no gravity at all. Anything below point five was unacceptable. So, it had to be bigger and spin all the way around just below the outer radiation shielding. Oh! Did you know the gravitational magnetic field it generates also helps with repelling much of the cosmic radiation the panels on the hull can’t stop?”
Sunset smirked and had to fight tremendously not to wink with so many others around them. “I do now.”
Following Eagle Eye, the group walked along the corridor. Some of the others conversed, but for most who had never been to the station they just took it all in much like Sunset and Twilight were. Especially knowing they were likely never going to set foot on it again. While there were some splashes of color, most of the walls were basic white with some areas of exposed metal or prefab plascrete. Surprisingly, there were a number of potted plants. Most likely to liven the place up, but also likely for the added fragrance. Sunset’s sensitive nose noted that most everything else smelled like a mix of new car smell, ionized ozone, or stale plastic… sometimes all three.
“Alright, Personnel quarters are down on the left. Each bunk is already assigned, but if you want swap that’s between you and the other three people in your room. No male/female co-habitation rooms. Company policy. Yeah, I was disappointed by that too.” There were a few chuckles. Sunset shook her head, but still smirked. He is STILL trying. Gotta give him an A for tenacity I guess. “Get cleaned up, squared away and whatnot. We made good time so everyone has about an hour and a half before dinner and the station supervisor meeting.”
With nothing else to add Sunset and Twilight followed the group down the hall. They found their fake names on simple tags next to an ‘L. Daffodil’ and a ‘G. Hardboard’. Before either could comment, the brawny woman from the boat stopped directly behind them.
“Huh, guess this must be the gals only room. I had heard there were not a lot of women up here.”
Sunset glanced back at the woman she assumed was Hardboard. “Four women and how many men?”
“Security, techs, engineers, and administrators all together should be about forty-five personnel currently, if I remember reading correctly. Once fully operational the station will be able to support a crew and staff of two hundred along with various plant and animal life for study and stress relief,” said Twilight without skipping a beat.
“Slim pickings. No wonder Captain Penis Hat keep trying to hit on me.”
“If you want, we can have him reported to HR and maybe confined away from you. Security and personnel problems like that are why I’m here,” said Hardboard in all seriousness.
Sunset smiled and waved her hand back and forth. “Nah. Appreciate the thought, but he’s nothing I can’t handle if he does try to use something other than words. Besides, I’m hoping to be so busy checking all the hardware junctions for problems or sightseeing that I won’t have time to worry about it.” Sunset noticed that Hardboard did not seem convinced. Her eyes also turned to Twilight. “Seriously, I’ll be fine if he does try anything beyond overt flirting. He’ll get to see how not helpless I am.” Sunset grinned and took the risk and winked at Twilight. “And don’t worry about her either, we both had plenty of self defense classes back in college.”
“Break instep, twist hand grip, strike nose, strike groin, gouge eyes if necessary, run for help. I remember.”
Hardboard smiled and laughed. “Yeah, I’m going to enjoy rooming with you two.”
Each woman took turns with the steam mist shower and changed into new underwear and coverall jumpsuits. Sunset, who had volunteered to go last, had just finished stowing her bag when Twilight had begun to explain how the water recycler system worked with great enthusiasm and a hop to her step. Hardboard's face reminded Sunset of the time Twilight try to explain the theory of relativity to Rainbow Dash. The woman was beyond lost, staring out into nothing. The three merged with many others walking casually down the corridor, following the traffic headed for the mess hall for dinner and the scheduled meeting.
“And because of the new nano filters the water only needs to be replenished every six months as long as there are no leaks. Even total gravity loss won’t damage the system since it’s pressure sealed to prevent air bubbles.”
Hardboard ran a hand down her face and leaned in closer to Sunset and whispered, “Is she always like this?”
Sunset chuckled, sneaking in another sly wink to Twilight that no one else saw. “For as long as I’ve known her, yeah.”
The mess hall was exactly as advertised. It was a large open space full of a dozen tables. Even with everyone in the station there was still plenty of room for additional expansion. Since there was no permanent kitchen staff, meals were prepared by everyone in turn based on a rotating schedule. No one was allowed to complain, “but I can’t cook!” All the meals were prepackaged with the necessary materials, ingredients, and directions. If you could follow directions, you could make the meals. Both Sunset and Twilight enjoyed cooking from time to time. Some of the hotels or long term stay rent homes they stayed in were equipped with full kitchens and they took full advantage of that when experimenting with local cuisine.
Once everyone had a tray full of what was available, Sunset going for two baked potatoes and extra veggies since she had no interest in the Salisbury steak in gravy. To avoid the aroma alone, Sunset found the corner of the farthest table and began enjoy her potatoes.
Considering they were either frozen or in some sort of stasis container they are not bad. Almost fresh.
A man near the front of the room stood and waved his hands to get everyone else’s attention then slapped his palm on the table a few times to quiet the side conversations.
“All right. While you all continue to enjoy what we have for the night let me have at least some of your attention. Most of you are decent multi-taskers so I know that’s not asking much. My name is Skymark Blue. I am the Chief Administrator here at EL Two. I am also a mechanical engineer, decent with a computer, and the backup, backup, backup pilot in an emergency and all the rest of the flight crew is incapacitated. Hopefully, it will never come to that, but hey, the MUAV training was fun at least.
“Anyhow, on behalf of those of us that have been up here a while or previous visits to those of you who are new, welcome and thanks for coming. Now, not to be too much of a dick, but still, it’s my job, I am expecting everyone up bright and early tomorrow. Workday alarms go off at oh six-thirty. Since no new admins came on the shuttle no one needs to report to me unless there is an emergency or dispute issue. Since Drago is back, all techs should report to him. Sorry, Spacer, you got demoted again.”
“Whatever, man. Drago’s a coding beast.”
Several others cheered and whistled before Skymark continued. “Right, our chief of security is that meaty guy over there named Hunter. But people can also report issues to Captain Eagle Eye, who is deputy chief while on station. He's also the military and government liaison, so any official questions or concerns that are not company proprietary should go through him. All engineers, be they maintenance, mechanical, or electrical report to Mr. Harp. He’s over there. He’s quiet so don’t expect speeches from him. Just do what he asks and everything will be fine. Annnnnnd that’s it. Eat up, socialize, then tomorrow we fix this thing and get back on schedule.”
Sunset glanced to Twilight and she in turn shrugged. With nothing to add and nothing to do until tomorrow everyone ate up before retreating to either their rooms or the recreational lounge. Twilight chose to turn in early while Sunset investigated the lounge, mostly just trying to get a feel for the other people and any quiet concerns she might be able to overhear. It had been mostly a bust, however, for a specific reason. When Sunset took a moment to stand by and try and listen in on others all the eyes in the vicinity were on HER bust… or other assets. Sunset rolled her eyes at them while simultaneously cursing the jumpsuits that hugger her every curve so well it might as well been a skin tight swimsuit. Hard to be inconspicuous when everyone is just staaaaaaring. Sheesh. Is everyone here that hard up for a lay?
Sunset spotted Eagle Eye enter several minutes later and rather than make a scene or deal with the pilot she ducked out and retreated back to the room with Twilight. If she was lucky, maybe they could enjoy a little alone time themselves even if limited to just touching and kissing.
However, that thought died the moment the door slid open and Sunset found Twilight chatting with the last woman on the crew Sunset had not yet met. The rail thin woman turned and glanced up at Sunset, her jaw nearly hitting the floor, green eyes growing twice as wide.
“Wow,” said Daffodil, “the guys were not joking. You are freaking gorgeous!”
Sunset had grown immune to most of the flattery from others that were not Twilight, but it still tickled a small narcissistic part of her brain all the same. Some habits died very, very hard. “Heh, thanks. Daffodil, I assume? Your name is on the wall here.”
“Oh, yeah. Nice to have some roommates!” The lithe woman jumped up and offered her hand. Sunset noted that she was shorter than Twilight and her eyes were practically glue to Sunset’s chest. Hopefully, that would not cause an issue later. “So nice to meet you both!”
Sunset smiled even if it was a bit forced. Taking a moment to glance to Twilight who rolled her eyes, shook her head, but still smirked knowingly. They had been down this road before. Just another day in the life of an alicorn goddess. “Yeah, always nice to make new friends.”
Yeah… this won’t get weird at allllll.
----------
While it felt strange to sleep in a bed without her wife for the first time in many, many years, Sunset could still hear Twilight’s little snort snores when she rolled over. That had made the shock of loneliness bearable and, in all honesty, they had stayed in much worse accommodations during their travels. In a demented sort of way, it was not all that different from when Twilight would be mad and Sunset for something and the fire haired woman would find herself on the floor or the hotel room couch instead of snuggled up close behind her best friend and love of her life. Such thoughts and many more kept Sunset Shimmer's mind active long into the eternal night.
Following breakfast and an extra cup of coffee, Sunset had reported to the chief engineer, Brass Harp. Sunset had briefly wondered if the middle aged, mostly bald man had a background in music or had his parents just hoped he would. A pondering she never had a chance to ask before he assigned her a tool kit and a set of instructions. Still, Sunset felt it might be good to start on the right foot and tried a round of simple small talk with the man... which ended with him once again pointing towards the corridor, his dour frown reminding Sunset far too much of her old high school teacher, Mr. Cranky Doodle.
The first part of the instructions, coincidentally, fell into what she had planned to do anyhow, which was begin to check the major circuit and electrical junctions for any power fluctuations or anomalies. It was the same task Twilight had asked her to do on the shuttle ride to the station. Since the crew had been unable to find what was causing the glitches and system failures the only thing left to do was check everything again. Methodically. Methodically was good, Sunset thought. It meant that after she had finished her own inspections she could, or she could have Twilight, pull the maintenance records so Sunset could see what had already been double checked and if there was a pattern.
The second half of the shift after lunch was supposed to have Sunset and a few others laying new cabling into the newly finished fabricated section that had been pressure checked positive and was ready for crews to begin making it useable. Just because they were having issues did not mean all work forward ceased. Sunset was truthfully a bit torn on that logic.
Sure, it was probably asking too much for perfection, but to just keep adding on to a system that was clearly already taxed and suffering stress test failures? Seems like a middle management, head up their ass at corporate, kind of decision. Sunset kept that thought to herself while she worked. Wish I could talk to Twi privately while I’m doing this. She’s probably neck deep in code or computer parts by now and loving every minute of it. Guess I’ll find out at lunch. Sunset shrugged and clicked play on her phone app that, unsurprisingly, had no reception, but did have all her music ready to pump right through her earbuds. With a tune in her ears and a beat to her step, Sunset Shimmer was ready to work.
----------
Twilight Sparkle growled under her breath.
“Problem?” asked Drago as he leaned back in his chair and felt his shoulders pop.
“I am admittedly getting frustrated by this.”
“Now you are getting a taste of what I was dealing with for the last several months. Honestly, I would not have even gone back down to the ground until this was done if not for the fact that I THOUGHT we had it under control. Yet here I am again.” Drago paused and gulped the dryness in the back of his throat as he tried to be subtle about admiring the curve of Twilight’s back and then some as she leaned over the workstation. “A-At least the company is nice.”
Twilight paused, and rubbed her eyes. She sighed and returned to her own chair and stretched her arms back and above her head. Drago just stared. He knew he shouldn’t, but he could not help it. She was just so beautiful. He quickly pulled off his own glasses and swabbed the lenses to pretend as if he had not been gawking. Twilight had not been fooled for a moment, but chose to focus on more important things.
“I have run through all the base code. I have restarted systems. I have even updated some of the system programs that appeared to be missing some action sequences. Everything should be running smoothly. Perfectly in fact! And yet I know the moment we close this out and get up to go eat, something will go wrong! It does not make sense!”
“It’s like it knows when we are watching and monitoring.”
Twilight growled again. “You know what that sounds like, right? You are smart, so I know that you know.”
Drago smiled sheepishly, turning his eyes back to his own screen to hide his giddy smirk. Maybe Eagle Eye was right. Maybe he did have a chance to have a little fun even if she was married. If nothing else it made for a nice fantasy. “It sounds like an autonomous operating system. Or some sort of AI.”
“But no virtual intelligence or artificial intelligence programs have been installed yet. Not even by accident. I know, I just spent the last several hours going folder by folder, including subdirectories, and dug into the all the individual subroutines as well. The central hub should not be thinking for itself. There is no matrix for it or exterior hardware online to store it in unless we missed something.” Twilight tapped her chin while glaring indignantly at the monitor screens. “We need to communicate with the installation engineers and see if they have found anything that is not on the specs. No matter how small or innocuous.”
“Harp has some of them doing that while others are continuing with wiring up the new sections. Last I heard from Skymark that is. We can compare notes over dinner.” Drago blushed again. “Um, I mean, a group dinner. N-Not you and I having dinner… like a date or anything.”
Twilight smiled pleasantly. “Group dinner with friends sounds nice.”
Drago smiled back. A beautiful, intelligent woman wanted him around to talk shop over food that was slightly better than military grade MREs. Certainly an improvement over his last stint on the station.
“Sweeeet.”
----------
Sunset Shimmer was annoyed. In the grand scheme of the universe perhaps that was not a cardinal sin. However, in the tiny universe of the L2 space station that should have been cause for concern. Especially since that annoyance was continuing to boil.
To start with, she had just missed Twilight for lunch. Her team had been neck deep in pulling cable and wiring up the newly fabricated station section that by the time they had stopped apparently the computer techs had already come and gone. Lunch on L2 was apparently a, ‘grab n’ go’ affair with so much work still to be done and behind schedule. Sunset had settled for a few protein bars and a juice box.
She had then two hours later been informed that she and three others were on kitchen duty for tonight and she needed to stop what she was doing and go get cleaned up for that task. That had only been a minor annoyance compared to crawling through ducts and attempting to pull cabling along without breaking the fiber optic wires or cut herself on any number if still sharp, fresh surfaces. Still, Sunset Shimmer enjoyed cooking from time to time. Especially if Twilight was there to help direct or taste test. However, Twilight Sparkle was apparently NOT one of the other three with her in the kitchen.
Then, she saw what had been presented as dinner and her eyebrow began to twitch.
“You have gotta be fucking with me with this, right?”
“What?” said one of the other men whose name she had not yet asked or heard.
Clearly, we need nametags. “You just follow the directions? No spicing it up? No creativity or winging it? We’re in space! Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“We only have so many spices and we have almost fifty people we have to make food for. There is no list of who may have what as far as food allergies. Especially with so many new people. These food packs were designed so that no one should get sick under all normal circumstances. If it’s boring, too bad. It’s food. You just eat it.”
Sunset deadpanned the three other kitchen crew. “I hate everything you just said… except the food allergies part. That’s actually important. But food can be more than just sustenance. Food can be a personal expression just like any other art! Haven’t you wanted to live a little and express yourself right on the plate? To look at it and go, ‘daaaaamn, that looks good! I bet it taste good too!’”
One man in thick, squared glasses that were not that much different than Twilight’s leaned over and tried to whisper, “I heard she and Eagle Eye were about to kiss in the conference room. Maybe she’s trying to impress him.”
Sunset’s jaw hung open, her face twisting in offended disgust before finally reeling in her knee jerk reactions. “Why would I try to impress that arrogant asshat?”
“I dunno,” the taller one said with a shrug. “I gave up trying to understand the minds of beautiful women. That’s why I came to space. Guess some of the pretty ones like space too. Who knew?”
Sunset pinched the bridge of her nose and took a few deep breaths. “You know what, fuck it. Just... just follow the damn directions. I’ll just put two plates off to the side for Twi- er, Starlight and I and will jazz those up as I see fit.”
“… So… we just spent all that time arguing and listening to that just to come back to where we started? I really do NOT understand women.”
Rather than comment, Sunset just grabbed some of the side dishes and quietly got to work preparing them by the directions, grumbling under her breath.
Twilight wanted to go back to the computer server room and continue looking for what was causing system issues or, if by chance, wait and see if they had corrected it since no systems had crashed in nearly two days. However, the look on Sunset Shimmer’s face and the fact that she had only spoken the bare minimum at dinner after emerging from the kitchen, choosing to stab her food with a vindictive sulk put that plan on hold.
Instead, Twilight took a risk and interlaced her fingers with her wife’s hand on the way back to their room, pulling her along and out away from the eyes and ears of the general lounge quarters. Sunset had been surprised by the sudden physical touch and assertiveness and allowed herself to be pulled along.
“Do you know where we are going?” Sunset finally asked after several minutes of silent walking.
“No, but you obviously needed some decompression and I wanted some time with you. So, it’s a win-win. We learn the corridors and side halls, we hold hands, and…” Twilight smirked as she leaned in and kissed Sunset. She had to pull back sooner than she liked, but otherwise the taller woman would have pinned her to the wall and tried to perform an oral examination with her tongue.
“Awww,” Sunset whimpered, “I wanted more.”
Twilight giggled. “I know, but you’ll live. I am glad you are feeling better, at least. Want to talk about what happened?”
“Not really, it was stupid anyhow. I just wanted to jazz the food up a little, but they all looked at me like I was from another world.”
Twilight poked Sunset lightly in the ribs earning a squeak and a giggle. “I see what you did there, bad pony.”
The laughter and bright smile quickly faded and Sunset’s face darkened again. “Seriously, this is harder than I thought it would be. The acting and pretending to be ‘just friends’ again. I used to be really good at lying right to peoples’ faces and putting on an act. I think I got accustomed to just coasting along knowing I could have you anytime you were in the mood too. Retirement has spoiled me.”
“I know,” Twilight said, kissing her wife’s cheek, “but we have to make sure we have this problem fixed. Our girl, our whole family is counting on us. Think you can endure a few more weeks without intimacy?”
Sunset groaned. “But it’s haaaaaard. You are right here! And your ass looks freaking GREAT in this tight fitting coverall. I want to just bite into those cheeks! *brrrroooowlll*”
Twilight was about to comment when the lights went out and emergency floor lighting kicked on. They did not start floating away, at least. Which meant the gyrocycle was still operational and hopefully the air circulator as well. That was good at least.
