These stories were originally written as side stories to a pony-themed sci fi tabletop RPG played with friends over Roll20, mostly just as gifts to them for being an amazing group of people to play with. Eventually, after I started garnering a few of these stories, I was convinced to bring them to FimFiction to let others share in them as well and follow some of the misadventures and events surrounding the party in the game. In other words, the crew of Claudia.

As such these stories, while in chronological order, are in effect ‘side stories’ to the plot of the game itself, adding depth to character backgrounds, their relationships, and adventures of my own devising on the side. Because of this, there are fairly hefty time-skips between each story, with events in the characters’ lives happening between them (ie - the game sessions). I have done my best to include introductions to each story to help give some context on what transpired between each one in our tabletop game, to give you the understanding needed to enjoy them. But for those interested in seeing the full tale, there will be “game session summaries” posted at the end of stories. These aren’t required at all, but if you’d like to know more about the game beyond these stories, feel free to take a look.

After a long break after writing Murky Number Seven, this world is what got me writing again. From all of us involved, we hope you enjoy them.

Story Writer: Fuzzy
World Design and Original Game GM: Napalm Goat
Story Editor and Session Summaries: Snipehamster

“Cadet Tammani! Your assigned place of docking is training hangar four, change course immediately! Confirm!”

Breathing heavily, feeling her own breath wash back on her face inside the cramped and thoroughly uncomfortable helmet, Tami let go of one side of the control handles and tried to hit the 'send' button on the flickering communication panel. It took her a few attempts, the pressurised training suit making her movements feel clumsy and slow. The moment after she felt the button depress, she grabbed the controls again to continue wrestling with the high speed of the training shuttle. Wrenching the sticks back and to the right, she veered away from the bonsai-tree shaped orbital station ahead of her, seeing stars whirl incomprehensibly in the front of the shuttle's thick windows, before a huge shape loomed from one side.

The reflected light from the terminator line of the planet below shone across the bow of the ship and blinded her as she sought to re-angle on the station. Enormous rings, shining like diamonds, suddenly dominated the horizon behind the colossal station.

Her voice was gasping, breathless. She was travelling at a speed she'd never even realised the bulky shuttle was capable of.

“You...you said it was hangar three before!”

The shuttle rattled as she fired the retro thrusters to slow her speed and reorient on a new approach. The g-forces slammed her forward and then down, straining the bulky suit against her restraints, until she pushed the thrust control forward again to launch into a new orbit of the station.

“Plans change, Cadet. You must be prepared to adapt.”

The faint, static-backed voice being so difficult to hear was a reminder of just how battered and bare bones these shuttles were. Designed as mock ups of VIP yachts or transports, they held none of the sophisticated systems, comfort or aesthetic. Instead, it was all replaced by dented bulkheads and reams of training and observation instruments. Her every motion, every press of a button or flip of a switch, was being recorded for post-flight analysis. Whether she corrected a mistyped frequency before she had hit send or not, they'd know. They'd made that clear. Everything was on the individual in Chrysolite's VIP Pilot Academy program.

But it promised so much if one could do it. If you could, then you could lay claim to a dream of touring the stars in the lap of the high end of society.

The weeks she'd spent here had put more pressure on her shoulders than she had ever imagined, as heavy as any emergency turn and burn. Now, with all eyes on her performance, her heart felt like it was about to burst out of her suit. Every limb felt stiff and ready to freeze up at any second. Her eyes couldn't sit still, glancing at every single corner of the pilot display consoles to her front. She'd come to rely terribly on the information they provided her, using every ounce of data they put out to help her keep up with the demanding program.

It had been tough lately. Several nights ago she'd been unable to sleep at all, and just lay in her bunk aboard the station gripping a pillow and trying to stop silently weeping after an instructor had torn her out over messing up the order of a start-up routine.

“I-”

She shook her head, forcing all that back down as the station roared by the right hand side of the cockpit window. Picking up speed again, half squinting from the neon glow of various landing approach beacons floating amongst the black to guide pilots in, Tammani wrenched the control sticks and rolled the shuttle back on itself to re-angle its front toward hangar four. Drifting sideways during the manoeuvre, she used the remaining velocity on a transversal turn, spinning the shuttle on its own axis until it lined up with the new hangar on the opposite side of the station. The glittering and flashing multicolored lights streaked across the cockpit windows until it came into view, its shape highlighted by the bright white of the Chrysolite system's star obscured behind it.

It was a brief, beautiful moment that reminded her of why she was doing all this: a love of what was up here. The tranquil beauty of the stars. Others just called it 'space', but Tami saw it differently. She saw a place of wonders on a scale that no single planet could ever offer.

She had yearned to reach it. That was why she was here.

“I understand, approaching now!”

The roar of the powerful engines set the hull rattling, vibrated the pilot's seat, and set her heads-up-display rocking so badly that she could barely read anything from its thin lines and rapidly changing numbers. Despite being in an endless void, she felt claustrophobic within a tight suit, within a small cockpit, surrounded by lights, sound and a view filled with an enormous station. The hangar bounced all over her vision as she fought to remember everything about docking at speed.

“Warning,” a monotone female voice from the console intoned, “proximity alert. Object approaching at collision velocity.”

“I know, I know!”

Now the ship was pressuring her too. Tami slapped the button to turn it off. Pilots of the quality they wanted had to be able to launch, navigate and dock at higher speeds than normally accepted by the on-board software.

Daring to look away from the flight control display, she turned to her side and started trying to go through the landing procedure on the panels above and to her right. Grunting as she tugged heavy switches, she looked back up every half-second to pull the shuttle back on track while doing mental math and twisting archaic numerical dial-pads. The retro thrusters were primed. The landing struts were mid-way through deploying. She could hear their grinding hum below her. The physical and mental effort was making her sweat inside her suit.

The young hippogriff's talons gripped the sticks again, and she stared back into the flashing red of the flight control display. She could see the distance to designated landing zone. She could see her velocity. Everything she needed.

She could do this. She knew she could fly well, she just-

The flight control flickered, and then went dead.

The entire panel shut down with a low hum of fading power. Staring at a black monitor, then looking up at the rapidly approaching monstrosity of metal and neon lights, a void to match the vacuum outside opened in her gut.

She had no numbers to rely on. No way to understand what she was seeing. No pilot assistance meant no guiding automation or projected routes!

Tami felt her entire body clam up.

“No...no, no, no!” She reached out and hit 'send' again. “Central, do you read? Central! I have a major malfunction and-”

The harsh voice broke across the comm-unit's speaker.

“This is not a malfunction, we have disabled your pilot assistance modules. Fly it in manually. We've taught you how.”

She almost screamed. The shuttle began to wildly shake around as its previously planned route began to falter from micro-adjustments on account of her shaking hands, threatening to go into a three-dimensional spin if she lost track of the station itself. The controls felt heavy and unresponsive in her grip, but every tiny movement made the metal station and stars veer wildly outside.

She had no idea what the engines were doing. Manual flying in the event of a pilot-aid system loss was all about remembering the details from before, and understanding what controls added what numbers to your velocity or angle of approach. In a moment of horror, she realised she couldn't remember them.

Every second, they felt harder and harder to picture. Fear began to grip her, clouding her mind with clammy, insidious worry. She was hyperventilating, feeling a sense of vertigo overcome her, as the ship pitched, weaved and bobbed on its heading. Every time she tried to adjust it, the nose would fly even harder in the other direction away from the rapidly approaching hangar. Everything she touched was making it worse and worse.

“I can't!” she yelled aloud, barely thinking of how it sounded to her instructors. The hangar was rapidly blurring, as her shuttle started to move near-sideways toward it rather than in a direct path. In a panic, she hit the retro thrusters to slow herself down.

The sudden deceleration rocked the training shuttle, tossing her in her seat with a cry of pain as it spun away from facing the hangar entirely. The angle! She'd forgotten the angle! Seeing the station only once every second flying across the cockpit windows, the terror-stricken hippogriff grabbed the controls and wrenched hard in the opposite direction.

“Cadet, control your spin!”

“I-”

Her fighting with the shuttle only seemed to make its flight path become more chaotic, the turnspeed growing out of control.

“Cadet, you're panicking! Control yourself and react accordingly!”

Tears forming in her eyes, she could barely remember knew what to do. Suddenly, starkly, the fear for her own life broke through the pressure, as the thought of slamming into the hangar and disintegrating into a thousand burning pieces shot through her. Screaming, she threw the sticks forward and threw every ounce of power the shuttle had into the engines, hoping against hope that she could throw the shuttle far enough that it'd miss the station and drift off until recovery.

The engines roared, then cut as the rash move threw a compressor stall through them. With a loud bang, the interruption in the outlet’s flow blasted the shuttle into an accelerating spin on a separate axis to the previous one. She smelled smoke. The ship spun and spun, her body was getting weary as the g-forces tore at her. A klaxon on board the ship rang out with a final proximity warning.

“Help me!”

“Cadet! Use your-”

She couldn't hear the rest. Letting go of the controls, she covered her visor, curling up as best she could in the seat like a frightened child.

The rear of the shuttle impacted at speed on the side of the hangar. The tough training vessel absorbed the impact, bending around the station's superstructure before spinning and drifting away from it. Shattered panels and sparking wires erupted from the point of collision, and red alarm lights flared all over the hangar floor.

On board, Tami felt her body violently slammed and crushed back into her seat as the cockpit crumpled around her. The impact had been like someone hitting her in the back with a sledgehammer. The shrieking engines sounded like howling demons, firing inconsistently and pumping smoke into the trapped pilot’s cockpit. A dozen alarms were blaring and flashing lights at her from all sides. She couldn't even hear herself wailing in terror.

“Cadet! Come in!” The fading speaker broke into static. They were trying to establish contact, but her forelegs felt heavy and dead, unable to reach out to reply.

“Cadet!”

An eternity of stars, the ones she loved so much, began to turn to nothing but black in her vision.

“CADET!”

The humid and still air of Chrysolite held none of the usually invigorating radiance that returning to planetside often had. Normally, after time in the black, the rush of colour was a pleasing sensation.

Not this time.

Almost soundlessly on its electric drive, the starport's connecting transport pulled away on the tarmac, wheeling around a smooth turn until it could once again repeat its endless cycle to and from the terminal building. Departing in a cloud of thin dust, it left only a single passenger standing by the empty road.

Tammani stood quiet and still below the metal sun shelter with her scant luggage, her eyes not even raising enough to see the seemingly endless fields of wheat and corn that stretched out from the opposite side of the road. They, conversely, shifted restlessly, filling the still air with a low rustle. Their movements were driven by a sluggish wind that she couldn't even feel.

She hadn't felt a lot of anything the past few days.

For perhaps the hundredth time, she pulled the crumpled slip from her breast pocket, gingerly moving her left arm in its sling to hold it before her eyes. For the hundredth time she read it, hoping against hope that she'd missed some singularly important detail.

And for the hundredth time, she was crushed.

The past two weeks had been naught but recovery. A broken left arm, whiplash, and a concussion had been the lucky escape's leftovers. The shuttle, her suit, and the in-hangar response teams had saved her life; not that she'd seen any of it. She'd first woken up in the medical ward, but after the first week they had brought the news she had dreaded, and they'd handed her the slip.

Six days later, she now stood here in the sun, beside an impossibly straight road that divided the wheat before her from the one place that connected her to the stars.

They hadn't even given her time to go back to her bunk first.

Staring at the slip, feeling her still healing arm start to ache from shaking, Tami hurriedly stuffed the paper back in her pocket and screwed her eyes shut. She could feel the bitter frustration and anger welling up inside her stomach again. Like it was balling up and twisting over and over.

That was all she'd wanted. It was what she'd spent years reading every book she or her parents could afford about space flight, about the stars, and about all sorts of ships. It was why she'd focused all her chosen classes toward it. Why she'd worked so hard in basic flight school to earn the required credit for such an opportunity. Why she'd spent more time staying up into the early hours simply to look up and hope for a cloudless night. To go there, to see that boundless dreamscape. To fly amongst the colour, the grandeur, and the unthinkable. That had been her mission. She had been one of the few her age that had known exactly what she wanted to do in life.

And now that one opportunity was gone.

Tami felt her head pound, the stress and horrid craving for this outcome to stop joking and reveal itself as a mistake had been making her dizzied and sore state take much longer to heal than it normally would. She couldn't stop turning the issue over and examining it from every angle. Her breathing started to stutter as she began to hyperventilate again, just like during the crash.

What had gone wrong? She had put all that effort in. The books, the schools, the study. The shuttle had worked perfectly. The course had been everything she'd been told to expect. The instructors had given her every resource. The area around her had been empty of other traffic or any significant distractions.

There was just one thing had gone wrong.

Shivering violently, feeling her eyes well up as the crushing silence of being forced back to the ground kept becoming ever clearer because of the one thing that had failed.

Her.

Standing on all three good limbs, Tami stood and felt wretched, knowing it to be the truth. She had failed. She had ruined her own life's dream. There was no-one else to blame.

In that moment, she felt a creeping sense of anxiety in her head, telling her that she simply hadn't been good enough.

Overwhelmed by the last two weeks finally catching up to her, she wept and sniffed, a sense of inadequacy and shame entering her mind, one so strong that she didn't even notice the noise of another vehicle pulling up. Or the sound of the sleek and blonde griffon who got out moving around it to her.

“Tam...oh, Tam...”

His heart broke at the sight of his daughter and he immediately clasped her in his arms, carefully pulling the smaller hippogriff to his chest and stroking her mane gently and endlessly.

“Come on, let's get you home.”

Compass Rose closed the door to Tammani's room with a soft click and wiped her eyes with the edge of a wing. She had done her best to appear in control of everything until she could hide her eyes from her child, but the moment she had left the young hippogriff to rest off her injuries, Rose’s emotions had become impossible to keep down.

It had taken everything to not immediately turn back once again.

Rounding the landing on the upper floor of their home, she turned off the lamp in the hallways window as she passed to the stairs. It was night, and their quiet, rural town on the fringes of wide farmland was silent. Chrysolite's star was but a dull, light haze over the very edge of the horizon. F-class, Rose briefly reminded herself. Old navigator habits died hard. They led her to always looking to understand where she was, and how to move to the next place.

Yet right now, she just wished she could find some direction for her daughter.

Trotting downstairs, she spotted her husband. Gaius was still poring over the summary discharge documents Tammani had brought back with her. The griffon sat hunched on their front room's sofa, barely lit by the fire. His normally confident and bright demeanour, that spark of humour and genial roguishness that had so caught her attention decades before, now looked sullen.

Rose knew that look. It was the same he'd worn when they'd thought they had no way out: when Gaius took a determined mood to try and pull them all out of the fire. When their ship had lost her nav-unit in deep space. When they had been caught without FTL in a system with the Empire's navy scourging for every signal they could spot. When the Confederacy had impounded the ship and seized all their belongings. Every time, he would wear that look until he had a solution.

This was the first time she had seen that look about him since their retirement. They’d settled here on Chrysolite to raise their daughter in a more stable and peaceful environment. After spending so many years not seeing him as a captain, it was unusual to see that sterner side of him re-emerge.

Shuffling to the bottom of the stairs, she reached out and clicked on the light to their living room. With a start, Gaius looked up at her, as though not having heard her approach.

“How is it?” Rose kept her voice quiet, treading across the soft carpet to sit alongside her husband.

Gaius sighed, almost pressing the paper to his forehead, before swapping hands and running his talons through his plume.

“It's...” He hesitated, looking around the room as though for distraction. Homely, simple, and comfortable, their small house still bore remnants from their ship dotted around. Their old bridge seat covers decorated their sofas now. The toolkit they kept around was the same, still bearing tools they'd never need. Even their kettle came from the old ship. On the wall hung a section of battered hull plating, bearing the painted name and symbol of what had been their home for over fifteen years. The voyage that had permitted their early retirement in their forties to raise a child.

The Tammaran, and its symbol: a set of overlapping griffon and pegasus wings. Their symbol they had chosen. One that, by fate and some chance genetics, stood for something very different today in both their minds.

The choice of name had been all too easy for them when she had been born.

“Hun?” Rose prompted him, seeing the far-away look in Gaius' eyes.

He blinked and shook his head, bringing up the document again.

“It's not good. Not good at all, Rosie.” Gaius sighed, indicating the larger text marking both the title and the final paragraph of the VIP Pilot Academy's final report on Tammani. “Dismissal without chance of appeal, and removal of all pre-obtained qualifications on their ground. They don't want anything attached to them that isn't a full graduate.”

Rose had guessed as much, but still gently wrapped her forelegs around Gaius' arm.

“There's other ways, though? We could try and get the funds together to help her qualify as something else. The cruises? Maybe even the Pioneer Science Division? She's got as good a head for numbers as I do, or-”

“That's the problem.” He finally looked at her rather than the paper, before handing it to her. “The crash has been labelled as a category A incident.”

“Meaning? I'm an independent navigator, hun. Not a League pilot.”

Gaius' voice was patient and apologetic, “An incident that either resulted in a loss of life or, in this case, an excess of ten million credits damages. No-one but Tami was hurt by the crash, but a category A incident goes on a pilot's permanent record. These days, everything is connected. Even Republic or Confederacy interviews would check the League pilot records now.”

He sighed and let the paper drop onto the coffee table before them.

“There's not a flight career around would ever accept a pilot with a category A on their record. Even though she's more than qualified for training on most of them, that's all they'll see.”

There was a pause between the two, as husband and wife, father and mother, looked to one another.

“I can't...Tammani wants to...”

Rose took up the document, not wanting to believe the same words. Her eyes scanned the digital print from the Academy's Chancellor. She saw the 'must inform', the 'undue risk' and the 'cannot accept' throughout, and felt an anger bubble within her. That someone had willingly locked her daughter away from what they'd all knew was meant to be for her felt so frustratingly, gut wrenchingly unfair.

“Oh, Tami...” she whispered, feeling her eyes well up again. “There has to be...isn't there anywhere that-”

“Not with this.” Gaius got up and paced back and forth, restless and defeated, until he sank back down beside his wife and felt her wrap her smaller wing around his back.

Above them both, upon the upper floor in the darkness of the mezzanine, Tammani sat against the centre pillar of the house and eavesdropped. She didn't look down, but simply stared through the window at the darkening sky and listened.

She'd known everything her father had known. She'd known it from the moment she had woken up. But she'd always hoped that perhaps they'd see something she didn't. He'd been the captain of a starship for fifteen years. She'd been a navigator for just as long. They'd been up there. They'd always seemed like bastions of knowledge and advice to her. They'd encouraged her from the first day, and their support had cultivated the talent she'd needed.

Not enough talent, she reminded herself. She'd not only let herself down, she'd wasted the investment and time they'd poured in to help her.

She couldn't listen any longer, and quietly pulled her battered body up. Limping, she slid back into her dark room.

It had never ceased to be a 'clean but untidy' mess even in the time she'd been away. Her sheets half fell from the double bed when she'd sneaked out. Piles of books were stacked by the bedside and on desk and drawers. Astronomy, electronics, programming, aerodynamics, physics and space-art. The messy easel sat with a half finished quasar beside her prized telescope, a tenth birthday gift that her father had taken on a brief stint of post-retirement jobs to afford. The large window at the back that it stood before was open against the summer heat, its glass looking out over the rolling low hills.

It was a cloudless night out there, and already the dazzling twinkle of the deep black was starting to filter through the light pollution. Others just saw white light, but she saw so much more. The gentle red hues, off-yellow sparks, and brilliant silvers were hidden in plain sight to those who hadn't spent so long looking upwards.

In utter silence, she stared at them, lit by moonlight in her own room, until she could bear it no longer.

“Why wasn't I better?” she asked the empty sky, feeling stupid for even speaking aloud to herself. “What's wrong with me?”

Cheeks running wet and eyes stinging, she choked back a sob and dropped back into her bed, lying on top of the sheets. Head into the pillow, her shoulders shook and her wings drooped.

From the darkness at the back of her room, however, something shifted. It had watched her quietly, its energy having been spent since originally seeing Tami return a couple of hours ago. Yet now, over time, it was beginning to sense that something was amiss.

The Tami it recognised was here, but the Tami it knew had not returned.

Something was wrong.

As Tami struggled with wanting to sleep, but not wanting to face what the future would now bring, she didn't hear it approaching her bed, until a soft weight hopped up from the floor, bringing itself into view in the moonlight.

Orbit was his name, her golden retriever. Bought for the family, but in the end really connected to her, he now padded across the bed to her side and furiously dug and buried his head under her wing. Pausing to listen every few seconds, he eventually drove himself up alongside her body and pushed under a foreleg, until he could snuffle and prod his nose at her neck and face.

Orbit didn't know exactly what was wrong. Orbit didn't care.

Orbit just knew what made him feel better, and pushed in deep against the hippogriff. The same she'd done for him whenever the lightning had come. He'd felt safe and happy with her hugging him close. Now he sensed by instinct that he had to do the same.

Feeling her arm wrap around him and tug him in, he licked at her cheek and knew he'd done good.

And if he could have understood her, he'd have recognised the weak sound of a choked laugh, and a quiet 'thank you' as she curled up with him to sleep away the remainder of the horrid day.

“Driver nineteen? Tammani? Your next assigned fare is the Four Club, change over from the Tristarant job immediately. Twiddle will handle that. Confirm?”

Breathing heavily, feeling her breath simply impact on the humid air in the cramped cab, Tami let go of the control handles with one hand and hit the 'send' button on the radio panel. Her movement to depress it was lazy and limp.

There was no need to do anything fast here.

“...all right.”

No reply came, only the click of someone shutting off their end. She didn't mind; talking on the radio made her nervous. Every other taxi unit tuned in could hear the communication on their very limited system.

Sitting back with a sigh of frustration, Tami rolled her eyes and made to finish off the quick meal she'd grabbed from the suburb market. A pre-made sandwich was about the most she could squeeze in between fares, although she'd ensured to spare enough time to treat herself. A tonka bean and orange oil ring doughnut. It was Friday, a day she always permitted herself one of the fancy treats from the little cafe beside the store.

In the two years since she'd gotten this job, she'd gotten to first name basis with the owner and made a point of sampling all his individual hoofmade treats each week.

Pausing for a few seconds, she held it in both hands, admiring the glistening coat of orange icing and patterned chocolate drizzled over it. A few nuts were formed into the shape of a bow on one side. Her heart beat a little faster as she anticipated the taste itself, and she closed her eyes even as her mouth opened.

The tangy explosion of orange in her mouth was more than enough to make her forget about the monotony of the job, if only for the few minutes it took to savour the pleasure of a sugary delight.

And there was a lot to want to forget. In the two years since her return, this job had been all she'd been able to get. She'd tried other piloting routes, of course. She'd even looked at in-atmo roles, but it seemed they had access to the same details, and she hadn't even made the interviews. Reputation meant everything in the League with your career, and they hadn't wanted hers attached to them.

Unable to escape the world, and unable to fly its skies, she had turned to what would let her move, and found this. Working the night shifts five days per week driving home party goers, air and starport arrivals, and those who'd gotten stuck for one reason or another.

It was, in a word, boring. Unfulfilling, stressful, and with no scope for advancement even at this lowest rung of the profession. The kind of job most people her age did until they could get their real career started, and for those who had become stuck needing something that took in anyone. At twenty, she was by far the youngest of that latter group.

Crumbling up the remains of her meal's packaging, she tossed it into the needless passenger seat beside her, regretfully raised the windows and went through the wholly unsatisfying startup sequence of an electronic automobile. Three steps. Three dull little steps to get moving.

Switching the LED board on the roof to 'Reserved', she pulled away from the street-side and slowly eased her way back into the quiet roads. The taxi itself, a family model like some toy imitation of a cargo hauler, was effortlessly smooth on the road and made little noise. The heads-up-display cast her route onto the windscreen, and she began the ten minute journey there.

The world felt empty at this time of night. As she passed further into the city from the outskirts, the streets bore only a few wandering parties, trying to find an unoccupied club. The real hustle would begin in a couple of hours. Neon signs flickered above the taxi, making her flip down the sunshield to not aggravate her vision. The journey wasn't hard, just one straight line through the centre, then a few side street turns.

Nothing so much as a nice country road with a few gentle turns to tackle. The taxi even had an autonomous mode for quiet street driving. Something she found painfully ironic was the fact that she had elected to stay manual, in an attempt to squeeze some form of interaction with life out of the work.

Five nights of neon signs, drunk and laughing public who couldn't care for her at all, and then if she was lucky and not too tired, two days to spend with her parents or the scant few friends she'd kept since returning.

Tami winced and felt a hurtful feeling shoot through her. 'Friends', only in the loosest sense. When she couldn't do most of what they wanted due to the working hours of her job, it rather put a hard limit on how close they could be with how tired and boring she knew she was. By this point, she suspected they were just entertaining her and didn't have the courage to send her away.

It was beyond frustrating. All her memories of Basic Flight School prior to the VIP Academy felt so far away now, like an old dream. The days when she would cry laughing with her friends, go on holidays between semesters, and hug at least a few different people every day between classes and exciting flights. Daytime, filled with colour, and her not feeling quite so tired all the time.

She had felt like the person she wanted to be. The bright and bubbly cute friend. She had loved being that for them. She had been close to them, knew all their lives; and they'd known hers.

They were all gone now. Vantage Vair to the League Navy; Poppy to the cruise industry; even Olivine had gotten a job with Basalt Industries right out the gate. They were off-world. They'd gotten to leave.

Pushing those thoughts from her head, she focused on her driving instead, and wound away from the bar streets to a more classy side of the city centre. Clubs here generally weren't so rough. If she was lucky, her fare might not even be-

“Aw, no...” she muttered, and thumped her head on the steering wheel. Her newly regrown mane flopped down around her as the automated navigation activated and pulled her to a stop beside the ponies she was due to transport.

The collection of mares by the roadside whooped and waved to her.

They were drunk.

Very drunk.

Apocalyptically drunk.

Hooves battered against the side of the taxi before she could even collect herself and unbolt the locks. She wasn't worried about contact -the front of the taxi had a shield that barred them from her- but she hated these fares most of all.

Finally, the door whizzed open on silent hydraulics.

“OH! OH MY GOSH! IT'S A GRIFFON!”

“I win the bet!”

“No, it's not! Look, she's a hippo!”

Tami winced. The city's game of betting the final round payer on what species the taxi driver would be had never been amusing enough to even need to get old. It was simply annoying.

“Half and half then! Half and-”

The voice stopped, as seemingly for no reason the unicorn burst into shrieking laughter, joined by the others. Tami simply closed the doors, focused ahead, and began driving. She already had their destination from the reserved fare entry on her heads-up-display. Thankfully no need to interact with them.

The soft whirr of the taxi was drowned out by their laughter. Screeching jokes and yells as though they thought the taxi was a light-second wide led to a headache developing before Tami even reached the lights out of the side road at all. Gripping the wheel as tightly as she could, she took the taxi out onto the sliproad to the motorway.

The faster she could get them home, the faster she could hope for a quieter fare. The money be damned.

Arcing up and around the slip road to the elevated motorway itself, Tami tapped the touchscreen a few times to increase the cruise control to the now unlocked speed limit. It felt horridly restrictive; she couldn't exceed it even if she wanted to. Every taxi was fitted with an area recognition limiter.

Only now could she finally put the engine to work, and take the party going on right behind her somewhere she could be rid of them.

As the vehicle hit its stride on the motorway, travelling through the empty night, she did however feel something inside. A dull melancholy creeping up from down low. The mares clambering over one another and taking pictures with loud screams began to fade away in her mind. Tami's eyes focused on the unfurling road ahead, before creeping upwards.

She didn't mean to. She knew what this was. It happened every few weeks.

She started to think about what could have been.

It was a mistake, but feeling the sense of motion around her, while transporting others, and sitting behind the controls of anything; it just brought it all up in a deceptively enticing way. It would feel relaxing, a moment of escape to ward away the dullness. But she knew what would happen. It invariably turned to just upsetting her.

On her parents' insistence, she had visited a therapist after their worry for her had grown. For half a year she had gone and talked out her frustrations, until the slot was finished and she was sent home with piles of paper containing information on self-esteem, changing one's viewpoint, and post-traumatic stress.

She hadn't felt it had helped. What she felt she needed to fix herself wasn't what they could offer.

Tami had seen a dream before her, with her very eyes.

She had sat in cockpits and bridges of starships that had soared throughout the system, and even once beyond it to Turquoise. She had travelled at hypersonic speeds, and seen the glint of beacons, asteroids and stars slowly move across the window. She had been intending to carry the most important, refined people in the galaxy from wonder to wonder.

Yet now, she sat in a stuffy cabin of a banged up taxi, never moving further than the city within an hour of her home. She travelled now at her maximum speed, nought-point-nought-nought-nought-nought-nought-nought-six AU per hour, watching only dull streetlamps and headlights of other vehicles pass by the windscreen. She carried people who threw up in her taxi, screamed abuse through the cabin barrier, and only ever wanted to go to some dark home street or to another hideous club.

That was it. That was what she'd always knew that feeling did.

It always turned around and reminded her. Two years separated, months of therapy, and a loss of what she even used to have down here, with no future she wanted laid out for her...all because of her own stupid lack of talent at the helm.

Tami gripped the wheel and drove on into the black, hoping they wouldn't ask her anything. Right now, she couldn't have answered; this was not the black she had longed for.

It was the early hours by the time Tami got off the last bus and reached the quiet neighbourhood of her home. Finding the door still open she stepped inside without a word, so as not to disturb her sleeping parents.

Inside, she could now see the glow of an orange lamp from the living room, heavily indicating that caution was at least partially unwarranted.

Dropping her bag, she glanced through and saw the hunched shape of her mother silhouetted by the desk's lamp. Stacks of booklets and brochures lay around her, while the screen of a datapad sat inactive on a screensaver.

Compass Rose looked up at the sound of the door closing, and pushed a smile onto her tired face.

“Hi, hun.”

The hippogriff tried to force a smile back, hanging her coat beside the stairs.

“Hi.”

Rose looked back to the papers, and stood up with a stretch. “Long night, then?”

Tami nodded quietly, and Rose quickly caught the obvious mood her daughter was in. She'd seen it enough times. Often the morning after when Tami got up, or whenever she stayed up late to be there for her daughter returning, like now.

“I've been trying to see if there's any openings about; got a few things we can look over in the morning?”

“Mhm...”

Tami's voice was dreary, and Rose clicked her tongue.

“That bad, huh?”

She moved forward and sat on the bottom the steps, facing her daughter. Gently, she reached out and hooked a stray strand of Tammani's thick mane behind an ear. She had been happy to see her grow it back out from that Academy short-standard to help her look past it.

“There, now I can see you proper, huh?” She tried to smile, to keep herself seeming relaxed, but she saw little reaction on Tammani's face. Sighing, she leaned her head on the banister and took the hippogriff's shoulder, feeling it shaking. “What's wrong, dear? Please, talk to me.”

Tami's eyes shot open for a moment, before she quickly shook her head. “No, no, just...I'm just tired. It was a lot-”

“Hun, I know there's more than that. Ever since...” She took a breath and paused. They'd been down this road enough times that she knew not to bring it up. “It's rough shifts, I know. But even when you're with your friends you're just not...you.”

“I just don't see where I'm going, mum!” The words were sudden and blurted, and she tore away from Rose, wandering back into the living room. “I can't get a job I want, I'm not good enough for the other ones that are like what others are getting, and my friends aren't really...”

She paused, and Rose heard a quiet sob. Something had clearly been playing on Tami's mind all night. Trotting through after her, she found Tami sitting on the side sofa near the window.

“We just need to keep trying to find you some-”

“There isn't anything!”

The sudden rise in her volume caught them both by surprise, until Tami lowered her voice and continued.

“We've looked at everything! And...and I can't get any of them! There's nothing else I can find with that huge mark on every record they look at! No-one wants the hippogriff who crashed something and who can't even stay calm enough to talk to anyone important in a job! That's why my 'friends' just don't want to be around me, 'cos I'm just a failure, okay? I work a trash job and missed my chance! And I-”

“It's not your job that worries me, Tammani!”

Compass Rose' own voice drowned Tami out. She surged over to her, staring her daughter right in the eye, barely keeping the anger and frustration that had been building up inside her in check to hear her daughter talk that way. Tami's eyes bulged wide, and she recoiled enough that Rose felt a pang of guilt, checking the shout to a quieter, but stoic tone.

“It's not your job. It's not you finding a job. It's not about what's next. It's what I see right here! It's you. I'm worried about you! I see you constantly putting yourself down, and talking about how you're a failure at everything every time this comes up. That's not true!”

“It is!” Tami protested.

Rose's hooves took both of the hippogriff's hands and squeezed them tightly.

“It. Is. Not! I won't have you talk about yourself that way! One mistake doesn't ruin your life. I thought… I thought we'd helped with this a year ago. The therapy about the accident?”

Eyes reddening, Tami just looked away and shook her head.

“I couldn't even speak in the groups! And one to one th-they couldn't fix what-it wasn't just that, I-I don't know what I'm...”

“Tami...” Rose rubbed their hooves and hands over one another, trying to warm them as she felt how cold the sudden chill at night on this planet had made Tami on the walk home. “Finding you something you want to do just takes time. And we will. I won't stop looking till I do, but what I can't abide is seeing you do this to yourself. Honey, you're hurting yourself. Diminishing what you've done. I remember you telling me about how you broke Basic Flight's orbital transition record. How you had so many friends there. You can do that again. And we'll help you. You just...you just need to believe in yourself a little more.”

“I'm just being honest with myself...” Tami muttered.

Compass Rose let go of her sharply, stood upright, and sighed. The sigh quickly turned to a frustrated groan of annoyance.

“No you are NO-”

Her hoof stopped inches from the table it had been about to hit, and the brief fury quickly abated. Seeing Tami staring up at her with wide eyes, she simply sank down, and pulled her into a close embrace.

“I'm sorry, hun.”

Mentally chiding herself for letting her mounting frustration at his daughter's problems over the past years get the better of her, she simply held onto her, stroking Tami's mane with her hoof over and over. She could feel her gripping tightly back.

“I'm sorry I'm letting you both down, mum...”

Compass Rose couldn’t think of anything more to say that wouldn't make herself break on the spot, and so she just squeezed her daughter tightly.

Afterwards, she let Tami sit in peace as she got her a hot drink, and despite feeling an urge to go over possible avenues of life she had researched, instead decided to leave it for now. Perhaps she had been doing it too much, pushing these possible routes in life on a tired young girl in her determination to solve the issue. Tami wasn't like her husband, who preferred things so direct. Tammani had her mother's approach when something was bothering her, and Rose knew the issues she'd had with that sort of thinking in the past.

Seeing her off to bed, Rose watched her head upstairs. After a full minute on her hooves, staring at that door, Rose returned to her desk, feeling completely helpless and worried, beginning to doubt herself much in the same way. The sense of failure at not being able to fix things for her daughter was starting to root in deep.

It would be morning before her husband would find her still at her desk, slumped over it, with some of the papers below her head still damp.

“Tam?” Gaius called upstairs. “Tam?”

He heard the sound of a door opening, and Tami's head poked around the top of the mezzanine, her long mane arranged in a crazed mess. She was likely only just up.

“Could you fly down to the store? We'll need some more milk and some food for Orbit. Just a pickup, I called ahead.”

Tami rustled her mane, and nodded. “Sure, just lemme get dressed. Hey, Orbit? Walk!”

There was an excited bark, and the sound of four paws rushing madly around the room. Gaius could see the top of their pet's blonde head moving in circles around Tami. Even before she was back in her room to dress, the golden blur came rocketing down the stairs past Gaius, nearly headbutting the front door. Orbit sat up, his tail thumping hard against the entrance to their home twice a second.

Forcing a smile upon his face, he ruffled Orbit's head, and waited on Tami to hustle down after the canine. Her movements were slower and lethargic, not the excited flurry of wings he remembered her usually making to take her dog out.

“Won't be long, dad.”

Her voice was a bit brighter, and Gaius appreciated that she was still trying, but he could see the dark shapes under her eyes. Tami had not slept well at all, and he could sense his daughter was riding a knife edge of another mood crash again. Gaius felt tense, too tense to do much more than just weakly smile to her as he watched her get ready. He knew they had plenty of milk and dog food in the house already. The called order had another purpose.

Before long, the hippogriff and dog had both left. Only then did Gaius reopen the living room door and go back to his wife.

She was sitting at the dining room table through the back of the archway toward the kitchen, tissues in her hooves, and a small stack of used ones to the side. Sobbing and shaking, she blew her nose and leaned on a hoof, staring at the wooden criss-cross pattern of the heavy table.

Gaius hadn't wanted Tami to see this, and hadn't wanted his wife to have to be seen either.

“Rosie...” he started, and then realised he didn't know how to follow it up. Sitting beside her, he put an arm around her, gripping the pegasus' shoulder tightly.

“What went wrong?” Rose gasped and heaved the words out, hiccuping and screwing her eyes shut. “Gaius, I...I can't do this anymore.”

He squeezed her to his side, resting his cheek atop her head. “We've been th-”

“No! Don't even-” She nearly threw him off, tossing the tissues away to stand up and pace restlessly about behind him instead. Her voice raised, accompanied by heavy steps that knocked on the panel floor. “This isn't like then! We had ways out, and it was just ourselves and the crew! This is...this is so much worse! It's been two years, Gaius! Two years I've had to watch my daughter be upset and full of pain! We've been 'trying' all this time, always thinking the next thing might work, but it's not! It's not, Gaius! It's like some rival we can't even see. Like some fault that we don't understand!”

Gaius got up, trying to move over to her, but Compass Rose stormed past, still aimlessly wandering and knocking his hand away. His eyes narrowed, feeling shocked, even offended by her casting off his attempt to hold her. His voice raised to match hers.

“Rosie, we just need to get her to believe in herself! We've got to!”

“We've tried that for two years, Gaius! Look how far it's gotten us; she's worse than ever! Barely goes out because she thinks everyone's looking down at her, like she doesn't belong! Every time I find her coming home from a shift at that horrid job, she's like someone else!”

Rose stood up straight, shouting directly to her husband, looking him in the eye from the front. To his own shock as much as hers, he felt himself sighing and rolling his eyes.

“We've been through this every other week for that whole time, Rose. What else can we do but try to support her and help her look for something better? That Cat A on her record isn't going away!”

Compass Rose's wing grabbed and pulled his head back to face her.

“And it's not working!” She spoke sharply. “And it's tearing us up as well as her going through this each time she has a low mood! Because I can't do it this way any longer! I can't bear seeing her like this!”

“Well what else CAN we do?” he bellowed in return, knocking her wing away and sinking down into the chair behind him. “What? What else, Rose?”

“Something! Anything!” She spread her front hooves wide, an open invitation for something to emerge to help this, her cheeks soaked. “Because seeing her like this...Gaius, I'm going to need help too. I'm failing my daughter! I can't help her!”

He leaned forward, taking a short breath to calm himself, and held her shoulders. “That's not true.”

Rose simply sniffed, the volume in both their voices having dropped. “Do you know what she said to me last night? That she was sorry. Sorry for disappointing us.”

She spluttered, gripping Gaius' claws on her.

“What kind of parent can I feel like if my child believes I'm disappointed in her?”

Gaius had to pause. The weight of what she'd said was slowly landing home. His gut turned and clenched, and he felt just what Compass Rose had the previous night.

“I'm going to go shower,” she muttered, and pushed his hands off of her. “I just...I need to be alone for a moment. Gaius, why can't we fix this? What was it you said? Back when we had four interdictors hunting us, when we knew Tami was coming? When it looked like there was no way out?”

Still reeling from hearing what Tami had said, he could only whisper in response. “That I'd move stars to keep her safe and happy, if I had to...”

Rose wiped her eyes and nodded. She got up, shuffling away to the living room.

“Why can't we both do it now?”

Taking a deep breath, she moved to the stairwell and left Gaius behind with his thoughts.

After some minutes listening to the sounds of the shower upstairs in the background, Gaius finally, slowly, edged his way into the living room and sat beside the fire.

His eyes found the desk littered with job applications and career event pamphlets, but he couldn't bring himself to sit there. Not yet.

What Rose had said was bothering him. She was right.

They had tried everything else. Science foundations, observatories, ship design, programming houses and everything more. Yet each time, any interviews had turned up negative. And while it hurt him to think of his daughter in such a way, he was convinced that half of the issue was Tammani herself.

He had seen her leave for the Academy, and he had been the first to see her on return. Sometimes, he felt like they'd sent him the wrong girl back. That nervously eager confidence she had grown up with seemed to have been stripped from her. Tammani had always been skittish, but since she had returned it had been like her confidence in herself had all but gone.

After her return he had written to the Academy to demand an appeal interview with her instructors, but no reply had been forthcoming. In desperation to restore some of his daughter's spirit, he had even tried to contact some of her old friends. He knew she and Vantage Vair had been close in Basic Flight, but every message he'd tried to send had been returned as unsent. Wherever the navy was keeping him, it was out-with his reach.

Last month, he'd even proposed a return to space to his wife. To try and locate a freighter wanting an experienced pilot and navigator. If they had to go back to the black and live on the move once again to try and help Tammani find something to believe in, they would. But such a search had shocked him. Advances in bridge systems to assist pilots had rendered navigators in the manner Rose had trained for almost obsolete, while his own credentials were twenty years out of date. Piloting was a whole different beast these days, and even designs he recognised had been refitted to do things he could only have dreamed of.

At some level, that only increased his anger at this whole scenario. Tammani was likely better qualified than he was now, and yet he could not help her.

And now it always nagged at him. Even if he found a way for her to get on a ship’s bridge, he worried that she was still so hurt inside that she would defeat herself in the attempt.

He needed a way to make Tammani believe in herself again. There was no quick fix, but even just enough to get her a chance to show herself what she could do.

Gaius sat back, yawned, and rubbed his claws through his plume. As he often did, he stared at the hull segment of his old ship and tried to think what he'd have done, had he still possessed the resources he once commanded.

Blinking, he paused and thought for a second. The resources he'd had? What resources? They'd been an old ship still operating on analogue components for most of their time. They hadn't had any mounted weaponry. They couldn't outrun much.

What had he done instead?

Staring at that hull section, and remembering the cause of every scuff, burn and bump, he knew only one answer.

Anything.

He'd done anything.

How many times had he thought that in these two years, after two decades of being out of that life? How much had life here softened him to the realities of survival out there?

Back then, to protect his love and his crew, he'd have gone to the ends of the galaxy. That was what he’d told himself to do, if he had to. To do the stupid. Do the insane. Do the impossible. Do anything.

No matter how outrageous it seemed.

Denial shot in immediately, but he forced it back. Now wasn't the time to be cautious. Restless, he surged up and strode in a circle.

Anything. Anything.

How far could anything go?

And in that moment, he had one last, insane thought. Reaching for his datapad, he began a search.

Eventually, after numerous mugs of coffee started to pile up, he finally entered a single series of numbers into his multiband, waited for the pick up, and began to speak.

“I'd like you to send a message for me to your boss. Yes, yes I am aware of who she is. Tell her that I knew her father, and leave the name Captain Gaius of the Tammaran with her. I'd like you to pass along a request for a ship search on her station's records...”

The next few months proved to be very busy.

Gaius had a lot to do. Thankfully, being retired left him plenty of time to do it.

He'd told Compass Rose his plan that night, and to his delight she had grabbed and embraced him, offering all she could help with. He was grateful; he'd need her.

He'd need her for more than just getting things organised. He hadn't said it, but Tami's collapse in mood over the past years had been wearing hard on him too. Captains often didn't let such things out easy, and the old habits were stubborn. All that had kept him going was seeing what was happening around him. His daughter was in pain, and now his wife was faltering too.

If he'd let himself fall to the same nightmare and oppressive feelings, well, the thought of what would happen to him and his family was too much to bear even imagining.

And so he set to work. This wouldn't happen quickly, and he had to keep it a secret. Much as he wanted to tell Tami right away out of a wish to give her hope, the timescale before being able do it made him worry that her mind would twist it with anxiety and denial until it would no longer work.

In the days after sending his message, he waited anxiously. During that time, he and Rose drafted a very particular message, and studied shipping records for Chrysolite itself.

By weeks end, they had registered with Chrysolite's goods shipping industry as temporary distributors. Rose had always taken care of short term contracts, and Gaius stood with pride behind her in the signing to see his wife talk up what they needed. A single issue contract licence; one to carry a shipment from Chrysolite to any registered buyer. Rose got the agreement in hoof, sorting through the mountains of League bureaucracy to ensure its validity.

They could send one shipment off-world.

It took them three months more, but after spending all their days and nights, they finally found some borderline obsolete cooling units for sale. They had been dumped by a corporation entering liquidation into scrapyards seven hundred miles north. They were being sold for almost nothing, and Rose had located a parts dealer two systems away willing to buy them for a price that would leave no profit, but also no lost expenses.

For any other seller it would have been pointless, but they had other reasons.

Gaius finally picked them up a month later. Lacking the budget to hire a logistics branch, he had travelled across the country to meet an old friend of theirs that he'd learned was still in business. Borrowing a mass transporter from them, he drove the goods himself, masked as going off on a 'guys holiday' with his old pals. Arriving back to where he had first seen Tami after all this nightmare began, he booked them into a storage facility.

While there, he also paid a visit to the control tower. He'd checked many records of faces he'd once known, finding where they had gone. Some envelopes changed hands, and well wishes were exchanged.

Some tricks of the trade, no matter how long he was out of it, never went out of fashion.

By the time they were finished, and after turning down eager -but confused- offers from various ship captains, Gaius and Rose finally got a response from the original message that had been sent.

Together, they peered at the monitor on their living room desk and read the short correspondence.

‘She's on her way. That uses up the favour my father owed you for the Empire job. We're done. S.A.’

Husband and wife looked to one another, and each saw the other's mouths brim upwards. Hand in hoof, they shivered, as an excited glee came over both of them.

She made to hug him in her joy.

She instead yelped in surprise as he, just as delighted, scooped his love of nearly forty years up off the sofa instead, and stopped her laughter by kissing her for a very long time.

Two months later, Tami was sleeping.

She'd come back from her shift only to find her parents still up and informing her that they all had to go help a friend of the family move house. Tami had tiredly complained, but they had been insistent that she could sleep in the car on the way.

Quiet and morose, she had done just that, curling up in the back with Orbit.

Her parents had been all over her lately. Taking her to dinners, trying to get her re-involved in old hobbies, and spending more time with her. She appreciated it, but felt like a holding pattern. Like short term smiles. Tami knew she was failing, and just didn't know how to address the problems she had.

As such, her dreams remained restless and anxious. Unable to find a deep, full sleep from the quiet rumble of the vehicle, she drifted in and out on their journey several times. The sun slowly rose, and let its searing warmth start to heat the open fields again. While she would never hear it from inside, the wheat began to rustle once more in the winds.

The same wheat she had stood in front of almost three years before.

The car rocked as it rode over a speed bump, and Tami jolted awake. Orbit was out cold, idly kicking his forelegs while leaning on Tami's chest.

The sky was bright through the windows, and she lazily pulled herself up. Chrysolite's rings were faded in the sky, arcing from one side of the car to the other.

Then she did a double take as she saw where they were.

They were driving over an enormously wide and paved area, littered with equipment, terminals, logistics vehicles and brightly uniformed ponies running to and fro around the objects that dominated the view.

Starships. Spacecraft. So many of them.

An enormous New Republic passenger-liner dominated the view and blocked the rising sun. Backlit, its azure blue-topped hull shone and glistened like sapphire. In front of it, organised rows of vertical take-off business shuttles stood ready. They were all identical, all built right within Chrysolite itself. Yellow and black, they differed only in their numerical identification on the sloped nose. Even their waiting pilots looked the same in their uniforms and coat colours. Steam rose from the crude, but monstrously powerful nacelles of a squat, powerful looking Confederate frigate to the right of their car, kept isolated behind tall fencing and security checkpoints. Minotaurs stomped around it, ripping a damaged hull plate off with their arms alone to begin repairs. It looked like an object had collided with it. Its crew were hazy, the ambient heat of their ship making the air blurry around them.

They paused to let a series of buses whirr past, and Tami watched two unicorns rushing with a coolant pipe to the underside of what she guessed was an Endeavour class mining unit. Not a ship unto itself, but one that mounted on the hull of the actual mining vessel, like a phoretic fish that held onto a whale for protection during travel. Under its armadillo-like armour to resist asteroid impacts, she could see the crystal tip of the mining laser surrounded by collapsed servo-arms. It wound past as Gaius started moving again, disappearing behind the corner of a low, but wide terminal building.

It was the starport. The same one she'd arrived back home at.

“Wha? Mum? Dad? What...what are we doing!?”

Compass Rose made a short, surprised sound, and turned to face her from the passenger seat. “Good morning, hun. Just in time.”

“What are we doing!?”

Gaius didn't look, but threw a thumbs up between the seats. “Honestly didn't think you'd sleep that long.”

“What. Are. We. Doing!?”

Orbit answered her with a sleepy shake of his head and a quiet, muffled bark. He'd watched the plans. Unfortunately, it wasn't the most descriptive answer. He'd mostly paid attention to the treats he got while keeping Gaius and Rose company during it.

Her mother just smiled, and reached out to pat Tami's thigh.

“Well, we didn't entirely lie. We are going to help someone move something.”

She looked over her shoulder and saw something that Tami couldn't. Gaius began to smile more warmly than Tami could ever remember, picking up from his wife’s line of thinking to speak up.

“And we definitely are going to see an old friend.”

Tami squeezed forward and peered between the front seats.

And she gasped.

Directly ahead of them, coming into view between a fuel truck and the lean hindsection of a police interceptor, she saw a ship that she knew. One she'd never seen in person, but would have recognised anywhere within seconds.

It was built, as any cargo ship was, around the main hold itself. The top half of the vessel was a smooth, angular shape like the armour of a beetle, stretching from the bridge to the housings of the vectored fusion engines at the rear. Beige ceramic composite plates were segmented over the black hull, inconsistent in sections where re-entries had torn the plates off. A second level rose above the hull, surrounded by thin windows to what she knew their common room. Below the ceramics, metal grey and treated black paint made up the less aesthetically shaped underside of the ship. The huge hold projected from down there like a big rectangular box to the rear, with the engine housings just above the rear cargo door. Traversing thrust units were kept in four places to the left and right of the hull, angled down from the recent landing.

Landing struts strongly held its weight off the concrete from six points, three either side of the hold. At the front, the bridge projected forward from the ship itself, and a metal wireframe held the feature she had always loved most about it.

The bridge itself was almost entirely contained within a stretched glass bubble. Wider than it was high or long, the windows formed almost all of the front and sides like an observatory suspended in space. Some of the window panes she knew had thin monitors mounted in them, connected to cameras on all sides. Only the very underside and part of the roof were made of thick mounting units, giving it unparalleled visibility, and had earned the class acclaim for its ease of docking and close area navigation.

It was a specialist transport class ship, meant for high value goods, but commonly seen as an ideal, comfortable home for those who preferred to live life off-world. It was manufactured in the Crystal League for its hordes of ongoing trade deals. It was an old design, over fifty years by now, but had kept the model chugging on through countless refit programs.

It was a Gleaner RB-Eight class transport, but as she saw the repainted iconography on the hull plating, she knew it was more than that.

It bore two wings overlapping one another.

It was the Tammaran.

And Tammani, seeing the place she had once been but had never visited, the ship that had inspired her own name, felt her heart beat faster than it had in years, and gaped.

The moment they got out of the car, Gaius began striding over the many cables and fuel pipes littering the ground to connect to the Tammaran. From its open cargo door, another figure began doing the same as they closed to one another.

He was a hippogriff, a deep brown and black one, but possessing a brilliant white smile. He and Gaius met below the engines, and there was a firm grasping of hands.

“Captain.”

“Captain.”

There was a moment of pause, before they tugged each other's hand in and grasped in a firm embrace.

“Good ol' Captain Gaius! Damn, it's been too long since you've come to see the old girl.”

“It's good to see you again, Aileron. How's she holding up?”

Aileron backed off and waved a hand over the Tammaran. “Good as she ever has! Vector manoeuvring is as clean and agile as ever, especially since we got the fibre optics in the bridge replaced a couple years back during the systems overhaul. You could make her roll with a single finger these days. Totally different bird to fly with that; you'd probably not even recognise the pilot's position.”

Gaius nodded with a small smile, casting his eyes over his old home. It was like going back to your old school, casting a sense of time lost and offering a whole new perspective. He could still remember the origin of those knocks and marks on the underside, alongside some he didn't recognise. Life had gone on for her since he'd given Aileron the captaincy upon his retirement.

Beside him, Aileron spread his arms and wings.

“Compass! Come here!”

Rose and Aileron met in a tight embrace, each exchanging kisses on the cheek.

“Nav-system still showing false event horizon warnings every so often?” She chuckled, holding onto him for a few seconds.

Aileron just laughed. “We've replaced that damn nav-unit twice now. The refit even replaced the core level code. In theory, whatever was causing that is scientifically impossible to still be in there now...but they still turn up every so often to spook any new crew. Guess she just has her own little quirks that'll never go away. Likes to keep us on our toes, does our Tammaran. Speaking of...where's the adorable namesake herself?”

Gaius and Rose both turned, as though to introduce Tami to their old friend...only to find she wasn't there.

“Where has she-” Rose began, before a rapid, excited barking caught their attention.

Orbit was living up to his name, bounding in circles around the Tammaran, weaving underneath its landing struts and leaping into the air. His head was angled up.

Gaius, Rose and Aileron all let their heads do the same, to catch a glimpse of the cream and orange shape flying at speed around the ship above wherever Orbit was.

Tami couldn't contain herself to simply looking at it from the ground. Feeling a surge of excitement, she simply had to see it from more angles. Now, flying low above the hull, she soared around it to take in everything that it had to offer. She finally looked at how the ceramics were patterned up close. She stared into the engines. She peered through the windows to the cosy living space, built up over decades of use. But most of all, she looked into the bridge. Its energised tinted glass left her frustratingly unable to see the exact details. They'd presumably left that enabled against the sun on planetside, but it meant she could only see the vague shape of two chairs and the hanging monitors.

There was a flutter, and she felt her mother's hoof on her back. Hovering in the air beside her, Rose giggled and rubbed Tami's mane.

“It'll be easier to see from the inside, right?”

Tami gasped, “Really?”

“Well, duh?” Rose chuckled, kissed her daughter on the cheek, and began to lead her down. “Come on, you technically lived here for a number of months, so you've as much right as anyone here to-”

Tami was already gone, and Rose felt a relief she hadn't known in years begin to settle home.

As they passed into the cargo hold, and up the gantry steps to the living levels, Tami observed the rest of the crew passing out. Each of them stopped and paid respect to Gaius and Rose on the way, even those that Tami knew were too young to have worked alongside them.

Soon enough, other than Aileron, their party was alone within the ship.

Aileron was talking about recent jobs and answering questions on how the ship was getting along, while Tami simply looked around. The common room was stuffy and warm with the air conditioning turned off, but it was crowded with hanging drapes to cover the hull and pillows strewn around a games table and kitchen, transforming it into a colourful, comfortable space to meet within. It looked well used and untidy, but something about its personality really stood out to her.

She could see the same passion in her parents. They looked as excited as she felt, with big smiles, laughter and eager recountings from the strangest of little findings. Live for fifteen years in one area and every inch of it will eventually have a memory associated with it, Tami figured.

Briefly, through the excitement, she felt a pang in her gut. Much as she hated to admit it, everything she was seeing here made her envious. It was why she'd stopped coming to watch ships at the starport since returning; it had been too much to bear whenever she'd have to inevitably go home again.

She began to feel like she'd made a mistake getting so worked up here. This would never be hers. As awesome as it was to walk within, and as much as she appreciated what her parents had arranged to try and cheer her up, she just wasn't sure if she wouldn't feel horrible again. The feeling always came back, no matter what. No matter how many times she'd tried going to movies, listening to music, painting or doing anything that wasn't to do with the big black out there, it always came back. Always. Like some spectre she couldn't banish that returned every time she started feeling like maybe she was starting to recover.

A heavy hand fell on her shoulder.

“C'mon, Tam. I know what you're really wanting here.”

Her father smiled down at her, reached out and hit the entrance key for the bridge door. With a loud grinding of its old hydraulics, the heavy metal gateway opened and revealed the short hallway to the glass-lined brain of the ship itself.

Well, she'd come this far. She'd regret not getting a peek at least.

“Sure.” She smiled as brightly as she could, forcing it out, and walking alongside him, her mother, and Aileron to the bridge itself. Behind her, she could hear the ground crews starting to load something into the ship, presumably whatever it had come here to collect.

The gantry to the bridge was suspended above a cluster of wires and capacitor housings. Bridge systems took a lot of power to run modern FTL computation, and pushing all that energy into such a small section of the ship needed a lot of backups and electronic protection. At a glance, she could tell this one had to have already gone through the old changes from manual to automated navigation. Some of the conductors were too new for the class.

“Welcome home,” Aileron smirked, and let the final door to the bridge open.

Sunlight shone into the crowded passageway, even with the tinted windows. It made her squint, before she covered the sun with a wing and finally got to look inside.

It was where she'd have loved to live.

Open and spacious, the bridge had the whole crew interface on a lower level from where she was now standing. A short stairwell led down to it, with both pilot and co-pilot seats right next to one another, surrounded by a U-shaped series of terminal banks, modular function panels, and a rack of displays. Each of the colourful, animated flat-screens were clipped onto a window panel, projected over the window glass itself, or hanging on steady-arms from the metal struts between the panels.

Up above, surrounding her now, was an open space. Marks on the floor showed that some systems had been removed from one side, where she knew the navigator station had once been. Now, it was simply empty, but she could imagine hanging somewhere to sleep there, or placing her art in such a spot. Where she could look through the enormous windows on all sides at whatever was out there in the stars.

It was like getting to glance back into a dream.

Aileron nudged her from behind.

“Go on, Tami. Get a good look if you want.”

Nervous, feeling a little embarrassed, as though all the attention was on her, she flapped her wings and tentatively floated down into the pilot's seat.

“W-wow...”

The cushions were long flattened by whoever the pilot was these days. She guessed either another hippogriff or a griffin, given the height of the controls. But all the same, this felt...

Right.

In front of her, she could see a clear glass plane mounted on the metal of the crew suite. It wasn't active, but she could see the LEDs below to project the HUD right in front of the pilot's face without blocking their view of the windows themselves. A ship status screen to her left blinked and updated steadily with the ground crew's works. Rows of satisfyingly clacky looking switches lined her right. Most had taped notes denoting their purpose. Window tinting, door lock, and then rows for communication presets and master ignition startups. They weren't all in the default positions; the pilot must have customised the wiring.

Slowly, she put out her hands and grasped the much newer looking control sticks. The moulded plastic slid into her hands and flexed gently below them. To her side, the thrust lever was locked in place, but the main one in her hands shifted with ease. She yelped and nearly jumped as she heard the vectored engines outside moving; someone had left them active.

Aileron laughed. “Go ahead, look.”

He pulled down one of the suspended viewscreens, and Tami realised it contained the external camera's viewport, watching one side's engine outings shift, raising and lowering the ceramic shell around them to orient the outlets.

“They're so smooth.” Tami spoke lightly, rotating it around.

Aileron's mouth grew into a wide grin. “Roll rate increased by around fifty percent when the modern bridge got added. Responsiveness delay reduced by half a second in orbital conditions. The big switch from old to new. Had to get a lot of retraining done.”

Her father stepped down after her, leaning over the chair from behind. After a practiced glance over it all, he screwed up his face. “You don't say, I barely recognise any of this. Where's the FTL transfer panel gone?”

“Gone is the right word.” Aileron smirked. “Went out the same time navigators in ships like this got made redundant. It all feeds direct from the pilot control panel now. Right-”

“-there!”

Tami surprised herself, hearing her own voice cut in, as she pointed to the main pilot interface screen and drew up the FTL control tab. The blinking icons slid away and brought in a much larger scale map, along with a flashing OFFLINE note, given the state of landing.

“And look,” she continued, “there's the archive state for storing destination data, since the memory banks got large enough to-”

“-let us not have to put it in every single time,” Aileron finished, and winked at Rose. “And it doesn't send us to Kozani by accident neither.”

Compass Rose made a silent 'ha ha' gesture, and punched him in the arm.

Gaius meanwhile reflected on the new bridge system in silence, watching Tami point out this and that. The sight made him smile, and he was glad that his hunch had been right.

He turned and nodded quickly to Aileron and Rose.

The hippogriff returned the gesture and stood up again, “Well, I better go sort out the lads and ladettes their accommodation. That is the captain's duty after all.”

“And I'll go watch Orbit, I think. The ground crews must be wondering what he's doing here,” Rose added to that. “And you can tell me all about what's gone on.”

The pair turned to leave, but not before Rose bent over to kiss Tami's head.

Confused, the hippogriff looked up and around. “What? So what are we-”

The door to the bridge shut, and Gaius dropped into the co-pilot seat beside her with a grunt and began strapping himself in.

“Well, see...I've been missing getting up in this old girl for twenty years now, and I feel like another flight for old times’ sake. See, there's only one problem here. I haven't a clue how these new systems work. I need someone who does. Lucky for me, there's one sitting at the helm already.”

More words, questions and thoughts ran through Tami's mind than there were stars in existence. She made a strangled sound, mouth dropping open, and her hands let go of the sticks sharply. Outside, feeling the loss in control, the thrusters all returned to their default position.

“Me!? Wait, but, I'm...I didn't, no, no, you can't mean-”

“I mean what I said.”

Gaius' voice was stern, but comforting and reassured. Now that they were alone on the bridge, he leaned closer and took her hands.

“Tam, I've struggled to get you to believe in what you're capable of for three years now. But there's nothing, nothing down here that can compare to what it is I know you love. To what I know pushed you to break records, graduate young, and get an acceptance to somewhere that few pilots can even get to in the first place. I've watched you, because I taught you. Remember when I hired that prop-plane for your fourteenth birthday to fly you around in, and I let you take the controls for a while even though I technically wasn't allowed to? Because I trusted you could do it?”

He gently put her hands back on the control stick.

“Just think of it as that, but on a bigger scale.”

Tami was frozen. From disbelief as much as worry. Her heart accelerated, thumping against her breast hard.

“Dad-but...I-the Tammaran?”

“What better?”

She bit her lip, looking at the controls. She couldn't believe this. It was beyond disbelieving. There were conspiracy theories about drives that could go through black holes that were more believable than this.

“I don't know if I can...”

“Of course you can, Tam. You're qualified. You passed basic flight training with flying colours. You know how, I know that.”

She screwed her eyes shut, taking several deep breaths. She wanted to. She dearly wanted to see it again, but every time she thought about it, problems kept coming up in her head. Bad outcomes. Failures.

“But the control tower-”

“Already looking the other way for Aileron not being present.”

“Th-the cargo he needs to do on time?”

“What do you think we're going to go and deliver?”

“But landing with the wrong pilot on another planet?”

“We're making an in space delivery direct to the client.”

“Without the rest of the crew? What if-”

“Only the bridge interface changed that much. I know this ship's every nut and bolt if I have to. And I have you for up here.”

He smiled, and continued before she had a chance to come up with another worry.

“Two systems away. Two days out in the black. Just the two of us to get you believing in yourself again. Pilot to pilot. All sounds fitting for a second chance to me, so...what do you say?”

Tami stared at him for a long time, feeling the sticks flex in her hands. Out of the front of the flat-spherical bridge windows, she could see Chrysolite stretching out before her. She could see the fields of wheat under the sun, and a small drop-off point for the starport’s bus service in the distance.

And when she looked up, to see the deep blue of the sky, that glass ceiling she'd been unable to do much but peer at through the nights. She could only just see the planet's rings through cloud and sun glare.

“I...I can't...”

Slowly, her hands came off of the control stick.

And instead moved to pull across the touchscreen monitor’s primary startup sequence checklist.

“I can't wait!”

The smile that broke upon her face was three years of hurt shattering apart to Gaius' eyes.

“Then take it away, helm.”

“Aye, Cap...uh...Dad!”

Gaius contacted the ground crews and received the okay from them. The Tammaran was refuelled, rechecked and ready to go. Aileron had already completed the safety walk around before they'd arrived; as attentive and borderline precognitive as a captain as he had been as a first officer.

And yet, as he watched his daughter go to work, he was astonished. She was hesitant and clearly overthinking some things, but the way her hands danced through the ignition checklist of a ship she'd only ever read about was that of someone with far more experience than she'd actually had.

She hit each switch for the reactor, and Gaius felt the rumble pass through the floor as it ignited. By the time she had finished resetting every bridge screen to navigational maps, her hand returned to initiate the main drive within seconds of the reactor building up the charge required.

He was watching a new era of pilot before him, as she handled both helm and navigation set up. He couldn't imagine having to learn both and not having Rose handling one side of it, but those of today’s generation, including Tami, did just that.

“Okay, I...” She hesitated, then began to test the thrust stick, making a harsh cough emerge from each side of the ship. “Pre-flight checks are done, route to Mocca via Erinite is planned, estimated time at most efficient route is thirty-eight ho-”

Her father shook his head and smiled. Feeling a tiny flush of hope in her chest, Tami chuckled.

“...forty nine hours, if including a few orbital passes of planets and celestial objects along the way.”

Gaius winked and grabbed the radio from his side, “Control tower check, Gleaner name ‘Tammaran’ ready for departure and requesting air clearance. Flight account keyword is 'belief'.”

There was a brief pause with faint noises, as though someone on the other side was talking just away from the microphone itself.

“Tammaran you are clear for takeoff utilising vector two-seven-nine from centre point with a thirty degree arc of freedom until above thirty-thousand, confirm?”

“Confirmed, tower. Many thanks.”

“Very welcome. Fly her safe, Captain.”

Tami's look of amazement was, he had to admit, entirely worth not having explained the plan ahead of time.

“How far did you go for this?”

“As far as I had to. It's that sort of thinking that took us to the stars off of Equestria in the first place, and it’s one both of us needed to remember. Now, I believe the tower told you that you can go?”

He grinned at her, and Tami looked back to the glittering colours, shapes and texts whirling around her station, and across the HUD before her.

And she understood it all.

Taking the safety off the main thrust, she cranked the stick to her side forward, and felt the enormous satisfaction of a ship's gaining power about her body. Her bones rattled, and her displays began to flash impressive numbers to her.

Then as she depressed the final step on the panel all four vector thrusters erupted into life on both sides of the ship. Through the windows, the fields of wheat began to move downwards, and the horizon began to expand outward into a gently increasing curve. Hands shaking on the stick, she took a deep breath, and gently urged the ship to the permitted facing. Using the pilot-aid to gain the correct vector, she pulled back to angle the nose...and finally felt the sensation of being at the controls of something truly powerful enough to make the trip to the black again.

“Okay, Tam, now just increase the main engines a little to-”

Her hand transferred the thrust stick from vectored to main engine power, and threw it forward.

Both father and daughter were plastered back against their seats, as the refitted Tammaran's new systems surged reactor power into the engines. Fuel flowed in greater quantity and mixed with the engine's internal chemicals. Science and engineering came together to create what amounted to a localised fusion reaction, enough to power a whole town on its own, and thrust every ounce of that energy out the back of the ship.

Out of the window, Gaius saw the crew, Orbit, and Rose looking on from far back, in the brief second before they became specks. Eyes wide, he looked back to the controls to see numbers that bewildered him.

The Tammaran roared forward, angled to the sky. Willing, eager, even desperate. Speeds of climb it had never been capable of in his time were setting the compartments in the bridge rattling around them.

The entire ship rolled over ahead of the stratosphere, positioning itself upside down even mid-climb. The sky began to darken, and Gaius heard the roar of the wind outside quieten. He realised his hands were gripping the inactive control sticks on his side of the bridge out of nerves. Never in his life had he seen her flown like this before. There was a keen, focused drive to that brutal acceleration and high-G movements to roll in the air.

Much of that could be put down to the refit, but as he strained his head to look over, and he saw the open eyed concentration of his daughter...he knew it was more than that.

The Tammaran erupted from the atmosphere like a homesick angel, vapour spreading off of her shell like ghostly wings until there was none left to spray. It broke into the black, where the deafening, eager roar of its engines gave way to a tranquil silence.

What had been rough and furious soon became smooth and silent.

The engines cut, allowing the ship to drift on its remaining velocity away from Chrysolite’s gravitational pull and enter the orbital pathways around the planet itself. Free of the sky, the bridge's bubble gave way to a dark void.

Breathing as though she'd just sprinted the whole way up, Tami let go of the controls and just allowed the ship to spin gently amongst the black. Her eyes wide, she looked around in a slow, astonished arc with an open mouth.

She saw the black, but that wasn't all she saw. Already, there were the soft colours of the stars she had only just been able to glimpse from the surface. But up here, like glitter on dark velvet, they shone so much brighter. Their personalities, their tones, and their beauty was all returned to her. Soft, drifting fields of microfragments wafted across space, being drawn from the planet's own gravity to each of the moons by their own strange, still only vaguely understood pull. They filled space with soft blues, greys, and silvers, transforming it from the oft believed empty void into a canvas full of cascading watercolours.

And just there, at the very top of the bridge's viewpoints, she saw the enormous rings of her homeworld stretching over twenty thousand kilometres in diameter. The scale, as ever, was impossible to describe to those who had not sat there to see it for themselves.

She couldn't help herself. For the first time in three years, she felt tears on her face that were not from the pain of failure and regret.

Gaius finally sat up out of his seat. Mouth open, he broke into a shocked laugh. “What...what was that, Tam? What kind of transition was that?”

She nearly didn't hear him, lost in her thoughts. It felt like all the crushing hurt had been left behind her aggressive ascent, and a wave of soothing, long-sought relief from the hollow moods and pain finally flowed into her. She'd been afraid of even booking a cruise, even if she could have afforded it, worrying that it would feel like a taunting that she couldn't stay. But now that she was here, Tami felt it all over again. The magic inside her heart beating away, the passion flowing through her every thought. The realisation of how much she'd needed this crashed down upon her.

“Tam?”

The sound of her father’s voice finally penetrated her transfixed stare. Heart in her mouth, she gulped, trying to control her emotions as she caught up with what he’d said, speaking without ever letting her eyes drift from those bright, long missed stars.

“It...it was just, y'know, standard? I mean, I figured that if you rolled on your back, then it means come the edge you're already in the right angle to accept the gravitational slingslot, right? Soooo...so you need to push it a bit more, maybe another couple hundred metres a second extra to account for it, which is what makes it faster?” She finally looked over and bit her lip. “Did I do something wrong?”

Gaius just gaped, and then laughed. He grabbed her hand with both of his and squeezed it tightly. “No! I...Tami, I've seen pilots with years of experience not leave a planet like that! To get the aerodynamic angles and timing right for arcing while at escape velocity is just...”

He had to fight to control himself, and leaned over into a hug, clutching the seemingly frozen hippogriff in his arms. “I've never gotten to see you fly a ship with my own eyes...you never told me you were doing things like that!”

She blushed, bashfully turning her head away even as his hug enveloped her. “I mean, I never thought much of it.”

He simply laughed. That was the daughter he'd missed. The one who had muttered that it had been 'no big deal' when she broke a record at Basic Flight's final. Opening one eye, he noticed the titanic rings on their slow dance across the orbital plane.

“Well then, why don't you show me what you know?”

She caught his eye and remembered something she'd always wanted to do. No flight academy, basic or VIP, would have ever permitted it.

She had watched those rings all her life, but she'd never gone near them.

Smiling, feeling a bolstering pride from her takeoff impressing her father, she leaned back, tightened her straps, and slammed the thrust stick forward.

With both of them grinning like idiots, the ship launched forward. Fusion engines casting a blue streak behind her, the cream and black metal vessel careened into the light blue haze of the drifting fields. It stood out against them, like a singular fish in a vast ocean, even though they were still hundreds of kilometres from the main bodies of the rings.

At the urging of her father to 'go wild', Tami let the excitement in her heart bubble over to her actions, and she made the Tammaran dance. Wrenching on the controls, she set the vector engines to whirr and turn, blasting their forces out at strange and oft unused angles to make the Tammaran jink and spin on its route. Roaring and curving around to submerge into the azure mists before ratcheting back up again. Cresting out of the dust and ice fields, trailing blue vapour from each edge until diving back among them again, Tami drove her family's ship deep toward the rings themselves.

The smile upon her face was held rigidly strong. Colours washed across the windows, with the micro impacts harmlessly deflecting and sparking around them off the hull. Gaius watched the velocity indicator climb until it bypassed the highest reading he'd ever known the Tammaran capable of. Its new engines were powering it to a full thirty percent higher manoeuvring velocity than their old limitations, and they showed no sign of abating their climb.

He held himself silent, as the rings suddenly spun upside down and Tami rolled, dove, and skimmed around the first enormous chunk of ice and minerals that made up Chrysolite's rings. Mid-way around, the ship righted and rolled the opposite direction, before he heard the hydraulics of the vector-engines scream. His gut churned, as the Tammaran lifted her back end, stood on her head, spun, and drifted 'downwards' and backwards until the fusion engines re-ignited and arrested the transversal movement.

Her eyes glued to the pilot-aid screen, Tami absorbed and factored in every proximity alert and every marker on the three-dimensional HUD holograms to weave, accelerate, turn and spin her way through the mass of slowly rolling objects.

Her face cast in the blue light of the rings, the joy in her eyes infectiously being taken up by her father, she let the Tammaran rocket around, above, below, and once even through the varied shapes drifting amongst those beautiful lines. Every so often, she would let the ship leap out of the top, before turning and diving back in, leaving an eruption of sparkling ice in her wake that drifted into the clouds surrounding them.

She felt the urges. The reactions. Dropping down, she brought the Tammaran to within fifty metres of an asteroid, blasting dust from its surface up behind her while veering between mountain-like shapes across its surface. To the awe of her father, she would spin and roll within those turns, her flying relaxed and precise. He had never learned these sensitive, fluid new systems. He was used to wrestling ships to and fro, but here he knew that the ship that had once been his had evolved beyond him. It was capable of things he could never have led it to.

And here, he had those new limits demonstrated to him by someone who could.

The thought of who it was doing it made him want to shed a tear with pride.

They spent thirty minutes in silence, before she pointed out something incredible. A green ice deposit, coloured by the ores held deep within its hard rock. That got them talking, directing with claws to the rainbow of colours they were finding in the outer rings. He spotted an ancient satellite that had somehow ended up there. They witnessed two asteroids colliding in a spray of debris, a field that he was stunned to find Tami flew towards and began rocketing through with fine angling and aggressive manoeuvring that had him gasping and holding the edges of his chair. The look on his face made her laugh.

Finally, as the ship began to flash overheat signals, she angled the Tammaran up, and rocketed out into the space beyond their world. There, she shut down the main engine to let it cool and lay back in the seat, sweating and giggling.

“Tam, I said it when you graduated Basic Flight, but you're a natural.” He finally breathed, feeling his hands still shivering. Those last spatial aerobatics had been astounding, and clearly the result of her VIP Academy training bringing out the gift she had, no matter how that had ended.

She had so many things to say, but instead she just launched out of her chair and hugged around his neck. Sobbing happy tears, laughing, smiling, and thanking him over and over.

They stayed that way for some time, as relief finally soothed the hurt. Eventually, as the emotional well began to finally run dry, they sat enjoying a small tub of ice cream he'd found in the fridge on board.

He had one more thing to bring up.

“Tam, we've been looking to find you a way to go...but we'd been thinking about it all wrong.”

That got her attention, and she looked up from her treat with curious eyes. “What do you mean? I mean, we know no-where-”

He waved a hand idly. “No, nowhere like that. See...obviously my first thought was Aileron taking you on. I know he would if he could, but he's registered now. He wouldn't be able to take you, same reason as before. But this ship, it wasn't always like that. Long ago, when we first started out, we were independents. We worked the fringes, not as part of a corp. Freelancers, self employed traders, whatever you want to call it. And it got me thinking...”

Tami felt her heart begin to race already. She figured she knew where he was going, but the thought hadn't ever occurred - at least not in any plausibility.

“See,” Gaius continued, “my problem was...you weren't you. I was afraid that if I sent you out like you were, then things might end up worse. I was afraid. But what I just saw there? Tami...you're not just a good pilot. You're an incredible pilot, when you believe in your own ability. It's all there, deep down, and when you're smiling - when you're going into it knowing you can do it, you do what you just did. That makes me feel that perhaps we can look farther afield. What you have has to fly, it's criminal to keep it down on the ground.”

“Wait, you mean-” She stopped and gasped.

He nodded. “There's places in the peripheries. Not quite safe, but not wholly lawless. Places you can find work. Places who would love a pilot like you. That would even love a person like you on board. It's not just your flying; it's who you are too. The periphery is free space, but that doesn't mean it's all pirates and crime lords like the vids imply. There are good people out there who simply prefer living that way, like I once did. To not have any shackles holding them down. Who can go where they want. Do what they decide. See what they want to see.”

He put down his tub and stroked her mane to hook it behind her ear.

“Port Medusa. An old independent station. I used to do jobs for its last owner during the war, and from what I know his daughter keeps it tightly controlled. They don't look at past records the way the League does here, not for the kind you'll be talking to. We could afford you a shuttle there. If you find people you're safe with and trust, then you might find what you're after. If not, come on home and we'll look at something else.” Gaius winked. “If you're up for a challenge again.”

Tami waited for a few solid seconds to process all that, before a singular little voice from years ago suddenly rose up, and she took a sharp gasp to answer.

“YE-ABSO-PLE-I-I-I...oh gosh, YES! I mean, yes! Yes! I'll give it a shot! At the very least I get to go to the periphery? Yes! Did I say yes? Sorry, I mean...oh gosh! YES!”

They embraced once more, with Gaius laughing at her tripping over a dozen thoughts.

“Now,” he teased, knocking her shoulder. “Come on, we've got a delivery to make, and a few sights to see.”

The starport was, for the fourth time in her life, a place of great change.

Tami stood with the same bags about her, only now carting her collapsible canvas stand with her, and far more items for personal enjoyment than before. Her crafts set, fancy treats, paints and her own blankets just for starters.

Standing at the edge of the terminal gate for the departure lounge, she was hugging her mother tightly.

“Try to send us updates on how you're getting on, okay? On who you find, and what ship, and where you're going.”

Tami giggled. “Yes, mum! Yes, yes, okay!”

She knew her mother was just teasing with the 'typical mother' routine, but Tami knew she wanted to send all those reports anyway. If anything just to show them everything she found out there.

Compass Rose gave her one last squeeze, making her stuffed bags rattle around her. Rose was trying to hold back the tears, not knowing if they were because Tami was leaving again, or if it were simply out of happiness to see her find a direction, or an avenue to one at the least.

