Dawn woke Fireball, filtering down through the surviving magic crystals. The cave was a bit chilly, which explained why he awoke with two ponies, Starlight Glimmer and Spitfire, using his stomach for a pillow. Mark’s head lay on Spitfire’s stomach, while Cherry Berry lay sprawled across Mark’s body.

Breakfast for the others was leftovers from the previous night; cold baked potato, hay, and leftovers from a food pack opened up for flavor. For himself Fireball washed off the larger shards of lightning-struck crystal that lay among the plants and made his breakfast from them.

After that, it was time to inspect the damage and fix what could be fixed.

The storm hadn’t triggered a landslide to bury the airlock, but the wind-blown dust had piled up half a meter deep against the outer airlock door. It took a bit of wrestling to get the door open, and Mark and Fireball worked on cleaning out the mechanism while the others checked the cave’s solar collectors on top of the hill.

While Fireball and Mark wielded brushes and compressed air, they listened to the chatter over the suit comms. Cherry Berry and Spitfire had gone above the cave to inspect the solar farm there. The storm had left the solar panels alone, aside from a coating of Martian dust. (The dust swept easily away, suggesting that the improvised electrical grounding system had worked.) The sun feeder crystals likewise were intact, but that didn’t matter. There hadn’t been a third lightning strike, but the two bolts had caused the failure of five of the enchanted crystals in the ceiling. The solar collector crystals linked to those destroyed crystals were good only for snacks... if you could pick which ones were still live and which weren’t.

After sweeping off the cave’s solar farm, Cherry and Spitfire hiked across the ancient volcano to check the status of Rover 2. Mark had parked it next to a steep bit of slope on Site Epsilon’s northwest side, as ordered. Only a bit of sand and dust had piled up on the rover’s wheels, with a thin coating covering the roof. The airlock worked without a problem, and the inside appeared to be in good shape, still holding air.

While the others were outside, Starlight went through the farm and cleaned out the smaller bits of shattered quartz. None of the falling shards had done serious damage to the plants, but those shards could do damage to hooves or boots if left alone. The shattered crystals had broken in pieces as large as Mark’s hand and as small as glitter, but carefully, systematically, Starlight swept through the field and magically combed them out. Fireball asked her to save the bits for later, because waste not, want not.

Cherry and Spitfire got back to the cave entrance just as Mark and Fireball finished cleaning out the airlock doors. With the crew reassembled inside the cave, Starlight used the day’s magic field time to cut five new solar collector crystals from the ceiling, enchanting them with the same spell as the already existing ones. That done, each of them gave a goodbye hug to Dragonfly’s cocoon, suited back up, and left, dropping the new collectors on the hilltop before hiking back to the rover.

All of this had happened with very little conversation. Nobody wanted to talk. That suited Fireball just fine, since he usually didn’t feel like talking anyway. Start a conversation with ponies, and sooner or later feelings were going to come into it.

But Fireball admitted, silently, to himself, a profound sense of relief when the rover climbed out of the last gully and the Hab appeared in the front windows, a bit dustier than when they’d left it, but obviously inflated and intact.

“Thank goodness,” Cherry Berry said.

“I call first shower,” Spitfire stammered.

“No shower yet,” Mark said. “I have to turn everything back on and run full diagnostics. And before we do that, we need to sweep off the solar panels and send a message to NASA.”

“I’m go to bed,” Fireball rumbled. “Go to bed and go to sleep someplace where lightning doesn’t strike inside. Where there more than one way out. Where razor sharp things won’t fall on us at any moment. Where I have my own bed. And where ponies don’t put their heads on my stomach while I’m asleep!”

He realized, a few moments late, that he’d said more than he’d meant to say.

“Um, I said I was sorry,” Spitfire replied.

“I think that’s the most English I’ve ever heard you use at one time,” Starlight added.

“Bed,” Fireball said, and kept his reply to that.

Stupid ponies and their feelings.

TRANSCRIPT – TELEGRAPH MESSAGE BETWEEN ESA AMICITAS AND EARTH DEEP SPACE NETWORK (NASA)

(note: the approximate turnaround time from sending message to receiving answer, between lightspeed delay and time required to translate Morse code, averages one hour, five minutes. The process is sped up on the Earth end by automated Morse translation and transmission software.)

AMICITAS: Friendship calling NASA. Friendship calling NASA. All safe. Hab intact. Ready to restore power to Pathfinder when ready. Please advise, over.

NASA: JSC calling Friendship. Reading you two by three, heavy solar interference. Recommend check for residual static charge on Pathfinder hull prior to restoring power. Proceed by taking longest antenna aerial fragment, connect to Hab ground system using long cable, Starlight Glimmer use magic to touch aerial to Pathfinder hull. Keep aerial away from all other components. Over.

AMICITAS: Repeat procedure, please, over.

NASA: Take one aerial fragment. Attach long cable. Plug into Hab ground system. Use magic to touch aerial to hull, and ONLY to hull, of Pathfinder. Keep aerial clear of all other parts of Pathfinder. Over.

AMICITAS: Procedure complete. It made one hell of a spark. Glad I contacted you before attempting to restore power to Pathfinder. Restoring power now, over.

NASA: Roger. Report on Hab condition, over.

AMICITAS: Hab systems back online, diagnostic in progress. So far no problems. Solar cells covered with dust and sand. Airlock 1 moved about half a foot. Secondary potato shed filled with dust blown through cracks. Friendship unmoved. Rover 1 intact. Rover 2 fully operational. Five sun crystals in cave farm destroyed by electrical discharge. Over.

NASA: Good to hear. Return to radio at 0830 hours your time to report each sol until Pathfinder link restored. Out.

Author's Notes:

Ugh. Headache all day today.

Buffer's down to one, mostly because I spent all my writing time yesterday expanding yesterday's and today's entries.