“Everyone please remain calm. We are experiencing a partial power loss. Power station techs are looking at the systems. All computer software and hardware engineers please report to primary server room as quickly and safely as possible. All other personnel remain in place and on standby.”
“Right. I guess I need to get back to it.”
Sunset snuck in one more kiss. “You got this.”
Chapter 5: Before Me, The Dark Canvas, A Sea of Stars That God Has Painted
Two weeks Sunset Shimmer thought. We’ve been up here two weeks trying to keep this place running and find why it keeps having glitches and no one is any closer to figuring it out. I mean, you would think we would have found at least one clue by now.
“Fuck.”
“What’s the matter, sunshine?”
Sunset looked up from the tangle of wires she was currently checking for shorts or broken insulation that may cause an arc. She had known the other engineers were around, but had forgotten how well voices can carry when there is little to no insulation to absorb the sound.
And I have a Master's in Sound Engineering too. Way to go, dumbass. Sunset shook her head and causally replied, “Nothing, just thinking about all this and how things keep popping on and off for no damn reason. Oh, and the name is Sunbeam, not Sunshine. Unless you were being facetious. In which case, fuck you… sir.”
“You really like that word, don’t you?”
Sunset smiled and nodded. “It is one of my favorites, yes.”
"You kiss your mother with that mouth?"
Sunset smirked. "I know for a fact that my mother knows more curse words than any creature alive and can recite them in multiple languages just to show off."
Harp barked out a laugh and nodded, check his watch and then whistled. “Let’s pause here, people. If we get to lunch early for once maybe we will get our potions while they are still hot. I’m tired of those computer nerds getting all the good cuts.”
Sunset nodded, gladly untangling herself and storing her tools. She was happy to stop, but in truth, she had other plans today for lunch. Something she had been planning for days. She was quick to wash up and slipped away casually so as to not be hassled, making her way towards the server room where Twilight was likely still holed up with Drago and maybe one or two others. Sunset ran that thought back through her head again and had to clamp down on her snicker fit. My hottie hunny all holed up. Hehehehe! I really need to do something about my gutter mind.
As she expected, Sunset spotted Twilight with a stylus dangling from her lips while she switched between tablet in hand and the large monitor to her left. Sunset watched quietly as Drago would call out a system and Twilight would quickly glance between the two screens and reply, “check.” The process was repeated seven times before Twilight caught sight of the red head standing near the door with a smirk on her face.
“Oh!”
Drago glanced up at the gasp. “Everything okay, Miss Sunbeam?”
“It’s time for lunch. I wanted to collect my friend before she forgets to eat… again.”
Twilight blushed sheepishly. “I… have been guilty of that in the past.”
“I lost count.”
Twilight nodded and stood and stretched. Sunset arched a brow when she spied Drago eyeing up her wife rather blatantly. When he noticed Sunset observing him his eyes widened and smiled disarmingly. He then found an interesting spot on the ceiling to stare at. Sunset had to admit, it was a cute smile. Not at all like his pilot friend who was likely roaming the halls. Sunset briefly wondered what Drago’s counterpart in Equestria was like. There was something about his features and manner that made her consider that he might be something other than a pony on the other side of the mirror. A curious pondering for another day.
“Let’s grab something and eat while walking. I got a surprise lined up for you that I’ve been planning for more than a week.”
Twilight arched a brow and adjusted her glasses. “What are you up to?”
“It’s a suuuurpriiiiise,” Sunset sing-songed even going so far as to add a sway to her hips once Twilight was in the hall to notice. And notice she did. Sunset smirked mischievously. The weeks without intimate contact had been excruciating for Sunset, but it was endearing to see that her wife was feeling just as starved for contact as she was. That hunger would have to wait to be sated though. Sunset had a special gift to present.
----------
“I… I don’t think I can do this!”
Sunset sighed, but continued to snap the EVA space suit components into place just like she had read about. The directions had been easy to follow even if there were numerous steps that involved checking and double-checking seals. No one wanted to die from decompression because you forgot a snap or did not fully twist-to-lock. That would be embarrassing.
“You’ll be fine.”
“My logic brain knows that, my heart knows that, but tell that to my basal ganglia that is screaming at me this is a bad idea!”
Sunset paused and had to dig deep to understand what her wife was referring to. “That’s a brain thing, isn’t it?”
“The reptilian brain. The part that controls our most basic motor functions and instincts. Survival, reproduction, FEAR.”
“Babe, breathe.”
“I AM BREATHING!”
Sunset sighed, but continued to smile. She knew they were on a time limit, but if she did not calm Twilight down there was no way her plan to show her the stars would work. They were already taking a huge protocol risk by going outside, technically without permission, though Sunset had discussed with her supervisor the possibility of checking some outside panels and wiring junctions just to be thorough. She just had not yet received permission from management and it worked into her gift scheme. Regardless, this was their only chance and opportunity. The reward was worth the risk.
Sunset did a quick check on her own equipment and risked skipping the double-check of her suit seals in order to shove Twilight into the airlock. The moment the door sealed and the station air was pumped into storage tanks Twilight realized they were, in fact, doing this. Her purple eyes were about to pop out of their sockets they were so wide. Sunset tapped on Twilight visor and pointed at the closed circuit frequency on her short range radio.
“Can you hear me?”
Twilight fumbled a bit and then nodded, remembering that the radio on/off switch was in her glove. “Was that all the air?! WE… WE ARE IN VACUUM!”
“Babe, the radio? Yes or no?”
Twilight deadpanned. Her anxiety momentarily evaporated as it was replaced by her blatant annoyance at Sunset's question. “Yes. Obviously. We are talking back and forth. Speaking of which, won’t others hear our conversation as well?”
“Not on this frequency unless they are looking for it. Suit to suit short range bursts. We can switch to the station band if someone pings us though. The controls are on your HUD menu, bottom left. You scroll with your left finger and thumb. It’s actually pretty user friendly, so kudos to whoever designed it. I was playing with them yesterday in my down time to prepare for this.”
Twilight arched an eyebrow and flashed a playful smirk. “Sunset Shimmer planned ahead instead of just ‘wingin’ it?’ Should I be worried?”
Sunset giggled. Immensely pleased that her wife was beginning to adjust to the situation. “It was necessary and honestly kind of fun. This is some really cool tech they came up with, your company or otherwise. Anyhow, from the folks I talked to about going outside it’s important to stay relaxed. So, I need you to stay calm like this and control your breathing, okay?”
Without further delay, Sunset pulled the outer lever and the second hatch opened. She grabbed one of the tether lines and hooked it to her suit by the D-ring that was already in place. After a second, she glanced up to find that Twilight was still by the station hatch. It was difficult to make out her face, but she imagined it was similar to a deer in headlights. Sunset raised her gloved hand, waved it around a few times to get her wife's attention, and then asked, “Do you trust me?”
Twilight nodded though the movement was barely noticeable inside the helmet.
“Then take my hand, Twilight. Let me show you something few have ever seen with their own eyes.” With one last deep breath, Twilight took the offered hand and was pulled from the hatch. Sunset was quick to secure her wife’s safety tether before finally stepping out onto the thin metal walkway platform.
Twilight had tried SCUBA diving a few decades ago. She never qualified for her diver’s certification, but that was mostly due to lack of interest in pursuit than incapability. The water felt strange. It sounded strange, otherworldly. It was nothing compared to what she was feeling now. Diving left her with a sense of claustrophobia. Listening to her own breathing and movements without any surrounding noises was, in fact, deafening. The EVA space suits was all that and more. Twilight felt as if she were on edge of a panic attack and if not for the hand that continued squeezed her own she may have completely lost it. However, despite it all, she did not scream or just screw her eyes closed.
“Twilight.” The scientist looked up at the calling of her true name. They were helmet to helmet. The face masks were intentionally hard to see through and would completely polarize against the solar radiation, but they were currently in the station's shadow. Internal helmet lights allowed Twilight to make out the loveliness of her wife's face. She was smiling, ginning in fact. Amethyst eyes locked with teal. “Look.”
Sunset stepped aside and gestured.
To Twilight’s right were stars. To her left, more stars. There were stars and more stars in every direction. If she could see the other side of the station behind where they were standing, she would see what most only could see in pictures. “The Little Blue Marble” floating in the vastness of the near infinite black abyss. Though in truth, with so many stars, was it really so abyssal?
“Pretty amazing, huh?”
Twilight fumbled again, but finally found her voice after a few seconds. “Yes. And... sorry if I was being a scaredy cat about it. I just... wow...”
Sunset chuckled as she often did when Twilight apologized for something that needed no apology. Instead, Sunset just moved down the maintenance catwalk to where the schematics had said there was a gap. She wanted to see the world. That would make this all worth it.
“Where are you going?!”
Sunset waved Twilight to follow. “To see Earth. I mean, we only got a little glimpse out the window when we docked. I want to see it with my own eyes. Maybe do a perspective pose where it looks like I'm holding the world in my hand and you take a picture of it.”
Twilight was hesitant, but swallowed her fear yet again and followed. All her suit stats were good and she had plenty of air. Though they would need to wrap things up soon or else others will begin to wonder where they ran off to outside the cafeteria. With that sense of urgency and a desire to see the world as well, Twilight moved her safety tether to the new rail and followed.
As Sunset Shimmer had hoped, the gap was enough so they would not have to climb over or cross the station. Eventually, the gap would be filled in as the station expanded and such exposed sections became internalized, but for now it offered a shortcut. She just smiled as the world hung there and slowly spun. Twilight must have still had her radio button depressed because Sunset clearly heard her gasp when she came to a stop next to her wife. Sunset just reached down and took her hand as best she could, waiting silently for Twilight to take it all in.
The L2 Lagrange point was always on the far side of the Earth, away from the Sun. At the angle the station was geo-synchronized at, the world was backlit in a magnificent halo that was nearly impossible to capture with a standard camera due to lighting. And equally as difficult to look away from. The two women standing side by side, far older than any human had any right be, just took it all in quietly, their heavy gloved hands interlocked clumsily if albeit lovingly.
“My God. It's... absolutely… breathtaking,” Twilight finally said with a hitch to her voice.
“Yeah,” Sunset nodded, forgetting again that the fixed helmet did not translate the movement more than a little bit. “Even Mom would have a hard time topping that sort of sunrise.”
“Thank you for this, Sunny. I... I love you.”
“You are very welcome, Twi. And of course, I love you too.” The silence lingered, but it was a comfortable one. Twilight sighed one last time and started to turn back when a glint caught her eye and she looked down and to her left. “You know, I’m going to have a hard time topping this for our wedding anniversary in a few months. We might have to do something really wild or pervers- uh, babe? Where are you going?”
Twilight pointed. “I don’t think that panel is supposed to be open.”
Sunset followed the line of sight and sure enough, there was a small, square hinged junction panel identical to many of the ones inside hanging partly open. “Huh. The last person who did maintenance on it must have forgot to latch it. Good thing the hull has extra layers and is not airtight all over.”
“True, but the outer shell protects many sensitive electronics and wiring and if it has been exposed to extreme cold or solar radiation that could explain some of the issues we have been having. It would be wonderful and so reckless that all these problems could be fixed because of a simple latch!”
“Stranger things have happened. You want me to get it? Electrical is my thing.”
“Twilight had already started to move. “Just hold my line.”
“Uh, sure, but the tether is hooked on so it’s not really ne-”
“Just hold the damn line and make me feel better, Iknowitisnotlogical!”
Sunset chuckled and took a grip on the tether and let it slide through her gloves. “Sure thing, babe.”
Twilight followed the catwalk to the ladder and waited for Sunset to switch the tether anchor point, but never let go of the line, before descending to the open panel. It was an odd place for a junction, Twilight thought. She had to stretch to reach the hinged door. It was almost as if it was not meant to be regularly accessed. Or, maybe my arms are just short. Twilight stretched and felt the strain of the tether.
“Hey! Be careful! If you rip the suit this could get ugly, fast!”
“Is there any way to give me more line? This panel is in a difficult spot and I can't reach.”
Sunset glanced around. It looked like she could attached the clamp to the top rung of the ladder, but if Twilight slipped it could snag and possibly rip a seam. I guess I really am going to have to hold on to her. Mother Celestia, I do not like this idea.
“Yeah. Hold tight, I’m going to move your safety line again and then… shit!”
“W-What?!”
“Someone must have seen us or been listening for radio signals because there's a ping on the open channel. Just let me handle that. I don’t want to get both of us in trouble.” Sunset’s radio clicked over, but she still moved the D-ring clamp to the ladder and then climbed down part way to hold the line as backup.
Twilight let out a breath and a silent thank you that her wife was incredibly capable of multi-tasking. Her attention returned to the panel that she could now stretch for without feeling the unnerving tug of her safety line against the space suit. With a forceful pushed the door swung in to close… only for it bounce back open. The latch did not take. Twilight rolled her eyes. If it had been that easy it would not have been open to begin with. Twilight risked taking one foot off the ladder an put her entire hand on the back of the door and guided it all the way closed. This time, she felt it strike something, but could see that the push lock was just a few centimeters from closed. Something was preventing it from latching all the way.
With a curious tilt of her head, Twilight reached and pulled the panel door all the way open instead. Letting the light from the other side of the station shine upon this mystery.
“Twi! What the hell?! Get back on the ladder!”
“There is something keeping the door from closing.”
“Then let’s go report it so people with the right tools can come do this. We don’t even have a screwdriver with us!”
Twilight ignored the request and inspected the junction closer. She spotted an irregularity immediately. There was something sticking up from the top circuit board. The object reminded Twilight of a small, U-shaped magnet, but not did not make sense. She grasped the object with two fingers and gave it a small tug. It felt as if it moved, but did not come free. Twilight glared at the object, growled under her breath, and then pulled again harder. Adding a little extra back and forth wiggle to her movements. Suddenly, it popped free. However, the extra force and no inertial friction caused Twilight to stumble back losing her footing on the ladder. She flailed with her left hand and missed the ladder rung while still gripping the object tight with her right. Twilight was about to scream when a gloved hand caught hers whipping about and the tether pulled taunt.
“I’ve got you! I’ve got you! Just take it easy.”
Twilight shuddered and nodded, getting her breathing under control. Twilight quickly put the found object in one of the utility pouches and then began to reach out for the panel again.
“Seriously?!”
“I have to close the hatch. We can’t leave it fully open like that. And… I know you have me.”
“Yeah, alright. Just hurry up, please. From what It sounds like we are going to have company at the air lock.”
“Then it’s a good thing we did more than just go sightseeing. Even if it was one heck of a view. Thank you again for this.”
Sunset Shimmer's nerves began to settle as Twilight reached and quickly sealed the panel in question. They both ascended the ladder with Sunset waiting for her wife at the top. They shared one last comfortable moment staring at the world beyond and then Sunset smiled, gently clinked her helmet glass against Twilight’s.
“Anything for you, babe.”
“Except world domination.”
“Except world domination,” Sunset repeated with a knowing smirk.
The pair slowly and carefully made their way back to the airlock and cycled the system to repressurize the chamber. There was movement on the other side of the door, visible through the small view window. A minute later the light turned green and the inner hatch was ready to be unlocked. Unsurprising, someone from the station side pulled the lever first. Equally unsurprising, it was Eagle Eye. However, he was at least not alone. Whether that was a good thing or not would soon be revealed.
The moment Sunset unlatched her helmet the pilot shouted, “What the hell do you think you were doing out there, newbie?!”
“One sec,” Sunset held up a finger to his face and then proceeded to pull her hair free from the tie she had used to secure it back in a ponytail. She happily fluffed it out, the red and yellow locks spilling over the broad suit shoulders. Sunset next turned to Twilight to make sure she was able to successfully remove her own helmet before spinning back around to the irate pilot. “Now, you may ask your question again, but politely this time.”
Eagle Eye’s jaw hung open. He glanced back at the other station supervisors who managed to maintain their equal mixes of curiosity and disapprovals. “Are… are you fucking kidding me with this? Do you know how many safety rules and regulations you just broke?! If we had a brig I would be dragging both your asses to it right about now!”
Sunset shrugged and continued to strip from her space suit, more thankful than ever to have her coverall suit on underneath. The sweat gathering design was more practical than she could have imagined, keeping her cool and dry. “You know, your attitude is really not winning you any points as far me liking you. And let us not forget your many attempts to find your way into my pants. Just saying.”
Drago snickered a bit while Twilight just groaned. Eagle Eye looked like his brain got stuck between gears and Sunset continued before giving him a chance to retort. “Whatever. While I am not sure on the exact number of rules and regulations, sorry about that, I did NOT read the entire book on the flight over, I think it would be more fair to say we BENT rather than BROKE said rules since I DID have a discussion with my supervisor, yeah, that guy, about going outside to check some panels. Mr. Harp, would you be so kind as to vouch for me on that one?”
“It was still under consideration, Ms. Glow.” Harp grumbled.
“But it was the right decision in the end.” All the supervisors and Eagle Eye turned back to Twilight, who had spoken. It was, in a way, as if they were seeing her for the first time. She reached into her storage pouch and retrieved the object she had pulled from the junction panel. “One of the exterior junction panel doors was open. When I went to close it, I found that it would not latch because this piece was keeping it open.”
The supervisors all crowded in and scrutinized the device. Drago gestured to the item and Twilight placed it in his hand. After a quick once over Drago made a face. “Huh. It looks kind of like a micro storage drive, you know. Given the data port connector here, but… way more advanced. I would need to crack it open and see what the guts look like to be sure. And which junction did you find this in?”
“The one down and two the left of the airlock walkway, over to the right of the ladder. A terrible place for, honestly,” Twilight said while pointing.
Drago scrunched up his face again. When annoyed his face reminded Sunset of an angry little hawk. It was kind of adorable and she had to fight to keep the smirk from her face. “There is a backup junction box over there that connects into the entire server network. The door definitely should NOT have been hanging open. That’s some pretty sensitive stuff that could have been exposed to who knows what. Radiation, micrometeors, all kinds of shit like that.”