“I knew you'd pull through, honey. I knew.”

Equally teary eyed, Tami looked her back in the eye, and up to her father too. She wanted to say thank you again and again, but she'd already done it at her going away dinner. And at new years. And while packing. And when her mother had bought her a tech-set to take with her. And when her father had given her all the advice she'd needed on what to buy on the stop off point before Medusa.

Even so.

“Thank you so much...” She could barely say it through a cracking voice.

If Rose had wanted to rush forward and hug her again, she was too slow.

Orbit got there first.

Rapidly barking, the golden blur slammed into Tami, knocking her clean off her hooves and feet with a clatter of dropped luggage. She fell laughing, grasping, stroking and hugging her lifelong friend.

“Haha! Thank you too, Orbit! You never gave up on me either, did you, boy? Good boy!”

Orbit's two favourite words had been uttered. He leapt up, bounding from front to hind legs, and conducted a five lap orbit of the entire group. He only saved the five lap ones for special occasions.

Behind them, the bonging announcement board flickered over and advertised the flight to Mothellum. The fringe Empire system before the periphery. She'd transfer to more local shuttles from there. The big transport lines didn't go any farther.

Trepidation threatened to overwhelm her. She, more than most, knew the distances involved.

But for once in her life, she gathered her resolve. From somewhere deep down, it emerged and pushed her to kiss her parents, hug her dog, collect her things, and depart.

Behind her, watching Tami depart for her second chance, Gaius and Compass Rose held hand in hoof.

They'd chosen her name for the ship that had brought them together, and thus brought Tammani to this world.

Somehow, they'd both known that this had to be how it was, to watch that name once again take to the stars.

Tucked into the shuttle, Tami watched the rings of Chrysolite once again.

Yet despite all the emotion she didn't feel like she was departing a place she belonged.

Looking out to the black, she was home.

Home was out here. She'd always known it. Always wanted it to be that way.

Some people considered their house their home. Others their town, or their country, or even their world.

But Tami didn't see it that way. She'd always seen her home as more than that. As a larger scale. This galaxy, and all of known space and its wonders, were her home. She simply saw her house as a lot bigger than most others.

And who ever wanted to stay in one room forever?

Feeling her gut churn at the shuttles transition into a surreal rift in its FTL spool up, it only fed her excitement to see the vessel being sucked into the surging colours of infinity. As the shutters closed, she sat back and kicked her hooves in excitement.

Now. Finally, she could say it was 'now'.

Now was the time to finally see what else her home had in it.

Tami will be returning in another chapter of her story here very soon. In the meantime, if you would like to see what happened when Tami left to find a ship during the tabletop game (Named, amusingly, "Space Horse") between this and the next story , then please check out the "Space Horse Game Sessions Summaries" from Sessions #1 to #30. This doc by Snipehamster tracks all that happened, check it out!

The events described in this story's introduction concern Session #1-#30, as described in depth in the Session Summaries document (Link) of the tabletop game, should you wish to see the detailed events between Tami's departure from Chrysolite, and this story.

This particular (quite short) one was written mostly as a chance to try my hand at writing 'as' the other players' characters in the tabletop game, hence it's smaller size. Tami was my own, so I wanted to try out with the others before attempting something much, much bigger, which you may see next...

The video took a few seconds to buffer, warping and tearing the image into a mess of colour and static. The playback was struggling, adjusting as best it could to display on a monitor designed and manufactured half a galaxy away from the device that had actually recorded the video in the first place.

Then, an image suddenly appeared upon the screen; a hazy shape of someone unidentifiable, before the footage began to play a half second after its initial appearance. Quickly, the quality improved and the image of a young, bright orange and cream hippogriff beaming a joyful smile into the camera became apparent. Her eyes widened with excitement, and the speakers erupted into a barrage of sudden music. Impossibly bouncy and sung by a young chart-topping female pop-star, it completely drowned out the hippogriff's voice.

"HI! Ta-...here! I ju-...yo-...wait! I think…-o lou-!"

With her bouncy mane bobbing around her head, and an awkward panic coming over her, she fumbled around pressing several buttons behind the camera. The lens pointed right at her torso as she leaned over the device to try and fix something, before the picture cut out.

Seconds later, after a period of blackness, the video emerged a second time. This time the music had been cut, replaced with the light droning rumble of a running starship. The hippogriff took a breath, checked something on top of the camera, and sat down again in what was now clearly a hammock.

"Hi! Tami here! Sorry about that, I just thought it'd be cute to have some music playing to introduce this, but uh...I don't think this thing's set up for recording ambient noise too well. It's just a little thing I bought on Medusa! Anyway! Hi Mum! Hi Dad! Hi Orbit!"

Her wings flared out, and she lifted her overall-clad body off the hammock with a strong flap, picked the camera up and looked directly into it. Her enormous smile exploded onto her face, words spilling from her mouth as though she might run out of time to say them all.

"Sorry it took a while to do this, but I know you read my mails to see why. We've got a little time right now while flying back to Medusa from the Republic after a passenger transit, just gotta drop off some cargo en-route. Acid or something. I don't go near it. But I wanted to make this for you all, to get to show you Claudia, and the crew I found to live with! It's all turned out great, look at this!"

The camera's viewpoint whirled around, until it was looking at where she'd come from. The back end of a bridge, with a hammock strung up between a bulkhead and some personal workstations lined against the corner. Bags were strewn under it, along with a small pile of paints, and brushes in a jar. Paintings of nebulae, stars and other celestial objects were dotted along the plating behind it, while a blonde dog-looking soft toy half lay leaning off the hammock itself. Fluffy slippers were lined up below some cargo containers welded to the wall like makeshift shelving. Someone had put a great deal of effort into turning the ship's bridge into a cozy den.

"They let me live up here on the bridge! Technically I have a room, but I've not slept a night in there yet! I can just relax here, watch the black through the bridge windows, or even just get up and fly around when I need to. It's so relaxing up here, nothing but the hum of the ship and the occasional beep of the helm. Buuuut..."

The camera whirled around, looking up at her face. Tami teasingly winked at it, a newly rediscovered energy about her personality.

"I'll show you the workstation I have later, Dad. I know you'll be itching to see it! Aaaand if I do it now I'll talk for an hour. I wanna introduce you to people and show you the ship first! So! It's just turned day-cycle for us, so everyone's just getting up. When better to go meet them?"

Not a single word of her last sentence betrayed even a hint of sarcasm, and Tami excitedly hopped on the spot, making the camera's viewpoint bob and blur.

"I can't wait! I've been wanting to do this for so long! They didn't let me do one in Basic or the Academy, so this is the first VLOG I get to make for you both! It's like confirming I made it, right? C'mon! Let's go see who we can find!"

Tami turned the camera sharply, the viewpoint shifting to look ahead of her as she walked toward an already open metal door. It was heavy, clearly of minotaur design by its size and robustness. Immediately behind it, a set of stairs ran to a lower deck, but more prominent was the long passageway behind them that ran down, presumably, the spine of the ship. Tami hummed and (judging by the movement of the camera) skipped her way past the stairs to travel down the length of ‘Claudia’ instead.

"So this is sorta like the big corridor inside her. You can get from the bridge to the room closest to the stern from here, all the way down the dorsal. I call it the main street, 'cos its the single longest section of Claudia's crew areas there is. But also, it's the way you reach our first destination on the Claudia Tour! Engineering!"

At the very bottom, perhaps a few dozen meters from the bridge a double set of heavy doors were sitting open, and the camera's bobbing finally settled on the powerful shape of a ship's reactor behind them. The microphone buzzed with a lethargic chugging noise, one that only amplified as Tami hopped through the doors and into the room.

"And here's who I thought I'd find in here already! Hey Kiffie!"

Panning over the engineering section with the viewfinder, several thickly reinforced terminals could be seen still blinking into life, scrolling with power readouts, environmental statistics, temperature gauges, fuel line pressure, and maintenance rotas. The churning heart of Claudia in the middle of the room was also visible: a massive section of heavy machinery on struts that dominated the middle of the room with its magic-influx turbine, before Tami’s camera’s pan settled on the sole inhabitant of the engineering section.

An enormous griffon was hunched over with his head bend around a removed wall panel, surrounded by multiple bags of strewn tools. His calico body colours were contrasted by puffed out brown feathers that half enveloped his loose clothing and utility belt.

Not startled, but seemingly more bewildered by Tami's excited greeting, the griffon shimmied backwards and extricated himself from the wall.

As it turned out, this was not a rapid process. And it became even more apparent that his feathers had been compressed by the tighter space, as they now impressively resembled the look of a plush toy that had just gone through a wash and a hairdryer. It was punctuated by a curious tilt of his head, and an innocent look of curiosity.

"Oh, good mornin' Miss. What're you doin' with that?"

Panning upwards to look at his face, Tami waved in front of the lens.

"I'm filming for my parents! So! This is Kerfuffle! He's our engineer. Say hi, Kiffie!"

As though informed that he was suddenly at a formal event, Kerfuffle rapidly straightened out and widened his eyes, before waving a meaty talon toward Tami...and then only after a clear non-verbal prompt, a second time to the camera.

"Oh! Well, hi there Missus...uh...and Mister...uh..."

Kerfuffle blinked, before looking away at Tami again.

"Don't...remember their names. Were they asking anything? Only, never really recorded much before."

Tami's sweet laughter over-rode the chomping of the reactor's cycles, making the camera shake. She spoke loudly, trying her best to hold the camera still at a distinctly fidgety Kerfuffle.

"Oh, don't worry! Now, like I said. Kerfuffle's our engineer on Claudia. He keeps her running smoothly and fixes anything that's gone wrong. And he's real good at it too, like, he can just look at a machine and know what's wrong with it without even touching it. Like that cleaning bot you got, Dad? How we never could get it to turn properly so it just bumps into walls? Kiffie'd be able to see what's wrong, I'm sure of it. And-"

The big griffon's eyebrows shot up, his awkward stance finally letting his gaze come to the camera itself. He leaned in, a saddened look on his face as he took up the camera. He held it high in his own claws, looking upward at the lens.

"Oh, the poor thing's always bumping its nose into stuff? Has it got a broken traverse gear? Oh dear. Is it a Vectronix? A Cleaneasy?"

His look of genuine concern was contrasted by the sight of Tami sliding into view over his shoulder, holding both hands over her mouth and silently giggling away. Kerfuffle, however, continued his questioning. His voice throughout was unexpectedly quiet for someone so large, with a hushed little polite tone underneath it all. A gentle giant by any measure.

"If he's a Confederate RX type, then look under his bottom plate and see if he's got a misaligned chain. And...and let me know if it's an RT unit instead, because I have the manual here since he shares components with Patch. If you send a picture to Miss Tami I can have a look at it to help the little thing not be hurting himself all the time. Oh, and check the front sensor; he might have gotten clogged up if he's been over a lot of dust, he might be blind! And-"

Tami couldn't hold it any longer, her high-pitched laughter picking up as Kerfuffle's rambled through half a dozen known issues, repeatedly expressing his concern for the cleaning bot. The smaller hippogriff finally flew up to land on his back and take the camera.

"I'll make sure they do, Kiffie."

"Oh, oh that's good then."

He paused, going somewhat more silent as though realising his long amount of talking, until Tami giggled and briefly hugged around his neck from behind. Or at least that was what the odd movements of the camera implied.

"Hey, why don't you tell them a little about Claudia and what you're doing this morning?"

Kerfuffle clearly took a second to think, before finally smiling more openly. This was obviously a subject he was more comfortable with. Sweeping his large body to the side and turning them both, he indicated the missing wall panel with an outstretched claw.

"Well, y'see, Claudia's been having hiccups every time she transitions from turbine to fusion power. And she did it again last night just as I was goin' to bed even without a turbine cycle. So I thought I'd get up early and come give her a nice bit of attention until she and I can work out how to make her fly nice and smooth again. The hiccups were keeping me up, so I can only imagine..."

Tami made an 'aww' sound, dropping off of his back. She stepped back to show both Kerfuffle and the reactor, before swinging back to the panel as the griffon moved back over to it and picked up some tools. His voice might have been soft, but his movements certainly had weight to them. While not clumsy, it was clear he was used to working in minotaur-designed environments involving weighty levers and heavy materials. And there was plenty of that around him in the steamy engineering section

"So I figured maybe she's just got a little blockage in her transfer manifold. Lotta power for fusion, not nearly as much for turbine; so maybe some of its just getting dumped from capacitors hours after it got left as excess. Like when you get a cold and your nose runs for a long time after the illness is gone. So I'm just installing a relay to let her direct any excess to the heat sinks, and burn it all off. She don't deserve to be all stuttery just flying at night..."

Tami's hand reached out and patted Kerfuffle's shoulder. Her talons disappeared up to almost the wrist in his thick feathers. She grinned up at him.

"You'll put her right, you always do.” She turned to the camera. “See? Kiffie's super good at all this, 'cos he cares so much."

Kerfuffle looked down at her. He rubbed the back of his head, and bashfully smiled.

"I just don't like seeing her not right, is all. It's nothing big...if we get sick a doctor takes good care of us, right?"

"And if a machine needs help, the engineer helps her." Tami finished for him, as the viewpoint panned around. She had flown off him to land on the deck once more. "Hey, I'm gonna go see the rest of the crew, okay?"

Kerfuffle nodded, and sat back down near the wall panel.

"Okay, Miss Tami. I'll see you downstairs. Oh!"

He reacted suddenly, as though he'd forgotten something crucial, his wings and feathers fluffing up, as his eyes turned back to the camera.

"And bye to you too Missus Rose and Mister Gaius."

He smiled gently, even as Tami's surprised exclamation filtered into the camera's microphone, before shrugging and blushing.

"Just took me a second to remember."

Tami's hand again reached out to pat his forearm, before she upped and turned.

"Bye to you too, Kiffie!"

She got around four feet out of the door, before there was an urgent clattering of claws and a shocked gasp behind her. The camera spun rapidly to find Kerfuffle half out of engineering.

"I almost forgot! Bye to you too, Orbit!"

There was a pause, before the camera dropped to look at the floor, and Tami burst into laughter.

"Oh, Kiffie..."

Still laughing as the big griffon turned back to his workstation, she turned back to the 'main street' and skipped her way back down it. About mid way, the viewpoint turned until it was looking upwards at her face mid-trot. She was red in the cheeks and giggling, her lips curled into a permanent smile.

"He's just the softest, nicest thing. I know he seems a little slow or simple at times, but he's really really smart with machines, and polite to a fault. And...I think a lot of people underestimate him. Including himself. He's a lot wiser than he seems. When I've been upset over something, he always seems to know how to put things in perspective and make me think about it in a better way."

She stopped for a second to compose her words.

"I wish I'd had him around earlier in life sometimes. With, y'know...how I was."

Taking a deep breath, she looked away behind her, before rubbing an eye and smiling at the camera.

"Anyway! Let's go see who else we can find."

The video feed cut-

-and skipped to a different viewpoint. Looking down the stairs outside the bridge into what was clearly a common room. Tami was, owing to the lack of stepping sounds, flying her way down.

A table with a holo-display dominated the centre of the already well lived-in section of the ship, surrounded by metal seating topped with a variety of inconsistently shaped and coloured cushions to provide some comfort and colour to the otherwise hard and mundane chairs. At one of them, a young colt was sitting with cereal, watching cartoons on a digital screen upon the far wall above the modular kitchen unit.

"And this is where we all hang out or come to relax!" Tami's voice broke in, as she panned around. "We got a table, big screen, and look at all this!"

She turned in mid air, giving a full three-sixty view of the common room. Flanked with what were clearly crew quarters to every side, a room that had once been bare metal had, with a little decor, been turned into something quite homely. Name plates had been added above the doors; and a series of thick rugs brought colour to the floor. A pool table dominated the far side near one of the twin open doors to a much larger room, along with a worn but comfortable couch that resided below the stairs themselves. While clean, the layout bore all the hallmarks of a normal crew used to living around one another. Stacked food capsules and boxes were piled on the kitchen surface, breakfast's washing was still needing done by whomever's turn it was, and magazines were strewn on the table ahead of the colt. A washing basket of clothing ready to be hung up sat near one of the doors.

Aside from the colt, no-one else was present; his cartoons masking the noise of any others in the area.

Tami continued on, trembling as she went. "I do like it here sometimes, can just come and get some munchies, watch things together, or just to lie back on the couch if I need to. There's always someone here for some reason, so I like coming down just to see who's around if I'm free. Aaaand this time we get Jelly Biscuit!"

Tami flew down behind the colt's chair and pointed the camera to him. The colt turned briefly to look at her.

"What are you doing?" His voice betrayed an unexpected maturity for his age, despite his body still looking scrawny.

"Sending a video to my parents. They wanna see who I'm flying with, is all. So, this is Jelly Biscuit! We picked him up from a...uh...distress call a little while ago. We're still getting the meat back on the bones, huh?"

Jelly just stared at the camera, then Tami, then the camera, as though unsure what to say, before unexpectedly pulling a silly face, pulling the edges of his mouth apart and sticking his tongue out.

"Jelly! Don't do that!" Tami couldn't help but laugh as she ruffled his hair. "Say hi to them!"

"Hi 'huu 'hem!" He never changed his face at all, his tongue out giving his voice a lisping rasp.

"Be nice!" she chided.

"He nith!" he rasped.

"Jelly-"

"Helly-"

"-is silly!"

"-ith hilly-hey, wait!" He dropped the face, giving her a harsher look, only getting his mane ruffled again in response and wriggling to get her to stop. "Tami! Stop it!"

She only laughed and patted his back, even as the colt turned back to his cartoons again. "He's such a rascal...anyway! I know where I'll find someone fun before the first hour of the day cycle is up! This way!"

The camera whipped up, and its viewpoint moved to the other side of the stairs, bumping about as she hopped her way toward the door at the very back of the common room, gave it a rapid knock, and then walked right in.

"Hey, hey!" she chimed, coming into a large quarters. It was dominated by a set of patterned canvas panels obscuring the side of the room used for sleeping, and a large hanging monitor that covered the wall closest to the door. A quick pan brought the view to rest on a desk in the corner opposite the door. The quarters was hardly as tidy as the common room outside, stacked with a computer entry unit, various star charts, a chunky looking pistol, a veritable legion of post-it-notes, and a couple empty beer bottles acting as stationery holders. There were two ponies sitting on either side of it, both of whom looked up in confusion and bemusement.

One sparkled gently under the white LEDs of the ship lighting, both on her soft cream body and hazy orange mane: a lithe crystal pony. Every part of her seemed meticulously cared for. From her finely bunched mane, to the patterned eyelash directions, and even her smooth and clearly well exercised body under a pressed suit. She looked completely awake. Her thin, strict eyes betrayed a softer side as they arched up in questioning as to Tami's sudden intrusion.

The other sat behind the desk and seemed to be the polar opposite. Clutching a mug of steaming coffee within light green telekinesis on level with her sunken and tired eyes, as though to let its warmth seep into her still waking brain, sat a smaller-framed unicorn. A strong blue coat on her face was partially obscured by the drooping green mane, forced down by a trucker hat rammed tightly on her head. Her mouth was flat, and after one glance at the rabidly enthusiastic hippogriff skipping in, the unicorn looked at her coffee and, by the increased pace of her chugging it, clearly decided she needed to intake caffeine a lot more urgently.

The camera whipped back between the two, and Tami spoke up before either of the others could query.

"Good, you're both together, that makes it easy! I'm recording a VLOG to send home! So the crystal pony on the left there is Volatility Smile. She's like our business head; handles all the job contracts, border controls, route legality and accounts for the company. All the boring stuff, basically."

Volatility Smile was mid way through a small wave to the camera, but stopped and coughed politely. "Boring stuff?"

"Yeah," Tami brightly answered. "Like when you have to spend hours sitting there reading market share percentages and comparing them in spreadsheets to different systems' versions of the same things."

At that Smile pursed her lips, and gestured idly with a hoof.

"Tami, that isn't work for the company; that's just having fun with shares after work is done."

There was a pause in the room, both Tami and as of yet silent unicorn looking at the crystal pony. Smile spread her hooves as though they had just claimed that space was white.

"What? It's a thrill. Never know what you'll end up being able to do. But speaking of fun, will you be joining Niko and I for our morning aerobics session, Tami? You did say 'maybe later'. I'm sure your parents would appreciate seeing you getting fit with the crew."

"Uuuuuh..." Tami let her tone drone on, the camera shakily looking over at the unicorn, who only shrugged dismissively with a small grin that shifted the freckles on her face, briefly showing a sense of humour below the tired, gruff exterior in the morning.

Smile winked. "And you'd do well with the beat, with how much you dance about on the bridge-"

"I-I do not!"

Smile laughed, a curt and measured noise, with a look of utter incredulity. "One of these days we'll get you all in there with us. It's good for the body on long journeys! I'd ask Patch to bother you about it, if I could stand being around him."

"Maybe...maybe later," Tami muttered, and quickly turned the camera to face the unicorn, clearly seeking to change the subject. "And this is who I thought would be in here in the first place!”

The unicorn looked up, taking a long sip of her coffee, the edge of her mouth crinkling upwards slightly as she leaned back in her chair.

"This is Captain Hair Trigger! She keeps everything going in the right direction and gets us all together. Say hi to my folks, Captain!"

Hair Trigger finally let the long sip of her drink end, and leaned on her desk casually. A cheeky smile crept over her face as she fixed her eyes on the camera.

"A'ight there? Hey, has Tam told you about her new ‘boyfriend’ ye-"

"CAPTAIN!"

The camera whirled away in a frantic rush, the viewpoint spinning into indecipherable shapes, accompanied by the sound of Tami rapidly rushing out of the captain's quarters, accompanied by the unicorn’s raucous laughter somewhere behind her.

Shaking violently, it briefly looked at Tami's blazing red face as she moved through the common room, fumbling for the button to stop recording.

"No, see, it's not-she's just winding you up and...well, I m-mean I’ll likely never seen him again and I hardly know him an-wait, wait no...oh geez, c'mon!"

She finally found the button, and the footage cut.

The footage resumed on a blank door.

Tami's hand reached out and knocked on it three times.

"Hey, um, you up? Niko?"

After ten solid seconds of waiting, there was no answer. With a short grumble, Tami turned the camera to face her, the common room visible at the edges around her mane.

"Feels like he's never here sometimes. Okay, we'll, uh, we'll find something else. We'll go through the cargo hold to the bridge.”

She turned around, bringing the footage back to the common room itself, in time for Volatility Smile to come wandering out of the captain's quarters. The groomed pony briefly smiled at the camera.

"No luck with Nikomachos then?"

Tami sighed. "None. I think he's still sleeping."

Smile glanced at the door and looked somewhat disappointed, "And morning fitness was meant to start in a few minutes. Oh well, suppose I'll be alone for it. Unless-"

"I-have-a-lot-to-do-on-the-bridge!" The words exploded out of Tami's mouth.

"Okay, okay. Just remember we have our sit-down meeting later, all right?" Smile winked, and went into her room.

Tami hesitated for a moment, before beginning to wander back toward the doors at the other end of the common room, emerging into an enormous hold. Industrial shipping crates and metal containers dominated the middle, surrounding a hydraulic crane system. A ceiling height airlocked door was sealed at the far end, with a second one spread across the floor under the crane. Ladders dropped from above with a line of drying clothing strung between two of them. It wasn't particularly difficult to tell who each item belonged to.

"She'll be talking about doing stuff in here. Those two do a lot of aerobics and lifting all those things."

She zoomed in crudely to show a set of bar-weights and dumbbells stacked against the far wall around a lifting bench. A small music player sat waiting on a crate near them, and a few papers on the wall bore routines and personal records. Three columns of the listed five crew members were entirely empty.

She turned the camera around, briefly looking into it as she walked toward one of the ladders in the middle of the room. "Smile's pretty business first, but she's a nice pony, really. Get this, she helped me out with my student loans by showing me some things I could do, and got them completely written off!"

She hesitated with a single hand clenched on the ladder and bit her lip.

"Only, now I'm pretty sure I remotely own a company in an Avalon tax haven with two very bored employees. I guess that's what she wants to talk about..."

Turning the camera, she started climbing up, presumably tucking the device into a chest pocket.

"So we'll go up here, and we'll be back in the-woah!"

Kerfuffle’s large face suddenly popped into the hatch above her, staring down at her and the camera.

"Oh, sorry. Give you a hand, Miss?"

He stretched out his hand to hers, and effortlessly lifted her up and through to the main street again, just outside engineering.

"Thanks, Kiffie."

Kerfuffle shifted on the spot. "Just heard you coming up. I've been doing some reading and it's a good thing you're still recording. Because there was a Cleanmaster series that had that exact problem, and your homeworld only ever had them come in, so it's definitely a sensor issue. If they take the chassis off and help it out by clearing out the dust, it'll be fine. I guess it musta' been second hand to be like that already."

Tami was quiet for a second, before bursting into a fit of frantic laughter, pushing forward to hug the big griffon. The camera was momentarily nothing but feathers, until she pulled back and angled it.

"Oh, oh my. Thanks. I'll tell them. Gonna go show them the bridge."

"Okay, Miss. Let me know if its still not feelin' too well."

He nervously waved, and clambered back into the engineering section. Even in a minotaur ship he had to adjust his body to get through the door. In his wake, Tami held the camera below her face as she walked, cheeks red from laughter.

"Isn't he such a sweetheart?"

The viewpoint rotated to look toward the bridge again, and Tami passed around the stairwell to reach it. While about to reach the bridge, she paused as a faint humming of rotor blades began to be audible in the recording.

"Oh, now look who it is."

Tami quickly turned to look downstairs, as a floating object came whirring up them to hover in the air before her. Robustly constructed, the drone's main housing was connected to two small rotary units and several extendable arms with multiple joints. It paused in its route, looking at Tami, before speaking in an ill-fitting booming voice, like that of a supervillain's robotic bodyguard.

"Crewmember Tammani. Commencing daily rounds. Delivering personalised medical advice in three...two...one."

It blooped and buzzed in the air.

"Ignoring breakfast is adverse to a healthy life. Return downstairs and acquire sustenance for optimum operation."

Tami snorted, and reached out to pat the drone's housing.

"Aaand this is the last one around. This is Patch. Kerfuffle rescued him from those pirates I told you about in my mail. We fixed him up, and now he's our on board doctor. Hey, Patch, say hi to my parents!"

Patch gently floated up again; the pats had disrupted his level flight, his small rotary units roaring away like the fans in a server.

"Request to connect for proxy-advisory approved. Medical duty requests that parental action is taken to reduce Crewmember Tammani's calorie intake and encourage accompaniment of Crewmember Nikomachos and Crewmember Volatility Smile in daily exercise."

Tami's hand instead rubbed at his chassis, as though the small drone was a pet.

"He cares so much about us all; sometimes a little too much. Besides, I do get exercise! I still dance when I'm alone to get some sweat going."

The drone bleeped. "Crewmember Tammani does not possess medical licence. Unit PATCH provided efficient tempo and collected playlist information for activity titled 'Dancercise' from databanks. Playlist was not accepted by Crewmember Tamanni."

Tami chuckled and wandered on past him. "Because that stuff was boring! No lyrics or fun!” She rolled her eyes into the camera. “See? He's got such a sense of humour for a drone."

The sound of rotary units accelerating as Patch moved off down main street came from off-camera, along with a fading voice.

"Record added. Crewmember Tammani music tastes for dance related programs updated to 'limited'."

Ignoring him, Tami wandered into the bridge, the clatter of her hands and hooves on the metal decking changing to a softer tread as she moved onto the rugs she had laid down to personalise it. Yet immediately ahead was the great void of space itself. Deep space, far away from solar bodies. Without the light pollution of any nearby stars to shine across Claudia’s angular windows, the endless black showed its true beauty. Countless far away dots, blinking lights, and hazy distant auras of colourful nebulas surrounded the ship. A sight that was as deep as it was dark.

The windows, misted at their corners, lay beyond the stations for the bridge crew. Two crew chairs at the very front were surrounded by a series of hanging screens, control levers, a yoke, several button panels, and a large touch screen each. A pack of choconuts lay open and clipped onto a display on the right hand side one, easily indicating which was Tami's side.

"And this is where I do all my things! She's a good ship to fly. Takes a while to get used to the weight, the minotaurs build them hard, and she’s a heavy cargo lifter. But hey! The vectors are good at compensating for it all and-oh, look!"

She shuffled forward, moving to sit in the pilot's seat. Before her, the ship was half way done with the morning diagnostic, flickering words too fast for any organic to follow across the screen as every system was scanned, pinged and -if possible- tested.

"So right here, I got my pilot display unit. It's got a direct link to the navigation, so I don't even need to look up to use that. Unless it's FTL, which is over here. Oh, but the external camera only displays up here..."

She proceeded to go through all the controls at length. The sort of explanation only someone who knew their parents were ship crew themselves could possibly give. She excitedly squealed with delight at getting to work with triple redundancy stick servos, and giggled at the 'silly' minotaur bridge layout of having environmental panel back behind her and not on the main unit, meaning she had to get up.

It went on for some ten minutes, including a demo of how to set destinations on the new automated navigational systems, and on demonstrating an FTL chart for a multi-system jump.

"Oh, and look at this! For such a ship as she is, her roll speed is really smooth. Look!"

With one hand around the yoke, she threw it thirty degrees up, sending the stars spinning wildly around in the window view.

"Sometimes I just love to do this on the night watches. Deep space, nothing to hit, nothing to worry about...just me and the ship. Veer around, try out old maneuvers. It's so relaxing!"

"So that's why the ship’s route-tracker on my terminal has little squiggles at times..."

Tami squeaked, as Hair Trigger's voice cut into the recording. She spun to look, and caught sight of the unicorn dropping into the other seat.

"Uh...y-yeah?" Tami's voice was hesitant.

"But I'm sure it's just good trials to ensure your skills are sharp, right? And that Claudia works fine?"

Hair Trigger winked with a smirk, laying a re-filled mug on the top of a display screen’s casing.

Tami gradually let her voice pick up volume in reply.

"...yeeeeah, that's it."

"Thought so. Still recording, then?"

Tami must have nodded, as no verbal reply was heard at first.

"Just showing them the bridge, Captain. And I guess now you're showing them where you sit up here a lot too. The Captain joins me for chats and seeing where we're going, sits in the co-pilot's chair a lot. It's basically hers now. When Jelly isn't using it."

Hair Trigger raised a hoof and coughed. "Ahem, not 'co-pilot's' chair. This would be the 'Captain's chair."

"That's what you said about the couch two nights ago when Smile was on it."

"A Captain must have a backup. And besides, you can't drink a beer on a metal chair. She needed a better supported surface for the stick up her ass anyway."

There were a couple of seconds of them looking at one another, before they both broke into childish little chuckles. Tami re-arranged the camera, sitting it atop the pilot interface to let it look across the bridge at both of them.

"I got real lucky with the Claudia here. Such a friendly crew, everyone's so nice to me, and the Captain here is really supportive and understanding. Not as much of a grump as she looks. Captain here is the best captain I've ever had."

Hair Trigger rolled her eyes and leaned over to knock Tami's shoulder. "I told you before, I'm the only captain you've had!"

Giggling for a moment, Tami didn't once take her eyes off the camera, before mouthing the word again. 'Best'.

Hair Trigger smirked, and got up from her chair. Wandering around, she quickly grabbed Tami from behind in a small hug, looking over the hippogriff's shoulder at the camera. Tami yelped in surprise, before leaning the back of her head into Hair Trigger’s chest as her Captain spoke directly into the lens.

"In which case, Mister and Miss whoever? Let me tell you straight, you raised one hell of a pilot in Tami here. Couldn't have asked for a better or brighter one to join us. Not failed us yet, have you, Tam?"

Tami blushed severely, looking over her shoulder at Hair Trigger, "Well...there was-"

"Not once, far as I see it, 'cos we're still flying."

The young hippogriff bit her lip and gently nodded. "And that's what matters. That's what you said, wasn't it?"

"That's what I said."

Hair Trigger clapped Tami's shoulder, went back to the 'captain's chair' to collect her coffee, and trotted to the door.

"Anyway, came to tell you that we're throwing something on the grill. Head down in a minute if you want a hot breakfast."

"I'll be there."

With a final grin at the camera Hair Trigger left the bridge, leaving Tami to sit alone. She looked after the captain, before finally turning back around to the camera and smiling.

"Time to get ready for the day. Got four jumps to make. I'll try and add something later on, but just know...I'm happy. I've found what I wanted out here. We're taking pretty mares on honeymoons, I got to visit the Republic, I saw a pulsar, and I've met some really cool people on desert planets and ancient stations. It’s...amazing! Thanks so much for getting me back on top, both of you. I feel like I did in this again."

She panned it around briefly, showing a photo stuck to the side of her console. In it, there was Tami herself while she was much younger, her proud parents, and a golden retriever happily sitting with his tongue out. Tami was hung between her parents, both of the holding her off the ground, with oversized aviator goggles around her head, and beaming with all the hope of a dream about to come true.

There was an indistinct shout from behind her, and Tami quickly panned back to her face as she got up.

"I'll try to send something again soon, but I'll still mail every few days! See you then!"

A few awkward seconds of figuring out the buttons again led to the video cutting.

The video emerged again on a scene of chaos. All six members of the crew were around the main table in the common room, drone included. Hair Trigger and Kerfuffle were eagerly stretching over to the laid out breakfast, lifting food from the veritable buffet they had laid out. Jelly eagerly stretched a hoof out from under the griffon, beating the much politer and slower reach of Smile to the last fruit pudding. Patch sat on the couch, partially inactive, but ultimately watching with a disapproving glare at the crew. Voices of varying accents clamoured over one another, mixed with laughs and shouts.

"Okay, I got it!"

Tami's voice cut above the din, as she ran from behind the camera into frame, joining them and trying to hustle the crew together.

"C'mon! Just one! Look over at it there! No, there, Jelly! C'mon Captain it'll still be warm! Smile? Okay, okay!"

Nearly diving amongst them, she pulled and pleaded to get them around one side of the table, squeezing into the middle of the assembled crew. Hair Trigger still bore her plate in her magic, while Smile had already sighed, grinned, and sat upright.

"And say...Claudia!"

"Seriously?" Jelly deadpanned.

"Claudia!" Kerfuffle eagerly began, pushing his very best school photo smile despite his hunched body, being followed by a chorus of sardonic, muffled, or willing repeats of the word. Surprisingly, Patch had even flown into frame again for some inscrutable reason.

And with that, the screen froze, pausing on a frame of them together. Tami squeezed between Hair Trigger and Kerfuffle. The former with a sausage half in her mouth, the latter staring directly ahead rather than into the lens. Her arm reached around Smile, tugging the normally upright pony sideways, half bending Jelly over between them. Together, as one crew; one family aboard a ship.

Staring at the frozen image, Gaius couldn't help but reach one of his long arms over and pull Compass Rose in tight against his chest, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.

"She got there in the end, Rosie."

Rose sniffed, having already been shedding a few tears at the sight of their daughter so happy. The banter she'd shared. The way they'd teased her, helped her with her problems, and supported her wants.

"Looks like she got a good crew faster than we did too; a lucky break. Goodness knows, she needed it by now..."

Gaius gazed at Tami's expression on the screen, knowing too well the honesty in that genuine joy.

"Not luck. She earned this."

They fell silent, just holding one another, before Rose chuckled.

"What's that about?" Gaius inquired, smirking at his wife's amusement.

Rose looked up to Gaius and kissed the end of his beak, winking at him. "Who do you think the Captain meant by boyfr-"

Gaius rolled his eyes. "Oh no, we're not getting into this again. She got her curiosity about other people's relationships from you, you know?"

"She did. And we most definitely are. So, who?"

Gaius sighed, chuckled, and shook his head.

He was in for a long next hour.

All four will be returning in the next story, in the first full length 36k word adventure I wrote for them...

The events described in this story's introduction concern Session #31 to roughly Session #83, which can be read in the Session Summaries document. However, knowledge of these is not required for this story. One Of These Days is not part of the tabletop game's story, taking place at an indeterminate time between sessions and (other than the crew) the characters who show up in person are of my own design.

In effect, this is the first adventure I wrote for the crew of the Claudia that was independent of the game they originated from, and marks the largest thing I wrote since ending MN7. Hence the size. This is a full and proper story this time.

I hope you enjoy. This one was an absolute delight to put together.

The quiet droning of a starship was something that any spacefarer got used to in time. That distant, bassy rumble of a fusion-core reactor sounded more or less the same no matter where you were on board, and after so long in the black anyone could be forgiven for getting so used to it that lacking it meant for restless nights.

But while aboard and in your own bed, it could also be the most relaxing, reassuring reminder that you were somewhere comfortable and warm, held cosy and safe inside a metal hull away from the void with nothing for unthinkable miles around to disturb you.

It meant deep sleeps and low stress levels, especially to those who had been born off-world that had grown up with such sounds all their life.

This easy aura of dozy serenity also happened to explain Hair Trigger's incalculable hatred of her multiband's furious beeping as it tried its hardest to shatter that very bliss and wake her up.

The keening sound penetrated every level of comfort, amplified by the sheer metal walls and sloped ceiling into an echoing, painful lance of irritation that speared deep into her slumber, dragging her consciousness kicking and cursing into the waking world.

Her eyes didn't open at the same time. Instead, they took an uneven, alternately blinking route that never quite made it all the way to the eyebrows. She was facing the wall at the rear of her quarters, the dull mixture of grey and brown just a gentle hint in the lightless room. It felt like every shrill alarm was bouncing off it and somehow hammering into her retinas rather than her ears.

"Mmrrr!?"

Her eloquent question as to the multiband's gumption to ring this early went unanswered, other than for the automatic snooze setting to increase the volume even further, before sharply cutting off.

Groaning, dragging hooves that weighed as much as one of Claudia's nacelles up to rub at her face, Hair Trigger closed her eyes. The covers were too warm to want to move. Too close. Too inviting. The depression in her bed she usually slept in was too form-fitting. The world could wait. It'd have to. By the time that even the closest thing you could call a world light years away would be able to reply to her mentally projected message to get stuffed, she'd have gotten the extra sleep she felt she richly deserved.

This, she concluded, was a captain's privilege.

The logic was sound to the fuzzy-headed unicorn, and she let her straining body collapse back down into the bent pillow with a long exhalation.

Disappointed that it had been ignored, the multiband - a normally wrist-worn smart device - on the desk at the far end of the room decided in its infinite wisdom to try again, and thus a sharp, frantic buzzing again filled the almost silent room. Clearly, it figured, its owner must have just not heard it.

The sudden glow of telekinesis under the covers, and the grip of magic around the device that started to blindly and haphazardly attempt to hit the 'Stop' button against the desk made clear that there was a mighty disagreement with that conclusion.

Only vaguely certain she even had the right object by the sound of the alarm changing tone from being turned over and over, Hair Trigger fumbled and fought her sense of magic around the multiband, not able to feel or see it from under the covers clenched around her head. Drawing it this way and that, making the sound garble in ways that only further violated her sleep, she finally gave it a rough tug with her horn's imprecise magic, sure that she had the stop button on the side depressed now.

Instead she felt her sleepy magic falter, and the sense of an object held in it suddenly disappeared.

A second later, she heard the polymer screen of the multiband crack on the metal floor.

"Oh fer f-" The expletive didn't even get to finish before a long groan overtook the word, growing into a frustrated growl. Finally, the realisation that she'd have to get up slammed home like a harsh dose of reality, and she didn't enjoy it one bit.

Muttering and sighing, Hair Trigger pulled herself upright - or at least tried to. Eight attempts later, she finally got her top half up and slumping forward, just to sit idly for a couple minutes more. Her mane drooped, hanging over her face and neck even without her cap to push it down, while her muscles rebelled at being asked to perform such a horrendous action as 'moving'. Even the loose shirt she wore to bed felt clingy and sweaty all of a sudden. Rubbing her cheeks, she glanced over and saw the glint of the multiband's broken screen still functioning, but with half of it displaying a corrupted image.

"Oh, you stupid idiot..."

Muttering to herself in annoyance at her own clumsiness and swinging the covers off her, Claudia's captain finally forced herself to get up and deal with it. A bad wakeup was just another thing to push past; a good shower would see things right.

Pausing at every step, she nodded repeatedly to psyche herself up for leaving bed, crammed her hat on her head, and hopped off the side.

"Right, let's-"

Her right hind-hoof, unfortunately, managed to unerringly locate the multiband’s upturned charging plug with all her weight behind it, and the device exacted its revenge via proxy.

For the second time that morning, the relaxing drone of the reactor was interrupted by a very loud - and this time very angry - scream, an even louder set of curses, and a crash of dividing screens being knocked over.

Thrashing, tossing the fallen screens off of her and beating her foreleg on the bed in anger, Hair Trigger seethed at the lancing pain that fired up her hind leg. It had gotten right into the soft tissue at the very edge of the frog. Throbbing, stinging, arching up and down, she yanked herself up, reeled off a dozen words she'd never repeat around the crew in quick succession, and picked up the offending object.

"It's gonna be just one of those mornings, isn't it?"

She snorted at the plug, hurled it onto her bed in frustration, and limped painfully for her desk, wincing on every step. It felt like stepping on a nail every time her hoof touched the deck.

Hair Trigger hadn't even gotten halfway to the door after setting the multiband on the desk before her personal ('Captain's', she would insist) ship terminal began its own blooping and bleeping, followed by the sound of a beer can being opened.

Stopping on the spot, Hair Trigger ran a hoof down her face and scowled. It meant mail. The can opening sound had been her choice of the default set of alert sounds, but it was quickly beginning to lose its appeal. Perhaps, she figured, it was less to do with the exact sound and more to do with what it represented. Who else but a certain someone would be sending mail at this hour of the morning?

Collapsing into her chair, gasping at taking the weight off her hoof, she awkwardly bent over to tap the hoof print recognition panel. While waiting for the computer to log her in and bring up her mail app, she pulled her hindleg up to get a look at it, flicking the lights on with her magic as she did so.

There was a nasty red mark, right between the sole and the frog - one that stung to touch and radiated a swollen heat already.

"Ngh, damn it!" she muttered again, still trying to pull her thoughts together. The broken multiband sat like a trigger point reminder of everything already going wrong this morning, and the rapid series of pop-ups informing her of how much mail had been received weren't helping.

[Rota] Maintenance and Cleaning, followed by a date, and the time, sent by Volatility Smile a few minutes ago.

Volatility Smile had to be the only pony Trigger had ever known who'd send out a work rota for a crew of four people and one drone first thing in the morning. And looking further down at last night’s mails from after Trigger had gone to bed, clearly the only one who would send a daily report each evening as well, containing details for “Captain Hair Trigger's attention” on the things that Captain Hair Trigger herself had done.

Opening the rota out of morbid curiosity more than anything, she saw it contained four schedules. One for each of those aboard at the moment. Its contents were intrinsic, covering general cleaning tasks for the kitchen and common room and then a series of more specialist jobs such as bridge system checks for Tami, reactor limit drills for Kerfuffle, account revision and approaching market assessment for Smile herself, and ship tours and appraisal for Hair Trigger. With times. To the hour.

Not for the first time, Hair Trigger wondered just who ran this ship sometimes.

Tabbing down through each mail, she saw a third one marked by a red exclamation mark, with the astonishing inclusion of the dreaded letters 'KPI' in it, accompanied by individual documents for every crew member, including Patch.

"Okay, nope. Fuuuuuck that."

Pain or not, she quickly got up, grabbed the closest mug in her magic, and hobbled her way to the door instead.

Coffee and shower. That would do.

At least the morning couldn't get any worse.

Claudia’s common room still bore the untidy aftermath of the night before. Empty bags of crisps and half finished salsa tubs were dotted amongst a scattering of plastic bottles with only dregs remaining in them on the main table and around the sofa. So lay the aftermath of movie night - a not insignificant part of the reason why the crew had bunked down so late, despite the early start they knew they had.

Yet that was not the first thing that Hair Trigger felt herself made aware of.

That honour belonged to the thumping, allegedly invigorating beat of music with seemingly only three lines to its lyrics encouraging everyone to get up and move coming from the cargo hold. Having just escaped the shrill beeping of her broken multiband, this new racket was enough to make her pause, close her eyes and make a strained sound through her frown, before moving fully out of her room.

Stepping over a few fallen cushions from the table's chairs, remnants of a crew too tired to clean up before collapsing to sleep, she made her hesitant and painful way to the kitchen top at the far side of the room. Every step sent a spike up her hind leg, making her curse that it hadn't even had the grace to be a foreleg; at least those you could limp moderately well without.

Dropping her mug on the worktop, Trigger held her hind leg off the ground and set about finding what coffee she could muster from the cupboards. They were covered in papers, mostly containing whose job it was for cleaning that week, suggestions for movie nights, and one smaller list marked 'Systems we don't go to any more'.

Naturally, every system’s inclusion on that list had a story behind it to tell curious passengers.

Grabbing the handles, she found the first cupboard was empty of any caffeine

The second one joined the first in its rebellion against morning ponies.

Sighing, Trigger lit her horn and spun the rotating carriage on the wall, mostly used to store herbs or spices. If it came to it, instant coffee would have to do.

So focused was she on the search for packaged enlightenment, that she failed to hear the trotting near to her over the pounding music.

"Unfortunately, someone didn't remember to mark coffee as low last week."

Hair Trigger didn't turn away from her task, tossing packets side to side to get a look right into the back, her still sleep fuddled mouth gnashing and recalling the power of speech.

"Smile, if you're trying to softball me that we're out of coffee..."

To Hair Trigger's side, the crystal pony dabbed her towel on her head, still dressed in her sporting wear and, judging by her laboured breathing and sheen of sweat on her glinting body, was less than a couple minutes off of having finished her routine. Tilting her head to the side with a glance at the cupboards, she took a second to get her breath for another sentence, before continuing.

"Well in that case, we're out of coffee, because someone-"

She was interrupted by the hard dunking sound of horn-on-kitchen-top and the clinking of metal and plastic the impact caused. Volatility Smile was straight talking, but she knew when to adjust her words when needed. Smiling softly, she drew back her tone.

"Because someone else here, namely me, went through this exact hunt earlier this morning, and came up fruitless."

Hair Trigger spoke with her face plastered onto the worktop. "Well saved."

"I haven't a clue what you're referring to." Volatility Smile gave a brief wink, despite Hair Trigger's current staring contest with the polymer worktop restricting the captain from paying her any visual attention. "Regardless, I'm certain we can pick some more up today in Kavala. Confederate coffee, strong enough to build a factory on."

The small unicorn turned her head to Smile, before dragging her head backwards and standing up with another groan. "And by then, it won't be morning any more." She looked vaguely at the electronic clock on the hanging screen upon the wall, and narrowed her eyes. "You win this one, waking hours."

Volatility Smile nodded with a brief snort, rubbing a hoof under her own right eye. Coming from the normally prim and properly upright crystal pony, it was an unusual sign of lethargy. "We can win the war with extras and caffeine shots tonight to pep you up then. Because frankly, Captain, you look like hell this morning. Wrong side of the bed?"

Hair Trigger could only yawn and make a motion somewhere between a nod and shake, accompanied by a glare at her leg.

"Just the one with a damn charging plug waiting in ambush..."

Volatility Smile chuckled, quickly picking up the reason for her captain's limp. She wandered back to the cargo bay door and flicked off her exercise music.

"Well don't let Patch see it. Last thing I need to hear before I have some hot drink in the morning is his voice, and he's already bothered me about my posture. Mind if I take the first shower?"

She nodded toward the bathroom door beside the kitchen, and Hair Trigger idly waved a hoof. "Sure, I'm gonna go check on the rest. Got to do the rounds sometime."

Smile wandered to the table, picking up a folded washing towel she'd left there, and gave Hair Trigger a curious look as she tugged her mane's ties out to let it fall loosely about her head.

"Already? They'll still be getting things together, I think. That's why I pencilled the morning tour in for an hour from-."

Trigger snorted. "What am I going to do? Stare a coffee mug to death in the meantime? I'm going to the bridge, gonna see how long till we arrive. Enjoy the shower."

The unicorn turned, hobbling and cursing her way to the panelled stairs after dumping her mug by the kettle. The thin metal steps clapped and bounced under her on her route, until she disappeared above decks.

Behind her, Volatility Smile watched her grouchy captain go. Hair Trigger was usually a bit grumpy in the mornings, and she had long learned to give the captain a little space in such times. Content that it meant going for a shower, Smile dabbed her forehead with her dry towel and made to open the bathroom door.

Today hadn't been going well at all for her, owing to a frozen laptop update, an encounter with Patch mid-exercise, and no coffee. And now it threw yet another curveball.

The latch turned, but the door refused to slide aside. A thick clunk and only a tiny shift in its weight were all that the pull accomplished. She rattled it a few more times, to no avail. It wasn't locked. It was just jammed.

Her workout clearly wasn't done yet. The normally poised businessmare dropped her towel and grabbed the handle with two hooves to tug at again and again. Finally, her increasingly annoyed yanking bumped the lock up a little and the door sprang open, almost throwing her off her hooves. Smile staggered backward and dropped next to the kitchen on her haunches, banging her head on the edge of the worktop. Grumbling, she rolled her eyes.

"Oh, stars above...this morning."

Hair Trigger willed her way to the top of the stairs via the unbridled power of a grumpy mindset, one that didn't want to let one ambushing inanimate object inhibit her day. Coming up to the main street, she quickly reached for the heavy handle to the bridge.

After all, if there was one person on board she could trust to cast a ray of happiness onto a dismal failure of a morning, Trigger knew where to find her. Lifting her injured hoof off the ground, she tensed her shoulders and tugged at the sealed door.

Only to find it refuse to move.

"What."

The flat tone in her throat was matched only by the flat lack of reaction from the bridge door. She tried again with a little more force. Unlike the disagreement between accountant and accessway she could hear below decks, this was not a jam. The bridge door was well and truly locked shut.

Somehow, Hair Trigger didn't feel too surprised at this point that the morning had yet more to throw at her, but this particular detail was unexpected. They'd never had a locked bridge policy before. Especially not one locked to the captain.

Yet behind the locked door’s heavy metal, she could hear noises. Familiar ones that no-one on board Claudia would be unfamiliar with after at least a few days. Still with half-lidded eyes she leaned closer, her ear to the metal.

Music.

Taking a long breath, Trigger reached up and thumped her hoof on the door.

"Tami? Tami!"

She knocked it again, giving the door a few proper whacks.

"TAMI!"

The music dropped in volume, and she heard the scrambling of someone inside the bridge. Soon enough, she heard the clunk of metal and the click of a lock signalling the bridge-side security lock being undone, and the way inside was pulled open by just a little.

The first thing to escape was the sugar-sweet, hyperactive pace of colourful music, and the second was the soft, heart shaped face of Claudia's pilot poking through the gap. Tami's big eyes blinked, and she smiled brightly while clutching the door, her so-called 'triple-p patterned-pink-pyjamas' still clad around the visible arm. Behind her, the kaleidoscope of magic space whirled in the bridge's windows, providing an eye-straining visualiser backdrop to the high pitched lyrics and relentless bouncing beats that assaulted her thrice attacked ears this morning.

"Oh! Morning, Captain!"

Hair Trigger's face barely changed from a squinted clench. Even confronted by someone she naturally felt predispositioned to be gentler with, part of her still felt like it was sunken into her bed downstairs.

Taking a slow breath, feeling her very brain thudding away with the happy bumps in the tune, Hair Trigger formed her words with strained care. "Tami, why was the bridge locked?"

The hippogriff pursed her lips, clearly giving the answer a little bit of thought. Her visible talons gripping the door tapped in time to the music out of nerves. "Well...most of you lock your quarters at night, y'know? I'm just doing the same. Privacy!"

She smiled sweetly. Sleepy or not, Trigger knew she'd been wording that one in her head for a while.

"This is the bridge, Tami."

"Yeah, and I stay here, and the place someone stays is their quarters so..."

It took a monumental level of effort to keep her voice steady. The last thing she wanted to do was snap at anyone this morning, least of all the one in front of her now. "We don't lock the bridge, it's not a private quarters."

"But I'm sleeping here. I mean, you can just knock and then I'll know 'cos I might be getting dressed and-"

"Just-" Hair Trigger put a hoof on the frame of the door, her voice spiking upward a little. She was having to listen to her home's quiet hum being interrupted for the third time, and this time while speaking through a crack in the door to her own ship's bridge. It took her a second, before dropping back down to the grumpy morning tone she knew even Tami was used to by now, accentuating the words with a hoof motion in the air. "Just leave the bridge unlocked, okay?"

"Aye, Captain."

"Good girl. Besides, we've all walked in on you dancing before anyway. Nothing we haven't seen. All good?" Trying to offer a smirk, her mouth instead contorted into more of a twisted grimace. Thankfully, Tami seemed content with the tease, at least by her standards.

"I-I wasn't! And we should be transferring out to sub-light to Confederacy space in an hour, I was just-"

"Just listening to that song for the fiftieth time. Believe me, I think even I know the lyrics by now. But...okay, get dressed and clean up whatever paints you spilled that are making you hold the door closed like this to try and hide it. I'll go check on Kerf and get a shower first. Get readied up. And no more bridge locking, okay?"

"What? Paint? Noooo, no no."

Hair Trigger angled her head, raising one eyebrow.

Tami gulped. “Really!”

Biting her lip, the hippogriff just smiled wider, until her captain finally nodded, turned, and stumbled away down the main street.

Tami waved meekly at the departing unicorn and shut the door rapidly so she could turn back to her dilemma, only now resuming her panting breaths and grabbing more rags from her bag. That had been close.

Republic Blue was not an easy colour to get out of decking, or pyjamas.

"Oh, this is the worst morning..."

At every turn, Hair Trigger was beginning to recognise a pattern emerging now, and approached the engine room with a resigned expectation to whatever might be next.

Its doors were open already. Inside, she found the big griffon hunched behind the primary drive system at the back, half hidden away. He was busy at work, as diligent and reassuringly predictable as ever.

She stepped over the frame of the heavy bulkhead to the engineering section; one that could be shut and sealed more securely than any others that weren't an airlock, and found herself slowing down until she was standing still.

Inside, Hair Trigger had finally found what she was looking for.

That hum. The sound of a ship. Here, she found its source. To others it may have just been white noise in the engine room itself. But after an encounter with shrill alarms, overly motivated beats, and tooth rotting sugar in audio form, the simple mechanical sounds of a happy ship felt like the crooning of a meditation room.

Slowly, she felt her eyes close again, and a very pleasant tranquillity begin to rest in her mind after the conga line of aggravation thus far - one that was happy to let her rump drop to the deck and take the pain off her hoof.

"Oh. Mornin' Cap'n."

Opening an eye, she saw the calico coated griffon peering over the reactor at her, his gentle voice barely disturbing the atmosphere.

"A'ight." She nodded. "Nothing noisy is about to happen in here, is there?"

The griffon's head tilted sharply. "Don't rightly think so..."

"Any sudden slams, loud music, sharp objects, missing things or spillages?"

Kerfuffle thought about that for a few seconds, scratching at his feathers with long talons. "Nothing more than just myself and Claudia having a quiet morning here, Cap'n. Why're you sitting on the deck all quiet?"

Hair Trigger finally let a small smile creep onto her face, and closed her eye again.

"Happy place, Kerf. Always have a happy place."

Kerfuffle wasn't certain what to make of the comment, but Hair Trigger's obvious contentment reassured him. He turned back to his work on the core’s secondary coolant inlet. He’d been up all night already, trying to get it to line up after it had jolted loose during the emergency drill he and Tami had run the day before.

He had thought it would be a ten minute job, and stayed up after bedtime to finish it.

That had turned into a sleepless night of wondering just how in the world it had ever fitted at all, because it certainly wasn’t any more. Rubbing his tired eyes, he went back to his laborious task. This was not the kind of morning he preferred. It never was if Claudia wasn’t working how she should, and it unsettled him to think he couldn’t fix her on his own.

Unaware of the resigned stress behind Kerfuffle’s impenetrably calm face, his Captain let her mind and temper settle with nothing but the ship and the quiet griffon. Finally, Hair Trigger spoke up on her own. "Tami says we'll be there in an hour. Anything we need to be aware of before then? We got a job on arrival, not looking for any surprises."

Kerfuffle didn't look up, pulling a small locking tool from his slung belt. He set himself to bang it into place, before pausing, remembering the Captain's look, and instead gave it a gentle wiggle to slide over the lug instead. "She'll make it there, Cap'n. Gotta run a hyperdrive technical stripping before long though."

Trigger nodded. "We'll make the time. They've got a proper dock there in orbit."

The big mechanic seemed pleased by that, momentarily patting the side of the reactor housing. While she didn't hear what he said, Hair Trigger was certain she saw him whisper something to the ship through her peeking open eye. Her smile slowly grew a little more. Trust Kerfuffle to be the one steady, reliable source of zen on a morning like this.

Even then, her watchful gaze saw an uncharacteristic sluggishness in his movements. The big griffon was exhausted, and she made a mental note to order him to take the afternoon off if they had time.

Slowly, she got up, grunting as her back leg came down. "Better go get ready. Prep her for sub-light, Kerf, and thanks for the quiet. Gonna go get a shower soon as Smile's done, then we'll see about getting everyone together."

She turned to wander out, hoping against hope that Patch wouldn't find her before she got back to her quarters to wait on Smile. She was in no mood for a drone prodding at her hoof.

This was, however, an improvement. The edges that every other stop had sharpened were now softening, and she felt a more genuine smile finally coming to her face as she started to rationalise everything in a stream of calming thoughts.

Another day. Another job. Just a rough wakeup, that was all.

She just needed a nice. Warm. Shower. That was all she needed to rid herself of this. Just a shower. Warm water. That was all. Forget everything else. Just that. Just. That.

She had only just got out of the engineering section when she heard Kerfuffle shuffle over to the door behind her.

"Oh, Cap'n, you might wanna know there's no-"

From downstairs, there came the shriek of a very surprised - and very cold - crystal pony, followed by the crash of a curtain railing.

"-hot water. Thermal regulator threw a fuse..."

Hair Trigger stopped on the spot, eyes wide and staring at absolutely nothing. Her pupils contracted and her eyebrows hardened.

Kerfuffle looked at the trapdoor the sound had emerged from, and then back up at the now still unicorn halfway down the main street corridor. Her neck behind her mane started to tighten as her head tilted, with one eye twitching.

"And we'll need to dock first if we want to-”

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE!"

Any sense of comfort and quiet was broken by the frustrated, angered cry of utter exasperation, before the still loudly complaining and ranting captain stormed her painful way down the stairs once again, leaving the tentative griffon behind to slide back into his own happy place, and this time close the door.

Back on the bridge, Tammani finally put the finishing touches on her plan of obscurement until she could purchase a supply of paint thinner for a large area. It wasn't the greatest one, but it'd have to work.

"Right...there!"

Patting down the adjusted blanket, she stood in her stained pyjamas, stared at it, and tried to control her breathing the way Volatility Smile had shown her. Slow inhalations and exhalations. Each one measured to eight seconds. A competitive shooter's trick for bringing down the heart rate after swimming for miles, one Smile had learned from that unusual combined sport.

Smile had said to do it for a few minutes, but really, Tami wasn't much capable of being still that long. Not when she was so close to the endpoint of an FTL jump. Instead, she took to her more favoured method of calming down and hit the play button on a patterned music device sitting on the centre console of the bridge.

Soon enough, the soothing energy of Lady ZaZa's seasonal release was filling the bridge once more, while Tami took the opportunity to get dressed, repeatedly casting her eyes back at the warping colours out the bridge's slanted windows. The drifting shapes out there were starting to wobble and ripple in more intense waves, like a stone slammed hard into water, just unthinkably large and only growing in rapidity.

Tammani always loved this part. As much as the thrill of breaking into the otherworldly rift of magic space was an adrenaline rush, the transfer back to the known universe held an oh-so-satisfying feeling of accomplishment. To see just how accurate you'd been, and if you came out on the correct alignment. She and her friends back in basic flight school had always sought to be the one who could come out with as few adjustments needed on each axis after a jump.

This was particularly the case with their destination in Kavala. Smile's receipt of their job from the client had demanded extremely specific exit coordinates, down to a zone of space no more than a few hundred kilometres in diameter only just outside of a standard moon's orbital distance from a planet. The message had been quite explicit. Miss the job distance, and you don't get in.

It had puzzled Tami all trip as to why. She'd been through this system before, but to approach Kavala III there were all these extra demands. Smile had been doing research on it, but so far no answer had emerged. It wasn't a significant problem. She knew she could send Claudia into an area half the volume in a system populated with translation beacons to help them out, but it was unusual all the same.

Shrugging it off, and tugging her rainbow leggings on while sitting on her hammock, Tami kicked her legs and hummed along to 'Ovation'. Verbena, her new friend on Port Medusa, had provided her with the song, despite Tami's already knowing of it. She'd never owned it before though, and had spent the last few days getting to know every beat.

She glanced down, spotting her hoop lying where she'd left it last night.

A small smile came to her face. ZaZa's video had the Lady Ykina herself dancing with props. Not to mention, the zebra had worn bright striped colours. With a glance at herself, her leggings without the overalls certainly qualified.

Besides, hooping while exiting FTL with that colourful surreality backdrop? Even the pop star herself had never done anything that cool in a video! Real magic space!

With a nervous glance to the unlocked door Tami hopped off the hammock, took up the hoop, and felt a thrill of excitement fighting with embarrassed nerves.

“Aww, whatever. Let's do it.”

Giggling away to herself, she stepped into it, tapped her hoof, waited for the big drop into the chorus...and then let the beat take her over. The flow, the glow, and the unrelentingly confident singing surged into her, driving Tami to move from slow, uncertain movements until she was half hopping, half shuffling...and threw the hoop out to catch on her own body's movements.

“Woah, haha! Aw yeah!”

Soon enough, the (literal) blues of the morning were being forgotten.

Half humming lyrics she barely heard, waving her wings out for balance while wiggling and feeling the hoop roll round and round her midsection (with only a small cheat by holding the PA system above her for balance) she lived her own music video, as magic space joined her in its cascade of neon and flickering like a backdrop amid the hyperdrive's efforts to break back through into the galaxy.

The pilot panel pinged, barely audible over the music.

'APPROACHING MAGIC TRANSLATION.'

Claudia's voice echoed through the bridge, and Tami heard the slightly delayed repeat from outside.

Grinning wildly, Tami turned her shivering and excited self toward the window, rolled the hoop around and around, and watched. The sudden break of the psychedelic into the thick black and soft colours of real space to see where you'd gone was what she lived for, and what a conclusion it would be with the song winding down.

Outside the windows, magic space folded in on itself, and a bright white glare erupted across the ship, even as the final note hung and faded.

“Oh wow, that was -hehe- that was great. I gotta do that ag-”

'PROXIMITY WARNING. EMERGENCY MANEUVERS REQUIRED.'

“Huh!?”

The white flare of translation to the black snapped away, being replaced with the looming shape of a mass conveyor vessel in their flightpath, Claudia’s huge exit velocity bringing it so close that its ends exceeded the edges of the windows.

A wailing klaxon erupted throughout the ship, while three separate master warnings on the consoles lit up the entire board with intense buzzing and alternating red and yellow texts.

Tami screamed, diving forward into her chair, the hoop clattering across the bridge. She didn't even get to sit down before grabbing the control sticks and simply yanking back on them as hard as she possibly could.

A harsher, more immediate alarm rung out, making her cry out as half a million tons of metal darkened the windows with its approach, the turn struggling to affect their velocity.

'COLLISION WARNING. EMERGENCY MANEUVERS ESSENTIAL. BRACE BRACE BRACE!'

“No, no, no, no, NO!”

She frantically reached for the vector controls, hearing herself screaming a second time.

Downstairs, Hair Trigger had been midway through a most uncomfortable cold shower by the time the first alarm went off. By the second, she was mid-way out of the door, wrapped in a towel to find the others getting up from their late breakfast to head for the bridge.

“What the hell is going-”

Their world turned by ninety degrees.

Every light in Claudia switched off for a second, then suddenly began flickering madly. Hair Trigger's gut twisted on the spot, and she was thrown forward across the common room by the sudden shift in gravity. Trigger briefly saw Kerfuffle grabbing Smile, before she slammed into the pool table and skidded off of it with the sting of carpet burn. Wheeling through the air, she painfully clanged against the far door back first. The air was driven out of her, the wall feeling like the floor from the crushing forces. An ill-fittingly harsh and dominating voice rattled through the rumble of the ship's hull and whining reactor, and she saw Patch pin-balling from stairs to table to ceiling, alerts and bloops reeling out of his speaker as much as his requests for assistance.

“User assistance for Unit PATCH required! Gravitational anomaly interfering with gyroscopic stabilisers!”

She barely got to catch her breath before everything inverted once more, and she went flying toward her own room amidst a cloud of soaring utensils, cereal and empty bottles, the sharper edges of the stairs approaching fast. Crying out, she tried to turn her head away from them.

From below, a huge clawed hand grabbed her out of the air and yanked her down into a soft, cushioned embrace. She could see the glittering of Smile's coat beside her, as Kerfuffle held them both down below him, bracing his legs under the stairs and couch to keep them still as small objects bounced off of his back. He made a grasping attempt for Patch, but the aggressively complaining drone whirled away in a rapid series of warbling bleeps to crash through the strung up laundry.

“What in the blazes is going on out there!?” Smile's voice rang about the cacophony of every object unnaturally dropping to the floor again, no matter what velocity it had once had. She felt sick to her stomach, and her ears were whirling with imbalance.

Hair Trigger didn't bother replying, instead clambering out from under the griffon and rushing her damp and ever more pained body upstairs to the bridge. Everything was shaking, like great winds were blowing at the ship, and Trigger could hear the vector engines rattling in their housings. Her hooves felt loose on the deck. The artificial gravity was still off kilter.

Throwing open the door, she found a scene of utter chaos.

Claudia's bridge windows beheld a blur of motion. A colossal metal object filled the entire right and bottom, hurtling by them as though they were soaring low over an orbital station. Claudia veered away from it sharply, and another proximity alert rang out; not even getting half way through the alarm before a third joined it. Tami screamed, and Claudia spun again, the main engines roared with the effort of dodging something completely unseen to those without the information a pilot’s station granted them.

Dragging herself along the floor against the g-forces trying to press her into the wall, Trigger looked at the screens on her side of the console for the source of the alert signals. She saw the two kilometre vessel they'd just pulled away from dominating the display. The other, a rapidly moving transport ship, had just buzzed within fifty meters of Claudia’s underside.

The sensor screen was covered in so many indicators that Hair Trigger couldn't even count them. Looking back up, she saw a second enormous vessel coming into view, turning on full burn toward them to evade the first one they'd just pulled away from. The viewpoint of the windows suddenly twisted away from it, and Trigger felt more than saw the flying town rumbling overhead of them, and the concussive impacts of engines as wide as Claudia thumping into them as they passed its flightpath.

“What in all the damn galaxy is going on? Tami, did we just jump into a damn fleet engagement!? Did we hit something?”

“NO! No-it's...NO! Can't talk!”

Claudia banked and wheeled around, turning on her head before inverting and pointing out towards an area notably not filled with gigantic metal objects. Tami, sweating profusely, grabbed one side of the controls with both hands to hurl the yoke over and hit the thrust stick to its maximum with a wing. Even past the artificial gravity, Trigger felt her empty stomach lurch at the three-dimensional turn, something that would be impossible in an atmosphere without breaking the ship apart.

Behind them, Smile and Kerfuffle came running up after Trigger, the griffon carrying Patch with him.

Claudia powered forward for almost thirty seconds, only slowing once Tami fired the retrothrusters. The jarring deceleration rippled through the ship, and the angry beeping of alarms began to settle down. Breathing hard, Tami let go of the yoke and slumped over her controls, not even bothering to arrest the lazy spin the hard burn had given the vessel.

“Oh geez...”

Slowly, Claudia drifted. Glancing over at the shocked hippogriff, Hair Trigger reached forward and used a wet hoof to pull the control switching lever. Assuming pilot control of Claudia, she started gently easing the ship around to try face the way they'd come.

“You okay?” she quietly asked, glancing over at Tami in concern. The poor hippogriff was only partially dressed, shivering all over.

Taking slower breaths, Tami just nodded, before looking up at the windows. Hair Trigger reached over to pat her shoulder, and felt Tami’s hand settle over her hoof to hold it there.

“What did we hit?” Volatility Smile glanced from screen to screen, rubbing the side of her neck, yet there was no indication of damage to Claudia.

“Nothing.” Tami turned to the others, shrinking back on seeing them all nursing bruises. “I had to do a fully angled vector-turn while we were still transitioning back to normal space, and we passed through the magnetic field of a mass conveyor during it. Y'know, all those electromagnets holding containers on its hull? The uh...the artificial gravity didn't like that much. Went a bit, well, selective? S-sorry if anyone got jostled about a bit...”

The three who had been downstairs of them glanced at one another. Hair Trigger in particular was still wringing out her neck.

Kerfuffle eventually spoke up, looking back at them from the diagnostic screen, his concern for Cladia’s wellbeing paramount. “Better than losing all gravity hitting a conveyor.”

“Improper environmental conditions for possession of Unit PATCH may result in denial of warranty in the unlikely event of crew members seeking insurance cover. Transgression has been added to logs,” added Patch, a brand new dent in his casing just below the star sticker.

Kerfuffle hefted the drone up to stare into his visual receptors, momentarily tracing a claw around the dent, analyzing it. “Now that ain't nice to say. Wasn't us who parked a big cargo ship right there, was it now?”

From over the bridge, Hair Trigger twitched the controls a little more, then hit the retrothrusters to slow down their spin. Staring out, she narrowed her eyes and sat back.

“Looks like it wasn't just them. Or us. Damn...that's a crapstain of a mess out there.”

Hair Trigger’s careful control of the vessel brought Claudia around to a new heading, passing by the chaos of panicked ship movements breaking out before them. Yet moments after, a sudden flare of light from the system’s sun flooded into the bridge, illuminating the scene before them.

They had landed in the right spot. Nothing about the jump had been off. Before them lay a planet: their destination.

Kavala III.

The hazy gold and orange of a predominantly dry-to-temperate planet lay before them. They could see the shifting clouds and tan landmasses, indicating their jump point had brought them out at an unusually closer distance than most jumps did for a planet arrival. Normally planets were distant little balls, but not here. Here, they were nearly in a high orbit already, with all its details visible to the naked eye through a window.

Yet surrounding it was something that drew the attention all the more.

Asteroids. Countless asteroids, forming a near-spherical field of dark rocks and minerals all around the planet itself, rather than in rings. It was deep, from near orbit to out past the limit of one very notable feature amongst the field itself.

A broken moon.

Shattered of almost a third of its volume, the natural satellite hung like a giant parent of the asteroids, keeping watch over its millions of children as they spun and drifted in lazy orbits around both itself and the planet. Within the colossal field there were flashes of light, like fireflies at night. Sensor pings were clearly marked on Claudia's overlay, revealing those lights to be a vast orbital infrastructure anchored in the larger - safer - gaps of the asteroid field. Stations, drydocks, refineries, and vast mining motherships hanging in orbit populated the entire side of the planet they were facing.

Their jump location had been mere minutes’ flight short of the enormous rocks. On it, they saw what had caused their chaotic near miss, and what had attracted Hair Trigger's colourful comment. A traffic jam.

Of all things in space, they were witnessing a traffic jam.

Dozens of ships fled in all directions away from the crush. Some out toward Claudia, others drifting into the empty black away from the asteroids. Some stubbornly tried to make position at the gap in the field where the largest orbital station resided. Security cutters were darting around the first mass cargo ship that Claudia had missed, no doubt reprimanding and trying to direct the motionless - perhaps malfunctioning - ship away from Kavala III's crowded jump-in point before a tragedy occurred.

Even as they watched, an industrial class miner broke through to real space and recreated Claudia's own panicked turn, spinning away with flickering engines.

Wandering around the chairs, Kerfuffle pressed his beak against the glass and frowned at the number of ships already being towed after collisions. “Now why they gotta go make a jump point they tell everyone to go to and make a mess like that?”

Behind them all, Volatility Smile cracked her neck out, releasing some of the tension from the havoc downstairs, and tapped at the bridge's spare computing console. “Why, I am very glad you asked.”

Grinning at the chance to show what she'd been researching, the crystal pony reset her mane with a hoof, waiting for their attention to turn. They were a motley bunch at the moment. Tami was only quarter dressed, Hair Trigger still dripping from her mane onto the deck, and Kerfuffle looking like he'd gotten in a fight with a mane curler and lost.

Of course, Volatility Smile left herself out of the mental regarding of the messy situation they'd had to live through this morning. She coughed into her hoof and indicated a map of the system she'd drawn up on the console.

“Kavala III isn't part of the Confederacy.”

The line had just the impact she'd hoped for. Raised eyebrows and confused looks. Oh, how she loved to pause after such a look, and let others wonder for just a second.

“See, back during the war against the dragons, this system was used as a testing ground for many of the WMDs the various galactic nations were using as part of joint research. Records however show the legality of such weapons meant they could not be detonated on planets or orbital bodies by anyone but the owning sovereign nation. So, to allow all allied nations to test here, the owning government agreed to make Kavala III a neutral world within the borders of what would eventually become the Confederacy.”

Hair Trigger, having clearly seen the tone Smile was taking, grabbed one of Tami's towels after a glance for approval from the pilot, and started dabbing down her mane. “Fighting dragons of all things, and they still went by the letter of the law to have to make this place neutral first so other civilizations could test their bombs on it?”

Volatility Smile shrugged. “More or less. Rewriting the legality wasn't exactly top priority at the time, so they started testing even before the law was in place. Eventually, anyone who was anyone was throwing WMDs at the moon in this place to try them out first. It was here that it's believed the largest arcane explosion ever created by a non-dragon race was carried out. The allies were so impressed, they decided to stockpile the weapons on the moon itself, until they could develop a delivery mechanism for them.”

Hair Trigger's eyes moved to the window again, casting a glance at the distant, though still enormous, moon. Her eyes rested on the section of it that had been wholly torn out. “Let me guess, they stored hundreds of these uber-bombs underground on the moon, and then...”

Volatility Smile nodded. “And then the dragons decided that they weren't about to let such things ever be used. They attacked, and their magic detonated the stockpile. All at once.”

She gestured to the window.

“And that's why the moon's missing nearly a third of its mass.”

Tami whistled lightly, using the camera on Claudia's hull to get a closer look at the shattered moon. “Explains why the field's such a weird shape around the whole place. Was only a few hundred years ago; gravity hasn't had time to turn it all into rings yet. Hey, you can even see where they're starting to form.”

Beside her, Kerfuffle scratched his head. “So why insist we jump in so close?”

Smile clapped her front hooves together. “And that, I am delighted to explain, is the best part!”

Trigger raised an eyebrow. “Their reason for shitty jump coordinates is a bigger part then dragons destroying a moon?”

“I was just as surprised as you are, but listen to this.” Smile had not a hint of anything but truth in her voice, as she changed the page on the console, bringing up what looked like a legal document. Behind her, Trigger rolled her eyes with a grin at Tami, making the hippogriff giggle into her hands.

“Remember when I said Kavala III, even within its own system, was considered neutral territory? Well, after the war when the minotaurs formed the Confederacy, they certainly didn't bother with this place. Too dangerous to mine from, too chaotic among the asteroids. With no magic, they all had bigger fish to fry before dealing with this wreck. Only, the push to make this a legal place to test WMDs had left a loophole when lawyers finally dug up the records to formalise the Confederate territory. A pretty big one, in fact. They hadn't cosigned Kavala III as a legally binding neutral and unclaimable territory. Only unaligned.”

“Oooh...” Tami tapped at the back of the chair with her talons. “So someone-”

“That's right,” Smile cut in, determined to not have her own moment of the reveal guessed ahead of time. “Someone came along before the Confederacy and claimed it. Didn't do anything with it, just left it for decades and decades. Fought off legal wars, built a few cities of free trade, appointed a successor to their corporation, and then died of old age. Now the successor, she had different ideas. See, while we don't have automata like long ago, newer models of remote drones can now handle the dangers of mining an unstable asteroid field like this one.”

Her hoof waved to the screen hanging between Trigger and Tami's chairs.

“And that's the infrastructure you see there. The biggest independently owned mining site in the entire sector! Enough orbital infrastructure to support dozens of mass transports and hundreds of drone miners out of a fleet of hub-ships controlling them. All the profit, none of the danger to pony life. Think of it like a wholesale full of rare goods suddenly opening up in your backyard and being able to price them without any investor skimming.”

“But...” Tami hesitantly tried to speak up again, “that still doesn't explain why they're getting everyone to jump into this stupid small spot.”

Volatility Smile had been leaving this for last. The cleverness of it had left her grinning for an hour last night. It was the deceptively sneaky part, just the kind she loved.

“Because that tiny point over there? That's the only safe, regularly asteroid-free spot within Kavala III's tiny borders that doesn't cross over from the Confederacy. If we went even a fraction of an AU further out, we'd be entering Confederate space and get tagged by long range scans. We'd lose our licence to operate here because we crossed from Confederate space into a contested territory.”

The blank looks staring at her showed they clearly hadn't realised it yet.

“But we did cross into minotaur territory...” Kerfuffle was glancing at the map, wondering if he'd missed something.

“And that's the beautiful loophole. No, we didn't.” Smile grinned, nodding at Tami. “Did we?”

“Well we left Jealousy, which is Republic space, jumping to Kavala, which is Confederate space, but we...ooooh.”

Smile grinned widely. “We entered it from magic space directly. And the Confederacy doesn't own magic space now, does it?”

If she had hoped for them to act excited over such an elegant evasion through a legal loophole, she was disappointed. The trio just mouthed, nodded and tried to work it out. They could be so blind to the art of it all sometimes, Smile thought. The simple deviousness, using a specific magic space transition to jump the border and get around a Confederate denial of trade contract. How could you not love that?

It was perfect.

Behind them, through the window, there was a sudden flash of light. The engine nacelle of a transport erupted in flames after colliding with an asteroid while trying to evade a supertanker that had just jumped in.

Well, almost perfect.

Hair Trigger finally sighed, grinned, and gestured at Smile. “Is school done, Miss? Can I go on recess now?”

Tutting, Smile closed off the terminal and made for the door. “I'm going to get cleaned up. And by the way, that successor I mentioned, the one who started all this mining? That's our client. So, best looks everyone.”

Leaving the bridge, she headed downstairs to clean up and get ready.