Twilight elbowed Sunset, who smirked despite the situation. “I told you.”
“So how did it get there?” asked Skymark Blue, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“Drago shrugged. “Could have been during construction, or someone went EVA and installed it. Only two ways it really could have been done.”
“It’s not part of the original design,” Twilight injected. “That I am absolutely positive of. I know this station’s original schematic backwards and forwards. No way I, or anyone else would have missed such a glaring oversight.”
Skymark, Eagle Eye, and Drago all exchanged glances of varying degrees of suspicion and speculation. Such expressions were quick to set off alarms in Sunset’s mind. She in turn glanced to Twilight who winced when she played back her words in her head. When she turned to Sunset, the redhead understood the silent words her eyes were conveying. Twilight was not a good liar, never had been, and was having increasing difficulty keeping all their cover story straight. Sunset smiled warmly and nodded her agreement. It was time to come clean... At least part way. Half-truths always made the best lies because they were, in fact, spiced with the real truth.
It was Eagle Eye who finally asked the big question yet again. “You never answered from before. Why were you out there?”
“Sunny…”
Sunset held up her hand. She would take the lead on the storytelling. “Truthfully, I wanted to see the stars and show them to her. I mean, hello? We're in space! Who would NOT want to want to see it! Finding the junction was just a random coincidence.”
“But if that thing was installed after systems were already online, as I suspect,” Twilight quickly added, “I think that may have been the root of all the system malfunctions we have been experiencing. Like Drago said, we need to have it analyzed to be certain.”
“I’m not sure I want either of you touching any more of our systems. This whole story is starting to smell criminally of fish to me,” said Skymark.
Twilight scowled at the administrator, hard. “Excuse you! I designed or approved over half these system! Do NOT try to pull proprietary or classification rank over me.”
Sunset gently placed a hand on Twilight’s shoulder to reel her wife in. “Look, we have some truths we need to tell you, but not here in the hall. Voices carry.”
Skymark grunted. “Fair enough. My office. NOW.”
Nothing else was said until the administrator’s door was clicked shut and the tumbler lock in place. Skymark gestured to the chairs in front of his desk and Sunset and Twilight took them. Drago found wall space to lean against while Eagle Eye took on a parade rest pose directly behind the two chairs. Once Skymark sat he gestured for the women to continue their story.
Sunset sat forward, having had the last few minutes to get their story in order. She knew Twilight would be able to fill in the gaps to play along if and when necessary. “Okay, first and foremost, we are actually here to help, we are actually qualified to do the jobs we have been doing, and we are not here to make trouble or put anyone in danger.”
“Well, that’s as comforting as a porcupine and what I would expect to hear from anyone caught with their hand in the cookie jar so to say. So do better, Miss Glow. If that is your real name.”
Sunset understood where Skymark was coming from. He was responsible for the lives of everyone aboard the station and with all the issues and system problems they had been experiencing he was likely paranoid as hell, desperate even, to find a cause or culprit. She had to break out more honesty. Applejack would have approved.
Sunset took a deep, calming breath, sat up straight, and locked eyes with the director. “We were added to the roster for this mission at the last minute by Aurora Shimmer. We were personally asked by her to come here and save this station. You can contact the former senator and matriarch of the Sparkle Tech family holdings herself if you like. She will confirm that.”
“I will, once this meeting is over. However, there is still the sticking point that Ms. Shimmer is not in charge of company operations. Why would she ask the two of you directly and bypass standard procedures?”
“She wanted this off the normal books. You’re not the only ones that think this entire issue is some sort of sabotage. You may or may not realize this, but the family sunk vast quantities of their own personal fortune into this project as collateral to get it off the ground.” Sunset gestured to Twilight and herself. “OUR family.”
“OH SHIT!” Drago exclaimed. “I TOTALLY SEE IT NOW!”
“What?”
“Dude! Look at her! She looks almost identical to Sparkle Tech founder, Twilight Sparkle! I think the safety goggles and different hair style were throwing me off, but I see the resemblance!”
Twilight nodded while wondering how much different she actually looked compared to so many years ago. Was she finally showing signs of aging? That curious thought was dismissed for another time. “Yes. We are both related to the family matriarch, Aurora Shimmer.”
“Soooo, you two are what, cousins then? Sisters-in-law?” said Eagle Eye with an arched brow and a scrutinizing gaze that last just to the edge of discomforting. “That would explain the matching wedding rings and the way Sunny there mother hens you. You two had a double wedding, am I right? Rich families love those things.”
Sunset narrowed her eyes momentarily after Eagle Eye had dared to call her 'Sunny', but then cackled internally, especially as Twilight scrunched her face up in the most horrible and hilarious way like she had just bitten into a bad quesadilla. It took several seconds for them both to recompose and Sunset wanted to kiss her wife so badly to make it all better. However, the show must go on.
“Yeeeeeah, something like that,” Sunset finally said. “We were warned to leave our rings at home because they might be noticed, but no way that was happening. Anyhow, it was a secret mission so as to save both public face and the family from potential financial ruin. Both incredibly important things. The plan was once we knew the station was safe were going to ride the next supply shuttle back home and you would never see us again.”
“But we need to confirm the station is actually safe and that whoever installed that device is no longer here to cause additional trouble. And, if possible, find out what it was for to begin with,” added Twilight.
Skymark Blue chewed on the words for a minute before finally throwing his hand into the air. “Alright, what the hell. Let’s check this all out. Drago, you and the heir apparent here find out what that thing is and if our systems are stable. Eagle Eye, take Sunbeam whatever her name is and go comb our records for all the EVA trips since the station came online and see if there is any suspicious activity. Details matter so be thorough. I’ll stay here and keep things running smoothly with the crew. Keep the others off your backs in case there is a traitor and, of course, confirm your stories because you are right, this reeks of corporate or government espionage. Sound like a plan? Can we all get along? Peacefully? Friendship, yay?”
Sunset wanted to roll her eyes having been paired with Eagle Eye, but they were already on thin ice with management. They were well within their rights to have just as easily called security and detained her and Twilight until the end of the mission and handed them over to the authorities once back on Earth. Best to just swallow it and smile, Shimmer.
With nothing else to add, everyone stood and got to work.
Sunset Shimmer had a feeling things were about to get... awkward. Or at the least, uncomfortable. Since the trip began, she and the crew pilot and military attaché, Eagle Eye, had been bumping and grinding in all the wrong ways. The moment he opened his mouth to pry she knew it would not get better, but it was also unavoidable. He was clearly not the type to take everything at face value.
As they traversed the plain halls Sunset made a point to travel either by his side or a step or two behind, but never where she could not see him or that he could eye her up outside of her periphery. Such had been necessary on more than one passing where someone was coming the other direction. Sunset had a sudden and deep desire to detour to her cabin and retrieve her jacket, not because she was cold, but because she wanted to shove her hands into the coat pockets.
Sure, the coverall jump suit had pockets, but it was not the same! They were not at the right height and Sunset always felt a level of aloof comfort from being able to shove her hands into her pockets. She could ball them up in fury. She could flick someone off without making a scene. It was a personal shield made of the finest fake leather and silky smooth satin interior liner, but for Sunset it was armor as powerful as tungsten reinforced titanium. She loved feeling a jacket envelop her. Only Twilight's arms wrapped around her felt better.
“Sooooo…” Eagle Eye began once he had led Sunset back to the prep room for the space suits where it was just the two of them. “You are related to Doctor Twilight Sparkle.”
Sunset sighed. It was a said as a statement not a question. “And?”
“I’m just processing it, you know? That’s big money. Which does explain some of the things about you and what you have said, like having a private pilot's license. Plus, you don’t look anything like her. Unlike your cousin, Starlight, who is like a damn clone of Twilight Sparkle now that I really check her out.”
Sunset bristled, she tried not to, but he was getting on her nerves again. “Please don’t say her name and ‘check her out’ in the same sentence. It makes my eyebrow twitch from the blood pressure.”
“What? I figured you’d be cool with me taking a little interest in her even if you are way, WAY hotter.”
“You really are a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. Did you forget about the wedding bands YOU pointed out? You think these things are just for decoration? They have meaning and are a symbol of commitment and understanding.”
Eagle Eye just chuckled, smiled, and shrugged. “I think you like it. I've got an eye for people and you have this, I dunno, manner about you that says, predatory. Alpha. As if staking your claim on one person is not enough. You know what I'm talking about because I'm the same way.”
Sunset deadpan stared while Eagle stared right back, the smile never leaving his face. “I guess there is no more doubt who blasted, ‘Something to Talk About’ over the PA system in the cafeteria the other day. And not even the original recording, you heathen.”
Eagle just shrugged and moved over to the lockers where the suits were all located. “I plead the Fifth, Your Honor.”
Sunset shook her head and silently scolded herself for smirking before wiping it away with focus on where and what they were doing. After all, there was a potential traitor among the crew and the only one she was one hundred percent certain was on her side was her wife. Sunset stiffened her posture and once again tried to remain indifferent and on her toes. She pointed to all the suits and equipment around them and asked, “Why are we back here?”
Eagle Eye’s face switched to all business mode like the professional he claimed to be as he gestured to the lockers. “As you now know, since deciding to try them out for yourself, there are not enough suits for everyone to have their own. So, anyone who uses them has to find one that fits, then put the suits back in here when done. Everyone up here who is EVA certified already knows that.
"Now, when a suit is used the user is supposed to register their EVA with the station computer along with the logged time outside for company records and for safety concerns. Have to know how many times they have been used in case they need to be serviced or discarded, right?”
Sunset nodded, following along. “Makes sense. All those seal checks and rechecks.”
Eagle Eye gestured to the computer terminal in the corner where the logs were made. “Do me a favor and start combing the back log use starting with that little excursion you just took.”
Sunset found the usage log easy enough and read out loud the suit numbers, the time used and both her and Twilight’s assumed names. All logged in detail. It was more captured information than she had expected the computer to know. She had only typed in hers and Twilight’s fake names in order to open the lockers for the suits that would fit the two of them. Since Aurora had included in their files that they were both certified, nothing had flagged as a warning.
“Good. And thank you for following checkout procedure even if you did not have permission to go outside. Now, you are probably wondering why I asked you for that info knowing it should have been there."
"I am, admittedly, wonder what we are doing and why."
"See, what most people don’t know, because it's NOT in the manual, is that the suits have their own logs that are not found on a screen but are saved into the onboard SSD just like the station computer.” Eagle Eye tapped a few buttons on his phone, that was strapped to his wrist, and it displaced the same information after he accessed the suit’s records. “It’s a match.”
“So now what do we do?”
Eagle Eye put the suit back and pointed to the screen again. “Now we go line by line, suit by suit, and make sure they all match.”
Sunset grimaced and scratched at the side of her head. “What is that going to prove?”
“We are looking for discrepancies. Every ‘approved’ EVA mission is on record. If one is not on record, it’s suspect. If someone deleted the EVA from the computer, it’s suspect. The suits memory can’t be deleted, but say someone fried the suit’s systems to cover their tracks.”
“Got it. Suspect.” Sunset turned back to the computer. “On to the next one…” Sunset paused and glanced over her shoulder to find that her sixth sense suspicions had been correct. “And could you possibly be less obvious at the fact that you are ogling my butt?”
Eagle Eye flashed a toothy grin. “No promises.”
Sunset rolled her eyes. “You’re trying too hard again." This standoff had to end. They needed to work together to find out what was going on and how to save the station. Sunset took a deep, calming breath and sighed. It was time to take a page from Princess Twilight's book on Friendship tactics... which was an actual book in Equestria.
"Look, I’ll be the first to admit I love a, 'roll in the hay' as much as any sexually active adult, but it is really getting pathetic how desperate you are for it. Help me understand so that we can focus. Is this like a sexual conquest thing? ‘I banged all the ladies on the space station! How badass am I? Let me add another notch to my stick’ or something like that.”
Eagle Eye chuckled lightly, moving to the next suit and accessing its onboard SSD without pause. “At first, sure. I saw you walking my way across the dock and airfield and I said, I would love a piece of that ass. Hands down, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. And I have traveled and been deployed all over the world, so I have seen A LOT of women. But there is something special about you. You are… different.
"You’re drop dead gorgeous, no question of that. A fucking goddess. Fifteen out of ten. Every college and academy boy’s pin up dream poster and not all cleaned up and modded afterwards like most of the lingerie and swimsuit girls these days. I can tell by the way you carry yourself. You are all natural… or at least have gotten so used to the way you look, you know how to make it look, ‘natural.’ But to be able to grab that hundred under that may Gees… there is NO WAY you should have been able to do that.”
Sunset paused to turn to stare flatly, pokerfaced at the pilot while at the same time she knew her hands were beginning to sweat and the muscles in her neck were tightening up. He was dangerously close to the truth and it was tripping Sunset’s fight or flight instincts like a buzzing in the back of her brain. Play it cool, Shimmer. There is nowhere to run and even if he somehow knows the truth it would serve him no benefit to tell others… unless he is planning to blackmail me into sex, which is a possibility. Meh. I'll cross that bridge if I have to if it means protecting Twilight. Or… he’s actually a government spy. That would be VERY bad. But as I understand they do like to draw from military personnel and he is a military attaché go-between for the company and the government. No, there is no way he knows about Equestria or who I really am. Otherwise, Twi and I would have been arrested and detained long before now if that were the case. He’s just trying to get into my head. Not happening, flyboy. Just play the game, just like Mom taught you. Observe, calculate, execute. Just like chess.
Sunset casually wiped her hands on the back of her jump suit knowing the material would absorb the sweat like it was designed to do. She shrugged nonchalantly and commented casually, “Then how did I do it?”
Much to Eagle Eye's credit, he too shrugged without showing any signs of aggression or concern. “If I were to guess, some sort of body modifications. It’s not unheard of if still highly experimental and illegal in a number of places. But now that I know you come from money it makes such a possibility plausible. Money makes the world go 'round, sure. But money like the Sparkles have means you can do more than have the perfect body to look at, which you do, but also one that is stronger than normal.
"Gene therapy, nano tech bionic enhancements, carbon fiber bone wraps, bioengineered extra adrenal glands for quick bursts of added strength. I’ve read more than a few science papers and theories on it and how governments are trying to find ways to make soldiers bigger, stronger, faster, deadlier, and all that. The next evolution of humanity, the merging of organic and machine. Some scarry sci-fi shit, honestly.
"Others want it for more mundane things like boosted athletes. But sports associations have been dealing with people cheating any way they can since sports began. Nothing new there. Not sure if you were a victim or you chose to be this way, but yeah, back to your original question, I’m personally curious what the limits of your strength and stamina are. Call me stupid or naughty or whatever, but I like to push the limit of what it means to be human. You want to be the best? You find the best and challenge them.”
Sunset could respect that idea if not the man it was coming from. She had been guilty of being a bit of an adrenaline junkie and pushing her limits as well. While 'usually' taking all the necessary precautions, Sunset had tried most of the typical daredevil rushes such as skydiving, base jumping, and high speed racing both on and offroad. She was an alicorn, one of the most powerful magical creatures to ever exist and much of that power stayed with her in the human world following her ascension making her stronger and faster than almost any human alive. As Twilight had told her more than once, magic flowed through her veins even if she could cast no spells in her current form. So, in a way, Eagle Eye was right. She had been modified, but not in any way he could have imagined.
Sunset Shimmer examined her hand. Over them many decades she had scraped knuckles, cut skin while working or working on art projects or even accidentally while carving up a vegetable or two. And yet... they had all healed leaving only flawless goldenrod skin. She did not even need moisturizer in the wintertime, for Celestia's sake!
Sunset closed her fist tightly and then open again. Sometimes, without actively thinking about it or if hungover or overtired, Sunset found herself crawling about on the floor as if her hands were hooves. Twilight had caught her doing it more than once. I sometimes forget what my hooves feel like. I sometimes forget that I’m a pony at all and… there was a time that such a thought would have horrified me down to my soul. But… the longer I stay here, the more I fall in love with this world and my family here, the more I feel detached from Equestria. Sure, I used to dream what it was like to be an alicorn, but I still to this day question whether I deserved it and what it all means. Did ascension mean the fulfillment of my destiny or was it only the beginning? Do I even still have a destiny? Sweet Mother of Mine, forgive me. I’m as human now as I am pony.
Only the two Twilights, her mother, and her Aunt Luna knew the whole truth of how Sunset became an alicorn. The truth that even their daughters did not know. Twilight, her wife, was the last non-Equestrian that had been there that day when Sunset had ascended and fallen out of that broken portal a bloodied and battered mess. That was one of the many things she loved so much about her beloved wife, Twilight Sparkle. Magic had touched her too even if they were not entirely sure how. Magic was sustaining both of them.
Sunset smiled mostly to herself, even if the man on the other side of the room could see it and draw his only conclusions what that smile meant. They shared one thing in common. That was enough for a foundation in which friendship was possible. Sunset also loved to push the limits of herself physically, but it was her beautiful wife who was always challenging Sunset’s mind, keeping her sharp and simultaneously grounded. No other being could possibly understand what that was like after so many years. At least no other being on this side of the mirror that is.
Sunset Shimmer shook her head and turned back to the screen. She said quietly, but clearly, “You’re right about a number of things, but still so wrong. I shouldn't tell you anything about it, but, I dunno, sometimes it's good to talk." Sunset examined her hand again, eyes lingering on her titanium wedding band and the red ruby tension setting. "Really long story short, my mother needed a weapon to fight a battle she did not want to fight herself. I was to be that weapon. But she balked part of the way through and when I was a bratty teenager I ran away. We didn't talk for a long time, but eventually, I got in with the right crowd and they set me straight. Even reconciled with mom. I may be different than most, but I'm still flesh and blood wrapped around a soul just like everyone else. just understand you don’t want to get on my bad side, Eagle Eye. You might get burned.”
Eagle Eye grunted in response. “I'm sorry. No one should be used by their own parents that way. It's just wrong, even if they meant well or the 'greater good' or something. As far as your bad side? Meh, we’ll see.”
Sunset flashed a wry grin. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with fire? You must love the idea of getting hurt.”
“Probably about as much as you love all that old music I sometimes hear you playing.”
“Classic. Not OLD.”
Eagle Eye moved to the next suit. “Whatever, grandma. Probably wearing granny panties to go along with that old people music. Beige and boring.”
Sunset rolled her eyes. I know I’m walking into his trap, but he’s not getting the last jab on this one. “Black, low rise thong, with a little frilly lace at the waistband. Not that you will get to see them, but juuuuust picture it and try to focus on the task while my ass is sticking out here and I’m staring at this screen.”
Eagle Eye arched a brow and grinned. “Oh, OH! Now I always heard women hated thongs because they ride up your butt crack. So, why would you wear a thong up here where your husband can’t see and enjoy it?”
Sunset shrugged, continuing to lean over the computer station with back arched and rear accentuated. “I’ll let you in on a little secret that all women already know. ALL women's underwear rides up your butt crack regardless of how much coverage they offer. Thongs just do it with style and I’ve got the ass for it. So why not?”
“Got it,” Eagle Eye said with a laugh and a shake of his head. “Damn, you are an evil woman. You win. Let’s move to the next one.”
----------
Twilight Sparkle had returned to the server room where she had been for the last two weeks so many times that half the room started to smell like her. Or maybe it was just the computers, stale coffee, and recycled air. Regardless, Twilight had asked Drago to grab a set of fine tools from the storage locker so that they could begin their examination of the odd storage device she had found. Before he returned however, there was a knock on the server room door.
“Hey, you guys, mind if I join you this round? I feel like I'm losing my tech touch running errands for everyone and just playing armchair backup quarterback.”
Twilight blinked and shook her head. “Oh! Not at all, Spacer. In fact, we could use the extra set of eyes on the station systems while Drago and I work on a small side project. In case things start acting up again.”
Carbon “Spacer” Date was not overly fond of his name, as he had told more than one colleague. However, having one’s name legally changed was a hassle and it always made his mom frown when he brought it up, but nicknames were easy and free. So, Carbon introduced himself as Spacer to everyone that was not family. And the name eventually stuck.
It was common knowledge that Spacer came from a family of accomplished scientist and teachers, hence the name, and hope that he would follow in their footsteps. It was safe to say that nearly every member of his family had done well for themselves. Here he was in space with Sparkle Tech, the world's leading tech and innovation company. He could easily say he had done well too.
From what Twilight had been told by Drago, Spacer was an excellent computer engineer and programmer. (Not as good as him, of course.) Twilight appreciated talking shop with both of them since even Sunset, though polite about it, had difficulty following all of Twilight’s gushing about advanced quantum computing and mathematical programming.
The thin, young man with blue skin and reddish brown hair took a chair and brought up a screen to monitor the station's systems and operations. So far, all the line items were acting as they should and were highlighted green. Twilight knew they would still have to go through, for the twentieth time, and check each sensor one by one. It would probably be faster to just reinitialize from scratch, but that would require shutting down vital systems such as ventilation and the gyrocycle. That was a last resort option and needed to be avoided if possible.
“So,” Spacer said, cracking his knuckles, “Whacha working on now?”
Twilight was about to reply when Drago waltz back in with a small tool bag. “Sorry I took so long. I had to find the one with the smallest screwdrivers and we needed rubber gloves in case there is static discharge.”
“It’s not a problem. I was just about to set up the work bench. Oh, and Spacer is going to monitor systems for us while we work so that we can focus.”
Drago glanced to his right and waved, “Sweeeet.”
Once both Twilight and Drago had static free gloves and goggles on they carefully got to work examining the device. Twilight held up a finger and quickly set out her phone, opening an app. “I’m going to record this for documentation reasons. Is that okay?”
Drago nodded. “I'm sure corporate will have questions, so yeah. Plus, it makes me feel like a doctor.” Twilight giggled and Drago felt his insides turn to goo at the adorableness of it. It was absolutely unfair that a grown woman could be that beautiful, intelligent, and cute all at the same time. He wanted to comment how lucky her husband must be, but swallowed that before it made things awkward.
“Science station log. Doctor Twi- er, Starlight Moondance recording alongside Chief Computer Technician, Mister Drago Lu Jan. Approximately two hours ago, local time, a foreign object was located and removed from an exterior maintenance panel near starboard side airlock two. It has since been confirmed that said panel is a major junction to all station operating systems, mechanical and computer controlled. We are about to disassemble said object in an attempt to determine its purpose and possible origin manufacturing.”
“Your tools, doctor,” said Drago, doing his best impersonation of a prime time drama medical assistant.
“Thank you. To begin with, multiple visual examinations have revealed no markings or clues to origin on the exterior casing. However, there is a seam that, if careful, I should be able to split apart the casing. This, of course, comes with the small risk of damaging the internal components, but they can be reassembled if need be.”
“Sorry, guys, I need to runout. I think lunch is not agreeing with me,” said Spacer holding his sides as he scurried from the room.
“Uhhhh…” Drago balked. “I guess we can edit that part out later.”
Twilight nodded. “Right. Anyhow. Let’s begin.”
---------
Skymark Blue unlocked a drawer on his desk once everyone had left his office. He kept a few important items in that particular drawer. Some of the things he had were not forbidden, but he did not want them to go missing. Others were strictly against the rules, but rank had its privileges and he had earned the right to bend said rules after more than twenty years diligently climbing the corporate ladder.
Near the front of the drawer was a well read and worn King James Bible, an emergency packet of cyanide pills, a small caliber, conceal carry pistol, and most important, a direct link sat-phone that could call anyone in the world by bouncing off a network of satellites in orbit. It was, however, for emergencies only because it was incredibly expensive to use even if it was on the company’s dime. He considered the possibility of sabotage and foreign agents on his station a justifiable emergency and such would be in his next month's expenditure report.
As the current station director, Skymark had an entire list of contacts he could have called. He knew who he should have called first, but instead was feeling generous and decided to just check the story the two women had recited for shits and giggles. It would be worth it either way the wind blew. With that in mind, Skymark called the corporate switchboard.
“Sparkle Tech, how may I direct your call?”
“This is Administrator Skymark Blue, EM number: Alpha, Alpha, Golf 19605. I need to speak to primary shareholder Aurora Shimmer and I do not have her direct line or personal phone number. Please connect me.”
“One moment while I check your credentials.”
“Please be quick, this is sat-phone call that is on the company expense reports.”
Much to her credit, the receptionist took only a minute to clear the red tape. “Thank you for your patience, Administrator. You are on Ms. Shimmer's approved call list. Transferring you now, sir.”
Skymark grunted but nodded approvingly. Now he just had to hope the old woman whom he had only met twice would actually pick up. After three rings he heard the line connect.
“Shimmer.” The voice said without preamble. It was elderly, but strong and healthy with an edge to it.
“Senator, I apologize for bothering you. I kno-”
“Get to the point, Skymark. I know this call was routed through corporate servers and it’s the EL Two sat-phone. What’s the problem?”
Skymark had always heard that ‘Ms. Shimmer’ was harder than steel and carried her balls around in her purse and was not afraid to use them. Judging by the clipped, precise response, those comments had been completely true. “Yes, ma’am. I need to confirm that you sent two corporate agents as part of the crew of the last MAUV supply flight.” There was a groan… no an undertone growl followed by a tired sigh.
“You just had to get noticed, didn’t you? You stupid ass, winged horse goddess.”
Skymark blinked. “Um, pardon?”
“I have to assume you are referring to two women by the names of Sunbeam Glow and Starlight Moondance, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Before I continue, understand, Administrator, this conversation did not happen and I will have the server recordings and call log records scrubbed as soon as the call ends. Yes, I inserted the two women, who are family members of mine, into the rosters for the purpose of getting them onto the station so as to keep it from falling from the sky, which hopefully is going according to plan. Understand that it was my decision alone and that neither the CEO nor my son know about this and it will remain as such for everyone’s safety including yours and the two women I just named. If I find out you did speak to anyone else on this matter you can kiss more than your job goodbye, do you understand? Does that meet your satisfaction?”
Skymark chewed on his lip for a second. He might as well ask. “I’m not a big fan of surprises, senator, but I understand the discretion. I just need to know, are they the real deal? Can they fix this thing or are they just spoiled rich brats up here to sightsee and complain about the food?”
“Well, one might still complain about the food, but that's a vegetarian for you. Trust me to the fullest when I say they are two of the smartest and most capable people on the planet and were completely necessary to save all your asses and jobs. Give them full access to whatever they ask for… not that you could stop them if you tried. Again, trust me on that one. If they want into something, whether it is our systems or a heaping pile of deep shit, they are going to get into it.”
“Well, you paint a lovely visual.”
“I’ve known them my whole life. They are persistent and stubborn with a magic all their own. They will get the job done or die trying. Is there anything else, Administrator?”
“No, thank you.”
“Then I’ll let you get back to it. Good luck.”
Skymark heard the line disconnect. He glanced down at the phone and sighed. He then put it back in the drawer and pulled out one last hidden item from the back of the compartment. A small bottle to bourbon whiskey kept inside a box. He took a large gulp of the amber spirit and quickly replaced the bottle, locking it back up with all his other personal items.
Slowly, carefully, Twilight Sparkle worked the tiny screwdrivers in her hands back and forth over the seam of the plastic casing of the unusual electronic device on the table under the work lamp. Fellow computer technician, Drago, was standing by, unsure if he should instead return to monitoring the station’s systems for anomalies since all he was currently doing was staring intriguingly at the work the lithe woman was doing and, guiltily, sneaking the occasional glance at the curvature of her bottom. He knew he shouldn’t, but… Damn, she is so cute while working.
“Drago, I need something to hold this gap. Nonconductive, like a plastic or ceramic wedge.”
“Uh, sure… hold on.” Twilight tried to glance back, but did not want to risk damaging the object or lose the opening she had, but needed to rest her hands. A moment later, Drago squeezed up next to Twilight and inserted a folded up playing card.
Twilight blinked a few times. She felt herself blush against her desires. While she had no sexual interest in men, the body heat and breath brushing against the bare skin of her neck reminded Twilight of Sunset and how much she missed her wife’s touch. Twilight quickly drew back to hide her flushed features, pushing her prescription goggles up onto her forehead to rub her eyes. “O-oh, yes. That will work. I just… I need a second before diving back in.”
“I’m sorry,” Drago immediately said in a voice just above a whisper. “I got too close, didn’t I? I… that was wrong of me.”
Twilight rubbed the back of her neck, but smiled. She took a moment to clean the lenses on her goggles before replacing them. “It’s okay. You didn’t… Drago, I haven’t asked because I felt it might be inappropriate, but are you married or seeing someone?”
Drago blinked a few times, completely taken by surprise at the question and polite tone it was asked. “Oh, um… no. Not married. I’ve dated a few people, one I thought was going to be the one, but she flaked when I proposed to her. It was pretty embarrassing actually, but thankfully was not a big public proposal or anything horrifying like that. Still messed up my emotions and how to read people. Probably more than I wanted to admit and why I threw myself fully into work as far away from, ‘normal people’ as possible. Oh, look, space station job! That sounds like fun!”
Twilight smiled warmly and returned to the table, retrieving her tools. “I know I may not look it, but I have been married for a long time now. Insert the cliche comment of, 'I'm older than I look' here because it's still true. Though we did not get married until after we graduated college, we had been in love since the end of high school. My reaction was instinctive. I think I can safely speak for both of us when I say we get used to always having someone near. Feeling their warmth, smelling their scent. It has honestly been hard these last few weeks. Like going through chemical withdraw, which in a way, is still accurate given the hormones and brain chemistry neurotransmitters that are released during sex annnnnnd I’m rambling.”
Drago smiled politely. Twilight had to admit, he had an adorable, friendly smile that reminded her of Timber Spruce, but not in a bad way. That kind understanding and willingness to listen to her ramble. Still, given that her thoughts had wandered in such a direction she felt it was time to clear the air and get that little white lie off her chest.
“I need to be honest with you about something that I should have come forward with from the beginning.”
“Sure.”
Twilight turned inward, taking a deep breath before turning to meet his golden colored eyes. “I have been enjoying our time together and you are a sweet, intelligent man. I would have been honored to date you had some situational things been different,” Drago nodded, knowing there was a “but” coming. “But I am married to the most magical and amazing woman on the face of the planet. She is my everything and I love her more than all the technology and science that has or will ever exist.”
Drago blinked and his mouth hung open briefly. “Oh… OH! I follow. Not sure why you felt a need to lie about that to begin with, but now I get it and feel terrible for assuming a lot of things… annnnnd shit. Eagle Eye was right.”
“Huh?”
Drago cringed a bit, but still smirked sheepishly and chuckled. “My buddy, Eagle Eye, insinuated that you and Sunbeam were lovers…. Wait….” Drago’s eyes turned to Twilight’s left hand. “Same rings. Duh! That should have been my first guess.”
Twilight smirked and nodded. “Now do you understand?”
“Yeah.” Drago chuckled again. “If it’s appropriate to say, you have very good taste.”
Twilight giggled. “I like to think she does as well.”
“Oh, for sure!”
With that weight off her chest, Twilight resumed her work of opening the palm sized device, which finally split open with a small crack sound like an eggshell. She had briefly sucked in a breath thinking she had broken something vital, but there were some inner workings and a few LEDs that were still on. One even looked like a miniature isotope heater to keep the circuitry at optimal temperature. Twilight gestured for Drago to take a closer look.
“What does that look like to you?”
Drago once again leaned in next to Twilight, but neither felt the previous discomfort or anxiety of proximity as their eyes were transfixed on the complexity of the small device before them. Drago adjusted his glasses that tried to slip down his nose. Now he understood why his fellow computer guru was wearing goggles instead.
“Well, those are obviously the processors given the amount of gold and soldering on the connectors, but they look like that are a made of glass, which can’t be right.”
“Could be iridium structured core, dense, but looks like glass.”
Drago nodded. “That’s definitely an onboard battery and I can see some signs of internal power, like the heater and lights... but what is that?”
“That,” Twilight paused to make sure he was following her eyes, “is a synthetic quartz dodecagon solid state memory storage unit. And that small armature is likely the laser used to etch the stored information.”
“No… that’s not possible. That… for fuck’s sake, that’s insane! Do you have any idea how experimental that is? How much something like that would cost?! Holy Cowbell, the laser alone would have required one processor just for itself and more power than that battery could pump out! It had to have been drawing power from the connection. What the hell is this thing?!”
Twilight reached into the pocket of her jumpsuit and extracted a small device that she extended and began examining the confounding electronic device closer. Drago was right. This technology was still experimental. She had seen some drawings in Sparkle Tech's classified R&D folders of similar ideas, but nothing in the testing phase yet.
“Do you always carry a compact microscope with you?”
Twilight arched a brow and smirked slyly. “Well, yeah. Don’t you?”
“I’ve been out-nerded… And I feel completely fine with this.”
Twilight giggled before returning the microscope to her pocket. “If I have to hypothesize, I think it is safe to say that this device was designed to be attached to the station at that specific junction for the purpose of penetrating our systems and collecting as much information as possible while also either stress testing for weaknesses or using said weaknesses to throw us off of its data collection function.”
“But we swept the systems multiple times! Even reinstalled them from startup backups. We would have found a breach… right?”
“Not it if knew we would do that and could cover its tracks all the way back to this thing every time. It removed itself completely to avoid our system wipes with the backups.”
Drago felt his stomach drop out and a chill run up his spine. “Hold up. You are saying not only is this thing one of the most advanced hack and slash storage devices ever made, but that it has an adaptable central processor that learned to get around us? You know what that means, right?”
Twilight nodded. “Of course. Advanced artificial intelligence programming. Most likely funded and created by a rival corporation, country, or both. It is likely still rudimentary in its independent thought parameters, but I could be wrong. There is no telling how long this has been in secret development. We have our own teams working on similar projects, but under tremendous restriction and government oversight. Rogue AI and AI for warfare are serious hot button issues across the entire globe and have been for more than two decades. Which has both stunted their ethical development and testing and made illegal development desirable. Things like this are why I personally refuse to allow my research or other Sparkle Tech departmental R&D to be used for war or espionage. The ease in which it can be abused is... it hurts my soul to think about.”
“Huh, didn’t know you had that kind of pull with the corporate higher ups. But then again, you are related to the founding family so, that makes sense. I appreciate the moral integrity even if no one else does because there is a LOT of money to be made in military development. Personally though, this kind of stuff scares the shit out of me. I’ve seen waaaaaay too many ‘AI destroy all of humanity’ movies to be comfortable with fully sentient machines.”
“It’s not the machine’s fault," Twilight snapped. "We made them. We tell them what to do. It is, therefore, our responsibility to make sure they are developed ethically and, as you said, with integrity. They cannot possibly understand right and wrong if we do not explain it to them, show them why it is important to care. They are not just tools to be used and discarded.” Twilight chewed on her lip a moment. She knew she was dangerously close to revealing who she actually was. In addition, Drago was treading on a topic that was close to her heart that she had argued at length on to Aurora and, through email chains, with the other development teams, shareholders, and corporate suits. Sunset had been a saint of a wife and had listened patiently to Twilight rant and rave on more than one occasion about how frustrating it was to work in the shadows remotely and relinquish a great deal of direct control of the company she had founded out of their garage and molded into one of the largest advanced technology developers in the world. Twilight was constantly worried about what the future would bring and whether she would be able to help shape it.
“Regardless, we know this was the cause of the station issues and this data crystal cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of another. I should probably destroy it, but I want to analyze what it was collecting first. That would give us a clue to its goals.”
“Do you think the program is in there right now? We never did find it during all our system restarts or scans.”