Behind her, waiting till she was gone, Hair Trigger spun and sat back down, staring at the colossal sight before them. The radiant planet, the collapsed moon, the spherical field of spinning rock, the enormous structures and guiding beacons hanging in orbit to coordinate vessels, and the lines of ships attempting to weave in from the chaotic jump point. At the base of it all somewhere, there was one person waiting for them.

“You know those cartoons you watch, Kerfuffle? The ones where the creatures turn into different ones as they get stronger?”

The griffon sheepishly nodded. “S'better than it sounds, really...”

Hair Trigger didn't respond directly at first, other than a calming nod, before glancing back at the planet and its bizarre surroundings.

“I think we're about to meet the later version of Smile down there.”

Over the next few hours, and with the disaster of a jump point slowly being cleared of its titanic obstacle by a series of tugs launched from the planet, Claudia began to slowly drift its way into the marked lanes approaching the field itself.

Flickering beacons created highways in space, held in place by a networked series of small thrusters to maintain their position relative to the gaps in the field. Between them came ships of all sizes, directed into lanes befitting their class and role.

Kavala III was busy. Very busy.

Buoyed by traffic from the still developing Republic and the ever hungry for precision margins merchant fleet of the League, the planet was being swarmed. Millions of tons of freight traffic was either compressed into tight areas of safety that had been carved out amongst the asteroids, or lingered in high orbit of the planet just beyond the field itself. Several service platforms, like gigantic square plates in space, attracted most of the enormous super-class vessels, while countless other ships were directed into holding patterns. Here they would wait, sometimes for days according to Smile, making use of the small stations and their services until a landing spot on the planet finally opened up, or one of the refineries had a spare docking port.

It was into one of these areas, with a League-pattern station at its centre, that Claudia was instructed to go.

On the bridge, Kerfuffle had been avidly observing the unusually cramped spatial environment as they passed into the field itself. With a gap of perhaps only two kilometres for small ships to pass through in this section of the mining and market infrastructure, the colossal operations were visible to the naked eye.

It wasn't the station shaped like a bonsai-tree ahead of them, or the drifting rows of hundreds of cargo ships - including some identical in class to Claudia herself - that caught his attention. Nor the spiralling platform of thin arms that reached out among them to act as a refuelling probe to twelve ships at a time. It wasn't even the enormous boards of flickering holographic light that advertised stock prices - and how much lower Kavala III's were compared to the Confederacy - bolted between asteroids.

He was watching the techniques of mining operation itself.

Not far out from the sheltered waiting areas for ships, he could see streaks of light biting into the mineral and rare metal asteroids. Swarms of blocky ships moved in coordinated groups ahead of lumbering excavation barges. Automated drones, driven by a simple intelligence to discern the shape and composition of an asteroid, then burn away its crust with powerful thermionic beams, leaving behind the valuable deposits. Even as Kerfuffle watched, he saw one asteroid torn into rubble by the hornet-like attack of twenty drones biting to its core in mere minutes, before immediately moving on. Behind them, a second wave of small miners followed them up, making more advanced movements that betrayed remote piloting as opposed to automated flight. Moving within the shattered remains of the asteroid, they began smaller scale, more precise cuts, grappled what they cut off using diamond-edged blasting hooks, and towed the valuable minerals back to the dirty yellow barge following the whole operation.

Kerfuffle had witnessed a dozen instances of it occur over the two hours it took Claudia to lazily edge its way in behind ship after ship to her assigned 'parking spot', as Tami had put it. Organic and synthetic intelligence working in harmony; it was enough to make the quiet griffon smile to himself.

Yet with a sudden flare of light, he witnessed the other side to why drones were being utilised in such numbers. A fragmenting chunk of moon impacted on another, resulting in a small chain reaction. Caught within chaotically tumbling rocks, six of the drones were shattered into their component parts. Immediately, a salvage party broke off from the hull of the excavator. Drones collecting drones, to repair and send them back in again.

The smile quickly disappeared. “Now that ain't right...”

“Nothing about this morning much has been so far, big guy.”

Hair Trigger limped into the bridge, giving Tami a pat on the shoulder to let the hippogriff go and get something to eat. Watching Tami go for a moment, she slumped down into the chair beside the griffon. Kerfuffle tilted his head as he saw the unicorn floating a mug of steaming brown liquid with her.

“Thought there wasn't any coffee, Cap'n.”

Trigger didn't look up as she transferred control to her side, and kept Claudia steadily rumbling toward a flickering beacon that had been marked on the main screen. She took a sip, scowled, and shrugged. “S'not. Just warm water with some brown food colouring, whitener, and sugar. Figured I might as well try to at least trick myself into thinking I've had some.”

She stared directly ahead of them at the planet itself, running over everything that had happened since she'd pulled herself from her bed. Already she knew this was a day to be in a foul mood. Pulling up her hind-leg, she rubbed cautiously at the plug-attacked frog of her hoof.

“Son of a...” She followed it with a harsh mutter. “Better not be walking anywhere down there. Great idea! Get out and immediately stand on a damn plug. Limp all over the place in front of a client who owns a planet. Aren't I set to be the utter example of a professional captain today, huh?”

Kerfuffle had been looking at the drones again, eagerly hoping the recovery operation would grab one of the ones he'd seen spiral off out of sight. Yet at the small rant behind him, he turned and shook his head.

“She probably couldn't do what you do, Cap'n. That'll be why she wants you. So even if you've got an injury, don't mean she's gonna turn you down.”

The unicorn didn't take her eyes off the angrily swollen feeling section of her hoof. “Just always full of the simple bright side, aren't you?”

“Mama always said that was what Lena did. Figured that meant I should too, is all.”

Hair Trigger stopped for a second and looked up. She hadn't expected an actual answer from her sense of rhetoric, until reminding herself just who she was conversing with.

“Lena… Sister that was, yeah? Galena?”

“Mhm.” The griffon nodded slowly, glancing back on the window again.

“Well...carry on with it then. Besides, our collective asses are gonna need a bright side if any more goes wr-oh hello...”

The last comment had been directed to a sudden blip on her co-pilot console’s top panel. An automated transmission was being beamed to them from the communications beacon lingering in the void above their holding area's station. Hair Trigger reached out for the ‘receive’ icon on the touchscreen, grumbled briefly as her hoof failed to reach the large control’s (minotaur designed) height, and hit it with a telekinesis-propelled mug instead.

“They sure do got a lot of stuff running on automatic out here...” Kerfuffle mumbled, glancing over the edge of the seat...and Hair Trigger's head.

If the grumpy unicorn noticed his shadow bearing over her, she didn't say, instead activating the message to play through the bridge speakers. The clipped, electronic voice was as emotionless as it was rapid and to the point.

“For attention: Captain Hair Trigger of the Claudia. Sender: Chief Executive Officer Asset Margin of Kavala III mining and wholesale facilities. Message Body: Arrival detected and logged, proceed within the hour from holding area nine to high orbit infrastructure pattern. No free landing platforms at facility on surface. Automated shuttle will approach and dock, permitting flight to visitor drop off at Corsinica Headquarters as replacement. Scheduled appointment is sixty four minutes behind schedule due to unexpected jump traffic incident. Shuttle will require manual flight to building at attached coordinates. Staff will instruct upon arrival. End of line.”

There was a second chime as the coordinates referred to were dumped directly into Claudia's incoming data buffer.

Trigger sipped her not-coffee and furrowed her brow. “Getting the impression this client isn't all about having a lot of employees...guess we better get going then. If she's as anal about this job as she is about her messages being that specific then we'd better not be too late.”

Reaching out with her magic, she grabbed the PA system handset and yanked it down to her mouth, depressing the button. “Call to work just came in, everyone. Stow up, pack up, and get your asses ready to hit planetside. Tami, we've got permission for an orbit, let's see you up here in ten. Kerf...oh.”

Kerfuffle angled his head down, having been so quiet that Hair Trigger had thought he'd left.

“...never mind. Step to it, and lets get our payday done. Captain out.”

She let go of the button, and hung the handset back up.

“Get her ready for a long orbit, Kerf. If Asset's as long winded as Smile can be, we'll be here a-”

Hair Trigger paused, suddenly hearing her own voice still echoing back to her from the speakers just behind the bridge, and slapped a hoof into her face.

“Son of a bitch?”

Half a second later, the speakers asked her the same question right back. How had she missed that? Fiddling with the handset, she checked the button depression only to find it was indeed in the 'off' position.

“I swear if one more thing decides to break or go wrong this morning...”

The PA system was still active, transmitting every frustrated grunt she made as she reached up and whacked the side of the system housing itself.

“Will. You. Turn. Off. You. F-”

Hair Trigger's catharsis-delivering hoof stopped in mid-air, clutched in a griffon's hand.

“Cap'n, that ain't goin' to help.”

Trigger breathed in sharply at the griffon's hasty reprimand, before feeling the anger bubble away inside her. She knew her temper had gotten shor-

She paused, and reworded it in her mind.

-had gotten limited in record time today. And now it fought with embarrassment and regret at having to be told to calm down by the normally neutral engineer.

“Yes...yes. Just fix it, Kerf. I'm fed up of this already.”

She got off the chair and attempted to make the galaxy's angriest hobble toward the door. Smile was coming up the stairs as she departed.

“PA system seems a little 'long winded', Captain.”

Hair Trigger paused and shot a glare at the crystal pony, muttering a quiet but sharp 'don't', before making her way downstairs, not even turning her head to look at the sofa below her as she spoke.

“And you can stop giggling away down there as well, Tam!”

“Snrk...aye, Captain!”

Though Kerfuffle and Tami both put off their morning routine and spared some prep-time to investigate, the PA system's fault couldn't be located. After twenty minutes or so, it finally decided the joke had stopped being funny and shut off on its own.

Soon after, under Tami's gentle control, Claudia was given permission to leave the holding area and pass deeper into the rocky field. To the hippogriff's perception of the distances, it almost felt like flying the ship through a series of caves to close deeper in toward the planet. Yet as they reached the permitted orbital layer, it finally began to ease off.

Even in this more open inside gap between the spherical field and the planet itself, there was little ease in the sensation of being in a crowded sky. Lines of ships at various station points waited for their turns to drop to the planet's few starports, and there was a secondary layer of engineering hubs and logistics stations dotted around the planet. In total, Tami had counted an awe-inspiring twenty six stations of habitable scale, from a few dozen personnel to a couple with hundreds. There were a few dozen other automated platforms out there too.

Easing into the final orbit path, snuggling Claudia between a Trandex class liquid transporter and a despondently ugly looking Confederate basic transport, little more than a near featureless block in space, Tami set the autopilot to hold their path. Within minutes, she spotted the approaching remote shuttle making its way toward their assigned speed and vector. To her surprise, it docked on the starboard port of Claudia without much of her own input required, rocking the ship lightly as the airlocks sealed.

Getting out her seat, Tami hastened to the door and shouted down the stairs to the others. “Good for planetside!”

Below her, Hair Trigger stopped holding the ice pack against her hoof and waved up at the hippogriff.

“All right. Let's get going, everyone.”

The whole crew gathered around the airlock in the cargo hold, carting their belongings with them. Hair Trigger was glancing at her multiband, tapping a hoof on the edge of the crate she sat on.

“Right, route looks fine. So, plan is: Smile, Kerfuffle, and myself will head down there and meet with Asset. If it's all legit, we handle the job then and there. Far as we know it's all planetside. So that's why I want you staying here, Tami.”

The hippogriff looked up in surprise, having been checking the battery in her taser. “On Claudia?”

Hair Trigger nodded. “Exactly. New client, new territory. I'd rather have an ace card in the figurative sleeve ready to move up here.”

Volatility Smile handled her own rifle, ensuring it was unloaded before stacking it into the shuttle. “Expecting trouble?”

“Why else would someone who makes more money in a day than we will in our lives want an independent crew if there wasn't a little twist to it?”

“Fair to note. Although...” Smile leaned on the shuttle's door and ran a hoof through her mane. “Speak for yourself on your life's ambitions.”

Hair Trigger made a small snort of amusement. “Point made, now go get the shuttle fired up. You'll be on helm, you've done more atmospheric work than I have.”

Behind the two ponies, helping Kerfuffle with the packs of provisions to last a day or two's journey, Tami couldn't deny that the news was quite welcome. She tossed her own medical supplies to him.

“Actually kinda glad I don't gotta go down there...”

Grabbing her thrown medkit, Kerfuffle turned and laid it beside the shuttle's door for the Captain to pick up and take inside. He cocked his head curiously. “Why's that, Miss?”

Tami paused, indicating herself. She was still somewhat frazzled all over, after having spent the better part of the morning resetting the artificial gravity software to account for the confused mess of a reaction earlier.

“Because with all the nonsense this morning, I haven't even had the time to do anything! I still haven't finished breakfast, or done my coat, or my mane or...or my tail. Look at it! My tail looks like I just threw it in an ice-cream mixer! And it's still got paint in it! How could I meet someone who's like a planet's leader like that?”

Kerfuffle blinked and waited a moment, then smiled. “Now that ain't right, Miss. Your tail looks fine. The Cap’n thinks so too.”

Tami paused in her ramble. “She does?”

“I do?” Hair Trigger chimed from behind them, raising her head up from the multiband.

Happy with his deduction, Kerfuffle nodded. “Yup. Why else would she look at it and smile a little sometimes when you turn around? And she did it this morning too when you left the bridge, so don't worry.”

Smiling, the big engineer stood proudly, before wondering why Tami suddenly started blushing. Behind him, he heard the slap of a hoof on a forehead.

“Thanks, Kerf...”

“You're welcome, Cap'n. Can't always be you keeping us all cheered up.”

Satisfied with his efforts, he leaned down to grab and hug Tami goodbye, before ducking his head down to clamber into the shuttle through the airlock, leaving Trigger and Tami on the deck to glance quietly at one another. From within the small ship, they could hear the hum of it powering up as Smile got to work at the controls.

Picking up her rucksack and shoving her pistol into its holster, Hair Trigger chuckled. She reached out to clap the hippogriff on the shoulder.

“For the record, he ain't wrong.” She winked, before continuing. “Bit of paint in the tail does look cute, come to think of it.”

Tami’s wide cheeks didn't much change from their reddened state, and she held the hoof on her shoulder with a hand. “If you say so, Captain. Good luck down there.”

“You going to be fine up here on your own?”

Tami nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, don't you worry about me, I got my plans already! Nothing but a quiet orbit with plenty of sights up here and...oh! I should paint that moon! And-and-and I can see what they've got available on the streaming service from the beacon; I've missed so much out here.”

Behind Hair Trigger, Smile appeared at the airlock. “Shuttle's primed, we're good to go!”

Trigger let go of her pilot and wandered into the airlock itself. “Just keep Claudia warm for us. Enjoy the time.”

Giggling, Tami patted the music device clipped to her belt. “I will! Got a whole bunch of music to catch up on too. I'd offer to put it in the shuttle for you all but uh...maybe not your thing. Some of it's pretty, y'know, obscure or...whatever.”

Smile laughed as she set the airlock to start closing behind them. “Tami, your idea of obscure music is something that was number one for less than a month. I think we'll be fine. Take care up here.”

“I will! Have, uh, have a good job! Hope things go better than this morning!”

She saw the crystal pony and unicorn smile at her as the airlock door slammed shut and locked, its bar spinning in place from the other side to activate the pressure seal on all sides. Within a minute, she heard the gentle thump of the shuttle departing, and flew back up to the bridge to watch them on the external camera.

The sloped, gently gleaming silver shuttle turned away from the larger Claudia, taking a route away from the planet at first to get clear of the orbiting ships. Finding a way through, it began arcing back down and around to make headway for the largest continental landmass.

As soon as they were away, she turned back to the bridge at large; and by extension the whole of Claudia.

Hers.

Grabbing her paints and an easel, scrolling through her device's long list of music, Tami concluded that today, despite its start, was going to be a good day.

Today, Hair Trigger had concluded, because of its start, was not going to be a good day.

Already the banging and tossing of the shuttle on re-entry to Kavala III had knocked her hind leg off the co-pilot position consoles three times, and the stark brightness of the sun over the terminator line had spent all of the journey thus far beaming right into the shuttle's main windows. Tinted glass or not, it was making her eyes hurt.

Smile fought with the controls, muttering and sighing at its ill-configured presets. “Getting the feeling they don't have it manually piloted very much. Ack, this sun! Come on...”

Smile was normally too composed to rant, but enough irritation would draw out even her bitter, snappy tone.

Eventually, mercifully, they passed low enough into the atmosphere for the sun to dip to a merely rising state, and the bumpiness of the ride finally eased off.

“In-atmo,” Smile muttered gratefully, switching the autopilot on - after a few false starts - to carry them to the facility. “Good enough reason as any to ask Raw Deal for a shuttle if we ever get one, and not Asset for a surplus.”

Kerfuffle wandered around in the back, now free of the restraining straps used during re-entry, and cast his eyes into every nook and cranny of the shuttle's small passenger and cargo section behind the dual-seated front. It could only carry around three or four large crates. Or, apparently, two passengers and one enormous griffon.

“Don't know about that, she's a fixer-upper. Maybe give the engine cowlings some realignment, or flush out the fuel-lines. Few weeks of care ought to do it.”

Smile glanced over her shoulder. “You can't be serious. We're not buying a shuttle off someone who can't even keep its piloting software up to date.”

“Then we can update it, give her a new lease on life that ain’t just being used for less than she's worth.”

Hair Trigger threw up a hoof sharply. “All right, enough! We haven't even met her yet, and we're not buying anything. At least not this time. I'm not trusting a damn thing more today.”

She threw off her restraints and hopped her way into the back to the larger seats, getting the ice-pack out again. She leaned back, and held it against her hoof with a pained hiss of inadequate relief.

“Sure it's been a bad mornin', Cap'n, but maybe it'll-”

“No!” Hair Trigger stopped him mid sentence with a sharp look up, then threw another barbed glance at Smile. She wasn't angry at the pair, but they were the only living objects in proximity and would have to endure her built up vitriol. “Nothing more today! The rate things are going this whole thing's going to go pear shaped just to match up, I'm telling you now.”

“You think so, Trigger?” Smile turned the seat around, leaning back in it with a gestured hoof.

“I know so,” she snarled, before gasping sharply and hurling the ice-pack across the shuttle as turbulence made her squeeze it too hard onto her hoof. “I can't even get up out of bed without shit happening, then when I DO get out of bed, shit happens all the more.”

Exasperated, any true anger dying to a sardonic groan, Hair Trigger slumped in her chair, swinging her forelegs in small circles.

“Add in all the stuff going wrong, almost jumping into a damn freighter, and I'll tell you what's going to happen next with that luck. We're going to go down there, and she's not going to have any late morning coffee on hand for guests. And I'm probably going to hate her, and yet I'll need to listen to her for a long time. And then we're going to start the job and head out to pick up whatever it is she wants gotten to call a crew like us - which is of course going to be through a fucking storm en-route because why wouldn't it be at this stage?”

“I think you're being a little over the top, Capta-”

Smile didn't even get to finish, as Hair Trigger's voice suddenly swelled up again, and her hoof waving only grew in intensity.

“And then! After a long flight we're going to arrive wherever it is, we'll realise that it's actually something super illegal and morally bankrupt that she's asking us to get and we'll have to all sit there and have the usual debate about whether to do it for the money or not!”

“Captain, seriously-”

“AND THEN! Just as we thought all the bad shit had gotten done, we're going to get betrayed! Mrs Asset's going to slam on floodlights having flown ahead of us somehow, and laugh like a stars damned supervillain from a balcony flanked by flames about how this was all just a big fucking test!”

Smile's brow furrowed at the ongoing, expletive-filled rant, not even trying to interrupt the unicorn now. Hair Trigger wiggled a hoof around in a circle near her head, talking half as much at the ceiling.

“And then all hell is going to break loose, because we failed the test by not taking the illegal crap because she's probably into funding pirates, or the snakes, or some...some crap like that! And I bet one of us gets shot. And I bet it's in the ass. And I bet we'll have to go home with nothing but new scars and then I'll have to listen to Sweet Ass oh-so-nicely tell us we shouldn't go to other independents outside of her all over again. And I bet we don't even get any damn coffee before we need to make the journey back because anything going right would be too much to ask, would it?”

She sat back with a huff, forelegs crossed. And hind legs.

After a few seconds, Smile finally ventured, “You done?”

“Oh, I'm done. I am very done.”

The crystal pony rolled her eyes, turning back to the controls. “Now look, Asset didn't get to where she is by doing things like that. She's made a lot of enemies even on this world. She controls much of it, but anywhere with a city you'll never run it all, and she's the biggest target. You ought to watch out more for who wants her, that's who I'm worried about; because it's them we'll undoubtedly need to be going against in this case.”

“No coffee; shit cargo; fucking betrayed.” Trigger's voice was muffled below the hem of her hooded top.

Dropping her forelegs by her sides, Smile groaned aloud at the nearly petulant reply, rolling the shuttle upright as they descended through thick cloud.

“All right, I get it, you had a bad morning! We all did, okay? I had to do our charting costs for the Republic exit on a notepad because my laptop's broken! And it wasn't just you that got tossed around by that damn jump! If anything is going to go wrong, we're going to have to deal with a very bad mess. We're the canaries here; we're the ones getting sent to deal with something she can't show face at or risk going to. The more I read about this planet, the more I'm convinced you were right about one thing: there's going to be a twist to this. She's got four corporations alone trying to buy up stock in her mining company lately. She might be the head honcho of the planet, but she's still fighting to keep that position.”

Hair Trigger snorted, a bit put out from her own over-the-top rant. “So what, someone's going to try and pay us more, or we get sued?”

“More that whoever is going after her is going to bring a few stallions in suits to persuade us to do whatever they want instead if we don't keep aware of who we're meeting. Remember, Asset doesn't need to follow us up if we disappear. And I promise, their suitcases won't be full of contracts. Corporate warfare's a nasty business in independent systems, or planets in this case.”

“Great. You know, I think I prefer my one, actually. At least it has less pliers and broken kneecaps.”

Throughout the barbed conversation, Kerfuffle had quietly occupied the majority of the shuttle's passenger section, hunched down from the ceiling despite sitting on the deck itself. Rather than stare at the two grouchy ponies, he instead watched the window as the darkness of space began to transition to the upper reaches of the sky.

Up there, surrounding Kavala, was the Confederacy where he'd grown up. His home, the Labyrinth mining colony, was just two systems away. This whole planet he was now descending to, though, was a strange anomaly. Despite his proximity to it, he hadn't known it existed outside vague mentions of a competing mining corporation in the sector. That in itself wasn't unusual; not much information about other planets got into Labyrinth that didn’t concern relevant details.

But he knew the Confederacy, and he knew they didn’t approve of Kavala III. The border controls were one example. The lack of a through-signal from this planet to Confederate space to let him send a short range message to his sister even just two systems over was another.

Now, however, he was just beginning to hope they weren’t about to see just how far the Confederacy’s distaste with Asset's little oasis in their space extended.

After around two hours of flight in Kavala III's atmosphere, the away party's shuttle pinged that it was approaching its destination. For the last thirty minutes since they'd come in from across a dried up ocean bed they had been flying above enormous canyons of golden rock. Briefly, Smile had wondered if the lack of water had been a result of the moon's shattering long ago, but the real reason quickly became apparent. The canyons were not empty.

Instead, they were populated by the colossal wrecks of ancient ship designs. Boneyards; ship graveyards, where hundreds of vessels of all sizes had been deorbited or crashed into the canyons. Rolling the shuttle to bring it into view of the windows, Smile could see everything from haulers, to warships, to even the behemothic carcass of a luxury cruise liner broken across a turn in the largest canyon. Its skeletal remains only barely betrayed its once splendid shape. While Smile wasn't the type to recognise exact ship classes, she knew pre-Wyrm War designs with their organic, magically crafted hulls when she saw them.

They bore old colours of long dead nations; once bright, but they had long faded into worn grey from powerful dust storms weaving between the hulks far below the shuttle’s altitude, like the tide was still coming in across the coast. Only now it was a dry, weathering surge that twisted in little eddies among the exposed ribs of old carriers, or spurting out the missing top panels of a crumpled colony ship like a whale’s blowhole. Some were unintelligible piles of torn metal, where a wreck had come screaming out of the sky and fallen upon the rest. Others were held by supports embedded into the rock walls, more gently landed and shockingly preserved. Even then, she could see where many of them had collapsed over time.

The old world had ended up buried here, isolated from the decades-long cleanup that had happened on more populated planets. All this barren dryness had been from the impact of ships never intended to enter an atmosphere being struck down here from orbit to gather dust. A hundred miles of deep impact scores, blackened rock, and mountains of fragmented ships strewn through entire canyon systems, three or sometimes four wrecks deep. It had changed the entire climate of what had once been a coastline.

A telling reminder of the scale of that war.

Behind her, Kerfuffle squeezed his bulk until he could put his head sideways on the passenger door and peer with one eye through its porthole.

He looked aghast at what he was seeing.

Watching the griffon, Hair Trigger reached out and nudged his shoulder.

Well, his elbow, really.

“Chin up, big guy. Someone's gotta be the bottom of the list to help restore 'em. They'll have their time. Metal's patient.”

Kerfuffle shook his head. “S'not that, Cap'n. They've got remote vessels down there stripping them apart. Ain't right. Just ain't right. Deserve their retirement after what they saw back then. Oughta just leave those ones in peace to rest.”

Hair Trigger shuffled up to the cockpit, peering down. Kerfuffle wasn't wrong; there were small moving objects among the hundreds of wrecks littering the canyons. Flat table-like vessels were having salvaged components dropped onto their hulls by the articulated arms of vertical-take off scrapper drones - the same sort she'd once seen tear one of her family's oldest ships apart on its decommissioning.

“Y'know, I'm with Kerf on this one.”

Smile glanced again, but didn't reply. Instead, she swept the flatscreen of the pilot interface aside after the ding of a received message. The curt message displayed in small text, along with a number.

“Docking permission. They've seen us coming. Should be just around-oh my stars...”

The shuttle veered around the edge of a cloud-scraping mountain, before finally coming into sight of Corsinica Headquarters, but that was not what they saw to begin with.

The barren, rocky canyons had given impressions of an entire planet formed of nothing but crevasses, dry air, and scrap metal. The canyons formed part of a continental wall against what had once been an ocean. Beyond them, however, was something else entirely.

The five hundred metre heights they soared over suddenly dropped away, revealing much greener pastures. A pale, patchy type of vegetation perhaps, but nonetheless still fertile land sheltered from the apocalyptic drops of orbital wreckage by the high mountains bordering the canyons they had just passed. But what drew the attention of all three in the cockpit was an expanse of salt cliffs that sharply dropped away on the far side of the range. Glistening white, they reflected the enormous sun out of mirror-like pools staggered down the six mile long slopes in a strange stepped formation. Naturally formed, miles wide, and stretching down into the plains beyond the heights.

In these plains lay one of Kavala's old cities. Once evacuated before the use of its moon for superweapons, it had now been rebuilt by those seeking a life free of the larger galactic nations. To their surprise, skyscrapers already protruded, a symbol of the shocking growth that Asset's predecessor had sparked on this once lonely world. Its modern glass-panelled structures glimmered brightly in the morning sun like a host of fireflies in broad daylight, interwoven with the hot, hazy endless rows of lights surrounding heavy industry and colossal spacecraft factories. Closer to the shuttle, small villages at the city’s outskirts expanded into the green lands, up to the salt cliffs themselves, where chairlifts promised a certain hope as a holiday destination someday.

Smile gave a small smirk, muttering quietly to herself. ”Good luck getting holiday insurance risk assessment past that jump zone up there.”

Their shuttle received a harsh automated communication, demanding their adherence to the flight lanes, and Smile pulled back the sticks to fall in with scant few other small vessels that filtered in from the eastern side of the city itself. As they fell in step with the marked path, she could see much busier lines of drones at lower altitudes, filtering in and out of factories or the numerous scrapyards. Perhaps half a million population, Smile estimated, the outcome of the still ongoing boom period she'd read about, followed up by Asset's mining bringing in several thousand more representatives from worlds all across the surrounding sectors. In short order, they all had begun wanting a slice of rare metals without needing the Confederacy's tax levies. Most corporations, of course, based their operations in the orbital stations, but any serious infrastructure always had a planetary basing in some form, and this was the result.

Yet the route took them past the city itself, passing only through its one-way flight system. Corsinica Headquarters lay beyond.

Another colossal step of cliffs behind the city dropped off for another few hundred metres, casting the height above sea level of their previous route into being much higher than any of them had predicted. This one was empty, but for one building.

“And here we are, Captain.”

Hair Trigger had already been gazing in wonder at the city, but she suddenly found the cockpit area cramped as Kerfuffle squeezed up to take a look as well. Crushed in together, the trio watched the home of their client grow closer.

Cream and silver, it shone with smooth curves, overhanging the very edge of the cliff itself on long struts and wires. Rounded corridors were suspended in mid-air, while a sail-like shape sheltered it from the direct sunlight. It could have been mistaken for a combination between a trillionaire's home and a sailing ship of ancient times.

Dropping into the canyon, Smile brought the rattling shuttle up underneath the strange facility, directed by the nav-unit to a sheltered dock for small vessels. Slowing to a hovering speed, they pulled into the shade of the great sail, and eventually under the 'roof' of the dock itself, before a small drone buzzed up to direct their path onto the landing pad.

As they turned and committed to the always agonisingly slow landing procedures of an occupied dock, they could see various visiting vessels. A mining command ship riddled with radars for drone networking was just departing. Beyond that the far half of the area was dominated by the sleek curves of a large stellar yacht. Twice the size of Claudia, made of gleaming silver metal and bronze highlights, it hovered above the drop on reserve power, gangplanks running up to its smooth surfaces. The lifestyle of the rich. To her surprise, Trigger could see a few retracting doors pulled back, revealing three self-defence autocannons being maintained.

Clearly, Asset knew there were some looking to get her at any opportunity.

With a rough thunk, the shuttle dropped onto the smooth metal and spooled down its engines. Giving the hull a moment to cool, Smile hit the lock for opening the side door. Immediately a stuffy heat washed into the cooled interior, as the reason for the sail-shade became very clear indeed.

Hair Trigger didn't even get to the door before she saw smartly uniformed engineers galloping forward to fix the shuttle in place and start refuelling procedures. Even more formal was the suited security team approaching. Noting they were made up mostly of earth ponies, she lightly cursed at their height as they circled the shuttle. Opening the hatch with a hiss, she saw at their centre a dark red hippogriff; his weathered face somehow managed to twist around a vicious scar to offer a polite smile.

“Captain Hair Trigger, welcome to Kavala III. I am Security Director Garwyn, and I'll be escorting you to the Director's office. However, I will require your armaments. No weapons are permitted off of the docking area.”

“Straight to business”, muttered Trigger, as she floated out the combined weaponry of their team to lay onto a trolley that was wheeled forward. Her pistol, Kerfuffle's shotgun, and Smile's rifle were all tagged and barcode scanned, before being taken to a security office at the back of the bustling hangar bays.

Garwyn smiled again, his mouth doing strange things every time he did. “Miss Asset Margin is waiting for you. She apologises for things running behind schedule, and for the incident in orbit with that freighter losing propulsion out of its jump. It has been a trying morning for us down here.”

Hair Trigger's shoulders relaxed, a sense of strange calm overcoming her at the casual tone. “Tell me about it. Let's go.”

The team formed up around Trigger, Smile, and Kerfuffle, taking an easy pace between pads full of identical shuttles. Relatively few technicians worked on them, supported by tracked robots that followed them around and clunkily handled fuel lines or off-board generators.

Ahead of them, the doors quietly swept open to take them out of the noisy hangar and into a spotless world of smooth metal and, mercifully, functioning air conditioning. As they passed through a quiet reception toward a series of glass elevators that moved on the exterior of the building, Hair Trigger glanced at the crisp lines of the security ponies and the lavish smoothness of the curved roof and rounded doorways around them. She regarded her own frayed top with its loose hood, and muttered quietly to the others.

“Get the feeling we're under-dressed?”

“Speak for yourself, Captain.” Smile grinned, smoothing down her suit, before her face hardened. “If you don't mind, I think I should do the talking here.”

“Carry on, Smile. We're in your world now.”

The elevator doors shut around them, and the magnetic rails swept them upwards, toward the executive level.

Six hundred kilometres above the city, Claudia maintained her orbit in complete silence.

Within her quiet rooms, little moved, and one could have been forgiven for thinking a fight had broken out with the amount of belongings scattered upon the floor after the gravity fluctuations that morning.

Yet up the stairs, and into the bridge of the vessel, there was sound. Beyond its door, bouncy pop music reigned, drifting out into the quiet main street, and in the centre of it stood a concentrating hippogriff.

Tammani lightly bobbed her shoulders up and down, legs bending in time to her light humming, even as she held a paintbrush an inch from a canvas. Greys and blacks had been swept over it; forming a backing layer in the vague shape of Kavala III's moon, the same fractured satellite that shone into the bridge itself in her view.

“Hmm, hmm...somethin' I can dance to...”

Gently singing the few words she actually knew, Tami made a few light, wisping strokes. Just lines, curves, shapes...the usual, but it always brought a bit of life to her face to see it forming. Things were good, but in the quiet of the ship, her excitement for this day had started to wane slightly. Things just felt muted up here alone after a few hours, or at least felt like she wasn't making use of the opportunity she had available.

“Somethin' I can...ooh, come on. Is that all you've got, speakers?”

Turning her paint-stained cheeks, she glanced at the small speakers sitting on the nav-unit between the bridge chairs. They did her fine when her ears eventually got sore from the earphones, but they really weren’t the best quality. Tinny, and never as loud or as impactful on the beat as she'd like.

And when alone on Claudia, she really had wanted the chance to turn it up a little.

Sighing, she wandered over to the twin speakers after putting her paintbrush behind an ear, and began fiddling with the volume settings. Dropping into the pilot's seat, Tami found it to no avail, and instead idly flicked through the music device's playlist a good four times for something that'd get things moving, for something energetic enough to feel worthy of this rare home alone scenario.

“C'mon, gotta be something, I can't waste this.”

Looking around, Tami eventually paused, and then looked upwards. Her eyes fell upon the PA system's handset, and gently pulled it's wire free from the PA system with a careful, nervous tug.

It was the same kind of input plug as her music device used to connect to speaker systems.

Slowly, she began glancing from her device to the PA system's input port and back again. Rather quickly, an idea dawned on her.

Tami's lips began to turn upwards into a mad, excited smile.

If the Silver Dome ever wanted a fancy connection between its land-of-the-rich buildings, Hair Trigger thought, they'd need to speak to whoever designed Asset's Corsinica Headquarters.

In theory, they were walking through a small corridor four ponies wide with little furniture. Nothing to write home about.

Only the corridor had no walls or ceiling. After exiting the elevator and passing by a second security gate, they had entered this. A suspended glass tube of a hallway between two sections of the building arching out over the edge of the cliffs with nothing but the multiple hundred metre drop below. If it hadn't been for the criss-cross pattern of the great sail's shade reflecting off of the glass itself, she doubted they'd have even seen it around them. Above them and to their right lay the angles and curves of the patterned building holding a multitude of offices visible through arched windows. They were occupied by a frantic looking workforce nestled around several holographic displays. Drone controls, Trigger presumed, given the quantity of them in Asset’s service.

Yet she couldn't help but notice half the seats were empty. That had described much of this place. Despite its lavish construction something about it made her feel like she was walking around a place still being advertised to be bought. It felt hollow.

Truthfully, though, she was more focused on the constant battle to not wince, grunt, and limp with the long walk through this elaborate building. Her hoof was stinging and aching in alternating times. The half-broken multiband hardly completed the best look for meeting a client.

The remainder of the guards had stayed behind when they exited the hangar, leaving the trio with only Garwyn directing them. He tapped the wall of the suspended corridor.

“It's a single piece, same polymer composition that ship windows use. Not really glass no more. But I've seen it take hurricane season; always fun taking the newstarts through here when it starts swaying.”

His voice had changed. Dropping the disciplined tone, he instead betrayed an accent not too dissimilar to Kerfuffle's own drawl, punctuated by a chuckle at some memory of light hazing.

Hair Trigger smirked, appreciating the drop of formalities. “We used to drop gravity to the cargo hold while newbies were in there, asked them to go get a free-float from the storage.”

Garwyn laughed openly. “The classics. Right, game faces on. That's us here.”

Stopping for a moment to check over his own uniform, he hit the switch for the doorway at the end of the suspended corridor, which opened into what could only be described as the third level of reception in one building. Plush seating sat curved around synthetic plants, while a giant display rolled the galactic market across it in a pattern of numbers and arrows to their right, partially warped by the fish tank sitting between them and it. The room looked like it could seat twenty, but not a single person else was there. To the right of a gold embossed door at the back, a very bored receptionist suddenly perked her head up from behind a tall desk. A young pegasus, no more than her low twenties, and coloured a light pink with purple hair. Hair Trigger grinned, seeing her shocked face and frantic clicking as she attempted to close something on a monitor behind the level of the desk before anybody approached too close.

“O-oh! Oh, hello there! Would this be Miss Asset's nine o'clock?”

Garwyn didn't stop, moving over to tap the pony's desk with his talon. From the angle of his head, he clearly winked at her. “The nine o'clock at ten thirty, just typical for this morning. Still, it's a little better to get to come say hi to you, Pearl.”

She blushed, putting a hoof at her lips, before playfully tossing a pen at his chest. “Oh, you scoundrel. Yes, she is running rather late, thank you for bringing them. Ah...Captain Hair Trigger, Miss Volatility Smile, and Mister Kerfuffle, I presume?”

Smile gently laid a hoof on Trigger's shoulder, and the unicorn stepped to the side. This was the crystal pony's wheelhouse. “That would be us, Ma'am. It's a delight to be brought to her office itself, very generous of her to see us so privately.”

Pearl regarded Smile with surprise, picking up her pen again and shooing Garwyn's hand from her tabletop, before glancing at the glowing blue screen before her.

“Oh, 'us'? I'm sorry; that won't be necessary. This was booked as a one to one.”

She glanced past Smile.

“With the Captain.”

Smile's mouth twisted somewhat, and she backed off with a polite nod, leaning down to quickly whisper to Trigger. “I've seen this. She's done her research, and this is very deliberate if she knows you have a business savvy pony with you. Be careful.”

Without taking her eyes off the doorway beyond the reception, Trigger replied under her breath. “Any quick tips?”

“Just focus on what you want, and be comfortable. She'll lose a lot of time to get someone else; you've more on your side than it might seem. Act natur-”

She paused, thinking that one through.

“Maybe just the first bit.”

Trigger snorted, trotting forward. “Thanks for the warm endorsement of my personality.”

Pearl looked back up from her screen. “Captain? If you'd like to go in, the door is unlocked and on automatic.”

Hair Trigger shook out her neck, reasserted her hat, and trotted forward past Pearl. “Like pretty much everything else here, huh?”

“Quite, Captain.” The pegasus smiled sweetly. “Miss Asset is rather fond of taking as much work out of others’ hooves as possible. Your friends may wait out here.”

Nodding and approaching the door, Trigger found it swept soundlessly open in a curving motion. Each section twisted as it disappeared into the housings either side, to reveal another wall behind it that curved around to the right. Glancing back to see Kerfuffle sit down to stare at the fish, and Smile watching after her directly with a put-out look at being denied, Hair Trigger took a breath and entered.

The moment she stepped through, the door swept shut behind her just as quietly.

The sunny, open transparency of the building behind her disappeared, leaving her in the dark. And upon turning her head to look into the office itself around the curve, she realised why.

She was back in the black.

Enormous fragments of the collapsed moon arced around her, passing above her head on their endless dance. Mining drones chased them, swarming out from the bulk transports. Further out from where she stood, she could see the colossal refinery stations in orbit glowing away from their hundred meter tall heat vents.

Only after a few seconds did Trigger realise the entire office was made up of seamless video panels. A jet black floor beneath her cutting off the images where it met the walls was the first clue, and a turn of her head confirmed the route she'd come through was another gap in the virtual space-expanse. At its centre, a curved table of dark marble was scarcely visible, punctuated by a glossy red chair behind it, and two simpler black ones in front.

A red glow to her left drew her eyes, and she saw the shape of a unicorn's horn lit against the wall-panels’ dark video footage. A tall, slender mare of unknown detail and colour stood in the darkness with her back to the door, her head following a greenish asteroid as it was towed and sheared apart. Her magic was working with something on the desk: a small remote.

Seconds later, one quarter of the wall switched to display another angle. This time of a stricken mass conveyor being towed into a maintenance area.

“I was pondering, Captain, how much I ought to charge them for this.”

Her voice was smooth and rich, deeper than the lithe frame implied.

Hair Trigger remained where she was. No sense in pushing the formalities into unknowing by assuming where to trot. Instead, she just let her eyes fall on the freighter; the first chance she'd had to pause and look at the culprits.

“Well, whatever you decide, you can throw in the cost of a new platinum superconductor for the one we burnt out fixing the artificial gravity, three mugs, and a new multiband screen if you'd like to get them to pay me as well for what they did to my ship.”

Trigger glanced at her multiband's warped display. What the hell, it was worth a shot.

The mare before her broke into a short laugh. “And here I thought I asked the Captain to enter, rather than the one in the suit. I'll see what I can do. Welcome to Kavala III, Captain Hair Trigger.”

“Appreciated, and it's good to meet you too. So what do I call you? Director? I know one owner of a large business that likes that.”

Asset Margin finally turned, as the screen filling shape of the moon gave a glimmer of white light across the office and illuminated her from one side. She was a hazy cream, with a two-tone green mane. It was short, not even hanging behind her head but bunched into a tiny ponytail. The front bore two long strands that hung in front of her face from where the mane parted on her forehead. Behind them, two eager red eyes regarded Hair Trigger with a curious interest.

Asset Margin was prim and proper in her suit, but as she trotted back to her desk there was a more casual look to her step. She dropped into her comfortable looking chair, its back coming to well above her head, and folded her white shirted forelegs over her dark waistcoat. “Please, Captain. Asset will do. And my apologies for the incident in orbit. Our jump zone has little room for error, and they made perhaps the largest error I've seen here. Now, coffee? It's been a hell of a morning for me sorting it out, and from the looks of that limp on your way down the corridor here, you've had one as well. I trust not from the evasion?”

She indicated something Hair Trigger had neglected to observe: a silver urn with still steaming vapour coming from the top. At Asset's beckoning, she sat down. Clearly, the businessmare had seen the desiring look in her eyes, for she was already pouring two cups.

Hair Trigger smiled more openly. Finally, someone that got how to respond to an angry space captain's bad day. “Much as I'd love to say it was heroically pulling a crewmember away from danger during it, not quite. Meeting the CEO of an entire planet's orbital infrastructure and mining operations while limping from standing on a plug hadn't been my intended way to go about a first impression.”

Taking the cup, Hair Trigger paused to smell it and then gratefully raised it to her lips to taste. Asset rolled her eyes, and took the chance to speak as the unicorn drank.

“Having to watch my security director flirting with my receptionist in front of you wasn't mine either. You know he has a wife? Can't take him anywhere. Or, for that matter, watching said receptionist trying to buy and sell shares of competing companies from every business savvy visitor I've gotten in the past week that has to wait there more than five minutes. I'd replace her if she wasn't so damn good at her job.”

Hair Trigger raised an eyebrow over the cup. “Is she now?”

Asset floated her own cup up to knock against Trigger's, allowing herself to smirk. “Including ones belonging to the rival corp I'm looking for you to help me with.”

Rolling the still full coffee around, Hair Trigger thought for a second, before holding up a hoof. “If you would excuse me for a second, Asset.”

She turned in the seat, pointing her mouth toward the closed door.

“SMILE! Sit down!”

In the silence of the office, as Asset Margin stared with confusion at the sudden shout, both unicorns heard the sound of hooves and then the crumple of one of the seats outside being sat in heavily.

Both eyebrows remaining high, Asset perched her hooves together and chuckled. “And they say a CEO must know her employees.”

Hair Trigger waggled her eyebrows. “Just as a Captain needs to know her crew.”

Asset smiled warmly. “I think we'll get on quite well, Hair Trigger. You're refreshingly at ease when most think I'm going to be some sort of tyrant. Not all trillionaires are. Promise.”

She winked and clicked her mouth, finishing her coffee in one rather improper gulp.

“Now, I believe you'll be wanting to know more about what I'm looking for you to do. Fun as having someone to chatter to who's had an equally shitty morning is, I am rather behind schedule already and need to press on.”

The sudden curse caught Trigger off guard. The word sounded unusual from Asset’s refined tone, but the little bile below it held a genuine bitterness. Briefly, Trigger wondered just what else had happened to the mare this morning.

“Well, don't let me hold you back. You gave me coffee after all, I'm all ears to drink and listen. See what we can do for you.”

“Then let's get started.”

Asset leaned back, fiddling with her controls, until the pleasantly dark and quiet space-scene switched on half the room, instead displaying what looked like a CCTV from the roof of a tall, brown and silver metal building overlooking a heavily dusty city. To its right, a portrait of a griffon overlayed the scene - red feathered with white highlights. He looked past his prime, and was looking away from whatever covert camera had taken the photo.

To its left lay footage of a smoking wreck, looping every few seconds. Hair Trigger recognised it as one of the scrapper drones from the piled wrecks of ships over the plateau behind the city.

Asset Margin used her magic to propel her chair over to the screen, pointing to the wrecked drone. “One week ago, I had something stolen from me. You flew over the boneyard on the way here, so you've seen where much of my salvage income emerges from. Well, this drone found something a bit more valuable than just components or rare alloys. Mid-way back, boom! Goes down. I send Garwyn out, and he comes back with the report that it was shot down. And this here, I know, is the one who did it.”

She pointed to the griffon. Hair Trigger edged around the desk, staring at the huge avian and the bristling anger in his eyes.

“Doesn't much look like another man of business. More the sort of guy I'd see in the periphery stalking ships.”

Asset smiled and nodded. “Because he is. You're not the only off-worlder the corps here are hiring, Captain. That is Kreer, a pirate turned corporate wet work operative. Someone got him to do a job, and that job was stealing from me. The drone was carrying a relic from the wreckage of a Wyrm-era ship we'd found three layers down into the pile. News had gotten out we were moving in on something. Guess some rival took a shot, literally, to get it without even knowing what it was.”

Trigger rubbed her cheek, finished her coffee, and leaned on the desk to watch the smartly dressed unicorn. “All about the drones with you, isn't it? They're all I've seen everywhere I look. Might have figured it involved one of them.”

If Asset found the presumption anything but a compliment she didn't show it, spreading her hooves. “Of course, Captain. How else could we mine the field above? Far too dangerous for piloted vessels to go into the dense sections, and the cost savings from an automated, ceaseless force in tandem with this being effectively a tax haven? I fell in love with the approach. We now have over eight hundred automated platforms in service, and a high degree of autonomy within our refineries in the black. No-one on this planet even comes close to our net profits because of that.”

Hair Trigger smirked; her theory on why this place seemed so devoid of organic employees was beginning to be justified. She pointed at the griffon. “And that's why he's here. They're all out to get you when you're the top dog on this world. Because everyone outside sees you as this planet's ruler, and they want the brand.”

“Corporate warfare, Hair Trigger. It's made for ugly work. Share wars, buying up property, corporate sabotage...plenty of stallions in suits looking to persuade people away from investing in me. And their suitcases-”

Trigger leaned back in the leather chair. “-aren't filled with contracts? I'm guessing that's a saying in the business world; heard the same from Smile on the way down. So, what do you want us to do in this?”

Asset's hoof moved to tap the glass wall on the image of the city.

“Shining Reach. An inaccurate name for that dustbowl if ever there was one. It's around six hours away by shuttle. I've learned that an engine signature from the site of the crash went to a warehouse I know is used by Kreer. They took my find there, Captain. I want you to retrieve it. I can't risk using one of my own assets, not with every other corporation waiting to dive on a story of 'Corsinica attempts theft of rival's assets'. My own name would go well with the headlines, of course. Even on a planet with only a few million inhabitants that sort of thing can bring you down.”

Hair Trigger nodded slowly. She'd never really grasped the press. Living off-world all your life naturally removed you from the papers, the debates, and the politics. All the same, she knew their power. “So we're the unknown factor. Far as Kreer and his client will know, we were just any old thief. Same way he got it from you.”

“Now you're catching on.”

Asset got out of her chair, and trotted over to her desk without it to stand and face Trigger. “For this, I can pay you two hundred thousand for the safe recovery of the relic. Three hundred thousand if you can remove Kreer from the game. I don't care how. Pay him off, convince him, recruit him, kill him...whatever. As I said...”

Her eyes showed a flash of a serious, cold nature.

“Corporate warfare is ugly work. It's not impossible he might be there still.”

Hair Trigger wanted to whistle, but kept quiet. She'd expected to barter for even six figures; this was double that. After a second, deciding not to hedge her bets, she leaned over and shook Asset's hoof. “We're not murderers, Asset; don't expect a corpse coming back with us. But we'll do it.”

Asset's shake was a firm one, business standard. Beaming with delight, she clapped her hooves together and moved around the desk. After a second, Trigger realised she was being ushered to the door and got up quickly to limp her way there.

“Excellent, Captain. Excellent. Now, I have prepared a shuttle for the job, and you'll find codes to the warehouse I had my cyber defence experts, hm, acquire. Automated coordinates are installed to take you to Shining Reach, and we fished it out of the junkyard last night so it's completely off the record, even to you. No threat to your own ship being traced. I've even had Garwyn leave you all a packed lunch for the journey.”

Nearing the door, Hair Trigger paused, holding her sore hoof off the ground after an irritated glance at it. She looked back, momentarily amused. “You got your security director making lunches?”

The corporate mare only smiled. “One downside of a drone workforce is you tend to start asking people to do things the robots can't. Good luck, Captain.”

Hair Trigger nodded, pulled her cap on tighter, and walked out the door. “We'll be in touch soon enough. See ya.”

The door gently closed behind her, and Hair Trigger took a slow breath. That had gone well. She caught the eyes of Kerfuffle and Smile as they got up, the former from staring at the aquarium, the latter putting down her multiband. She grinned.

“We got ourselves a job.”

Garwyn was waiting for them by the shuttle, leaning on its engine housing and swinging a rucksack from his talons. At the sight of the ponies and griffon approaching, he nodded to the interior.

“Weapons are already stowed for you, Shining Reach preplanned in the nav-unit, and...”

He sighed, looking at the bag before tossing it to Hair Trigger.

“And packed lunch. Have fun at school. Courtesy of Miss Mother upstairs.”

Trigger caught it in her telekinesis. “Surprised you actually did it.”

“The hell do you think I am? Course I didn't. Told the new guy he had to, and I'm pretty sure he told the interns.”

The two shared a knowing smirk, as the three clambered back into the shuttle and Smile started to get it fired up. The hippogriff also tossed another device to Trigger: a small pad with a locked screen.

“Password's with four zeros, it'll have the package unlock app ready. Tap it on and off to locate the box, it'll beep like a car. Should help you find it.”

Closing the hatch over behind them, Garwyn paused, and gave them a harsher look. “No matter what she says, be careful. If Kreer's around...well, I have this scar for a reason.”

Checking her pistol over the moment she got inside, Hair Trigger holstered it and nodded. “I'd rather he not be. We'll be in and out.”

“With any luck.”

He didn't say goodbye, slamming the hatch closed and thumping its side. Hair Trigger turned back to the shuttle at large and shifted up to the front, sitting in beside Smile. Curiously looking into the rucksack, she spoke without turning her head.

“Kerf, send a message to Tami; we'll be back early in the morning, maybe half a day.”

“Sure thing, Cap'n.”

Unpacking the lunch they'd been left as the shuttle roared and lifted from the floor, Hair Trigger found multiple foil-packed objects. On them lay the name 'Garwyn'. She snorted; clearly the interns had their revenge for the passing of the buck.

Curiously, she unwrapped them, finding a small stack of tomato sandwiches. Nothing else. Trigger sighed at the lack of variety. It'd have to do. Maybe they could stop for something in the city.

Smile turned the shuttle around to face the horizon opposite the sun.

“We're free to move, Captain.”

“Make it so, Smile.”

Still six hundred kilometres above the city, Claudia maintained her orbit much the same as before.

Only now, at least internally, there was no such thing as complete silence.

The bridge beeped with the notice of an incoming message, then relayed it to the intended multiband.

That, too, beeped.

Neither was heard.

Every room, every crevice of Claudia, was part of the happiest time possible. The entire PA system thumped and blared with the most sweet-toothed, spring-stepped music that the pop genre had ever created. Lyrics of dates, kissing, holidays, fun, and playing in the sun turned all of Claudia into a gigantic party of sugar-pop, the bass sending reverberations through every deck.

She had danced in the bridge. She had danced in the main street. She had danced in the engine room, and the common room, and the shower.

Then she had moved to the cargo hold, the biggest area to fly, spin and hop from leg to leg around containers. Sliding backwards between them, or surfing the grav-cart. Music echoed in there, making it sound like a live event. Her smile had been unending, her laughter lost in the volume and tempo.

Eventually she'd not been able to keep the happiness to herself, finding a reluctant dance partner to swing around in her hands.

“Unit PATCH requests that Crewmember Tammani refrain from interfering with intended path of gryostabilisation mechanism.”

“You're so into it! You're wiggling your gyros! It's adorable!”

She leapt up, flapping out her wings to spin them both, before letting him go with one hand to let him extend out and whirl, and drawing him back him to grip with both hands.

“Warning. Excessive volume may result in tinnitus. Documenting fifth warning to record.”

“What!?”

Over the noise, the sudden buzz of the airlock snapped her attention away. Patch took the chance to quickly fly away to the main street above them both as the hippogriff suddenly squealed and bounced her way toward the door itself. Hitting the lever to open it, she found the small space between the doors soon occupied by a pressure-suited deer holding an atmosphere sealed container, with a shuttlecraft's small door locked onto the other side. The sudden volume of the music made him shake his head with shock.

“Uh...two pizzas, one garlic, one hot and spicy, with soda and Billionaire Cake? Delivery for an...Admiral Tammani? You're a...”

She snorted with laughter, quickly tabbing through her multiband to the contactless app. “I didn't think that'd actually get accepted on your site. I didn't even expect the orbital stations even did deliveries for food!”

The deer grinned. “People wait here for a spot, people want their pizza. We make it happen. Party can't wait!”

“Best. Idea. Ever.”

“I know! Enjoy, Admiral!”

Tapping her multiband onto the offered tablet with a beep, Tami scooped up her feast and gave him a sweet smile. “Thank you!”

Seeing him out, she looked up to see a very disapproving looking Patch still at the join between the hold and the corridor.

“You want any?”

“Affirmative. Unit PATCH requests possession of all sustenance to prevent imminent threat of over-consumption and stomach ache. Prevention is better than cure. Ninety-nine percent of non-privatised doctors agree.”

“Greedy so-and-so!”

Tami stuck out her tongue at him, skipping and hopping side to side on her merry feasting way to the common room.

Shining Reach had looked like a rough, dusty place on Asset's CCTV footage. She'd said it hadn't deserved the name.

Trigger, Smile, and Kerfuffle were finding that image very incorrect at the moment.

Their journey had shot them ahead of the sun's terminator line, bringing them into the cover of night. But the moment they had dropped below the clouds, a thick slurry of rain had begun pelting the shuttle. Like snow, it slapped on and dragged up over the top from the craft's velocity, leaving streaks and blurry colours of the approaching city itself below as the only things visible. A heavy storm was assaulting the city and the viewpoint of the shuttle shuddered and bucked as the not-so-aerodynamic vessel fought with the winds.

Hair Trigger instead concerned herself with the thin lines of a wireframe map of the streets on the console itself, using a hoof to drag the image around and zoom in toward the address of the warehouse. Every few seconds she would grumble and mutter as the bumpy ride made her accidentally tap and bring up the 'What's here?' window that would then take ten seconds to close and reload the map again.

“Oh fer...okay, looks like there's space to land maybe half a block away. Sheltered by a hab-building for the workers. Should be quiet.”

She shovelled another bite of the sandwich in her magic into her mouth, chewing with distaste. The fad food had been fun on Medusa when Crazy D had first brought it up, but six hours with only it to eat in stale bread was wearing on her patience.

Kerfuffle, despite the rain, was sitting behind the two front seats and staring into the clouded mess of the window, following the bright lights of the city as they closed in.

“Should be easier at night. Miss Margin sure thought this through for us, didn't she? Making sure we'd arrive in the dark.”

At the controls, Smile fought with the winds, finally bringing the shuttle to the city's own level with a whine of decelerating engines as she navigated through the storm in near darkness. She grimaced and squinted, trying to fly by numbers as much as sight. ”Clearly, she's very thoughtful to send us in during this time right now.”

The griffon nodded without an ounce of irony. “Sure is.”

Rolling her eyes, Smile dropped the nose, finally getting the ship in amongst the buildings. Shining Reach was much smaller than Corsinica: formed of tall prefabricated buildings assembled by orbitally dropped construction modules, and thus ultimately had little spread or suburban area. It looked like a full city condensed into a tiny area, maybe only a few kilometres in rough diameter. Buildings, mostly of Confederate design, were little but dark shapes in the storm, but bright neon signs and holograms lit up on their surfaces. Massive billboards showcased everything from corp logos, to financial data, to sultry ponies aiming their two frame animations at any passing ship.

Hair Trigger couldn't suppress a chuckle at the sight of Kerfuffle politely waving back at one of their animated hooves.

Slowing to the pace of most ground vehicles, Smile took the shuttle the long way around, using the blocky and top-heavy shape of the habitat building Hair Trigger had indicated as cover from the target warehouse. With the hull's flashing lights illuminating the dull concrete of an abandoned car park, she finally let the wearisome ride through the elements end with a shuddering landing on the hard surface.

Weapons ready, and donning their protective armoured vests, the trio gathered in the passenger section of the shuttle. Hair Trigger hit the release latch.

“We get there, use the code on the door, get in, beep the box and just get the hell back out. No waiting around, no taking anything we aren't contracted to. Move quick as we can, at the gallop until we're near it, okay?”

With the pair nodding, Trigger slung the door of the shuttle back and let the freezing air and slurried rain in. It swept around the shuttle, broken only briefly as the huge shape of Kerfuffle dove past and ran out into the streets, closely followed by Smile galloping alongside him. The sparkle of her coat quickly dulled in the dark atmosphere.

Slapping the shuttle closed, Hair Trigger turned to move on herself, finding the other two with their long strides already further ahead than she could reasonably catch up to, disappearing into the night. She grumbled under her breath, and began unsteadily limping and stumbling along after them in the rain.

“Quick as we can, I said...real smart today, aren't I?”

Smile rounded the corner onto the warehouse's street, her hooves slipping on the wet asphalt, until she could slow down and get a look over what was ahead.

Five seconds later, she hastily moved into cover of the alleyway she just left, and held out a hoof to stop Kerfuffle going past her. The griffon looked strangely deflated in the rain.

“Mrs Smiles?”

“Shh.”

She was aware that her sparkling coat and mane were not the easiest things to try and hide in a dark city, especially with the neon and colour fifty metres above them. Holding her hood around her head, she peeked around the corner.

The street itself was actually more of a promenade, laid against a river rather than a coastline - if you could even call it a river. The edge opposite her went to what looked like a forty foot drop before the filthy water even started. From the looks of it, the unusual drop was simply to keep the city level with its modular construction on higher ground elsewhere. The city was unrelentingly flat at ground level.

Smile had always hated places like this. For all it made financial sense, even she could appreciate a living area that didn't look like it was made out of a mathematician’s wet dream for uniformity. Idly, she wondered how Asset's predecessor had even gotten Confederate construction materials onto a planet the Confederacy denied access to.

Yet right now, her true focus was on what was ahead through the harsh rainfall.

Down the street, under the dull orange glow of street lamps, two hover-vans were offloading goods to the very warehouse they'd expected to approach. An enormous shutter door, coloured red, was still dropping down behind them, with a dozen ponies and griffons dragging the last boxes up the ramps and inside. Others were shutting up the vehicles.

“Looks like they're about ready to leave.”

Above her, Kerfuffle's entire head poked out from around the corner until the crystal pony reached up and nudged him back by a few inches, her eyes not leaving the convoy.

“Mrs Smiles, ain't that the griffon the info on the shuttle had?”

“Smile. And what? Where?”

She caught Kerfuffle's hand about to point around the corner, and saw the red plume come into view. Kerfuffle had to have spotted it from higher up.

Kreer moved harshly, his head whipping back and forth to stare with beady eyes at anyone in the immediate area. A bulletproof vest was tightly wound on his barrel-like torso, and Smile could spot a squat, vicious-looking carbine on his back - more of a cut down service rifle than a light weapon.

Under the flashing of signs above the dark warehouse - itself a wide and thickly walled metal building - Kreer banged the side of one of the vans, giving it the signal to flex its engines and roar off into the space above the river. Rain spray and litter from the pavement blew up in cyclones around it. Soon enough the second one joined it, the whine of hover-pads deadening behind the scathing rain as soon as it dropped out of sight.

The sound of hooves behind Smile alerted her to the Captain approaching, and she waved frantically for Hair Trigger to slow down.

The unicorn had her hood up over the ever-present hat, but it already looked soaked through. Cautiously, she crept forward to look around the corner, filling in the gap below Smile as all three faces peered at the red griffon.

“Ah, crap,” Trigger muttered, watching Kreer move off with two pony guards, one a pegasus and the other a unicorn. The three moved to a metal set of stairs fastened to the side of the building that let to the upper levels of the warehouse, disappearing inside to the offices upstairs.

Dropping back into the alleyway, Hair Trigger fought to urge to whack her head off a broken drainpipe.

“I've already had my fill of brutal wet work operatives with rifles lately, so of course he had to be here, didn't he?”

Kerfuffle looked at the street again, then shrugged. “He's going upstairs. Maybe what we need is downstairs on the main floor? Most things in warehouses back home were. And we don't often go in Claudia's cargo bay.”

Checking her rifle, Smile wiped the water from her face and held it under her body to shelter the mechanism. “You know, you could be right. We have the code after all. In. Out. Before they even realise someone's come inside. Like you said, Hair Trigger. And the shuttle's just a few minutes away.”

Water dripping from the brim of her hat, Trigger looked about as downright miserable as she ever had today, before finally shrugging. “Well if you're wrong, it'll be you dealing with Patch's resupply demands to heal us. Let's go.”

All three hustled out into the rain, sticking close to the porches and overhangs of the other warehouses leading up to their target.

Mid-way there, Hair Trigger and Smile paused behind a low brick wall, keeping an eye ahead. The warehouse’s heavily misted windows let them see occupied rooms with lights and the faint shadows of moving bodies. Below them, thin vents and another layer of half smashed windows indicated the bottom level itself was still in the dark. There weren't any obvious cameras. Indeed, if it weren't for the lights above, it would be easy to think it abandoned.

There was a worryingly familiar feeling of hidden danger about this to Hair Trigger. The quiet darkness of a grey warehouse in a shady part of town felt all too similar to a rescue from a certain building not too long ago. One she preferred to not think too much on.

After a couple more seconds, Trigger realised the rain had stopped, only to look up and see a gigantic wing held above her head, with the other over a similarly bemused Smile.

Kerfuffle hunched between them, as subtle as a rhinoceros hiding behind a lamppost, his wings flitting in the wind as she stared down the street at the objective.

“Appreciate it, big guy. But little time to hang around.”

She darted forward again, delighted in that it only took her a couple seconds of thrashing her hind legs in the air to get over the wall (and trying to ignore the graceful hop and roll Smile used to get over in one bound) before cantering as fast as she dared to the warehouse itself. A service door was facing them from its front, and Hair Trigger pressed her body into the metal of the wall beside it, squeezing herself in tight to get out of view from the windows above. Her heart was thumping hard enough enough that her head pounded as much as her hoof. The adrenaline from the moment was nulling the pain, as they neared a hostile area.

“Always for the big pay days...” she muttered, as Smile and then Kerfuffle fell in beside her.

Above her head, at the height a minotaur would design something, she could see a touchpad with a fading glowing panel. It read 'LOCKED', with a key slot just below it.

“Kerf, you're up.”

“Aye, Cap'n.”

Shimmying out from the wall, the griffon shuffled up and drew out the code they'd been given. Imprinted on a small card, it slid into the reader easily.

The panel, however, flashed a 'DENIED' at them.

Hair Trigger swore, and Smile, behind her, held her rifle ready while looking over her shoulder. “Come on, you two; can't hang around here.”

“Workin', Miss...” Kerfuffle muttered and tried again.

'DENIED'

“Aw hell, they must have changed it.” Trigger bumped the side of her head on the wall, wishing Tami were down here with her tech-kit right about now. “Any ideas?”

“Hang on a minute, Cap'n.”

Kerfuffle hadn't taken his eyes off the reader, and then traced them to the door itself. Scratching the wet surface of his beak with a talon, he started running his other hand around the frame. The metal wall was flash-welded on, likely by a gigantic line-beam for rapid construction on new worlds. But to insert a reader, they'd have had to make a hole into the original template. He could see the newer welds surrounding the reader from where they'd cut into the prefab material.

That gave him an idea.

Grasping either side of the reader, he made a low grunt, tugging back sharply, the often underappreciated musculature usually hidden underneath his feathers flexing and powering through the movement. The entire reader itself popped out of its socket, attached by wires that ran to a hollow between the wall’s outer and inner layers.

“The hell?” Trigger breathed as she watched the griffon work. “Kerf, you sure we-”

“Hold this, Cap'n.”

A second later, she found herself in possession of a brand new card reader, while the griffon fought to fit his head into the gap itself. After a second or two, he emerged and dug into his toolkit for a screwdriver. Uncomfortably pushing his arm within the gap, he started adjusting things hidden from view, switching tools a few times.

Upstairs, the sound of hooves on metal became louder, and they heard an outer door open.

“Kerf...” Trigger hissed, drawing her pistol in her magic, while Smile aimed at the bottom of the stairs that Kreer’s goons had gone up.

“There we go.”

Taking the reader back from her, he re-inserted it into the wall and tried the card again.

'OPEN'

The reader bleeped, and there was a sound of the door's lock clunking back into its housing. Without much waiting, Hair Trigger pushed past him and threw herself inside. Smile followed, pausing to tug the griffon after her; he'd stopped to correct and smooth down the angle the reader had gone back in at.

“But-”

“Not important, come on!”

Shutting the door behind them, they hid down in the darkness of the warehouse, finally free of the heavy rain, to let their eyes adjust. Outside there was the brief sound of hooves - of someone having a smoke where they had just been.

“Too close,” Smile whispered, squinting to see through the blackness. With only a hint of light passing through the misty windows above them, she could only get a vague sense of the piles of crates, shipping containers, and walkways all around them. “Hope Tami's got Claudia ready if we need to make a break for it at this rate.”

Trigger nodded. “Just take it easy, they haven't spotted us yet. Nicely done, Kerf.”

Grinning widely, hidden only by dint of the darkness, Kerfuffle bashfully shrugged his shoulders. “Not a problem, Cap'n. And don't worry.”

As the other two began to creep forward, he looked up through the skylight, past the rain clattering on its suffering glass.

“Miss Tami's good at what she does. She'll be all ready at the controls if we need her.”

Objects floated gently in the air around Claudia's cargo bay, spiralling and lightly bumping against one another before taking different routes. Art canvases floated past empty pizza boxes and the cases of already-watched movies. The PA system broadcast the calming sounds of the cosmos, a relaxation suite of soft strings and gentle percussion, designed for those who loved to stargaze.

Upside down, with her arms, legs, and wings splayed out as she idly let her body go wherever it wanted, Tami concluded with the most content-of-content smiles that there was no better way to spend a food coma than floating in zero gravity.

Eventually her multiband beeped, and her eyes sprung open. Gazing down at her forearm, she saw with all delight that her download had finished.

The HugePilot remix of one of her favourite songs had released even as she'd eaten. Slow and heavily firewalled connection to the greater SpaceNet or not, she'd picked it up on the spot.

The most dance-worthy, heart-pumping, fun-sung, mood-lifting, high-tempo, happy-causing, and happy-sounding song she owned, remixed by an artist known for amping up the bass and momentum of tracks into intense, cheerful bursts of skin-shivering beats?

Now she could be in zero gravity, with a brand new remix, with max volume over the whole ship's PA system?

As she transferred it to the PA system's stored buffer and hit play, she felt herself tense up (and slightly squeak) in anticipation.

Tami knew nothing could ruin this day now.

The interior of the warehouse was as dark as they'd expected and hoped.

They’d come in on an elevated side section to the main floor, behind a set of railings that divided it from a large concrete area. After letting their eyes adjust, it had become clear that Garwyn's device would be essential for locating the box.

The place was filled to the brim.

Shipping containers were stacked beside wooden crates. Metal strongboxes lay in formation beside loose piles of electronics and junk. Rows of shelving passed under metal walkways that criss-crossed above them, impossible to see in any detail. They led around to the occupied room, which sat directly above the main shutter door to where the vans had departed.

Yet aside from the hum of a few automated dust sweeping robots shuffling around the main floor, their red lights blinking gently, it was motionless.

“Do it, Smile.” Hair Trigger whispered the words, and kept her eyes on the piles of boxes.

Beside her, Smile tapped the key code into the tablet and hit the giant 'unlock' button on the touchscreen. For a second, nothing happened, and then - distantly - they heard a small magnetic lock being disabled from somewhere in front of them.

Smile tapped it to lock the container once more, and again the sound echoed in the dark warehouse.

“Louder than I'd like. Let's not use it too much.”

Moving down the ramp onto the main floor, Hair Trigger limped her way toward the closest pile of boxes to the direction of the sound. She had her pistol back in its holster, not trusting the glow of telekinesis. She kept angling her head up, watching those lit windows and hearing deep voices from behind them. The shuffle of her hind leg and the clumping of the big griffon behind her were wearing on her nerves. She felt vulnerable. Exposed. In theory, they were standing in the open, were it not for the darkness.

“Again.”

Smile tapped the button and Hair Trigger heard the sound to her left. Turning, she stumbled around some cardboard boxes, spotting a grav-sled sitting near the entrance.

“Think this is it. Once more...”

A heavy briefcase atop the grav-sled clunked.

“Got it! Unlock it, let's get it and get the hell out of here, and then-”

The sound of metal-on-metal grabbed her attention and she lit her horn, swinging her pistol up to the rafters. Smile dropped the tablet and lay her rifle over a box, while Kerfuffle's shotgun was held loosely in his hands.

Up top, on the walkways, they immediately saw the blinking lights of a fire-prevention drone making its way around on patrol. The clunky, hard square machine was, other than the lights, difficult to see, but the chugging of its tracks on the unsteady metal was ringing out in the quiet of the building and making its route obvious. It had to have been idle when they came in, only starting its automated patrol now.

“Shitting...” Hair Trigger muttered, shaking her head and holstering again. “Smile?”

The crystal pony, holding her clothing around her gleaming body as best she could, tapped once more, and the briefcase popped.

Daring to light her horn just a little, Hair Trigger lifted the top as she and Smile finally got a look at what they'd been sent to collect.

Inside was foam casing, designed to hold a single object nice and still. At its centre was a clear polymer bottle. Thickly reinforced, with a triple lock neck and several warning signs on it in languages Hair Trigger didn't recognise. All that was clear in any format she could understand was a name.

“Methylphosphonic dichloride,” she muttered.

Beneath it, a white crystalline substance filled the bottom third of the container - so fine that it almost looked like sand.

The container looked old, though. Very old.

“The hell is this?” she muttered, as Smile tapped on her multiband, bringing up a translator app, and swept it over the bottle.

Smile went rather pale as she searched for the meaning of the translated words.

“Stars above...”

Behind them, Kerfuffle looked back over at the exclamation while Hair Trigger turned to the crystal pony. Volatility Smile slammed the briefcase closed, and hit the lock for it rapidly.

“Smile? Again, the hell is this? What are you-”

Smile shook her head sharply enough to quieten even the Captain.

“That's Wyrm-era language. Warnings for toxicity. Extremus level.”

Her wide eyes betrayed the seriousness before her harsh tone even emerged again.

“That stuff is the catalytic mixing agent for chemical contagions, Trigger. Asset must have dug it up from the old boneyard - some of those ships must have come down from the weapons testing when the moon was destroyed.”

“...fuck.” Hair Trigger breathed the word with more meaning than any irritation-induced curse had held all day.

Smile turned away from the container and ran a hoof through her mane, even under her hood. She had expected an ancient relic, maybe. Some form of reaction formula or document on creating materials, or even just an expensive piece of history.

She had never expected this.

Behind her, Hair Trigger eyed up the briefcase with distaste. Everything about today had been plunging her mood deeper, and now this was one hell of a moment to just want to be done with it all. She heard Smile approach again, and the crystal pony's smooth tone came to her ears.

“They're fighting over the means to create a chemical weapon, Trigger. This is more than just profit now.”

“I know...”

Kerfuffle shook out his shoulders anxiously, more than uncomfortable with this. Solid, physical things he knew, but unseen, lethal chemicals made his skin crawl. He shook his head. “Ain't right, Cap'n. Stuff is buried for a reason.”

“I know!”

Thumping her hoof on the boxes beside the briefcase, Hair Trigger looked up sharply.

“I know, all right? So here's what we're going to do.”

She turned to the others, a grim look upon her face. “We take it. We steal it like she wanted, and then we toss this thing in the closest and deepest ocean we can find. We get to Claudia, and then we get the hell out of here. Maybe we tell her we got chased off, maybe we tell her it's been destroyed. Maybe we rat her to the Confederates. I don't know yet. But we're sure as hell not giving this to her or whoever she's taking it from. Shit...damn her! Damn that smiling, suit-wearing bitch! I have had it today!”

Her hoof thumped a second time. “After everything that happened today already, I am not going to be used like this!”

A smooth voice broke through the quiet warehouse.

“Oh I assure you, you were not being used, Captain.”

Floodlights thumped, and blinding white light seared into the trio's eyes. All three yelled aloud at the intensity, their night vision ruined. Hair Trigger whipped her head away with a hiss, before prying an eye open and feeling her blood boil.

The vague shape of a pony stood out between the beams upon a walkway high above. Either side of her, two fiery laser weapons sparked and erupted into life with deathly hums, aimed by two figures.

Kreer and Garwyn.

Between them, with an amused chuckle, Asset Margin stepped forth into the light and winked. “But you were being tested.”

Squinting, looking up, Smile winced and shielded her eyes with a forehoof. Her rifle rested in the other across a box, but the sight of those two burning energy weapons pointed their way kept her from aiming it. Hearing the Captain's low growl to her right, she desperately hoped Hair Trigger could keep a lid on that temper.

Asset looked down on the three of them with absolute smugness. The CEO rested her head back in a casual tilt to raise her nose at the crystal pony's look. With a short chuckle, her glare returned to Hair Trigger.

“And I'm sorry to say, but with that little declaration there, Captain...you failed.”

Smile kept her hoof on her rifle, but didn't dare raise it. Hair Trigger's teeth were bared, and Smile could see the unicorn's body starting to tense up. There was an explosion imminent, if Hair Trigger got to talk.

Volatility Smile quickly stepped in. “There was no theft, then.”

“Correct!” Asset's voice was chirpy.

“And it was all a lie to see if we were the kind who wouldn't care what it was? To see who we really are?”

Asset's mouth twinged up in amusement. “I prefer the term 'observed interview', myself. After all, I can't just talk openly about this in a publicly traded office now, can I? By the way, I suggest you don't move too far; I assure you, these two brothers are quite accurate.”

Hair Trigger's anger was boiling over. Her teeth hurt from clenching them, and her hoof throbbed as hard as it ever had that day. The sight of that smirking face didn't help. The crystal pony and griffon with her could see her whole face turning into a barely held back rictus mask of absolute fury starting to mount up.

Hastily, Smile kept talking. Anything to avoid being gunned down by lasers for another few seconds. “I suppose we should have guessed by all the automated things in here.”

Surprised, Asset's eyebrows raised, and she looked at the dust-drones on the ground level and the fire-prevention robot whirring slowly behind her on the walkway. Asset made a neutral sound, as though realising they could have been a clue for the first time, before giving a dismissive shrug, permitting Smile to go on.

“And this is why you wanted a shuttle for us, so your shiny yacht we saw could overtake us. I mean, I can't deny that it's impressive. Maybe if-”

Asset shook her head, the two strands of hair in front of her face swaying around as she raised a hoof with a single-shouldered shrug and interrupted.

”Disappointing is the word I would choose, Miss Volatility Smile. Please, I'm not in it for negotiation or re-runs at this point. Actually, I'm quite dejected that it turned out this way. A crew known to work with Sweet Alyssum? Whose ship transponder when traced on the black-navs even included Countess Karmelita's territory? Who somehow got into and out of prison in Avalon within a day through some obviously organised influence? For goodness sake, I thought I'd struck gold with you lot. I had such a nice contract ready for the delightful materials industry I've uncovered in this old place. What a pity.”

Kerfuffle shook his head sternly, the shotgun held at the low ready, but with a very serious look to his normally soft eyes. “Sorts stuff they were testin' here back then ain't delightful, Miss. Ought to be forgotten. Ain't right. Lot here ain't right. Been saying it all day.”

She actually rolled her eyes at him.

“It's right by me so long as they pay me and don't use it on my planet. And believe me, on the side, I have happened to wind up with a very interested buyer already. I just needed a crew off the record to transport it. Such a pity that I'll need to put out another job offer.”

Briefly, Asset ceased her conversationalist tone, leaning her forelegs on the railing of the walkway and glancing down. Her comfortably pleased grin turned to Hair Trigger.

“Captain...you've been unusually quiet. ”

One of Hair Trigger's eyes was larger than the other, twitching and shaking with her solid facial muscles. Her whole mouth was twisted out of alignment, as she felt something deep down fire up with the force of a supercarrier's reactor going critical.

“After all, you seemed so talkative and up-front before; so very...expressive. Before we see this sorry business done, don't you have anything to add?”

Hair Trigger's baleful gaze suddenly whipped up toward her so quickly that Asset actually recoiled an inch or two from the bloodshot eyes.

“Yes! I! Do!”

Pursing her lips, Asset turned sideways and waved a hoof near her ear.

“Oh? And that is-”

Hair Trigger instead whipped toward Smile, her entire head moving on every word.

“I FUCKING CALLED IT!”

The meaty pistol in Trigger’s holster flew out in a spark of magic and fired a single, completely blind shot toward the walkway, guided by nothing but sheer anger.

It was an impossible shot. An impossible chance. But she hadn't once dared think it wouldn’t work. Today had been just too much of an infuriatingly horrendous day for her to dare let one bullet not do exactly as she WILLED it to do.