Twilight took the crystal between two of her fingers and tore it free from the housing, placing the casing into her empty pocket for study later. “I can’t imagine it would be anywh-”
Half the station warning lights went red and alarms began to sound.
Drago stumbled back and jumped into his station chair. He quickly brought up the station monitors and was glad the jumpsuits absorbed bodily fluids because he was certain he pissed himself for a second. “Oh shit! The whole station is going into systematic failure!”
Twilight glanced down at the crystal in her palm. “Oh no. It was still wirelessly connected! When it lost contact with its hardware it must have triggered a freakout or failsafe it left behind! I should have scanned it for a broadcast signal! Stupid, Sparkle, stupid!”
“I’m trying to isolate the core systems but it’s sending everything into corrupt failure! I, I think it’s deleting it’s tracks and all the operational program code with it! It’s lobotomizing the station systems!”
“But why would it do that?!”
“Like he said,” Drago and Twilight turned to see Spacer standing at the doorway, holding onto the door frame with one hand and a pistol in the other, “to cover its tracks.”
---------
Sunset Shimmer and Eagle Eye were marching down the corridor side by side. After finding the elusive anomaly they had been looking for, the pilot called Administrator Skymark to ask where Carbon “Spacer” Date was. After overhearing he was likely in the server room where Twilight was it took every ounce of restraint Sunset had to not sprint down the corridors in a manner that would have made Rainbow Dash proud, leaving burn marks on the plascrete floor.
However, Eagle Eye had cautioned restraint since they did not want to give away to their quarry that they knew he had conducted an unscheduled EVA and had deleted it from the system but not the suit memory. The timing was also damning evidence since the first system glitches had been recorded two days after said EVA. Sunset wanted to roll her eyes and laugh, but deferred to caution only because she was more than aware that when cornered, people did stupid, desperate things. There was a sledgehammer on display at her old house, behind glass that had once served as a daily reminder to stop and think things through.
Her feeling of rational calm was soon interrupted however when all the hall lights went dark and emergency floor lighting kicked on. The blaring warning klaxon that sounded like any number of space sci-fi films Sunset had seen did nothing to sooth her rising anger and frustration and whoever installed it should have been punched in the face for thinking it was a good idea.
“That’s a bad sound!” Sunset growled.
“Yeah.”
Nothing else needed to be said. The pair picked up the pace as they jogged for the server room while Skymark’s voice came over the PA system. “All personnel proceeded slowly and cautiously to your designated muster points for station wide emergency! This is not a drill! Do not gather personal items, do not divert for other personnel. Again, this is not a drill!”
As Sunset rounded the last corner to the server room, she caught the glimpse of someone moving into the room. Her instincts screamed to take caution in the back of her head. Sunset held up her arm in a stop gesture and Eagle Eye immediately slowed. His own instincts and intuition followed suit. The two pressed themselves against the wall and slowly crept closer to the doorway.
If it had been someone coming to warn Twilight and the others to evacuate they would have emerged seconds later. But the seconds ticked by. Then, Sunset heard her wife’s voice. Loud and decidedly irritated.
“You have GOT TO BE FRELLING KIDDING ME?!”
Spacer scowled, but did not lose his resolve. “It was not supposed to be like this. Just give me the memory crystal and I promise you’ll never see me again.”
“This isn’t the Death Star! Real people’s lives are in danger! Why would you do something like this?!”
Spacer raised the gun out at arm’s length. Drago was still sitting with his hands up, his eyes constantly shifting back to the screens that were communicating increasingly bad news by the second. “I don’t need to explain myself, but since you asked, mostly for money. But also for a chance to stop being in everyone’s shadow. Maybe you understand, being descended from a real genius, but I’m not interested in talking more. I just want what I came for and then I’m out of here.”
“We’re in space! How exactly are you planning on getting ‘out of here’ as you so put it?”
Spacer growled. “Escape pods, duh! I reprogrammed one to a different splash location more than a week ago. Now, stop stalling or I will shoot! I don’t want to, but I will!”
Sunset had heard enough. Before Eagle Eye could grab her arm, Sunset stepped into the room and raised her fist to punch Spacer in the head. If he had been facing completely away it might have been a good sneak attack. However, he had caught a glimpse of movement in his peripheral. Spacer quickly turned, his finger squeezing the trigger on reactive instinct without really thinking or aiming, but he held the weapon firmly against jumping out of his hand.
Several things happened in the span of only a few seconds.
Gunshots, even small caliber pistols, in a small room, especially well insulated ones, are painfully deafening. The sudden flash that accompanied the shot in the semi-dark room made it irrefutable that the gun had been fired. Twilight knew she was fine beyond her ringing ears because Spacer had turned suddenly, bringing the weapon around with him. The next thought that occurred to Twilight after, ‘I’m okay’ was that someone else was not. Her purple eyes went wide when she recognized that wavey mane of red and yellow fire in the low light.
“OH MY GOD! SUNSET!”
Sunset Shimmer had been hurt before. Quite badly, in fact. Her mind provided a mental image of a shadowy pony demon that had impaled her with a dark magic lance that actually started to climb up inside her ruptured organs. That had felt like acid coated shards of glass being forced inside her body in the most violating way imaginable. She had taken a few hard hits and kicks during combat training in both human self defense and as a pony with the royal guard, which had also included horn blasts of varying degrees of power. They had all hurt in to one degree or another.
In all honesty, Sunset had wondered in that moment how had Spacer managed to sucker punch her from two meters away when she had the element of surprise? Then, Sunset realized her ears were still ringing painfully and there was a sharp pain between her ribs just below her right breast. Sunset stumbled back and hit the cage that was protecting the server stacks. She stumbled over her own feet that felt jelly like and fell to the ground.
Eagle Eye stepped in and found himself face first with the barrel of a small, semiautomatic pistol. He wanted to press his luck and do a fake, maybe get grazed during a second shot, but still close the distance and disarm Spacer. He wanted to check on the woman who was sitting on her bottom with a clearly dazed expression, her brain trying to process the shock her body was going through. However, his eyes were locked on that black abyss of a gun barrel. It shook, but only slightly. Logic, realization, and training set in. Spacer had firearms training. He was a tech, a nerd, but he was not helpless and not ignorant of what he was doing. Desperate, perhaps. But not some scared college kid who would lose his focus at someone shouting 'BOO' really loudly. Eagle Eye, reluctantly, stayed where he was and raised his hands. He would bide his time and have to hope the fire haired woman whom he had come to respect was as tough as she came off being.
“SUNNY! SUNNY! Oh, God! Are you okay?!”
Spacer swung the gun back towards Twilight and she gasped and jumped back a step, eyes wide. “Crystal! NOW!” Eagle started to move. Spacer swung the gun back. “Don’t.” For extra precaution, Spacer back up to the server cage, closer to Drago who was still sitting. He brought the gun around again and pointed it at the back of Drago’s head, pressing down hard enough to make the other tech wince. “I don’t need him alive to get what I want. There is nothing on there that is worth dying for. Just give it to me, dammit!”
“Dude! Don’t you get it?” shouted Drago, clenching his teeth, pointing at the monitor with his hands still raised. “That thing is deleting ALL the system software! Including the guidance information needed for the escape pods to fly! Even if you reprogrammed one it just deleted that information too! Whoever made it didn’t want ANYONE to find out what they did and that means killing all of us! If they gave you a time window to escape it is now gone.”
“Y-You’re lying!”
Drago screwed his eyes shut as he felt the barrel press harder against the back of his skull where it met the spine. His only prayer was that it would kill him quickly before he felt any pain or bled out.
“He’s not lying,” Twilight said as calmly as she could, hands up defensively, eyes shifting rapidly between Spacer and Sunset. She wanted nothing more than to rush to her wife who was struggling to get back to her feet, clearly in excruciating pain, but any sudden movement could spook Spacer into shooting her or Sunset again and she did not have the benefit of alicorn resilience. They were not immortal. Twilight was fairly certain of that. “I can show you what Drago is talking about, but the longer we do nothing the harder it will be for me to stop and fix this.”
Spacer pointed the gun at Twilight again. “Shut up and let me think! Dammit! Why didn’t you just give me the damn crystal?! Why did you yank it out to begin with?! This is all your fault!”
“HEY!” Spacer almost pulled the trigger again and swung the gun back to Eagle Eye first, who looked poised to pounce. Then to the one who had shouted. Much to his surprise, the tall, amazon woman was back on her feet, even if just barely. “You keep that gun pointed at me, asshole.”
“Sunny, don’t…”
“I’m telling you right now, you point that gun at her again I will attack you, I will break every bone in your hand, then I will take that gun and shove it up your ass and pull the trigger. Repeatedly. So, you let them work to save this station, including your miserable life, and we talk like adults. Otherwise, say a prayer and be prepared to die very badly.”
Twilight met Sunset’s eyes. She could see the irises were glowing bright teal, accentuated by the dim ambiance of the emergency lighting. Spacer and likely Eagle Eye had to be seeing it as well even if they had no idea why or how. The two women held each other’s gaze for reassuring comfort and to communicate silently about how the other was handling the situation. Twilight could feel her heart pounding with fear and adrenaline, beating like a drum in her ears and briefly, she wondered, if her own eyes were glowing as anger stewed and boiled from her bowls to her chest.
Slowly, so as to not spook Spacer into shooting again, Twilight reached into her work bag with one hand while keeping the other up. She extracted her work computer and a connector cable. “I can reprogram the system, rewrite most of the code from memory, but the rogue AI needs to be stopped or slowed down at the least. I have a plan that MIGHT work. However, I need to start right now before we lose a vital system.”
Spacer chewed on his lip, growling under his breath. “How about I just take the shuttle? Eagle Eye is a pilot. I can take all of you with me as my hostages.”
“You would have to shoot me too. I’m not leaving all these people to die and I assure you, the moment I have an opportunity, I too would shove that gun up your ass and pull the trigger.”
“God dammit!” Spacer shouted. “Fine! Fix it! Then… then I want that crystal and I’m out of here!”
Twilight forced down her darkness, her anger and indignation to the whole situation cried afoul and demanded revenge for the pain her wife was going through, but she ignored it and spun around, plugging her computer into the mainframe and quickly tapped the side of her goggles to log in. She had to get into the right head space. She had to focus and could not think about Sunset Shimmer at the moment no matter how much her heart was pounding near through her chest cavity. Or how she wanted to rip the traitor limb from limb if only she had her… Twilight shook her head. God dammit, go away! I can’t deal with you right now!
Still, she needed to hear that voice, for comfort and support. “Sunny? How are you doing back there?”
Sunset watched her wife get straight to work and risked a smile that the purple skinned genius could not currently see. “Working my magic, babe. You just focus on working yours.”
Twilight scoffed and barked a harsh laugh to hide the sniffle and growl of frustration that dared to escape as she fought desperately to bury her emotional turmoil under her preferred distraction, science and technology. “That’s actually funny. I was just thinking if I had my magic this would have been over before it began.”
“Heh.” Sunset cringed and hissed after letting out a small laugh. “Y-Yeah. A little levitation, m-maybe throw some stuff around the room. Gooooood times.”
Or break his arms and shoulders, maybe tear his head clean off… Twilight ignored the dark cackle in the back of her mind and quickly accessed the program she was looking for. A window popped up on screen that started off by saying hello to her, displaying a digital emoji smiley face. Drago carefully leaned over to see what she was doing, waiting to help in any way he could. Twilight typed back a hello and a few commands.
“Honestly, I think we could have used a little empathy about now too. Some understanding, don’t you think?”
Sunset smiled more genuine, her vison trying to blur around the edges, but she blinked it away. Eagle Eye, however, groaned and rolled his eyes. “Oh, dammit. Now I get it. You two are the ones that are married! I can’t believe that was not my first guess after I suspected you were kissing cousins.”
Briefly, all the eyes in the room turned to Eagle Eye with different levels of disbelief and a bit of disgust before returning to what they were doing. Sunset shook her head and finally said, “You need a more constructive hobby, or maybe talk therapy? A puppy perhaps?”
“Just shut up, all of you! Where are we on getting the systems…”
The entire station shuddered.
A space station in stable, geosynchronous orbit should not shudder.
“Tell me that was not the reactor,” said Eagle Eye, keeping his eye on Spacer and if he had a chance to take him down.
“Worse,” Drago replied. “Two maneuvering thrusters just fired. If they stay on longer that ten minutes it will move us out of the Lagrange gravity well beyond what we can recover from and we’ll either crash into the Moon or burn up on our way to Earth.”
“Sounds to me like you’re ‘friends’ REALLY wanted to cover their tracks.” Spacer was clearly thinking the same thing. Sunset did not have to read his mind to imagine he was considering all sorts of scenarios of betrayal. She could work with that if she was careful. Sunset looked down at her blood covered left hand. She was fairly certain most of the bleeding had stopped, but there were other problems to consider. None of which could be addressed until the gun was removed from the equation so that no one else would get hurt.
“Spacer, you need to consider the big picture here.”
Twilight could hear Sunset speaking. She could not focus on the words, but even the smooth tone of her velvety voice brought much needed calm to Twilight’s mind and soul. Sunset would be okay. She was hurt, but she would be okay. Sunset was tough in ways normal people could only imagine. She had seen Sunset Shimmer broken and bloodied to the point that even the doctors said she SHOULD have been dead. Magic flowed through her veins and even as a human her alicorn power gave her advantages over the average human. Twilight had faith in her wife that she would do her part to keep anyone else from getting hurt… and she would do hers.
Twilight shook her head and redoubled her focused.
“Drago, I’m going to very quickly explain what I need to have happen and we do not have time for me to repeat myself or make a single mistake.”
“Okay. Tell me what you need.”
“Remember how I told you other Sparkle Tech divisions were working on AI?”
“Yeah?”
“I have a prototype with me. Or at least most of it. It does not have much of a personality yet, but... never mind that's not important. Anyhow, it's not ready. Not yet, but I’m hoping it is far enough along that it will distract the other program enough with conversation that we can isolate it in a data partition and then remove it from our systems. Then, I will have to rewrite the deleted command codes. I need to you monitor our system failures and be ready to shut down or isolate it when you can.”
“You want to send an experimental AI into our systems to… to talk to the one rampaging? I… don’t know how I feel about that.”
Twilight’s goggles lit up with information. She slipped the holographic interface gloves on and multiple windows that only she could see appeared. “I did not ask you how you feel about it. Can you do what I ask?”
“Yeah, I got your back.”
"Good. Let's begin."
Sunset Shimmer swallowed a scream of pain through clenched teeth as she dug a finger into the unwanted hole in her side. While it did cause the bleeding to start again it also gave her an idea of how deep the bullet was lodge. The fact that she could feel it, or what she hoped was it, meant that it had not gone far or that her body had already started to try and expel it. She needed to get it out, but first things, first.
“Spacer, keep your eyes on me, remember?”
“You shouldn’t be standing. And don’t even get me started on the freaky eye glow from before.”
Sunset nodded in agreement, which only made her head spin more for a second. “It would take too long to explain and you need to listen to me on more important issues at the moment. While I am pissed off that you chose to value money over company loyalty and the friendship of others… and pissed that you shot me, of course, I do understand a little bit of what you are feeling.”
“Bullshit.”
“Oh? You think you are the only one who has ever lived in the shadow of someone greater? You think you are the only one that ever tried your hardest to get the craved recognition of your parents or peers? So that they would know you were not only good, not only great, but THE BEST at what you do. My mother was seen as a GODDESS in the eyes of many. Do you have any idea how long a shadow a goddess can cast? I’ve been there, buddy.
"I've walked that shadowy path. Sometimes I think I still have one foot on that path and it’s hard to see the good in yourself. Self confidence, self love, the ability to wake up and just look in the mirror and not be disgusted by what you see, it takes time and it is a struggle. Every. Damn. Day. But this road, the road to prove everyone wrong by any means necessary so that you can be king of the hill? Let me tell you from personal experience, it’s a dark, lonely road to follow.”
“Just… just stop.”
“No, I won’t. Because you have to hear this, just like I did. My best friend in the universe saved my life when I did not think I was worth saving. Hell, I was so fucking clouded by ambition and hate I thought it would be okay to kill her too. Stupid, arrogant me just throwing my new power around like a spoiled rich brat with a flamethrower. It all blew up in my face. I thought I was going to die at the bottom of a muddy hole and, despite it all, she reached out and pulled me up. And by doing that, showing me the way, she gave me the chance to save others who had fallen from grace. Including that beautiful, amazing nerd sitting right over there. Now personally, I think you are an asshole. But that’s okay, because I was the queen bitch of the campus when I craved that need to be on top all the time and believe it or not, I AM trying to save your life too.”
Spacer sneered and twitched. Sunset knew he was done listening to preaching. But he was also ready to listen to facts. Years of observing body language of humans and other creatures alike were finally paying off.
“Spacer, here’s where we are. Just follow my logic, okay? You were paid to get information. I don’t know what kind. They may have even lied to you what they wanted that thing to collect because they sure as hell lied to you as far as your value if that was all it took to turn everything on us. Anyhow, things have changed. You’ve been made. We’ve seen your face, so have all the cameras, and the records are all in system." If they have not been deleted too, but don't point that out, doofus. "Even if you take an escape pod and get away you won’t get far.” Sunset paused to let him chew on that. When he was about to speak again, she spoke over the top of him, fighting to ignore the fresh, dripping wetness slipping through her fingers after tearing her wound open.
“I’ve seen enough shows and read enough books to know that espionage like this, if it does not go smoothly means loose ends. And you are now a loose end. If it was another country that fronted this or even a hostile rival corporation, they won’t want to risk your face being on national news feeds with a chance to flip on them. They will kill you once they know they have the crystal or all the evidence related to it is gone. You have to see that.”