The round whipped past Garwyn's mane and slammed into the fire-prevention robot passing behind him, where it ricocheted off the pressurised extinguisher on its chassis with a sharp ping of metal and buried itself into the side of Asset's flank.

Eyes bulging wide, her smug tone turning to a high pitched shriek of shock and pain, the composed mare went down in an undignified heap, her griffon and hippogriff guards momentarily too stunned to even realise what had happened.

And behind them, an eerie whistling sound suddenly grew louder.

“Oh...” Garwyn's eyes widened as he saw the gas venting from the extinguisher and heard the high pitched sound growing louder.

“Shit!” His brother finished for him.

The entire walkway exploded in foam and mist, drowning out Asset's thrashing, cursing and furious moaning. There was a sharp crack as the robot's lithium batteries detonated, sending a plume of sparks high above the foaming cloud. A deafening alarm bell sounded as the warehouse’s fire system kicked in. Seconds later, sprinklers activated all over the building, bringing down a monsoon that created a damp, vision-obscuring mist in all directions.

“And fuck that dirt-shit you called coffee this morning too!”

Hair Trigger glared into the mists, seeing red, then turning to the others, finding their bewildered stares looking between her and the walkway, which was rapidly disappearing behind a cloud of foam.

“Well? Let's get the hell out of-”

A red beam lanced out of the white and grey clouds, striking the ground near Hair Trigger. The intense delivery of light and heat exploded the concrete into shrapnel; and Trigger felt bits of stone ping off of her armour and skull.

“Get down, Cap'n!”

A claw reached out and tugged her away - a second beam slapped down and left a second six inch crater of erupted stone on the floor. These were nothing like the precise needles of energy fired by Cascavel's rifle. These were raw and wasteful blasts; a crude imitation of plasma armaments for those who couldn't acquire them. Hair Trigger could hear the weapons’ exposed dynamos hissing and sparking in the damp from somewhere ahead of her.

Out of it all, they could hear Asset's voice frantically screaming at someone to 'get down there and kill them', followed by an impressively blue-collar series of curse words and a groan of pain.

Trigger, Smile, and Kerfuffle fled across the width of the warehouse, Smile stopping only to grab the briefcase en-route. Three more snaps of the laser weapons zapped out of the depths of the mist. Guided only by the sound of their targets' hooves, the shots flashed wildly by. One of them flared when it struck and melted a steel railing inches from Kerfuffle’s side.

Above them, a gigantic red shape loomed down, the laser rifle in his hands charging up with a fierce glow.

Hair Trigger gasped, then waved frantically. “Scatter!”

Diving to every side, they heard Kreer's shot blast apart a crate behind them, throwing a cloud of fabric and textiles into the air.

Smile stumbled on her hooves, running directly into the shelving that bordered the way out. She'd gone further into the warehouse in her rush to get out the way, losing her sense of direction in the mist. Hair Trigger fell in beside her and quickly gave her a shove to dodge the chasing griffon's second attack. The shelving's foundation exploded, its supports collapsing and bringing the three layers of stacked goods crashing down. Rolling on her side, trying to get her rifle up and on target, Smile saw Hair Trigger trip on her hurt hind-hoof and look up at the shelving coming down.

“Aw, crap...”

The resigned groan gave way to the captain hurriedly curling up, hooves over her head, her horn lighting up just as she was buried under half a ton of broken wood and metal.

“Trigger!” Smile cried aloud, giving up her aim to try and rush forward to help the stricken unicorn. A hot flare of red streaked down her side from above, scalding and stinging her exposed coat on a near miss, and she again threw herself away, scrambling madly to get behind a wooden crate.

“Find cover, find cover!” she muttered to herself, bunching up behind it.

Two seconds later, a blast of red energy tore right through the crate, missed her face by inches, and blew a hole in the ground behind her. She stared at the gap in the crate with wide eyes.

“Find better cover!”

Smile got her sore legs powering forward again, deeper into the warehouse, chased by the flying attacks every few meters until ducking into the rows of shelving still standing near the back. Fighting down a sense of panic at being chased by a flying, mostly unseen assailant, she galloped down line after line looking for anywhere she could try and wait in ambush. The sprinklers were making it into a nightmare, blurring her vision as if she were lost in an urban fog. The warehouse felt twice the size it actually was, and yet claustrophobic all at the same time.

She yelped as another laser whipped through the shelving to her left, followed by a semi-automatic burst of them that had her diving to the ground to let them go above her head. With a crunch of metal, she felt a hard impact on her ribs and cried out in pain.

“What the...?”

She'd landed on pipes. Two pipes that gurgled and throbbed with running water. Following them to the side, chasing the sound, she saw a large tank against the back wall - open-topped with a rain filter draining into it. It was a cheap, crude reservoir for the sprinkler system the size of a business class garbage container, only five times longer to reach all the outlet pipes that led up to the roof.

Hearing a griffon's weight landing on the shaking shelves above, Smile didn't bother thinking and threw herself up and into the chilly water, falling beneath the surface with a practised breath.

Seconds later, that same griffon landed heavily on the concrete where she had just been, crunching some fallen debris below him.

Kreer shouldered his rifle, feeling the warm haze of the dynamo's energy built up inside the welded housing of the rifle tingling his cheek. His feathers felt slick and drawn under the mist of the sprinklers, and his eyes stung as red as his body and rifle from the foam of the extinguisher drone. Hard-faced, he swept the weapon’s hissing, steaming muzzle around each shelving corner, straining to look for the telltale sparkle of a crystal pony. Stalking the rows, his side to the reservoir, his big griffon eyes stared and scanned for any motion. The unicorn was done for, and he trusted Garwyn to handle the other one.

This was the moment he lived for: the hunt. The prey running. It appealed to his baser instincts to hear the panting as their hearts raced. Now he saw she had disappeared, and grinned as he looked at the reservoir.

“Really...come now,” he purred, flapping his wings to lift up and point his rifle down at the water. The pumps working to feed the sprinklers were making the surface thrash and churn. Starting at one end, he started to fly down it, always watching.

He hadn't thought for one moment that a pony could swim as fast as this one could.

At the opposite end, much farther than he'd anticipated, the drenched form of Volatility Smile powered out of the water and rolled onto an inspection plate at the top of the tank itself. The fluid, smooth motion of an athlete used to having done this a thousand times. She came to lie on her belly, rifle already aimed, its water-resistant seals holding up as they always had.

Kreer only had time to open his beak in bewilderment, before the thin crack of Smile's rifle echoed in the vapour fog and flashed its report over the water.

The round slammed into the dynamo on the side of his rifle, shattering the casing and sending a spark of scalding energy across his face. The smashed dynamo spat red arcs and streams of energy in all directions, with an unsettling - and intensifying - whine of uncontrolled power. The weapon shook and rolled in Kreer's grip, its unstable systems powering out of control, and he hastily tried to hurl it away.

Smile watched from down her sights with a squint as the laser rifle exploded in mid air, four feet from Kreer, the loud crack of the explosion drowning out his panicked scream. Regaining her vision from the blinding crimson flare she saw him lying on the floor, moaning and incapacitated.

“Still got it.”

She allowed herself a small grin, before dragging her tired and drenched body off the reservoir and toward the sounds of a vicious fight nearby.

Dust from shelving and wood splinters were dry and prickly in Hair Trigger’s mouth, almost as uncomfortable the rest of her complaining body.

With her muscles protesting, she got her forelegs under the metal panel she'd pulled over herself to protect against the collapsing metal shards of the broken shelf stands and pushed. It scarcely moved. The frame had protected her from most of the weight, but it was pinning her down.

“C'mon...you stupid...” Gritting her teeth, twisting until she got her shoulder against it, Trigger heard the clatter of fragments falling off the pile. Through her hazy vision, she saw droplets of water falling down and crawled her battered body toward them. One foreleg at a time, Hair Trigger pulled herself from out under the rubble that had almost crushed her.

The moment her top half was out, she felt a talon grasp the back of her hooded top with aggressive intent.

“Oh, gimme a fuckin' minute heeeere!”

Her deadpan was driven into a sharper cry on the last syllable, as she was dragged out and hurled head over flank into a second shelving unit. Careening through the cardboard boxes, she fell out on the other side in time to see Garwyn whip around the stands.

Half the hippogriff’s body was covered in a white stain from the foam, and he'd lost his rifle somewhere in the explosion. His hands were balled up, and he was using his wings to help him balance to fight. The crooked scar on his face twisted his grin in strange ways.

“This oughta be a bit more fun than the single shot I expected.”

Hair Trigger spat out a wad of dust and blood, finding her lip split. She began pulling herself to her hooves, lowering her head to get her horn between him and her. Her weary grin seemed to catch him by surprise.

“C'mon then. Been looking for something to take some aggression out on after today. Got plenty of it stacked up.”

Garwyn chuckled. “Mildly annoyed then? Not a lot of room to stack it.”

Trigger's grin disappeared on the spot.

“Oh you fucking-!”

She never finished her sentence, charging forward with bared teeth and ducking below his awkwardly descending punch. Throwing her every bit of weight into his thighs, her horn careened into Garwyn's armoured stomach. The pair collapsed in an untidy heap together, with the smaller pony clambering and lashing out with her hooves toward his face, straddling over his chest to stomp down again and again.

The delicious wave of satisfaction every time she connected drove her to draw up her hoof time after time - striking down hard - until she suddenly felt his whole weight shift.

“Sneaky little shit!” he cried out, his face already bruising from Trigger's unexpected dive, as he used his wings to hurl his whole body around and grab her mane.

She yelped at the sharp tug, her whole head yanked backward. She reached with her hooves to knock and fumble with his tightly clenched fingers, wrestling back and forth, her hat flying off her head.

Below her, Garwyn drew back his other fist and sent it crunching into Hair Trigger's exposed underbelly, knocking the lighter pony clean off of him. Keeping hold of her mane, he dragged her by it, and spun to slam her into the fallen stack of shelves again, then back around in the other direction into the ledge up to the way the crew had entered the warehouse.

Hair Trigger yelled and snarled, eventually wrapping her forelegs around his arm and pulling herself up to sink her teeth into his wrist. The hippogriff gasped, letting go before she could break the skin.

Rolling away, clutching her belly, Hair Trigger got back to her hooves, and faced him down with a glowing horn. For a moment they stood off, both panting.

“Had enough?” He winked, rubbing his wrist. “You look ti-”

The wooden crate Hair Trigger had tugged from the level above slammed into the back of his head.

Rushing forward, Hair Trigger didn't give him time to get back up before leaping at him again, hooves flying and her throat emitting an angry cry. His outstretched talons met her as the hippogriff floundered and thrashed. With hoof and hand they tussled and rolled, a brutal fight on the concrete. His hand caught her nose and set it bleeding - before she head-butted his mouth. His talons, blunter than a full griffon's, raked at her back until she jabbed a hoof under the jawline and into his throat.

Eventually, however, she felt his weight again surge up, and none of her strength could stop it.

Garwyn got a grip around her body, harshly lifting and slamming her down to the concrete. Hair Trigger made a strangled gasp and moan, the air being crushed out of her, fruitlessly pulling at the talons gripping around her neck.

He picked her clean off the floor and hurled her against the safety railings near the door out of the warehouse. Their metal poles dug into her back, and she dropped to the ground.

Twice more he picked her up, his arms keeping her swinging hooves at length, before dropping or punching her down.

Lying on her stomach, pain and dizziness washing over her whole body, Hair Trigger just groaned.

Bleeding across his face, Garwyn stood up in the damp fog of the sprinklers and spread his arms wide. A cocky, victorious stance. “It's over, short-stack. What can I say? There's always someone bigger than you.”

Trigger rolled onto her side, stared past him for a moment, and grinned.

“Got that right.”

Garwyn's momentarily confused look was quickly covered by an enormous taloned hand wrapping around his neck and mouth, muffling the shocked yelp, before he was yanked clean off of his hooves.

Kerfuffle hurled the security director to the side, slamming the much smaller hippogriff against the concrete wall with enough force to shake loose a cloud of dust. A second later, his head was crashed through the same crate Trigger had dropped. Bodily thrown, he smacked against the railings beside the unicorn, staggering back into a sweeping club of the griffon's forearm that actually back-flipped the hippogriff onto his stomach.

Making a staggered whimper of pain, Garwyn offered no resistance as he was effortlessly picked up off the ground, and found himself being hoisted up.

The last thing he saw before he went to sleep for the rest of the day was a door approaching at high velocity.

Outside the warehouse, the two ponies who'd been told to wait and cut off any escape had finally decided they should head in and help out. Assault rifles ready, they galloped up to the door, ready to flank and kill anyone they didn't expect to see.

They certainly didn't expect to see the door come to them.

Propelled off of its hinges by a deeply unconscious hippogriff, the metal entrance slammed into both of them and knocked all three of Asset's employees through the railing of the door's steps to crash in a heap on the rainy street.

Poking his head through remaining frame of the doorway, Kerfuffle looked either side with the same sort of innocence as a foal about to cross the street.

“Looks clear, Cap'n!”

Weaving back and forth behind him, Hair Trigger pulled her hat back onto her pounding head, getting it mostly straight. She tapped her bleeding lip, feeling like she had eight hooves to keep track of. “Nothing much is clear at the moment, big guy...”

The sound of hooves on concrete made her spin, only to see a familiar and soaking wet crystal pony galloping over from inside the building. After a moment, Volatility Smile tossed a familiar pistol to Hair Trigger. She had the briefcase on her back, taking a glance as she sighed and spoke.

“What was that about us leaving immediately?”

Looking up at Kerfuffle, Hair Trigger nodded - and then quickly regretted the motion.

“Fine, let's-”

A surge of red energy blasted into the doorframe, making the reader Kerfuffle had repaired spark and fall cleanly off. All three turned on the spot to see the red griffon limping toward them through the warehouse, aiming his brother's rifle for another shot.

“Oh, for fu-...come off of it!” Hair Trigger exclaimed, wishing she had the time to roll her eyes. The trio leapt off of the smashed hole in the railings, pursued by two more deadly blasts.

The moment Trigger landed, she felt her whole body drop below her. Her hoof, still sore from the early morning, slipped out from under her. Her head felt like it was everywhere. Groaning, she felt a clamping tightness at her stomach, until realising it was her being picked up.

“I got you, Cap'n.” Kerfuffle swept the smaller unicorn up, and then after a moment of thought grabbed Smile as well. Spreading his wings with a powerful snap, he took off for the ship, leaving the wounded Kreer firing ineffectually into the rain behind them.

The crimson feathered griffon scowled, letting the rifle's muzzle droop. His keen eyes picked out the targets disappearing around the corner, toward the shuttle. Below him, the unconscious form of his brother lay stricken.

How desperately he wanted to continue the hunt, but his right wing felt like something had broken in it and wouldn't extend fully.

Then, before his anger could take hold at allowing them to move without his pursuit, a shout called out to him from the warehouse, and he turned and limped his way back inside.

Asset Margin half-limped and half-fell down the gantry stairs to the rapidly pooling water on the floor of the warehouse. Her short mane had come loose from its tie, hanging untidily about her head, and her waistcoat and shirt were both drenched and muddied from hitting the dusty floor of the walkway.

And of course, her backside felt like a solid chunk of hot metal had been buried in it.

Mostly because one had.

“Kreer! Get your red ass back in here and help me! Kreer!”

Asset pulled herself up, limping on three legs in a fashion annoyingly similar to that of a certain unicorn that had limped up to her office that morning. She had smirked while watching her then; things felt very different now, and Asset felt that sting more than the wound itself. She gasped sharply, stumbled again, and held a silk handkerchief over the oozing red hole in her flank.

The griffon came bounding over, pulling off his pack to find a medi-seal gel dispenser. After a minute of hissing, swearing and beating her hoof against the metal railings, Asset felt the numbing effects take hold.

Kreer’s voice was short and to the point. “They got away, Ma'am.”

“I sorta' bloody figured on account of you not dragging that irksome midget's corpse back in with you! AND for my briefcase disappearing!”

“It was just frozen baking soda in the container, Ma'am. Real deal's secure.”

“But it WAS a really nice briefcase! Get this strapped up, we've got-argh, damn it...”

Kreer held a dressing over the furious unicorn's hindquarters, trying his best to not open himself up to a slap about the face for putting his talons where they ought not to be. He matched his employer's angry glare for just a second. Even to a hardened ex-pirate like him, he knew it would be a mistake to let himself get frustrated her berating him. Asset had many plans in the event she didn't come back from somewhere, and Kreer valued having wings. Wounded or not. Besides, she paid well for little work in a place no law ever hunted him, and he didn't imagine Karmelita would much let him go back to his old stomping grounds any time soon.

Pulling the dressing tight, he heard her seething in pain, and watched Asset testing her leg's range of motion. Noticing her obvious discomfort, he hit her with an added shot of local anaesthetic to the leg, and picked her up.

“Don't worry, Ma'am. Garwyn got the immobiliser fitted last night. Their shuttle's not going anywhere. Soon as you're evac'ed and I get him up, we'll go hunt them down. They don't know the city.” He let the predatory grin come back to him. “They aren't going anywhere.”

Asset let herself be lifted up onto his back, as he himself limped to the doors. She could hear the hover-vans returning to pick them up outside. After a moment, she shook her head and insistently dropped down to limp and gasp in pain instead. She wasn't about to let the others all see her being babied out.

On emerging, two earth ponies ran up to her, ones she recognised as having been the trackers for the shuttle. Standing in the rain, her leg still belting with pain, she let her hard gaze find their obviously apprehensive faces.

“What. Happened?”

They looked to one another, the two mares seemingly holding a telepathic argument over who should pass on the news.

Thankfully, neither had to, as the sound of a shuttle's engines blasted across every block for two miles and the off-red afterburners of a very familiar ship rocketed into the sky past them.

Asset's mouth twisted into an indistinct, but very exasperated shape.

“HOW!?”

Kerfuffle turned the odd device over in his hands a couple times.

Really, it was a wonder why anybody would want to fit an immobiliser into such a silly location. All it would do was interfere with the startup motor's flow of power and make the shuttle have to work overtime to get anywhere.

Confidently happy that he just brightened the shuttle's day, he dropped the offending piece of machinery into a maintenance drawer in the back and settled back to nurse his stiff wings.

Up front of the shuttle, behind the glass showing the night sky slowly turning to a more complete darkness as it climbed back to orbit, Smile rubbed her torso with one hoof and set the autopilot with the other.

To her left, Hair Trigger continued the expletive ridden rant she'd kept up for the last ten minutes.

“-have to just get screwed up right at the last damned minute! Every! Time! Didn't I call it? I damn well called it! Called! It!”

Beginning to weary of the sound, Smile couldn't hold back a snarking tone. “If I remember, you said 'no coffee, shit cargo, fucking betrayed.' Well, she gave you coffee. But two out of three isn't bad.”

Throwing a dangerously explosive look back at the crystal pony, Hair Trigger instead went back to holding her head in her hooves, trying to fight the headache that was waging war with her hoof for which could produce the worst throbbing.

Volatility Smile, content that she'd at least put an end to the shouting, breathed out and focused on finding Claudia amongst the cluttered orbital layers of Kavala III on their nav-unit.

The mining infrastructure filled most of the screen with yellow dots, and Smile wasn't certain how to actually filter it for just Claudia. She could vaguely see the lines of orbiting ships highlighted in reds and blues, yes. But it was proving difficult with a touchscreen intended for minotaur fingers to actually get her hoof on target to check the names of each of them. She could actually see some of them ahead of her now, glinting in the sky like a ring around the planet. Beyond them, enormous chunks of moon were turning.

Then, just as the atmosphere finally broke and she heard the engines fall to silence in the vacuum of space, she saw something.

“Captain, did you see a spaceport big enough for a cruiser-sized vessel at Shining Reach?”

“No, why?”

“Nothing that might be big enough to support a cruiser-sized vessel there permanently?”

Hair Trigger gave up trying to figure out the instant-freeze ice-packs in her hooves, and glanced at the screen to see a red dot approaching from behind them, its designation marking a vessel of above fifteen thousand tonnes on the planet's navigational stream.

“Oh...”

It suddenly veered, and took a course heading right toward them.

“Shit.”

The luxury yacht erupted out of its escape velocity climb like a submarine surfacing at speed, its curved prow breaching into the void with a silent crash and a flurry of residual vector-engine vapour being caught in the sun's light. Almost as though it were on a two-dimensional plane, it dropped its nose, curling along the very outer edge of the mesosphere, before finally rolling itself the right way back up again. Its silver hull became a dance of colour from the stellar radiation affecting its chemically reactive paintwork, turning it a mix of white and cream in elaborate patterns.

Yet as beautiful and artistic as the gracefully curved vessel was, its movements held a menace, and a very defined purpose. It’s bow wound over, and turned to take a course after a fleeing spot of light.

The doors to its bridge slid open, and Asset Margin stormed through at an angry limp. She was filthy, with a matted mane and a flank streaked with dried blood under a hasty dressing. Holographic displays at the six crew positions were frantic with the crowded orbit of Kavala III, but every uniformed member kept their eyes smartly on their complex layouts.

They had gotten advance warning from Kreer that Asset was not in the mood for people staring.

She had only three words to growl.

“Where are they?”

Regretting his recent promotion, the bridge officer gulped, keeping his eyes firmly on the curved display screen ahead of them.

“Ten minutes out and closing, Ma'am. We're faster than they are.”

Asset narrowed her eyes, finally allowing herself to smile again.

“Ready tac-cannons; got a rogue asteroid to shoot down. Also, be a dear and get me drone command for the Secondis refinery...”

“Eleven minutes till intercept? C'mon, when will this day just END? Smile, how long till we make Claudia?”

Having finally located the right blip, Volatility Smile set it as the current destination, and waited a few seconds for the nav-unit to update with their estimated time out. “Seven or eight minutes.”

Hair Trigger bit her lip, then winced at the sharp reminder that it was still split and bleeding. “Better hope Tami can run an FTL from orbit in three minutes then.”

She reached forward and keyed the communication panel onto her own display. Entering Claudia's general frequency code, and then her Captain's authorisation, she opened a channel to the bridge.

“Tami? Tami I hope you-”

All three crew members in the shuttle were assaulted through the speakers by a wall of noise. Loud bass, high pitched synth instruments, and a female vocalist exploded into the shuttle so suddenly that even Kerfuffle behind them covered his ears with a wince at the audio feedback.

Hair Trigger yelled in shock, before slamming a hoof into the 'send' button, setting it to play through all available speakers on the ship.

“Tami! TAMI! What the hell is-”

Dropping to the floor of the cargo bay with a squeal, a dozen objects tumbling down around her, Tami regretted her hasty resetting of the gravity on the spot.

She could hear the vague sound of the Captain's voice somewhere below the lovey pop-lyrics and the clatter of boxes and cases striking the metal deck, and Trigger had that ‘on the edge’ tone that always implied a lot of things had given her a reason to sound like that.

Scampering madly, Tami raced into the common room and up the stairs, shouting toward the open mic even before she got to the pilot's seat, half expecting to see a Changeling invasion in the space around her by the sound in Hair Trigger's voice.

“Captain! I'm here! I'm here! What's going-I mean, what do you need me to-”

“What I'm needing is an imminent getting the fuck out of this system!”

Drawing up her map, overlaying the communication's sender onto it with a few quick swipes of her fingers, Tami quickly spotted the shuttle coming in at speed, closely followed by a much larger ship.

“Tami!?”

“I-I'm on it, Captain! I'm on it! Just get here!”

The comms clicked, ending the link.

Tami frantically began throwing everything out of idle mode and within ten seconds Claudia's reactor was starting to wake up to a ready state for all ahead full. Yanking the FTL panel across, she paused only to reach up to the PA system playing the deafening music and click it to 'off'.

The button went down.

The ship-wide music, blasting out of every speaker it could, did not cease.

Clicking the switch up and down a couple times to no avail, then suddenly remembering the incident this morning with the same function, Tami held her mouth open for a moment.

“Uh oh...”

With a hard and hasty docking that made all aboard wince at the dull clang of hull on hull, the shuttle attached to Claudia's right-side airlock. They'd come in at such a speed that for the first time, Smile started to understand some of Tami's persistent nervousness when it came to piloting.

Hair Trigger didn't waste time in pressurising the lock and throwing the doors open, immediately recoiling at being reunited with the same track that had minutes before filled the shuttle. Hip shaking energetic beats and lyrics about a prom night filled the ship, reverberating from the walls of the cargo bay.

“What was she even doing up here?”

Realising no-one even heard her question, she rapidly stumbled and hopped her way into her ship and limped up toward the bridge. Finding the door ajar, she spotted the thick mane of the hippogriff at the controls.

“Tami what is going on with this-”

The pilot whipped around suddenly, her hands already up and waving, shouting to be heard. “I'm sorry, Captain! It won't turn off! Same issue, and I can't fix it, and-”

Closing her eyes with a growl of frustration she'd normally suppress around the skittish pilot, Hair Trigger waved her off. “Nevermind, no time! Just get us out of here, Tam! Go, go, go!”

Grabbing Claudia's control sticks, Tami wrenched the ship around in a one-eighty and reoriented onto the longest stretch of empty space she could find in the gap between the asteroids and the planet itself. Reading down to her side, she threw the thrust-stick forward.

Both the main outlets on the rear of the ship and the vector controls along the side shifted their metal plates, opening up or angling in, before erupting with light. Her entire frame creaking, Claudia powered forward and headed directly away from her monstrously larger pursuer.

Accompanied by the height of the pop world's remix charts, Claudia committed to the chase. Straightening her out, Tami fought down the growing pressure in her breast at the ongoing thump of music and every slightly-too-lovey lyric blaring into the crew compartments with her friends around her. Hands dancing on the touchscreen, she keyed in the easiest jump vector she could think of and got the drive spooling.

“We'll be gone ahead of them!”

“What!?” Hair Trigger shouted above the song.

“FTL NOW!” Tami screamed back.

There was a pitch shift in the whine of the reactor, a sense of rising tension began to creep through all aboard the vessel. Ahead of them, space seemed to begin folding and thickening.

And behind them, the yacht's prow had opened up.

“Activate!”

At Asset’s barked command, the two specialists at the front of the vessel keyed in the final signal. Behind them, Asset grinned.

“You don’t get to leave yet, Captain!”

There was a silent flash. A white beam, flickering like a giant strobe-light, spat out from a dish on the front of Asset's ship and lit Claudia up from behind.

Sensitive systems inside the bridge of the Pioneer class transport suddenly grew very hot and erupted like a firecracker below Tami's hooves. The hippogriff leapt up from her seat with a shock at the flash below her, smelling smoke. To her left, the FTL display flashed red.

'TRANSLATION ERROR'

“What happened!?” Hair Trigger leaned over the console, as she saw the familiar surge of the ship’s jump rift suddenly collapse in front of them. Like a hazy-edged crack in a window repairing itself, the rift twisted itself out of existence in an eruption of twisted rainbows, leaving them with nothing but a hostile system and a singer extolling the delights of a first kiss.

Scrambling over her screen, Tami gaped in horror. “She's got a jump scrambler!”

“A what!?”

“A jump scrambler!” Tami repeated, then a second time as her voice was muffled by the sudden drop of bass inside the ship.

“What IS that?”

Tami was already clawing at the floor panels, pulling them away as smoke belched out into her face.

“It's a-” She coughed from the acrid smoke. “It's used by police forces! Most FTL systems have some form of wireless connection for commands somewhere in their electronics. A scrambler projects fake signals to us that gives it the wrong stuff, makes them overload!”

Volatility Smile ran up into the bridge, having felt the FTL's vibrations cut. “What's going on? And can't you turn that music off!?”

Tami threw up her hands from unscrewing the panel. “I'VE TRIED! The PA system is-”

Trigger tossed her hat onto the screen in front of her in frustration, spinning around on both of them. “Drop it! Less arguing about the song! More fixing the FTL before they-”

“Fire?”

The officer's query to his boss told all. They were in range, and they had the tac-cannons ready. Mainly intended to ward off pirates and stray asteroids, they would be more than enough against an unarmed vessel.

Asset Margin purred in response. “Oh yes, please do...”

Claudia rattled heavily, throwing every crew member off their hooves. The concussive impact sent the ship's window view whirling through stars and asteroids, as Claudia veered and reacted to the sudden force impacting near her.

Through the windows, Trigger, Smile and Tami all witnessed several other shots hurtling through space and erupting into yellow flares ahead of them, missed rounds reaching their maximum limit before self-detonating.

Under the cover of Tami's music, the crew staggered up, and Hair Trigger groaned. “I was gonna say tackle and board us, but come the hell on!”

She hopped back into the Captain's Chair and transferred control to her side, pointing at Tami. “You and Kerf fix the FTL! Do whatever you have to!”

Tami gaped at the window, then at her Captain preparing to fly. “D-do you even know how to evade fire!?”

“Nope! But I'll do what my dad told me to do for when you’re flying a ship and can't do the right thing!”

She ratcheted the thrust stick as far forward as it could go and threw the controls over to steer Claudia in toward the asteroid field.

“The wrong thing, but very enthusiastically!”

Gunning the engines once more, Hair Trigger set Claudia onto a long curving arc to get away from the firing lines of those guns, diving in toward the closest chunks of moon she could. Microfragments started pelting off of the bridge window, reflected by the tough minotaur design and adding a strange snare drum-like tone to Tami's music.

With an oddly fitting build and hit-after-hit of big tempo beats, Claudia dropped her nose like the music dropped the bass and hurtled at speed into the asteroid field. Rolling and banking, Hair Trigger flew her behind every bit of cover she could spy out there, feeling and seeing rather than hearing the concussive thumps of vicious flak-rounds slamming into the chunks around them.

The yacht soared in after them, the two frontal tac-cannons spitting their high-velocity rounds again and again. The cannon mountings lacked automated guidance, but spat out a rapid stream of exploding munitions that followed Claudia, lighting her pale hull from every direction, and turning the musically propelled ship into a mad rave of exploding rock and flickering space. The gleaming yacht powered through chunks of debris and space-rock, its hull absorbing and denting but remaining strong with its dual-layer design.

On the yacht's bridge, scowling at her prey evading her in the tightening density of the field, Asset stormed with an angry limp to the communications officer. “Hail them! I want to speak to that idiot! Hack into their PA system...I want them all to hear.”

“Aye, Ma'am!”

Asset narrowed her eyes at the transport making hasty, panicked turns and committing to the ugliest manoeuvres she'd ever seen a fleeing target do. Were it not for the asteroids constantly blocking her gunner's solutions, they'd have been fragments by now.

“Ready to commit, Ma'am! I have control, opening channel to their internal PA in three, two, one...”

Asset put on her most calming voice. “Captain Hair Trigger, I think you-”

Then she screamed, covering her ears along with the rest of her bridge crew, as a loud voice pleading her to 'love her like it's prom night' cut her off and belched through the entire bridge, accompanied by a rapid fire series of synth and chiptune at the maximum possible volume. The ship's course wavered away from Claudia as the helmsman lost control in shock.

Screaming, Asset whirled to the comm-panel. “WHAT THE EVERLOVING HELL IS THIS!?”

“Ma'am!” The comms officer yanked off his headset. “They appear to have some form of sophisticated electronic defence suite! I...I can't cut it! It's like their system is locked open to us!”

Asset Margin grabbed the headset up from the floor and screamed into the microphone. “Listen here, you little shit! I've had enough of this! I've had enough of this day! There is no way you're leaving this system! You've cost me too big a loss profit margin for me to let you get away now!”

After a few seconds and a fumbling sound from the other end, Hair Trigger's taunting voice came back through the speakers, fitting into a gap between the irritatingly hyperactive lyrics. “Get the hell off my bridge speakers, Asset Margin! The only 'margin' you'll get is the one I gave you earlier in your Ass-ets, and you'll fucking love it!”

Asset hurled the headset into the startled comms officer's face, turning to scream over the music at the rest of her crew. “Little...where the hell is drone command!?”

Hair Trigger had no idea what she was doing.

She was desperately trying to fly behind every asteroid she could lay eyes on to put more material between them and those cannons. She went with her gut, unable to see the yacht itself, instead guessing just from the direction of the shots whizzing past the bridge windows. Apparently, it was working, and she was very glad Asset's ship wasn't more agile than it was. From rock to rock, she sent Claudia on a mad race to stay ahead of the eruption of flak filling space behind them.

“That one!” Volatility Smile pointed sharply.

“I know! I know!” Trigger sent Claudia banking for the asteroid.

“Dodge more!” Smile cried as they went to a flat trajectory.

“I KNOW!”

Trigger threw the controls back and forth, sending Claudia into an erratic spin to squeeze between two asteroids. Briefly losing control, rolling more times than she’d intended, Trigger wrestled with the ship’s engines to arrest the spin and getting them pointing roughly the way she wanted to go. Back in control, she began jinking and weaving their flight path again. The ship rocked from another close impact, and alarms began blaring all around, adding another layer to the audio madness.

After a second, Smile knocked her on the shoulder.

“WHAT!?” Trigger barked up at her.

“Stop dodging in time to the music, they'll pick up on it!”

Realising her hoof was tapping on the bridge deck, Trigger could only sit and stare for a moment at the absurdity this day had come to.

“Oh, fuck me for ever bothering to get out of bed.”

She surged the main engines again, coming far too close to an asteroid, enough that the proximity warning sounded, drowned out by yet another easily dance-inducing chorus that set Trigger seething.

“How long is this song!?”

Tami's face popped up from the floor. “It's the extended version!”

Hair Trigger rolled her eyes as the pilot grabbed a new circuit-board from Kerfuffle, and got back under the bridge decking with a soldering iron.

Another shot flew over their heads, and Trigger threw Claudia away from it before the detonation; the controls bucked hard as the mechanical force carried down through its robust minotaur design.

After a second, she noticed a very worrying crack appear on the side window. Yet it was what was beyond it that drew her attention.

All the mining lasers of the drones in the industry field sections ahead of their flight path were cutting out. With a look at her console, she saw a swarm of fifty mining drones suddenly turn and start rushing toward Claudia to cut them off.

Asset Margin's furious, sneering voice managed to fight through the deafening music to make herself known on Claudia's bridge. It was distorted, with a repeated echo of the song behind her.

“Wanna know what happens when I tell my drones that you're an asteroid? I sure do.”

Out of the black, dozens of blinking red lights began powering toward Claudia. Much more agile than the clumsy yacht, they weaved and darted around the asteroids like a swarm of wasps.

“Oh hell no, no way I can out-fly them! Tami...Tami how long on that FTL?”

Tami's voice was muffled from the crawl-space below Trigger's own seat. “Few minutes! Just a few!”

Hair Trigger glanced at the surrounding field on the main screen, looking for any way she could evade the yacht's line of fire without going directly toward the drones. Only one way remained that held anything of a hope. With a moment of consideration, she knew she was going to regret this. And a lot of people were about to get very angry with her.

Throwing Claudia onto her side and twisting the vector nozzles as far as she dared, Trigger sent the ship on a crudely sharp turn, directing their route down toward the clearing through the asteroids. The one they had flown in through.

The one populated by a dense cluster of cargo ships.

The second Claudia erupted out of the field and dove into the midst of the carefully controlled lanes in the tight area, a dozen ships made sudden swerves to get out of the seemingly insane pilot's route. A dozen ship captains hailed Claudia's hacked-open speaker system to demand answers, and a dozen bridge crews were all immediately granted a streaming service to the barrage of sugar-high music spreading like a happy plague in the void above Kavala III.

A swarm of drones followed the reckless Pioneer, diving on their simple routines to buzz around and over the frantically evading supertankers and mass conveyors. One that had only just had its engines repaired after causing a nightmare earlier that morning now found its repaired intake suddenly in-taking a fifty ton drone, putting it right back out of commission and signifying the sudden choice of retirement of its chief engineer. Another had its entire bridge crew duck as Claudia missed their windows by only a hundred metres, followed immediately by a series of the compact drones that set their elevated bridge shaking on its frame.

Claudia banked, tried to turn, failed from excessive velocity, and then tried again with more success. Hair Trigger's teeth were clenched, along with at least one other portion of her body, as she evaded ships with frantic, violent movements. She was dodging by sight alone - precisely the sort of way you weren't supposed to fly in space.

To her horror, long mining beams sometimes spiked past them as soon as the drones felt they had a clear run to 'mine'.

“Captain, there's another problem.” Smile's voice picked up, leaning down to the intensely focused unicorn's ear.

“Go...ahead...Smile...”

“Even if we get FTL, she'll just use the scrambler again.”

“Then figure something out!”

Smile cocked her head. “Me?”

“Well I'M a little busy at the moment!”

Smile thought for a moment, wandering to the back of the bridge. What could she do? A rifle was hardly going to manage it. She'd need something they could launch that was a lot-

“...bigger.”

Amazingly, she realised she did have an idea, and ran out of the bridge.

It was at that point the yacht decided to return.

Given space by its authority on the radar of every ship in the area and driven clear of the asteroids by its more powerful engines, it powered along the top of the space-lane. Hair Trigger spotted it angling itself to cover the end of the lane out into open space.

“Tami, we're blocked in, please tell me you have something for me!”

“Few minutes!”

Hair Trigger couldn't hide the mounting worry in her voice. “You said that a few minutes ago!”

“It felt like seconds!”

“Cap'n!” Kerfuffle's steady voice was still oddly calm, as he looked around the ship's windows, more particularly off to the right, before gazing at the main screen. “Drones're smart-”

“I'D NOTICED!”

“-but they need to be near their mother to work right.”

Her anger born of adrenaline momentarily interrupted, Hair Trigger risked a look at the griffon. “What?”

“Further they are from the hulks they take off from, slower they get. Bandwidth only goes so far for that much data. And the control ships are all lining the field to our, uh...right, that those ones came from. And the hulks are pretty cautiously moving.”

“You mean slow?”

Kerfuffle looked awkward. “Slower...but I wouldn't insult them so much like-”

Hair Trigger didn't need told twice. For the third time, she committed the suffering ship to a hard turn and burn, pointing it back into the asteroid field opposite the mining control ships.

As soon as she got on target, she had to wave off and turn again as a colossal mobile refinery thundered into their flight-lane, sending an automated message that barked angrily in some language she didn't know.

Claudia spun out, her engines mis-angled, and no matter what Hair Trigger did, nothing could correct the unnatural vector she'd been thrown on. Forced to hit the retrothrusters to avoid an uncontrolled spin, Claudia slowed to a near stop.

On the screens, the drones swarmed in.

On her bridge, Asset had the tac-cannons take aim, and finally allowed her rigid, twisted face to smile again.

“Shit! Shit-shit-shit!” Hair Trigger beat at the side of the chair, trying to rework the vector engines to where she wanted them - while trying to make heads or tails of the spinning in the windows.

“I...we've got FTL back!”

A dirty orange mane and an oil-stained face poked back out of the floor with a triumphant shout and a wave of a soldering iron. Tami started pulling herself up, until Kerfuffle helpfully lifted her out by her overalls. She collapsed into her chair, just in time to see Hair Trigger switch the controls back to her side.

“Then get your three-dimensional mind working and get us out of here!”

Tami glanced at the controls, then the screens, and her mouth gaped.

“Is-what-Captain I didn't realise it wa-th-there's like fifty of them incoming a-”

Suddenly leaning over, Hair Trigger grasped the hippogriff by both shoulders, forehead to forehead. “Tami, Tami listen to me. Now really, really isn't the time to go back to that.”

“But Capt-”

“This is your wheelhouse, Tam. And I want to mail a picture of my notably not-shot ass to that bitch in the yacht after we get out of here just to rub it in, so I need you to do this.” She winked, “You flew Regulus like a foal bounding around at Hearthswarming. I've seen what you can do. Wouldn't it be a great thing for me to tell Whisper about this?”

Tami's eyes widened; she looked down at the waiting controls.

“I....”

Her hand reached out.

Asset Margin swiped away the ship's doctor for the third time, leaning on the bridge's railing like a psychotically invested sports fan as she watched the drones close in. She loved drones. She loved robots. Things doing things on their own. She loved watching them tear asteroids apart and imagining the credit signs popping out of them.

She'd never gotten to see them do it on a ship before.

The drones swirled around, dancing past the final ship in their way, and clustering about the Pioneer they'd been chasing. At this point she wasn't sure what she wanted more - Hair Trigger to die for shooting her in the ass, or that ship to die to shut that damned music off.

Thankfully, she could have both.

“Time's up. Time to mine!”

She gleefully laughed...until her giggling suddenly faltered as Claudia's engines fired.

The gunners with the tac-cannon firing solutions had their sights set ahead of the ship, waiting for its inevitable last try. The drone's AI was following the vessels slow forward drift.

Neither anticipated her to suddenly spin every vector engine and power off backwards.

Fifty mining lasers criss-crossed in a bright orange star of light where the ship had once been, their logic confused by their stationary target suddenly moving. Seconds later, the drones reengaged their protocols and spun as one to give chase.

Asset's mouth dropped in exasperation, as she saw Claudia pick up speed from a sudden burst of power to the vector-engines, catapulting and weaving in reverse ahead of the drones. Blazing from every outlet but the main ones, Claudia banked and spun. Keeping her bridge facing the tide of drones, she rolled to fit between ships, even once between the empty stems of a conveyor's cargo arms. Rapidly accelerating, evading even in reverse, Claudia quickly passed underneath the slower yacht and out of its weapon arcs.

Looking down, Asset grabbed her comms officer's mug and threw it at the helm officer to break her out of staring. It shattered on the ground, making the pony yelp. After a second, having spotted the comms officer out of the corner of her eye, Asset followed the throw by cuffing him across the ear to get him to stop bobbing his head to the music.

“What are you all staring at!? GET AFTER THEM!”

Drones and yacht surged forward as Claudia inverted, firing its vectors vertically to make a transversal jink, passing under a refinery ship and out of sight, moving in reverse for the asteroid field opposite the drone controllers.

With a last burst of her vectors, Tami blasted the engines on one side only, then from the other side after a quick re-angling of the engine nozzles. It threw Claudia into a smooth, rapid J-turn to make a flat spin, until caught by the retrothrusters to hold the whirling ship on a trajectory away from Asset’s drones.

With the crew inside holding on as the artificial gravity was strained to its limit, their stomachs churning, the main engines surged even before the turn was complete, Tami guiding it through a curved arc, moving as much sideways as forward. Finally finding her desired path amongst the cramped vessels, Tami threw every bit of power she had into the main drive, the complex three-dimensional maneuver finally bringing her to where she wanted.

Taking off like a rocket, Claudia powered forwards through the incoming traffic. With wide, focused eyes, Tami smoothly twitched and eased the control sticks to carefully steer with the vectors rather than by angling the main engine. Her fine-tuned manoeuvring sent Claudia on nerve-wrackingly close encounters with other ships. Skimming the surface of freighter’s shipping containers, she used a sudden blast from starboard to roll Claudia over one-eighty and drop down the other side of the massive vessel, putting it between them and the drones, and hurtled into the asteroids.

Already, thanks to the high energy escape, the drones were slowing. Their bandwidth was struggling to keep up this far from their motherships. Asset's yacht, however, had no such problem. Its tac-cannons swung onto station and opened fire as the larger ship surged after the transport, following it down the line of asteroids.

Shells slammed into the rocks, firing at maximum rate in a blistering wave of destruction that shattered asteroids and filled the air with heavy shrapnel and concussive waves. With the yacht flying parallel to Claudia everything between the ships was savaged by the violent broadside.

And yet, to Asset's continued frustration, none of their shots would just HIT.

She could see the camera zoomed in tracking that ship, as the Pioneer banked, rolled and made irritatingly smooth adjustments at speed to fly between asteroids, around the arcs of fire, away from the shockwaves, and once even through the still separating pieces of an asteroid her ship had just blown apart. The movements were aggressive and flowing, retaining momentum and allowing the ship to roll on its ends and sides in awkward directions, more telling of a trained evasion pilot than some random truckers.

Asset began wondering just where the hell had this piloting been a minute ago. Yet the end of the asteroid field was approaching, and she knew they only had so far to run. No cover and no amount of suddenly fancy flying would save them then.

“Ma'am! They're charging FTL! Scrambler coming online!”

Tami was panting hard. Sweat dripped down her face as her eyes flickered in different directions, sometimes independently of one another. The flashing of explosions and the whirling of rocks that she had to evade or had to rely on Claudia enduring impact with was like the worst of the tests she'd ever taken at the academy, where simulated mass obstacles were thrown at them to react to while answering basic questions.

Yet while her body and face were rigid and terrified, her hands were moving with grace and smoothness. Switching motion from vector to main engine housing with a preset, or changing velocity to pre-empt movements and turns, she led Claudia on a dance to match the song that she couldn't help but murmur along with under her breath in some vague attempt to stay calm. Possibly the only living person for one AU actually finding the climaxing music useful right now, she slaved both vectors to one control stick and used her other hand to prep the FTL. She idly sang to herself, a vain attempt to stay calm.

“Go down and take-”

“What?” Hair Trigger raised an eyebrow, gripping her seat tightly.

“Nothing! Okay, Captain? I hope you've got an idea for the scrambler, ‘cos we're ready to go! Just need some space, we gotta get out of the asteroids!”

On cue, Smile's voice came over the intercom, shouting to be heard. “Tami! Got an idea ready down here! I'm at the airlock with the emergency release ready, you understand?”

The hippogriff thought for a second, and then it clicked. “I-I got it! I'll tell you when!”

Hair Trigger gave her a curious look, then suddenly made an appreciative smirk. “Kerf? Might wanna close your eyes, big guy.”

Thumping her hoof on the railing of the bridge again and again, Asset had finally had it with these gunners. She'd already made the decision to fire them. To fire most of this crew. To fire her ship trackers. To fire her drone controllers. Anyone who'd failed her so utterly today.

The tac-cannons were firing slower, reaching their heat limit and being forced to fire alternately. Still that elusive lump of metal refused to be hit, and again she wished her love of automation had extended to being able to acquire military grade auto-locks.

“Captain, if you'd be so kind as to please stop wasting my ammunition. Remember who pays the bills.”

“We're...we're trying, Ma'am! Scrambler is ready! But the gun, their pilot must have been trained for partial manu-”

“CAPTAIN!” The helm suddenly cried up to them, and the sight of Claudia on their viewscreen changed significantly.

The ship fired its vectors and retrothrusters on the port side all at once, sending it on a crazed roll right toward the yacht itself, arcing up and above their line of fire, right toward them.

“What are they even-”

The ship wasn't getting any smaller, and it wasn't stopping.

“All stop! They're trying to ram us! FULL REVERSE, HELM!” the Captain bellowed, before everyone on board staggered at the powerful frontal thrusters cutting speed.

Claudia followed through on its long barrel roll, arcing upside down above the yacht, before suddenly dropping directly in front of it, completing the cylindrical manoeuvre.

Asset stared at the bright engines of the transport. She could see open black beyond them both, and the twisting of reality that signified Claudia's FTL charging.

“What are you-...SCRAM THEM!”

“NOW!” Tami screamed in to the handset.

Down below, aided by a reluctant Kerfuffle, Smile yanked down the heavy grade lock and activated the emergency decoupling.

On Claudia's side, the shuttle they had arrived in banged, air pockets exploding it off the hull into free space.

Asset Margin's eyes widened, as she took a moment to believe what she was seeing.

Her own shuttle, one she'd paid for, came arcing off the small ship and careened right back at her yacht.

As her crew panicked, shouted, and tried in vain to move the ship, Asset simply sat down in her chair and held her head in her hooves, beyond done with this day.

The shuttle crashed into the sensitive components of the scrambler, shattering its dish, and piledriving into the hull of the yacht itself. Twenty tonnes of metal buried itself three decks deep, knocking out generators and spiralling the larger vessel end over end from the transfer of momentum, leaving it spinning helplessly on the fringes of the space its owner took to be hers.

Ahead of it, space erupted into light, and then an unusual tear in the fabric of reality opened. Claudia, propelled by the closing notes of one very happy song, disappeared into it and left Kavala III in the far distance.

A few hours later, once someone had gotten Tami a bag to breathe into and they had let Patch take a look at them all, the crew had taken Claudia some distance from Kavala before doing anything else. They had arrived back in Jealousy, and only then allowed the ship to ease off on the reactor, safe in another civilization’s space.

Only then, after all that, had they finally gathered.

It had been set to be a celebration: a chance to sit down, meet, and let any lingering adrenaline out. Instead, they just sat in tired silence around the common room table as the exhaustion and painkillers set in, idly glancing at movie lists and board games with absolutely no energy left to try any of them. Smile had explained that the Confederacy had a reward out for information on Asset Margin's suspected activity, and they had made a tired cheer. Their payday would still happen, if substantially less than originally planned.

That, and Smile found she had a very fancy new briefcase.

Hair Trigger had rarely been more thankful to hear nothing but the tranquil hum of the ship's reactor, and nothing else. As the quiet between them all wore on, she knew it was expected of her to say something about it all. Not by the crew; she knew they wouldn't hold her to it. But she'd come to feel a duty toward her position. Being a Captain was more than just making decisions. As she'd grown into the role, she'd seen it was about taking care of your crew and bolstering them after hardship.

Trying to think about what to say, Trigger instead just got up and walked over to the kitchen. She idly added Kavala III to the 'systems we don't go to any more', and made to pour a cup of-

Hair Trigger paused, internally letting loose a tired curse as she remembered.

Yet somehow at this point, she just smiled. The smile quickly turned to chuckles, and then to laughter as she dunked the mug down and leaned on the kitchen.

“Nothing.”

The other three looked up at her in confusion, moreso when they saw her broad grin.

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Cap'n?”

Hair Trigger limped back toward them, and leaned on the back of a chair with a weary sigh. “Absolutely nothing went right for us today. Tech failed. Job was a bust. Ship got screwed up. Shuttle had an immobiliser on it. Got shot at. Got beat up. Got betrayed. Almost crashed a dozen times. Hull's scratched to hell. Had a crap morning. No coffee.”

She let her attention fall from Kerfuffle's still confused face, to Smile's curious one, and to Tami's mouth spreading even as she brought up the energy to smile back. Trigger hopped down and trotted around them to behind Tami, her back to her own room's door.

“Everything went wrong, and yet we came out of it. Y'know why?”

Tami looked over her shoulder. “Why, Captai-eek!”

Hair Trigger's foreleg hugged her from behind, pulling the back of the soft and quickly giggling hippogriff's head to her chest, the other one ruffling through her thick mane, before pointing at each of the crew.

“Everything went wrong, but even with that, there was this crew to fall back on when it all fu...when it all went to hell.”

Chiding her own curse, feeling the day’s anger begin to fade from her own words to not need to express it as much now, she let Tami go.

“Asset surrounded herself with automation. Demanded people do things. She hired skills, and ‘things’, not people. She didn't have what I have here. What we have here. Others to hold on when luck throws the worst at you. Friends you can rely on behind you.”

Smile lived up to her name, her head angled to the side in a casual glance. “How eloquent, Captain. But...accurate.”

Kerfuffle nodded along eagerly, an unspoken 'what she said'.

Hair Trigger felt her heart well up, and she patted Tami's shoulder.

The young pilot looked up, then squished her cheek into Trigger's hoof, speaking cheerfully. “S'what makes a crew different from a crowd, Captain, that's what my dad said.”

“Smart guy. Now, if you excuse me, I got beat up by a big nasty hippogriff, so I'm gonna go lie down and groan for a while. Advise you all get some rest. We'll head back to Medusa tomorrow...then just see whatever the black's got to offer us next. So...g'night.”

She gave a brief wave, then limped back to her room.

Inside, the screens were still on the floor, and she tossed her broken multiband onto the desk. Dropping off her hat and hooded top, she didn't even bother with her night shirt; and instead just wandered naked to her bed.

Finally, finally this day was over. Finally, things going wrong were done.

Eager to relax and return to slumber, she threw herself back first onto it with a sigh.

And landed directly on the upturned charge plug she'd tossed onto her bed in anger that morning.

In the common room, three heads perked up in unison at the sudden cry and barrage of swearing muffled by the thick doors.

Volatility Smile got up, unable to stifle a smirk of pure schadenfreude. “Well then, Captain's orders. Off to bed.”

She moved to her own room, the door closing behind her before her laughter got loud enough to be heard.

After a brief hug from the big griffon, Tami flew off upstairs, returning to her own 'quarters'.

Kerfuffle, now alone in the common room, was left to turn out the lights for the impromptu night cycle. One by one, he moved around to dull them in both decks, taking his usual tour of the ship before turning in. Making sure that all was good - that all was now fine - before returning to his own doorway.

Holding it open, he paused and gently patted his hand on the frame; on the wall of the ship. Leaning in, he whispered gently.

“Don't worry, she meant you too.”

He closed his door and Claudia fell silent, ending one more day.

One more day of a crew needing to come together, to rely on one another and to find a way around whatever the galaxy held in store. Even when chance tried its best to pull them down.

One more day reminding them why it wasn't easy to live in the stars.

But also one more day to remember that it was the spirit of working together in overcoming hardship that had brought all species off of that now distant single planet in the first place.

One more day for the difference between a crowd and a crew.

And between crew and family.

A system away by now, a ship drifted aimlessly in the black. Sparking and blackened about its nose, it turned over and over. And within its bridge, between the sparking remains of two bridge consoles, a very angry unicorn sat in a burnt suit, and mused.

Her backside hurt. The new second horn of a lump on her head hurt. Her pride hurt. Soon enough, her wallet would probably hurt too.

Around her, ponies ran in circles trying to regain some sort of control, but their employer was silent. Eventually, she reached out for a communicator and punched in a number back to Kavala III.

“Yes, Pearl? Cancel tomorrow. All of it.” Asset Margin paused, and glared through the cracked display screen to the stars outside. “And get me the special contractor list ready.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“I'm not letting this go.”

This story was written after one of the darker periods in game, as an introspective on how Tami, an otherwise energetic and bright character, was getting on with the horrors she was encountering in the game. (Thanks, Games Master!) As it was approaching Halloween last year, I decided to return blending to a genre that I absolutely love writing...

This one is a bit more connected with the tabletop story, but I've tried to offer the best context I could to account for new characters, and a change in the point in time.

Within the spiralling stars of a galaxy, there were gulfs of darkness, far greater in distance and relative size than any map or travel schedule would have anyone believe.

And within that great darkness, known as the black to those who traversed it, there was a ship.

Silver-grey, highlighted in dark off-blue panels, it gently turned in a slow spiral of its own, completing its rotation once only every hour. Alone. Alone in the black, caught in the dark between stars, a gulf so vast that a sane mind could scarcely grasp the true scale of it, let alone that of the galaxy beyond.

And every time it turned, on the hour, every hour, the faint lights of its hull illuminated its name.

Claudia.

Those same lights, even if they could reach those worlds that might see them, would have taken years to arrive.

Having stopped between jumps in this great emptiness to rest from her efforts, Claudia was alone to a degree that defied simple understanding.

Upon her hull, above those telling letters, the glass of her bridge turned with her. The reactive tinting of the windows was at its lowest setting this far from light, leaving little sense of any difference between the void outside, and the dark, empty bridge behind them.

Two seats stood before an elaborate cluster of darkened screens, their standby modes active, and small photos stuck onto their rims, visible only as muddy shapes. The hammock behind them was unoccupied, its blankets hanging untidily off of it. The patterns and colours on the fabric were scarcely discernible in the faint aura of a multiband’s blinking light upon the floor below them, the flashing battery icon indicating that it was reaching critical battery levels.

The door to the bridge was open, revealing the way to the so called 'main street', the dorsal corridor that led from the bridge to engineering.

At this moment, engineering was only a vague hint, as light from the reactor core within it gave a dull ambience to the relatively distant compartment and highlighted the two ladders before it that led to the cargo bay.

And in there, within the hold, was near silence. Large containers filled either side of a primary hatch on the deck itself, looming quietly in their lightless hold. Between them, the hatch was slightly ajar, the trails of LEDs within it revealing the small cockpit of an attached ship. A tiny speck of light that nonetheless became like some form of a beacon.

Past them, from beyond two closed and sealed doors, was the source of the only noise in the cargo bay.

Behind those doors: an oasis of light, and sound, and warmth.

“For crying out loud, he doesn't even have his unit badge on the right side of his tac-vest! That one didn't exist till years later, either!”

Hair Trigger rolled her eyes, lifting a bit of popcorn from a bowl below the common room's sofa to toss with her magic at the source of the interruption. She'd have used her hooves for the satisfaction of hurling it, had they not been tightly wrapped around a comfortably fluffy unicorn.

“For the twelfth damn time, Swan! It's just a movie!”

The popcorn bounced off the mane of an irate hippogriff sitting at the far side of the room by the table, an ex-Solar Empire soldier hired to bolster security aboard. Swan, grumpy and picky as the day they’d met him, dropped the bottle from his mouth and held up his other hand, palm-open, at the screen.

“Details! What schmuck did they get as advisor? Some FNG who only stayed in for the warm meals and called himself a damned vet despite only fighting with the barracks fridge? Look! That one's got a Kalsen Mark Eight-Oh-Two! Those were only issued a year ago!”

The common room's large flat-panel screen gave a good view of the clean, finely crafted rifle in the hooves of a menacing looking civil war-era Empire soldier. He stalked through the ruins of a burning, rustic village, with the shot panning to reveal the frightened face of a slit-eyed batpony just barely hidden from her assailant.

Swan sighed. “Why isn't he using his heat-scanner? We all had them for counter-insurgency to root out the Lunatics being that slippery. And where's his guardian angel? We always moved in twos and-”

Volatility Smile, sat on the opposite side of the table, made a loud groan and clamped her hooves to her face, slipping down in her chair in utter exasperation.

“Because absolutely no-one cares!”

“I care!” Swan countered, looking back around just in time to catch the end of the batpony having managed to pull the pin on one of the unicorn's grenades, and diving out of the homestead just as it exploded. Relieved and triumphant music slid in, tinged with a mournful bittersweet violin as she was able to be picked up by a ship that had been looking for her and her child, the last evacuees off world.

At the sight of static text before the credits noting how many supporters of Princess Luna had died on that world prior to evacuation during the war, Swan just went back to his drink with a grumble. “Empress-damned propaganda...”

Across the room, upon the sofa, Tundra Gem rubbed a hoof through his short beard as though thinking for a moment. “Actually, while it was a League production, I believe those numbers are quite close to reali-”

Hair Trigger's hoof tapped on Tundra’s mouth, and she shook her head with a grin.

“Isn't worth it, sweetie. Isn't worth it.”

The tap turned into a little stroke at his beard, and she caught the flush of red on his cheeks as he tried his best to confidently smile it off. She did like that look on his face. The 'trying so hard to look all at ease that it turns obvious' look. Hair Trigger had been developing ways to make it happen, and thus far had enough material that she figured a book entitled 'Wizards and How to Startle Them' wouldn't be too tall an order.

“Yes, probably.” Tundra moved her hoof down with a grasp of his stronger magic. “Besides, it's quite late. Too late for digging out sources and conflicting evidence, I suspect.”

“If that's your way of trying to hint for us to get into bed, Gemmy-boy...” Trigger waggled her eyebrows.

Tundra coughed, his eyes rapidly looking past her shoulder, as though hoping the others hadn't heard it.

“Well, I just meant you've got an arrival back at Medusa tomorrow and-”

“Hey, I'm not complaining if it is.” Hair Trigger smirked. “It's a step up from me needing to spell out that I was wanting you to-”

“Okay, okay! I get it!” Tundra rapidly interjected, his eyes perpetually looking past his marefriend, before giving her a playful nudge. “You know they trained me to confront the surreal unknowns and mysteries of the galaxy, and yet you take the cake for catching me unaware.”

“You know it.” Hair Trigger let herself be shoved, not letting up on her smile, before turning to the rest to announce them turning in. Even before she spoke, she could see Volatility Smile and Swan were grabbing the rubbish from the night's snacks.

Yet closer, Kerfuffle and Tammani sat together at the bottom of the stairs. The enormous griffon was hunched over, sat on one of the steps. Trigger couldn't see which underneath his thick feathers.

Below him, Tami sat on her beanbag, her back resting on Kerfuffle's chest.

They both looked tired. Kerfuffle's head was hung, his arms limp by his sides. Only his talons lightly toying with the edge of the steps gave an indication he was awake.

Tami, however, was looking woozy. Her upper body was wavering, her eyes staring blankly into the floor.

“Tam?”

There was no reply. Hair Trigger raised her voice a little.

“Hey, Tam!”

This time, the hippogriff snapped upwards, blinking rapidly.

“Oh? Oh, uh, Captain?”

Patting Tundra's hoof with her own as she got up, Hair Trigger lowered her tone and wandered closer to her pilot.

“Snooze cruise? You look ready to keel over.”

On cue, Tami yawned. Hair Trigger had seen them before, and remembered them well. Tami had quite a dramatic yawn when she was exhausted. Her mouth opened wide, her wings stretched out to the sides, and she emitted a quiet little groan, before it all sharply sank down, like the will had just gone out of her muscles.

“Jus' tired, Captain...”

Giving Kerfuffle a rub with her hoof to stir him as well, Hair Trigger moved gently and slowly. It’d only been a few days since they had all gone through quite an experience back on Medusa on Tundra's ship, and she'd seen how rattled the pair before her now had been.

That, in fact, had been the reason she'd accepted this low profit pickup job. Get everyone back out in the black for a bit. Get them working, get them time around one another away from everything else. A quick trip to help them reset, and a couple extra movie nights to boot.

In truth, she'd needed it herself as well; but the crew had to come first.

“Reckon it's late for you two now, Tam. Report to bed and hammock. That's an order.”

Kerfuffle spluttered and shook his head. “Aye-aye, Cap'n.”

“Aye, Captain...” Tami muttered from below, rubbing her eyes.

There was a quick sound behind them: a metal door opening and shutting. Turning her head, Hair Trigger caught side of a dark earth pony moving out of the door beside the sofa. Tall, wiry, moving with purpose, and bearing two piercing golden eyes, Whisper Step exited what had become her quarters.

Hair Trigger gave her a quiet nod and saw a fraction of the same in return. Hair Trigger regarded the stern, dangerous mare for a moment as she watched the agent move past them toward the kitchen, before turning and winking at Tami.

“And if Whisper's up, then you know it's past bedtime for all of us. Go on, shoo.”

Giving the pair of them an overacted ushering, she was pleased to see the small smirk it got from the pilot. Hustling her crew away, Hair Trigger finally turned and lit her horn, grasping Tundra's beard to 'encourage' him over.

“C'mere loverboy, need a fuzzy chest as a pillow.”

Cantering over with his chin poked out from the magic, Tundra just scoffed, before his own horn lit instead.

“If you're going to test me with telekinesis...”

Before Hair Trigger knew what was happening, she felt the tingling grasp of magic around her, carting her off to her own room. Wiggling her legs, she eventually crossed the front ones as she floated away with a look of indignation on her face.

“It's mutiny then.”

“And you always say I'll pay for it until someone gives you a really tight hug.”

The door closed behind them, leaving the deadpan expression of a spy rolling her eyes into her coffee.

Climbing the stairs out of the common room, Tami felt an odd sensation, like a shift in the atmosphere.

The 'main street' dorsal corridor was dark. A sharp and sudden contrast to the light coming from below her. With everyone else moving into their rooms, and only the generally silent Whisper Step left below her, any sounds of her friends talking were quickly deadened by inches of bulkhead.

She'd moved only a few feet vertically, and yet it felt so much further. Moving between decks in ships was always an unusual transition, especially when running on the night cycle with most compartments left on low level lighting only.

Pausing at the top of the stairs, she turned and glanced down the main street, spotting the heavy glow emitting from the reactor’s core at the far end. She could only barely see the shape of the walls and piping down the dorsal corridor in the darkness between her and engineering. Lit only by a couple of panels on the walls, the whole tunnel felt so much longer and deeper, like staring into the abyss. It held the same feeling of looking into a living room at night on the way to a bedroom; when one’s own home didn't feel quite as cosy any more out of the full light.

Normally, the feeling wouldn't have bothered her. Tami had gone on wanders more than once before through Claudia during the night cycle. Knowing Claudia was a sealed environment gave her a comforting sensation amidst the thrill of exploring the dark places on board.

As of late, in particular since a few days ago, those feelings had been harder to come by and she had slept restlessly. Often since the events in Tundra's vessel, she had woken drenched in sweat, feeling like she had just forgotten something the moment she'd opened her eyes. Forgotten something that made her heart clench tight, and left her wondering if she was lucky to not know. It was always the same sensation she'd felt when waking up on board the Lady of the Lake, like all the details were just inches away, concealed within a ghostly fog of memory that she could feel, but never describe.

Tami figured the others thought she was just being quiet and wanting peace. But in truth, it was simply because she was exhausted, having not caught much more than four or five hours sleep at any time-often less-in sporadic bursts. Once, Kerfuffle had come across her while she had been tearing up for no reason she could understand. Embarrassed, she had still held onto his neck as he had stood by her hammock and leaned in to cover her with a wing for a few minutes.

Feeling her eyes grow heavy, Tami turned away from the dark of the dorsal passage and eased herself into the bridge.

Here, at least, she felt safer.

The bridge was her true home. The moment she stepped into it, she felt her heart lift to see the sights. It was just as quiet and just as dark, yet darkness in here wasn't the absence of light, it was the presence of the cosmos, filled with its gentle colours that glimmered in the far distance. A serene and gentle vista. A view into infinity that helped her breathing remain steady and relaxed all her anxieties. It was a different black, not of unknown shadows, but of tranquillity.

All the same, she made sure to switch on several of the monitors, letting their 'dark mode' colours cast more light into the bridge with diagnostics, navigation data, and even just a few idle-screens of famous celestial phenomena she'd chosen. It gave the bridge some more illumination; made it feel more comfortable and familiar.

Briefly, Tami considered that if she felt the need to do that, then maybe there wasn't as much a feeling of safety on the bridge as she'd thought.

Instead, leaning on the back of her pilot's chair, Tami stood on her hooves and watched the void, imagining what every glint might be and spotting her favourite constellations. She'd always done it to calm down. Indulge in her truest love. To be out here. To stare at her dream from within it.

Finally managing to draw up the will to smile again, she dressed for bed, set her multiband on charge, and clambered into her hammock.

Under the soft hue of glow-in-the-dark stickers on the ceiling above her, Tami shoved the wall with a wing to set the hammock swaying, and cocooned herself in the soft thermal blanket.

“G'night, Claudia...”

Muttering the words, she knew they were pointless. Relaxed or not, it took her a long time to sleep now. It was frustrating to feel so tired yet so unable to just switch off.

There was always the anxiety. The dreaded worries. Worries about what she'd seen. Worries about why she felt so scared, vulnerable and unsafe. And above all, worries about why those feelings just wouldn’t let go of her.

And so she hazily dozed, drifting half into sleep before opening her eyes time and again.

She was waiting. Waiting for the time she'd open them and feel the grip at her chest and the sweat on every inch of her body. Waiting for the one restless waking up where she'd suddenly realise she had slept just long enough for some unknown terror to have gripped her, and then been forgotten again the moment she woke up.

Three nights in a row now.

Slowly, Tami felt the world become that bit more muffled, and her body that much more still. And as she felt her eyes close, there was one last creeping wash of dread.

She knew. She knew it would happen, and she couldn't stop it. Not herself.

Never hersel-

She gasped. So sharply and suddenly, that her whole body jerked, a violent spasm shooting through her. Feeling a sudden shock of cold run through her whole body, like she’d fallen in polar waters, Tami yanked the blanket in tightly, hunching herself as much as she could.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she realised she had drifted off for some indeterminate time and was now shaking terribly from icy temperatures.

“Wh-wh-what?”

Struggling to open her heavy eyes, she found everything blurry and sore to look at. The glare of screens, like hazy lens flares, made her squash them shut again. She could feel her heart rattling at multiple beats a second and dampness on her cheeks. An unseen, freezing hand ran beneath her skin with crooked claws and clutched at her heart.

She felt terrified. Terrified and cold. And she didn't know why.

Something was deeply wrong, and Tami fought against her sleepiness to try to force her numb body to awaken. She groggily wondered if temperature control had broken down in the night, and the ship had only now gotten cold enough to wake her.

“Oh gosh, right...right...”

She made to open her eyes, rubbing them to clear her sight.

And as she looked out from her hammock, every single source of light on the bridge suddenly cut.

She jumped in fright. A loud bang of powerful electronics sharply powering down thumped into the darkness around her; monitors shut to black and low-level lighting thudded off all at once. LEDs below switches disappeared, and the hazy glow of Claudia's external lights that eeked into the fringes of the bridge windows snapped away entirely. Even the emergency lighting didn’t trigger.

In the distance she heard the reactor emit a strangled, tortured scream, quickly winding down, before its ever-present hum disappeared entirely.

Within her single held breath, Tami was plunged into such pitch black that she could not even see her own hammock.

And through the windows, there was nothing. No stars. No colours.

Just black.

A suddenly very enveloping, and menacing, black.

Limbs frantically flailing to try and get feeling back into them, Tami fell from her hammock to an unsteady landing on her hands and hooves. The deck was biting and prickly, like a sheet of ice, while the thick and motionless air grasped at her. A feeling like she had fallen into a chilly lake sunk into her skin, and Tami shivered powerfully as she huddled and staggered toward the pilot's chair.

Panic was settling in. She was navigating by memory alone. A ship without power this far out had nothing like enough light to see anything inside it. The emergency lighting had failed, telling her this was no normal outage.

“Right, right...warn, assess, act.”

Reciting the mantra that all space-goers were taught, she fumbled around until she found her chair. Pawing her hands over it, she started reaching up until she found the PA system's handset. It was connected to its own power supply, purposefully disconnected from the rest of the ship.

Holding the button down, she instinctively looked out the windows.

Or at least, the direction where the windows mere feet away would be. Now, they hidden in the darkness, and she couldn’t tell where the bridge ended, and space began.

“Captain? Captain are you awake?”

Letting go of the button, she waited. Those few seconds of dead silence dragged longer and longer with every one of her rapid heartbeats. Quaking, holding her wings around herself for warmth, she pressed it again.

“Kiffie? Anyone?”

Only this time did she think to realise that she'd set it to broadcast in all compartments, and she couldn't hear it from the main street behind her.

The PA was dead.

Biting her lip, she heard herself make a strangled, fearful whimper. Tami rushed across toward her multiband. She couldn't see it, and found herself blundering into the hammock again while clasping around frantically. It had been on charge; it would be ready.

Yet as her hands found it to yank it up, pressing the power button resulted in nothing. Its screen was blank. She could still feel the cord attached, and began to wonder how long ago some systems had started cutting out. How long had she slept through it until the cold woke her up?

“Oh no, please...”

Grabbing her blanket down from above her, she wrapped it around herself and began trying to find her way to the door. She had to get the others up. If only to fight off the suffocating, alien sense of isolation creeping in at the edge, mixed with a growing concern as to just how bad this was. What it they couldn't reactivate the reactor? What if they were left to freeze in here?

“Nooo...”

Shaking her head, she located and pulled at the cold metal of the bulkhead door to the bridge.

Behind it was nothing but a black void.

The main street would normally have stretched out from her door, illuminated by the reactor at the far end and a couple of small lights. Now it was as though she'd opened a door from nothing...into nothing.

Tami stopped and gasped sharply. She could hear something.

Distantly, coming from somewhere far off, she could hear the sound of a bell. One similar to a shrill school bell, faintly and continuously ringing in the dark.

She didn't recognise it, but the sound set her nerves alight with tension and made her gut clench.

Leaving the door open, Tami carefully crept through, aware of stairs just in front of her. Using her wings as guides, she felt one brush against a railing and gripped onto it, gasping as the ice-cold surface shot up through her wing-stem. Descending step by step toward the pitch dark common room, Tami saw no further light down there either.

Quickly, a thought came to her.

“Whisper?”

She gasped the word by accident, before gulping and trying to get her chattering teeth to work with her.

“Whisper, are you still up? Whisper! Are-yah!”

She stumbled forward, tripping over her own beanbag. Landing hard on her side, Tami squeaked and flailed until she could get back up, feeling empty bottles and food packets slide out from under her. She hadn't even realised she'd reached the bottom until her hand hadn't found another step to land on.

The ringing was louder down here, hammering in her ears and distractingly loud, as though she were in direct sight of the source now. Turning around as she stood up, Tami realised she'd lost all sense of direction. The sound was coming from her right side, but she no longer knew what part of the common room that meant.

She felt numb from the cold shock. The adrenaline spike on waking up was being stifled and worn down. Frustratingly, her mind felt full of cotton wool, unable to think clearly.

Moving forward, she found a chair in the black void, but that meant nothing. Chairs had been everywhere last night.

Putting each step in front of another, slowly, spreading her wings out, she moved further in. Or away. Or back the way she'd come. Her hand came down into a sticky mess, likely left by a soft drink that had spilled, and soon her every step with hand and hoof was having to pull up with a little more effort.

Tami walked, and walked, until an impossible, irrational thought began to settle in her mind.

She had walked far enough that even if she'd started at one corner and gone toward the furthest one, she'd have found the other wall by now.

“What's going on?”

She vocalised the words, but they felt tiny - absorbed by the still air. Frantic, Tami began to theorise. Had she walked into the cargo hold by accident? No, the floor was still sticky. Ended up turned around on the spot? Improbable.

As each option presented itself, she felt her mind starting to rest on one far more terrifying possibility. One she immediately shut down and tried to forget about.

“No, no...I can't remember them every time. I don't ever feel them during it...”

Shaking her head, Tami rushed forward. At this point she didn't care if she hit or tripped on anything. She just wanted something, anything to tell her where she was. That ringing was getting painfully loud. She ran across the sticky floor, and suddenly barreled into the edge of the table. The lip struck her in the side, knocking her over with a pained yelp.

Lying on the floor, feeling wet all over her body and clothes from the syrupy puddles of spilled drinks, Tami curled up.

“Please! Someone wake up! WAKE UP! HELP!”

There was no reply. Her words echoed away into the nearby cargo hold, returning to her after an unusually long time as though the atmosphere around her had suddenly forgotten that an echo had to come back.

Feeling her whole body clamp up in terror, she grabbed the nearest chair and clung onto it, her claws scraping the thin metal. Anything to give her some sense of solidity in the pitch dark.

She felt alone. So very, very alone. More than anybody ever should with their friends mere feet away, seemingly unaware of the disaster unfolding on their ship.

Sniffling, Tami then noticed something at the edge of her vision.

Opening her eyes wider, she could see a hazy line. A white, glowing crack, like the underside of a door with a light behind it.

Someone was up!

Scrambling, pulling herself up, Tami took off and flew unsteadily toward it.

“Hey! HEY! Whisper, is that you? Whisper!”

Nearly colliding with the door itself, recognising it as Claudia’s bathroom, she frantically grasped at the handle, twisting it down and giving it a strong pull, throwing it open. The light cascaded over her, hurting her eyes, but bearing a relieving ambience to it after the dead space behind her.

Standing in the doorway and squinting hard, Tami endured the stinging glare of the light source until she could get a look at what was there, desperate for another person or even just a place of illumination.

Yet, as her vision adjusted, she instead gasped.

She wasn't looking at Claudia's bathroom.

It took her a few seconds to recognise it, but eventually she knew. She knew all too well.

Before her, through the door, lay the captain’s quarters of the Starweaver. Equipment and beds were strewn around, with fallen utensils and ripped bandages. The wall, the floor, and everything within it caked in a slick red.

Blood.

Blood, but no bodies.

Feeling her voice stolen from her, Tami stared into it with a gradually mounting whine caught in her throat. It was impossible. It was beyond impossible, and it lent power to the theory she had been suppressing and deeply hoping would not be true.

“No...no...no, Captain!”

Fully intending to rush right into Hair Trigger's quarters, she turned back to the common room - and screamed in horror until she fell back and collided with the kitchen unit behind her. Tami’s eyes remained locked on to what lay ahead of her, even as plates collapsed over and around her, shattering on the ground.

The door she had opened lit up the common room, exchanging total blackness for more varied - yet darkened - colours. She could see the doors of all of her friends’ quarters, all of them with a sickly, red liquid slowly oozing from below each door of a room that she knew would be occupied.

“No, no!”

Choking on her voice, she could see the puddles of it had reached where she'd been, leaving a trail of it near the table. Looking down at her stained hands, hooves, body and blanket, she realised she had been wrong about spilled drinks the whole time.

Tami knew she was right now. She knew this wasn't a power loss, or sabotage, or an event horizon being crossed.

She knew what she was trapped in now.

Fighting back to her hooves, she backed away from the bleeding edges of the doors. Nothing now could have made her dare approach them, and instead she fled into the cargo bay.

The moment she passed into it, the bell grew to a horrendous, unbearable volume. Its sound warped and twisted, as though sensing her coming closer. It was coming from a singular red light at the centre, on the control panel for the crane and floor airlock. The crimson aura it emitted mixed with the white light from behind her, dimly casting eerie, two tone rays across the hold.

Looking all around her, holding her head with bloodied hands from the thumping noise, Tami paused to try and get her breath. Every sucking of air felt laboured and painful. Her lungs felt numb, and yet the freezing air stabbed at them on every inhalation.

“Please let this end! End now! Just end!”

Tami knew where she was. She knew what had happened. Knocking her own head or body hadn't worked to break it. Knowing what it was hadn't helped. In a single, immature and desperate moment, she came to an insane conclusion to get back to her hammock. Would it even help? She'd never felt one this vivid, this self-realised. This was the stuff of-

Well, yeah.

She was struck by the sudden and dread-filled thought that perhaps she would have to live it all through. Endure whatever horrors it threw at her. Just like before...

Feeling her cheeks start to dampen, Tami dropped her red-stained blanket on the deck, hardly even realising she’d somehow kept hold of it, and paced back and forth.

Hammock. Bed.

It was the only thing she knew she could do, if she even had a choice in the matter any more.

Looking ahead of her, she saw one of the two ladders leading up to the main street. From there it was a straight run to the bridge.

“Okay...okay!”

Urging her legs into motion, she ran toward it.

Before she was even halfway, a deafening voice broke through the bell's painful volume. Electronically tinged, coming from every speaker throughout the ship, speaking as the ship itself.

“CARGO BAY AIRLOCKS OPENING.”

The female voice was not Claudia. But she did recognise it from the other end of a call long ago. Mocking and smug, it had once preceded her overhearing Whisper’s agony.

Stopping briefly in shock, Tami looked up, and then around her as she heard the metallic bangs of locks being disengaged. Stark fear ran through her as the bell that had been running suddenly cut, and was replaced by the blaring of a depressurisation alarm. Red lights flashed from the roof of the cargo bay. Screaming, Tami willed her limbs into operation and galloped for the ladder.