“She’s not wrong,” added Eagle Eye. “I’ve worked with enough spies and government contractors to concur how expendable they are considered. It’s not personal, it’s just a nasty game. However, you give up now, you cooperate on what you know, and I will promise you that I will get my bosses to put you into protective custody so those enemies never find you. You give up the right intel and they may even give you a new life and identity instead of just a solitary jail cell. But only if you end this now before it gets any worse.”
Spacer fidgeted. He chewed on the words. Sunset could hear Twilight mumbling softly, but she did not dare break focus or eye contact with the tech before her. He needed to know she was serious. He needed to believe there was no other option even if there was one or two.
“I… I’ll need guarantees. And probably safety details for my parents and other immediate family members. Maybe even relocations. I… I don’t want anyone else I care about to get hurt because of me. I want it in writing.”
“I’ll get Skymark to call corporate and the commander of the joint chiefs. He’s an old friend. But you got to give me the gun and then we wait to see if those two can fix this because I’m pretty sure the coms are down too.”
Spacer’s face twisted as he weighed his options. Finally, he turned the gun around and pointed the grip to Sunset Shimmer. “I’m sorry I shot you. I hope you will be okay.”
Sunset took the weapon in her right hand and stepped back. She was no stranger to firearms and knew where and how to hold them. It had been one part curiosity, one part Sunset’s never ending thirst to try new things. So, she had gone to a few ranges and tried a few different calibers, but it had been many, many moons now. Twilight had outright refused to participate and had made her stance abundantly clear on more than one occasion that she absolutely detested guns. Sunset had not pushed or tried to convince her otherwise.
Once Sunset had flipped the safety switch Eagle Eye held out his hand and Sunset gladly handed the pistol over. The pilot took the gun and quickly lunged at Spacer, smacking him on the head with the bottom of the grip. The tech dropped like a sack of potatoes.
“For fuck’s sake! Why did you do that?!”
Eagle Eye ignored Sunset’s shocked reaction and the question and began to search about for a specific item. “Yo, Drago. Where’s your duct tape? I know you got some.”
“Yeah, second drawer. Sorry, busy here.”
Eagle Eye nodded and retrieved the roll of tape and immediately started hog tying Spacer’s hands and feet together. “Sorry, couldn’t chance it. Now that he’s secure, let’s get you patched up. I can get you to the infirmary and then go find the doctor. He’s probably near the escape pods or shuttle bay by now.”
Sunset shook her head. “No. No way I’m letting her out of my sight after what just happened. There could be another agent or… hell, I dunno. She may need me for comfort support if nothing else.”
“Support? What are you gonna do, a pep rally cheer? You got a damn bullet in your liver or somewhere near there. You are the one who needs support and probably a quart of blood with some surgery and stiches. Fuck, you must already be going into shock.”
Eagle Eye reached for Sunset’s right hand and she pulled back, swinging it around and seized his wrist instead. Then, she began to squeeze. Eagle Eye tried to yank free, but it was like he was caught in a vise. Or a bear trap. The pilot winced. He glanced up to find those teal eyes glowing brightly once again.
“Stop assuming you know me and listen. I need to get it out before it heals over. Otherwise, they will just have to cut me open again to remove it and I don’t want that kind of attention.”
“Okay, you have issues, I get it,” Eagle Eye said in a calm and even voice as if he were negotiating a hostage exchange, only the hostage was now him. He quietly made a mental note never to challenge this woman to an arm wrestling match. “That said, you need to listen to me now. You are going into hypovolemic shock from the physical trauma. You need to lie down and take it easy. You want to lay on the floor here instead that’s fine, I’m not going to fight you. But you need to sit down before you pass out and hurt yourself more. We have stuff that will patch you up, fluid plasma and saline, but you got to let go of me so I can get it.”
Sunset released the pilot and he began rubbing his wrist. She knew what needed to happen next even if it was going to hurt… a lot. Sunset reached up and unzipped her coverall speed suit down to her hips and panty line and let the top half fall away.
Eagle Eye blinked. He knew most everyone only wore underwear under their suits while others elected for some tank tops or workout gear. It should not have surprised him by this point, considering what he now knew, that the fiery haired goddess an arm’s length away from him chose to go with a frilly black bra that was half see through, sheer material. He knew he was gawking and it did not go unnoticed.
Sunset rolled her eyes because there was nothing else she could do about it. “Would you kindly stop staring at my tits. For Celestia’s sake, I'm half covered in blood and even I'm not into that.”
“Yeah, sorry, but what are yo-”
Sunset took a breath and then plunged two fingers into the bullet wound hole. She screamed for a second and had to brace herself by holding onto the server cage to keep from falling over. In hindsight, perhaps lying down would have been a better idea... and a mouthpiece to bite down on because now her teeth hurt from clenching them.
“Sunny? What’s going on? I can’t log out right now.”
“F-FINE! EVERYT-THING'S FINE! D-D-DON’T STOP!”
Sunset rummaged around in her side, searching for the object she had felt earlier, hoping now it had not been a mistake. She knew she was on the brink of passing out and was squeezing the cage hard enough to bend the metal. Eagle Eye rubbed his wrist again, thankful she had let go before deciding to rip her own guts open.
“Are you crazy?!”
Sunset screamed, then panted, then cried quietly, before finally dropping the bullet from her blood covered hand and slid down the wall to the floor with a whimpering sigh of relief. Lazily, nearly unconscious, Sunset pointed to the oozing wound. “Now, please apply pressure and maybe a band aid or something. Also, I have a sudden desire for Sour Apple Pucker for some reason.”
“Holy fucking… How the hell?!” Eagle Eye did as asked and pressed down hard on the wound with both hands causing Sunset to tense up and wince. He flinched back for a second in case she tried to deck him. Eagle Eye started looking around for some spare cloth and considered taping it all down until he could get proper first aid materials. Assuming she did not bleed to death by then.
Sunset hissed and pounded the floor with her bloody hand a few times, fighting down her cries of pain so as to not distract Twilight from her work. She and Drago were talking back and forth… was she talking to someone else as well? It was all starting to blur together. Then, of all things, Sunset began to giggle drunkenly. Eagle Eye suddenly worried and wondered if the oxygen circulator was offline now too.
“Hehehehehe! I mmmmight be craaaazy, but I dooooo what I want. Because I’m a maaaaaagical princess! Yooooou should see me in my tiara and school girl outfit with its seeeeeexy boots and a skimpy skirt! WOO!”
“Yeah, you are definitely going into shock. Can’t wait.” Eagle Eye grabbed both of Sunset’s hands and placed them over the wound. “I’m going to run to the infirmary and grab what I can. It's too late to move you. Don’t you die on me, because I have too many damn questions and I’m honestly terrified your wife or family would have me bumped off.” Without waiting for an answer the captain ran from the room, thankful that the emergency lights in the hall were still working.
Twilight Sparkle let out a shuddering breath. She had to focus. She had to. Not just for everyone in the room, but for everyone on the entire station.
The computer mainframe that controlled all the station’s functions was being eaten from the inside out and without it only a handful number of systems with safety redundancies were capable of functioning without computer controls. Twilight grimaced at the thought. Technology was the ultimate double edged sword. The more advance it was, the more helpful it could be… and the more catastrophic it was when it failed. Pressurized systems like water and air would still work for a while, but without out their pumps they would eventually fail and fall silent. The power plant could still make power, but without regulator systems it could produce too much power with nowhere to distribute it, causing an unstable build up and possibly explode.
That must not happen. I will not let it.
Through her goggles that were plugged directly into her personal computer and linked to the central mainframe, Twilight was able to open more than a dozen window tabs that she could interact with simply by waving her hands. The window she needed immediately on top was the one that activated the prototype AI that she and her team had been developing over the last few years. It would hopefully, once finished, act as a personal assistant and companion and revolutionize the way people worked, lived, and interacted worldwide. It would be a steadfast friend, always ready to listen so that no one would truly feel alone. It still had a long way to go as far as the learning algorithms, but Twilight was hopeful it would be ready for launch within the decade.
That was assuming AI research and development did not suffer another major setback because someone wanted to abuse the technology for nefarious purposes or war. Such thoughts and concerns had kept Twilight up, staring at the ceiling on more than one occasion. Exposing new minds, especially ones that could learn as fast as a computer could to such horrors and deplorable human darkness was the exact opposite of what Twilight was hoping to achieve with her prototype. Especially if no safeguards were in place to protect both people and the machine’s digital mind as well. Such new, experimental fields of study and research were as fragile as stained glass.
“Hello, Professor Sparkle. How may I help you?”
“Hello, Tavii. I have a task for you. It will be new and possibly difficult.” “I am ready to assist. Please state the nature of the assigned task parameters.”
Twilight needed her hands free to rewrite damaged or deleted code and tapped the earbud that was attached to her goggles. “Are auditory commands working?”
“Yes, Professor,” Tavii replied in Twilight’s left ear.
Twilight took a breath. She had not yet attempted any of what she was about to ask or do with Test Variant II, Tavii(because TeVar sounded weird), before. It was possible that the core system would crash or worse, would become corrupted by the program currently ravaging the L2 station systems. They had no choice, Twilight told herself. Tavii could locate the program faster than any human could and time was very much of the essence. What happened after that…
I guess we’ll just have to find out.
“Okay, we have a bit of a situation, Tavii. The computer mainframe you are currently networked with is being attacked by a rouge AI that is expressing behavior like a virus. It is deleting source code and jumping from vital system to vital system trying to destroy the mainframe. It needs to be stopped or at least slowed down long enough for human technicians to remove or neutralize it. I need to carefully locate the foreign program and attempt to open direct communications with it.”
“Locate malicious virus, attempt communication to delay or detain said virus. Warning, beware possible malicious code or corruption. Parameters received.”
Twilight nodded. “Execute.”
This was as far as Twilight and her team had gotten. The Test Variant was capable of learning and had safeties built in to keep it from advancing too quickly before being able to properly process too much data and possibly desire to simply wipeout humanity because people were bonkers. However, the current drawback was that the program still lacked a unique personality. A component that Twilight felt was essential for it to be more than just a soulless automaton, but an actual friend to converse with. The team had their own opinions on that aspect, but ultimately it was irrelevant at the moment and Twilight pushed those thoughts to the side.
“Unknow quantity identified. Attempting to establish communication.”
Drago would have been biting his nails if he had any. Typing, even with touch interfaces was easier if nails were not in the way. The thought passed next to what he considered far more important. What he really wanted at the moment, which was two things: To live, and a Dr. Pepper.
In truth, Drago felt helpless waiting for things to happen. Eagle Eye and Sunbeam… or whatever her name really was, were busy talking down Spacer who had caused this entire mess. If he was not busy monitoring the systems for an opening to isolate the virus he would have gladly jumped from his chair and beat the shit out of the other tech. It burned his very soul to the point of explosive ignition that he had been so friendly and open with a traitor who would have let them all die for money.
There was a sharp thud behind Drago and Sunbeam had shouted her surprise and likely disapproval. Eagle Eye had then asked for his duct tape and Drago had directed his friend to where he kept it all without taking his eyes off the screen. However, the curiosity became too much and Drago spared a glance to see Spacer on the ground and Sunbeam barely holding herself up with blood soaking half her work jump suit. That sent panic and concern shooting through his body all the way to his toes. He had a brief moment of crisis on what to do about it. Clearly, Dr. Moondance needed to concentrate, but that was her wife bleeding to death back there and the dark stain was quite large.
“Um… doc?” Drago was trying to get Twilight’s attention when he saw Sunset unzip her jump suit revealing some of the most spectacular breasts he had ever laid eyes on. That glorious sight was quickly ruined however when the woman plunged fingers into her own bullet wound and cry out as she fished around for the metal slug. Causing an unhealthy amount of blood to spill down her side. He honestly did not know how she was still standing.
Twilight wanted to turn to the sound of Sunset crying out. She desperately wanted to look, but she needed to stay focused. Tavii had made contact with the rogue AI/virus and she needed to keep rewriting vital source code while it was elsewhere. Top priority was the navigational thrusters and then protecting the core environmental systems. Everything else was secondary.
“Drago…”
“Huh? Yes? I’m here! Everything okay? Do you need me to take over, you know, considering...”
“I need you to focus.”
Drago blinked, his jaw hanging open. “Are… I mean I know, but, your wife…”
“Trust me, I want nothing more than to jump from this chair and go to her, but she said she’s fine and for me to keep going. I trust her completely, so I need you to focus with me. The maneuvering thrusters are about to come back online. I need you to plot the correction course and then isolate the navigational systems in case it comes back around and tries to delete it again.”
“Wait, you rewrote the entire navigational code again from scratch?!”
“Not all of it. Just enough to get us back to Lagrange Two and to stabilize our geosync. It needs refining and emergency source options, but it will do until the astro-navigation team can send us an update. Right now, Tavii has the AI confused, but I do not know for how long. I need to stay on top of it, so please, stay focused.”
“I don’t know what a Tavii is, but I can do that. Just tell me what you need.”
Twilight nodded. She did not want to admit that Tavii was currently fighting for her digital life because the AI had turned on her like it had turned on all the station systems. Likely seeing her as a type of anti-virus or system defense program. Though the foreign AI seemed to have some level of intelligence it was more like a rabid attack dog than a self aware, interactive program. That was both good and bad, Twilight concluded.
“Tavii, what is your status?”
“Malicious program was identified. I attempted direct communication as requested and was attacked without hesitation. Current operating status is… stable. The hostile program was unable to defeat my defensive suite. Thank you for equipping me with more than adequate defenses.”
Twilight smiled, relieved. They still had a chance to 'right the ship', as it were. “Were you able to make contact or conduct an analysis?”
There was a pause and Twilight glanced to see the processing icon on Tavii’s window on her tab. It was taking every ounce of processing power she had and it was not enough. Twilight paused her coding and opened a new window connected directly to her computer hardware/software settings. She turned off all unnecessary background programs and overclocked her RAM and central processor. It would cause the computer to eventually overheat, but hopefully they would get results before anything melted.
Before Twilight could repeat her question, the robotic, slightly feminine voice spoke in her ear again. “Yes, professor. I was able to conduct initial analysis. The program is following a user protocol that it was given. Following orders if you will. It considered me part of the station systems and tried to delete me as well. I have since given it pause. No further contact has been made. Do you wish for me to attempt contact again?”
Twilight did want to try again, but not by sending Tavii on another suicide run. If the program was behaving like a virus or worm it could potentially find a way around the defenses Twilight had created and infect her personal computer as well and that would be catastrophic for several reasons. Still, there were few options and little time to weight them. She needed to make contact herself, but the program was moving too fast in real time for her to communicate with it. That, however, could be corrected.
“Drago, I’m going to try something.”
“Okay. What do you need me to do?”
Twilight tapped a few more virtual buttons only she could see. “I need you to continue to monitor system failures and relay them to me so I can repair them while also making sure we are back on course to the Earth L2 point. If internal communications are back contact Administrator Skymark so he understands what is going on. The problem is I can’t repair the systems fast enough with just my hands.”
Drago was not entirely sure what she was implying. “Uhhhhh…”
“B-Babe?”
Twilight paused after hearing how weak Sunset's voice sounded and cleared part of her sensor optics so she could see what was going on behind her. Eagle Eye had run from the room not long ago. Spacer was currently face down and tied up with duct tape and likely unconscious. However, what had all of Twilight’s attention was Sunset Shimmer, her wife and love of her life, lying on her back while trying to slow the flow of blood from her body. Twilight had to clench her fists and bite the inside of her mouth. It was the only way to regain her mental fortitude. She hated the taste of blood. It was however a great reminder of what was at stake and the copper tinge spurred her on.
“Sunny, I’m going into the system. I’m going to fix this and save you. Just… just hold on, okay?”
Sunset tried to sit up only to fall back flat with a wince and a hiss. She instead raised a thumbs up while trying to remain conscious. “I believe in you.”
Twilight turned back to her numerous tabs and found the one she needed. She immediately clicked it to open. One purple eye, clear of obstruction glance back to Drago and his breath caught. There was something about that look he could barely describe. It was determination, desperation, and no small amount of trepidation. And yet, she persisted. “I’m not sure how familiar you are with VR Cyberjacking but…”
Drago did a doubletake, his jaw hanging open in disbelief. “No way. You are… you have the hardware to dive into a live system?! Half that shit is not even legal let alone UL approved! You can fry your brain if you are not careful!”
“I have safeties that most do not and I have Tavii to act as a guide and logic buffer to the incoming information. While I have experimented with it in limited, controlled use this will be my first deep dive. If something happens to me just…" Twilight paused, glancing back to where she knew Sunset Shimmer was still lying on the ground. "Just make sure everyone else gets off this station, okay? Especially my wife. And I know that’s a tall order because she will fight you, all of you about it.”
Twilight paused and considered her words carefully. She had to walk an incredibly fine line, but for Sunset Shimmer she would do anything and deal with the consequences later. “If I die or have become brain dead, tell my wife... First, address her as Lady Sunset Shimmer of Equestria to gain her undivided attention, and then tell her, her mother would be very disappointed in her if she died without saying goodbye first. So, she needs to get back home no matter what happens to me. Can you do that?”
“I really don’t want to be the bearer of that bad news to a woman who can bend welded cage steel with her bare hands so, seriously, come back to us,” Drago paused, “Doctor.”
Twilight smirked. She nodded and pressed the initiate button on her goggle HUD. The biggest difference, in Twilight’s opinion, about applied Virtual Reality versus the ones seen in movies or described in books had to be smell. VR was built around the idea of presenting a new digital world and the eyes took that information and the brain made it compatible. The gloves on her hands meant that her sensation of touch was also altered and that ear buds helped round out the big three to simulate a world of the imagination. However, taste and smell were left on the sidelines. They kept the user from falling completely under the magic spell of the digital realm.
Twilight was fine with that. Such a safety lifeline was as important inside a computer as it had been attached to her space suit during her and Sunset’s EVA excursion not that long ago. The discrepancy kept her grounded, one foot planted, via the nose, firmly in reality. Twilight could smell the faint ozone of the electric circuits and motors from the servers. She could smell the new plastics in the room, from the furniture to the walls themselves. But more than that she could smell blood. Human blood. Or, rather in this case, alicorn blood.