“Stop! Stop! I'm in here still! STOP!”

The doors to either side of the cargo bay rolled open with two violent clangs. Seconds later, so did the large one in the floor, before the gigantic main door followed suit. A sharp hiss gave way to the bassy roar of rushing air. Tami screamed, grabbing around the ladder as tightly as she could, feeling her clothes, mane, tail, and wings blown backwards and forwards as air whirled in an indecisive cyclone around the bay as it fought for which open door to blast out of. Daring to look back, she saw the black through them all, as Claudia's internals were exposed to a nebulous vacuum. Her ears popped, her skin felt like it was burning, and yet she summoned all she could to keep climbing.

Tami fought to grip tight, and to yank herself up the ladder, feeling air tearing at her body. Her wings were thrown painfully back, threatening to rip her from the rungs. Her own mane blinded her, its size like a great hand around her head trying to drag her back down. Back toward one of the doors. Cold tendrils, wrapping around any part of her they could reach, tugging her, constricting her attempts to escape, trying to capture her and drag her out there with them.

The roar of rushing air grew to a peak. Alarms, wind, bells, and the clattering as boxes and the small gym were all sent tumbling across the floor and ejected into the void assaulted her senses. Her hands felt loose on the searing icy cold ladder, slipping from sweat and blood as she pushed up rung after rung.

Squealing, she slipped, and her lower body was immediately pulled away from the ladder, leaving her hanging by the grip of her talons.

"ENGAGING EMERGENCY JUMP."

“NO!”

Familiar terrors quickly returned, spurring her to strain forward and grasp the ledge of the hatch at the top of the ladder. A mounting whine, and crackling of unnatural magical energy began to build around her as she pulled, got her hooves on the rungs again, and yanked herself through the hatch.

Crying aloud with the pain and the effort, she turned, moving to slam it shut. Yet even as she looked back down, the hurricane of air blasting out of Claudia began to settle. Below her, she could see stars through the floor airlock, and realised the impossible logic that she could still breathe, even after all the air had been blown out.

As though whatever that had been only cared about getting her.

Head still hurting, she didn't even try to think about it, slamming the hatch shut and falling against the wall to hold her head in her hands. Her home felt dark and dangerous now, as the realisation of what she was stuck inside was fully beginning to land on her heart. Using her hands to shake herself, she pleaded and whispered over and over.

“Let me out...please, let me out...make it end.”

Even as the decks rattled and shook from the sensation of a jump to FTL speeds, she whimpered and shivered on the spot scarcely knowing what to do, or if she even could do anything.

"Let you out? So soon?"

Tami's eyes bolted open, her pupils becoming tiny pinpricks as she heard the voice. Male, calm and confident, tinged with just a little sense of playful amusement.

Her blood turned cold. Lowering her quivering hands, Tami turned her head to stare toward the engineering compartment's open door.

In the darkness within it, there were two vividly green eyes gazing at her, one of them warped and damaged, like something was blocking it. Around them, there was only a vague hint of an outline. A slender body with snapping bat wings, blacker than the shadows it was hidden within, bleeding and vague at its every edge, like dark ink running through charcoal.

"And I thought we were just starting to bond last time.”

From engineering, even in shadow, Tami could see a thicker, more complete darkness start to emerge. Crawling, slithering only at the corners of her vision, as the terrifying shape moved toward the doorway itself with malicious intent, its steps altogether too slow for how fast it was moving.

“It's just in my head! Tundra said the magic was gone! I'm just having a-a-”

She didn't finish, screaming aloud. Throwing herself forward, she slammed the door to the reactor shut and ran back toward the bridge. Within a couple seconds, she felt her right side erupt into a gripping, burning, and yet utterly familiar pain. She almost collapsed with a gasp, whole body travelling slower than she willed it, as though she were trying to run through an unseen mud that gripped at her every motion.

“Ngh! No! Come on! Please!”

Feeling dragged down, Tami nearly fell forward, feeling like she were having to draw and strain every one of her limbs. Gritting her teeth, she held her side and pulled herself toward a door that only seemed to keep moving away from her. There was nothing holding her back, but she felt weak. Trapped. Like half her body was suddenly made of lead.

And with every step she could feel, rather than see, a darkness coming up behind her. He was coming. He was coming for her. Just her. She had his full attention and no-one else to help her.

Running, then struggling, then pulling, then crawling. Digging her talons into the mesh sections of the floor panels, she pulled, and pulled, and cried, and pulled.

A dull, distant rumble of a void, like the wind in a cave opening, began to pass over her. She couldn’t even see the door to the bridge any more, and the sounds of his hooves on the metal were only getting closer, accompanied by an amused little chuckle at her fear. She whined, and haphazardly threw her body forward with as strong a flap of her wings as she could muster.

“NO!”

Finally grasping the railings around the stairwell. Tami tugged herself up by them. Hauling around them, she cried out at the sight of those same baleful eyes looking up at her from the black void of the common room below.

“And we never even got to what I'd promised you.”

Bleeding out of the dark, it came for her, rising up from the stairwell until it leered over her. Its transparent wings gave a leathery flap, the snap blowing a chill air and the smell of sweat, blood, and urine over her. Shrieking, Tami fell as she tried to back away from it.

Hitting the floor, she realised she’d fallen into the bridge, tripping on the frame of the door. Panting hard, sweating even in the frigid ship, Tami grabbed the door and tried to throw it closed. The door jammed inches before it shut, and the sickly-coloured eyes drew up only inches from her face, staring through the last remaining crack. Unblinking eyes surrounded by a shifting, melting face. Stainless white teeth - including two sharp fangs - made a cocky, almost flirtatious smirk.

“You do remember?”

In the distance, from down the stairwell, ghostly, helpless shrieks echoed. All of them familiar voices. The oily, dripping face blew her a silent kiss, as though seeing her distress at the torturous sounds.

“Don't you?”

Tami pushed the door closed, locked it with shaking hands, and then turned her back against it, clutching her searing torso. Her knees buckled from some unseen force, and she fell with a scream. Behind her, the door began to shudder and vibrate, as though coming to life all on its own. The locks that sealed it were moving all on their own.

“I want to wake up!” Tami shrieked the words as she fled from the door. She began pawing and clambering for her hammock, the only thing she could even vaguely think of. “Let me wake up! PLEASE! Let me wake up!”

Using her wings to lift herself, Tami finally lunged for the hammock. Getting into what had once been the safest place she could ever think of, childishly trying to hide beneath the blanket, she quivered and waited.

Waited.

She heard the faint rumbling of the locks coming undone and squeaked in terror, gripping her thin pillow so tightly that her claws dug into her own palms.

“Wake up...wake up, please, I want to-”

The door opened.

The rumbling grew until it was an ever-present, suffocating atmosphere about her. Enveloping her. She heard the soft sound of hooves on metal, echoing within a bridge that never normally echoed.

Tami closed her wet eyes tightly, whimpering as she heard it coming, and then squealing as her blanket was violently torn off of her.

Slowly, first hearing the skitter of metal on metal, she felt and saw thin wire cables slithering over the ground, reaching up and lashing tightly around every wrist and ankle. She was paralysed, unable to stop them winding around and around. She was unable to move at all.

“Just like I promised. Do not worry.”

A mouth with ice-cold breath began nuzzling its dry lips into the inner side of her ear. It spoke quietly, as though trying to be reassuring; an unseen hoof caressing its way through her mane.

"You'll be joining agent Whisper soon enough."

Eyes fully open, she stared directly forward as she heard a distant, helpless, and painfully familiar scream from somewhere in the darkness. The cables suddenly tugged hard, and her body was ripped from her hammock. Behind her, what had once been the pilot's seat rotated, now looking like a seat used for a much more malicious purpose, the wire dragging her frozen body toward it.

As she neared it, unable to move anything but her eyes, she saw the ends of the wire connected to a charged electric battery. She felt a very new, very terrifying reshuffling of priorities in her mind.

Don't let me remember this when I wake up.

Tami felt the cables tighten. They roughly dragged her into the chair. Tears rolled down her paralyzed, unblinking face.

Please, don't let me remember this.

A leathery wing stroked her cheek from behind. “Now, it’s your turn.”

Please...

She closed her eyes, heard the searing crack of a static discharge, and jerked violently as she screamed and-

-fell, until the deck came up to meet her.

Hearing her own awful scream still echoing off the plate metal, she landed hard, collapsing in a heap. Tami flailed and spasmed in fright, fighting with her own blanket on the ground in blind terror.

Drenched in sweat, her throat feeling rough, Tami pulled herself out of the blanket, blinked and looked around at the dark bridge, her stomach feeling twisted and hollow. Twinkling stars and the idle screens of displays gave off enough light around her to see. It was still the night cycle.

All thoughout her body she felt gripped by fear, and yet she couldn't remember what from.

For a moment, there was silence.

And then she heard the sudden clatter of approaching hooves.

Pushing herself back from the entrance to the bridge, Tami felt her skin tighten in fear.

The door was knocked open, slamming loudly against the wall. A tall pony came barrelling through, rushing into the bridge with purpose and a submachine gun held at the ready.

“Tami!?”

Golden-yellow eyes swivelled around, and Whisper Step quickly spotted the hippogriff lying in a tangled heap with her blanket on the floor.

After a second, as the spy realised there was no true danger, the weapon was lowered, and Tami saw her aggressive, focused stance abate slightly.

“I heard you scream.”

“I...I did? I mean, sorry, I did...” Tami lowered her eyes away from the piercing gaze, before cradling her face in both hands, feeling tears still emerging.

Above her, the stoic agent stood in place, looking back at the door she'd come through, before making a quiet sigh. Hooking the weapon back on her suit, Whisper spoke quietly, yet her words were terse. “Are you all right?”

Habitual instinct made Tami want to nod, but after three nights of this, she simply lacked the energy to summon any real resistance to the query. Sniffling, she gently shook her head, her voice pitching up and cracking as she struggled for just one word.

“No...”

There was a long pause. Tami sat and held her head, feeling wholly embarrassed to sob so openly in front of a pony she looked up to greatly, while Whisper Step just stood still and looked around the bridge. Whisper looked behind her at the door a couple of times, as though impatient to get back to something.

Then, finally, after ten seconds of silence, Whisper took a slow breath and spoke up.

“Tell me.”

“What?” Tami gasped, looking up; her eyes glazed with dampness in the low light.

Whisper's face turned only partially toward her. She wasn't smiling. Her eyes were as piercing as ever, seeming to glow in the darkness.

“What's wrong. Tell me.”

Her mouth hanging open, Tami still took some seconds to process that. Even weeks into knowing her, Tami still felt apprehensive about exactly what she said to Whisper at any given time. Especially when alone.

Clutching around her blanket, Tami sat up properly and looked at the floor. Strangely, in an odd moment of realisation, Whisper's quiet pause struck her as unexpectedly comforting. Whisper wasn't forcing the issue, despite the stern tone. The spy was waiting for her, not rushing her to speak.

“I...” she began, before faltering and holding a hand to her face again. “Sorry...”

Whisper Step remained silent and serene in the low light of the bridge; half her face was illuminated by the spectrum of colours from a half hourly diagnostic beginning to flicker over the main display.

Tami tried again.

“I've been waking up at nights. Every time feeling...feeling scared, or screaming. Like something cruel was about to happen to me. I find stuff that was in the hammock with me spilled out, and I feel like I've been so terrified that my whole body's tense and sore, a-and then I d-don't sleep for the rest of the night. ‘Cos I'm too afraid...”

She sobbed, and grasped a portion of her own tangled mane in frustration.

“And I never remember what it was! Sometimes I think I know why b-but I just can't know and-”

Whisper Step cut through the babbling, not taking her eyes away from looking out the front of the ship.

“What do you think it is, then?”

Tami opened her mouth, and then sharply closed it. Anxiety flowed through her as she considered that question.

“I don't know...”

“You said you did. Or had an idea.” Whisper's voice was level. She turned her head back to Tami, even as she moved forward to lean against the back of the Captain's chair.

Panic was setting in. There was no way that Tami could bring herself to say it. She couldn't. Not now. Guilt was too ridden in her gut to dare broach the subject in present company, and she clammed up.

“S-sorry, I can't.”

It was a poor excuse. A telling one, to those trained to spot such things.

To those like Whisper Step.

“It's Cascavel, isn't it?”

The sudden opening of Tami's eyes to their fullest was an obvious confirmation of Whisper’s guess, and the hippogriff shook her head violently.

“No, no, it's-”

“And you're worried to say it is, because I'm here.”

If striking the real problem had been a target, Whisper would have scored a bullseye. Tami felt frozen in place all over again, uncertain how to even reply. How could she? After everything Whisper had been through, how could she sit here in front of the spy and cry about her own issues from those events with Cascavel? It felt wrong. Her own were less important than Whisper’s. Less intense. Tami knew she was only acting like this because she was weaker than Whisper, and it made her feel guilty.

Eventually, she just nodded in defeat.

“I'm sorry...”

She heard Whisper make a neutral sound in her throat, and the rustle of her clothing moving, even as Tami looked at the floor and felt ashamed.

“You had a rather traumatic accident a few years ago, didn't you?”

Tami's misty eyes crept open, hearing Whisper continue.

“One that badly hurt you, and not just physically. Correct?”

Feeling her heart skip, Tami swallowed, and meekly replied.

“...yes. How did-”

Whisper interrupted, “If Hair Trigger or Volatility Smile were to take the helm here, and collided with something that led either of them to harm, or to a loss in confidence...even if not to the same severity as your own experiences, what would you do?”

Licking her dry lips, Tami gulped and looked up at the spy. Whisper was half lounging against the side of Hair Trigger's seat, idly playing with the disabled flight control panel.

“I'd t-try to help them.”

Whisper's eyes suddenly moved to look at her, even though her head remained still. One eyebrow raised. It was a silent query, one Tami realised the meaning of after a couple seconds.

“O-oh...right. Sorry, I just didn't...” Tami trailed off, not knowing how to follow that up.

Eventually, Whisper let go of the yoke, letting it snap back into position, and turned more properly toward Tami.

“You're having night terrors. That much is obvious.”

Tami blinked, confused. “Is that a Republic euphemism for nightmare because of what that word means to-”

“No.” Whisper's voice was firm, but calm, before softening. “No, night terrors are different from nightmares. In simple terms, nightmares you remember, night terrors you do not. There's more to it that I'm sure a medical student could bore you with, but that is effectively what the main difference is. Thrashing and screaming in the night? Waking up in a panic feeling terrified of something, but only a vague idea as to why? That's what it is.”

Tami listened intently, surprised to hear Whisper speak at such length on a subject not related to her work.

“How do you know that so off-hand?”

Whisper, surprisingly, grinned.

“Now that one IS a Republic thing where the association with the night makes up a saying. When they trained us, they told us to be night terrors, not nightmares.” She winked, with a dangerous, playful smirk that betrayed the real nature of her job. “Because something you don't even know the nature of coming after you is a hell of a lot scarier than what you can remember and describe. That's what we do.”

To her own surprise, Tami felt her spirits lift a little at the boast, before fading quickly as she looked back at her hammock, and felt a dull pain in her hip where she'd landed on her side.

“And here I am just being just a stupid coward that's afraid of someone who's dead...and having childish nightmares or...or night terrors or whatever and bawling b-because I...I...”

She heard movement, and squeaked as she found Whisper suddenly walking directly toward her with a purpose, leaning in sharply to look her sternly eye to eye, mere inches away. Her voice was much more serious, and tinged with a darker -and incredibly insistent- tone.

“They. Are not. Childish.”

Eyes wide, Tami stared back, feeling herself quiver, worrying she'd implied something she really shouldn't have in her own self-degrading ramble.

Yet as fearsome as it was, the conviction in Whisper's voice drove home a change in perception to Tami's mind. If someone as strong as Whisper could say that about such problems...

The forceful expression on Whisper’s face dropped slightly, and she sat back.

“Have you been staying awake after them every time?”

Gently, Tami nodded.

“Then that's the problem. You're building a schedule, Tami. What you need is a good night's sleep.”

“But-!”

Whisper cut the fearful complaint off. “To get back to bed and sleep it off. Break that cycle you're getting yourself into.”

Tami didn't like the thought of where this was going, shaking her head frantically.

“No, no I can't face all that again! It's-it's awful! I can't remember, except in a way I can a-and...I don't want it again! I keep waking up alone and not knowing if it's real and even those few seconds are so awful, I can't do this! I-I need to be up in like, a few hours to do the next jump anyway s-so I should just stay up, really...”

Whisper's turn of expression was curious. Her hard eyes softened, before she stood up and unhooked her submachine gun from its harness.

“Get into the hammock. And sleep.”

“Whisper?”

Tami stood up as the spy wandered back over to Hair Trigger's seat, slid it back as far as it would go and sat sideways on it. Her dexterous hooves turned her weapon over, made it safe, opened a panel to remove its strange, stubby form of round, and hit a latch that sprung open the two-tone receiver to reveal its complicated internals. Moving it from side to side, Whisper began disassembling it before Tami's eyes.

“Always preferred to do it by starlight. You don't mind?” Whisper turned her head to look at the hippogriff. “I can be quiet, I promise.”

Her mouth hanging open, Tami finally caught up with Whisper’s real meaning, and nodded.

Whisper nodded back, then turned back to her cleaning. “Thank you. Good night, Tami.”

Tami didn't know what to think, other than that the reassurance, the act itself, made her realise truly how tired she was. Whisper was right that she needed sleep. She was scared, but as foalish as it seemed, knowing someone as capable as Whisper was right there made it feel, well, easier. Safer.

Silently, she backed away, and with a clumsy flap of her wings, rolled back up and into her hammock. Reaching down to her multiband on the floor, she groaned, realising how little sleep she'd be getting even if she were to drift off now. Yet even as she put it back down, she couldn't avoid the words quietly being blurted out.

“Whisper, thank you.”

The moment she spoke, Tami heard the sound of the weapon’s springs and hinges cease and spotted Whisper's eyebrow raise again in her direction, her voice gentle.

“When I woke up after only an hour the first night back here, I saw a comforting sight by my bed too.”

Clutching into her blanket, Tami honestly didn't know what to say.

“Eyes closed, Tami. It generally helps.”

“O-oh, sorry...okay. G'night...”

Closing her eyes, Tami's thoughts were overridden enough that any fears were a far distant second in priority. Thoughts of what Whisper meant about this or that. Or the reassuring sounds of components being undone or clicking back into place from just nearby with expert regularity. A presence. A quiet reminder to latch on to.

Within a minute, her limbs went loose, and Tami was asleep.

After a minute more, Whisper Step looked up and saw the pilot fast asleep.

Staring at Tami for some time, she finished her work on the weapon; her hooves clicked and snapped the pieces back together without even looking at them.

Getting up, she winced, and glanced down at her hooves, at the chipped edges and scar tissue from electric wire burns. That gallop upstairs to the bridge had made them hurt again, and she'd done her best to not dare show it in front of Tami.

That little thing had more than enough worries on her mind already without the physical reminders as well.

Trotting closer to the hammock, Whisper stood over the hippogriff, momentarily considering the recent events from Tami's perspective, before quickly dismissing them. Such thoughts wouldn’t help her right now, and any good operative always had a finely honed crap-filter in their mind.

What mattered was dealt with, and it made her smile.

Looking around, her eyes caught sight of Tami's multiband on the floor. Silently, she leaned down to pick it up, casting a brief glance to the sleeping form before her. Entering Tami's password to unlock it, Whisper quickly navigated past the pop-rock wallpaper to the alarm clock app and disabled it.

Placing it back down, at precisely the same angle as it had been in, Whisper looked again at Tammani, and spoke quietly. Firmly.

“I promised I was coming for all of you, Cascavel.”

She leaned in, a hoof hovering above Tami’s head for a moment, before placing it on the hammock's side instead, setting it gently swaying with a soft push.

“That includes in there as well.”

Turning, she walked across the bridge to the door and locked it before finally moving toward Tami's own pilot seat.

Slowly, a grin came to her face as she slid around and onto the cushion the hippogriff had added to it. Whisper reached out and took the controls. She had a few hours to familiarise before the crew's next jump was scheduled.

“Well, I let you fly mine...”

This chapter was written in response to a few things. The approaching of the holiday season last year, and that one of my close friends who plays one of the characters in the tabletop game this is based on was having a pretty awful time. I wanted to help cheer him up with a tale of the crew during happier times, featuring much of the cast from the GM's NPCs showing up in some form. It's a fun way to see more people who live in this world.

Thus, this section of the story was born. Enjoy, as we come into another winter, not too far from holiday times.

The flying mug impacted on the lip of a rare unoccupied stool, careening up and over in some rebellious defiance of common physics. With fiery liquid flying out in all directions, the clatter of its landing on the table amongst an ongoing card game was joined by rampant cries of annoyance and anger. Half a dozen burly shipmates looked up, and soon the insults were flying back along the mug's trajectory, accompanied by a metal ashtray.

Bushel Hops looked up from her customer with a scowl and rattled a hoof off the metal plate on her bartop three times. The one she kept on a little spring between an upper and lower metal surface precisely to make a noise louder than any shout.

"Hey! Chill out or get out!"

A couple dozen faces from the rival shipping companies looked up at her from either side of Port Medusa's tavern. Many of them glowered, some even swore under their breath, but all went back to grumbling among themselves instead, pulling stained cards back to hands and hooves.

Captain Hair Trigger dropped an empty shot glass to the bar's surface with an amused chuckle, having watched the bartender take care of business quite happily.

"Rowdy night, Bush."

The bartender didn't take her stern look away from the groups, and Trigger could have sworn the earth pony's eyes were looking in two directions at once. To Trigger’s right, a hippogriff somewhat larger than her made a neutral sound.

"Young hotheads with their drink," muttered Swan.

Bushel finally turned back to Trigger, shrugging dismissively. "Bad blood, competing contracts. I'll be lucky if I can close up without them kicking off. Speaking of hot fuses tonight, I'm not going to expect anything from you again, am I?"

Her wary glare turned to Swan, and the affronted indignation on his face set Trigger to laughing uproariously, knocking her hoof on the table.

Grumbling, he grabbed his beer again. "You start one fight with some ass who more than deserved it, and suddenly you've got a reputation forever. For the love of..."

Feeling the warmth of the spirits in her gut, Hair Trigger felt herself laugh far more than she had intended to, snorting and tapping her empty glass to signal for a refill.

"Oh, don't worry, Bush. Got him on a tight leash."

Bushel Hops took a second, before finally cracking into a grin and short laugh at the roll of the hippogriff's eyes, leaning over the bar conspiringly on one foreleg. She winked while pouring the stiff drink for the Captain. "You do, huh? Guess my hunch was wrong then. Always figured you were the one who preferred being tied up."

Hair Trigger met the bar-mare's waggling eyebrows with a confident smirk. "Oh, you did, did you? So, that's why you never said anything to me. You needed someone you thought would be the one to strap you to the bed-frame instead, huh?"

Bushel cackled, sliding the glass to her customer. "I'm quite certain we both know who'd be the one tying who, filly."

"And I'm very certain us starfarers know how to tie better knots, babe," replied Hair Trigger, her voice sudden and smooth.

"And I'm absolutely certain I'm too sober to be sitting next to this exchange," deadpanned Swan, leaning on a claw and upending his bottle. The liquid inside sloshed, being downed at the rate only an experienced drinker could manage.

Hair Trigger snorted, downed her shot, shook her head, and collected the tray of drinks she'd initially come for. The remainder of her crew were sitting at the far end of the bar, behind one of the two parties she'd seen arguing. She could see the top of Kerfuffle's plume over them, and (like any good partner) hear Tundra even through the din. After a moment she spotted the bright green of Verbena Mint's tail sticking out from the side as well.

Whether Sweet Alyssum, the station’s much feared director, knew of Verbena - her half-sister - being in Bushel’s was something Hair Trigger was not certain of, nor something she wanted to know.

Knowledge meant complacency, after all. Ignorance in this case was bliss.

She knocked Swan's shoulder. "Come on over when you get the chance, you're spending too much time off alone as is."

There was a brief grunt in reply; Swan turned his attention to the hanging display screen to watch some far off anti-gravity based sport with his drink.

Shrugging to Bushel, Hair Trigger took up the tray in her telekinesis. Giving the bartender a wink as she turned, Hair Trigger spoke up above the noise.

"Cheers, Bush. I'm sure that cider will have Tam going off the wa-HEY!"

Mid-turn, a heavy body barged into her. The metal tray squashed between them, flattening into Hair Trigger's face and knocking her off the stool. She hit the ground, back to the bar. The tray upturned, drowning her in various forms of alcohol; the glasses rattling one by one off of her head.

With a feeling of absolute indignation, Hair Trigger felt one of the bottles land perfectly on her horn.

A surge of fire washed through her. Opening her eyes, feeling them stinging from the spirits flowing down face, she could see a hefty, blurry shape above her. A minotaur, belonging to one of the transport crews. He looked down and gave Hair Trigger a dismissive kick on her hindleg with his hoof, his hands patting at his soaked clothing. His own tankard lay on the floor.

"Watch yourself, you clumsy little shit!"

Trigger's mouth caught open, and she scowled. Floundering for a moment, feeling a searing anger at the laugher of others around the room she surged up, rose to her full height, and stared him sternly in the groin.

"Says the bastard who just knocked clean into me when I wasn't even moving!" She bared her teeth, looking upwards and trembling.

The minotaur just grinned at her. "Heh...tiny pony thinks she's a big shot. Not that you should be here."

Hair Trigger let out a low growl, her head twitching to one side. "How. Do you figure. That?"

The minotaur nodded to her side at the way in, and a thickly worded warning written on it.

"No minors allowed in the bar."

He reached forward and clipped Hair Trigger around the ear. The impact was solid, dizzying the unicorn for a moment, feeling like she'd run into a steel bar - enough to almost take her off her hooves.

"Playpen’s up on level six, kid."

He gave her another knock, before Hair Trigger whipped her head around, her face projecting a visage of growing rage.

"Aww, look at her, lads! She's wanting a fight!" The minotaur waved to his crew. "Little thing's got a cutie temper tantrum! Guess she's got a SHORT fuse!"

Hair Trigger stomped the ground.

"Oh. Fuck YOU."

"Oh you want to fight? Well come o-"

Before his fist could even clench, a pony's skull -complete with a firm and well directed horn- headbutted him in the groin with all the sudden force and fiery anger of a torpedo hitting a capital ship's hull.

Hair Trigger felt it land. Hard. Hard and true, followed by the minotaur collapsing in front of her, wheezing and gasping, his legs failing like they were made of jelly. He made a strangled cry.

Catching the brute's beard in her magic, she grabbed his cheeks and yanked his head down, slamming it against the heavy metal stool. With a sound of a boulder hitting a brick, the enormous creature dropped to the floor and curled into a ball.

"And you'll damn well apologise when you're done crying you stupid...fuck...ing..."

She had caught the look on Swan's face, the hippogriff having turned from his game.

Slowly, he raised a hand and pointed behind Hair Trigger. In a moment, some of the red mist cleared, and Hair Trigger sighed, already knowing in her gut what she'd see.

Turning to look over her shoulder, she saw twelve other creatures raise up from their table, the sound of scraping chairs and dragging bottles in hand filling the bar.

Hair Trigger stroked her hatless mane and muttered quietly, "Aw, shit..."

From along the side of the bar, she could see her crew still somewhat unaware, other than Volatility Smile. The crystal pony was already up, reluctantly easing herself in towards Hair Trigger and Swan. She gave the minotaur on the floor a glance, and then turned her eyes to the hippogriff. "Seriously? Did you start another fight?"

"You what!? Why does everyone just assume-"

One of the minotaur's friends stepped forward: a burly earth pony. Hair Trigger fixed him with a stare, refusing to blink as his crude accent belched out.

"Oi! Fuck you playin' at!? Now here's the deal, you're gonna apologise to us, and him, real nice like. Gonna be some drink in it too, see?"

Volatility Smile groaned, her head turning to see who Trigger were looking at. She leaned down to her Captain.

"Hair Trigger, think about what you're saying, and we-"

"How about you all eat a bag of dicks!? He's the one who came at me!"

The invitees of the phallus-consumption looked to one another, as though scarcely believing what they heard. One shrugged, before they rushed forward. All of them.

Volatility Smile sighed, hung her head, and moved to duck the first punch.

"Hey! HEY!"

Bushel slammed the metal panel again and again, but its noise was lost. She called the names of those she knew. She promised suspensions.

None of it helped, as she witnessed the brawl break out in front of her. Hair Trigger and her two crewmates quickly amalgamated into the whirlwind of thrown fists, hooves, and claws. She saw some of their attackers break off and charge at the rest of the crew. A missed punch struck a lonesome mercenary at the bar on the back, who quickly joined in as a third party, throwing hooves at anything in range. A drunkard flailed into it all, seemingly just up for any fight.

Then, with terrifying stillness, she saw one thrown bottle arc up and away.

Slowly, it descended, end over end, until it crashed into the back of one of the rival crew's heads. It shattered, and a string of curses broke the air.

Before she knew what was happening, the other half of the bar spun into a fury and charged into the fray. The sound of breaking furniture mixed with glass exploding. Screams of rage and the dull thud of impacts drowned out the sports channel.

Throat hoarse from yelling, Bushel hit a red button below her bar and went back to slapping and shouting at anyone within reach.

Hair Trigger had somehow already ended up wrestling and punching with three of the instigating rival crew. She had one of their manes in her teeth, jarring it as she rammed her horn again and again to jab at the side of the one holding her in a headlock. Her hindlegs were connecting with someone every time she kicked, and it didn't sound like any of her crew.

Thus, she decreed, it was a viable target.

Hooves smacked into her sides, and she fought to keep her head protected, feeling the impact of punches on her forelegs. There wasn't any pain. The adrenaline and anger steamed through her to keep her thrashing like a rabid wolverine in their hooves, until one of them bodily picked her up and hurled her onto the bar top.She felt claws on her back, dragging her down the length of it, clattering into bottles along the way.

"For-argh! Fucks-ack! Sake-ow!"

Her head impacted on the cash register and she lashed out to the side on sheer instinct. Her hoof caught one of them in the sternum, and she wrestled her way onto her back. Clumsy fighting ensued as she traded hooves with another brawler, before finally sneaking a strike by to clip his chin and make him back off.

Drink sprayed over her from a tossed plastic cup, making her wince away. Opening her eyes, she saw a pony rise up to stomp down on her chest. She sucked in air, trying to toughen up before the impact.

An orange hoof swung a bottle that crashed over her assailant's head, and what she now saw was a pegasus went down hard, falling off the bar to the floor, wings splayed out.

Hair Trigger paused for a moment, and saw Bushel Hops glowering at the groaning pony below them.

"Never did pay his damned tab,” muttered Bushel.

She tossed the empty tip jar at him -just for punctuation- before looking up and clearly spotting some other trouble. She rushed off quickly down the bar, pulling at a plastic container someone was trying to hurl. “Hey! No! Leave that right where it is!”

Taking a second to take a glance at the brawl, Hair Trigger stood up on the bartop and looked for her crew among the thirty-something bodies tussling and fighting in every corner.

For a moment she thought she could see Tundra's cloak getting tangled up in it, but more freighter crews -presumably called via multiband- had piled in from the nearby hangar. She could-

A can bounced off her forehead.

“Gotcha, shortstack! Haha!”

The aggravating pain shot through her, and Hair Triggered glowered, vibrating in outrage. Her mouth twisted and she decided, quite simply, 'fuck it' and 'fuck you', in short order.

Her telekinesis glowed and picked up two broken chair legs. Staring death at the group of jeering ponies amidst the brawl, she just bellowed in rage, ran across the bar top, and dove right off it clean into the midst of the mayhem swinging the hunks of wood at anyone within reach that happened to be taller than her.

This, as it turned out, was itself quite a tall order.

Volatility Smile rebounded off of a unicorn's side, knocked herself away and then was driven back again by the crush of ponies swinging and tackling on all sides. She ducked a punch coming for her head, using what self-defence techniques she knew to shift around the attack. Giving the drunk a sharp shove from behind, they keeled over and got lost behind a couple of griffons brawling on the floor. She ducked a bottle, before grabbing the nearest chair and swinging it to buy herself some room.

“Get back!”

Turning, the chair sweeping, she felt it suddenly stop in mid air, a magical field enveloping it.

“Smile, it's me!”

Tundra Gem’s look of shock met her as he fought to untangle himself from his own cloak. Even before he could speak again, a pony tackled into his side and took the unicorn off his hooves.

As the space-trucker sought to get atop Tundra, a sudden flare of magic sent him firing directly upwards to join the flying bottles in soaring across the room. He cleared most of the brawl, a high pitched, warbling yell accompanying him, before falling on top of - and breaking - a table on the far side.

Smile grabbed Tundra's hoof to help him up, and the unicorn leaned on a chair as he steadied himself.

“What in Equestria got this started?” Tundra asked hurriedly, panting and looking around, his magic instinctively catching an ashtray and two bottles in mid-air.

Volatility Smile shrugged and gave a 'what-can-you-do' look. “Rather what 'triggered' it.”

Tundra paused, opened his mouth slowly, and then nodded. “Yes...yes, I think I can grasp roughly what transpired now-look out!”

A griffon came barrelling toward them, smashing the remaining chair from Smile's grip. She stepped around a haphazardly thrown claw, turned, and bucked him as hard as she could. She couldn’t even get her balance before another pony fell into her and ran past before she even saw them, sending her tumbling into Tundra to fall together in a heap. Hissing in pain on the ground, Smile saw the griffon come back at them again. He was wild with rage, seemingly with no other goal than to get some hits in.

“Fuck you!” he cried.

“Eloquent.”

The voice from behind him caught the griffon's attention, before a purple coated arm threw a fist into the side of his beak.

Swan drove into the larger opponent, using stance and momentum to make up for what he lacked in comparative strength, powering wicked hooks again and again into the griffon's stomach. The moment he had the head low enough, Swan grabbed it and threw the griffon down, giving him a nasty kick to the solar plexus. The air was blown from the thug’s lungs, and he lay coughing on the ground.

Getting up together, Tundra and Smile pushed and shoved behind Swan to the edge of the room, away from the mad brawl.

“Eloquent? That's your taunt?” Smile chided. “Coming from you of all people?”

Swan shrugged and kicked a can away, looking back into the thrashing crowds near the bar. “Least I put some fucking effort into it. YES!”

“What!?” Both Smile and Tundra remarked together. The hippogriff pointed at the display screen and thrust both hands in the air.

“Third inning, last possible moment from the sidelines! I knew they had it this season!”

Bewildered, staring at one another, unicorn and crystal pony just shook their heads.

“Make our way to the exit?” Tundra suggested.

Smile nodded. “Sure, just...” She turned back to the fighting, concern brewing in her head. “...what about Tami?”

Tundra's calmness faltered. “Oh no, let's go!”

Tami slipped backwards as far as she could, caught against the bar itself at the opposite end. She'd tried to hold on to Verbena, until the crush had separated them. Now she had no idea where anybody was.

“Hey! Hey you!”

Tami squealed in fright, turning sharply. There was a pony limping toward her. Long haired, rough, and clearly coming off a long time in the black.

“I...recognise you, halfbreed!” A distinctive Empire accent slurred from heavy intoxication, as the earth pony stumbled and pushed toward her. “You'wi...you'wif the short one who'm hurt mah mate!”

“What? No! I'm j-just here to get a drink, I was just going to go! I'm going! It's okay!” She pleaded and spoke rapidly, possibly too fast for his inebriated mind to keep up.

“Nah! You wiff her! C'mere!”

His hoof rose.

And his hoof fell.

She felt a stinging smack across her cheek and fell to the ground with a cry of pain - one that stood out amongst the crowd. She fell into a puddle of ale, feeling dizzy and with a stinging throb in her face. She opened her eyes, feeling them dampen in fear as she saw him leering over her.

“Git up, fight!”

She couldn't reply, shaking her head over and over.

“Git up, fi-”

Kerfuffle's fist hit the side of his head like a pneumatic ram.

The pony was catapulted over the bar, his head staying oddly where it was in spatial terms as the rest of his body rotated around it. He crashed - upside down - into the shelving at the back, before dropping out of sight in a clatter of decorative bottles, quite unconscious.

Tami looked out from behind her raised hands, seeing the big griffon look over his handiwork with some degree of surprise before gently reaching down to her.

“C'mon, Miss. Let's get you someplace safe.”

“Oh, Kiffie...”

She grasped his hand and let him lift her onto his back, safe between his raised wings.

“Sorry I didn't get here sooner, Miss,” he began, seeing her holding her bruised cheek. “Some very rude people got in the way.”

Unbothered by anyone (and indeed with many moving out of his path entirely) he started moving toward the door, where Volatility Smile, Tundra Gem, and Swan were waiting. As he stepped around strewn objects, from his back she could see a trail of around twelve groaning spacers on the ground on a rough trajectory from where Kerfuffle had been seated to where she'd been.

“Wait, Kiffie...Vebs!”

Kerfuffle looked around, before pointing.

“Here she comes, Miss, all safe.”

Tami looked up, and then gaped at just what she was seeing before her, where Kerfuffle pointed.

“What...?”

At first, Verbena Mint had been scared when the fight had broken out. A much larger pony had rammed between her and Tami and knocked her over, but when she'd gotten up, something strange had happened.

The first pony that saw her had come running to throw a punch, before suddenly stopping.

“Oh, no! Not you!” he'd said, before turning to find someone else.

Then, a crude looking mare covered in painted tattoos had swung toward her with a bottle in hoof, before pausing and backing up.

“Shit...I ain't got nuthin' against you!” she'd said.

Both of them had rapidly exited, and then she had realised what was going on.

Calmly, almost smugly, she had wandered back through the brawl to her seat and collected the milkshake she’d brought into the bar from where it had spilled. Half of the thick drink was still left. Another pair of spacers had given her an evil eye, before suddenly switching to an apologetic look. Verbena had watched them go, and waved.

There had been a brief worry when a bottle lightly impacted on her flank. But the two stallions eagerly arguing and trying to say it was the other one had made it worth it. She had just tapped her chin, letting them sweat over her thoughts, before trotting past.

Now, she delighted in the look of surprise from the Space Jammers near the entrance, as they witnessed her skip serenely through it all and back to them.

Stopping in front of them, she sipped from her straw and giggled.

“What...what was that?” Tami gasped down from above atop Kerfuffle's back.

Verbena felt a twinge in her heart at the bruise on her bestie's cheek, but gave a cheery grin and a dismissive shrug all the same. “Spend a few weeks here...people learn who your half-sister is.”

She winked, reflecting that now she knew why Sweets enjoyed this sort of life so much.

The crew gathered, free from the still furious violence erupting inside Bushel's tavern. Tammani still rubbed her cheek with one hand, the other accepting some spilled ice that Verbena had wrapped in a tissue and passed to her friend. It stung, but the cooling sensation was enough to let her feel relieved at getting away lightly.

“Best we maybe head back to Claudia till things cool off?” Swan offered, rubbing his side. Someone had gotten a good shot in.

“Are we not we forgetting someone?” Tundra chided, angling his head back to the singularity of drunken madness.

After a half second of everyone staring at one another, the confusion wore off and Tami gasped aloud. “The captain! Where's the captain?”

As one, they cast their eyes to the tumbling, frantically swinging bodies. It was hard to see individuals amongst the upturned tables and flying beer. Yet eventually, as Tami looked from her perch on Kerfuffle, she started to see something from her higher perspective.

A section of the brawl had an odd anomaly. Every few seconds, one of the drunkards would cry out and drop downwards out of sight with a sharp cry, like swimmers being pulled below the surface.

“There she is!”

Tami pointed, and Kerfuffle lifted her down to the ground. Following her direction, he waded back in. She saw the big griffon breeze past some stumbling, walking wounded and reach his hand into the melee. After a couple seconds of grasping he gripped something, and pulled a whirling dervish of a pony out from the crowd in one hand.

“Come on! Come on! Call me that will you! C'mere you bastard! C'MERE!”

Even as Kerfuffle lifted her up and quickly walked back, Hair Trigger was swinging all four limbs in the air, her teeth bared, her coat soaked in beer and her face covered in a few bruises.

“I think you got enough of ‘em, Cap'n.” Kerfuffle spoke softly.

Hair Trigger's protests fell on deaf ears, or at least calmer ears, as Kerfuffle walked her back over. On the way, the sight of a dozen security drones surging into the tavern past her seemed to calm the unicorn down somewhat.

Dropping to the ground again, she bristled and stared back at the fight, then grinned at the satisfying sound of several taserings occurring in quick succession.

“All right, maybe it was worth it to leave early,” she tacitly admitted.

The sound of running claws and paws caught Tami's attention, and she - along with the others - turned to find Gerhard sprinting up to the tavern, somewhat out of breath and still trying to buckle his protective layers on.

“Just typical.” he was muttering. “Utterly typical we get a riot the moment the drone update screws the response cues. So...”

He stopped by the door, seemingly happy to let the drones buzz in and pacify the situation, before his gaze fell to the crew. Tami watched as his beady eyes travelled between all of them, before settling on Swan.

“You didn't start this, did you?”

“Oh for the Empress' damned sake!” The hippogriff threw his arms up, turned, and promptly just left in the direction of Claudia, stomping and swearing as he went.

Tami could have sworn she saw a grin on Gerhard's beak. Drawing his attention back to them, the security chief nodded sideways at the brawl as he knelt down to Verbena.

“Miss Mint, all okay?”

She put on an exaggerated scared expression, making a slow nod. “I'm okay, they got me out after the bad ones in there all started it.”

Gerhard watched her act for a second, one eyebrow slowly raising, before turning to Hair Trigger. “So I'm sure if I check the footage...they'll have struck first, and you'll have calmly headed off to your ship to stay out of the way for a day or so in order to not wander into any more trouble, am I correct?”

“I think that'd be about right, sans a quick trip for some painkillers...ow.” She winced, rolling her shoulder around.

Gerhard nodded, apparently more concerned with the resolution than a blame game over a bar brawl. “On your way then. I better get this settled.”

Nodding their thanks, the crew began to move off, as Gerhard sighed and watched the drones deploying restraining clamps. “For goodness sake, I expect this more around Hearthswarming in a few months, not now...”

Walking past on her way out, Tami paused, watching him for a second.

“Hearthswarming?”

Her gentler voice got the griffon to turn and Tami felt oddly on the spot, her friends already rapidly departing into the hangar, or to the next door shop, other than a patient, watchful Kerfuffle waiting at the curve for her.

Gerhard tilted his head. “Yes, Hearthswarming.”

“On a station? How do you know when it is? You don't have seasons.”

The griffon took a second, before chuckling. “Ah, of course. Old tradition. Hearthswarming, they say, is on the anniversary of the date of manufacture of the artificial construct. Commissioning is the birthday, so they say, but the day it was completed? That's Hearthswarming. Differs station to station, ship to ship.”

Tami cooed, her mouth pursing at this idea. “Oooh...I see. I never knew that.”

He shrugged. “Mostly a Peripheral thing. Anyway, off you go.”

“Oh, yes, yes, sorry!” She smiled at him and turned to canter back to the others, catching them on the way to the hangar.

Behind her, Gerhard turned, and saw an old drone finally limping its sluggish way down the corridor toward the tavern.

“And just where the hell have YOU been?”

Tami lay awake on Claudia’s bridge, mindlessly toying with a paintbrush in her hands.

It was night cycle inside the ship, with all the lights dimmed and the rest of the crew asleep downstairs. That this included Tundra Gem as part of the word 'crew' didn't prompt a second thought to her now.

They were asleep. Yet she was not.

Swaying in her hammock, the windows of the bridge shuttered against the everpresent lights of the hangar, Tami couldn't help but feel she'd missed something. A little niggling at the back of her mind giving her pause.

Adrenaline from the fight? No, she'd had a long shower to flush that (and the stink of beer) out of her. Concern about a job? Couldn't be, they were still on downtime. Lingering worries about a couple weeks ago? Definitely not - Whisper's advice had been on point, Tami hadn't had another occurrence since.

No, she reflected, this was different. This wasn't a worry. She knew worry and anxiety like old foes by now. She could recognise their insidious approach on her mind.

This was something more benign. Like feeling you had forgotten to lock the door after leaving your home, whether you already bought milk, or if you couldn't remember the exact date of your dad's birthday.

The paintbrush stopped moving.

“Gift...”

Tami clambered her way out the hammock and into motion. Tapping across the rugs in the bridge, she hopped into her seat by the pilot station. The darkness of Claudia's nerve center lit up with a login screen, its background that of an NLR boy band. (The stars and hearts around the band member on the far right were not photo-edited at all, she had maintained, when asked about them.)

Her credentials entered, Tami started digging. She parsed to the base level Pioneer class systems screen, then to factory level information, and then to the ship summary. Scrolling through countless lines of pointless data and legal text, Tami rubbed her tired eyes and continued to flick-flick-flick at the screen with a claw.

Eventually, after ten minutes, she found what she was looking for and gasped sharply.

“Oh gosh!”

She flew from the chair, hurriedly wriggling on the floor to get her pyjamas off and her overalls on before unlocking the door, throwing it open, and flying downstairs as fast as she dared without waking anyone.

“Kiffie! Kiffie, come on!”

Tami's hands knocked and shoved at the not-exactly-small shape under the oversized sheets in Kerfuffle's quarters.

“Wake up!”

Unresponsive, the giant griffon lay still on his side.

Making a far too high pitched sound of frustration, Tami spread her wings and flew up to land atop his hip, before making light jumps from hands to hooves again and again.

“Kiffie! Wake up! C'moooon!”

There was a sudden, sleepy snort, and the griffon's leftmost eye creaked open. “Mmph, hmm?” Shaking his head, Kerfuffle sat up, hunching to avoid the slope of the wall, and looked down as Tami dropped back to the floor. “Is somethin' wrong, Miss?”

She grabbed his claw, tugging and pulling with all of her might, her hooves rapidly skittering on the floor, wings flapping eagerly. Kerfuffle didn't move an inch.

“I need your help! We've gotta go shopping right now, and I can't carry it all myself!”

Kerfuffle twisted his mouth side to side, clearly considering her meaning for a moment, before shrugging and sitting up, patently deciding to go along with it.

“Comin'. We in a hurry?”

“Yes, we gotta do it before the others get up.”

Tami hurried to the door to let him get dressed, before whispering back through the gap again.

“And bring a sack!”

Hair Trigger was in her optimum state.

It was quiet, it was warm, it was comfortable, and it was shared with someone else.

Drifting between deep sleep and a lazy morning snoozing, she willed rather than consciously moved her forelegs into gripping the squeezable object, tugging its back against her chest and burying her head into the back of its neck. The satisfied, pleased groan it made was enough to push her toward sleep again.

After another few blissful minutes, enough cohesion of thought began to gather to start identifying simple aspects of reality. That meant things like 'bed', 'Tundra', 'nightshirt not present', and 'damp spot, don't roll backwards.'

Grasping her hooves around Tundra's front, she reaffirmed her place pulling against his back and let her head fall to the pillow again, feeling something on top of it.

Oh, that was where my nightshirt got to.

Even as she declined to move again, accepting the discarded article as a replacement pillow, her ear twitched when she heard a noise from outside her quarters.

Two people talking, like they didn't want to be heard.

Immediately, a curiosity caught in her heart, and refused to go. A hunch. And she rarely ignored them knowing that something was afoot. Pushing sleep aside, Hair Trigger yanked herself up.

“Tundra.”

“Mmrr.”

“Tundra!”

He stirred lightly.

Her hoof snapped out in a light, but firm smack of his rump.

The unicorn jerked and snapped awake. “Ack! What!? What? Trigger, what was th-”

She nudged him, nodded at the door, and got up quickly.

“What's going on?”

“I don't know, just heard something. Someone's up to something out there.”

Wiping his tired eyes, Tundra rolled onto his front, grimaced briefly as his foreleg rested on a 'spot', and got to his hooves. “Something bad?”

Hair Trigger didn't reply, her magic grasping around her revolver, before she heard another noise. This one was much louder. The short, surprised squeal of a young female, followed by a crash.

Hair Trigger smirked and dropped the revolver back onto her table.

The pair of them went to the door and opened it just as another two doors opened at the same time. The morning-mane of Volatility Smile poked out and she saw Swan's curious glance.

All of them, together, then stared in wonder.

Claudia's common room was different. Brighter. More colourful.

From the supports on the roof, glinting tinsel and jury rigged flickering lights had been hung in a haphazard assortment. Cheap ornaments of sparkling reindeer and candy canes were dotted around the shelves and kitchen. The edges of the main display were covered in a plastic green leaf design, while doors to quarters bore wreaths and bells. Bags of food were heaped at the far end.

Yet on the table stood a manufactured tree, every strand glowing and shifting colours from embedded LEDs. A large griffon stood up to his full height beside it, a star in his claw, caught as though his hand had been found in the cookie jar.

At its bottom lay an upside down hippogriff, lying on her shoulders with her hindquarters hanging above her against the tree, collapsed into a pile of hastily half-wrapped boxes and obvious trinkets. A garish, overly bright red sweater with snowflakes and colour changing tiny bulbs in the shape of a tree flickered on her chest.

“Oh, uh, gosh...uuuh...”

Blushing, she put on her best grin and - still upside down - spread her arms wide with a forced grin, shaking her hands.

“...ta-daaaa!”

Feeling her heart attempt to implode from the stupid, adorable little sight, Hair Trigger instead just burst into laughter.

It took only a few short minutes for explanations, and Hair Trigger almost kicked herself to think she hadn't even checked for this. She'd known about the tradition from her own family, but her assumption had always been that Hearthswarming was miles away, since she'd had one just before leaving for Port Medusa in the first place, mere months ago.

But this stupid, overly sneaky, silly way to do it cut off any negative feelings at the knee, and instead she just grabbed her pilot into a tight hug.

“You are too much of a sweetheart, you know that? And you!” She pointed at Kerfuffle, who had finally assembled the tree's lighting in an energy efficient manner. “You were in on this! You of all people?”

“I guess, Cap'n?” He shrugged in response, before rushing to catch the once again falling star.

“This is quite the shock; I guess I was only thinking about it back planetside.” Volatility Smile walked into the common room more properly, looking about her in wonder. “You even picked up food? Kerfuffle, that's so sweet of the two of you.”

The big griffon climbed down, looking more bashful than anything, picking up the Hearthswarming hat he had been 'volunteered' to wear, and proudly affixing it onto his plume again. Volatility Smile, after a second, failed to hold her composure, and cracked up at the sight.

“This truly is something. I hadn't known of that tradition out here,” Tundra observed, calmly as ever, before a more childlike glee overtook his eyes at spotting one label around a gift with his name on it. “Oh!”

Tami squeaked as Hair Trigger gave her another squeeze, hearing her Captain speak loudly in her ear. “Two Hearthswarmings in four months. Oh, I love Periphery traditions! Now c'mon, all of you: get dressed and get out there to get your presents while Tam and Kerf set the rest of this up. Tundra? Shower first. And Tam? See who you can rustle up to join in.”

Tami, nodded eagerly, still grasped in the hug, before her brain caught up with the instruction for Tundra and started piecing two and two together from the awkward blush on the wizard's face.

Gingerly, she detached herself from close proximity to Hair Trigger.

Swan, for once a relaxed smile on his face, clapped his hands and grabbed his casual clothing from the line over the door. “Well, you heard the mare, everyone. Hop to it!”

What followed was nought but a whirlwind of Hearthswarming preparations. One eager crew condensed days of work into the space of a single morning. The original pair remained on board to prepare. Tammani eagerly sent out mail to anyone she knew on the station. Kerfuffle, fighting to contain his glee at his first ever Hearthswarming, began finding the difficulties of not getting tangled in ribbons while wrapping the things he and Tami had bought. The others, now properly awake, began galloping around Medusa looking for what they needed.

Swan returned first, ever the bastion of efficiency and experience, with the job of finding gifts for several people. He quickly set about the kitchen, putting together a late breakfast of the only sort anyone could expect of him. The presence of pancakes and smoked fish, he claimed, made it a Hearthswarming one.

Volatility Smile bumped into Verbena mid-route, the young pony having already been rushing down to pick up her own things. The pair joined forces. One with knowledge of the station, the other with knowledge of making a cashier's life a living misery. Between them they acquired their gifts, some treats for general handouts, several free samples, and one managerial resignation.

Captain Hair Trigger went about Hearthswarming shopping the way she normally did. With indecision, muttering, and eventual bursts of inspiration. Yet caught on one gift, she eventually headed into the station elevator after consulting with Bushel. She descended into the lower levels of the station to find what she needed, and two hours later emerged with the last item on her checklist. And a grin.

Kerfuffle spent far too long gingerly undoing every facet of the wrapping with his talons, trying to keep it all in one piece as much as he possibly could. After all, it had his name painted on it around little cogs and wires. How could he rip that apart?

Tami clenched onto his arm to watch, finding the sight as amusing as it was adorable, until finally Kerfuffle popped the top and upended the box into his palm.

Inside lay an input-logic-converter with a dual-feed connector.

Kerfuffle's eyes lit up, his beak opening in a silent gasp, before burying the hippogriff amongst his feathers in a bear-hug of utter delight.

“I love Hearthswarming!” he cried out loudly, arms and wings wrapped around the muffled sounds of delighted laughter from his chest, before finally letting the spluttering pilot down. A second later, he hugged her again anyway.

“Now your little spider-bot can fit a camera to see where he's going!” she spoke up happily.

“That's so kind, Miss! I dunno how I didn't see you buy it earlier. Guess I was still tired.”

Even as they hugged, another excited unwrapper was on his third present already. Tundra, like a foal on his first Hearthswarming, gleefully pulled open a parcel to find a book on the pre-galactic history of Equestria, 'Skyborne Tales of the Sapphire Coast'.

“Oh, most wonderful!” he exalted, immediately flicking through its maps and long texts of deeds, individuals, and adventures, despite the other presents left nearby.

“Most welcome.” Swan gave a nod from the kitchen, turning to dump another load of food onto the table. While there, he stopped, finding Volatility Smile handing him a small package.

“Don't think you get left out.”

Confused, Swan took it. “I've already gotten a few from the rest; I don't feel left out...”

Smile winked. “You'll know what I mean. I've seen what you've got stitched to your bags.”

Beginning to suspect, Swan placed the food down, tossed the kitchen towel back to the drawers, and peeled the small box out to open. Inside, he found a patch. One bearing the logo of Port Medusa. Momentarily taken aback, he just laughed. Laughed, and clapped Smile on the shoulder. “Thank you. I suppose where I’ve been matters as much as who I’m with..”

“Can go right beside those old unit patches then. Like a life's journey, right?”

Handing her a plastic cup of cider, early or not, Swan knocked his against hers, and then took a long drink. “Yeah. Now here, go finish off your own. I've got to see to the fruit pudding.”

Volatility Smile lived up to her name in response, turning back. Yet the moment she did, she found her way blocked by a griffon. Looking up, she found Kerfuffle awkwardly standing with a gift in his hands. “You uh… You missed this one from the tree, Mrs Smiles. Here you go. It's, uh… This one's mine. From me.”

“Oh stars above, I'm so sorry Kerfuffle. It must have just passed my eye. Thank you.”

Placing her drink down first, she pulled the not entirely well wrapped paper off of it and began laughing aloud. Holding her gift aloft, she shouted across the room. “Hey! Tami, sweetie! Look what I got!”

The hippogriff looked up from handing a gift to Tundra, her eyes blinking and squinting to see what Smile had in her hooves. Volatility Smile grinned and shouted the answer to her. “Bounce Beats Volume Four, for the ultimate cardio experience!”

The look on Tami's face dropped Smile to the chair behind her with laugher. The aghast look of someone desperately trying to figure out more than a few more excuses was too rich.

“I'll see you in the mornings!”

Tami rubbed a hand over the other, offering a polite nod, as she tried to sneak herself away from the immediate topic. Shimmying to the side, she got midway toward the sofa before stumbling across a gift held in a telekinetic field.

And from behind it, one Captain Hair Trigger with a generous smile.

“You've been running in circles all morning - haven't caught you. Happy Hearthswarming, Tam.”

Tami gasped, hands to her mouth, before bouncing in glee, the terror of Smile's sessions forgotten all but instantly. “Ooh! Captain, oh, thank you!”

The present was propelled into her hands, and she hopped her backside up onto the sofa to pull the ribbon off the top. Scything one of her fingers around the lip, she pulled open the top and peered in with eager excitement. The inside of it was dark, and she squinted to get a grasp of what lay within it, angling the box to let the light panels above shine in so she could see it and-

Almost immediately, her cheeks flushed cherry red, and the top of the box was slammed down with a shocked squeak. Her eyes rapidly swivelled, hunting to make sure no-one else was watching them. Her voice was a sharp, stammered hiss.

“C-Captain!”

Hair Trigger only winked, her grin reaching ear to ear, before nudging the hippogriff's side with an elbow. “Gotta look out for the morale of my pilot, don't I?”

Tami bit her lip, holding the top tightly down, as though what was inside would leap out and be seen by everyone. Her face looked more like a beetroot. “Th-thanks...I g-guess?”

“That's the spirit, Tam.” She grinned, giving the hippogriff another little squeeze with her foreleg. “Wanted to get you something to wow Midnight with too, but I doubt Medusa's the place to find attire like that. Didn't know your size anyw-”

Tami's wing batted at her face, and Hair Trigger burst into laughter even as the blushing hippogriff leapt onto her and playfully fought hand on hoof, barely suppressing her own nervous giggles. “You're-you're something, Captain! I don't know what yet but I'll think of a word!”

Letting the unicorn back up, Tami shot her a look somewhere between a pout and reluctant enjoyment of her Captain’s antics. Hair Trigger just gave her a wink.

“Wouldn't be me if not. Now if you-hmm?”

Hair Trigger's eyes slid sideways as the presence of another making his way to the sofa caught both their attentions. After a moment, Tami hid her gift behind a pillow, as if the unmarked box in wrapping paper wasn't cover enough.

Tundra stood there, the others still laughing around the table behind him. He had one more box in his magic, and floated it forward.

“I...I may have hesitated to give you this, Captain. My gift, to you. For you, I mean.”

Giving Tami a brief wink, Hair Trigger felt her own face flush lightly and stood up to take the box for herself. She gave him a suspicious look and shook it. Behind her, Tami sat up, hands clenched around her own body as she watched the (to her) cute couple sharing a moment. Across the room, directed by a point from Volatility Smile, the others started paying heed.

It was, after all, the last gift between them all.

Finding herself the centre of attention, Hair Trigger gave Tundra a cheeky look, listening to its contents, before tearing it open without losing eye contact. “Pressure of the moment, huh? For me or you?”

“Definitely for me.” Tundra confessed, looking away briefly with his front legs rubbing over one another.

“Well then, let's see how you did on our first Hearthswarming.”

Hair Trigger threw open the top. Her hoof rummaged inside, and yanked the gift out without any hesitation.

There was a silence, and then there were gasps from the others. Smile's pleased one. Tami's excited one. A sense of heartwarming was palpable among all.

Hair Trigger stared at the object before her and felt the moment slow down. Condensed into just her looking at it...before she fought back the wisp of tears in her eyes.

In her hooves, rested a pristine piece of quality headwear, to suit any captain of a starship.

Looking up at his worried, anxious face, Hair Trigger simply surged forward and grabbed him by the chest into a vice-like grip, as his magic firmly slid it onto her head.

After a late Hearthswarming brunch and getting the presents squared away, the crew took a couple of hours to themselves. Yet after mid-day on Port Medusa’s own cycle other ponies gradually started to arrive.

It started as one, with Verbena Mint running through the hangar to open up Claudia and head inside, long since accepted as one who could enter at will. She rushed up to and hugged Tami, Hair Trigger, Volatility Smile, and then nearly disappeared into Kerfuffle before deciding she had better get to business. Presents, sweets, and an eager, filly-like glee about Hearthswarming re-energised Claudia’s atmosphere.

Even as she and Tami got to work preparing a playlist of the most sugar-happy space-pop to throw on (much to Swan’s chagrin) an unexpected arrival made its presence felt from a ring at the airlock. On opening it, Volatility Smile found a deer; ‘Crazy D’ - Port Medusa’s most well known fast food cook - was standing on the main ramp. Known for keeping his customer’s orders stuck to his antlers on notes, the impressive horned growths were instead now decorated with hanging baubles and flickering lights. To his side, somewhat embarrassed for his father, was his son Sruth - the young buck was dragging a trolley of food along with him.

“Hearthswarming!” The older deer declared. “Hearthswarming requires food! I do food! I do Hearthswarming! Yeah?”

After they had rolled the food up the cargo ramp into the ship itself, Smile didn't even get the door closed before spotting a very tired and still nonplussed Bushel making her way toward the ship. Her voice travelled ahead of her, along with the clink of glass in her rucksack.

“You let that captain know she still agreed to help me repair the tavern tomorrow for helping her find Kinky-Dink’s Emporium, y'hear!? I need a night to drink instead of watching others do it.”

Volatility Smile didn't know what to think. Bewildered, she held the door for the brash mare. “I...Tami messaged you too? I can't say we expected you and D and-”

Bushel shrugged. “She put it out on the general notice mailing list. We usually jump on any ship having its Hearthswarming here anyway. Why not? Excuse to get slammed. Now c'mon, show me where your coolant valves are. Medusa Special doesn't do well with normal fridges.”

Wandering past, Bushel left a stunned Volatility Smile by the door. Blinking, turning her head to the hangar at large, Smile noticed the crews of several other docked ships starting to gather outside their hulls and point toward Claudia.

Smile gulped.

“Oh my stars...”

As Port Medusa's internal cycle turned from midday to early evening, Claudia bore host to more ponies than any of its crew had expected. A full fifty others crowded the common room and cargo bay, each adding to the piles of food and drink, or bringing gifts for those they knew among the crowds.

They entered in groups, usually other crews. Even the two rival ones that had fought the night before seemed to mysteriously get along. It was half an hour before Hair Trigger even realised she was sharing horrendously inappropriate jokes with the raucous crowd that she had beat over the head with bottles less than a day ago.

At any given event the best times were always found in the kitchen. Any experienced party-goer would confirm that. But on ships it was a different matter.

Instead, the best times took place in the engine room.

Kerfuffle, to his delight, found that eventually every mechanic and engineer in the ship gravitated there. He had spent some hours sitting awkwardly, unsure how to broach the crowds and loud voices, before quietly retreating to familiar territory. There, he had found a few other mechanics already sharing a drink and chattering about the well maintained regulators around the core. Others made their way up over time to talk shop. Finally, surrounded by those who knew what true entertainment was, Kerfuffle settled into his place for the night.

Tami and Verbena, as ever, found one another's company almost immediately and rarely parted sides, quickly adding Sruth to their little group of the younger ones on board. Before long, music began pumping all over the ship, as Tami showed both of them a 'little trick' she had learned with the PA system not too long ago.

Among those who often came from different civilisations, there was usually friction. But for Swan, finding a New Lunar Republic veteran who had fought on the opposite side of the War of the Two Crowns instead gave him a drinking buddy for the night. Much time was spent sharing tales from either side of the same front, and laughing equally as much at the false perceptions as to who thought who was attacking or defending in those confused times.

Volatility Smile, concerned as much for the ship as anything, fell into the role of trying to stay somewhat sober, running around and being wary of where everyone was and what was happening. Yet eventually she settled near Tundra, the unicorn keeping his distance from many of the crowds and seeming ill at ease with such an intense environment. Happy for a more familiar face, the pair shared time and laughs, both easing off their high strung worries a little.

And among it all, Patch (bearing a hippogriff-dispensed red bow on his chassis) nearly ran down his battery careening around at a rapid rate in a dire attempt to dispense alcohol, sugar, and fat warnings to counter the horrific event taking place. Unable to prevent the health damage, his confused algorithms eventually logged the event as 'mass ritualistic suicide' and he retreated to his charger.

Squeezing through the crowds, Tami pulled Verbena behind her to the kitchen's fridge, working around the frantically serving deer to their right.

“There, there, that one!” Verbena pointed, before grabbing out an ice cool bottle of Confederate vodka. “Oh, I am so going to-”

The sudden sight of Tami rapidly cutting her hand over her own throat got the young earth pony to look round. Verbena spotted the sudden and withering glare of her half-sister looking her way, the Director - surrounded by a small fleet of security drones - having just entered the room.

“-hand this to the pony who asked me to collect it!”

Grinning too wide, speaking much too loudly, she passed it to Tami, who just as meekly handed it to (unknown to her) a very confused Sruth, who simply passed it to his father beside them.

“Ah, Confederate cooking oil,” came the offhand remark from the older deer, before D took a sharp slug from the bottle itself. “Sometimes also used in the food.”

Sweet Alyssum gave a small - but sharp - smirk before taking up a short drink of her own. She wasn't going to stay long, but it did well to show face at a visiting ship's Hearthswarming. Her attendance was never expected, but it was generally a useful impression to have circulating about herself for attracting crews to her station.

And the looks on the faces of those present was always worth it, she thought to herself, waving and smiling to a known pirate whom she knew wouldn't be leaving her station the next day...

It had taken many long hours waiting for an opportunity, but Hair Trigger had finally managed to reacquire the Captain's Sofa.

With only one in the entire ship, it had disappeared quickly under ponies using it, until she had staked out her claim and dove onto it while someone went for another drink. And just to assure that no-one else joined when she didn't want them to, she dragged Tundra down with her.

Seemingly quite happy to get off his hooves, the Solar Empire investigator dropped down with a sigh, catching both their drinks in his precision magic, before floating Hair Trigger's to her mouth with a goofball grin. “I can't say I earmarked this as what I expected when being assigned this mission, Captain. Serving alcohol to a marefriend on a sofa at Hearthswarming - and they say that real espionage doesn't involve any parties and drinks. This is the second you've taken me to.”

Hair Trigger smirked, sipping at the upturned glass, before using her own telekinesis to adjust the Hearthswarming lights that someone had hung around Tundra's neck. Much as spacers saw it just as an opportunity for a bit of a get together, there was a very festive theme to the night. Most had brought one gift for the hosting crew, and then a few others for people they knew personally. Clearly, Periphery crews knew this routine well.

“I did say I'd show you the sights.” Hair Trigger winked.

Raising an eyebrow, Tundra scoffed, and prodded one of her hindlegs with his across the sofa. “I believe you weren't referring to events at the exact time you said that, Captain.”

“Whatever gave you that idea, Tunny-Buns?”

The pair of them cracked into giggles, and she leaned into his side, pulling one of his forelegs over her shoulders. “You know, I do love it when you insist on still calling me 'Captain'.”

He grinned. “Why do you think I've observed to keep saying it? Your pupils dilate every time.”

“Least I know you're paying attention to my eyes at some points, then.”

She knocked his side, and in a moment of high-spirited fun, he returned the gesture, the pair of them chuckling together like school-kids at their first party.

Yet as they flirted and joked, a small set of leaves began to slowly ease into the top of their vision. Descending from above, a sprig of mistletoe lowered until it rested just between their faces.

Hair Trigger raised her eyebrows and tilted her head to look up and find Tami holding it, hovering in the air above the pair and extending the mistletoe in one hand with expectant glee on her face, clearly waiting to see something between the couple.

Tundra Gem looked back down at Hair Trigger with a small snicker. Trigger looked back at Tundra, thought for a second, and then let a sly grin come across her face.

Seeming the smile, Tami lightly shook the mistletoe back and forth, egging them on, and slowly drew in her breath as she saw the two lock eyes.

Hair Trigger looked up, then down again at Tundra with a lick of her lips, and chuckled. “Well...all right then!”

She sat up, then leaned forward.

And grabbed Tami by the cheeks.

The surprised hippogriff had only a second to emit a shocked squeal before Hair Trigger's sudden movement yanked Tami down and planted her lips firmly onto the startled pilot's mouth.

Tami's wings faltered before flapping rapidly to catch her, all four limbs below her doggy-paddling in the air in bewilderment at the sudden kiss locking around her lips.

“Mmphmm!” Her face rapidly turning cherry red, Tami made a muffled squeak, her wings losing control and dropping her onto her hands and hooves by the sofa's front end. A not entirely quiet 'mwua!' sound signalled Hair Trigger letting the kiss go, a cheeky, pleased grin plastered over her face. “Not bad, Tam! Not bad!”

Tundra Gem, for his part, was already doubled over in laughter at the wide-eyed look of confusion on Tami's face, as she staggered and dizzily fell back against the nearest door frame to catch her breath and process what had just happened. She was breathing heavily in surprise, her chest rising and falling.

“C-Captain! I d-didn’t mean m-me-I-I-what was-” she babbled rapidly.

Hair Trigger laughed, “Just do that to Midnight and you'll be good. Y'aight?”

Flustered all over, Tami staggered up and made a vague nod, her eyes as round dinner plates with small pupils. “Wh-what? Y-yeah, Captain what-you-I...I think, wait-I mean...I-need-a-drink!”

Blushing fiercely, she staggered off, leaving Hair Trigger to chuckle to herself and turn back to her boyfriend. “Oh, that reaction...priceless. She's too-”

The mistletoe, caught in a magic field, floated in front of Hair Trigger's face. The front of her hooded top was yanked forward, hard. Tundra pulled her into a tight hug, tickling her nose with the leaves. “Hope you didn't forget someone who'll kiss back.”

Hair Trigger felt her cheeks flush, before grinning. “Who said she didn't?”

Tundra just laughed, and pulled Hair Trigger in for a deep, long kiss.

One that didn't let up for some time.

The music and voices echoed outside of Claudia into the hangar, drifting out to the force fields and reflecting with strange, pitch adjusted echoes from the unusual physics at work. With most of the other ships, ground crew, and even those like Raw Deal inside, it was deserted. Empty ships waited, staring at Claudia as though wondering why she was getting all the attention.

Kerfuffle stepped off the bottom ramp, exiting the party for a moment. He moved unsteadily, balancing on his hindlegs until he had the airspace to use his wings. Awkwardly carrying a tray of food, he also bore a small, stuffed bag under an arm.

Quietly, not wanting to disturb the other ships in their silent rest, he flew around Claudia's front and across to the next ship. Much smaller in bulk than Claudia, more akin to a heavy fighter, its robust and angular shape around large engines betrayed the ferocious speed it could reach in the void. Stopping on its hull, Kerfuffle awkwardly leaned down to gently tap on the tinted glass canopy of the single person cockpit.

For a few moments there was no reply, and he almost left then and there, but after a moment the sound of miniaturised servos picked up and the glass slid backwards.

Below it a set of golden eyes on a dark coat stared up at him, and then at what he carried, with some momentary confusion.

“Kerfuffle?”

Kerfuffle coughed, looking just as hesitant himself at what he carried under Whisper Step’s hard glare. “Evenin', Miss Step. We gave you some time to turn up, but I figured you weren't comin' after a while.”

Whisper glanced back at the main screen within the Regulus, where a mail advertising Claudia's Hearthswarming was still displayed. She pursed her lips and shrugged, looking away toward the cargo vessel.

“Not exactly my kind of environment at the moment.”

“Figured so. S'why I brought this out. Can't be havin' you going hungry while everyone else eats all merry-like. And well, bein' honest with you Miss, you never seem to eat much the best of times. Mama never said that was good for you.”

He set the tray down on the edge of the cockpit. Bitesize nibbles, a small platter of Crazy D's always barely identifiable but (usually) edible rolls and pies, and a couple of bottles from the drinks bin.

Whisper Step swapped her attention back to the griffon, and then the tray. Her mouth opened slightly, as though genuinely surprised, before she found herself being handed a small bag.

“An' this is from all of us. Ain't right we all pass our presents about and you don't get yours on Hearthswarming. Can't have a member of the Captain's crew missing out.”

The dark earth pony took the bag in her hooves, finding a manner of haphazardly wrapped gifts within, covered in achingly colourful and cheap paper. Pushing a couple to the side to see all five, she raised an eyebrow and looked back up. “I'm not under Hair Trigger's command, Kerfuffle.”

The griffon nodded. “I know that, Miss. But that don’t mean you aren’t still part of her crew.”

There was a long silence. Whisper, for once, looked actually somewhat confused about what to say or do, before a slow smile crept across her stoic face. She took the bag into the cockpit proper, stowing it by the seat, and drew the tray in behind it. Holding up one of the bottles, she gave its label a look of approval. Gently, she snickered. “You lot are ridiculous. Thank you, Kerfuffle.”

The big mechanic smiled warmly, stepping back away from the cockpit onto the hull itself. “You're welcome, Miss. Happy Hearthswarming.”

“Happy-” Whisper laughed under her breath, as though finding the notion silly, even if genuine. “Happy Hearthswarming to you… And pass it along to the others.”

Kerfuffle gave her a blissfully innocent look and made to fly back to Claudia. “I'll do that. And Miss Tami'll be glad to hear you're using the slippers she made for you too. Good night!”

He took off, missing the sudden widening of Whisper's eyes and the sharp protest that died in her throat at seeing the griffon already gone. Mouth open, Whisper sat there for a few seconds, before closing it and shaking her head.

Gently, she lifted one present out, its half-wrapped state revealing it to be from the griffon himself.

A toy spy-pen, with 'invisible' UV illuminating ink.

After a moment of staring at it with hard eyes, she couldn’t prevent a chuckle breaking through, one that rose into an uncontrolled laugh, the first true one she'd had to herself in some time.

“I swear, this crew...”

Putting the gift, and her work, to one side, she popped the cap of the bottle off on the edge of the cockpit latch, sat the food on the auxiliary panel, and laid back to enjoy the ambience of Claudia's Hearthswarming - if from a little further distance than most.

“Captain!”

Hair Trigger looked up, hearing Volatility Smile's voice somewhere above the music and chatter bouncing off the walls.

“Hair Trigger!”

“Over here, Smile!”

Gradually, fighting her way between a couple of dancing stallions, Volatility Smile squeezed and pushed her way through toward her. She could see Smile trying to move while holding a brown package, shaking out her mane once through the crowd. At some point the crystal pony had given over to the inevitable and let it hang loose for the night, its sparkling glints catching the lower lighting well.

“Was down by the entrance ramp, had one of the station's drones fly by with a delivery.”

Raising an eyebrow, Hair Trigger got off the sofa, passing her drink to Tundra before taking the package in her hooves. She felt its balance shift as it was turned, like it had liquid in it. A letter was hoofed over as well, which she unfolded separately in her magic.

“I didn't order anything. Who's it - oh.” She saw her own name on the letter. “Huh.”

Smile nodded and offered a shrug. “To you. No sender noted on it. All it says is 'open first' on the letter. That's about it.”

Turning it over, Trigger found the words herself, and slid its contents out to read.

Behind her, she heard Tundra get up, and felt him rest his chin on her shoulder. His cheeks were still flushed, whether from her or from the drink she wasn't certain. Possibly both.

“Got a secret...secret admirererer, Captain...” he chuckled.

Definitely the drink.

She reached up and patted his cheek without turning her head, and squinted in the low light at the letter itself.

Hair Trigger furrowed her brow.

“Either Whisper's playing games, something I doubt, one of you is playing a prank, which you all know better than to instigate with me, or this is going to be quite the surprise.”

Volatility Smile sat on the common room stairs, picking up a glass of wine she'd left behind earlier. “Well, who knows what tomorrow brings. Suppose you've got some free time now, right? Want one of us to come in, just in case?”

Hair Trigger shook her head and looked back up at Smile, gently lifting Tundra off her shoulder as she did so. “Nah, I'll handle it. You all stay out here, enjoy yourselves. Or keep adding to that stock check, whatever makes you happy.”

Smile laughed, waving the leg bearing her multiband. “S'not that, Hair Trigger.” Her voice was a little less precise than normal. “It's getting the dates other crews have theirs. So we can keep an eye on who else is out there about to have a Hearthswarming. Networking isn't just for business, I assure you.”

Pausing, Trigger smirked, then nodded. “Well played, Smile.”

“That's what you have me for. Also, tracking results of that lot through there on who can lift the most weight on the bar.”

Laughing, Hair Trigger gave Tundra a kiss on the cheek, “Of course. Now you...” She turned to the unicorn, and ushered him to sit back down on the sofa. “Just going to my room for a moment.”

“I'll...I'll be right through!” He perked up with a grin, only half hearing her.

Cracking up, she tapped his head to push him back down. “Not what I meant, just stay here and look after my drink.”

Clearly catching up on remembering the letter, Tundra nodded and glanced at his glass. “I think averting from this stuff for months may be having an effect on me.”

“No shit, magic-man. Back in a moment.” She chuckled, picked up the package and made pace for her quarters.

With the ambience dulled through the thick walls of her quarters, Hair Trigger collapsed into her desk chair. Immediately, a sense of tiredness crept through her, as her body recognised a quiet moment to settle after from the long day.

Resting the small package on the desk, she pulled out the letter and unlocked her workstation to bring up the communication interface. A quick glance revealed the number to be a pre-paid access line for a real-time video link across systems. Technology wasn't quite at the level to allow full streaming for everyone to do it yet, but premium services for those who really wanted one did exist.

Someone wanted to speak to her face to face.

Punching the numbers into her satisfyingly clacky keyboard with quick spikes of telekinesis, Hair Trigger didn't waste any time on hitting the icon on the screen to call it. She could sit for minutes second guessing, or just do it and see what happened.

When confronted with such moments, that was how she rolled.

The screen switched to showing three circles. One for her, one for the hubs between Claudia and whenever this was, and one for the receiving connection. Quickly, the hub connection lit up, before it sat on the receiving end for around half a minute, then a full minute, and then two.

She was about ready to call it a lost call, when it finally blinked green and chimed a short countdown to full video link. An electronic voice announced the call.

“Real-time streaming stable. Connection established.”

A video window appeared on the comm-app. It was blurry, the video buffering struggling for a moment or two to catch up with the active link’s signal. After a second, she could see fragmented pixels of colour that began to steadily come into focus. She could make out blonde feathers, probably a griffon. They were moving the camera - likely on a laptop - placing it down on what she thought was a desk.

Finally, the real streaming quality and framerate kicked in, and Trigger saw a blonde griffon, clearly in his fifties at least, but with a youthful energy in his eyes. He sat back with a calm smile, clearly having finally gotten a good connection in return. Behind him, a chunk of a ship's hull was affixed to the wall of what seemed like a cosy living room.

“Captain Hair Trigger. Glad you received my mail.”

Hair Trigger's eyes followed past his head to that piece of hull on his wall, and saw a symbol upon it: a griffon wing, with a smaller pegasus wing overlapping it. She grinned, recognising it immediately.

“Captain Gaius, I presume. In other words, Tam's-”

Gaius scoffed, as though surprised to hear the title before his name. “Tam's father, yup. Took a while, but finally glad I got a moment to speak with you. Just captain-to-captain, hm?”