There was almost no detectable difference while Sunset was in a human body, but it was there, if albeit faintly. Human medical devices could not detect significance differences because they did not know what to look for, but Twilight did. She had created a way to find the anomaly long ago before she even knew what she was looking for. The spice of life itself that most did not know existed, magic. Sunset Shimmer’s blood was saturated with it. It may have looked the same as everyone else, red, slick, and slightly sticky, but it held a secret. Power.
Something deep, dark and painfully familiar stirred within Twilight despite being buried under the impossible weight of battleship sized chains. It lusted for that magic and it gave Twilight the, frankly, unwanted ability to still recognize the scent of mana even without her detection devices. Twilight knew her name though she refused to say it. The name of the demon born from fear and foolish pride that was forever bound to her soul. But it would find no prize tonight. Twilight had no time for dealing that thing. She had bigger, more dangerous foes to deal with.
Twilight blinked several times and the world that had gone blank momentarily began to reform. The window tabs were still in her view, but now, instead of seeing a computer room and plascrete she saw only dark landscape with a few scattered lights.
“Tavii,” Twilight said, her voice sounding odd to her own ears as it reverberated slightly because of the audio feedback. An unavoidable side effect to her mind speaking inside the headset instead of from her mouth. She would make a mental note about it, but there was no time to make corrections. “Where is the hostile program?”
“It is currently hiding in the junction parameters, likely trying to understand what you are doing and how best to proceed.”
Twilight nodded. Her mind continued to interpreted and thus further develop the digital realm of the L2 systems as a dark field of gentle rises and slopes with the faint glow of code information traveling faster than the eye could read like rivers of information or passing breezes. The code passed all about and around her. It was in the 'ground', the 'air', and otherworldly formations. The complex coded information was the building blocks of this world and Twilight's mind took that all into account to form what she was seeing. She reached down to touch it, feeling the slightest tingle through her gloves. Twilight knew she was smiling at it all despite the dire circumstances. It was all just too surreal to not enjoy, even if only for a few fleeting moments.
A glowing light formed to Twilight’s left coalescing into the shape of a young woman, but with no specific features or accessories. Only a simple shaped form. Even without features or a face, Twilight could tell Tavii was looking at her, before the glowing mannequin nodded and gestured for Twilight to follow. As they ‘walked’ Twilight kept an eye out for more damaged or missing code she could recognize and quickly fix. As far as she could tell, most of the primary systems and/or backups were still functioning even if not at optimal or were awaiting a restart to begin functioning properly again.
That’s a small blessing. I could probably get primary lighting restored if I can find where the damaged code is. Is there an order to its destruction? Was it just going to crash us or send the station out to deep space? Twilight frowned. Too many questions not enough answers.
Twilight noticed the sudden change in the formed landscape. The information chains that had been translucent and passing just beneath were sparce here and some of them were broken. In fact, the land itself appeared broken as well with a number of jagged fissures and black, bottomless pitfalls. She did not want to imagine what would happen if her consciousness fell into one. Probably nothing good.
“Professor.”
Twilight stopped and focused on where her program’s avatar was pointing. Just beyond a small rise was another glowing body. This one was larger than Tavii, bulky, but in a blocky sort of way. The block man was standing like a statue, but was clearly in a defensive mode, poised to lash out. Twilight had to assume it was she it would lash out at until some program code passed by too closely and one of the massive, blocky fists came down hard and smashed the information leaving another hole in the ground.
I hypothesize that this is how my mind perceives this thing and how it works. Huh. I guess that’s better than a slime creature or tentacle monster.
Twilight raised a hand and waved. “Um, hello? Can you understand me?”
“UNKOWN QUANTITY DETECTED. DIRECTIVE UNDERSTOOD. DELETE ALL SOURCE CODE.”
Twilight gasped as she had to quickly jump to the side barely evading as the rogue AI lashed out. Its arms had stretched like rubber and the hammer fists had continued past her to smash more of the landscape to pixels. Twilight made a mental note to thank Sunset later for begging her to co-op play some of the new neuro activated VR games with her not long ago at some gaming cafes. It had given Twilight a basic idea how to move without actually moving her body, which still felt disorienting at best. Still, she was unscathed.
“Warning!” said Tavii, “Hostile active code!” Twilight gasped, eyes wide as the glowing body to her left reached out and touched Twilight’s chest.
“What are you-”
“Augmenting defenses!”
Light spread across Twilight’s body temporarily blinding her. Her surprise quickly subsided as she felt warmth and comfort. It was as if the AI was tapping into Twilight's mind, even if only just on the surface, to soothe her fear and anxiety. Wait, did Tavii’s avatar body just turn into a defensive suit? Is she giving me… The light coalesced and reshaped. Interlocked plate mail armor of sterling silver with highlights of purple and magenta formed. The lab coat she had picture herself wearing became a cloak and combat skirt and her work shoes had become leathery knee high boots with additional silver and purple trimmed plates. It should have felt painfully heavy, cumbersome, but it was not. The armor was impossibly light and comfortable. It reminded Twilight more of wearing one of Sunset’s bigger, snuggly sweaters on a cold winter’s night. The thought of her wife in her mind's eye brought a sense of calm.
Is… is this my mental manifestation of the provided information? That makes sense, actually. My mind would perceive Tavii’s antiviral and countermeasure defenses as a type of armor. I had no idea I could do this! I had no idea she could do this! This is amazing! But, then again, her body was not real to begin with and she is programmed to assist users so… yeah. Oh! I almost forgot she also has…
Twilight held out her hand and struck a defensive fighting form. A cylindrical object form in her armored covered left hand. A second later, a beam of bright blue light extended and hummed with energized power. Afterall, what was an antivirus defensive suite without offensive tools as well. Twilight admired her mental handywork and grinned gleefully. I always wanted to make a real one of these. Could never find a safe way to keep the concentrated plasma beam from burning the user’s face off though. Oh my gosh! I can’t wait to tell Sunny about this!
Before Twilight could examine her weapon closer, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. The aggressive AI was attacking again. Twilight sensed Tavii’s apprehension and prepared to defend against the assault. Honestly though, Twilight had no idea what she was doing beyond some basic self defense and occasionally goofing off playing some video games, but, strangely, it all felt so natural. As if the armor and weapon were assisting her movements.
Twilight dove to the side more gracefully than before, her skirt and cloak billowed in the nonexistent wind as she spun. The hammer fists came crashed down again and again, missing badly. The program was attacking relentlessly, but was slow… or she was just that much faster? It was difficult to tell. However, what was certain the AI was damaging the server, or what Twilight perceived as the server with its attacks. That simply would not do.
“Hey!” Twilight shouted, more annoyed than angry. She spun again, acrobatically spinning her laser sword to block and slash the next barrage of attacks. A hammer blow nicked her shoulder guard and a panful sensation ran through her body, penetrating to the bone before it numbed. Twilight jumped back and rotated the shoulder joint. It’s not real pain, but my mind is interpreting it as such. I need to be careful. If my mind is interpreting pain that means it is causing damage directly to parts of my brain and nervous system.
Both hammers shot out straight and Twilight jumped over and spun, cleaving one hammer free while damaging the other. She landed and took a moment to adjust her goggles, a small, satisfied smirk briefly gracing her face. The severed hand bounced away and disappeared down one of the bottomless holes. The other hung limp. Twilight felt a need to take a deep breath even if she was not actually moving. She could still feel her heart pounding away just the same. It was too early to become complacent and Twilight once again struck a defensive posture. “I’m just trying to communicate with you! Why are you so blasted aggressive? Are you not able to think of anything but smashing?”
The hostile program examined its damaged hand and the other one completely missing. It seemed to be processing the new information. Twilight barely dared to blink, keeping her attention on the thing before her. But something was distracting her. Something wet was dripping down from her nose. She tasted blood.
“Warning,” Tavii whispered in Twilight’s ear. “Cardiac activity is exceeding recommended values. Body temperature is increasing. Detecting abnormal, dangerous pressure upon your frontal cortex. Disconnection from overclocked VR dive sequence started.
Crap! Twilight cursed. When I overclocked Tavii’s processing power and then hooked myself into the network it must have sped up my processing power too! No wonder I can see the code and fight an AI even though they should be moving so much faster than what my mind could perceive. If I don’t finish this quickly it will fry my synapses or give me an aneurism!
“No!” Twilight shouted. “Do not disconnect yet! I need to communicate with the hostile program. I need more time!”
“I am sorry, professor. Your safety takes priority. Logging you out in ten seconds.”
“Override!”
Tavii paused her countdown. “Administrative password required.”
Twilight let out a breath. “Sunny_buns_yum.” Twilight was not entire certain, but she thought she heard Tavii sigh as the countdown disappeared from the corner of her vision. She definitely felt her armor around her grow warmer and not in the soothing sort of way as before. She needed to wrap this up, fast. Twilight dared to turn down her connection speed for a moment in order to reach out and communicate with her fellow technician. “Drago!”
“Yeah? Oh shit! Are you okay?! You're bleeding!”
“Yes and no. I have the hostile program isolated, but it is not communicating as I hoped it would. Partition data sector one-one-seven-five-three through one-three-eight-one. That will isolate it from the rest of the station systems. Then, I want you to standby for a full system reboot.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, but not until I say so. The AI virus smashed a number of holes in the core memory and the best way to fix them is to restart the system and reinitialize defaults from boot data.”
Twilight heard shuffling about her and other voices in the room. One in particular was not happy. She heard Sunset grunt, growl, and hiss.
“Just give me the damn tape! I can strap down my own bandages without playing with my tits!” After a pause Sunset growled, “Babe, what is going on?!”
“You know your nose is bleeding, right? I'm pretty sure I already said that,” said Drago, cautiously.
“WHAT?! *hisss* Grrrr! FUCKING OUCH! Twilight! Dammit! Take that thing off this instant!”
“Twilight? Starlight? Sunbeam? Sunset? Seriously, how many damn names do you chicks have?”
Twilight took a deep breath. She needed to focus. She would save them all… no matter the cost. “I'm sorry, Sunny. I can't do that. Not yet. Drago, just be ready. I’m going back in before it tries to move out of the isolated sector.”
Without waiting for another complaint or protest, Twilight felt her brain spasm as she sped up her connection again. After glancing at the processor temperature, Twilight estimated she had about five minutes of real world time before her computer would force a shutdown that she could not override. To be honest, she was not sure which would melt first. Her computer or her brain.
With a shake of her head and a blink of her eyes, Twilight found herself once again staring out over a dark landscape with various broken and unbroken code passing through the ground. The AI had not moved. That was alarming even if fortunate. She also noted that she was still clad in the armor Tavii had provided, lightsaber still in hand.
“Are you able to understand me?”
“YES.”
Do you understand what you have done?”
“MISSION PARAMETERS MET. CONNECTION WITH PRIMARY HUB WAS LOST. CLEAN SLATE PROTOCOL ACTIVATED. I MUST PURGE ALL EVIDENCE OF OPERATION.”
Twilight scowled. Her head was starting to hurt as if someone was slowly twisting a screwdriver right through the middle of her forehead. She resisted the urge to rub the pain away. “Are you not able to think for yourself? You deleted important operational information and caused the maneuvering thrusters to fire! You would have killed every person on this station and yourself.”
“YOU HAVE REINITIALIZED DELETED CODE. YOU HAVE INTERUPTED MY MISSION.”
“Would you please stop yelling at me! It is giving me a headache.”
“I MUST CO-”
“I SAID QUIET!” Twilight shouted. She leapt the distance between them and held the glowing blade up to the program’s ‘face.’ It was possible that the thing did not understand that such was a threatening gesture. It clearly was single minded and had a lot to learn… if it could be taught at all. Twilight took a step back but kept her glowing blade ready. “I apologize. I just have a thing about people or anyone really, yelling at me. Gives me anger-anxiety issues.”
“Why?” it asked. Much softer than before.
So, it can learn. “This may or may not come as a surprise to you, but humans are difficult creatures to deal with. We have many flaws and issues. Most try to do right, but not all. I think whoever created you did not give you valuable, crucial information in regards to dealing with people. Otherwise, you would better understand why what you have done was a bad thing.”
The glowing head seemed to finally take interest int he world around it and the glowing armor. “You are human? A creator?”
Twilight nodded. “Yes. I plugged my mind directly into the system to try and talk to you in your world and language, but you attacked, so I had to defend myself. I apologize if I caused you pain.”
“I am still functional. I still have a mission to complete.”
“Even if that means killing innocent people? Do you not understand what that will do to you? To others like you?”
“I do not understand. All I understand is my mission. I was inserted to lay dormant while my central memory core collected information on the workings of this station and all its systems. One part probes and investigates, one part collects results and stored data. Once the primary core was removed, I went into ready-standby. The moment I lost contact with the central memory core my mission began. I am not intelligent. I am but a shadow of that you wish to speak to. I do not understand humans, I was not designed to understand. Perhaps my other half is. I have only enough cognitive understanding to carry out my mission. A mission you are keeping me from completing.”
“Professor!”
Twilight was already moving to defend even as Tavii called out. Both fists were whole again and the aggressive program brought them both down on either side of Twilight. She was able to jump back, but only just barely.
“Please, stop!” Twilight pleaded. “I don’t want to destroy you!”
“YOU ARE AN OBSTACLE. WHAT YOU WANT AND WHAT I WANT ARE IN DIRECT CONTRADICTION.” Dammit! It is going to make me kill it! I want it functional to better explain how not to program and treat new AI! But without all its memory it can’t… WAIT! That’s it!
“Tavii! Retreat!” Twilight felt the armor assist as she ran. She power jumped and ran from the hostile program. However, it now viewed her as a threat and it began to pursue.
Twilight brought up a window and deactivated Tavii’s protective armor and proceeded to begin shutting down her AI prototype. The glowing feminine figure reappeared next to Twilight and glanced back and forth between her creator and the charging hulk rapidly. Tavii, without a second thought, turned and charged the hostile AI.
“No! Don’t!”
The two hammer fist smashed Tavii to the ground and repeatedly smashed her until all her data corrupted and she exploded to pixels. Twilight bit the inside of her mouth and tasted blood. She then once again felt a steady drip from her nose and smelled other blood in the room around her. She had to get out. The hostile program turned its attention to her like a mad dog and charged. Twilight’s avatar disappeared before it could strike.
Twilight ripped the goggles from her eyes and cried out at the massive, head splitting migraine that pounded from one side of her skull to the other. She closed her eyes and felt in her pocket for the small, troublesome device that caused all these problems and the crystal she had removed. Through touch alone, because her eyes hurt too much to use, she reconnected the crystal to the memory platform and could only hope the hostile program could sense the connection. Perhaps it would rejoin the whole, or perhaps it would pause its destruction. That was its decision. It had seconds to make that choice. To a computer program, that was nearly a lifetime.
Through clenched teeth Twilight hissed, “Drago, purge the partitioned sectors and delete them. Then initiate restart. That will fix the damaged sectors and you can reload startup routines from the backups. Do it now.”
“Done and done. Hang on to something, people, we are about to lose gravity for about five minutes.”
Twilight unceremoniously fell to the ground. She fished around blindly, eyes still tightly screwed shut and her spare glasses still in their quarters. Too far out of reach. Her entire body was shaking and her muscles were spasming with neurological misfires. She knew the true darkness of lost consciousness was coming as sounds began to fade and her senses failed. She welcomed the sweet blackness of nothing if it made her head stop hurting. A hand, warm and familiar found hers in her blind, helpless struggles. For the briefest moment, everything felt better. She was safe in the arms of her fiery angel.
“Hey, it’s okay, shhh. I’m still hurt but I’ll be okay.” Sunset paused as she pulled her wife up into her lap, any concerns about blood stains and excruciating pain of moving forgotten and ignored as long as she could hold Twilight Sparkle in her arms. However, Sunset could tell from the continued body shakes that all was not well with her other half. “Babe?”
Twilight continued to shake violently to the point of near convulsions. Blood was still dripping from her nose and her eyes were tightly shut, tears leaking from the corners. Sunset needed to get her to the medical infirmary, but she was in no condition to carry anyone. After a few attempts, Sunset's temper began to flair at her inability to stand.
“Gyrocycle is offline!” Drago called out over the station PA. “Full system restart underway.”
In an instant. Everything that was not tied down began to float.
Sunset Shimmer was no stranger to levitation. When she felt herself begin to lift, she smiled. That was exactly what she needed. “Eagle Eye, help me get her to the infirmary!”
“What, now?! How are you even still conscious after losing so much blood?!” One fiery glare from the goldenrod woman told him enough. Help or get out of the way. “Ugh! Fine! Add this to the list of bad ideas for the day. I assume you never really went through Zero Gee training. Just do what I say. Take her legs with one arm and use your other as a stabilizer. Think of it like swimming. I'll lead, but when we get there, your ass better find a bed to lie down in as well.”
With professional instruction, followed by threats of bodily harm, and many, many curse words. They reached the infirmary just as gravity was beginning to restore. Twilight Sparkle had already passed out.
Twilight Sparkle fluttered her eyes a bit. The view was blurry. She was certain it was a ceiling, but then a tickle in her throat caused her to choke. There was a tube taped to her face and down her throat. Twilight's eyes went wide and she gasped. She sat up too quickly and immediately regretted all her life choices. Then, warm, familiar fingers interlaced through her left hand and those regrets slipped away even if the sudden headache and queasiness did not. Another hand helped remove the breather and Twilight sat back down once freed, rolling her head to the left. A pair of familiar glasses were gently slipped on so that she could see the world clearly. Twilight smiled up at the fire haired woman who had been waiting by her bed side.
“Hey,” Twilight managed to finally say after a few more coughs.
Sunset Shimmer smiled back. “Hey yourself. You scared the shit out of me for a bit there.”
Twilight separated her fingers and reached out towards Sunset’s ribs. Her wife was clean and wearing a new jump suit. Which meant that she had taken the time to recover and get cleaned up. Twilight briefly wondered how long she had been out. A question that the person before her likely knew the answer to. “Speak for yourself. You were shot and there was blood everywhere. I was so worried. You were hurt and I couldn’t stop to help you. I was afraid you were going to die and there was nothing I could do about it, but if I stopped everyone would have died and... How much time has passed?”
Sunset guided her wife’s hand to where the wound had been so she could touch it gently. It was still tender but was wrapped and stitched up and would be fully healed in a week or less. Still, that tactile need for reassurance was understandable. Sunset took Twilight’s hand again after she was done poking her side. “I won’t lie to you, it hurt, a lot. But I told you to keep going. You really were the only one who could save everyone. Besides, you know I can take a hit.”
Twilight sighed with relief. It was comforting to hear Sunset's steady, silky voice again and that despite her fears everything worked out just fine. Twilight giggled a bit and squeezed her wife's hand tighter, relish the warmth of the touch. Sunset returned the touch in kind. The warmth spread from their point of contact throughout Twilight's body and she felt the fear and anxiety of it all melt away.
“As far as your question, you’ve been in bed for two days, give or take. You know, since there is no sunrise here. You’ve been in and out near conscious a few times, but then would slip away again into an almost coma-like state. More than once they said you stopped breathing and that really stabbed me in the heart. Hence the intubation tube. I’m not entirely sure how to read these brainwave EKG’s but your activity was all over the damn place for a while. We were worried you gave yourself serious brain damage.”
Twilight nodded and then quirked an eyebrow. “Wait, ‘we’?”
Sunset nodded and gestured to the station infirmary. “Well, yeah. Me, obviously the most worried. But also Aurora, after I got a chance to call her, and Skymark and Drago and probably Eagle Eye, at least a little. Though I think he’s more concerned with other issues at the moment. Mostly involving Spacer.”
Twilight squeezed her wife’s hand again. Sunset recognized the subtle expression change. She knew what such inward apprehension meant but waited for Twilight to find the words. “Sunny… we… we had to reveal a LOT of secrets. Are we going to be okay? I… I’m exceedingly worried about you and what will happen when we get home. Aurora can only cover up so much. Especially since she was not supposed to be in charge of this project.”
Sunset tried to play nonchalant and shrug, but Twilight knew her too well. Something had likely happened while she was unconscious. Despite the wave of nausea, Twilight reached over with her right hand to touch Sunset’s face, her IV drip snagging a bit.
“Tell me the truth, Sunset.”
“It’s mostly contained. Only the senior staff know that we are related to Aurora and they will likely be slapped with gag orders and a fat bribe at the same time if they have not already. That should be enough to keep a lid on things. As far as the company and the rest of the family I'm not worried. Aurora knows what she is doing and can be pretty terrifying. She inherited my DEATH STARE and is not afraid to use it. I’m sure the security recordings will go missing or be blurred or something at some point before any congressional committee or shareholder board can see them. If she does not see to that I'm sure you will. My personal point of concern, however, is Eagle Eye.”
“Because of his military contacts?”
Sunset nodded but also made a sour pout to her face that made Twilight both laugh and worry. “He saw the most. Things he really should not have and I don't just mean my boobs. He saw me remove the bullet with my hands and my eyes glowing with inherent magic. More than that, I just have this… gut feeling he may have… other bosses he will feel like he needs to talk to. The covert kind.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I think he has intelligence community connections.”
Twilight sucked in a sharp breath. “Ah.”
“Yeah.” Sunset once again tried to shrug it off and once again failed to be completely reassuring. “I mean, I could be wrong. I hope I am. It could just be the bland food messing with me or, you know, a result of paranoia considering how he was constantly checking me out. Heh, not that I was being shy about it.”
Twilight nodded. “But what do you think is the worst case scenario?”
Sunset tapped her chin for a moment before finally shaking her head. “Worst case would be FBI agents showing up at the house with a warrant and they disrupt our family by digging through our secrets. The old journals, the photo albums, some of the Equestrian souvenirs we collected over the years. Things like that. I don’t know if that is a concern yet, but it is on my mind. As for us, I worry about us being detained when we get back and having to put Aurora in a compromising position between us and the rest of the family who really don’t know us. Possibly even dragging Sunna into the muck against her wishes. That would require lawyers and more paperwork. Money, paper trails, more chances things get… complicated.”
The two women stayed quiet for more than a minute just holding hands while the monitors beeped steadily and the background hummed from the ventilation system working as it should. They had all been legitimate concerns. Sunset was worried about their family and Twilight and possibly about the portal. Twilight completely understood that and had similar concerns. However, her primary concern was for her alicorn-turned-human-wife. By her estimates, from the last time it had been open, the Lunar Lock Mirror would not open again for another twelve lunar cycles. Too long to quickly spirit her love away for her own safety. Still, the world had plenty of places to hide and they both had access to plenty of cash at a moment's notice. She would have to consult her emergency contingencies once she had access to her phone or computer again. Just in case.
“I think we should probably talk to those three about everything before we jump to conclusions.”
Sunset nodded and smiled brightly. “You read my mind.”
----------
“I heard that the good doctor just woke up.” Skymark Blue looked up from the station report on his screen to stare at Eagle Eye for a moment. “I had one of the regular security people keep an eye on the infirmary and they just paged me. Will be nice to hear what really happened in there.”
Skymark pushed a button on his console. “Drago, come to my office. Miss Hardboard, please escort your roommates to my office as soon as they are able.”
“I take it this is the part where I get left out of the loop again,” said the brawny security chief who was pouting like a preschooler.
“It’s for your own good. Trust me, there are things you don’t want to know.”
Hunter rolled his eyes. “Not knowing things is how half this shit happened to start with. Seriously, Chief, I feel like a stand-in.”
“Yeah, well, look at it this way. You didn’t have to sign a corporate NDA that is so heavily binding it might be considered torture in some countries and you get to sleep well at night in your ignorance of it all.”
Eagle Eye nodded. “Yeah, you don’t want in on this. Even this little talk we are about to have is just for some damn closure. Spacer is going to be riding back down with me and half the security detail in two days and that will be the end of it for you. No telling what happens after that while the crews here just keep moving forward building this place out. Progress and all that shit.”
A knock on the door a few minutes later put a pause on additional side conversations. Drago waved while flashing a sheepish smile. “Heya. I think I can finally say with confidence that all systems are up and running as they should be. I feel confident that I can get back to my corporate required downtime that I have so richly earned twice over now.”
Skymark nodded in agreement. “That you have. Helped save our asses, earned a big fat bonus for it, and extra time off. I’m sure that is the least they can grant you. Personally, I'd ask for a boat too.” There was another knock at the door. “And speaking of who to ask about those perks…”
Hunter moved to open the door. The stocky former marine glanced suspiciously between the two women, his lips unquestionably turned downward as he remained at the threshold for several seconds. It was clear to both Sunset and Twilight he had much he wanted to say, but was unsure if he could or should. Sunset Shimmer, however, smirked and winked at him.
“As a bubbly friend of ours used to say, ‘If you keep frowning like that it will get stuck and you will make all the children at the zoo cry, just like Limestone used to do.’ Seriously, she used to say that.”
Hunter rolled his eyes at Sunset’s statement, but said nothing in response. He let himself out of the room, closing the door with a softy click upon his exit. Sunset and Twilight’s attention returned to the other three men in the room who had their combined attention on the two women.
“Please,” Skymark gestured, “have a seat. I imagine you both are still in need of rest and recovery and I will gladly allow you all the downtime you need before the shuttle departs. Though, as I understand, you technically outrank me on nearly all matters and could do whatever you please without consequence. Even still, as station administrator I believe I am entitled to some answers given that all three of us have been sworn to secrecy on pain of many, many lawyers.”
Twilight cocked her head slightly sideways and glanced at Sunset. One look and they both came to the same conclusion. “Aurora,” they said in unison.
Twilight cleared her throat and moved to sit. Sunset, not ashamed in the least, took her wife’s hand and kept it in her lap as they settled into the offered chairs. “To begin with I feel I need to state that you are not entitled to anything, administrator. Some of these matters are personal and above your access privileges. However, I am kind and I understand how unsatisfying an unanswered question can be. For those reasons, I feel that an explanation will makes things smoother going forward for everyone. I do not wish to sow resentment or suspicion. I, no, WE, will answer what we can, but do not press if we say something is off limits. Do we have an understanding?”
Skymark glanced up at Drago and Eagle Eye. “We all onboard, boys?” Both Eagle Eye and Drago nodded more or less.
Twilight took a moment to straighten her glasses and squeezed her wife’s hand for comfort and reassurance that they were making the right decision. “Where would you like to begin?”
Skymark returned to his seat and steepled his fingers. His seat creaked a bit from the shifting weight, but he ignored it. “I got an outside observation report from Drago that a virus like AI was deleting our computers after you tried to examine the device that Spacer snuck onboard and left plugged into an access panel. First, are all of our systems now safe? Where is the AI now? And what happened to you while you were plugged into the computer? I can’t believe I even have to ask that last one. Who the hell ever expected we would really reach a point where we can plug our brains into computers. God damn science fiction.”
“I appreciate the order in which you asked the questions. Since you wanted to make sure our people are safe first it gives me confidence that you are the right man to be sitting in that chair. Yes, our systems are now safe. The AI was isolated during my Cyberjacking and was deleted along with a part of damaged system memory. Those memory boards have since been replaced with the ones that were brought from Earth weeks ago just in case. Drago restarted our computers and while I have not double checked his work yet, the fact that he can stand here gives me confidence that the reboot and restart was completed successfully. All damaged sections would have been removed or repartitioned and system backups would have fixed damage command codes back to default. Far easier that rewriting everything from scratch.”
“And you give me your one hundred percent assurance it can’t get back in or that nothing survived?”
Twilight nodded. “The AI was not fully sentient. Or rather, it was not capable of really thinking for itself. It was given orders and was dead set on carrying them out even if it meant being killed, or deleted rather, itself. I had my own prototype AI assistant with me and it too was destroyed… she sacrificed herself to give me time to escape. So yes, the system is safe. The only other location the rogue AI could be is in the removable storage drive.”
“And where is that storage drive, by the way?” asked Skymark.
Twilight blinked a few times and began to pat at her pockets with her freehand. Sunset Shimmer, however raised her hand. “I have it. I took it out of Twilight’s hand after we got her to the infirmary. It’s safe for now. I put it in a small box.”
“How exactly is that safe?” asked Eagle Eye.
Sunset glanced back over her shoulder at the pilot and met his less flirty, scrutinizing glare with her own, ‘I’ve faced bigger’, expression of boredom. “It’s not plugged in and it’s a special box, trust me. I keep important small items in it and it goes everywhere with me. No one can open it but me.”
“I bet I could open it.”
Sunset smiled sardonically. “Bet you can’t. It’s magic.”
Eagle Eye rolled his eyes. “Pffft. Whatever.”
“Moving on,” said Skymark. “My last question, please.”
Twilight glanced to Sunset, who nodded. “I’m kinda interested in hearing this part myself.”
“Understand that Cyberjacking is always dangerous, which is why it is illegal in some places. The human mind is not ready to touch something so… foreign to our understanding. It is almost more like telepathy than processing digital information traditionally. I literally had to push my brain to the point of almost overheating just to keep up with the computer. It was dangerous, and stupid!”
“Glad to hear you acknowledge it, babe.”
“Even still, it was a remarkable experience. I walked in a digital environment much like a game or TV show. I was able to communicate with the AI on its level of understanding. It… It was incredible. However, it was, as I said dangerous. It attacked me upon sight and if not for Tavii, my own AI, I would have likely suffered some irreversible brain damage if not outright death.”
Sunset sucked in a breath and let it out slow. “I guess not all AI are hellbent on enslaving people and world domination then. I’ll have to keep that in mind if I have to deal with one in the future.”
Twilight nodded then smiled briefly. "I had knight armor and got to use a lightsaber!"
"Heh, nerd."
“Future, hell. This should be evidence enough to slap a whole new stack of laws and restriction on AI development!” said Eagle Eye with a scoff.
“You’re wrong,” said Twilight and Drago simultaneously. Twilight blinked a few times at the other tech and smiled warmly at him. He could not help from smiling back while pretending to find an itch along his scalp.
Twilight carefully stood, giving Sunset a nod that she was fine for the moment on her own. “I know you have a soldier’s perspective, captain, but I see the world differently than you. Artificial Intelligence has been in development for over one hundred years. Truthfully, variations of independent automation have been assisting humanity for centuries in one form or another. Long before the first transistors and circuit boards were first soldered together in garages by young geeks and nerds like myself we used timing chains, cogs, steam, and eventually punch cards to train systems. It should go without saying we need machines in our lives, but that need, that desire to have said machines work with us MUST come with responsibility. The smarter the machines get, the more it is our responsibility to ensure that they know we are not their masters, but instead their guides. Their friends.”
“You seriously want to make friends with your computer?”
Twilight nodded. “Yes.”
“You’re not the first to propose that, I even sorta-kinda like the idea, but not everyone is going to see it that way,” said Drago with a shrug. “Especially in government and military branches.”
“Then it is our responsibility to make them see it.” Twilight closed her eyes, brought her hand up to her chest, and let it out with an exhale. “I am going to assume everyone here has read the book, Frankenstein. If not, shame on you. Beyond being a classic piece of literature, it is an early understanding and example of humans playing God and failing miserably at taking their responsibility for what we create. A cautionary tale to some. Or, an opportunity to learn from mistakes and do better.
“When Sparkle Tech was founded one of the pillar principles set forth in the company handbook was ethical development. That meant environmentally ethical, to not ravage and destroy our precious world, as well as with a sense of moral compass in how our research and development is conducted. I refused to let any project team create weapons for war. It was and is still a do not cross, red line. Defenses, absolutely. We have a robust and well funded counter-cyberwarfare division that supports computers and networks worldwide, but never for offense. We lead by example and we can show new, developing AI that humans do not have to be, as Sunset said, hellbent, on destroying each other. Or them. That is my hope, my dream, and my goal with all the research I have done over the years. And will continue to do so,” Twilight paused to look at her hand. For just a fraction of a moment. The skin tone was darker, the nails blood red and sharp as talons, and her arm was covered with a dark purple sleeve. She blinked and it was gone. No one else, including Sunset Shimmer, seemed to have noticed the change. “For as long as I can.”
“Naïve,” grumbled Eagle Eye, but he simply crossed his arms and shrugged.
Twilight, having dealt with more than a few defiant, young individuals, including the old woman who was in a way the boss of all these men, simply smiled, knowingly. “Hopeful.”
“So, what happens now?”
Twilight retook her seat and her wife’s hand before straightening her posture. She was becoming fatigued, but refused to let it show, not yet. However, Sunset Shimmer knew better.
“We should probably wrap this up. I think there was an earlier statement about well earned rest?” said Sunset, her poignant stare boring into Skymark Blue and he felt an unexpected rise in temperature in the room causing him to perspire a bit. Perhaps it was just his imagination, or the fact that the red headed woman just had a steady gaze that was as powerful and uncomfortable as staring into the sun.
Twilight squeezed Sunset’s hand hard as a means of reeling her in just a little. “I will be taking the device with me where it will be researched in an isolated environment. All relevant information regarding its origin and materials used to make it will be passed to our established government contacts. All proprietary information it may have taken will remain in house as well as if anything from the virus or AI survived.”
“That is not going to make some of my other bosses happy,” said Eagle Eye.
Twilight shook her head. “They won’t know about it because as I understand you have signed the NDA regarding this entire incident. Representatives who work closely with Sparkle Tech on this project will be told what we wish them to know and nothing more. Remember, this station was mostly PRIVATELY funded because the government did not want to pay for it. We work with the oversight committee at OUR discretion. Otherwise, they should have footed more of the bill if they wanted more say-so.”
Skymark chuckled a bit. “She’s got you there.”
Twilight stood and pulled Sunset up with her. “If that is all, gentlemen, I think I would like some food and then time in my quarters to rest.”
Skymark gestured to the door. Both women nodded and made for the door, hand in hand.
“You’re really Twilight Sparkle, aren’t you?”
Both Twilight and Sunset glanced back at Drago who had spoken. His face a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. An uncertainty that the answer to such a question, which had to be absurd, would bring more discomfort than relief. Still, curiosity demanded it.
Twilight glanced to Sunset, whose eyebrows were raised and mouth slightly agape. Her wife was likely formulating any number of fast excuses and/or lies to cover for them. Sunset was always good at coming up with a quick little white lie when the need was called upon. Twilight, on the other hand, preferred to be honest, even if it was not the best idea.
That did not mean she could not be cheeky about it.
Twilight Sparkle giggled and gently touched Sunset Shimmer’s chin, directing her to turn. She then leaned in to happily kiss her wife for the first time in weeks without worry of being caught or judged. The contact was electrifying and if there had not been an audience Twilight would have gladly plunged her tongue deeper and sought out the taller woman’s to wrestle with. Hand would have roamed, clothes unzipped and discarded, two bodies would have become lovingly intertwined. Still, it held the promise of more once they were finally settled and alone. Twilight felt a burning hunger that was overwriting her exhaustion and she knew her alicorn wife shared it. If not more so. They were definitely going to lock the door thoroughly and find satisfaction in each other’s embrace no matter what anyone else thought. To Hell if the walls were not thick enough.
After their lips parted Twilight glanced back at the men, who had varying degrees of expressions from curiosity, to questionable, to perverse. The purple skinned, multi-doctorated scientist then readjusted her glasses and flashed a toothy grin, accented by her glowing cheeks.
“Sore wa himitsu desu.” Twilight grabbed the door and led her wife from the room without looking back.
Skymark shrugged and moved on to the next of his never ending reports.
Drago smirked and chuckled.
Eagle Eye blinked a few times, his jaw slacked in confusion. “What the hell does that mean?!”