“Sure it's not dad-to-captain?” Hair Trigger snarked, settling back in her chair and crossing her hooves.

Gaius laughed shortly. “Well, if you'd prefer it be. But I think I can convince you elsewise. You got my package with you there?” She lifted the brown paper object, waving it in her magic in front of her display's camera. Gaius smiled and motioned with a large claw. “Open it.”

Hair Trigger paused for a moment, and then unfurled the package’s string binding. Eventually, the 'tink' of hoof on glass became apparent. The moment that she pulled a small, unlabelled bottle with just a small drink's worth of dark amber liquid at its bottom from the wrapping, Gaius slid the full bottle that it had clearly come from into view, with around one third of its contents left.

“See, I have a tradition,” he began, pouring a small measure into a tilted glass, “one that started far back when I first took command of the Tammaran. Every time I had another ship's captain aboard, or any time I visited another ship to meet its own one, I would sit down with them and have a small drink from this. Direct from Equestrian space itself before the split, sixty five years aged before bottling.”

Hair Trigger whistled, suddenly regarding the glass in her hoof with a little more care, watching as Gaius poured a measure for himself.

“It's a pity I couldn't get out there to meet in person, but I figured what the hell. I've not had the chance to do this in two decades - I can bend the rules a little. Hope you've got a glass.”

Hair Trigger winked, floating across a simpler, but more than viable spirits glass to pour the bottle's scant contents into. “For a drink like this, I'd run out and buy one if I had to. Thank you.”

“Well said, Captain. Please, go ahead.”

Without waiting himself, Gaius settled back, taking up his glass to sip from. Hair Trigger followed suit, raising it in a quick toast before trying not to look too eager in bringing it to her lips.

It was lighter than she'd expected, passing into her mouth with a heavy, fragrant tone. She almost had to remind herself to not gulp to chase the subtleties, before the sudden heavy aroma and flavour broiled and swam around behind her lips and into her throat. Spicy nutmeg, with a cured, unexpectedly thick headiness that took a second to really erupt.

She couldn't help herself, breathing out suddenly and smelling the meaty tingle in the exhalation, before lightly shaking her head.

“Wow.”

Gaius sighed, looking like he'd come back to an old friend, settling in his chair in a much more relaxed manner as he brought the glass down from his beak. “It's quite something, isn't it, Captain?”

“I feel like I just drank my yearly earnings. How did you even afford this, if I can even ask that?”

Gaius smirked, and tapped his beak with a claw. “Ask the captain of the Empire supply ship I took it from.”

There was a pause, before the pair of them laughed. A simple, easy laugh, taking the edge off of the conversation. Gaius settled the glass in a palm and nodded. “How is Tami?”

Hair Trigger felt the hair on her neck raise up and the drink catch in her throat. How was one to say 'Well I got her into a bar fight recently where she got punched, bought her something you probably don't want to hear about, and then snogged her - with tongue - less than an hour ago' to her father? Taking a second to shelter behind a mock sniff of the glass, Hair Trigger gathered her thoughts in a less suicidal direction.

“Probably bouncing off the walls about now. We've got a bit of an event going on board at the moment.”

He nodded. “I can vaguely hear it. I'm not keeping you?”

“Like I said, with a drink like this, you could pull me away from my boyfriend asking me to bed.”

She snapped it out before thinking on sheer habit, and was surprised to hear Gaius suddenly guffaw with laughter. Hair Trigger smirked, feeling somewhat more at ease. “Tami's doing great for us. Flying Claudia about just as we need her to...even if she sometimes needs reminded she can. But really, it's just her being herself that makes us glad she's with us. I wouldn't give up the spirit she brings on board for anyone else at the helm. That, and she can fly like a demon when she has to.”

Gaius flushed, and Trigger observed an odd look of bashful pride about his face. “Well, she made an old dog like me grip the seat when she took me up. So I can believe it. I still get surprised by what these newer ships are capable of. But what I'm more interested in is, how has she been doing though, as herself? I don't mean in piloting.”

Hair Trigger tapped her glass against a hoof a couple of times, formatting her answer as quickly as she could, before spotting the easy look on Gaius' face. It was honest and open. He wasn't digging for issues. Taking a second to collect her thoughts, she took one more decadent sip of her drink and placed the glass down with a gentle breath.

“It's been trying at times. Lately especially. I won't try to pretend she hasn't had her moments where it's clear she's scared or anxious. I've had to...had to occasionally just sit with her for a while. After something frightening, or if she makes a mistake, or if we're ever in danger. Really, when she starts doubting herself, that's when it gets bad. But we're here for her, and we'll help her, because we all want that smile in our lives. I promise you that.”

The few seconds’ pause from Gaius set her stomach churning a little, before he gently nodded. “I believe you, Captain. And I thank you for doing that for her, and for being honest with me. I know my daughter. I know what she's been through. And if someone had tried to pretend what you just said didn't exist...well, that's when I start booking shuttles out of worry.”

Hair Trigger smirked. “Knew the dad-talk bit was in here somewhere.”

Gaius chuckled in response. “Well I could tell you that I'd follow your ship into the next galaxy if I ever felt she was being mistreated aboard, would that help make things feel more traditional?”

She didn't reply, just making an amused look and taking another delectable sip of the provided spirit, trying to make it last. After a second, she rested the glass against her chest as he spoke again.

“This is your first command, isn't it, Captain?”

“Mhm,” she replied tacitly. “Needed something apart from my family. My own little slice of space.”

“How are you handling it?”

The question caught her by surprise. She had been preparing for every eventuality that led back to Tami in some way, but a query directly to her was not on the expected card. She stumbled over her words for a moment, holding the glass in both hooves. “Me? I… Well, it's been a few months since I left the others and came here. It's been… trying. I wake up every morning and still need to remind myself at times I'm the one who's got to walk out and make the calls. Just taking some getting used to.”

The frankness of her own reply surprised her. Maybe it was being plied with a top-end and rare whiskey, or the easy authority in his voice, perhaps even the alcohol from before, but she felt her lips move before her head caught up.

“Hardest thing is getting used to the retrospective. Look back, see things that happened, wonder if you made the right call. Been a few rough moments. Few times people, even Tami, got hurt. Crewmembers leaving either right after you get them, or mid-job, when you're wondering if they thought you were taking them a direction you shouldn't have. And there's no-one above yourself anymore to look to and ask if you're calling the right shots.”

The glass circled in her hooves. She didn't know where that had come from, and momentarily felt ashamed she'd said it.

Gently, Gaius' voice came through the speakers with a warmer, paternal, and more experienced tone. “What you said? That isn't a negative thing, Captain. What you said is just what it is to be a captain at all.”

She looked up, finding him looking directly into her own eyes.

“I had command of a vessel for twenty years during the most tumultuous event in our modern history. Life out there, it draws you into things you don't expect, or sometimes don't even want. It happens before you've even realised. One job turns into a rabbit hole and before you know it, you're playing a part in a front of a war that you never even knew existed. The only real question has to become...is this for some good in the end?”

Hair Trigger felt her glass run dry, and she settled it on the desk.

“...I think so.”

“Then the very fact that you worry about things like that tells me all I need to know. To know that you're doing things the right way, Captain. You're concerned about your crew as people, not just their performance. You're questioning what's right out there.”

He sighed lightly, finishing his own drink. “For example: that blasted Academy in orbit above here, they took Tami in, and after one year sent the wrong damn girl back to me, from how it was to see her again. There in body, but…” Gaius glanced away and shook his head. “They took my daughter away from me for four years with what they did.”

He leaned down, closer to the camera, and suddenly smiled, holding up a tablet with a still frame from one of Tami's VLOGs in it, with Claudia’s crew around her, the hippogriff beaming with unrelenting joy and contentment.

“Whereas you? You gave me her back.”

Gaius paused, letting the words sink in, and Hair Trigger felt rather than heard the emotion in his tone. “So as far as I'm concerned, my daughter isn't wrong. She found herself a great captain, Captain.”

There was extra emphasis on that final word, and he set the tablet down. Hair Trigger had to look away, feeling something inside she hadn't before. A certain well of affirmation she'd been afraid to judge for herself since leaving the roost.

“...thank you.”

Gaius gave her a few seconds, then tapped the desk. “Listen, you've got my contact now. Just between us, if you ever need anything, or to ask anything...just let me know. My life's experiences are at your disposal; it's the least I can offer as thanks for what you've done for me and my family.”

“Thank you,” she repeated, touching a hoof to an eye. “And I promise I'll keep them safe, even if-”

“Even if you're finding that same rabbit hole.”

“Yes, because I think we are,” she added quietly.

Gaius, surprisingly, smiled. “Then much as I can worry, it makes me proud to know she's out doing what I used to. Go do some good, Captain, and Happy Hearthswarming.”

Hair Trigger nodded again, smiling, before twisting her mouth up in confusion. “Wait, I never told you it was Hearthswarming on my ship. How'd you know our date of manufa-”

Gaius laughed and winked. “To the next galaxy, if I have to. Good night, Captain.”

The connection cut on her bewildered look, before she made a single, short laugh followed shortly by a much longer one.

Then, she sat in silence for some minutes.

After rubbing at her eyes, she moved to head back outside.

Things were still in full swing: a Hearthswarming atmosphere of drink, dance, laughs, reunions, first meetings, love, and friendship around the flickering tree at the centre of the common room.

Tami stood slightly to the side of it, clutching her third cider in her claws, taking her time with it. She wanted to be cohesive for tonight, but it gave her a warmth in her belly to feel that little heady easing of her anxieties around such a dense crowd. This had been more than she could possibly have expected. Far more.

She heard the sound of a door closing behind her, but paid it no heed.

A few seconds later, she felt hooves grab her from behind, and spin her around to face them. She had just a second to realise who it was, before her Captain grabbed her into a tight, long hug. An embrace that she was more than happy to return in kind, uncaring of whatever reason had initiated it.

The frivolity continued long into the night cycle. A time of colour and smiles, and new memories.

In time, groups departed and waved, smiling more than when they had arrived. Eventually, even those closest bid their farewells, returning to their own homes or ships. In many cases, those there the same thing.

They left behind a ship that bore the décor of a place that had seen joy. A mess that told of fun. A clutter that held cheer.

Leaving six within it to meet, to smile, and to reflect. To gather and take the quiet hours to themselves before the inevitable cleaning.

A first Hearthswarming. A tradition born to a new ship, for its newest crew.

And as they each fell to sleep, either in a solace long sought, in the company of a loved one, in the relaxation of letting one's hair down, or slumped against a dear friend on a sofa, Claudia finally fell silent, filled with nought but smiles.

In nearly a thousand years since they had first left Equestria, much had changed, adapted, shifted, or simply been forgotten. But some things still remained as they had once been, no matter how many stars lay between it and its origin, or how differently its people had grown apart.

And across a galaxy, that same spirit of Hearthswarming remained strong.

The world that these chapters are based in was originally designed for the game by Napalm Goat, the GM of the tabletop game (or DM, for the classic RPG players among you). He came up with the setting, the world design, the factions, and many of the characters you've seen in this thus far.

So this chapter is a bit special, as it was written by him, not me. He's given his permission for it to be included here, and I'm delighted to collate it with my own works in the world he's made in order to share it with you.

This story could only have been written by him, as it offers a short look behind the veil of secrecy (one not even I as a player got to know about!) surrounding one of the story's most notable and enigmatic characters from a time just before she met the crew of Claudia. That being Field Agent Whisper Step of the New Lunar Republic, who we've seen in the last two chapters. (In other words, this one takes place before them.)

Also, I'm told there might be more Whisper Step content coming soon from him soon, so watch this space...

Top of the hill, Heroes of the Revolution Park.

The distant glasteel buildings of the city centre were glinting in the pale white light of the young star. The many birds and other creatures hidden in the nearby aquamarine hued trees were busying themselves with their daily life. Pathways, benches and picnic tables dotted the immediate surroundings. A nearby pond with its flat mirror surface shimmered in the sun. And not a soul was in sight.

Save for a single pony, the area was deserted. Even the nearby street was silent.

A quick glance at her hooves for one last check was followed by a content sigh. The rigid neon pink and black shoes were secured and tight.

The mare let out a breath, waiting for her heartbeat to steady. She adjusted her outfit to feel most comfortable, then cleaned her brow and muzzle with a quick rub of a sweatband.

She brought her forelegs to her head and firmly inserted the small white earphones. She had no need for a helmet. Not at her skill level. It would only be an annoyance.

She looked down on the path before her; it was steep.

Too steep.

But not for her.

She drew in a deep breath.

She muttered a single word-

“Play.”

-and threw herself off the hill.

As her body gathered speed, she moved her lips silently to the lyrics. The mare’s eyes were focused firmly on the path ahead.

Soon, the objects around her were matching the speed of the beat thumping into her ears. The early hour made it easy to navigate the park’s smooth pathway. No passers-by to keep an eye out for.

But she couldn’t afford to grow complacent. Doing that could lead to lapses in concentration. Slips. Accidents. It was not a luxury she was privy to - not here, not on the job.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t have some fun.

With a smooth move of her left legs she sailed diagonally across the pathway, right in time to miss a surprised jogger. They yelled something behind her back, but she was too far away already.

The blasting drums made it easy to not hear the cry of protest anyway.

She didn’t care.

It was not the time to care.

The time and place for that would come later.

A place for everything, and everything in its place. Especially time.

Now was the time to enjoy the simple things.

She smiled to herself as she bent her legs and drew her body closer to the ground, her speed only increasing. The fear had been exterminated years ago; she was content in her abilities.

There was no stopping her.

Not here, not now, not ever.

The shop assistant sat on the uncomfortable chair with a drooping posture. Luckily, the slow graveyard shift was almost over. Only thirty more minutes and he’d be able to get back home, take a nice hot bath and perhaps spend some time with the missus.

A loud beep of the door sensor ripped him out of the daydream. He looked up slowly at the entering pony and forced a fake smile.

The mare was an earth pony. She had a long, loose mane and tail the colour of charcoal. Her coat was of a strange shade, a colour he found impossible to name properly, even when she was standing right in front of him. Maroon? Rose? It was a striking mix of thin purple, pink and gray, and all of that muted like a washed out t-shirt.

She was taller than the average mare. Her body was lean, like that of someone used to light athletics. Her tight fitting sports pants and loose sleeveless shirt didn’t leave much to the imagination. Her sporty appearance was fitting, given she always appeared drenched in sweat and in a set of sleek rollerblades.

But that was not what always caught his attention. Every time she appeared when he was behind the counter, he saw them. He was pretty sure no one could have missed them.

Those eyes.

Those piercing golden eyes. Like the shiniest doubloons from the pirate holovids he had liked so much when he was a colt. He had a wife, a wife that he loved very much. But something drew his attention to them. They were beyond being simply attractive. They were mesmerizing.

Many times hehad found himself lost in them. Luckily she never noticed, or she didn’t care.

Probably for the best.

He was always wondering about her when she dropped by. There were lengthy stretches of time where she walked into the shop day after day to buy an isotonic drink at 5:45 am. Like clockwork. Then she would vanish for weeks, sometimes months, before just reappearing all of sudden one morning like nothing had happened, buying another drink.

Like clockwork.

The stallion watched her awkwardly walk to the freezer on her locked rollerblades, grab her drink - always the same, blueberry - and display the autocash machine. She paid quickly with a swipe of her multiband, gave him a barely noticeable nod and left the shop chugging on the bottle.

They never exchanged a word.

The hazardous material detector blinked a green light as she walked through the guardhouse into the compound. A small gated community on the outskirts of the city, reserved mostly for those with cushy business positions or the retired and wealthy. She was the only pony that was going inside; everyone else was leaving in their shiny premium class e-cars to inevitably be stuck in the morning rush. It never ceased to amuse her.

The bored security guard had been granted a brief glance and a tiny nod. She never bothered to utter a greeting, more as professional habit rather than spite. Getting too friendly with those that were irrelevant to a mission could result in dire consequences.

With the rollerblades hanging around her neck she began to walk towards her flat. It wasn’t far. She just needed to follow the gravel path past the artificial pond. It was still early; the groundskeepers were out and about, cleaning the azure water, trimming the neat rows of conifers and mowing the large open lawns with precise machines. The whole area looked like it was maintained by automatons. Not a pinecone was misplaced, not a bush untrimmed, not a wastebasket filled. She had chosen this place because she liked it that way. Orderly. Organized. Uniform.

Qualities her usual work environment severely lacked.

Following the winding path, she passed by a playground. Spring riders in the shape of colourful cartoon characters, ornate synthwood seesaws, big polymer slides, but most importantly, no foals in sight thanks to the early hour. She didn’t hate children, they were just alien to her. She didn’t know how to deal with them. She had no point of reference.

She had never found the time.

Soon, she reached the building. A four story block of yellow cavorite with subtle steel beam highlights and many balconies sticking out. Just as she was about to input the code to the building’s door she heard a grinding male voice right behind her.

“Wine Glass! He’s done it again! I’ve had it up to my horn with these escapades! Tell him that I did not allow my daughter to marry him so he can throw away the money from her- MY family business willy nilly on such idiotic things like independence!”

The mare turned to the stallion, quickly smiling. “Mister Grape, I am Laser Point. And I am not your daughter. I am your neighbour.”

The elderly unicorn narrowed his eyes at the mare with a visible look of confusion on his face. “Say what missy? I do not recall you ever marrying into the family, you are no daughter of mine.” He pointed a cane-armed hoof at her. “And do not ever think of calling me dad!”

She sighed, slowly walking over to the elderly pony and gently lowering the belligerent cane. “Where is Miss Pitter Patter? Isn’t she supposed to be taking care of you?” The stallion found himself being very slowly rotated away from the flat and towards the nearby trees. “Go back to the park, she must be worried sick about her charge.”

He screwed his face and tapped the cane hard on the concrete. “That skank? I do not care what she thinks, no one will babysit Grape Juice! I have a reputation to uphold!”

“Yes, a reputation of a very hard pensioner. Go back there before she calls for security.”

The stubborn unicorn waved his cane in the air a few times before slowly moving towards the indicated spot. “And you are with her? You lied to me all my life? Damnit, if only Princess Celestia saw how the youth are treating their elders these days she’d banish you to the moon right away!” He turned his head surprisingly quickly for someone of his age and gave the mare an evil eye. “Say, what was your name again?”

The earth pony smiled patiently, lightly nudging him in the direction of the park.. “Feedback Swirl.”

She returned to the door.

Grape Juice could be heard walking away and grumpily vocalizing his displeasure at the current generation as she input the six digit code and entered into the foyer. She passed the glass elevators standing at the ready and made towards the staircase, then with a few quick preliminary steps in place the mare began to jog upwards.

The toughened door smoothly slid open and just as smoothly closed behind her.

The rollerblades were tossed into a corner, soon the shirt and pants followed into the laundry box in the nearby bathroom and the multiband and earphones were put on the shelf by the door.

Her hooves softly clattered on the bocote paneling as she got close to the open doors separating the antechamber from the rest of the apartment. Beyond them was a large room, two stories high. The opposite wall was fully transparent, doubling as a window and showing the neighbourhood. Further beyond the gates and the low urban sprawl, the city. Tall oblong buildings of the downtown, easily visible even from this distance, and even further than that, the jagged peak of Mount Reis. To her right were stairs consisting of nothing but a set of synthwood blocks embedded in the nearby wall, leading to the raised sleeping area and a small private lounge. Under the stairs, a kitchen in a simple yet elegant style, light gray nu-modernistic furniture holding less than a dozen plates and a barely used set of kitchenware. On the far right wall, rows and rows of shelves filled with paper books, more of a fashion statement than a practical collection in this day and age. She did read them from time to time, but the smell and the feel of old paper could not beat the convenience of a simple e-reader.

The left wall was adorned with many intricate metal hangers and holders, the vast majority filled with house plants of all shapes, colours and sizes. A miniscule lizard-like drone was climbing between the fragile leaves and vines, dutifully spraying the plants with hydration agent. The few remaining empty pots were waiting their turn for new occupants from far off worlds in far off nations.

Everyone needed a hobby.

She flexed her neck and shoulders a little, then, with a light heave, she threw herself up on her hindlegs and hooked her left foreleg on the metal bar mounted in the doorframe. Then she took a deep breath and pulled herself up.

One.

Two...

...Three....

She dropped on the floor and gave herself a moment to catch her breath, then looked up at the bar and threw herself back up again. The right one needed work too.

One.

Two...

...Three...

Her forelegs were burning as she returned to the ground. Breathing heavily, she started walking, or more accurately, stumbling, towards the bathroom. As soon as her breathing steadied, she called out.

“Resume playlist.”

A gentle guitar began immediately from the ceiling mounted speakers.

‘I'm on lonely street age nearly three. Recently mama's crying all the time...’

“Stop playlist.” She took a deep breath and exhaled softly. “Change playlist. Chill 2. Play.”

Again, the apartment was filled with soft music, this one purely instrumental. Full of light drums and bi-wave xylophones with a sprinkle of macro synthesizers. The mare nodded with satisfaction as she entered the bathroom, a medium sized room entirely covered in ivory tiles, only the floor made of black marble. With a neutral expression she glanced at her reflection in the big wall mounted mirror and walked into the corner, under a free hanging shower head. She tapped one of the multitude of identical white squares, which blinked to life with a light green holo-interface, then adjusted the settings to ‘Hot’ and ‘Rain/Mist’ before tapping ‘Start’.

The shower hissed and the mare let out a moan more befitting a bedroom as her muscles melted in bliss.

With white towels firmly wrapped around the top of her head and her entire tail, the earth pony stepped out of the bathroom. A different song was playing now, a slow paced ambient track with a lot of grand piano mixed with aggressive use of electronic samples. She looked around the apartment as she prepared a mental checklist for the day, and smiled as she realized it wouldn’t be long.

First: Plant care. They all need to be tended to; the donkey tail would need to be replanted soon and the desert rose would have to be trimmed. The really exotic ones would be fine - she’d taken care of them on tuesday. Often she chuckled to herself when she imagined her coworkers reacting to her taking care of houseplants, rubber gloves on hooves and holding a small trowel, or even the tiny shears needed for the rose. This time was no different.

Second thing on the agenda: one of the window’s false-image holoprojectors had been acting up and she’d rather no one from the outside could actually see in. Of course, she could forward a request to logistics to have them install bulletproof shutters, but she didn’t want a bunch of agency techs milling around her home during her leave. Besides, shutters had an annoying tendency to block sunlight. She could change the holoprojector herself as soon as they delivered a new one.

Lastly: she was out of strawberry jam.

All of those could wait. At least until noon.

She walked upstairs, approached the big modern couch and slowly climbed up. Hindlegs stretched, back propped up with a large satin pillow, she let out a content sigh,

“Television.”

The music stopped, then the transparent wall showing the distant city instantly dimmed. A second later it lit up, showing a handsome stallion in a checkered suit sitting at a desk. To his side, a smaller video feed was visible, showing a crowd of ponies brandishing crude signs and chanting angrily in front of an impressive official-looking building.

“-citizens gathered in front of the Royal Senate to voice their displeasure at the contentious Repopulation Bill which was proposed last week. At the moment, the bill aims to lower yearly income tax for families with at least two children. Princess-Regent Luna is yet to-”

“Television off.”

As the music resumed, the mare sighed again, this time with annoyance.

She narrowed her brows, then reached to the coffee table and picked up an ebook reader. It took her awhile to finally find a desirable position that didn’t irritate one old scar or another, but once she was satisfied, she clicked the reader and opened a page.

‘Chapter 9: Colonel Kraft's Ingenious Plan’

Two chapters in, the mare’s attention was grabbed by a soft jingle coming from the apartment’s speakers. A very particular jingle she had purposefully selected for that specific contact. Without taking her eyes off the reader, she frowned at the audacity of the caller to ruin her leave.

“Accept call.”

The speakers chirped; she didn’t wait for the caller to identify themselves.

“What do you want?”

Even though the voice was purposefully distorted, it was clearly displeased at her lacking discipline, or even common courtesy. “Standard operating protocols require you to ID yourself first.”

Her frown deepened. “You are calling me at home during my free time. The only one I will identify myself to is the Zebrahan restaurant’s delivery drone.” She locked the reader. “This better be important.”

“It is. Eagle Eye has intercepted a message that you might find very interesting.” There was a short pause. “I don’t have the details yet, but it must be related to Snowdrop.”

The lounging mare slowly looked up and put the reader back on the coffee table, then she got off the couch and descended the stairs towards the kitchen. The wall mounted panel blinked, indicating the call was rerouted to this section of the apartment. “COMINT doing their job? That’s a new one. Are they sure it is not some solar flare radiation, system glitch or dud decryption?”

“I made them check thrice, and I also asked Section Twelve to do it too. They are all certain it’s legit.”

She filled the wireless kettle with water and set it on, then opened a cupboard, pulled out a metal mug adorned with stenciled floral patterns and set it down on the counter. “I trust twelve to know their job. Fine, what do you have?”

“It is not about what the message says, it is about where it was sent from...”

The mare was looking through the small ornate porcelain containers on the counter as the distorted voice continued.

“...And to whom it was addressed.”

She finally decided on the content of one of the containers and pulled out a rose scented teabag to drop in the mug. “And who would that be?”

The digital distortion on the caller’s voice failed to mask their consternation. “We have no idea. But we are working on it.”

“Oh. I think I can see where this is going.” She smiled at herself as the orange light on the kettle faded before grabbing it and filling the mug.

“HeadOps wants you to find that out, but that is enough details. I expect to see you in my office in the next two hours.”

She let out a defeated sigh. So much for leisure time. “I’ll see you there then.” The speakers clicked and the soft instrumental music resumed playing. She blew into her mug and took a small sip. Immediately she recoiled as the tip of her tongue was burned.

The mare gave the kettle a flat stare.

“Fucking Sidewinder.”

Eight hours and a short jump later, a reinforced bulkhead opened with a hiss of pressurized air. Behind it, a long tubular corridor was visible. She walked into it at a brisk pace. The other end was nearly three hundred meters away.

To some, the sights the glasteel tube presented would have been breathtaking. Naval Station Tiberius One; the primary anchorage for the Republic fleet, right above the capital planet of Hope. Even though majority of the navy was constantly patrolling the borders of the Republic or based in other, more distant locations, the sights offered never failed to impress newcomers.

All around, the vacuum of space had a strong colouring to it. Swirls of sapphire, midnight blue, ultramarine and everything in between, with tiny dots that were different stars sprinkled all around. White, yellow, orange and red. The Galleon Nebula - named after its appearance bringing an ancient ship of the line to mind when viewed from the far away Equestria.

On her left was a panoramic view of Hope’s southern hemisphere, half of it perpetually covered in darkness, tiny gatherings of faint yellow visible here and there. The other half presented massive mountain ranges and vast clusters of landmasses broken apart by malachite green seas.

Hope was a pristine world not unlike primeval Equestria. Perfect to settle for the exiles, who had turned the virgin planet into their new home away from home over the past three decades. Much of the world was still untouched purely because of the simple fact that the republic’s population had spread very thinly in this sector of the galaxy. There were simply not enough ponies to fully exploit the controlled planets. But they were getting there. It was best visible with Hope.

With a population of roughly half a billion, the planet had only a few dozen major cities, most of them located on the perpetually dark side to accommodate the majority of the bat pony citizens living below. Only the capital city was built on the equator, right where the dark and light sides met. It was entirely possible to drive around the city in circles, thus experiencing sunset and sunrise multiple times in a short span of time.

On her right was a massive orbital station that always brought to mind an image of a flattened spider, dozens of ships attached along the leg-like berths. The Royal Republic Navy was far from the biggest, maybe not even the third biggest given the Crystal League’s aggressive expansion the past few years. But even Nightmare Star’s vast armadas had to be wary of the modern ships of the NLR. Especially since her sister’s followers rarely engaged in a direct confrontation. The RRN was never meant to destroy the enemy in a decisive battle. They were meant to raid logistics, strike high value targets far behind enemy lines, disrupt strategic capabilities of the hostile power, sow chaos and force the superior opponent to scatter. Only so the enemy could be singled out and destroyed in a series of swift strikes.

Lessons learned from eight bloody years of civil war.

That didn’t mean there were no hard hitters however. Closest to the walkway, in the nearby berth, lay a massive dreadnought easily over a kilometer long. Its hull was shaped roughly like an ancient battleaxe, with the bridge at the cutting edge and superheavy mass driver turrets along the ‘shaft’. The pride of the fleet built almost forty years ago, back during a better era. Now upgraded countless times, outfitted with the best offense and defense systems available to the Republic, and sadly the only one of her type on this side of the galactic core. The RRNS Celestia.

Right on the other side of the berth- rested the sleek and modern teardrop shape of a Stormreaver class battlecruiser with its bulbous gravity well generator. The first indigenous supercapital design of the fledgling republic.

Two berths away, as if purposefully isolated, rested a strike carrier, dwarfed by its supercapital sisters in arms. Merely three hundred meters long. Either Princess Cadance or Shining Armour. The only two of their class. It was hard to tell which one was it from this distance.

Among them, near and far,was a multitude of smaller capital and sub capital ships.

A single mobile shipyard, a squadron of missile destroyers guarded by an electronic warfare frigate, a cruiser sized fleet tanker, orbital bombardment monitors. All were being resupplied or repaired, docking or undocking, or simply waiting for their next assignment.

And in space, around them all, dozens of various corvettes and even smaller craft. Venoms, Banshees, Vertigos. Even a couple Harpies long withdrawn from frontline service, now retrofitted and affectionately nicknamed ‘salvettes’.

The mare didn’t pay an ounce of attention to any of this. In fact, the only thing that occupied her mind was the duffel bag on her side, filled with essential supplies. Going to the Periphery always meant that she had to pack heavy, and carrying one of those all the way from the shuttle depot was not a pleasant task.

Walking the full length of the corridor took her well over a minute. As always, at the end there was a single security bulkhead with two guards standing up front in full zero-g combat gear. She was just about to walk through the door when one of the helmeted ponies stood in her way. His opaque visor stared down as his electronically tainted voice rang out.

“Halt! Turn around and go back where you came from, miss. This area is for clearance zero personnel only.”

The mare very slowly shifted her gaze from the ground and pierced the overzealous guard with her golden eyes. She calmly reached into a front pocket of her tacsuit and withdrew a plastic ID card. Before she could fully show it to the guard, he was shoved away by his companion.

The other guard stood at attention with rigidness that would make a statue blush. He saluted sharply with one of his leathery wings and barked out.

“Good evening ma’am. I apologize for my partner; he was transferred here recently from the surface.” The smart guard quickly moved himself from the way, allowing her to go through the door.

The mare made an ‘o’ face and looked at the newcomer before returning to the second guard. “At ease Master Sergeant.” She hid her ID again and walked through the door.

Just as they were about to close, she heard an annoyed voice behind her.

“You absolute reta-”

The door shut with a hiss.

The mare smelled the air with a deep breath as she relaxed on the perfectly fitting seat. The suited pony allowed herself a smile when her nostrils caught a whiff of silicone mixed with aloe. She closed her eyes and slacked all the muscles she could. Only the soft humm of the reactor somewhere behind her existed now; nothing else mattered at this precise moment.

Then she thought of her mission, of her contacts, of her plans, of her backup plans. The mental checklist was being ticked nearly as fast as it was appearing. Finally, she took another deep breath, opened her eyes and keyed the radio.

“Tiberius flight control this is Paladin. Requesting undock clearance at berth D-nineteen. Over.”

The reply was quick and to the point. “Paladin this is Tiberius, you are cleared for departure at D-nineteen. Assume vector two-two-seven by negative nine-zero until the perimeter break and egress spinwards. Over.”

The mare started flipping the multitude of switches on the console in front of her. “Understood flight control. two-two-seven by negative nine-zero. Paladin departing now.” She quickly keyed the coordinates into the nav unit and slightly pushed the throttle forward.

The superstructure on the other side of the tinted canopy began to move. Soon, it disappeared behind her.

“Separation successful. Tiberius flight control out. Good hunting.”

She allowed herself a tiny smirk as she pushed the throttle further and heard the humm from behind intensify.

Only the dark blues of the nebula and the distant stars lay ahead of her. Not even the sensors picked up any contacts in range. A quick glance between all the status displays for one last check was followed by a content sigh.

She looked down at the job before her; it was tough.

Too tough.

But not for her.

She drew in a deep breath.

She muttered a single word-

“Play.”

-and initialized the magicdrive sequence.

She moved her lips silently to the same lyrics again as the space in front of Regulus flickered and the dimensional rift began to open.

‘Would you take a bullet? Would you bite the gun?’

The mare’s eyes were focused firmly on the path ahead.

‘Through the fire I'll keep burning on.’

While I've been busy catching up on a couple FOE Shorts I wanted to do over on the Fallout Equestria: The Untold Individuals page, I knew there'd be a short break until I could get around to writing its next piece.

Thankfully in that time, Napalm Goat is back with another story centred on Whisper Step. This one is pretty special. It's his largest writing project yet in story form, and it is one of the most inventive and risky stories I've seen in a while. I'm curious to see what people pick up from it, and delighted to bring it to you all as part of 'A Home in the Black'.

To refresh for people, given you're seeing snapshots of her story in these chapters: Whisper Step is a field agent for the New Lunar Republic who encountered the crew during the game's story. In searching for Project Snowdrop, a secretive pursuit by the ruthless megacorp 'Sidewinder', the crew found Whisper, their new ally, abducted. Soon, they learned of her brutal interrogation taking place, both horrific pain, and a terrible, mind-alterring drug named 'Delta C' being administered to try and make her break.

We saw the after-effects of this experience on her in the chapter "The Last Promise", after the crew -namely Hair Trigger- had found her in a dark crate within Sidewinder's clutches. Now, though, the game's GM himself takes us back a little, to look deeper into Whisper's story...

When was it? When was the first time?
Was it before or after my first assignment? So long ago. A year? Two? A decade?

It was summer.

I remember… I remember standing there and looking at it all. Clean. Freshly renovated. Was the furniture in there already or did I bring my own? The Agency, I got it from them, I think. They care for their people. They have to. Especially after that mess with-.

Poor girl. Couldn’t handle the pressure. Hopefully her family moved on.

What was her name? Cloudy? Sunny something?

Donkey Tail.

I was so proud of them, one fully grown and potted under my foreleg and a couple of saplings resting in the basket. I couldn’t wait to settle in and plant them, and the others too of course. Maybe hang them on that wall over there? I’d have to order some hangers then. But maybe it would be best to go out myself? Find the local flower shop, get acquainted with the neighbourhood?

No, not in this heat. I had enough heat for the whole year after that survival exercise.

Heat? Not heat. Rain.

The flash of lightning shook me out of my musings. Beyond the window I could see the far away city, its brightly lit buildings shining through the darkness. The flowing droplets on the other side of the glass made the huge hanging neon signs appear to dance and weave to the drumming of the rain.

I leaned back on the seat, sipped from the glass and listened to the rain. The storm outside occasionally banished the room’s darkness with a distant flash. My nose picked up a hint of fresh dirt from the recently hung pots. My limbs were slacked pleasantly as I lounged on the soft cushions.

Easel was right; it was worth it. And how convenient!

I looked over my shoulder at my guest. One of the most handsome bats I had ever hooked up with, if not the most. But now he was leaving.

Tall, fit, but not overly muscular, with that amazing roguish smile. If I had a normal job I could see myself falling for him.

He put on his leather jacket and winked with one of those slitted emerald eyes. “I’d stay for the night, but I have a job to do, pretty.”

Giggling and nearly spilling the cocktail, I half turned and pointed a hoof at him. “We had our fun charmer. You can drop the act!”

He just shrugged and walked over, the lightning illuminating his silhouette. “It’s not an act. I am one hundred percent genuine.” He stopped on the side of the chair, extended his neck and gently pecked my cheek.

I giggled again, but it was cut short as I felt his leathery wing brush the inside of my thigh. “Now you are getting cheeky.” I regained my senses and playfully swatted with my foreleg. “Get out of here!”

I watched him strut towards the door. No, I did not just watch. I ogled his flank like a starving mouse would a piece of cheese.

With a roll of my eyes I put the wine on the table and followed to see him out.

The door opened with a hiss. He stopped in the threshold, turned around and watched me come closer with a smile. Once I stopped before him, he wiggled his eyebrows and simultaneously flapped his wings once. Then, he leaned close yet again, as close as before. His eyes were the only feature I could see as he whispered, dead serious. “What do you know about Snowdrop?”

Lightning struck right in the park under my windows. I winced at its roar and shut my eyes tight out of reflex. When I opened them again my companion was as blank as before, its featureless faceplate staring through my head.

“Thank you for using our services. If you enjoyed this unit’s performance we can offer you a discount on the monthly sub-”

I pressed the button and shut the door in the pondroid’s face. Easel was right, it was worth it. But it lacked something. I chuckled to myself in amusement. “A goodnight kiss most likely.”

Slowly I walked back to the living room, made myself comfortable in the seat and idly rubbed my fetlocks, then grabbed the glass and took a sip of my whiskey. “Resume playlist.”

‘The lunatic is on the grass…’

Downtown looked beautiful covered in snow.

This getup sure was a new experience. I didn’t mind, not at all. How often did I get to wear something that annihilated the notion of function?

Worn khaki poncho?
Check.
Tight iridescent one piece?
Check.
Baggy rainbow sequin pants (with obligatory generous cutouts for cutie marks)?
Check.
Fluorescent paste on said cutie marks?
Check.
Silvery reflective horseshoes?
Check.
Chemlight collar?
Check.
Perfectly placed face jewels?
Check.
Animated optical fibers running through mane and tail?
Check
Attenuation filter ear plugs?
Check.

And a very special necklace.

Check.

It was quiet. A little self discipline, and you could filter out any noise. After this short moment of clarity, I decided it was time to get going. I released my breath and focused my senses outwards.

The world regained its sounds one more time.

Like a freight train, the roar of music and the noise of over three thousand people filled my ears. Screaming, yelling, talking and laughing. Despite this, the thumping electronic beat was palpable.

‘You get a phone call from the queen with a hundred heads.’

I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.

All the colours of the rainbow, periodic table and the galaxy were before me. Ponies, griffins and zebra among others. Their coats and their outfits were just as extravagant as mine, if not more so. Towering colourful chapeus, flowing floral robes, obscenely high platform boots, vast amounts of intricate jewelry and the ubiquitous chemlights.

And above them all, a stadium-sized glassteel skylight ran over the sea of people, offering a view into the cosmos.

Space. Infinite, black and red and blue and green. And right in the center, an apple sized disc, made of smudged colours from the ether around it, with thousands of tiny white dots packed tightly in a thick ring surrounding it. The further from the muddled center they were, the less cramped the dots appeared, until they finally transitioned into normal starscape, far enough away for light to escape the insatiable appetite of the cosmic devourer.

And below it all, sheltered by mere inches of glassteel was a sea of people partying on the edge of infinity. There were the searchlights, lasers and holograms, flickering, spinning and weaving to the rhythm. All of them constantly shifting patterns, colour and intensity, changing the floor into an ecstasy fueled kaleidoscope that perfectly blended with the music. And between all of this equipment, in the middle of the stage a hundred meters before me, a duo of bat pony stallions behind a huge table, headphones on, forelegs dancing on the consoles.

The air was filled with soap bubbles lazily falling down, heedless of the crowd’s collective energy. I smiled as I watched the colourful stage lasers reflect in those small shimmering orbs, like miniature supernovas.

All around me, huge metal bulkheads - easily thirty meters tall - were covered in sound absorbing material. Here and there, an archway or other passage led into one of many side corridors and rooms.

The ship used to be a bulk cargo transport long ago. Now it was repurposed as a mobile festival and concert arena, currently orbiting Light’s End at a distance most space travel agencies would find in grave violation of the widely accepted common sense and ship operation safety standards.

I took another breath and began walking, bouncing my body to the music. It was surprisingly easy; as soon as others saw my outstretched foreleg they took a step to the side, just enough to let me pass. Amusingly, no one tried to ‘accidentally’ grope me. A welcome change in comparison to the last job at a similar event.

“What were they called again? Something about a metal boot.” I spoke loudly to myself, not that I could hear it.

The beat intensified, and the crowd reacted in turn. Even I stopped limiting myself to just bobbing my head and shoulders up and down, and began swaying. Hips and all.

It took me a good five minutes to get to my destination, but finally I approached a duo of gruff looking minotaurs flanking a large open hatch labeled AC1609. They looked hilariously out of place. Cheap black uniforms covered them from head to hoof. One of them looked down at me questioningly. I showed him a simple red synthetic band on my fetlock. He squinted his eyes at it, barked something I couldn’t hope to hear and motioned for me to enter as I gave him a sweet smile and went in. Behind the doors, a set of short metal stairs led me up and above the main floor, and onto a relatively small, open platform. A crowd of people was here too, all wearing the same bands as I.

I quickly scanned the area. It was quite a sight. Not only was it a miniature copy of the crowd below, it also had quite a few unique amenities the main floor did not possess. Namely, tables with bottles of champagne in sleek ice-filled buckets, standing right next to neat lines of white powder arranged by length and thickness. Quite a few of them clearly in various stages of consumption. Young waiters and waitresses in brave clothing patrolled the floor, refilling the buckets and contractually giggling at an occasional haughty look or slap to the flank. On the sides, large circular cages held mares and stallions who bent and weaved in tune with the booming music. Right above the middle, just barely out of reach from the floor, a slim zebra mare was suspended upside down. Her hindlegs spread horizontally in a perfect line, somehow holding onto a hanging hoop above her. A red semi transparent ribbon was barely wrapped around her body, covering what little modesty she still had. She held a part of it between her teeth, grinning at an infatuated deer buck who was fruitlessly trying to bite down the very end of it.

The deer buck I came here for.

He appeared young for a deer, mainly because of his modest antlers which were entirely covered in pinkish glitter. His coat was light gray, almost white in colour, though most of it was hidden by an unbuttoned shirt with a floral pattern. Other than that, he wore what appeared to be a standard set of accessories for such an event. A pair of shutter shades with colourful animated LEDs, simple pieces of expressive jewelry; mostly plastic and glowing or reflective one way or another, and to top it all, his hindlegs were covered by sporty shin guards.

An increase in the music’s tempo shook me back to the present. I instinctively resumed swiveling before looking around. A large bar counter with a trio of tenders on the other side was nested opposite the main stage. I made my way towards it, and waited for the buck to have his fun.

Thankfully the space by the counter wasn’t crowded. Enough to blend in, but not enough to lose sight of my quarry. I stood sideways to be able to see the main stage, and by extension, the deer.

Even in this VIP lounge it was obvious the music was the main attraction, with people dancing and cheering, no doubt their enthusiasm fueled by alcohol among other indulgences. I couldn’t say it was my type of tune, but I couldn’t lie and say the universal energy radiating from the crowd and the performers did not put me in a giddy mood. It was… infectious.

“What'll it be miss!?”

The bartender’s shout got my attention. I leaned over the counter and yelled back. “Ring up a Vesper!”

The griffin nodded in an overexaggerated manner, making sure to signal to me that she understood, then quickly started prepping my drink.

I turned my back to the counter and leaned on it, then grabbed a strand of my mane and twirled it playfully. A large unicorn in a colourful blouse walked right beside me. He was moving slowly, bouncing and bobbing his head only very slightly.

I let go of my mane and giggled before muttering under my breath. “A for effort, soldierboy.”

As the stallion walked past, I rolled my eyes and shook my head in amusement. If you were trying to stay undercover, do not watch everyone like a hawk. And most definitely do not pack anything bigger than a thirty-eight.

Amateurs.

I threw my head back, closed my eyes and listened.

‘That he could wish himself health on a four-leaf clover.’

I could have sworn I heard those lyrics in some ancient and very different song before. No matter.

The beat that came right after did the trick, and I heard the excited yelling of the crowd all around me. I couldn’t help but lightly throw my loose mane around. Partially to blend in, but mostly because it was just plain fun.

A light tap on my back broke me out of my reverie. Reluctantly, I looked over my shoulder to see the bartender pointing at my now filled glass. I gave her a quick nod before swiping my bracelet on the portable terminal in the griffin’s hand and grabbing my cocktail.

A sip of the bitter liquid, just enough to feel its coarse burn, and it was time to go.

Show time.

I took off and made my way to the opposite end of the platform. The buck was by the railing, stomping, swaying and tossing his head around. Lost in trance. I really could not blame him.

Weaving between other party goers, tables and the staff, I managed to get to the railing. With friendly smiles and a bit of elbow grease I finally reached the very front, stopping right next to my target.

One more step and an accidental tumble later, the contents of my glass landed straight on his shoulder.

He jumped, startled, looked at me through his flashing LED shades, and made a surprised expression.

I quickly grabbed the edge of my poncho and started rubbing it against his coat. “I am so sorry! I am such a goof!”

He looked annoyed for just a split second, just long enough before he noticed my rich golden eyes. As he did, his expression became neutral. Then, the corners of his mouth went upwards. The song was ending by now, but I still barely registered what he said.

“Hey! No problem!”

I’ve put on my best innocent smile I could muster. “Sorry, sorry! I shouldn’t have come all the way here! It’s too tight to just stand and drink!”

His smile grew into a grin as he waved a foreleg, dismissing the notion. “You should really fasten your seatbelts in this place girl! Come on, stay and have fun! I promise I will get you a new one later!”

His obvious wink was all the confirmation I needed to know that he thought I was his now.

More precisely, it was what I wanted him to think.

After one of the burly unicorns the deer waved over took my now empty glass, I graciously nodded and smiled some more. I then put a hoof on his shoulder, drawing him close enough to not have to yell. Once I got his attention, I pointed the other hoof towards the stage. “Who are these guys anyway!?”

He looked at me briefly, then at the stage. “Oh them!? I am not sure, first time hearing them! Some kind of art bats!”

“I think I like them! Are they going to go on for long!?”

The buck glanced at his multiband and tapped it twice. His response was drowned out by the roaring cheers of a couple thousand throats as the tune passed its climax. “...nding! The next set is the bomb! You don’t want to miss that!”

I gave him a few quick nods. “Oh yeah! I am not alone in that! That’s what I’m here for!” I had little knowledge of what he was talking about. “You want to get me that drink before it begins!?”

Out here, there was no such thing as the beginning or end, just periods of slowdown for resting. The event was running for three days in a row, but right now was the ultimate concentration of the party. The peak of freedom. The depths of hedonism. The supernova of pleasure. I’ve spent the last three and a half hours looking for this deer. No intel, be it Republic or Imperial, could have tracked him down this precisely. Not in this place. Torann Corcra, also known as the Fading Halo, eldest son of the owner of the most powerful big pharma megacorp in Avalon. Ninety nine point nine percent of all the drugs at this party were made in his father’s laboratories.

But that was not why I was seeking him out. Arrest him for drug trafficking? I was not here to play cops and robbers. A month ago, one of our missing Avalon agents was finally found. More precisely, his hindlegs and a roach infested torso had been found. In three separate waste barrels no less. Sloppy, not something a rival agency would do. But a mob? Section Twelve finally found out who was responsible. Looked like daddy decided to change sides.

It was time to return the favour.

I flashed my eyebrows. “Come on! Before they start playing the good stuff!” They were already playing the good stuff, but I had to take my chance before Torann was lost in the zone again.

Tugging at his antler playfully, I headed for the counter. He quickly followed.

Of course he would.

I reached the bar first, turned around and waited for the buck with a playful smile. Once he rejoined me, he waved one of the bartenders who dropped whatever she was doing and immediately approached the deer. She knew who he was, that much was obvious.

“Hey Ringo! Aquileian Light!”

The bartender nodded and yelled back, eyes still on the buck. “And for the lady!?”

He looked at me with a coy smirk. I held his gaze with a smile. “Lake City Coup!”

The bartender disappeared as quickly as she appeared, not that he noticed. I think he was lost somewhere between yellow and gold.

The music was picking up again, but it was obvious it was just a slower piece intended to let the crowd rest since the last performance.

I grabbed a strand of my mane and played with it in my hoof, all the while staring into the buck’s soul. “You’re a regular, aren’t you!?”

The sound of his chuckle was covered by the fast beat. “I’ve been around! Here, Highlands, Radar, Yesterdayland, Sunset, Moonburn… The list goes on!” He puffed his chest out proudly.

I opened my mouth in awe. “Wow! I haven’t been to any big ones yet! Unless you count this! You’re a vet!”

The deer was beaming; that did the trick. “You won’t find this kind of fun anywhere else!” He lowered his eyes for a moment before looking at me again. This time however, Torann wasn’t looking at me like he would have had at a new toy; his gaze was focused inwards. As if he was reflecting on a philosophical dilemma, or lecturing a neophyte. “In this kind of music the beautiful thing is that it is not hurrying along! There are no verses, no chorus, no refrain, everyone can just experience it as they please! It's just... music!”

Before I could have answered, our attention was grabbed by the bartender. We took the two tinted glasses filled with with our respective orders.

The deer spoke again. “Are you going to finally tell me your name or do I have to get you more drinks?”

I brought my drink to lips before giggling at his question. “Oh yes! I am Memory Lane!”

He nodded, tapped his glass and smiled charmingly. “My name’s Torann Corcra, Purple Noise in deerspeek! A pleasure!” The buck raised his drink with a wink.

Half closing my eyes with a warm smile I brought up mine and we clinked our glasses together.

“Well, Miss Memory Lane!” He downed his entire drink in one go. “Let’s PARTY!”

“Woohoo!” I followed suit and threw one of my forelegs into the air.

This was bad. I was supposed to drop the pill into the drink and conveniently vanish. Not get smashed and listen to whatever the fuck kind of trance this was with a soon to be a very stiff druglord.

Torann put his glass on the counter, then did the same with mine. Then, he grabbed me by my shoulder, before gently pulling me into the crowd.

I habitually touched the piece of jewelry on my neck. I had to try again later, or come up with another option. Close enemies, I supposed.

As he pulled me along between the colourful partygoers, I felt the warmth reaching my stomach. The last time I drank anything stronger than a beer was… I didn’t remember. The blasting music’s tempo quickly matched my own heartbeat. This time it was faster than before, even more energetic. It didn’t take long for it to unfurl. I could hear the crowd singing in unison.

‘Reach up to the sky above. Higher like you can't get enough.’

He pulled me along. There were noticeably more people here now. Figures. It was the hour where the really good stuff started. Soon, we found ourselves surrounded by partying people.

But we weren’t going to the platform’s railing. The deer was dragging me towards the stairs leading out of the VIP lounge.

“Where are we going!?”

Torann yelled without turning around to look at me. “That was just an entrée! We’re going to the main floor! Trust me!”

I quickly looked around, trying to spot the heat packing stallions, but they were nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t remember if that was good or bad. But I knew I had to stay close to the deer.

We gracefully weaved through the crowd, running down the stairs two steps at a time. Then, headed for the main floor, right under the massive glassteel roof. The buck held my hoof gently, but securely enough to not lose touch. Minute after minute, drop after drop, beat after beat, we made our way into the middle of the huge crowd, perhaps twenty meters from the stage.

The crowd here was dense, but there was enough room to stand freely. More importantly, there was enough room to throw oneself around, which Torann immediately started to do.

I couldn’t afford to stand out.

‘And then you bring it back.’

We couldn’t get drinks here. How was I supposed to give him the poison? I had to figure out something, and fast.

I was probably the only person on the floor right now that was thinking. Not that others were incapable. They were just… gone. Consumed by rhythm, lights and each other’s bliss. The closeness of another, be it lover, friend or a total stranger. All were lost, heedless of the world at large. Their daily burdens, issues, monotony. All were away, far from here. Just for this weekend. It was good.

I drew in a sharp breath as the beat slowed down.

Closeness. That was it. Risky. Extremely so. But I had a job to do.

Alternating between my four legs weaving, stomping and twisting, I sidestepped closer to the buck. Close enough to brush my side against his coat.

He looked at me with a smile and turned it into a grin. “This is awesome! COME ON!” With a quick reach, he hooked his foreleg over my shoulder and began swaying left and right in tune.

My laugh was drowned out by the music as I followed suit. “YOU’RE RIGHT!” Turning to the deer, I lidded my eyes and grinned. “I’m glad I’m here with you Torann!”

He lifted his LED glasses and looked into my eyes with an expression of gratitude. It took him a short moment to finally escape the sea of gold. “The night’s still young! But something already tells me it will be unforgettable!”

I couldn’t help but cover my muzzle with a hoof and laugh. It’d been a while since someone looked at me like that.

I thought.

Damned alcohol.

We embraced each other and laughed as the song transitioned. But instead of letting go, I pushed the deer away forcefully and laughed at his confusion. “How about that other drink you promised me!?”

He balked at me for a split second before bursting out in laughter. “Oh so you are that kind of mare!? Don’t worry! I have something better!” He slowed down his swaying and reached a hoof into the small satchel around his midsection, rummaged there for a moment and pulled out two tiny wraps of tinfoil.

I could see them clearly. I instantly knew what they were. After all, he was a specialist.

Torann slowly unwrapped one of the packages, licked his hoof and put it into the foil. Then he lifted it and pointed at my muzzle. A small pale orange pill was sticking to it. Shaped… like an owl?

“Nothing serious, not some insane tranquilizer! Just enough to make you fire on all cylinders!” He turned the hoof around, opened his muzzle and started to move it to his mouth.

Quickly, I reached out and grabbed his foreleg. He looked at me in surprise as I turned it around, gave him a devious smile and licked the pill off it.

It immediately sucked out all the moisture from my mouth, and was by far the single most bitter thing I ever swallowed.

The buck raised his eyebrows high before chuckling, at least I thought he was chuckling, not that I heard anything. “What about me!?” He leaned down and began to carefully unwrap the other packet.

That was my chance. I turned to the side and grabbed my necklace. A small, wooden crescent moon on a linen string, holding a shiny gemstone. Grabbing it with both hooves I clicked the gemstone and from the other side another pill fell out. This one white and round. I quickly put it in my mouth. I knew it was safe; the chemical compound was tailored to deer DNA. An earth pony like me would end up in a street corner and puke for the rest of the night, but for a deer like Torann it would be lethal. After all, it was made by his own father’s company.

Turning quickly back to my quarry I called out. “You fed me mine, how about I feed you yours!?”

I could see the cogs in his head turning. Once he got it, he grinned and passed me his pill.

Quickly, I grabbed the owl and deposited it in my mouth.

I was going to regret this later.

Holding the necklace pill between my teeth, I swallowed the disgusting drug, then shifted the white pill between my lips… And threw myself at the buck. Forelegs around each other’s shoulders, our lips met passionately and I wasted no time in pushing my tongue, and the pill, deep inside his mouth.

We stood like that for a long time. He was busy trying to feel the inside of my muzzle. I was making sure he swallowed the pill. I would have lied if I said I did not enjoy it. He was a cute young buck.

But a job is a job.

Finally, once I was certain Torann had gulped down the pill, we broke off, breathing heavily and shaking. He grinned at me like a colt who just had his first kiss.

I smiled and waved my mane in return. “Wow! This thing is really dry! Get us some water, will you!?”

The buck nodded eagerly, leaned in close and gave me a smooch on the cheek before leaving. “I’ll be right back!”

Too easy.

As soon as I was sure the deer was out of sight, I turned towards the stage and began pushing through the crowd. All I had to do was extract without him finding me, get a gastric lavage, and it was back to the NLR for some well earned rest.

I had to take the long route back. Get to the stage, then to the side, and skirt the edges of the crowd as far away from the VIP lounge as possible. I did not want to run into his bodyguards. They would surely be on the lookout for his lovebird once he realised I was not waiting for him.

The crowd was even denser here. No matter. The less obvious the route, the better.

I could hear the shift in the music’s tempo; a new piece transitioned, and judging by the crowd’s ecstatic reaction to the high, almost coy female voice, it was a banger. Stopping briefly, I cast my sight backwards to where I last saw the deer. There was no sight of him. Instead, I saw hundreds if not thousands of grinning, blissful faces. I couldn’t help but crack a smile at the scene - it grew and grew. As soon as the lyrics started, I saw nearly everyone following along.

‘Our hearts tend to wander’

Such a fascinating place.

Facing the stage again, I looked at their idol. A griffin female, barely visible from behind the huge console. Fortunately, her station was televised live from multiple angles on the many screens hanging all around the venue. The ashen red griffin’s image alternated between colourful outlandish visualizations and shots of the colourful crowd.

I stood there, staring at it all. Even as an outsider I felt like I belonged. There was no judgement here, no prejudice, no hate or ridicule. Everyone could enjoy the event, everyone was welcome.

It made me feel happy.

My legs felt like they were made from putty.

And my face was graced with the biggest smile I’d ever felt.

I was certain.

I threw my head backwards and stared at the madly spinning spectacle behind the tinted glassteel. The pale blue jets of the pulsar’s emissions weaved as only a young filly’s braids could. In the middle, where they met, a tiny dot of brightest white radiated like no ordinary star ever could hope to accomplish. I was hypnotized.

‘Set yourself free!’

The crowd EXPLODED.

I was swept away by their ecstasy, yelling and cheering like so many others around me. Finally, I unglued my eyes from the distant star’s red glow and looked towards the stage, at a multitude of screens. The pegasus was still at it, then the image on the screens shifted. An overhead shot of the whole crowd. Then it shifted again. A heavily stylized negative colour visualization of what I guessed was the ship itself, floating through a psychedelic rendition of the cosmos.

With wobbling muscles I hefted myself up to stand on my hindlegs and threw my forelegs up.

A golden rush.

The bright moving lights of the stage had an almost perceivable aura around them, as if I could have touched the shine. I balanced on my hindlegs and reached out to touch it.

‘Welcome back agent Whisper Step, ready for another round?’

The smooth, brazen male voice echoed through my skull.

Smiling, I look at the gigantic screen behind the stage, the only one present. It was clearly visible, the whole floor was dark, with only occasional, electric hot searchlights shifting through the blackness.

On the screen, a pair of emerald slitted eyes.

Unblinking.

Peering straight at me.

The chorus exploded again.

‘Snowdrop. Tell me what you know about Snowdrop.’

I grin at the eyes. They are beautiful.

My fetlocks start to itch.

The job was supposed to be a simple snatch and grab. Get to the university, quietly grab the professor - by force if necessary - get back to the extract point and wait for pickup.

Of course no one expected a squadron of hyper advanced pursuit robots to crash our plans. I was on the run from the moment I snatched the zebra, at least fifteen minutes ago. We managed to make our way out of campus and into a more isolated area, but they were not letting up.

I could hear the flechettes hit our cover as I shouted into the radio. “Damnit Sir, I need some help!” The rushing wind all around me made it hard to hear anything else.

The voice in my ear was calm, but the level of intensity it carried only reinforced how serious the situation was. “We’re working on it Paladin. Get to the top of the temple, we’ll have a dropship pick you up.”

I nodded, knowing well that the many telescoping cameras watching me from the orbit would not be enough to let the voice know I understood. “What in Luna’s name are those three legged freaks?”

The voice was quick to reply. “Unknown. Their profile doesn’t match anything the Caliphate might have in service.”

I let out a blind burst from my SMG over the pile of construction materials I was using for cover, then pulled out and primed my last EMP grenade before lobbing it over towards my pursuers. The electric zap of an explosion was clearly heard from here. “Empire?”

“Unlikely, nothing suggests they are involved in this operation.” The voice paused, then continued with a tinge of annoyance. “We don’t know who made them or who sent them.”

I took a deep breath and counted what remained in my ammo pouch. It should last. “Great.”

Finally, for the first time since the tireless hunters appeared, I properly regarded my mission objective. An elderly zebra, wearing pure white flowing robes with golden filigree, now a little dusty from the chase. He was thin, nearly emaciated, I was not sure if that was because of some sickness or old age. His milky white eyes were staring into space, somewhere I could not hope to perceive. Every time I looked at them, I felt like I was being dragged in deeper and deeper. Something was telling me I would not have liked where I would end up at. Was that how others felt when they looked at me?

I did not know who he was, other than some high ranking scholar the Agency wanted to have. Frankly, I did not care, and even if I did, there was no way to know. The stallion did not speak a word of Equestrian.

“Paladin, looks like they retreated. Keep moving.”

“Roger that Emperor!” I peeked over our cover. The pursuers were gone, at least for the moment. With a slight nudge I brought the zebra up and we started moving again. He wasn’t resisting, even though I had just kidnapped him straight from his lunch break. All we had to do was to extract. Easy enough.

That had been the case until those things appeared out of nowhere. I had counted at least eight, but once we get out into the open, Emperor had confirmed it was just five. They were just very, very good at teamwork and misdirection.

They were also nearly bulletproof and could take full advantage of the urban terrain thanks to their agility and articulated limbs. With some effort, I'd managed to down two of them with EMP grenades, but the others seemed to have gotten wise to my tricks.

That is why we had run here. Al-Bayir, the biggest and oldest university in the Caliphate. A prestigious centre of learning and knowledge, both secular and religious. A shining pearl of early post-colonization zebra architecture, its three hundred plus meter golden dome we were currently climbing dominated the city’s skyline and, conveniently, offered the biggest open space where our pursuers could not exploit their strengths. Fortunately, the building was undergoing renovation and was currently covered in scaffolding and repair gantries. The machines had to follow them to the top, same as we. It was also devoid of any workers thanks to an important holiday.

I quickly checked again if the robots were gone. Once I was sure I didn’t see any, I helped the old stallion along. He mumbled something I could not understand in protest, but started moving anyway. We quickly followed the narrow path made of prefab support segments, drawing closer and closer to the temporary landing platform at the very top.

The scaffolding was spiraling around the bulbous dome, but fortunately we had already passed the point of biggest diameter. Each bend of the upwards spiral was becoming shorter and shorter. I had to stop every now and then to allow the zebra to catch his breath; each time I expected an inevitable ambush. It never came.

After a few more rounds I spotted a platform extending from the scaffolding that held workers’ equipment and supplies. We crouched down behind bags of dry plaster. “Emperor do you have a visual on the hostiles? I cannot see any of them.”

“We’re scanning all spectra but so far nothing, it’s like they vanished. Stay alert.”

“Understood. I have to hold here so the VIP does not kee-”

The serene zebra suddenly whipped his head to the side and stared into empty space with alarm. I followed suit, but there was nothing.

Then, in a blink of an eye, a form took shape. Pale white, I saw an inverted conical body shimmer into being. It lifted up, standing on three well-articulated legs, until it stood easily over a meter taller than I was. A glowing robotic eye was mounted on a rail around the middle of the cone and a flechette launcher was attached to its top like a turret. But for all the uncanny valley in that shifting eye, it was the small pair of eerily organic griffish talons hanging from the bottom of the cone, grasping and feeling the air that sent shivers down my spine.

I brought up my weapon and dumped the whole mag’. They were nearly bulletproof, but that did not mean they were invincible. Majority of my bullets ricocheted off the conical body, but those that hit managed to hurt it. It’s robotic eye was shattered and one of its leg servos was torn at its base. The machine staggered, screeched, and after a few shaky steps fell to the ground. I winced as I watched the small griffish arms still reaching out and clutching helplessly, even after the rest of the robot had been ruined. Two down to EMP, one to plain old bullets, two to go.

I took a deep breath.

Less than a second later.

‘Thwip! thwip! thwip!’

It was a distraction.

I felt a sharp pain in my side as the force of impact made me gasp for breath. The flechettes embedded themselves in my carapace and started glowing, faster and faster. Frantically I attempted to dislodge them, but I was too late to get them all.

As I reached for the third one, the glow became constant and the blue end of the projectile exploded in an electrical discharge.

Over a blink of an eye I could feel the wave of the shock travel from the flechette’s tip through skin, through muscle, searing every nerve it found along the way, then all over my side, spilling over my torso. I whipped my tail as all my muscles spasmed. I felt the insides of my teeth cry out in pain.

I don’t know how long I screamed.

I fell to my knees as the shock ended and my muscles gave up. I found myself staring forward, eyes wide. Drawing in fast and shallow breaths. My heart was racing. The machine that shocked me was gone.

“-adin respond! What is your situation!?” Emperor’s concerned voice thundered in my left ear.

“Dey hafe-” I balked. My tongue was burned. The shock must have boiled my saliva.

I forced myself to swallow. “They have some sort of cloaking device, that is why you couldn’t see them!”

“Shit. Get to the landing pad right now. Exfil in three minutes.”

“On it!” I turned to the zebra and grabbed his robes, pulling him along. “Come on old man!”

Two more levels. We ran as fast as the old stallion’s legs allowed, far below the speed I'd normally keep when being hunted. Every now and then the zebra would start mumbling something under his breath. After a minute, I realized he was chanting, words I couldn’t understand, nor cared for. All I needed from him was that he cooperated and followed me to the top.

We ran and ran. I didn’t bother checking every nook and cranny of the extensive scaffolding. If the robots were capable of cloaking, all I could do from now on, was to anticipate their moves and react to their ambushes.

The curve of the dome revealed another platform ahead. I stuck out my foreleg to tap the zebra and we slowed down. He looked at me with his piercing eyes, then at the platform and said something questioningly.

“That is where I would wait too, old man.” Checking my ammo I started to move slowly ahead, my weapon’s holo-sight close to my eye. Despite the howling wind and the hustle and bustle of the metropolis below I found myself whispering. “Emperor, anything on sensors?” The zebra wisely held back.

“Scope’s clean. They are hiding.”

“I don't think that is much better. They know you are watching. I am pushing in.” I just hoped there was a limit on how long they could stay hidden.

The platform was maybe the size of a typical living room. My left side was covered by the golden wall of Al-Bayir’s dome; ahead were stairs to the next level. On the right, beyond the platform’s railing, open sky.

I stepped carefully onto the platform, prefab components groaning under my weight. There was no sight nor sound of the prowling robots. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, relaxed my muscles and focused. The distant hum of the city and the rush of the wind slowly dulled out into silence.

I could hear the zebra’s quiet chanting.

My footsteps.

My heartbeat.

The creak of a floorboard, two o’clock.

Immediately I opened my eyes and leapt to the side.

‘Thwip! thwip! thwip!’

They tried the same trick again, but this time I was not there.

Bringing myself up, I aimed at the machine I heard. It hadn’t finished decloaking yet, and I was not planning to let it. Thirty rounds later it collapsed in on itself on the platform. I could hear its brother galloping away on the scaffolding above.

One more.

I stood up and walked over to where the zebra was hugging the golden wall. “Downed another one, Emperor. There is one hostile left, it ran away.” Reaching out I pulled the stallion’s robe and lightly shoved him along, then with a quick move I swapped the empty mag out.

“Understood. Continue to the top. Dropship ETA ninety seconds.”

“Any chance of it supporting me?” It was a fair shot.

“Negative. It’s unarmed.”

Of course it was.

And so we started moving again. Now that I knew there was only one drone left I played it safe. It had to face me directly without its allies to misdirect me.

Two more sets of short stairs and we finally reached the small temporary landing pad at the top of the dome. It was simple, just a metal rectangle built over the top of the dome, big enough to allow a light dropship to land, deposit supplies and takeoff. “At the landing pad. Hurry up, will you?”

I could hear Emperor’s muffled chuckle. “ETA ten seconds, approaching from the south east.”

Sure enough, in the corner of my eye I could see the sleek form of a small unmarked coal-black dropship, it’s two vectoring nacelles maneuvered as the onboard programming actively counteracted the drag.

Keeping both the mission objective and my weapon close I had nothing to do but keep watch and wait for the automated craft to land. There was no sign of the last remaining cone freak.

With the clang of landing gear the dropship touched down and a door on its side slid open. Grabbing the zebra by the scruff of his neck I led him towards the passenger compartment. “We are boarding now, Emperor.” It was not easy to haul an eighty-something year old stallion into a tiny black ops dropship designed to hold four ponies at most.

The zebra started to reluctantly climb aboard; I had to help by pushing his flank into the dropship. Once he was inside, I grabbed the handle and started climbing in myself.

‘Thwip! thwip! thwip!’

Crap.

I let go off the handle and jumped down. The flechettes embedded themselves in the hull exactly where I was half a second ago. Turning around I brought my weapon high and aimed at the opposite end of the platform.

The last remaining machine was only a few meters away. It scanned me with its single eye and adjusted its stance.

‘Thwip! thwip! thwip!’

This time I was faster, diving ahead and rolling right in front of it. The shock projectiles flew overhead. I brought my weapon up again and depressed the trigger at almost point blank range.

At the same moment, the drone fired again. This time however, its salvo was cut short by the damage done by my submachine gun.

A sharp jolt of pain in my left foreleg signalled that a single flechette hit its mark. I looked at the blue glowing tip and quickly pulled it out. That gave the drone an opening - it swiped one of its long legs and hit me square in the muzzle.

I can hear my nose cracking.

The force of the swing spun me fully in place and made me drop my gun.

I was not sure how I managed to stay upright. But I wasn’t going to waste it. With the flechette still in my left hoof, I threw myself at the machine. It was preparing to swing at me again, but I was swifter.

We crashed together. I stabbed the projectile into the robot’s front, but before I could withdraw, the glow at its tip became constant.

Lightning.

Lightning inside my foreleg.

Crawling slowly, deep under my flesh.

Higher and higher, to the shoulder.

My foreleg bends as all the muscles tighten.

Along my neck.

I feel a vice grip my windpipe.

It hurts.

I felt it reach my face.

My eyes bulge - I feel like they are going to fall out.

It hurts so much.

I can feel the darkness suffocating me.

No. Don’t give up. They are counting on you.

NO.

I snapped my eyes open, feeling like I just woken up from a nightmare. My head was pounding and I could feel the blood from my nose making its way down my face, neck and under my armour. I could barely stand.

Before me, the three legged drone lay on the ground. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Just in time to see it stir and start getting up. Its singular eye sharply turned through ninety degrees to face me.

I let out a painful whimper. Then, I screwed my eyes shut and roared.

I ran straight at it.

It didn’t have the time to stand up properly; my body slammed into it. I used my stronger right foreleg to punch and batter the singular eye as the drone desperately tried using its frail griffish hands to grasp at me. The machine was trying to steady itself but it was for naught with my full body weight constantly pushing it back.

Finally we stopped. I took a step backwards, crouched down and swiped my hindleg low, clipping two of the robot’s articulated legs. It wobbled like a spinning top.

Before it could regain its footing I stood up and threw my hoof square at its eye, finally shattering it with a crack.

The machine leaned back from the force of the impact. That was enough to send it over the edge. It tried to balance, but it was too late.

No programming could beat physics.

I stood there, breathing heavily. Only the sound of running engines and the rush of the wind could be heard. Just a few moments more and all of this would be over. I’d drop off the VIP, debrief and then crawl into nice comfortable bed aboard-

“Paladin, you okay down there?” Emperor’s voice brought me back to reality.

I moved my left foreleg. The muscles were still taut, so I had no choice but to keep it close to my body and walk to the dropship on three legs. “Perimeter clear, let’s get out of here.”

“Roger, get on board and it will get you to orbit. We’ll pick you up in twenty minutes. Emperor out.”

I slowly made my way to the awaiting dropship, the door on its side was still open. Inside I could see the zebra. He was sitting calmly on one of the folding seats, eyes closed. For someone currently being kidnapped, he was suspiciously stoic. Or maybe he knew there was nothing he could do. Smart guy.

As soon as I climbed in and secured the door, I fastened the stallion’s seatbelts before sitting down and doing the same for myself. Once that was done, I tapped the green button on the console nearby. The muffled whine of the engines intensified as I felt the dropship take off.

After the console informed me that we were underway did I lean my head against the headrest and let out an exhausted moan. As I slacked my muscles and began to relax, I could not help myself from thinking about what happened.

Who sent those drones? Who BUILT those drones? How did they know I was here? Why did they want the zebra? Did they really want the zebra? Or did they want me?

I had no answers. Probably for the best - it looked like something way above my paygrade.

I decided not to dwell on it and attempted to rest as much as possible. I’d have to request at least a month off after this mission. Two if I also wanted to get my head back together.

Just as I felt my eyes slowly closing on their own, the dropship’s lights turned from white to red. An alarm shrieked. Before I could gather what was happening the cabin turned pitch black and quiet.

No console. No lights.

No engines.

Immediately I was fully alert, my body summoning last reserves of adrenaline.

“Emperor come in! The dropship lost power!”

“Paladin, verify. All green on our end.”

“We are going down! No damage! It just… turned off! I have no te-”

I screamed and threw my head as the small receiver in my ear burst into deafening static. Quickly I pulled it out and turned it off. Then, I heard the groaning of the dropship’s hull. Without power its flight characteristics were on par with a dead swallow.

And just like a dead swallow, it fell to the ground. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel the blood rushing into my head from the negative G force affecting my body.

There was nothing I could do.

Blindly I checked if my seatbelt was properly secured. I looked where the zebra should have been, but in the windowless inside of the dark dropship I couldn’t see a thing. I wasn’t sure if he was there; no sound was coming from the old stallion.

Just as I was about to yell out to him, the dropship shuddered. I could hear something scraping on the other side of the hull. But we weren’t done falling. A few more hits like that, and then a humongous crash followed by a white hot spike of pain drilling into my flank mercilessly.

Then, darkness.

...

How long was I out? I couldn’t tell, but mercifully I started feeling my pounding head again.

I opened my eyes slowly.

I saw a large blue rectangle with white clusters of fluff.

Sky.

I was looking at the sky through the ripped out door. Outside I could hear the noise of a busy street. My head was pounding. I couldn’t focus on the clouds above nor the noise outside. I decided not to.

Looking to the side I spotted the zebra. He was still in his seat, fastened and secure, lying nearly motionless with his eyes closed. Only the slight rise and fall of his chest suggested that he'd survived the crash. I tried yelling at him, but that only made me realize my ears were still ringing as I couldn’t hear my own voice. At least that was what it felt like.

There was also the matter of dull pain in my right upper hindleg.

Not being able to do much from there, I unfastened my seatbelts and crawled out of the seat. What was left of the dropship was lying on its side, the only means of exit was the ripped door above. Once I made sure we were in no immediate danger I inspected myself for injuries.

Cuts and bruises, nothing serious. Then I stood up.

Bad idea.

I squealed in pain as my right hindleg settled on the ground. Quickly I moved it up, holding it close to my belly.

It was broken. I didn’t need a medibot to know that. It also meant I had to use my other wounded limb if I were to walk anywhere.

Gritting my teeth, I hobbled over to the zebra and leaned down. A tiny wound was visible on his left temple, the small amount of blood he lost staining the elder’s pure white robe.

I quickly checked for any other visible injuries or dangers - fortunately there were none. None I could have seen at least. Regardless, I got up and shuffled to the back of the transport cabin. A first aid kit was attached to the wall with a three point strap. I grabbed the plastic box and moved back to the stallion, then sat down carefully, still mindful of my own injury.

The kit was rudimentary at best; painkillers, antiseptics, bandages and so on. I singled out a few items and began to dress the zebra’s wound. He was still out and it didn’t look like he was waking up anytime soon.

“Please don’t be a brain hemorrhage.”

If it was, there was nothing I could do. We couldn’t just go to a hospital.

Once I was done with the zebra, I popped open a cap from another stimshot applicator and slapped the needled tip into the base of my neck. The device let out a quiet hiss of pressurized air and momentarily I felt the pain in my body numb. I tossed the applicator aside and began to secure my broken limb with bandages and elastic bands.

There was little time to be thorough. The crash surely drew attention - we couldn’t have cleared out of the metropolis in so little time. And I didn’t want the local officials to get close. With the upper half of my hindleg wrapped in elastic bands and splints I settled down again and pulled out my communicator, turned it back on and inserted it into my left ear.

“This is Paladin. Package is secured but the dropship has crashed. I need an immediate evac.”

Nothing.

“Emperor, are you there?”

Silence.

“Emperor. Paladin. Are you reading me?”

No one.

I hung my head and mouthed a curse. How could this have gone so wrong? Who was after me? This was not a quick reactionary play by the Caliphate. It was too precise, too well planned.

Biting my lip hard I looked up and pulled out my weapon, then checked the magazine.

Halfway. I had two more spare.

Whoever planned to ruin the mission would also have planned what to do once the dropship was brought down.

Carefully I unstrapped the unconscious zebra and threw his limp body over my back. Then, I started climbing out of the wreckage. It was no easy task with a broken hindleg, a shocked foreleg and an elderly scholar in tow. But thanks to the many handles inside the dropship and my regular workouts, we made it. It still took much longer than I liked.

Finally, I climbed out and onto the ruined dropship’s side. The craft had crashed into a deep artificial channel, about thirty meters across, now nearly empty. Only a lazy stream flowed at the bottom. It was fetid, most of the water’s surface was covered with junk and refuse, the rest was covered with thick mushy plant matter. At least I hoped it was plant matter.

It certainly did not smell like plants I was used to.

The vertical sides of the canal ended at the same height as my head, and I was standing on top of a small spaceship, wrecked in the middle of the structure. Additionally, an imposing wall extended above the right side of the channel, at least three stories tall. Further above it, rich highrise buildings, clearly the edges of a different, wealthier district. There was no way I could have gone over that.

A small crowd of zebra wearing simple clothes were gathered at the left edge of the canal; they were lively, talking and watching me and my wrecked spaceship. Some were taking photos or filming me with their hoofheld devices. None of them looked like they were eager to come closer.

From my perch on the fallen dropship I could see that behind them, was a narrow street running along the canal. Small utility trucks, smaller city cars and what looked like dozens, if not hundreds of mopeds; most of them running on antiquated internal combustion engines.

And all of them honking.

Whatever parts of the street were not filled with vehicles were filled with pedestrians. Dozens of zebra walking one way or another, carrying huge packages, stacks of fruit or tall clay jars. All on their heads, and all mares.

More often than not, the two areas intertwined. This it seemed, was the source of the constant honking.

Beyond the street, I could see small shanties haphazardly cobbled together from sheet metal, loose cinder blocks or other jigsaw construction materials. Even further, a scattering of low buildings. Dilapidated, dirty and looking as if they were about to collapse. Every structure was adorned with a multitude of old signs and advertisements, many of them hoofpainted, no doubt by the owners themselves.

We were in the slum district.

Balancing on the mangled hull of the dropship I stepped down into the fetlock deep water with my quarry on back, then made my way towards the wall and the shanties. Fortunately, the wall of the canal had steps cut into it allowing me to climb out relatively easily. That said, given the stallion’s weight, my wounds, the shining sun and the length of the stairs, I was sweating once I reached the top. After steadying my breath I looked up and froze.

The zebra from before were gone, dispersed into the flowing crowd nearby. Only three remained.

Two fillies and a colt.

The trio watched me with blank expressions. The oldest - a pre-teen at most - had a smoking cigarette stuck in the gap where her front teeth used to be. Her mane was a clogged mess; I suspected it had never been cleaned. The middle one - also a filly - was peeking out from behind the cigarette kid; I could see her closely clutching a decapitated head of a plastic doll. The colt, whose age gave an impression of a recent escapee from daycare, was dressed in an oversized hoodie bearing a washed out Imperial Sun crest.

I knew my stare had an effect on people. But the stares of these three?

It was…

I didn’t know.

I didn’t want to know.

But I instantly knew I would never forget it.

A loud shout somewhere off to the side grabbed mine and the foals’ attention. Another zebra ran over to us. This one was an adult, a mare, perhaps ten or fifteen years older than me. But then I couldn’t tell - she was too grubby-looking to make sure. Disheveled, just like the foals.

The mare shouted again, something I couldn’t understand, and something that made the three foals instantly bolt back to the adult and far away from me. As soon as they rejoined the adult zebra, she reached out her forehooves and held the trio close. Then gave me an accusatory stare and vanished with the kids back into the crowd on the other side of the street.

Only then I realized. Everyone was giving me a wide berth, which was no easy feat on such a busy street. It felt like I was the most alone person in a slum.

The Slum.

The zebra of the Caliphate and the rare, more adventurous individuals living abroad always had a very defined cultural identity. If two zebra living on the opposite ends of the Core met each other for the first time, the separation didn’t matter. The tribes had their shared customs, language and traditions long before they had spaceships. One of the most basic pillars of social life for a zebra was their tribal identity and blood ties. The tribe helped an individual as much as an individual helped the tribe.

That was, of course, unless a zebra was one of the Manaeat.

The Barred Ones.

The untouchables.

There was a slum like this in every major metropolis across the Caliphate. Filled with Manaeat, the zebra without a tribe. Outcasts mostly, for one reason or another.

Of course, there was also another way of becoming one.

Being born into it.

I quickly filtered out any further thoughts about it; this was not a place nor time to think about their misery. Of course, I had to go into that misery if I were to get out of there. The slums were not safe to outsiders, especially after nightfall. It felt more like a wild frontier than a city.

After a quick check of the unconscious stallion on my back I started moving into the narrow alleyways between the shacks. Finding a place to catch my breath and properly treat myself was my main goal now.

“Emperor, this is Paladin, do you read me?” No reply, but it was not impossible that only I was being jammed. “I am somewhere in the slum district, looks like north quarter. I am wounded and I have no means of extraction. I am going to look for someplace to stay low. Proceeding on hoof, over.” Briefly I worried that the message could be intercepted by whoever was chasing us, but then I decided that I had no other choice if we were to leave this place intact.

If any reply came, I couldn’t hear it over the constant noise of the street.

“Damnit.” I looked at the old stallion as we rounded a corner and proceeded deeper into the shantytown. “You better wake up soon or we will both suffer for it.”

He was as talkative as my communicator.

I had no choice but to look forward and walk in silence.

The ‘streets’ here were nothing more than narrow, uneven asphalt pathways allowing pedestrian traffic between the shanties; none of that stopped anyone from driving their mopeds through though. Nothing in this part of town was regulated, supervised or maintained in any official capacity, and it showed.

Most of the shacks were made from bleak cinder blocks - bare, save for an occasional piece of spray painted graffiti or street art. The buildings were stacked on top of one another without rhyme or reason, which made it obvious how frequently they were built, rebuilt and modified. It wasn’t uncommon to see a structure where the first floor was made out of blocks with each following floor being constructed from a different material. Many of them lacked doors and windows, and instead used tarps, old pieces of furniture or plastic covering to block my sight.

If the buildings were a mish mash of random crossed with accidental, another thing was nearly universal. As I limped along the street everyone was watching me. Wherever I went, conversations died. Vendors protectively covered their wares displayed on simple pieces of clothing laid out on the ground. Street craftsmen stopped their ancient noisy machines and tools, and watched me from under furrowed eyebrows. Oncoming passers-by swerved to the other side of the street just to not get too close to me. Mares, stallions, colts and fillies watched from many windows above the street.

All stares were on me.

All stares were fearful.

No one dared to approach me.

I was growing increasingly concerned as more and more zebra began taking notice. A block later I noticed a small mob had started to follow me.

I was a stranger there, but this place should not have been like that. Indifferent, yes. But not openly hostile.

“Why?”

It didn’t matter - what mattered was that I had to deal with it. And fast. As soon as I spotted a thin alleyway I turned into it and started hobbling faster. It was barely wide enough to allow two ponies walking side by side. I could see and hear doors slamming as I walked past them, the curious onlookers frightened by my proximity. Only a scant few kept them open, but just enough to only peek at the pony with one eye covered in shadows.

The alleyway was so narrow that the buildings above blocked sunlight, but I could clearly see sunshine at the end. With a quick glance I confirmed that I was still being followed. At least six young stallions. All holding gas-pipes, knives or other brutally simple weapons.

Two and a half mags.

How many of them were out there?

I winced painfully as I began to trot. My shocked foreleg was barely usable. The pain followed like hot burning wire deep in my tissue all the way to my clavicle.

Grinding my teeth, I pushed on.

Finally, I reached the end of the alleyway. Upon exiting the narrow path I was nearly blinded by the sun. As soon as I regained my sight I saw a zebra holding a metal chain standing in front of me. She was shorter than me, but well built, a black ornamental eyepatch covered her left eye. Her neck was adorned with ornate metal rings and she was wearing a spotless bright orange robe with golden filigree. Not unlike the robe of the zebra on my back.

At the other end of the chain was a snarling creature roughly the size of a large dog. It looked like a dog too, but something was off. I couldn’t really settle on what exactly. It’s brown-gray coat had distinctive black spots all over the creatures body. Its jaws looked like they could bite through my bones with ease.

I could have sworn it laughed as it sniffed the air towards me.

The zebra was standing in the middle of a rectangular yard, surrounded on all sides by tall dirty buildings. Corroded rainspouts adorned the walls. Above I could see tiny barred balconies around every wall, and beyond, a depressingly small rectangle of blue sky. All the doors on the ground level appeared closed tight.

There was no way out.

I grabbed my weapon and brought it up, aiming at the mare. The chained creature snarled.

“Fire that gun and your spirit will wander these streets forever, looking for the pieces of your vessel.” She didn’t bat an eye as she serenely spoke in heavily accented equestrian. Her eye was locked with mine.

I glanced over my shoulder at my pursuers. They were standing at the end of the alleyway I just left, weapons ready.

“Let me leave in peace, I am not here by choice.” I indicated the big double doors behind her with the barrel of my weapon.

“That is why your foregoers guided me here.” She pointed a hoof at the armed thugs. “They do not want him around and will do anything to get the rot out of here swiftly.”

I looked at the stallions, then at the unconscious elder on my back. “Then tell them that I want to leave. I need to get out of the city.”

The mare lightly tugged on the chain, making the creature pant and retreat to its mistress. “They won’t help you, they will not help anyone who deals with the Shayatin.” She pointed a hoof at the stallion on my back. “And he does. They think you and your friend will doom the souls of everyone in here.” The mare paused, looked at the creature and said a single word in a language I could not understand. The furred beast obediently sat down and let out a monstrous yawn, giving me a full view of its bone crushing jaws.

“The cleverest out of you and me is I. For I am the one with the evil eye. Your soul is pure.” She chuckled and nodded at my raised submachine gun. “At least when it comes to demonic possession.”

The mare took a few steps forward and her bestial companion closely followed. She smiled and extended a bracelet covered foreleg towards me. “I will-”

Her words were drowned out by a sudden crash of wood and metal. I saw it clearly.

The double doors on the other side of the yard were pulverized.

Between the pieces of shattered wood and other debris I could see a frightening sight. Dozens of segmented metal limbs, flailing around, breaking through what was left of the door.

“GET DOWN!” Mercifully, the zebra and her companion dashed out of the line of fire, giving me a clean shot. I let out a long burst, but it had no effect on the machine.

It strode into the yard on its many arms, each of them making a loud clunk as it anchored itself in the ground or nearby walls. The thin appendages were attached to a rotund torso, roughly as wide as two ponies. In the middle of it hung what I could only describe as a face of a mechanical arachnid, with groupings of optical sensors of various shapes and sizes. They scanned the immediate area.

I wasn’t going to stay and find out what it wanted.

Running shoulder first into the narrowest door I could spot, I broke the weak lock and we tumbled into a dark building. I landed on my back on the old tiles, staring at a winding staircase leading upwards. Doing my best to ignore the brief pain in my third limb now, I got up and turned around to where the stallion was lying in a heap; he was still unconscious. As I moved again to pick him up, I noticed one of the metal tentacles reaching in through the narrow entryway, snaking its way towards one of elder’s hindlegs.

I pulled on the strap of my SMG, brought the weapon to my eye and fired what I had remaining in the magazine. What bullets hit seemed to make the machine reconsider as the tentacle retreated hastily.

I wasn’t about to waste time either. Picking the stallion up I started to make way to the staircase and upwards. Once I set a hoof on the first step, the sound of shattering glass and wood rang from above. Pieces of skylight dropped next to me with a crash as I saw another octopus-like machine enter at the top of the staircase.

Its many eyes glowed crimson as they locked on me. Its tentacles expertly anchored the robot in the walls and the staircase’s structure, making it hang three floors directly above me. For a second it looked as it was going to jump down on me. I slapped in my penultimate magazine and aimed up, steadied my racing breath and depressed the trigger.

The octopus instantly swerved to the side, hugging the wall and using the banister as cover as I kept firing short bursts at it. It moved faster than I could have tracked it. Plaster on the wall bulged and ripped, wooden stairs broke and splintered, the banister’s metal rods bent and warped as its tentacles propelled the technological horror in a downwards spiral towards me.

I turned around only to see another set of tentacles reach in through the door which I had entered through. Dumping the remaining bullets at it, I frantically looked for a way out.

The stairs lead below the ground level, to the cellar.

There was no time to look for alternatives. I had to hope that the doorframe would be too narrow for the robots and hobbled inside.

Into the darkness.

With a flick of a switch I turned on the flashlight mounted on my weapon and descended down the stairs. I could hear the thrashing of the machines behind me, their long manipulators not stretching down the basement entrance far enough to reach the zebra on my back; we were too deep already. The robots couldn’t fit.

The cellar was pitch black, cold and damp. It was sizeable enough to allow a couple branching corridors leading deeper into the structure. The shine of my light revealed rows upon rows of open storage units. Most of them were empty, while those that weren't held mostly junk. Anything from rusting machine parts, through stacks of rotting furniture to plain trash.

I picked a direction at random and began walking carefully, weapon to my shoulder. Once I rounded a corner I could no longer hear the robots above. This dark place was nearly silent, only my own hoofsteps and the squeaking of rats rummaging through the abandoned items could be heard. I had to find a way out; put distance between me and whatever those mechanical freaks were.

What were they? Who sent them?

I let out a quiet curse as my left foreleg reminded me of the previous adversaries I'd faced on this mission.

Were they sent by the same people?

I didn’t know.

I really don’t know.

I tried my communicator again. “Emperor, if you are listening. I need help urgently. I am being hunted. I am in the slum, in a...” I stopped, lowered my weapon and let out a pained moan, my voice cracked in the middle of it as I shuddered.

“A dark place. It’s full of… things.”

I turned the SMG and shone its flashlight at the knocked out zebra. No change.

“I don’t know if I can take it any longer. Paladin out.”

He was heavy, my lungs burned, my head was pounding and my two healthy legs were nearly buckling from the strain.

I need rest. Please.

There was a storage unit right beside me - a couple plastic bags filled with trash were visible thanks to my flashlight. I limped over there and lowered the stallion onto the pile. I needed a way to move freely to locate an exit that was hopefully not guarded by the robots. Sliding my last remaining magazine into the gun I closed the door to the storage. There was no padlock or other means of securing it, but I didn't have much of a choice.

The doors were marked with bold digits.

Site One.

I took a mental note of the number and began looking for a way out.

The dry air of the cellar irritated my nostrils as I carefully limped along the hallway. More storage units and no sign of exit. This place was a maze.

Turn after turn, I found nothing to give me direction. Looking up and down, I spotted piping attached to the ceiling. It had to lead somewhere. At the very least, it was something. With every step, my left foreleg ached more and more. Electric aftershocks ran along my nerves, from the tip of my hoof all the way to my neck.

It wasn’t as bad as it was before.

Well, it was.

I’d just stopped caring anymore.

I didn’t care much about anything by now.

Except the mission.

Emperor would get that stripe and give him to the nerds at Silent Bo’s Institute to do Princess knows what.

I frowned and scolded myself mentally. Focus. Keep alert. It was getting dark; what little light entered the cellar through the tiny ground level windows was fading rapidly. There had to be another exit.

I had to make best use of the still available daylight. My movement became more rapid - as much as my body hated me for it. I had to push. I had to pull myself together. I had to keep on holding on.

Room after room, corridor after corridor.

Trash.

Dead ends.

Nothing.

A deep corner of my brain was starting to think that I was lost in an impossible maze; imagined days passing by. Infinite gray concrete corridors for hours, filled with nothing but trash and darkness. It felt colder than the vacuum of space.

Then, suddenly, a sound of scraping metal nearby.

Instantly I turned to the side and aimed the shotgun at the source. The flashlight revealed a slowly rolling can and a sickly black rat, rummaging through the trash. I let out my breath and furrowed my eyebrows at the scavenging rodent.

A miniscule piece of plaster dropped from above and bounced off my muzzle.

I drew my eyes upwards, only to spot a dozen red dots appearing in the darkness on the ceiling.

My brain told me to raise the gun and shoot, but my reflex forced my body to throw myself to the side. Just in time to avoid being struck by a metal tentacle. I rolled to my back and fired a long burst.

The rifle’s noise was deafening in the tight confines of the cellar.

I didn’t have the time to see if the bullets did any damage. Getting out of this place was more important. Seeing as I was not skewered by a robotic limb, I thought it was safe to say that my attack gave the drone pause.

I ran.

I ran as fast I could have with one broken limb and another battered. There was no sign of pursuit as I retraced my steps.

Turn after turn, corridor after corridor. Everywhere I turned, the cellar looked the same. It was a labyrinth.

Then, I could hear it. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The cellar’s corridors and bare walls reflected and distorted the noise too much. A clunking of metal on concrete. Faster and faster.

They were coming for me.

Faster, I had to move faster. Get the zebra. Drive them off.

Somehow.

More turns, more corridors, more darkness and the all-present noise of the machines chasing me. Every now and again I looked behind me as I turned a corner. Nothing.

They were too smart to go after me directly.

Move.

My foreleg was already numb. The muscles of my hindleg ached from constantly having to keep it off the ground.

Quickly.

My breath was running out. The throbbing pulse in my head was pounding.

Get out of here.

My heart was racing. The clunking noise was ever present. They were relentless, and they were coming for me.

Get out of here now.

Another turn, I almost fell as I ground to a halt. There it was.

Site One.

I reached for the handle.

Only for the door to buckle and bend. Then, with a screech of rusted hinges giving way, it flew straight at me.

The wood hit me hard, knocking me down on the floor. Before I could get my bearing and stand up, I heard the noise of a robotic appendage reaching out and grabbing what was left of the door. Then it pushed on the debris, pinning me down.

I failed to choke down a desperate scream as my limbs flared in pain.

Through teary eyes, I saw the unconscious zebra’s white robes flow as he was raised by a metal tentacle, its claw holding him by the neck. It lifted the stallion through the door, and behind him an oblong shape with red glowing eyes followed, its other tentacles anchoring into surfaces all around and pulling itself toward me.

The machine hoisted the stallion all the way up to the ceiling, then moved its torso under the zebra. A jawlike apparatus I previously hadn't seen extended from below what could be described as the robot’s face.

With a snap the jaw split and widened, to easily thrice its previous size. I saw a semi-transparent skin like membrane between the jaws. The machine threw its head upwards, then lowered the stallion down into the jaws. As soon as the victim touched the membrane, it started expanding. More and more as the body was shuffled inside the macabre sack, then it started filling with liquid.

Barely half a minute later, entire stallion was inside a bulbous container. Full of liquid, and with a hapless zebra inside, the machine now looked like a honeypot ant. It slowly turned and stared at me with its multitude of eyes.

Run.

I couldn’t. The mission.

Those things will hurt you.

I was in no shape to move, no shape to resist.

Do you understand?

I screwed my eyes shut. I felt the tentacle grab my foreleg and make its way along it, then it started coiling around my chest. Then it squeezed. I could feel my ribs grind on each other.

I whimpered.

The grip loosened. I felt myself being brought up - my limbs dangled freely as the robot held me high.

I dared to open my eyes.

A smudged sight full of red lights greeted me. Only after I blinked the tears away I saw that they were cameras and other optics of all sizes arranged in a pattern at the front of the robot’s body. The machine held me merely a hoof’s reach away.

I watched helplessly as the lenses on the cameras turned and hissed, scanning me closely.

This… this was the end.

The eyes turned green.

Emerald green.

Then they started to move, no, flow; swirling and joining together. I could see irises forming. Until there were only two left.

Finally, two slitted pupils appeared.

I could feel their gaze drilling into my thoughts.

“Now Agent Whisper Step. Relax and let’s try it again, shall we?”

Darkness. Only the soft orange glow of my HUD stood out from the blackness of the cosmos beyond the tinted glass.

I carefully watched the AR path displayed on my helmet’s visor and followed it with gentle moves of the throttle and the joystick.

“Three hundred meters.” The synthetic voice confirmed what my HUD was showing.

I reached over to the side console and flipped a switch.

“Silent running.” The hum behind me eased as the ships systems powered down. Only drives, short range sensors and life support were left online.

I watched the speed indicator drop slowly as I eased on the throttle. My target quickly filled the canopy. An unassuming old freighter. Easily a hundred meters wide and twice as long. I locked the throttle on neutral and let the momentum carry my ship forward. According to the blueprints on the monitor, the service access was right ahead. Last quick visual check and I was ready to go. “Regulus, Initialize EVA procedure.”

“Initializing EVA procedure.” The ship’s voice was quick to reply. Slowly, the hum of the reactor eased as atmosphere was pumped out of the cockpit. Soon, all I could hear was my own breathing through my personal life support system. As it was happening, I was eyeballing the access hatch; a small rectangular door marked with a dim light right above me.

With a quick flick of my wrist I fired the retro thrusters and the Regulus came to a halt.

“Cockpit atmosphere expunged. Ready to initiate EVA.”

I took a deep breath of the recycled air. “Regulus, initiate EVA.”

The tinted canopy soundlessly slid up and behind, exposing me to open vacuum. I unbuckled my belt, grabbed a bag containing my gear and stood up from the pilot’s seat. As soon as my upper half cleared the cockpit I grabbed the side of the canopy and gently pushed myself out of my ship. The freighter’s hull was about ten meters away. That gave me enough time to tap a button on my suit’s multiband and initiate my magnetic horseshoes.

Once that was done, I carefully turned myself around, legs first toward the freighter.

One.

Two.

Three.

My legs snapped to the metal hull. Almost on target too. Not bad at all. Three silent steps forward and one to the side and I was looking at the access hatch. The lock was simple enough. I just had to plug my hacking device into the control panel and it would do the rest. Carefully I pulled it out from the bag and reached to plug it in.

The hatch opened.

A wave of violently escaping atmosphere and debris blew the device out off my hooves, some of it bouncing off my visor with a loud audible tinkling noise.

Not debris.

Pills.

Before I gathered what was happening, a shining metal tentacle reached out from the freighter. It grabbed me by the neck and pulled, overcoming my magnets. Then, with a swift motion it ripped me off the hull and held me away from the ship. I watched as the rest of the creature crawled out of the now open corridor. Yellow spinning alarm lights blaring a depressurization warning.

The tentacle was one of many attached to a young buck. No, not attached. They were coming out of his torso through numerous holes ruptured in his nearly white coat and tissue. The buck was not wearing any protective gear. His body just dangled, suspended on the macabre limbs.

I struggled, but the mechanical claw’s grip only intensified. It started to choke me.

Despite being exposed to hard vacuum and having many robotic tentacles bursting out of his torso, the deer appeared fine. That was until I looked at his face.

The buck’s emerald green eyes were bulging out, almost as if they were going to fall out at any moment. His nose was covered in long-dried blood. His blue tongue was out and his mouth was covered in foam. A long, red, semi transparent ribbon was tangled around his antlers, flowing freely in zero g.

I watched with horror as the buck opened his mouth and began to speak.

Even through the vacuum, I could hear the voice.

As if it were echoing out inside my skull.

“Reaching vision. Everywhere. You will die.”

The mechanical tentacle on my neck eased off.

And then pushed me away.

“NO!”

I yelled and flailed haplessly as my body began drifting away from the creature, the freighter and the Regulus.

There was nothing I could do. Nothing.

Faster and faster, the monster, the freighter and the Regulus were growing more and more distant. I quickly looked for my bag containing my pneumatic anchor launcher. It was my last hope.

The bag was nowhere to be found. I hadn't even registered when it had went loose.

“No…”

I threw my head up in panic towards the monster again. It was already gone. So was the freighter and the Regulus.

It was just me and the distant stars. I was alone.

Then the stars started to go dark.

One.

By one.

I began spinning wildly, looking around. Distant nebulae and constellations, dimming and vanishing. Everywhere the space around me was quickly becoming solid blackness. There was no point of reference left.

Finally, the last remaining source of light gave out.

My helmet’s HUD.

Solid, infinite darkness.

Was this how dying felt? A dark void? There were so many things left to do, so many things left to say. I thought of the Agency. My friends. My family.

I’d do anything to spend one last moment with them.

“Anything?”

The voice pierced through my brain. Through my soul. As if it was always there, a piece of me.

I opened my mouth to reply but I found it full of liquid. Water.

My helmet was filling with water. Panicking, I grabbed it firmly with my forelegs and undid the seal, then ripped the helmet off.

Deadened noise became a roaring crash, and a wave struck me in the face.

I was swimming with my head poking out of the liquid. I could feel the resistance as I frantically paddled with my legs, but I could barely keep my muzzle above the surface. It was still dark, I couldn’t see anything. But at least I had a point of reference. If there was water, that meant there was a surface and a bottom.

I aimed to keep as far away as possible from the latter.

It was a struggle - the surface was not calm. Every time I managed to get my head above it, another wave splashed over and brought me down again, even if just momentarily. I had enough strength to keep my muzzle and my eyes above the surface, but with each wave it was becoming harder and harder.

Another wave.

My chest was pounding.

Another wave.

My muscles were aching from the strain.

Another wave.

My head was spinning.

Another wave.

There was no surface to breach.

I pushed and pushed, but I couldn’t reach the surface again. I reached a hoof before me. Maybe.

Somehow.

Please.

Someone grabbed it. Then squeezed and pulled me up.

I breached the surface and immediately started coughing up water. My lungs burned. It was still dark. The only reason I was afloat was because of what was holding me. I could feel it through my suit, it was someone’s foreleg. Despite the darkness I looked up. Two glowing, emerald slitted eyes peered straight at me.

“What do you know about Snowdrop?”

It was the same voice from before.

I choked and forced myself to speak through the pain. “I don’t know... what you are talking... about!”

“Wrong answer.”

The foreleg let go. I went back under instantly.

Again I tried swimming upwards, to the surface. Maybe if I told the voice something, this would end?

My hooves hit a wall.

There was no surface here.

I somehow managed to not cry out and lose valuable air. I must have gotten disoriented and reached the bottom. Instead, I turned, planted my hindlegs on the wall and pushed myself off it. Then I swam in the opposite direction.

A few strokes later and my hooves hit a wall again.

No.

My chest was on fire. Again I turned and pushed myself off the wall. I extended my forelegs to start the first stroke, and they hit a wall.

I reached to the right.

A wall.

Left.

Wall.

Up.

WALL.

Down.

WALL.

It’s a cube.

It’s a cube. With no way out.

With me inside.

Alone.

No...

No more.

I am done.

I give up.

I relaxed my limbs, there was no sense in trying anymore.

I opened my muzzle. The water rushed inside. It burned, but quickly stopped.

I couldn’t feel anything anymore.

The darkness enveloped me.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Light.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

A female voice.

"...Whisper?"

This was a short slice of life one I wrote after a couple sessions in the ongoing tabletop game. The story has advanced a fair bit since the last one by now, with a new major NPC entering the fray (People who keep up with the session summaries will recognise her!) and another being back with us.

This is nothing more than a little comedy based on the recent events, the humour being...a little more "teen rated" than normal in just this one. It felt fitting when it came to the subject matter given some of the jokes in game (such as Tami being anonymously 'gifted' a bit of chocolate shaped like...well, something very naughty indeed. Many laughs were had).

So relax a little after some of the stresses lately, and enjoy the ramblings of a young hippogriff encountering dodgy chocolate gifts, unusual help, and a healthy dose of young crushes.

Carefully now…

Carefully...

Tami knew every inch of Claudia's bridge by now. Every rivet. Every weld. Every panel and wire and socket. She knew their time until maintenance, before she had to go bashfully ask Kerfuffle to come fix something. She knew the warm spots, and the exact line on the deck beyond which the half hour diagnostic chime became too loud to sleep with.

But right now? Now, she was using her knowledge of the deck panels and bulkheads to know which ones would flex and make a slight sound when someone else on the ship opened or closed a door. She had studied this extensively by now, and at this point knew exactly which sound meant which door was opening.

With her face tense and her heart thumping she moved one step at a time, working out the route in her head. She crossed to the door and peered out into the main street.

Nothing. No-one.

At the end, she could see the engineering bay door sitting open, the reactor core visible even from this end of the ship.

Nothing. No-one.

Leaning out, she peeked down the stairs into the common area.

Nothing. No-one.

Bringing up her multiband, she keyed into the crew's current activity on the ship's internal network. Admin level access was useful at a time like this.

The other three crew members were in their own rooms, active on their terminals. The two guest accounts with them were much the same. No-one could exit a room and walk up the stairs without her knowing.

Slowly, she let out her breath and eased the bridge door shut. She moved back to the pilot's chair, heart in her mouth. Her nerves were growing tense again, and her muscles felt like they were making miniature cramps all over her body. Not anxiety; it didn't have the sickly growl in her stomach for that. No, this was simple, raw apprehension.

Tami almost got to her chair before she scampered back again, looking around a third time. Everyone in their rooms. All main compartments deserted. Then for the third time, she came back to the chair and settled into it. Leaning down, she picked up an elaborate box bound by a ribbon. Gulping deeply, she looked behind herself and listened.

Nothing.

Slowly, she let out her held breath, and with shaking claws opened the originally unasked for package in her lap. She had her suspicions who gave her it, but didn’t know for sure. Pushing aside the unnamed gift tag, she unfolded the top.

The aroma hit her the moment she did. Rich, sweet, and smooth. It promised the most delicious, the most exquisite taste. The perfect, chilled brittleness, with the more velvety gentle centre made her sigh, and she felt a tingle run under her skin down her back.

A cocoa-based treat made fit for a princess.

That is, it would be, had this upper crust brand of chocolate not been shaped like it was.

Tami could feel her cheeks turning burning red the moment she lifted it from the box and the treat's shape and 'form' became clear. She held it in claw tips and sucked her bottom lip, this masterpiece of a snickering chocolatier letting its own tip point back at her.

Of all the shapes, it had to be this?

And why did white chocolate have to be her favourite?

Trembling, she gulped and quickly turned her head to the closed door again, listening. Nothing.

Retracting her head, making a gentle squeak in her throat, she started to raise it. Swallowing tightly, she licked and opened her trembling lips while trying not to look at it. Her shoulders hunched and she leaned forward, the end of the treat wobbling, until her teeth held it between top and bottom, and she gingerly began to bite dow-

The sound of the door closing behind her slammed through the bridge.

“Starting with the teeth? Oh Tam, you and I have got to have a little mare-to-mare chat about technique one of these days.”

Tami squealed, her hands blurring in a frantic motion of luxury chocolate item repackaging. She spun in the chair to see her captain smugly trotting over toward her, a freshly steaming mug of coffee held in her magic.

Stuffing the covered box down below her pilot’s display panel, a furiously red faced Tami scrambled to reassert her position at the helm. Babbling madly, she turned right and then left again to find Hair Trigger had moved to the central panel, leaning on it with raised, knowing eyebrows.

Tami gulped. “Captain! I...I-you scared me! It's...wait, wait! I didn't hear you coming upstairs and, hang on a sec and-”

The scruffy unicorn leaned a foreleg on the centre console, rested her cheek against it, and gave her a wink. Then, she glanced at the box below the pilot's legs.

“I wouldn't be a very good captain if I didn't know when a crew member needed some help now, would I? Practising for when we arrive at Marid?”

Hair Trigger gave a wide, eager grin, and Tami simply groaned in response, slumping in the pilot's chair, hiding her burning face behind her clenching hands. “Caaaaptaaaain...”

Said captain only took a loud sip of her coffee, and then chuckled to herself. Reaching over, she gave the hippogriff a firm pat on the shoulder before getting up to move to her own chair. “You do know the longer you put off just eating that thing rather than trying to make it quietly disappear, the more amusing it gets, right?”

“Urgh...” Tami just groaned in response, hands sliding down her face to drop heavily on her thighs with a soft, dejected clap. She stared at the ceiling, eyes sliding over to the side. “How did you even get up here so quietly anyway?”

Her captain didn't even pause from wiping a hoof over her console's touchscreen to bring up the pilot logs and nav-data. “Captain's instincts, I guess. I have to know these things. How long till we arrive?”

Tami screwed up her face, her rounded cheeks squeezing out as her eyelids shrunk down at the evasion of the question. Sighing, her heart finally starting to slow down, she looked back at her own screen and unlocked it. The bountifully smiling golden retriever wallpaper slid away to let her active bridge apps pop up.

Along with one word document. One she sharply drew in air at seeing, and hurriedly tried to minimise. Unfortunately, 'Captain's Instincts' were a thing of bleeding edge beauty in their ability to sense and act.

“'Ways to make it go well'?” Trigger momentarily peered over and read the title aloud. She waggled her eyebrows. “Looks like an empty list. Sure you weren't getting in a warm up to figure out what to add? Maybe a top ten? What of? Need any suggestions? I got safe, uncommon, adventurous...”

“Agh! Captain! No! It-” Tami exasperatedly groaned, haphazardly opening the wrong display for antenna control instead of the nav-unit readout with her jumping hands. “It's not that! It's just...uh...for ideas on how to approach this! And him! Because I've never been in this situation where I'm going to him first! So I was trying to write down what I'm supposed to remember and do because, really, I want it to be memorable. And make sure he enjoys it too rather than always taking care of me worrying.”

Hair Trigger heard her out and then softly nodded, putting down her coffee. Slowly, she got up and walked around the chairs, coming to behind Tami's, and laid both her hooves on her pilot's shoulders, each of them slowly pushing over onto Tami's upper arms.

“Well then, Tam...”

Tami blinked, and looked up at the unicorn's broad smile and bright eyes. Trigger's voice was low as she tilted her head around the back of the chair.

“...if it's 'advice' on making it 'memorable' for him you want?”

Tami made a strangled sound and frantically twisted in her seat.

“Oh-look-at-that-I-have-to-meet-Kiffie-sorry!”

She dropped down, scrambled off her chair and near-ran past the smirking form of Hair Trigger, spreading her wings to rapidly evacuate the bridge. As she hurried into the main street, she heard the voice calling out playfully behind her.

“You can always come to me, Tam!”

Hair Trigger laughed quietly and leaned on the pilot's chair. Watching the blushing hippogriff frantically flapping away, she floated her mug over to take another deep drink.

“I'll be waiting.”

“-and because I've met him before it makes this feel even weirder! The first time we just stumbled on each other, and the second time he never knew! So this is like th-the first time, intentionally! And it makes it feel so awkward and like I suddenly feel lost because I dunno what this place is like, or who'll be there, or what it is he is expecting! Or-”

Tammani continued her now approaching six minute ramble, her hands actively animating her every worry as much as a Zebrahan street-circus mime, as she lay on her back atop the reactor core in Claudia's engineering section.

If the big griffon working on the hydraulic fluid reservoir tank's outlet valve below her minded the incessant, high pitched, often repeating and occasionally unintelligible narration over his shift, he didn't give any indication of it. In fact, Kerfuffle had quietly swapped from the power tool that would achieve this job in twenty seconds for the hand-crank that would take over twenty minutes precisely so he didn't drown her out.

“-and even Vebs tried to give me the same talk that I know is right but that just made me wonder if I can even do that correctly, because I never have like this and-urgh...”

Exhausted, she lay down, and fell draped on her back over the thick frame holding the blinking core of their hyperdrive upright, her head hanging off the edge upside down to look at Kerfuffle.

The calico griffon patiently moved the crank to the next slot on the valve and gave it a sudden, strong ratchet around. Content it was at minimum safe tightness now, he paused and looked upward at the young pilot strewn over Claudia's core-frame.

“That's a whole lotta' worries there, Miss.” His voice was gentle as he scratched the side of his head, claws disappearing under a layer of feathers. “'Fraid I don't rightly got a lot of, er, knowledge on all that. But Mister Haze seemed a nice sort. I'm sure he'd hear you out if you're worried about it. Jus' gotta 'splain it all to him the way you did me, then he'll know how you feel.”

The sheer, innocent simplicity of it actually made Tami laugh. The tired, chest convulsing laugh of someone who clearly wished that could just be it. “I wish it were that easy...”

Kerfuffle sat down beside the core and scratched the other side of his head. “Why's it not? Mama always said that communication was the best skill of them all when it comes to meeting others. S'why Papa always knew when it was his turn to clean the hab-unit after bringing some work home with him.”

Tami looked down, seeing the honest smile on his face at offering the example of a happily married couple. She wanted to sigh, knowing it wasn't relevant, but looking at that face she just -well- couldn't. Instead she turned and hopped cleanly off the core. Seconds later, as expected, she felt strong arms and soft feathers catch her without much announcement and safely deposit her on the deck. Walking across its anti-slip metal covering, feeling the mesh panels above miles of wires and piping flex gently below her, she turned and looked up at the big engineer.

“Kiffie, I tried making a list. Of things I could do to make this not an embarrassment. But I just couldn't think of anything, and all the websites were just flat out useless 'cos they all assume we're in a club or have a city's worth of stuff to do. The only 'on a ship' ones I found were really lame fictional stories. Well, except one, but it's too long...and I don't think he has clones of himself. Anyway!”

She drew a long breath, and knew she was stalling. Groaning, Tami sat down in front of him so she could spread her arms, palms upturned. Time to just ask.

“Do...you have any advice?” She winced and made a slow, awkward shrug. “From a male perspective?”

There was a long silence.

Kerfuffle's gentle eyes stared at her, then his head raised, gazing over her own to the far wall. Into the void beyond. Glacially, they began to widen.

So this was how Papa felt, he thought, when Galena had grown old enough to figure out that not all baby griffons came from mineshafts and then ask where. 'Ask your mother' wouldn't do it.

A waving hand in front of his face made him blink and reassert himself. “Kiffie?”

He blinked.

“Kiffie? You okay?”

Kerfuffle shook his head, then shook it again, then nodded. “Sorry, Miss. Had one of them, er, 'existential moments of leave', my teachers used to call it. I, er, well...”

His talon moved from its common scratching of his cheek to the back of his head.

“I don't got much experience there an' all but, 'Lena once asked Mama what she was 'sposed to do to make her end of education cycle-years party go good for another griffin she wanted to dance with.”

Tami's eyes brightened, finally sensing some good, mature advice to be passed along! “Yes?”

Kerfuffle brought his scratching hand down and looked at the ceiling. Absent-mindedly, he picked up the hand crank and wedged it into the valve seal again, starting to pull as he thought. “And she sat 'Lena down and told her all 'bout it. I remember it. Was somethin' like...”

“Yes, yes!?” Tami was on her tippy hooves and tippy claws, wings outstretched behind her, teeth showing.

The valve sprung and Kerfuffle muscled it around to lock down the next of the steps. Pulling the crank out again, he paused and turned back to her with a content nod and smile. It all came back to him.

“Call me every half hour, be back home before ten, and don't walk there or back unless your big brother's with you.”

Patting the heavy crank into his other hand, Kerfuffle smiled and settled down on all fours to be level with the oddly dull faced hippogriff.

“I was so proud walkin' her, she looked just like you do now.” He flushed underneath his feathers. “I, er, wouldn't mind walkin' you there and back again if you felt it'd help, Miss.”

Tami's hand had been sitting near her multiband's touchscreen keyboard, ready to take notes. Slowly, it retracted, closed the application, and she pushed a slow, wide smile onto her face.

“Oh. I think I will be...fine! Yes! Anything...else?” she awkwardly forced out.

The griffon thought for a moment, turning the hand crank over again and again in his huge claws, before he suddenly seemed to grasp something, tightened his grip, and straightened his back with pride.

“Er, an' remember to flare your malfunctioning engine to attract attention!”

Tami gently coughed in the musty heat of the drive room, and angled her head. “What?”

Kerfuffle reached out, took her hand, and gently rotated her on the spot so she had to turn under herself, like a slow danc-

“OH!” she yelped, suddenly remembering, and half jumping back around again to face him, the gantry below her clanking under her step. “The dancing!”

“That's right, Miss!” Kerfuffle slowly but firmly stated, “That worked.”

She couldn't help but laugh, then blush, then chuckle, and then finally sigh gently. She smiled up at him and patted his chest. Opening the program on her multiband again she gingerly added 'Dance with him again?' to it.

“I...guess that maybe helps...”

“Sorry if I'm not a big help, Miss.” He shrugged, before wandering around to the back of the hydraulic reservoir again. “But 'Lena got that dance too in the end, and we know you can dance.”

The young pilot began trotting to the heavy bulkhead door that separated the engineering bay from the main street and gave a small smile. “I suppose. Sorta. Thanks, I'll, um...bear that all in mind.”

She stepped out.

“Miss!”

Pausing, Tami looked back, seeing Kerfuffle digging out the power tool again now that she was leaving.

“I'll have my multiband on so if you need to call me every half hour too. If that makes it better, then you can do that.”

Tammani, in all her fairly intelligent mind, hadn't a clue whether laughing, blushing, or just staring open mouthed was the answer. As a result, she coughed and choked as she almost tried to perform all three.

“Th-thanks, Kiffie, I...guess!” she muttered, returned his wave, and stepped over the frame of the door to wander through the intersecting passageway between engineering and the main street.

“Good luck, Miss!”

“Mm. Guess I'll see who else is...y'know...around to help.”

Then, just as the ambience and noise of engineering began to fade, she turned away from the big mechanic...and froze, her eyes widening.

Standing ahead of her, leaning against the side of the lockers at the far end, stood Hair Trigger. The unicorn looked up as though just seeing her, but the smirk had already been there.

For five whole seconds, Tami blanched and slowly shrunk back as she saw Hair Trigger mimic holding something Tami didn’t want to think much about in her hooves and start to draw breath.

Tami interrupted, speaking overly loudly. “Oh, sure, Kerfuffle! I. Will. Go. Get. That. For. You!”

Not waiting, she dove head first down the nearest ladder to the cargo hold, a very confused griffon peering out from behind where she'd been, wondering with surprised happiness how she'd known he needed a plasma-socketer.

“So, you're just not sure how to approach him when he's already invited you?”

Relieved, Tami breathed out with a long sigh and nodded her head in answer.

Volatility Smile was currently pretzeled on her work mat on the deck of the cargo hold, stretching one hindleg over the other and curling her back. With a gentle grunt she released the tension and sat upright, grabbing a nearby towel to wipe the sweat from her face and shoulders. Craning her neck to the left, then to the right, she rolled her shoulders once and then shifted her position to face the hippogriff standing by her.

“Well that shouldn't be too difficult to help you with, should it? You aren't stumbling across him unexpectedly or surprisingly; you have time to breathe, and you have time to prepare.”

Her voice was smooth, calm, and confident, and it made Tami's tension drop significantly. Smile had experience in relationships; she would know the answers like she would know how to ace an interview.

Tami nodded and brought up her list again, readying one hand to type. “Yes, yes, I guess. So...what do I do?”

Standing up, Smile grabbed her water bottle from her bag and took a deep slug of the recycled fluid. With a long breath, she sat on the edge of the lifting bench to push out her hindlegs and lean over them, her head held up to let her sparkling eyes stay in contact. “What parts are you worried about?”

Tami drew a deep breath.

“One example only,” Smile quickly and firmly interrupted, “For now.”

The hippogriff closed her mouth and thought for a moment. Of all the lists she was struggling with, this may have been the longest existing. Counting fingers, then feathers, she grabbed one at random and tugged down the edge of her blouse. Under it, the shortened, regrowing hair of her coat was still entirely visible around a pinkish healing mark on her neck. When she spoke it was with a gulping, anxious worry.

“I'm hurt. In a few places. Visibly. Unavoidably. And I don't want it to make it awkward when I meet him and he asks about what happened.”

There was a brief wince on Smile's face. Tami thought she knew why, and still wished she'd found time to approach about that. But for now, she let the crystal pony think.

“Well...” Smile began, and then she let a small smile grow. “Thankfully, I know the solution to that.”

“Really!?”

“Of course! It's a classic: the initial meet! With that, it all comes down to knowing what you're going to say, how you say it, and then practising it!”

Tami sat down, talons tapping their tips warily. “You mean like, I get a mirror?”

Smile grinned, shook her head, and stood up sharply, moving over to grab Tami's shoulders and get her up standing with a burst of energy. “Of course not, that's the realm of pre-teens figuring out how to ask for a social dancing class partner. Here's what we'll do.”

“We?”

The businessmare nodded and stepped back a few feet, shaking out her mane before tying it back in a bun. “So, pretend I am Midnight, and this is you just entering his ship. I'll greet you and then you just try out what you might say.”

Tami felt her wings droop on the spot, her mouth turning flat. “You have to be joking.”

“Perish the thought, I am not! This is a highly respected and time honoured method! Now, go behind that crate there and walk around it. I'll meet you back here. Go on. It will help make it easier when the time comes.”

She ushered the reluctant hippogriff away, and Tami felt her legs skittering over the deck as she was pushed and cajoled across the cargo hold. “Smile, really, I don't know-”

“Nonsense, sweetie.” Smile gave a dismissive wave of a hoof. “Just give it a try. We're all adults here. Now, let me see...”

She wandered away from Tami, muttering to herself. “Okay, Midnight...polite upbringing, rules based social awareness, slight touch of a roguish charmer if he's anything like his father...right.”

She disappeared back toward the bench, leaving Tami standing behind the large container in the hold. The pilot slumped her shoulders and bonked her forehead off the side of the metal box. With a sharp exhaling of air, she got back up after a good few seconds, and edged toward the other side to walk around. Then, she paused. Then she moved, then paused again. She groaned lightly. “Okay...urgh...”

Tami straightened up and walked around the container into view with a deep, regretful sigh.

“Tammani, welcome!” Smile immediately turned, a broad smile on her face as she hurried across to the hippogriff. “I didn't expect to see you here so soon.”

Tami's chest and throat felt like someone was using them for a knot tying competition. She let out her breath and awkwardly paced on the spot, unable to look Smile in the eye. “Urgh...uh-ah...hi! Uh...your majesty?”

The crystal pony made a soft tut, holding a hoof across her chest. “Tami, you know you don't need to call me that. Not between us.” She reached down and took Tami's hand, holding it between both her forelegs.

Oh come on, that's not fair! thought Tami, as she awkwardly looked anywhere but into her friend's all too well-acted face. She took a deep swallow. This was horrifically awkward in every way she could imagine. Her stomach was clenching. Her face glowing, she forced the words out.

“Sure, you-uh-Midnight. I'm-well-happy to see you too! It's nice. Being here. Seeing...you?”

Smile shot her a look similar to that of a director to her actress on stage on seeing the character finally emerge. Then, a look of concern came across her face and her hoof raised, gently moving Tami's blouse to see her neck.

“Tami...whatever happened out there? Are you all right?”

The hippogriff felt her teeth grinding as she tried to collapse her head into her own ribcage. “I got stabbed. Uh...in the neck?”

“No, no, Tami.”

Tami blinked, and saw Smile shake her head. “Not so bluntly. Be gentle about it. Embellish a little!”

“You want me to boast?”

“Of course!”

Tami groaned, looked away, took a deep breath, and reasserted herself with great reluctance, going back to her previous tone of voice. “I...”

She sucked in a deep breath and pushed the most uncertain grin onto her face she possibly could, trying her best to look like Hair Trigger and regretting every second.

“I got it while, um, saving someone from their robot guards?”

Duchess Midnight Smile made a sharp gasp and sat down, holding Tami by her upper arms. “Tami, I hadn't realised you and the crew were engaged in such heroic efforts out there. Are you okay?”

Tami could not cease feeling her own voice screaming inside her head and her every nerve contort until she was hunching just so she could force a wobbly looking smile onto her face. “I am, now you're here?”

Smile's mouth swept upwards, and Tami felt her lungs cry out from not breathing properly for over a minute now.

“Just...wish you didn't have to see it, Midnight?”

“Tami...” Smile fluttered her eyes and held the side of the hippogriff's flushed cheek. “It doesn't change anything while it's there. You look just as charmingly delightful as ever.”

The crystal pony winked, and Tami winced. She waited, and waited, until Smile whispered. “Don't leave him waiting!”

“For what!?” she hissed back.

“Take his hoof! Or accuse him of being devilishly forward. Put yourself back in control.” Smile patted the hoof on Tami's cheek, as though encouraging.

“Why...uh...” Tami began, and grabbed Smile's hoof to gently remove it. “...how, uh, cavalier of you to say, your majesty.”

Smile upturned the removed hoof, bringing Tami's hand closer, winking as she kissed the air near it. Then, she let go, and stood up straight sharply. “Excellent!”

“Really?”

“Mostly.” Smile chided. “Now, let's do it again. But notes! Let's try to get your answers on your wounds right off the bat, okay?”

Tami shrunk down, groaning, before dropping her arms and sighing with embarrassment. “I dunno...”

“And!” Smile trotted over the metal deck and whispered gently to her. “This time, when you inevitably call him 'your majesty', don't listen to him telling you not to...it'll get right into that thrill centre all stallions have to hear you insist on calling him tha-”

Tami shot up, wings flapping to lift her in the air as she looked at the wrong arm for her multiband. “OKAY! Time for lunch! Gotta goooo!” She landed and hurriedly cantered off with an overly loud laugh, leaving Smile to huff and cross her forelegs at the closing door.

“Her generation...hmph.” She blew a strand of her bun away from her face. “No respect for the fine arts.”

Vacuum packed sausages with herb and onion? No.

Two hundred calorie peanut flavoured protein block? Very no.

Sun dried tomato sandwich? Reserved.

Half a remaining whipped cream chocolate éclair?

“Why, thank you,” Tami giggled to herself as she reached into the common room fridge to retrieve the latter half of her snack. After today she could afford a little treat. Picking up the plate, she pulled it back.

And then almost dropped it as someone spoke over her shoulder.

“You don't need that.”

It was a sweet and young, but opinionated and declarative female voice, one that made Tami squeak and slam the fridge shut. The closing metal door revealed the bright pink of their newest ‘crew member's’ coat with a snowglobe cutie mark right behind it. She was holding a circuit board in her bare hooves and her big eyes were staring right at Tami.

Specimen Eleven. By designation. By name. It was a name Tami wished that 'Elly' would find a replacement for now that she was free from Sidewinder's lab experiments. It felt derogatory to Tami, to be nothing more than a number. Yet for now Eleven was sitting quietly and Tami suddenly realised that the blue haired pony had to have been watching her. She looked down at her éclair and gave a confused look to the unassuming unicorn.

“What? What's wrong with a snack?”

Eleven shook her head. “No, not that. That!”

She pointed with a hoof to the fridge and Tami took a few seconds to try and figure out what she meant. Eventually meeting nothing but failure, Eleven sighed.

“The light inside the fridge that turned on when you opened it. It’s so unnecessary!”

Tami scrunched her face, sitting down and picking up her éclair in one hand. “How? It lets us see.”

Eleven's eyes rolled to look at the ceiling, pointing at each end with very animated, pointed pokes. “You’d see anyway! The normal light in this room provides more than enough light! Lumens! Illumination! Whichever!”

“And if the room light's aren't on?” Tami spoke cautiously, but tersely.

“Well then why are you opening the fridge instead of turning them on?” Eleven spread her hooves, as if it were the strangest thing to ever have to consider that. Somehow Tami got the impression that a few hours later that light would somehow disappear into the growing mound of spare parts she knew was forming somewhere on board.

She sighed, and then smiled at Eleven. Strange thought she may act, it hardly mattered. The unicorn had been through horrors and was changed - probably forever - by Sidewinder trying to force their way into powers they shouldn't touch. That allowed Eleven a lot of leeway in Tami's mind.

Cautiously, as though awaiting another judgement for her actions, she opened her mouth and let herself bite into a much delayed sugary snack for the day. Light cream melted in her mouth as soft dough and sweet chocolate mixed. She couldn't help herself; she groaned a little.

It was always too good when they were just out the fridge, the slight firmness and the chill cream giving a perfect flavour rush, enough to push away the feeling of wanting to cringe and moan into a pillow when she remembered that chat with Smile.

She watched Eleven sit against the kitchen surface and start to fiddle with the platinum plated board, telekinesis making tiny circuit swaps and a little spark around their ends soldering them in place without even a tool. Instead just using that ominously powerful magic lurking in her. Eleven smiled at her work, looking relaxed and friendly; Tami had a thought.

A thought that made her almost grind her teeth and turn away.

No. She couldn't.

But what harm was it?

Edging over, Tami pressed her back against the cupboard below the sink front and settled down until she was sitting beside Eleven. Éclair for her, circuit-board for Eleven.

“So, Eleven...” she began, bringing up her multiband file. “You heard who Vebs and I were talking about right? How I'm going to meet someone? Midnight Haze? You, uh, well you know a lot of things. So...got any tips for me?”

Eleven didn't even look up. “Mhm.”

“You do?”

“Uh huh!”

Tami smiled, and took up the third number in her document, right below the 'make him sweat instead?' one from Smile's 'lesson'. “Well go on! Honestly, I need all the help I can right now.”

Eleven smiled that beautiful, innocent smile, and turned her head to look at Tami eye to eye. “Leave him!”

A sudden shimmer of a telekinetic field was all that stopped Eleven being sprayed with fancy baking. Tami coughed and hacked, trying to drive air into her malfunctioning lungs. “Ack! I-ah-WHAT?”

Eleven reached over and firmly patted Tami’s back. “Aren’t you twenty one?”

Almost choking in surprise, Tami managed to nod.

“Well, a hippogriff's average age for an effective reproductive cycle doesn't begin for at least another five years.” She sharply tapped her right hoof into her upturned left five times near the pilot. “You are being very hasty. I'm surprised you don't know this about your own species, Tami.”

Tami wiped her mouth and, hand on chest, looked at her in disbelief with her voice loud and bewildered. “I'm not looking to-to-THAT! I just want to have a fun day or two hanging out with him!”

Eleven made a neutral, somewhat denied sound, and got up. Her horn suddenly glowed and lifted a host of plastic cutlery from beside the sink, talking even as she seemed to inspect them, making them each move along like little soldiers in the air before her discerning eye. She pursed her lips. “So you just want to meet him?”

“Yes!”

“As friends?”

“Yes!”

“And not breed with him?”

“D-don't say it like that! But...yes!”

Eleven almost closed one eye, and wriggled a hoof up under her mane to scratch at the metallic implant running down her spine as she tried to choose between two seemingly identical forks. “Then I am confused.”

“How?” Tami asked quietly.

“Because I see you 'hang out' with all the crew here as friends every day with minimal issue. Why is this ‘Duke’ any different? It is the same broad activity.”

Tami paused. She blinked, and the immediate 'but that's wrong' response died in her throat as what Eleven was saying felt aggressively logical and almost, oh-so-almost, made complete sense?

She knocked the back of her head into the cupboard. “It's not that simple, Elly. It's...a bit more than just friends here, because-”

Eleven made a short 'aaah' sound. “It is because you MIGHT someday want to-”

Tami lowered her eyes. “If you say that word one more time I am leaving right now.”

The pink unicorn just shrugged, then suddenly grinned as she found the fork she wanted, and got up, taking her whole little project with her. Moving past, she stopped and turned. “Then this, well...I don't know what more I can say.”

Tami grunted as she got up, finding Eleven's magic helping to tug her along the way. She flushed, and stood before the teenage pony. True enough, Eleven had never had a lot of life experience being essentially kept in a lab since she was a foal.

Not that Tami felt bad for asking. No result didn't mean she didn't want to include her. And seeing her try was the important thing. “Thanks, Elly. Just, well, maybe Vebs and I can go over it all with you next time.”

Eleven nodded firmly. “Sociology isn't quite as interesting as applied sciences but well, okay. I wouldn’t mind it! You two were amusing. Strange, but amusing. But I'm going to find Kerfuffle. He’ll need this soon.” She shook the circuit board and turned. “Maybe the others might help you better.”

“Maybe...”

Eleven trotted off, and as she did, Tami's blood froze on the spot. Eleven's moving away from that spot revealed the part of the sofa her presence had hidden behind her. More particularly, revealed one Hair Trigger sitting on it, silently watching with a coffee mug held ready.

With an eager grin, Hair Trigger reached over and patted the sofa beside her.

Tami's mouth opened inconsistently, a gagging, stuttered choke emerging. “O-Oh look at the time! I'm almost late for my shower, ha-ha-haaaaaabye!”

She backed off, bumped into the side of the open door and stumbled her away into the bathroom to lock it sharply behind her.

Some twenty minutes and a mentally resetting hot shower later, a still somehow thoroughly unsettled hippogriff peeked out of the bathroom door. She cast her eyes warily to either side, leaning out to look into the blind spots. She'd made that mistake before.

She was alone.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Tami finally exited, and started making her way toward the bridge again. Flapping around the table, she typed mid-flight, adding 'Is it different?' to her list. Landing, she started up the stairs. But as she put weight on them, she stopped.

Instead, Tami found herself glancing briefly to her left. Then right back again, screwing her eyes shut. After a long breath, she opened them again, exhaled with a sigh of defeat, and turned away from the stairs. Moving past the sofa, she raised a hand, clenched in a loose fist.

“I can't believe I'm doing this...” she muttered, and knocked on the door nearest the sofa.

Immediately, she regretted it. But the deed was done.

Seconds longer than they ought to feel passed until finally there was a twist of the lock and the door swung open sharply. Gulping, Tami found herself face to face with a bleary eyed, sharp bodied rogue spy.

Whisper Step was quiet for a moment, looking down at her. Then, in a low voice, she spoke. “Tami? What's wrong?”

The words were to the point. Tami knew her quaking body had been seen and analysed right away. “Can I...come in a second? And talk?”

One of Whisper's thin eyebrows raised. There was a few seconds gap and then she quietly seemed to sigh, and nodded into her room, turning around. Hardly feeling any more settled, Tami wandered after her, thinking over and over how to word anything at this point.

Edging inside, she sat on one of her old cushions that still lay in the corner, while Whisper hopped back onto the bed, settling herself against a small mountain of pillows. Her tough-framed laptop sat there, and the agent grabbed it as she lay back, bringing it onto her thighs to start tapping away at with a precision cadence. Empty mugs sat beside her.

After logging in, Whisper's piercing eyes looked up. “Well? What is this about?”

She wasn't sounding impatient, or frustrated. Just focused, more sharply curious than anything. Tami took a long breath.

“So, there's this guy...”

Whisper's typing stopped immediately, those gold-yellow eyes narrowing as they raised up to look at the cringing hippogriff. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“...and-” Tami gulped. “-and he's invited me to-”

“Midnight, I know.”

“You do?”

“It's not exactly difficult to notice.”

Tami blinked, then blushed, then hid her face behind a wing with a small squeak. “Sorry, I just, I've never had such an 'invitation' in. And I don't know what to expect or how best to-I f-figured, y'know? You might know something? You know people, right? How they act? How to act right?”

Whisper sighed and started to type something rapidly, looking intently at her own work. Her voice sounded more like an aside comment as though she too couldn't believe she was even giving an answer. “Tami, if you're edging around asking me how to seduce someone...”

The pilot shook her head rapidly, waving her arms. “No! No, no! It's not that!”

“Wasn't it?”

Whisper turned over her laptop, bending it until it was a tablet like device, and started spinning what looked like floorplans around. The interruptions for her to work made the room feel so very thick with uncertain silence.

Tami groaned, slapping her palm into her face. “No, it's...I just don't know because I have all these worries like how I'm hurt or what I'm doing or how he's not seen me for me and like a dozen others and-and I just want to not make a mistake and ruin it and-”

“And you're coming to...me? For this? I-” Whisper paused and sighed, then cut herself off, not once looking up. “I suppose. All right. What do you want from him?”

“Huh?”

Whisper slowed down every word. “Romance? A close friend? A quick fling? Just sex?”

Tami gulped, partly from Whisper's bluntness, but partly because she honestly wasn't sure. The social class difference, the distance, the cloak and dagger element to it all? Was it more? Or just close? Or just indulgence? Thankfully, Whisper didn't force an answer from her.

“If you're going to get close to anyone, within their personal space, you need to know what you want from them first. Then figure out what they too want that would let you move in to attain your goal.” Whisper paused, then quickly added, “And his. Of course. Do you think he just wants you in his bed?”

Tami squeaked gently. “Uh, no? I...think he just wants someone in his life who doesn't pressure him like the rest of nobility.”

“He wants an escape then. That'd be easy.” Whisper spoke with an odd degree of satisfaction and cunning, looking up thoughtfully for a moment. To Tami, it was an unnerving tone.

“Whisper, did you just mentally prep how you'd case and entrap a stallion I like?”

“I haven't a clue what you're talking about, Tami.”

Tami narrowed her eyes. “You're smirking.”

Whisper made a dark chuckle, patting the tablet. “He's a Solar Empire noble. Call it a professional reflex.”

“Whisper...” Tami chided, only getting a sly grin in response. Biting one side of her cheek, Tami sucked on it and gulped. “So...”

Whisper looked up, and Tami delayed. After a long pause, she took what felt like an even longer breath to break the awkward cut, and continued.

“...should I take a gift? Or does that put him on the spot?”

And again, that still just as awkward silence.

“Or use that crystal mane shampoo?”

Whisper breathed out sharply through her nose and briefly shrugged, the loose shirt about her whipcord body only barely moving. Yet as she settled, she idly tapped the edge of her device, extending the silence. The dark earth pony settled back. “And I can't even pretend to get a call from my handler to escape any more.”

“Hey...”

Whisper looked back over at her, shaking a hoof as though to assure it was just in jest. “If you want to just talk with him. Or hug him. Kiss him. Bed him. Date him. Whatever? Figure that out first, I guess.”

Tami had started taking notes but then paused, seemingly unsure. “I...just want us to have fun? It's in two days. It all just feels so difficult to nail down. I can't be open about it, but I know he and I want, well, something? We spoke about just whenever we meet or...maybe even he isn't sure either. Maybe we're both just dancing around it not able to know.”

The tablet bleeped and Whisper turned it vertical. “That tends to be how it goes in some lines of work.”

Tami didn't think much of that response at first, but then she raised one eyebrow. It was a curious statement. “Speaking from experience?”

The athletic spy looked up and made a brief sound of mirth. “Maybe. Never know if you'll find someone nice on a mission.”

Tami couldn't resist a slightly curious smirk. “Pity there's none on this one, huh?”

Whisper stared for a long time. “...sure. Listen, I have a lot to do, Tami...”

“All right.” Tami breathed out and got up, feeling somewhat foolish for even broaching the subject. “Sorry, I was just-”

Whisper nodded slightly. She knew.

Tami turned, trotting her way to the door and opened it again. But as she did, she stopped at hearing her name.

“Tami?”

“Huh?”

Whisper looked up from behind her. “Remember to lock doors, use a proxy on your multiband to contact, and know his schedule. The nobility don't enjoy casual relationships outside their circles. Hang a towel over any keyholes in a room you're going to meet in. Scan for low-emitting wireless signals before you say anything incriminating, be wary of invisible servants nearby; they're good at that, don't wear lipstick, and always have an escape plan.”

Tami just blinked, staring at Whisper in rapt confusion. The earth pony just upturned a single hoof.

“It's what I'd do.”

“Thanks, Whisper.” Tami was tacit in her reply as she quietly moved to the door. “Sorry to bother you.”

Whisper just gave a dismissive shrug. A non-verbal 'no problem'. Tami gently closed the metal door and turned her back to it with a sigh. With an idle hand she added 'Have escape route?' and groaned aloud. Lethargically, she yanked herself up and started toddling to the stairs again.

That toddle quickly became a hurried push as she heard another door opening, and scrambled up even as she saw the green mane emerge from the Captain's quarters, mug floating out ahead of it. Hair Trigger looked up and made a teasing wink with a cheeky smile. She tilted her head, gesturing into her room with her eyes.

Tami squeaked and caught herself in the air before disappearing off upstairs. “Busy, sorry!”

Below, there was just a sip of caffeine, a giggle, and a slow closing of the door.

“And I just don't even know what to prepare, or think. I know they're all helping in their own way, I appreciate it, I really do! But even I don't know exactly how this is. Midnight and I only sorta vaguely alluded to it in letters, but never in person and I don't know if I can speak as easily then. Or will this place be too cramped and locked down with people we can't find time away? What if it's even worse because I'll be in overalls and I still can't get this oil out my tail from a few days ago. And will it spook him to see my wounds still? Or-or-or what if I make a mistake and get him in trouble? I just don't know what to prepare or think or so or...urgh.”

Tami lay back in her hammock, head flumping between her pillows, hands over her eyes. She sighed long and hard, and then turned her head.

“What do you think?”

“Relationship Counselling software module not installed. Please contact your supplier.”

Tami hummed gently. “So maybe if I send him a letter beforehand, we could work out and, uh, I could plan better?”

“Relationship Counselling software module not installed. Please contact your supplier.”

Her face dropped somewhat, and she stared back at the moon and star stickers on the overhead frame of the bridge, mentally picturing Claudia getting close, time running shorter. “Or maybe that'll just make things worse. Somehow. I don't even know how! Just somehow! I just want this to be a chance to...to relax. To be around someone I like. To let my mane down and forget all this horrible stuff lately for a day or two. Oh Patch, what am I supposed to do?”

The drone bleeped, a red light flickering.

“Relationship Counselling software module not installed. Please contact your supplier.”

Tami frowned and sat up, turning to hang over her hammock sideways, hindlegs hanging off the side near the wall, forelegs off the side near Patch. She thought for a moment and then tried a different approach.

“Patch, I'm nervous about getting a vaccine, but I know I have to go for one regardless. I'm scared of what might happen. What should I do?”

Rotors buzzing, Patch blooped.

“No required vaccine detected on file.”

“Theoretical.”

Again, the lights on his chassis blinked, and then his voice, a deep bass, resounded in the bridge as he began to hover away out to the main street.

“There is no requirement for fear in this scenario, Crew-member Tammani. You will only feel a little prick in your hindquarters and that is all.”

“Oh, thanks, Pat-wait WHAT did you just say!?”

Tami scrambled up, nearly tripping out her hammock to chase the medical robot.

“Are you trying to make fun of-”

She stopped as she reached the door, almost slamming into a pony coming the other way.

“Woah there, Tam. Where are you hurrying off to?”

Hair Trigger held her hooves up, stopping Tami in her path and holding her in the bridge. Moving above Trigger, Patch escaped retribution, floating away down the main street to his charger. Tami went white.

“Uh...I...was just-”

“Heading to the bridge to be 'busy', huh? Figured I'd join you.”

Hair Trigger pushed her chest gently, stepping inside by making Tami move backwards. Trigger's hoof kicked the door closed behind them. Her magic locked it. “Didn't get a chance to finish our 'chat' earlier. Seems you've been 'busy' since.”

Tami was sweating, blushing, backing away until she tripped and fell into her beanbag, Hair Trigger still advancing above her.

“So where were we? Ah...” Trigger raised her eyebrows, and leaned in. “How to make a cute young hippogriff's little private time with a handsome, strapping stallion leave you both-”

She switched to a whisper.

“-absolutely breathless.”

Suddenly, Trigger dove down, and landed beside her pilot on the beanbag, grabbing around Tami's shaking shoulders, her voice dropping as she leaned into Tami's ear. “And you know I'll give you only the full, absolutely raw details needed to blow his-

“C-Captain!”

“-mind. Ready?”

“N-no?”

“I want you...”

Trigger grinned, and reached over, pulling Tami's face to pull it close to hers. Tami squeaked, closing her eyes.

“...to just be yourself, Tam.”

Shivering, Tami waited, and waited as she heard the words. There was no follow up. When she opened her eyes, she saw nothing but her Captain, who would take any chance to make her blush, staring back at her, slowly letting go over her to sit back more normally.

“Huh?”

Hair Trigger smiled and hugged Tami into her side. “I want you to do what you always do around him. I want you to blush the moment you see him and never quite be able to get it off your face. I want you to stumble over your words when just trying to greet him because you can't get the words out right. I want you to end up rambling nervously on weird tangents until he has to smoothly laugh and interrupt you somehow. I want you to squeak and hunch up if he ever flatters or touches you, even though it's all happened before.”

She took Tami's hand in her hoof. Tami just stared, open mouthed.

“I want you to be that weird, heartwarming combination of endearing shyness and excitable energy that we know you for. Because it's unlike anyone he has to spend his life around with the stuffy upper crust. I swear to you that's probably what he's attracted to, and what he's most looking forward to seeing.”

Trigger poked Tami's nose.

“You.”

Cheeks bright red, Tami just blinked back.

“I-uh...”

Trigger laughed, and ruffled her mane. “Yeah, pretty much like that.”

Tami knew Hair Trigger was right. She knew it, because Trigger usually was when she spoke like that. She let herself be hugged in against the unicorn's side, blinking and thinking it all over. Somehow, with that mental reset of perspective on the whole thing, the rest of them suddenly made a lot more sense.

Kerfuffle hadn't been unaware. He'd just been telling her she'd already done it before and would know what to do, and that he'd be there right up until the time if she wanted.

Smile hadn't been trying to embarrass her. She'd been trying to make whatever actually happened nowhere near as awkward as what she'd play-acted already.

Eleven hadn't been clueless about it. If anything, she'd seen the clear logic right then and there. All she had to do was remember how she acted normally, and do that.

Whisper hadn't been trying to make her worry. She'd been just trying to make sure she was being safe and telling her how to quell her worries with practical steps.

Tami stared at the deck between the two of them, and felt her mouth slowly grow into a smile. The worries, the nerves, they were still there. Tami sighed in relief and nuzzled her cheek onto Trigger's shoulder. “Thanks...you're the best captain I ever had.”

Trigger snorted, amused. “Told you before, I'm the only captain you've ever had.”

“Still the best,” Tami whispered, and let out a long breath. “You realise I'm still gonna be worrying up until the moment, right?

“I'd be worried you'd been replaced if you didn't. Long as you're not about to implode from it. All good?”

Tami gently nodded, and settled down. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

Trigger sat up and pulled Tami up with her, activating her own multiband. As the lock screen faded, Tami saw that It had a paused video on it. One that made her eyes bulge out wide as she saw the title. Her face turned to one of utter shock as Hair Trigger reached forward and hit the ‘resume’ icon.

“What is tha-CAPTAIN!”

Trigger's foreleg grabbed around her tightly, trapping her on the beanbag before she could flee. Instead, Tami covered her shocked eyes and the smirk she couldn't hide at her captain's antics with both wings.

“So, next topic!" Trigger laughed. "Examples on how to not use your teeth and the best way to-”

Port Medusa's elevator system had never been quiet. Even long ago when the orbital station had first been built, the hydraulics and gears had hissed and clanked. The decades since had added a wavering clack of metal on the tension-brakes as it moved past each deck, shaking the platform. While a reminder of the enormous redundancies built into its system, the noise made conversation difficult, if not impossible, for those on board.

Sometimes, Volatility Smile wondered if that had been deliberately left unsolved, given the elevator went all the way to the office of Director Sweet Alyssum and emerged directly into the ‘Mistress of Medusa's’ reception. Denying an incoming party the opportunity to easily communicate in the last minutes before a meeting would throw a spanner in anyone’s plans. In all, a brutally subtle way to kill off last minute pep-talks for a trade agreement, contract negotiation or diplomatic petition. The sheer slyness of it would have made her smile, were it not preventing her from expressing her displeasure at that very moment.

Frowning, Smile waited impatiently for the elevator to return her and Hair Trigger to the small-ship docking level. Finally, it stopped. The heavy doors hissed. With a grinding of metal on metal, the cramped elevator opened up to return them to the musty, rowdy noise of a station's main thoroughfare. Metallic clanking was replaced by eager hubbub as heavy suit-clad spacers and armoured mercenaries filed past, heading to and fro between the docks, bar, or the assorted vendor outlets scattered around the ring-shaped deck. Floor plating clattered, drones whirred, maintenance teams’ welders crackled from behind wall panels. To Smile’s ears it was the sound of the Periphery: the expanse of chaotic opportunity.

Now, finally, she could raise her voice.

“Stars above, Hair Trigger! What was that in there? You took the local system job? I told you before that the other one was better!”

The small unicorn trotted out beside her, removing her hat to run a hoof through her matted mane. A few days within Medusa's near-windowless metal corridors and static-laden air was enough to frazzle anyone. She inhaled through her nose and slid the hat back on. Her voice was clipped and steady. “Because it's the best for us right now, Smile.”

Volatility Smile made a short, bemused laugh, if anything just to try and cut herself off from snapping out an angry remark. “This one is lower pay, it's in this system, doesn't even need Claudia because it's so small, and it’s from a client who doesn't have any follow on work. This is a waste of our time and docking fee. What are you thinking?”

Hair Trigger started trotting forward, idly moving to the fruit stall by the elevator. She sighed, and Smile felt a flare of annoyance at the Captain's dismissal of the issue, before the unicorn suddenly snapped around, eyebrows arched and temper flaring.

“Because,” replied Trigger, drawing glances from passing merchants, “there's more to it than just the business! The crew needs a rest. In fact, YOU need a rest! When did you last take a day off that I didn't order you to?”

Volatility Smile thought for a moment, keeping her face still in the dull light. It seemed to deaden the glint of her body, making her crystal glow more an expression of irritation than of grace. She felt envious, sometimes, of the minotaur ability to stand up with hands on hips to project the correct aura of being so perturbed.

“There was that time I slept in for two hours.”

Trigger rolled her eyes. “And you worked through your breaks to make up for it. The breaks I tell everyone that they can take whenever they want so long as the work's done?”

“A good schedule is a good discipline,” Smile countered. “But that's nitpicking and sniping at points. Trigger, this job's a quarter of the income of the other, and Claudia's not going to pay herself off. You want to be in debt to a crime lord your whole prime? This would set us back by two weeks’ worth of work!”

Hair Trigger just groaned and began walking again, toward Crazy D's restaurant. Weaving between the sweaty, oil-stained crowds in the windowless corridor, she spoke over her shoulder. “Look, we've just come back from over a month in space seeing things I used to think were just spacer-tales! Kerf - who is injured I might add - is even worse than you for not taking a break and I can't get him to just admit it. Eleven's been cooped up inside Claudia the whole time without a chance to feel free, and if Tami doesn't get a chance to buy some new canvases then I'm worried she'll start painting the hull or even us next.”

Smile caught up with her, and found the unicorn looking up to see eye to eye. She had a hard look, and Smile felt a hoof clap her upper leg. The small unicorn gave a mirthless, tired grin. “Take some time. You're more high strung than usual. We just need a shuttle to deliver the goods. I'll take Tami, the two of us will pop over, make the trade, and be back before the night cycle.”

“High strung!?” Smile expostulated, her voice rising in pitch. She could see Tami and Eleven ahead, sitting on stools beside Crazy D's food bar, just shy of Medusa's marketplace outside the hangar. The hippogriff, blissfully enjoying some time dockside, was pointing at the new sheen-black multiband on Eleven’s foreleg. Verbena Mint was hustled in from the other side, both her and Tami directing the confused bright pink unicorn through something on the device. Between excited shouts and points, the three of them were sharing one of D's ever esoteric meals. With Eleven’s cybernetic spine hidden below one of Verbena’s spare denim jackets, the trio seemed nothing more than a group of hyperactive besties in the bustling marketplace of metal and rust.

At the sight of the three of them briefly glancing up from behind the meaty scented steam billowing out the eatery, both the crystal pony and unicorn took a second to stare at one another and let their heated discussion simmer down a touch. Smile groaned and rubbed her forehead.

“See? Headache,” Trigger said, then forced out a grin, pointing up at Smile's face. “Take a couple days. Do what you feel you need to. Hell, go on a holiday somewhere if you want. Tam and I have this. It's just a shuttle. We'll get another job after it.”

The crystal pony sniffed sharply in return, but she just saw Trigger wink at her.

“Or take the time to send a letter to wherever it is Whis-”

“Enough!” Smile sighed sharply, unamused by Trigger's humour, and waved a hoof. “All right, all right, fine! What's done is done now; I doubt Alyssum likes her crews coming back to change their minds anyway. I'll see what the NLR has, if I can find anywhere these days. It'll get me out of space for a while at least.”

She almost added 'away from you' for the headache remark, but bit it back.

“But you should consult me on these things, rather than just...I don't know, deciding in the spur of the moment and going over my head?”

If Hair Trigger saw the bait she didn't rise to it, just shrugging and turning away. But her cheeky grin turned to a grumpy droop at her humour failing to calm Claudia's de-facto second-in-command and she felt her voice still raise all the same. “Whatever! It's settled, Smile! We get an easy, low end, bill-covering job and we all get a chance to reset our batteries a bit. You look out for the balance books, I'll look out for the crew.”

“Are you implying I don't care abo-”

“You know what I meant!”

“Sometimes I'm not sure!” Smile felt a rush of anger well up. “Do you want to explain i-”

She stopped short as the frantic talk of the younger members of the crew quietened down for a moment. Both glared at one another, realising they might be overheard.

“Ah, no no no! See it's not 'just my space life!' It's one word!” Verbena pointed at Eleven's screen. “See? Like those other tags!”

“But they're four words!” The pink unicorn jabbed her own hoof at it, the multiband moving around almost too frantically for the others to follow. “See? Just and my and space and life! Four words! There! Are! Four! Words!”

“But not here!” Tami added with a squeaky giggle, catching Eleven's hoof and deleting the spaces with a series of taps. “And add a hashtag before it!”

“WHY? It serves no purpose!”

“It lets people hunt the tags...” Verbena spoke in a deadpan tone as though speaking to an out of touch parent. “How else are you going to get seen?”

Eleven bit her lip, raising one eyebrow high. A drink floated to her mouth and she took a loud suck on the straw to calm down. “I can't get seen! I can't even share this publicly, you know that, Tami.”

The hippogriff threw an arm around Eleven's shoulders, jostling her with a sly wink. “But someday you might! And you can share it on Claudia's internal network with us anyway. Then we can see it!”

“But we're all here already!”

“Exactly, say cheese!”

Tami pushed out Eleven's hoof, and Smile couldn't help but feel a requirement to cool her jets in front of the mirth and utter exasperation of the innocent young unicorn. The two young mares squished Eleven's head between the two of their own, Tami pulling a giant, cheesy smile while holding a drink in shot. Eleven's expression was akin to a rabbit stuck in headlights with squished cheeks. Finally, she made a haphazard grin and depressed the multiband’s photo icon with her magic.

Smile's bemusement quickly evaporated into a disgruntled sigh at noticing Verbena was adding a duck face to it. She rolled her eyes at the flash of light capturing the image.

“Kids these days...” muttered Smile, before turning back, eye to eye with Trigger. There was an unspoken line: Not in front of the others. Separate now. Drop it. Smile did just that, turning away toward the ship.

Behind her, she heard Hair Trigger lean on one of the stools. After a moment, Trigger reached out to give Tami a small clap on the thigh.

“Ah!? Oh! Captain! Hi! We were just-”

“Teaching Elly essential survival lessons. I saw. Nice work.” She winked at the very perplexed looking Eleven. “Now, get that flight-head of yours on, Tam, and get down to the docks. We've got a quick job to do, you and I.”

Hair Trigger couldn't deny it. She enjoyed the docking bay of Port Medusa.

Its cavernous open space offered a relief from the stuffy corridors of Medusa's inner deck areas for one, and there was always the view into space through the atmospheric fields covering the enormous gaps where ships would enter and exit. The distant rock fields of Saphiban II’s rings drifted smoothly in their colossal dance around the gas giant, the yellow sun visible in the far distant void. There were the heavy, satisfying sounds of ships and crews, a familiar and homely ambience of engine test cycles winding up and down, crude swearing that you could always learn a new word from, and garbled (often nearly unintelligible) PA announcements of arrivals and departures.

But more than that there was one critical feature she would rarely admit out loud. This was this very hangar where she had first met Claudia. Her ship. Her captaincy. She found that thought a touch too self-important to say it aloud to any of the others, but it had been here where she'd finally looked up at a vessel and thought 'that's mine'.

It was here she'd 'made it', and become a Captain. With a capital 'C'. The very thing she'd left the home fleet to prove she could do. Now, she could see the crew hustling around that same ship, loading crates of cargo from a trolley onto a small shuttle sitting in the larger vessel's shadow.

Her crew.

On her orders.

What a feeling.

Unwilling to simply stand and observe, she closed the docking slot control panel in front of the vessel, having registered the docking fee for an extended stay, and trotted back over toward them. The shuttle was a common Confederacy model, like many in the Periphery. Small, flat angled, gun-metal grey, with two rearward nozzles either side of a two-door hatch to its small cargo section. In all it was barely larger than a planetside van. A half faded symbol of a rocket moving between two asteroids was marred on the side of the angled fuselage, denoting its old life as a mining operation transport. That had been obvious anyway. The dents in its thicker frame sections made that all too clear.

Through the smaller crew hatch in the side, she could see Smile was still fuming as she uploaded the job location from her multiband to the shuttle's systems, sitting in one of the two seats up front. The interior was oddly small for something designed by a majority minotaur civilization, likely an export model for other races. Just a cockpit and tiny living area for short trips.

Trigger gave the crystal pony a wide berth.

She glanced at the inventory. Around eight crates of assorted vacuum sealed 'fresh' fruits, tinned Zebrahan curry, delicate treats and a single crate of rather intriguing looking NLR-originated 'Moonrise' rum. A specialist delivery for a wealthy client, it seemed. Someone who wanted the good things in life, no matter the origin or distance.

Around the back of the shuttle Tami and, surprisingly, Eleven were bringing most of the cargo over from the trolley. The former was stumbling and working a small push-loader to carry one of the awkwardly-shaped boxes, the latter was casually floating twice that much behind her with magic. Eleven worked with a playful skip and dance, following the marking lines of the dock floor with precision steps to some silent beat, and stacked the crates in a triangle. Then in a rectangle. Then in a triangle again, before huffing once a breathless Tami brought one more over to the pile and dropped it 'wherever'. The magical prodigy simply relit her horn, having to start the shape all anew, much to the hippogriff's exasperated stare.

The sight brought a smile to Hair Trigger's face. No need for words. No need to interrupt the antics. Loud and proud as she often was, Trigger well knew the value of just letting a moment be.

There was, however, a different sight that she saw around the far side of the shuttle, one hunched into one of the engine panels. A big calico griffon was pulling an engine nozzle apart, giving each nut, bolt, wire and component a forensic level of examination. A polishing kit hung off his bandoleer-style work belt, along with the looped end of a manual he'd acquired from somewhere. Probably his own esoteric collection.

Hair Trigger knew that level of detail in his actions though. Triple checking instead of ‘merely’ double checking. It meant something was worrying him. Briefly she considered the ongoing frustration of the recent injuries to his back. She could still see the protective dressings around his midsection, but something in her gut told her this wasn’t the problem. Stepping over the fuel line for the ship that was siphoning a measure from Claudia, she approached from the side, deliberately knocking her hoof on a loose floor panel to make a sound before nearing. “Hey Kerf, a'ight?”

The griffon turned over a heat shield in his claws, gently scratching the lathed ring around it to identify any abnormalities. “Just a check up, Cap'n.”

Hair Trigger raised an eyebrow but lowered her voice, sitting down beside him and taking a brief glance for herself. “I saw you check that same part before I went to the little filly's room ten minutes ago.” She paused. “What's wrong?”

Slowly, the huge claws reinserted the piece into the spill duct, twisting it one quarter around to lock it in place, before taking up a wrench to start screwing it in again. His beak opened, shaped ready to say it was nothing, but Hair Trigger raised a hoof to make him hesitate. At the sight of it, the galaxy's poorest liar sat back. “Just lately, Cap'n. A lot's happened. When stuff happens, I just feel like doin' stuff. Er, does that make sense?”

Hair Trigger nodded gently. She could hear Tami squealing with laughter about something on the other side of the ship, then Eleven joining in, but she kept her eyes on Kerfuffle. “Sure does, big guy. All the stuff with Eleven, your sister's operation, your OWN operation on your back, Sidewinder...”

“-an' I just feel like a lot of it weren’t needing a mechanic when it mattered, much as I was willin’.”

Trigger could hear the reluctance in his words. Kerfuffle was rarely in a visibly low mood, too modest to even want to be a hassle for anyone else. Hair Trigger had started to spot when he was overworking.

“And you feel like you've just gotta do what you can while you can. To keep us safe? Giving her a once over?”

Kerfuffle hesitated, then sort of nodded, then thought about it again. “Not quite, Cap'n. The shuttle's fine, nuthin' wrong with her. But I always feel better knowing an' it lets me feel like I'm not just an idle griffon for y'all.” He scratched the side of his head, and stood back up after refitting the piece into the nozzle of the engine. “Also, I got both of you some food from the marketplace earlier.”

Hair Trigger actually leaned back a little, surprised. “Well aren't you just-”

“An' I got a medical kit too from Claudia.”

“Well-”

Kerfuffle kept scratching, looking away. “And from how it looks, she'll pull to the right if you use both engines at equal measure so I left a sheet for Miss Tami on it to-”

“Hey!”

He stopped, looking down as Hair Trigger lightly knocked his forearm with her hoof. She had a small smile. In the few seconds silence, the ribcage-shuddering rumble of an Avalonian ship powering up its engines sent a stiff breeze between them that carried small rags and bits of dust whirling in the hangar. Hair Trigger didn't take her eyes off him. “Listen. You've done good, Kerf. Okay?”

Slowly, he nodded. “I jus' wanna make sure I've done all I can and-”

“You do.” Hair Trigger interrupted him again, before straightening up her hat. “Eleven's doing good, hell almost too good. Your sister's on the mend. Sidewinder's not gonna bother us right now. It's all good, right? There's never a time you're not useful.”

“Well...”

Hair Trigger smirked and angled her head forward to cut off whatever his exception might be. “All. Good. Relax.”

Kerfuffle sat back, then gently nodded. “All good, Cap'n. Taking that's an order?”

“Damn sure is. Now c'mon, help the rest out with the cargo.”

“Aye, Cap'n.”

They turned away, and Trigger moved back around the shuttle, pausing briefly near Eleven. She watched Kerf gently move over and wordlessly grab Tami around the midsection, lifting her up to let her stack the last crate on the top of the pile. The young pilot giggled as she got it up there, patting one of Kerf's hands with hers afterwards.

Smiling, Trigger leaned over to Eleven, feeding a hoof around her shoulders.

“Hey, Elly?”

“Uh?”

“Keep an eye on Kerf, will you? He's worrying.”

Eleven looked at the griffon, then at Trigger, then back at Kerfuffle, then back again. She blinked once, then twice, then nodded happily. “I can do that! Easy! He said he'd show me something cool on the station. I doubt it's a sub-millimeter interferometer so I have no idea what it might be! So I was going to go see whatever it is with him!”

“Good girl.” Trigger ruffled her mane, making Eleven yelp and wiggle her head away. Trigger could only guess what 'cool thing' meant, but Tami had been trying to teach him to make puns so the ice cream vendor did come to mind. Either way, she knew she could trust Kerfuffle to keep Eleven safe.

Slowly, Trigger took a long breath as Smile emerged from the shuttle and Kerfuffle sealed the cargo door. Just like that, with the shuttle empty for them and all cargo loaded, it was time. Marching forward, she clapped her hooves on either side of the nearest, comfiest hippogriff, looking around over her shoulder.

“Well, let's get to it then. Tam?”

Tami yelped and looked up from setting the hatch lock with a broad grin, leaning back into Trigger. “Wha! Captain?”

She giggled, and Hair Trigger nodded to the crew hatch.

“Mount up!”

The interior of the shuttle was small and spartan - cramped, but workable. Two seats with well worn black fabric either side of a twin sided touchscreen control console marked the 'cockpit'. Behind them was a thin, open space that extended back to the internal hatch to the cargo compartment, making the whole thing like a small 'T' shape with the wider cockpit up front. Altogether, the entire crew section was only about twelve feet long. The narrow living space behind the seats was lined on one side with interior controls for environmental systems and on the other bore a small set of locked compartments. The drawers and pull-out duckets held food, magazines, and other odds and ends a small shuttle crew might need. Just enough for a few hours in the void, but stacked high with more brought from Claudia via caring griffon express. A liquid-heating boiling vessel and water outlet studded the wall above a fold-out surface for food prep. Behind them were two benches, one either side of the walk-space, barely three feet apart. A few blankets were set on each, folded in the way only Kerfuffle ever did. There were even some magazines.

'Astronomy of the Thousand Year Future Theory', and 'Magic Lessons: How to Impress!'

The first made Tami giggle to see, a common theory discussed galaxy wide as to why so much seems to happen in thousand year increments. The second however made the hippogriff burst out laughing while Hair Trigger knocked a hoof into her own face at the title. Kerfuffle was always so considerate, even if that consideration led him to take things at face value. Tami stepped inside and chucked herself into the pilot's chair with a delighted little squeal. Two individual grips extended from either side of the control panel, moulded for hands rather than hooves.

“Oooh, twin-hand controls! Not gotten to use these in a while!”

She fed a hand into each of them, giving a little tug back with one to hear the satisfying whirr of a nozzle moving on the outside of the hull. Then the other, then both, twisting them around and around with a happy giggle. Satisfied, she reached out and turned over the auxiliary docking power to full ignition with the customary 'big-clacky' Confederate line of switches. A brief shudder pulsed through below her as the shuttle powered up, a growing whine following it.

“Now be good, you all!”

She heard Hair Trigger shout at the others behind her at the hatch. Tami leaned back and over, frantically waving through the closing metal.

“Bye!” That was Eleven, waving back.

“Take care, Cap'n! And you Miss!” Kerfuffle was pensive, offering a smaller one, until a pink telekinetic field grabbed his arm and swung it more rapidly for him.

There was no other voice. Beside them both, Smile just nodded, and Tami felt a pang of awkwardness. Smile and the Captain hadn't been seeing eye to eye. Not one bit. Sure they'd tried to hide it, and Tami appreciated that, but she wasn't blind.

Hair Trigger waved, then clanked the hatch shut. Twisting the vacuum-lock, she dusted off her hooves and leaped over to land in the chair beside Tami.

“Right then! Door's up, cargo's in, crew's fed and watered. Guess we'll get underway, shall we?”

Tami laughed lightly and grabbed the comms handset from the ceiling. “Aye, Captain! I'll make the departure call to control then.”

Hair Trigger just grinned. “Maybe it'll be the cute one who answers.”

Tami felt herself stiffen, and she shot the grinning Hair Trigger a look as she started talking. “Medusa control, Pad Three, shuttle associated to Pioneer class 'Claudia' ready to depart in a cross-dock departure, confirm?” She took her thumb off the button and groaned. “Captain there are a dozen controllers working in Medusa so I don't think-”

A youthful, sing-songing flighty accent replied. “Barriers up! Claudia's shuttle all good to go. That you Tami? Have fun!”

Tami could feel Hair Trigger's grin boring its way into her skull. With a shaking hand, she raised the link. “Y-yes... Uh, thank you!” She hooked it back onto its handle, and grabbed the controls as the great doors ahead of them began to open. Barriers descended, blocking hoof traffic between the pad and the door. She muttered from the corner of her mouth. “Not a word, Captain.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“It was statistically unlikely!”

“I didn't say anything!”

“I just like his accent, okay!? It's cute!”

“See, now YOU are saying things!” Trigger cackled, making Tami simply blush, groan, and inch the shuttle forward.

A feeling of weightlessness kicked in for a second as they rose from the hangar floor. Vector engines small enough to be safely operated at lift-power indoors blew up a halo of thin dust, before the clumsy, non-aerodynamic craft inched forward, passing through the shimmering shield to enter the void. The sound of the engines suddenly vanished, dropping to the internal vibration and hum only. Internal lights sprung on automatically as the ambient light dropped and the black filled the broad, curved window. Neon beacons flickered around the shuttle in the dock, directing them to head out and then 'up' to pass away from the cargo freighter 'highways' at a slow speed. They passed by glowing advertisements on the station's hull, lines of waiting vessels in holding patterns, and even a few bits of debris being scooped up by bulky exosuits. Medusa was an old station and, while strong and enduring, occasionally some half-forgotten part of the massive structure would let off a small chunk of metal or sealant foam that would need collected by the ever vigilant custodian spacewalkers.

Slowly, Tami felt her eyes adjust, widening out as the low-light gave way to the colours of the black itself. The faint blue of the gas giant that Medusa orbited. The faint, drifting clouds in the far distance left behind by Medusa's orbit. The subtle hues of each star. The red-silver ore-heavy rocks that occasionally drifted into view from the planet's rings.

Who ever said space was empty and dull? She would never get tired of a launch.

Never.

Hair Trigger was watching her, and Tami felt her cheeks burn as she noticed it. It was a familiar thing; she knew her Captain loved seeing her happy to be out here, and she equally knew that her face made all sorts of silly expressions of awe when 'in the moment'. 'Spacedreaming', her father had jokingly called it. Trigger even used the term once herself.

Briefly, Tami had a moment of mixed endearment and terror. Had Trigger and her father been communicating?

“So, how long?” Trigger asked, leaning back in the chair and resting her hindhooves up on the side panel.

“Should be an eight hour round trip, Captain. Four there, four back, plus delivery time. We're just meeting them on the other side of Saphiban II.” Tami clicked the map screen hanging between them to show the orbital path away from Medusa. The client was just passing through, and clearly wanted to avoid the docking fee at Medusa to get what they wanted. Small shuttle deliveries were common for that. Indeed, she could see four others heading the same way ahead of her right then on the local area scanner, close to leaving Medusa's flight control zone.

Hair Trigger smiled, clearly beginning to relax for the first time that morning as the quietness of the shuttle took over, leaving both of them alone. “Well, just some good quality time then, huh?”

“Captain?” Tami looked around.

“Y'know?” Trigger shrugged. “Like on Claudia's bridge when it's just us? The chats. The jokes. The stories. Our little special times. Only this time no-one just turning up to interrupt. Just you and me. Eight hours to kill.”

Tami thought through it as she took the shuttle on a new heading, angling it down to move around the passing of a colossal fuel-tanker, almost skimming its bulbous, yellow-striped underside at a sub-hundred meter distance. The Captain was right. Some of her best memories had been simply sitting on Claudia's bridge, manually flying, while Hair Trigger was there to talk to. They were times of simple comfort and fun, both at her pace and her captain's in equal measure: just the two of them in the quiet of space.

All the same, some expected, almost traditional banter had to be said. She giggled and gave a modest beam of a smile. “Sooo, does this mean I'm getting teased for eight hours then, Captain?”

Trigger leaned back, staring out at the tanker they were passing, but one eye made a slow wink. “Oh, you will not be disappointed, Tam. That's for sure.”

The pair shared a gentle, familiar smile, a quiet moment, until Tami saw a red flickering illuminating the side of Hair Trigger’s face. Blinking, she barely turned her head before a bright red master alarm in the middle of her console activated and a buzzer cut in with violent, startling volume. Tami shrieked, shocked more by the sound than anything else as her entire control panel lit up. She glanced up, terrified she'd come near to a collision, but the tanker was even further away than before.

“The hell is going on?” Hair Trigger yanked her hooves back down, looking over the console. The communication channels came alight, voices all talking over one another. Control, cute accent included, frantically became unintelligible as dockmasters and ship captains shouted wild, panicked demands for answers. Tami scanned the alert code, and her eyes went wide.

“It's not a collision alert. It's...oh. Oh no. It's ionizing radiation outside the hull, it must mean-AH!”

Even as she spoke, there was an incandescent surge of light from outside the window. To the bow of the supertanker, an enormous, crackling line of white, burning magic was forming, less than half a kilometer from Medusa's superstructure and their own shuttle. Finally, one voice broke through, rough and hollering from the tanker itself.

“M-space rift! RIFT!” a panicked stallion shrieked. “Our FTL's overloaded and self activated! We can't stop it! Helm, full reverse burn! Now, helm!”

The arcs of light ripped apart, reality peeling apart like giant eye opening, taller than it was wide. The tear in space was bursting at the seams, forming a rift into the incandescent, shifting colours of the Æther. The tanker was burning its retrothrusters, and Tami felt the controls bite as the mighty engines buckled and shook their little shuttle. She struggled with shaking hands to keep it steady, but the ethereal rip in space-time only kept growing and growing, the instability of its pull heaving the shuttle up like an aircraft hitting turbulence. Its luminescent effulgence lit up Port Medusa as ships and shuttles scattered in all directions. Tami could swear she saw individuals fleeing from the station's observation windows, before the light became too blinding and she squinted to barely even see her controls, let alone anything outside.

“Tami!” Hair Trigger yelled in shock, staring at it in horror. “Get us out of here! Move! Anywhere!”

Tami couldn't even read the dials. She threw the controls forward and slammed the engines to full on muscle memory alone. Forced back into her seat, she tried to turn at full-burn, but the shifting, blazing colours were so intense, filling the window. Filling the shuttle itself. No matter where she turned her eyes, it was like staring into the sun. Even when she looked away, after-images danced painfully across her vision, making it hard to determine speed, or direction, or anything.

There was a vicious slam and the shuttle rocked, redirecting violently enough to throw them against the consoles with a dull clang to their starboard. She screamed. She'd impacted on the side of the tanker. Proximity alarms bared over the master. Then another one she didn't recognise. The rift was arching over and around, casting claw-like strands of burning light over the tanker's hull. She could feel its tug on the shuttle, like the dread hollowness of an event horizon gripping them, pulling them, draining their velocity. Hull segments were being torn off the tanker’s surface. She could see antennas and dishes being stripped and pulled into the opening maw.

“Tami!”

She tried again, feeling her teeth grit hard, and hit the engines to-

“TAMI!”

The engines overheated - a stall coughed through them. Then they went dead.

The shuttle was grabbed. Its velocity gauge spun out of control, and Tami's stomach lurched as the shuttle turned end over end. Light poured in through the window, and she screamed helplessly. Blues, greens, reds flared and chaotically danced in a brightness that no manned shuttle was designed to witness as the rift expanded to its full. The scanner died. The pilot-aid died. The controls yanked away from her hands, and she felt her whole body being stretched. Stretched further than it feasibly could. She felt sickness, dizziness, a migraine, all at once in a few mere seconds.

The last thing she felt was being grabbed from the side and roughly dragged down to the floor, before the whole shuttle turned over and over on its axis, tossed like a fishing boat in a hurricane before a great wave.

Klaxons from forty years of refits and replacements angrily competed for audio dominance all across Port Medusa. Every compartment Kerfuffle bounded through had its own horrific wail, or a different-coloured rotating light above the doorway. He had Eleven's hoof tight in his grip, resulting in her awkwardly bouncing on three legs behind him. It stung him to drag her so harshly, but he wasn't going to leave her alone in this.

Crowds of spacers, mercenaries, station workers and merchants collided with security drones and dockworkers coming the other way. The crush swelled around the elevator compartment as dozens of creatures hit the call button again and again despite the security chief, Gerhard, pushing and shouting at them that it was offline. A minotaur rammed past, knocking even Kerfuffle's heavy frame back into Eleven and three others. He felt a panic rise as he almost lost grip of her, and dug in hard to the pile to roughly drag her out from underneath the fallen ponies and sling her over his back.

“Sorry, Miss! Get up safe!”

Eleven didn't reply, she just stared around with wide, scared eyes as she gripped his neck tightly and leaned her head on the back of his own. He could feel her shaking. He was shaking. Everything was shaking. The floor broke the trend and shuddered with a ripple of impact. The walls creaked as the station settled again. Using his bulk, Kerfuffle elbowed his way through the swarm around the elevator, pushing further in until he could see the arrivals hall on the opposite side of the station’s ringed level. Here there was more space, with creatures clustered in small groups around the edges or near their departure lines. Some swerved around him as he ran on all fours toward the grand screen mounted by the reception, the one he knew was linked to an exterior camera.

The moment he saw it, he felt his gut twist and all his worries grip hold.

On the flickering screen, half of a supertanker rested against Medusa's buckled hull. It had drifted out of control, catching between several of the station's lower levels and heavy frames after impact, like the Iron Jellyfish had caught its greatest prey within its tendrils. The front half of it, mercifully the part he knew was usually devoid of any crew, was simply gone. The ship had been sheared in half - bisected along a laser-fine line - letting cargo containers, globs of fuel and loose components drift out of the glowing white-hot gaps into space. Silent lightning danced between fragments of molten metal floating past defused generators. Beyond it, just in front of the cut section, he could see an unnatural shimmering of reality still fading out, sparkling among the debris like an organic firework. The aftermath of an M-Space rift having opened and closed.

And of the shuttle bearing two of his closest friends, there was no sign.

Her head hurt.

Everything else did too, but her head had managed to identify the fact a lot faster and thus claimed more of the sympathy.

Unfortunately, for its trouble, it also earned itself the brunt of her telling it to shut up and let her open her eyes. There was darkness. Darkness and confusion. For a moment she even forgot who she was until the feeling of her soul being turned inside out, folded up and given a good ironing eased off enough to let her think clearly again. It was like waking up from a dream and experiencing the vague, stuffy-headed murkiness between reality and fantasy.

For her efforts, though, it wasn't her will that got her to finally open her eyes. Rather, it was the sensation of being grabbed and shaken in a panic, and the barrage of a muffled voice. Colours stung her retinas as she blinked, and saw cream and orange looking at her. Another blink informed her that the colours were actually looking down at her. Claws gripped her head and shoulder, and big blue eyes fearfully stared.

“-ain!”

Hair Trigger screwed up her eyes again and forced her back to work, trying to move toward those eyes.

“Captain!”

And then, in a rush, clarity returned to her senses like a cold shower after last calls. Gasping, she swore colourfully and loudly to the cosmos at large, knowing it wouldn't care if she used a curse as a noun, adjective, and verb in the same sentence. The shrill wailing of an alarm hit her first, like needles in her ear. There was a loud hissing behind it, like air being sucked through a straw. Every ten seconds or so a blinding ball of light passed from left to right behind the hippogriff. Groggily, she fixated on Tami and yanked herself up.

“What's... What the fu-”

She held her own skull still before it could flop over on a weary neck, holding herself steady. Eventually she went through the process of shaking her head, heavily regretting doing so, and then electing to just stay still instead. Blinking rapidly, she began to see the shuttle properly. The light was a white sun 0 a giant, burning snowball passing by the front window on the shuttle’s drifting spins.

And beside that, a terrified, panting hippogriff frantically trying to unpack a hull-sealant kit with hands so shaky that she couldn't get the safety catch off. The sight, and the hissing, stirred Hair Trigger's confused brain enough to finally shake the cobwebs and act on instinct.

“Here!” She reached forward, grabbed the pack from the scared pilot, and ripped the lock off of it. Two canisters of self-sealing foam tumbled out, and she tossed one to Tami. Trigger spun and stumbled across fallen racks of cutlery and drink packets, looking for the source of the hiss, tracing her hoof around bulkhead joins and seals. Every spacer knew the routine: seal the hull before even thinking about what's happening. Feeling a flow of air against her fetlock, Trigger bit her lip hard and let the sharp pain focus her mind on the job. Leaning close, she saw the hairline fracture between the door and the main fuselage and rammed the nozzle of the device into the gap. Depressing the top squirted a thick, creamy foam into it, one that within seconds was forming into the consistency of a firm putty, and within a minute would turn to a resin-like solid. Behind her, she could hear Tami doing the same somewhere else. Neither spoke. Neither even looked. Immediate response drills took over. As casually as they lived on Claudia, these things were ingrained in every spacer.

Only after the worrying slurp of air finally fizzled out did Trigger reach over and viciously punch the offending alarm button to shut it up, and finally turn to the window to get a good look at what was happening.

“Finally! Damn thing!” she barked, seething, direly wanting five minutes alone with that tanker's captain and a heavy pipe, lubricant optional. “What were those plank-stupid bastards even thinking trying to-”

What she saw, however, was not the horror she expected.

The shuttle was spinning on its vertical axis, tilted at a gradually widening angle. Every few passes, the sun she could see winding by was moving further and further to starboard by miniscule amounts. But other than that?

Nothing.

There was no Medusa. No Saphiban. No supertanker or wreckage or fire.

They were simply in space.

She reached over and briefly touched the flight controls. With a small hum, a thruster on the outside squirted and the spin began to arrest itself, eventually stabilising the vessel a little more to put less force on the fractured hull. Moments later, the panel glared red, and announced the fuel lines were shot. Trigger swore as the thruster died; arresting most of the spin's momentum must have just used whatever was left in the line.

It didn't make sense. Amidst her headache, she thought of what happened. There had been an M-space rift. A malfunctioning hyperdrive on the tanker. They'd been yanked into it. But shuttles couldn't do FTL speeds - not this model at least. It made no sense.

“Tami? Tami, please tell me you know what the hell just happened?” She spoke up, turning.

What she saw behind her made her regret the firm tone.

The hippogriff was sitting on the floor, holding the empty sealant can to her chest, hyperventilating and quaking in delayed shock. Staring at the messy seal she'd made, she just turned the can over and over, fidgeting and sniffing.

“Tam?” Hair Trigger approached gently, sitting down just in front of her, reaching out to place a hoof on the side of the pilot's neck, and the second gently taking the can from her. “Tam? Breathe...”

“Cap-Cap-Capt-tain it's-”

“We're alive. We're unhurt. You're okay. Breathe, girl. Not your fault. Now, slowly. In?” She kept Tami's eyes fixed on her own with her hoof, turning Tami's head to see Trigger herself breath in deeply. With shaking gulps, Tami tried to copy her, and Trigger gently let it out. “Out.”

For the next few minutes, she sat there with her pilot. In contact. Trigger rested her hoof on Tami's blouse, helping steady her chest with slow, directed breaths. Eventually, they fell from multiple hundred a minute, to deep -albeit shaky- sucks of air. Tami nodded in a rapid little burst, holding onto Trigger's hooded top with tight claws. The hippogriff was sweating in worry, and Trigger could understand why. The same questions would be biting at her too. Just what happened back there? Where were they? But such questions were secondary to curbing the panic in her hooves right now. Once Tami was breathing in a way that wouldn't knock her out in a few minutes, Trigger gently pulled her in, giving a soft hug.

“S-Sorry, Captain...”

Hair Trigger patted her on the back, then let go gently and slowly. “Nothing to be sorry for. Far as I see it, whatever you did may have just saved our lives. What... What DID happen?”

Tami rubbed her eyes, staring at the window with worry. “It wasn't me, Captain. I...” She tensed up again, fear choking her. “I think we got skiffed.”

Trigger's brow furrowed. “We got what?”

“Skiffed.” Tami repeated the word and gulped deeply, her voice strained. She shakily got up and moved to the shuttle controls. After a moment to settle her own racing heart, Hair Trigger followed, sitting on her own side to watch the hippogriff pulling up the local scanner to send out a ping. For a few moments the user interface before her warbled with faint spheres moving out on the 3D plane of the surrounding area, but then it bleeped and returned nothing. Nothing but the sun, fragments of minerals, gas and celestial whispers. The sort of dead and silent environment one would see in deep space. Tami leaned back and whined, covering her face with her hands.

“S-Skiffed. It's an old term, b-back when M-space transitions for faster than light travel were still being rediscovered after the Wyrm Wars. The ships couldn't safely go deep into M-space, so they'd just sort of... sort of push into a rift a little, and then immediately try to exit. They'd use the brief surge of magic contained in there to eject them out the other side instantaneously, before they'd even really realised they were inside, rather than travel in it for hours. Much shorter range, but safer until better hyperdrives were developed. It's like skimming a stone over water, just magic, not water.”

Hair Trigger was far too sore and had too much tension in her headache to think too much on the science. As far as she knew you hit certain buttons, checked certain numbers, and then the ship did something insane. Like a farmchild learning their dad's tractor.

“But we don't have a hyperdrive on the shuttle.”

Tami took a sharp breath, looking at the mostly dead panel’s readout of the ship as lacking propulsion, lacking full comms, and lacking longer range scanning.

“Don't need it to skim. R-Remember when Claudia jumped without meaning to in the Countess' dock? How the crates got dragged along with us? S-Same idea. Just this was a malfunction. Whatever else got thrown in with us is probably spread like shrapnel all across whatever system we're in.”

Trigger felt a cold spike run through her veins at one of those terms. “Whatever system?”

The hippogriff turned, and her face was ashen.

“That sun?” Tami pointed, before it lazily rolled out of sight again. Her voice was strained. “It's not Saphiban's. In fact it's not a settled star-system at all. Not even a planetary body...”

She gulped, a whimper of growing, insidious fear in her voice.

“We're stranded in one th-that no-one uses...”

The crowds were insistent and rowdy. All across multiple levels of Port Medusa, there was shouting, demands, begs and questions. Smile hadn't seen anything like it since the trading floors back home, and this reminded her of those first days as an intern first witnessing the chaos of a stock market floor.

It was everything she could do to maintain composure and not become like those holding up interstellar passports or contracts and screaming with vitriol, demanding to be heard. Ships had been damaged or left stricken, requiring rescue after the rift's collapse had sent them spiralling off into the void. Three hundred thousand tonnes of goods had gone missing. The infirmaries were packed with casualties from collisions, vacuum exposure or even just getting trampled in the panic. A thousand jobs needed done to keep Medusa running. A rumour had raced around that the main power was nearly cut at one point. Smile didn't believe it - Kerfuffle had made it clear that wasn't possible with a single point of failure - but it only took enough people to think it to drive pregnant impatience into a needy frenzy.

But it wasn't any of that which made it hard for her. It was the news the engineer had brought back. Trigger and Tami's shuttle was missing, and the terrified gutshot she’d felt from that threatened every minute to overwhelm her into joining the cacophony of voices about her.

She couldn't give over to those worries. Not yet. She didn't have the facts.

And so the desperate search for information had brought her to be among the sweaty, heaving crowds of frightened creatures all queuing at the incident response centre that Gerhard had set up in a disused hangar to handle the sheer volume of petitions and requests.

She could hear each of the eight tables of security and dock control officers arguing with those screaming at them, and it made her want to scream back. They were arguing over a ton of wood going missing. Or a crate of toys. She gritted her teeth at how petty it had sounded through the hours she'd waited to hear about actual lives at stake.

The officer at the table she reached, a dark blue pegasus, had three portable computers running and even two headsets that he was alternating between regularly. He looked up, tired and weary.

“Nature of issue?”

Smile bit back the litany of complaints she'd mustered over the past hours. “Missing persons. A shuttle's disappeared and-”

“Party to Space Jammers Incorporated?”

Smile felt her heart beat quicker, leaning her hooves on the shaky table, unable to hide the eagerness. “Yes, that's it!”

He nodded curtly, emotionless after such a long day. “We know about it. We saw it disappear from local scans during the incident.”

Smile gulped, feeling hooves tugging at her from behind as impatient business-owners and families urged her to work faster. She ignored them. “...and?”

“No flight recorder signal for that vessel has been detected around the tanker, and we keep a record of any departing. So our working theory is that they've been skiffed. Jumped with the rift when it took the bow of the tanker.”

Eleven had theorised that in an effort to try and calm Smile and Kerfuffle from their worst fears. Now, it hardly felt much better. she felt her voice become terse. “You're saying they've been shot somewhere else? Alone? In just an orbital shuttle? Where!?”

The pegasus was already looking behind her, pausing to listen to one headset. “We don't know yet. Priority is being given to the ones devastated around the station to prevent further collisions from them orbiting around back into the station, and to locating the-”

“There are lives at stake, sir!” She bit in deep with the last word, articulating it in that age-old implication of 'you stupid idiot', her stance bearing over him. Security guards looked up at her from behind. “It's a short range shuttle! They're not intended to travel outwith a few hours!”

“And we'll get to tracking where it went, Miss. We have ships in immediate danger that need us now too. Please, we have a lot of others to see, we are aware of your-”

Smile wasn't listening. She had already turned sharply, having spotted a familiar face pushing his way through the heaving bay with a weary strength.

“Gerhard!” she shouted, elbowing her way through a couple of suited deer, hoping her working relationship with the griffon might get some pull. “Gerhard, we-”

The security chief’s claws came up, and he held a microbead in his ear for a moment, listening to some report. After a moment he nodded, muttered something and helped pull her out the side of the crowd.

“The shuttle?” he asked, and she nodded. He shook his head. “We don't know, but Medusa can track these things. Sort of. Did they have food? Supplies?”

“Yes, and yes,” she said, already knowing where this was going. “The cargo had food anyway.”

“Then give it time for their distress beacon to make it here - they take time even within a system - and we'll shoot you the coordinates. You can head out to pick them up yourself. Probably faster.”

“It's a local shuttle, Gerhard. Its beacon won't reach here.”

The griffon gave a genuine look of regret. “It'll hit a navigation probe. They're scattered all over these days; they all relay signals now. It's standard on all new ones.”

She sighed. “Not a lot of reassurance.”

“Sorry, I-shit...”

He didn't even say goodbye, instead hustling away to leap toward a scuffle developing, trying to shove two ponies apart.

Smile knew he was leaving the 'if' in there unspoken as to the beacon reaching anything and narrowed her eyes, feeling her impatience hardly settle.

“No, no, no, noooo no...”

Tami rocked in the pilot's chair, talons clawing at her own mane and cheeks. This was a nightmare. It had to be a nightmare.

Stranded. They couldn't be stranded. It was every pilot's worst terror. To be left out in the middle of nowhere with no means to rescue themselves. To be left alone in the dark. Helpless. She felt cold. She felt sick. She felt like she was sweating profusely under her clothing. She had a headache from frantic worry over what to do, caught between silence and screaming like a paradox of indecision. She would close her eyes, expect to wake, then open them and find it was real again.

Then Hair Trigger was grabbing her hands, holding them away from leaving small lines on her face. “It'll be okay-”

No it won't!" she screamed abruptly, the pitch burning her throat and making the unicorn recoil. She jerked, but Trigger held her wrists tightly. “It's deep space! Routes don't go by here! W-We're alone! In a shuttle! No FTL! The odds a-are-are it's not-it's not!”

“Tam!”

The sudden, firm crack of her captain's voice made her gasp and open her eyes again. She saw the small unicorn staring intently at her. Trigger wasn't smiling - instead she had a disciplined, well-meaning intensity to her stare that stamped out the panic with a word. After a moment, she continued in a softer, but entirely serious tone.

“You've checked the shuttle's diagnostic, yes?”

Tami sniffed, but nodded.

Hair Trigger nodded back slowly. “Do we have oxygen production?”

“Y-Yes.” Tami’s voice was meek.

“Is the hull sealed?”

“Yes.”

“Do we have water purification?”

“Yes...”

“Do we have food?”

She nodded, then felt Hair Trigger shake her wrist, looking for a response. “Yes! A-and in the cargo.”

“Do we have a homing beacon?”

Tami didn't doubt that Trigger well knew it was called a distress beacon. Her captain was avoiding certain terms for her benefit. Slowly she nodded, and then witnessed Hair Trigger's firm face turn to a softer smile, her grip loosening as she defeated the panic one point at a time. Her voice was suddenly very gentle.

“We have air, food, water, a secure shuttle, and a way to contact others, Tami. We're okay. Just got to sit tight for a bit, okay?”

She gulped, hiccuped and nodded, trying to resist any more tears. “Yes, Captain.”

Slowly, Trigger rotated the pilot's chair back to face the console. “It'll be like a little holiday, okay? Just you and I for a bit. Time to catch up. Just like we planned. Now, how about you hit the button that'll bring Claudia right to us, okay? Nice and easy, do what you gotta.”

In the quiet of the shuttle, Hair Trigger's voice was all Tami had to focus on. There was nothing else. Only the stars outside. The dull gunmetal of the bulkheads. The blinking amber lights across the console. It left her mind able to pick out every word and the reassurance they carried. Slowly, she reached out to the touchscreen before her and backed out of the navigation and diagnostic procedures.

“That's it.”

She felt Hair Trigger's hoof rubbing her shoulder and habitually leaned in, pressing her cheek down on it. Her heart was still thumping. Her lungs were burning from breathing so hard. Her head still throbbed as she drew up the emergency response panel, entered the confirmation password, and began scrolling through for the correct function.

And try as she might, she couldn't stop thinking about what might happen. Air and sustenance were fine, but the shuttle couldn't stay warm forever without its main propulsion. Small shuttles like these relied on their main drives for electrical power. After that it was just whatever was left in the batteries. Logic and the type of star ahead of them told her that they couldn't have jumped more than a day's travel from Medusa, and that the battery would last for much longer than that, but it was still an outcome that left her scared.

“Captain, the batte-”

“Doesn't matter. We'll be long gone home by then. Just focus, Tam. Focus.”

“But-" she started, worries bubbling up; what if the signal's frequency messed up if the equipment was out of date, or if solar winds interfered, or if a thousand other unlikely things got in the way.

Trigger cut her off. “Just relax, Tam. Work on what you can. Is it hard to do?”

Tami keyed the distress beacon, attaching a readout of the ship's current status and location to it, and began typing a brief summary of the current situation, known surrounding celestial objects, and their health. She'd had to type them a thousand times before even being permitted into a training shuttle at the academy.

“N-No. It's like muscle memory.”

She felt Hair Trigger move and paused to look at her. The unicorn pulled herself into the co-pilot chair and sat back with her hooves up again. She looked so relaxed, so utterly together, that it made Tami feel a brief sting of shame. How did Hair Trigger do it? How did she always push back the fears and the worries? She couldn't be ignoring them. Tami felt like she couldn't sit still at all, squirming in place, and yet the unicorn beside her was still as a day at the beach. She was so lost in thought, she almost missed what was said to her.

“Talk about something, then?”

“Huh?” Tami looked back up at Trigger's eyes, her talons tip-tapping away with heavy clacks on the decades old keyboard below the more modern refitted touchscreen, only to see her captain shrug.

“If you don't need to focus on that, then focus on something else. Tell me a story or something.” Trigger spoke with a gentle grin. “We'll be here a while after all. Hey, what about that boy you used to know? The one in training? Old flame? What was he? Unicorn?”

Gulping, the hippogriff turned back to the screen, looking over the paragraph she'd written, and began filling in the various drop-downs and checklists that any search-and-rescue would want to know. “Vantage? Uh, Vantage Vair. He was a pegasus, actually. Really? Him?”

“Mhm,” came the encouraging sound from beside her, followed up by a twirl of a hoof, an unspoken 'go on'.

Tami thought back. It wasn't an era she often went to these days. Months in space had been slowly teaching her to not linger like she used to. It was a work in progress to get by it, and coming to accept that it would take a long, long time of gradual self-care had been a hard but ultimately worthwhile lesson. But that said, Vantage wasn't one of the bad memories. He predated the awful period she'd been trapped planetside.

It was ridiculous. Trapped in the middle of nowhere, and the first thing Hair Trigger was asking about was a stallion? Of all the subjects? Now?! But all the same, Tami felt a compulsion to trust her captain’s tactics. She took a gentle, wavering breath.

“He, uh, he and I met in Basic Flight. He'd come from another continent so we didn't really notice each other. But when we both scored the top two scores in the initial few months, weeeeeell, that's when we got paired up a lot, sooo...”

Hair Trigger raised an eyebrow. “Who got higher?” Then her smirk turned into an outright laugh at seeing Tami's cheeks turn bashfully red with awkward modesty. “That's my girl. So, paired up? That when you two got close?”

The blush warmed Tami's cheeks, and she felt it only grow stronger. Gradually, the shuttle and the shock began to fade from her mind as she focused on remembering instead. Remembering others, to feel like they weren't just alone. She shook her head. “We were just friends. At first.”

“Well, duh, I meant-”

“I know, I know!” Tami cut in, then actually found herself laughing at the brief, friendly touchiness. An impossible, stupid laugh now of all times. “It kinda surprised me, really! When we realised it? The first time I messed up bad, he had succeeded at the same flight pattern perfectly. But he left the presentation for him getting a perfect score to come find me because he'd noticed I wasn't there. I just remember hearing my bunk room's door open, and he came right in. And the next thing I knew there was a foreleg around me, and feathers wiping the tears from my cheeks.”

She keyed the final declaration on the distress beacon, checked each safety confirmation, and saw the plastic topped switch spring open on the control panel to her side. With a sharp crunch, she broke the seal and depressed it. With a two stage tick and a high pitched electronic tone, the console displayed the words 'BEACON ACTIVE'. The application closed, leaving a bar on the side of her display denoting its status.

“From then on we just started to share things with each other. Talk openly. I spoke about my own problems because, well, even then I was pretty anxious. 'Skittish' is how my dad put it once. The worries every time a trial came up, or I floundered.” Tami smiled fondly, leaning back in the seat and staring out at the twinkling stars. “But I was surprised when he opened up too. He'd been made fun of too, y'know? It seemed so stupid to me! He's this tall, good looking pegasus of grey and navy blue with all the confidence in the world, what would he have to be made fun of?”

Hair Trigger just took off her hat, dusting it off in a hoof while she listened, and Tami saw the unicorn's cheeks push up briefly. “You'd be surprised what supposedly confident ponies feel inside sometimes, Tam.”

Tammani heard the words, but her mouth was already moving. “It was because he was actually an utterly giant nerd about astronomy! And I know that sounds odd at a ship piloting academy, but I mean he'd talk anyone's ear off about it for hours if he could until they were sick of it and he'd been holding it all in to not annoy people. But-”

“-you're someone who never gets tired of that. Of course!” Hair Trigger finished for her. “On account of being a giant supernova level nerd about it yourself.”

“Exactly!” she shouted, then paused. “Wait-Captain!” Tami sat right up with her exclamation, looking over just as Trigger doubled over in the co-pilot position with a cackling giggle. She leaned over and punched the unicorn on the shoulder, managing to get away with only a slight wince and an 'ouch'. She met Trigger's eyebrow waggle with a jokingly angry face, before cracking up. Trigger got up and moved back into the living area of the shuttle behind them, digging out something to eat from their packs.

Mere minutes since the skiff, and she was setting out eating like they were camping. Tami could scarcely believe it. With a gentle breath, Tami continued. “So yeah, we got closer... Real close. We started sneaking out after hours on camp to watch the stars and-ack!”

A package of nuts hit her in the face, making her yelp.

“And act like a couple adorable geeks.” Trigger winked, pouring a measure of water into the tupperware cups from the small vessel on the inside of the hull. “That when he made a move?”

Blushing, Tami lowered the packet and nodded. “We'd done it so many times. It was routine. But one night it just... I don't know what was different. There wasn't a shooting star; in fact it was cloudier than normal. There hadn't been any event that day. Just... Just suddenly he had his wing around me, and he looked down a-and then before I knew it his lips were...”

Trigger smiled as she moved from starboard to port in the cramped space of the shuttle, trying to locate some juice packets to flavour their drinks, hopping up on the bench side to reach the top cupboard. She made a little kiss in the air. “Aww, first time little tender lip pecks. Always a good memory.”

Tami just felt a squeeze on her heart, and a warmth on her cheeks. She shuffled awkwardly, winding her claws through her mane. “A-actually I panicked at thinking I was being too hesitant so I sorta, well... dove on him hard enough to bowl him off his hooves.”

There was silence, and Hair Trigger turned to look at her with wide, surprised eyes. Then the unicorn just burst into deafening laughter, sitting down and clonking her head off the side of the heating unit. It did nothing to reduce the explosion of mirth.

“He never let me forget that one,” Tami muttered to herself, hiding her face behind a wing as Trigger only laughed and laughed. She remembered the moment. The surprised squawk from him as they'd tumbled onto the decking together was one of the things she'd never admit still giggling about. She peeked from between her feathers, seeing her captain still spluttering and heaving for breath, and rolled her eyes. “Captain...”

“Snrk! Pffhahaha! Sorry that's just... Oh I wish I coulda' seen that! That's priceless, Tam! Oh he'll not forget!”

Tammani hoped not. A selfish wish maybe, but she still found herself thinking back to Vantage with fondness. After all, they hadn't broken up as such. Life had just taken them apart without any formal conclusion. He had gone to the League Navy's Officer School, while she'd taken the VIP Pilot Academy. There was no way they could have kept in contact, especially with the bleeding edge acceptance position he'd gotten from the navy. He would be off on classified missions or something worthy of the piloting skill she knew he had, likely impossible to contact.

She had tried. Occasionally.

Hair Trigger gave her a gentle shove, pushing through the thin gap between the seats to come back to the front and put the small snack together on the top of the controls’ housing. Tami frowned, the casualness crushing her reverie. “Captain! The job offer said no food up front!”

“Call the space police.” Trigger shrugged dismissively and chuckled again as she tossed a hoof-full of almonds in her mouth. “What a memory. It's good that it's, well, good!”

“Yeah, yeah... I'm sad about it sometimes, how we had to split up when we still liked each other. But really, it's... It's nice. That night on the decking. Or breaking records together. Or that final exam in the shuttle where we got paired up for the expedition test. Three days of just flying together from system to system...”

Tami took a long breath, allowing herself an open smile. She felt a lot calmer now. Given something else to fret over, something else to talk about. She looked down at the console and saw the distress beacon fully active. It was done. The process was complete.

Hair Trigger had kept her from panic by distracting her. She knew that, but she felt little shame. The terror was gnawing away at the edges still, insidious, searching for a way to come back to the fore. The worries about the battery. About distance. About everything. She turned to her captain, intent on thanking her, or hugging her to keep herself from thinking about it.

Instead she saw one of those trademark cheeky grins. Slowly, one of those blue eyelids winked, then waggled. “That time in the shuttle with Vantage, huh?”

Tami gulped. She knew where this was going. She cursed the one and half ciders plus one shot that had gotten her tipsy enough some weeks ago to let that story slip. That it was during the nights aboard that shuttle she and Vantage had gotten, well, 'close' for the first time. “Uh… huh?”

“Well, come on.” Hair Trigger leaned over, smile spreading wide. “Just us two mares here, Tam. Am I gonna hear the adorable touches of a more detailed 'first timer' story this time?”

The young pilot audibly gulped, shrinking back, before nervously laughing and shaking her hands. “What!? N-no, wait, people d-don't just... People don't tell all about their, uh, that!” She blinked. “Do they?”

Hair Trigger, seemingly content with the reaction, just chuckled, patted Tami's forearm, and leaned back to her own seat, taking a deep drink from the cup. “Nah, nah. It's fine. It's fine.”

Tami breathed a sigh of relief.

“I'll just talk about mine then.”

Tami gasped loudly and her eyes bolted wide open, her wings fluffing up in shock. She stared over the cockpit. “You cannot be serious. You are not!”

Hair Trigger didn't even seem to hear her. She rested the cup on her belly between both forehooves and sighed deeply, before raising one hoof as though to begin a speech, declaring loud and proud to the cosmos around their lonely little shuttle.

“So! I remember it started when both of them dragged my grinning, inexperienced ass into that room with a big black bed...”

Tami's jaw slowly dropped, and stayed open through many, many slow spins of the shuttle.

Kerfuffle watched Smile pace back and forth in Claudia's common room. The crystal pony kept staring at her multiband, grimacing, and then only accelerating. Kerfuffle didn't know much about what often went on in her mind, but even he knew that she rarely let her mane get as bedraggled as it was. Most of the day spent queuing in a stuffy, crowded hangar had left her ruffled and untidy. Her coat had even lost most of that radiant sheen she was so proud of. And much as Kerfuffle knew it was impossible, he couldn’t help but feel she’d put a trench in the floor if she kept pacing like this. He put down the welding torch he was idly taking apart at the room's circular table and sat up.

“Miss Alyssum'll get back to us, Mrs Smiles. She will.”

The crystal pony spun her head, making her foulard whip up and spin a quarter way around her neck. “Not quick enough! Do they just expect us to sit? To not know? So that we're forced to contact the Director's half-sister just to try and get anything done? It’s not like Whisper or Tundra are close by, even if they had some means to… Urgh!”

He grimaced at the intensity in her eyes. The same worries were deep in Kerfuffle's mind as well. Already Claudia felt eerily quiet with just the three of them, lacking her captain and pilot. More so with Eleven busy in the cargo hold, separate from them. However he just didn't show it the same way Smile did. Instead, before him sat a dozen tools that needed maintenance, but had just been too low priority to bother with normally. Now his hands felt endlessly idle, no matter what he was doing.

He looked down sadly, and saw her face soften.

“Oh Kerfuffle, I'm sorry. It's not you.” She sighed and rubbed her forehead, tightening the material around her neck again. “I just wish there was more we could do other than just wait! I'd have thought we'd have some standing maybe by now... Oh, they must be terrified out there. Poor Tami's going to be in a horrid state.”

The big griffon quietly picked up the torch again and tweaked the nozzle when Smile spoke; each part being laid down gently, like he might disturb this strangely silent version of Claudia if it clinked on the table. “Don't worry.”

He tried to push his face to look positive and heartfelt.

“I'm sure the Cap'n's doin' her best to keep her smiling.”

Tami sat aghast with wide, still eyes, her mouth hanging open, quiet as the void. Then she blinked and leaned forward slightly, face a mask of shock.

“So? Did he put them on!?”

Hair Trigger grinned and sipped her steaming coffee. “Oh? Getting invested now are we Tam?”

“Sh-shut up! You started this!”

It was some time before Smile's multiband pinged. She glanced at it and took a sharp breath, then launched out of her chair to gallop into the cargo hold, almost toppling it in the process. Smile barrelled through the hanging laundry between the crane and ladders and skidded to a halt. Whipcord muscles drove her to reach out and pull the rear hatch embedded in the large cargo door open with a heavy slam.

As the thicker, cooler air of the hangar rushed into Claudia's hold, she found herself staring at Verbena Mint waiting for her, barely having closed her mailing app. The green-maned teenage mare blinked in shock.

“Woah, you move qui-wha!”

Smile grabbed her by the foreleg, tugged her inside and closed the door with a kick of her hindleg. Across the bay, Kerfuffle and Eleven peeked curiously out from the common room, their faces masked with concern. Smile took a second to control her breathing and backed off a touch. “Sorry, lots on my mind.”

Verbena reasserted her pop-rock logo emblazoned top with a pat of her hooves. She looked worried herself, with heavy bags under her eyes. “No, no, I get it. I do. It's my friend out there too, Smile.”

Volatility Smile couldn't help her impatience. It had been almost a day. Stranded safely, or unsafely, it didn't matter. Getting them back did and she was already feeling the weight of responsibility resting heavy on her now Trigger wasn't there. Briefly, she caught a glimpse of what the captain must have felt so many times, and quashed it. That thinking was pointless right now.

“Well? Did you get to speak to her?”

Verbena held up her hooves, as though asking for a bit of time and space. She looked around, sucked her lip, and sighed. “I got to speak to her, but she's got a thousand things on her plate right now. I've never heard her snap at me like that before! Apparently some rivals are using this to make a move on her outskirts of power or something. Shares falling, ships needed to police the scattered cargo still drifting off? That kind of thing? Buncha hashtag-boring hashtag-whocares compared to this stuff but, well, you know my sis'.” She shook her head with a frown. “The best I could get was her agreeing to meet you tomorrow and- I'm sorry!”

Smile had already spun away to groan in a direction that wasn't right in Verbena's face. She held up a hoof, waggling it in an unspoken apology, then shook her head and followed it up. “Not you. Not you. Thanks...”

Behind her, across the hangar, Kerfuffle just sighed, deflating like a balloon. His shoulders tensed, then sank. Slowly, he let go of the door and wandered back to his tools at the table again.

From the doorway he’d just left, a pair of lilac eyes stared at him with quiet concern. Her pink hoof held her blue tail tightly to her chest. Eleven frowned at seeing the griffon like this, feeling helpless. His skills weren't relevant to solving this problem, and it was quietly hurting him.

She didn't like that.

Slowly, her tongue poked out one side of her mouth, and ran along between her lips like the progress bar on a supercomputer's algorithm computation window.

Then, once it reached the far side, her eyes lit up and she ducked away, cantering toward Claudia’s rear hatch.

Tami felt strange.

She'd just woken up a few hours ago, after tiredness had finally made her aware she needed sleep. Out in the black, and having forgotten to set a timer on their multibands, it was about the closest way to tell. After some time of Tami learning things about her captain that would make her blush for years, and a thorough lesson in stain removal from said stories, they had finally retired back to use the padded benches on either side as beds.

Now though, as they sat quietly in their second 'day' of being adrift, there was a confusing, conflicting tangle of feelings inside her. She'd whined the moment she woke up, having hoped she'd be back in her hammock and could have a good hug with someone else to forget a bad dream. But it was all too real, and Tami was far too well-versed in the realities of space survival to mistake the situation for anything other than one of extreme danger.

Yet seconds later, a mug of hot caramel-smelling tea had been pressed into her hands before the dread could take hold, stifling the reaction before it began with not just the warmth of the drink but also the warmer comfort of being with someone she trusted.

She looked up at her captain. Hair Trigger was using the boiling vessel to make another batch of hot water for the dry-food packets, her back to the hippogriff. She'd been trying to make it feel like a little 'you and I' time. A holiday. A time to 'chill’, kick back and just bounce playful nothings off one another as though it was all an unexpected mental health break. She'd never let silence reign for long in the shuttle, always coming up with something to say, or pushing Tami to talk, or going on a long ramble about something.

'How do you do it?' she wondered.

“How do I do what?”

Hair Trigger's head turned, one eye peering back at her, and Tami jolted a little after realising she'd spoken aloud without meaning to. Her eyes popped fully open, and she sucked at her bottom lip. “How do you stay so, y'know, grounded? Not just here. I mean in general.”

“Grounded? Pssh.” Hair Trigger blew a short raspberry, leaving the water to heat. Putting down a small dishcloth, she hopped onto the bench serving as her bed, directly across from Tami's. “Never been planetside for that long.”

“You know what I mean, Captain!” Tami smirked as she protested. “Like, how you're always able to compartmentalise stuff? About being open, or putting worries aside?”

“If you mean how I learned that? I dunno.” She upturned her bottom lip, spreading her forelegs with a dismissive motion. “Maybe it's not just one thing. Maybe it's growing up how I did. Lotta' brothers all wanting to prank and tease the only sister. You gotta let it slide eventually.”

Her voice was oddly wistful. Tami wondered if she was missing them. But Trigger just smiled again. “Maybe just find ways to shove it all out rather than letting it boil up.”

Tami paused, then arched her back with a long squeeze of her hands above her head. She felt a little crick of a twisted back from sleeping on the thin bench and lay back again, wriggling and settling. She stared briefly at the storage compartments above her, a thought bouncing around her head like a rapid squash ball, finally reaching her mouth to emerge as an impulsive question. “You think that's where your temper comes from?”

A twitch in her heart made her tense up as she said it. It was a bit of an accusation, but adrift a million miles from any other living soul, she felt she could quietly ask. Right then, there hardly seemed to be any reason to not be open.

She saw the unicorn pause and think. For a solid minute, there was nothing but the gentle whistle of the water and the soft hum of the ship's life support systems as they drifted on through the darkness. After waking up, they'd lowered the lights until the interior of the shuttle was hued a cosy amber, and hadn't bothered putting them back up to full since. Eventually, Trigger took off her hat and ran a hoof through her uncombed mane. Neither of them had such an item with them.

“Yeah that's...” Trigger paused, and Tami thought she saw her shuffle uncomfortably for a moment. “I think it was my mother that said that worries were just frustration and anger that didn't have a fitting target yet. Doesn't make much sense but that's what she said unless you know her, er, methodology of command. So... Maybe? I guess? Better out than in either way, I say.”

Tami winked. “Even if it got you beat up by those pirates once?”

Trigger's laugh surprised her, and yet made her jump as it filled the small, cramped space around them. “Even if it got a whole bunch to gang up on me once. Hey, I might have been KO'ed for the day, but at least I can be happy I got to tell that smug little brat-bat what someone really needed to tell her all her life.”

That was it, Tami noted. That change in perspective. The silver lining about a bad event. She wondered how that mentality might have changed things in the past. How it might have helped her.

There was another pause. They smiled at one another, until eventually Tami felt a rise in wistfulness. She lay back again and sighed. “I wish I could be more outspoken sometimes.” She lazily let her eyes slide over to look at the unicorn, her voice quiet with honest wanting. “Like you. Say what I mean and not worry. I just overthink everything about how someone might react, or how they might misinterpret it, or if it'll mean a confrontation. It's like I self-analyse everything I say before I say it - overdo it. Anxiety just takes hold and sometimes it's just so much, even over something small and dumb, like that time I didn't answer when you all asked me to pick a movie.”

The shuttle lit up. Briefly, the craft's gentle spin made the sun pass by the window once again. Hair Trigger's face brightened up, then was cast into shadow, before returning to the low light again from the ship's LED panels running the edges of the ceiling. The shift revealed a contended, happy smirk.

“Far as I see it, Tam? All that thinking’s why you sometimes see things I don't, y'know? To look at the little details that might matter in how others see something. Hey, remember when we got Whisper back? I don't think anyone else thought for a moment about how the room we put her in was all bare metal like that container they were keeping her in.”

Tami let her eyes drop, nibbling at the corner of her lips. There was a rustle of clothing and she felt a hoof nudge her shoulder.

“You did though. And you made it colourful. Because you worried the right way. You think in ways others don't, and I don't mind saying I wished I'd thought of that at the time. I don't think there's any sane person out there doesn't look at someone else and feel a bit envious in a way about something or other.”

The memories weren't good ones, and Tami's stomach twisted to even think about that day they'd pulled Whisper from that interrogation cell. Away from Cascavel. But she saw what Trigger meant. She knew it was correct. But even the correct answer she knew from hard experience wasn't always what was needed. Sometimes the mind just rebelled. It would listen to the right answer said with care and meaning, and yet still somehow respond with a stubborn feeling of 'that's not the answer', even if it patently was.

Tami wound a feather over and under the claws on one hand awkwardly. “I know, Captain. I know. It's just...”

This was something she found hard to admit. Hard to talk about. But somehow, this distant isolation was gently eroding her apprehensions about speaking out loud. She looked up and felt herself trembling, a fear of killing the moment making her hesitate, until she pushed her lips to move.

“I sometimes wonder how much of it is just me, and is just my personality and is natural and that'd be fine. But then I wonder how much of it is cos of... Cos I'm- Uh... Y'know? That I got…”

There was a second’s hesitation, then she gently tapped her head, looking away in shame. “A problem, you know?”

Tami took a sharp little breath, feeling her mouth running away from her. “Cos of the crash. Or maybe even it was there before it. I don't know. Just sometimes when it's quiet, I'll wonder how many of my faults or my flaws are only because of that. Wonder if I'm really the version of me I coulda' been if...if...if I wasn't...”

She paused again, trailing off.

There was a silence. She didn't know what else to say.

And then she heard Hair Trigger get up. After a few seconds, Tami felt the unicorn sit beside her, hip to hip, and wrap a hoof around her shoulders, pressing comfortingly down on her fluffy wings to stop them fidgeting around. The foreleg squeezed her opposite shoulder in little kneading circles, and pulled her in against Trigger's side. Tami leaned her cheek on Hair Trigger's shoulder, feeling it squish a little, and closed her eyes.

The voice was quiet, warm and gentle. A far cry from the grumpy, abrasive unicorn most saw. “You are the Tami we know.” The hoof slid up and stroked her mane gently, running between the thick, heavy strands. “And that's all that matters. Because that's the one we want.”

Tami felt the urge to sniffle and sob as a wash of warm, thankful affirmation flowed through her sometimes uncertain feelings. But instead, she was surprised to feel a content smile creep across her face instead of tears. “Thanks, Captain.”

Minutes passed, and Tami just enjoyed feeling the accepting proximity and the relaxing stroke of her mane. She could have fallen asleep again right then and there, but she felt a shift and peeked up to see Trigger's mischievous grin.

“Now, I'm glad you're smiling Tam. Because I have an idea for tonight that I wouldn't responsibly offer if you were going into it sad.”

Tami blinked. “R-really?”

“How long has it been since we shared a drink?”

Tami's heart skipped a beat. “You didn't.”

“We've got a crate of luxury high-end rum in the shuttle, Tam.”

“That's for the delivery!” she protested, half laughing and half bewildered.

Hair Trigger made a 'psssht' sound through her teeth. “Like that matters. Emergency supply for morale!”

She got up and walked under the crossbar of the shuttle's framework to reach the inner door. With a heave, Trigger yanked it open, reached within to dig under a palette's canvas, and drew out a dark brown glass bottle emblazoned with a golden trim and a dark blue flourish of a painted shape under a thistle-topped cork. It floated over to Tami's lap in the unicorn's telekinesis, and she could see the liquid inside shifting. The bottle was crafted to make it look like the rum within was the ocean below the painted blue crescent moon.

The label marked it as rather strong.

Tami gulped. “I'd ask if you were serious but-”

“But it's me.” Trigger winked, trotting back over to the front console to check the beacon status, and then winked a second time over her shoulder as she returned to the boiling food, the steam whistling and rising out of the dry bags in the pot. Sweet potato stew and custard sponge, by the digital lettering on them. “After dinner, after you've got some food in you, because I am nothing if not a responsible captain that has never done anything rash, we'll see how you feel about being a little more outspoken for a while. If you really wanna try it.”

Tami felt her heart clench. But she looked to the 'acquired' bottle and then up at her captain.

She couldn't hide a little grin from creaking into being.

Raw Deal had a rather good deal in life at the moment.

As the owner of one of Medusa's ship sales outlets - complete with parts vendoring - the accident naturally meant good business. A lot of those who'd gotten caught, hit, damaged or otherwise didn't keep insurance or company replacements out here in the Periphery, and over the past couple days he'd seen a rather nice bump in his savings toward that long-wanted early retirement.

His office was set at the entrance to one of the busier frigate-scale hangars; half a dozen docking bays containing hulls awaiting sale were dotted around vessels visiting the station, with several piles of components and hull fragments scattered around the edges.Some of it was marked as sales only, some of it was nearly useless or in surplus and just waiting for someone to take it and rid his life of it. He enjoyed being so close to it all. Among the echoing noise and the strident bellowing. It was the ambiance of good business, and he felt he had a good reputation for fairness with the regulars. From rogue traders to grim hunters, everyone knew that if you wanted good parts, you came to the batpony at the docks. You couldn't scam that sort of advantage among the distrustful captains of the galaxy's wild frontier.

As such, he was quite content to sit reading a newspaper with his hooves up, not needing to keep too much of an eye out for a while. Right then, the business was all coming to him - no need to spot anyone. He could afford to ease his jets for a while and was doing just that.

“Excuse me? Hi there!”

He heard a bright, young voice. Lowering his paper, Raw Deal saw a garishly pink unicorn with her forelegs crossed over on his reception desk, settled below an excited smile and wide, eager eyes. He blinked for a moment, then raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, Trigger's new crew member, right? Can I help you?”

The young mare nodded a few times too many, then pointed a foreleg out at something behind him. “Can I have that, please?”

Raw hesitated for a moment, then willed his relaxed muscles into action to turn awkwardly in his chair, following the animatedly shaking hoof. Behind him, just by the dock's edge, was the fuselage of a long range exploration frigate they'd dragged in from the accident site, one still awaiting classification and pricing after being written off.

“Now what do you want wi-oh. Oh, I see. I see now.”

He smiled. Below the vessel was a pile of scrap pieces he didn't even bother charging for. Mostly bent hull plates, burnt out electronics, and tangled wiring that would cost more in time to figure out than it would to just buy new. The whole magnificent pile had a 'Just take stuff!' sign hanging on it. You couldn't build that junk into anything useful if you tried.

Raw Deal looked back at the pony, shrugged, and raised his newspaper again. “Knock yourself out, kid.”

“Thank you!”

The young unicorn skipped past him and away towards the pile, gracefully hopping over fuel lines and between containers. Raw looked back to his paper, momentarily amused at the sight of her enthusiasm. Trigger had probably given her some little learning project that needed some scrap metal. He did hope the captain made it back; she was a good customer after all and-

A horrendous, keening, shrieking howl like some demonic industrial saw erupted from behind him, making his spine lock up and hit teeth painfully grit. Repeated flashes of vivid lilac light illuminated his whole office like a single-colour rave, and a violent ripping of metal drowned out the ambience of the entire hangar for a few seconds before it all suddenly ceased.

After a moment, Raw turned, his posture not changing a single inch as his chair rotated. Warily peeking over the top of his newspaper, he saw an innocently smiling unicorn prancing her way back down the hangar toward Claudia, a little pulled trailer holding a complete interstellar FTL computer and sensor array that must have weighed six times her own weight.

Then he turned his head, and saw the entire nose-cone of the exploration frigate behind his surplus pile had been torn open like one of the great dragons of old had sunk its claws into it. Four inch thick hull was curled like tinfoil. The edges glowed white hot, dripping molten metal onto the pile below, where it sparked and cracked and lit tiny flames on the rubber.

His newspaper continued its slow motion toward his thighs. Then, with utmost care, he folded it and neatly placed it on his desk.

Silently, Raw Deal reached for one of his drawers and withdrew the small box of his recently changed migraine medicine, deciding that maybe he ought to read the leaflet’s small print after all.

Of all the sounds to inhabit a desolate area of empty space, hysterical, clumsy laughter would not often be expected. But in the deep quiet, one shuttle was the exception. Its innards were warm and reeked of strong drink. An oasis of scarce care against the ruthless void that surrounded it.

“And then! And then! My brother fell right into the coolant refuse! The coolant! Refuse!”

Hair Trigger's voice was slurred, thoroughly casual, and tinged with a needy insistence for its every word to be understood. She leaned toward Tami, smiling as the hippogriff burst into snorting giggles. They swayed together, shoulder to shoulder, a mostly empty bottle squeezed between their thighs. The bench hadn't lasted long. The soft seated layer had been pulled onto the floor in the middle of the shuttle. A den, Tami had proclaimed it.

Both were more than a smidgen bedraggled. Trigger's hat lay up on the pilot control panel somewhere, and Tami had long since ditched her overalls, simply relaxing in her blouse and leggings.

“HAH! Haha! Coolant!” Tami squeaked, her voice pitching up as the alcohol raced through her system. “Oh! Oh and-and-”

The young pilot was having trouble staying upright. Her wings were extended behind her, balancing her against the side of the benches. A lightweight at the best of times, a quarter bottle of hard rum had hit her like a burning meteor.

“-and there was this one earth pony at the Academy! He threw up in his helmet when we were-!” She paused to laugh, burying her face into Trigger's shoulder as over a minute of uncontrolled giggles and snorting at the silly memory overtook her.

“You okay?! You okay?” the unicorn spluttered, prodding her, but the story was long gone to the giggles, and the hippogriff was far past telling it. Hair Trigger just took another rich, burning drink from the plastic cup. “Tam?”

After a few more moments, Tami sniffed and inhaled deeply, looking back up. Her smile looked like it was having trouble keeping both sides at the same level. Her eyelids hung low, not fully retracting. Her cheeks were flushed with alcoholic warmth. She gently took a breath. “I'm fine! I'm fine! I'm-”

And then the giggles started all over again. She slid down, until almost lying flat. Trigger's magic grabbed her friend's cup to keep it from spilling, and she had to put her own down to keep her own chortle at the pilot's antics from upsetting it. A more experienced drinker, she felt the warm buzz of a good time, and the loosening of all the worries mounting into a smooth, easy slur of 'yeah yeah I'm okay'.

Then suddenly Tami looked back at Trigger, almost upside down from lying flat. “Hey! Captain?”

“Tam?”

The hippogriff sat back up, leaning against the bench. She began taking a deep drink from her cup, not even noticing Trigger's magic gently pulling it back down after a moment to keep her from overdoing it. She didn't give an answer until after the fiery liquid had slid down her throat again. She gasped and unexpectedly burped, covering her mouth with a blush. Trigger just rolled her eyes. “What were you gonna say?”

Tami nodded vigorously, circling a hand again and again as she thought. Then eventually she reached it. “What's it like, y'know? Bein' you? Being all confident and stuff? It must be fun!”

“Hell yeah it is!” Hair Trigger wasn't shy about it. “I can say what I want! S'like if I ever wonder, should I? Then the answer is yes! S'just how I roll.” She spoke proudly and beat a hoof off her chest. “Captain's gotta be decisive, right?”

Tami sat up, swaying side to side. They both drank again, and she dropped back alongside Trigger again. “I wish I could be more like that. Assersisitive.”

“Assertive.”

She hiccuped. “That too! Cos', I've only been assertive a few times! And every time was really fun!” Tami stood up proudly, despite having just sat down. One wing rested over her heart, and an arm held her drink up into the air. “Like when Midnight was lying on top of me, and I decided-” Her voice took on a loud, shouting tone. “No! I, Tammani, will not be the nervous one this time! So I rolled over!”

“Atta' girl!”

“And I pinned him right below me!”

Hair Trigger made a light 'whoo' sound, circling a hoof as the thoroughly drunk hippogriff sloshed her drink to the side, spilling a few drops, before downing the remainder of the cup.

“And the look on his face when I sat on his hips and let me-my-this! This mane fall around his face and looked him in the eye and put his hoof-” She flushed, and then clapped her flank. “-right on my big soft butt!”

Hair Trigger burst into laughter. The sight of Tami, of all people, speaking proudly on that was just too rich. “You know your best assets, Tam!”

“Damn... right!” she breathed, almost exhausted. “But y'know? It felt good! Cos! Cos I’d been confident! Cos I'd been in charge for a few seconds, and I did it! Me! And he liked it! And I felt so good! Wait, I already said that-”

Her captain raised her drink. “Say it again!”

Tami clumsily hopped in a circle, cramped in the shuttle. “It. Felt. Good!” Stumbling, she almost fell, until telekinetic magic gave her a little shove on the shoulder to stay up. “And so did he!” she finished, a blushing giggle coming over her.

“Your little date went well, Tam. What'd I tell you?” Hair Trigger winked, watching Tami pouring another drink for them both. “Just go there, be yourself, and you'd both get on just as well as you had before. Nothing to worry about! You've got it in you. To just do it! Right?”

Dropping heavily onto her rump, Tami stared into her drink. Then she smiled, looked up, and leaned in, a surprisingly cheeky grin on her face. “Hey, Captain?”

“Hmm?”

Tami drunkenly tried to keep an embarrassed laugh in, blurting out the words. “I totally wiggled my butt at him too when we walked over to the sofa.”

There was a pause

And then the pair of them burst into a fit of laughter.

And before either realised, Tami had dropped down and leaned her back on her captain's side again to support herself. Then, after a moment, Tami felt an insane urge. A burning courage deep down that had been uncapped, like a preserved, building explosion of hot willpower that raced through her. Logic said it was simply having drunk forty percent volume rum, but logic had long left the shuttle amid the exultations of joy and the release of stress. There was no-one here. No-one but the captain she trusted she could say anything to. The one she trusted she could be brave in front of.

“But that wasn't my only one though! After I put his hoof there-”

And then it emerged. Simple at first, blushing from the words. But the mirth and comfort of her captain laughing with her, not at her, spurred her vocabulary like a starship going from turbine to rocket power, and soon she was telling the story of overcoming her nerves about getting intimately close to someone again, and saying things she never dreamed of saying out loud to anyone. Many times they paused, they drank, and Hair Trigger would make a joke about something. Then they would laugh. Other times Trigger would wink and offer Tami some advice, often with crude hoof gestures. But sometimes, sometimes the unicorn would just go wide-eyed, hearing entirely another side of the outwardly skittish hippogriff.

“You did NOT say that to him when he-”

“I swear I did! I couldn't look him in the eye for five whole minutes after it!”

“That-” Hair Trigger paused, then yanked Tami's head in, playfully headlocking her and ruffling her mane with the other hoof as the hippogriff squealed and struggled, “-is the most adorable thing I've heard in years! And using your claws to pin his hooves down when you kissed him? Oh, that's my girl, Tami! He'll be thinking of that one for a while.”

“Yeah, but I left a mark with a claw, I didn't mean to!”

“Pssh, it'll heal.”

“On his desk...”

Hair Trigger's eyebrows shot up, a new mental image of the sweet and shy pilot shooting through her head for a moment and almost short circuiting her brain. “Another little idea you'd always been too nervous to admit?”

There was a bashful squeak from amidst the headlock, and she let Tami free. A red dwarf of a face upon her, Tami huddled and giggled under her breath. “I was so embarrassed.”

“But you were being confident!” Hair Trigger countered, but then took a quieter tone. Her face softened, even if she felt the alcohol making some of it droop a little. “It is in there, I'm seeing it now.”

Tami's expression went through a few stages. From shivery embarrassment, to bashful pride, through to a quiet pondering. Then eventually, she curled her lips inwards and shrugged lightly. “That's just ‘cos I'm incredibly drunk and probably not going to remember any of this, Captain! ‘Cos, see, this is what I feel a lot of people don't get about me.”

She held the drink idle, looking up past Hair Trigger toward the glass of the cockpit. Out there, the bright sun was on another travel past as the craft's spin endlessly continued in the vacuum. The stars seemed brighter than ever, prickling her inebriated vision. Hair Trigger was silent, and eventually Tami drew in a breath that felt like it lasted a day.

“It is in there. The sense of humour. The teases. The wishes.” She shrugged. “The libido too, I guess. But it's just all - it's all buried. Layers and layers and layers-and-layersandlayers of worry an-and anshxiety and hesitation. Maybe ‘cos I'm a little messed up in my head sometimes-”

A hoof laid itself on her claw and she looked up, smiling gently. Hair Trigger had never once let that sort of self deprecating insult go without response, even if just a reminder via touch.

“-but it is there. A-And sometimes, I'll see people look at the way you tease me, Captain. The way you ask me rude questions, the way you make me blush and prank me and not let up on stuff. An' pull me into conversations a-about boys a-an' silly shtuff. And I can see it, sometimes they think you're just going at it a bit far or too much on the sensitive little hippogriff they see who ish all fragile and weak.”

Tami gulped, staring into her rum before taking a slow, quaking sip. There was a change in her tone. A shuffle away from the extravagant outburst of drink-fuelled silliness. Though she slurred, though she wavered, her words were soaked in the bravery of the burning liquid enough to speak with absolute honesty.

“What I think they all miss is that I think I enjoy staying around you because of that! Because of what you're like, Captain. Because I often can't bring myself to make those jokes, even if I want to. Or be a tease, even if I should be. Or start the sort of banter you do, even if they want it too. And it's stifling, sometimes, social times full of missed chances and regrets. I just keep it all buried out of nerves s-someone'll laugh at me for sayin' it! But when I'm around you I...”

She trailed off, then finally looked at her captain eye to eye.

“I feel like I get to quietly have that side of me out in the open without saying anything myself, sort of vicarious humour? Via proxy? Via you! And you start it, and you include me. And even if I turn red as a cherry and worry or get embarrassed, hours later I'll always feel happy and have a quiet giggle to myself because it lets me feel like I'm part of it like anyone else. A-And recently? I'm finding those giggles start to take a shorter time to get to.”

She rubbed the back of her palm against an eye, wiping away a dampness. In front of her, Hair Trigger herself looked caught between choking up, and a warm pride. To break the ice, she leaned over and poured another drink, her telekinesis stuttering and shaky from the bottle's effects. An urge to grab the adorable girl ran through her, but she resisted it for the moment and clinked their cups.

“You know? It'sa...” Trigger flubbed her words. “Is-it's not just all that. It's not just you likin' my naughty jokes and gossip. Y'know that, right? This is all just... Just fuff. Faff! There's more to it that you're makin' us all proud with every day. It's like when you grabbed the controls from me, and you actually ordered me to keep up with you on the bridge when we were escaping the Crystal Heart. Or when you told off Whisper fer-for! For not listening to Kerfuffle once. An' when you made a Hearthswarmin' on your own initiative without worrin' we'd laugh.”

Tami's face flushed. Hair Trigger only laid it on further.

“You got it in you, Tam. An' if the best I can do as your captain is make you able to pull it out when you gotta? Be it with flying Claudia, or dealing with stuff, or stallions, or anything in life, then I know I'm doin' pretty well. Now...gerroverhere. Captain needs a hug, and only one hippogriff's squeezable enough to do the job!”

There was a laugh that came from somewhere deep down. An unbalanced, wobbly laugh that matched the way the outer edges of her vision were starting to blur. “Aye-” She hiccuped and missed her forehead with a wing-salute. “-aye, Captain!”

She shuffled over, and after a few seconds of mistaken fumbling with imprecise, sloppy movements, Tami drove her head into her captain's neck and got a good, tight long-needed squeeze around her waist. She returned it, arms and wings both. A relieved, post-soul-searching embrace in a fashion only the closest of friends could.

Until Tami hiccuped again, and their snorts of amusement saw them let go.

Alone, in growing danger the longer they waited, it was the most comfort the pair could seek - to look away from the creeping, deep black surrounding their tiny metal compartment. In the brief silence, Hair Trigger saw Tami looking out that window. Nothing unusual, she knew. Tami stargazed like socialites screengazed; it was her default idle state.

But this time, she saw something in the hippogriff's eyes. A slight intimidation. A shaking of the pupils as their situation threatened to creep into this bubble of joy.

Hair Trigger knew how alcohol went. She knew how it made emotions flow back and forth like an uncaring pendulum. She acted fast, blurting out the first question that came to mind.

“Hey Tam? Ever tried kissing another mare?”

Tami blinked, then looked around quickly, mouth open, cheeks red. “Wh-what?”

Trigger almost laughed on the spot. Not fifteen minutes ago they had talked openly of intimacy, and even still, that silly birdmare got flustered. Tami, she figured, would always be Tami, and Trigger would never want any different. “Well?”

Tami took a gulp of rum and swallowed hard. Coughing, she sat up and batted Trigger's thigh with a wing. It had zero impact. “You mean apart from you? From last Heartswarming?”

The spluttering raspberry of a laugh from the unicorn’s mouth almost sprayed her drink. She'd somehow forgotten that when she asked. “Apart from me and my silly pranks, yes. Just curious.”

Claws drummed around a cup from both sides, and Hair Trigger could already see Tami biting her lip, looking to the side. She could almost hear the gears in the hippogriff's head turning while figuring out how to word something. She grinned. “That'd be a yes then, huh?”

Tami gulped, then made a little nod. “Yeeeeah...”

'Good,' thought Trigger through the haze of her growing drunken tiredness. It was something else to keep her focused on, keep that shell of distraction from terror strong for a little longer. “So is this another side of you that you've been nervous of too?”

Shaking her head, Tami actually lifted a hand, waving. “Oh? Oh no! No, no, not like that. It was back at basic flight! A bunch of us, Vantage and the others, we had a game of truth or dare and, well, you know how they go.”

“Don't I just.” Trigger drank deeply from her cup, until it suddenly became empty again. How did that happen so quickly?

Tami continued. “And someone dared me and Chilli Rice to kiss, so, uh, we did?”

“Aaand?”

And there was that blush. That good old reliable blush Trigger knew. Tami laughed it off. “It was nice! I mean, it was a kiss and, like, well... Captain just becosh-be-because! Because I'm drunk doesn't mean I don't know you're wondering if she and I-!”

She hiccuped and shrugged lightly, then shook her head.

“No, no. Never. I'm attracted to stallions, but it's just... I'm... Well, I'm comfortable being close to anyone. If -uh- if you get what I mean? It’s-” She paused, and there was a large yawn. A typical, wide mouthed, wing stretching yawn. Tami looked like she was wavering. “-what I mean? Y'know, stuff...”

Gently, she bobbed side to side, and then dropped down heavily against Hair Trigger again, her head resting on the captain's shoulder. Eyes closed. Truth be told, Trigger was feeling her own sleepiness creep in. She looked down at her own shoulder, and saw Tami staring back up at her.

There was a long pause.

Hair Trigger smiled.

Tami smiled back.

Then gingerly, a word emerged. “Captain?”

“Tam?”

“You're the best captain I ever had.”

That good old line. Hair Trigger just smiled and winked. “Only captain you've ever had, Tam.”

“Shtill the best...” She smiled warmly, leaning her head fully and tiredly against the unicorn. “You always make me feel so wanted to be aroun'an-an my life got a whole lot better when I foun' you and Claudia.”

Trigger reached out and folded Tami's flopping, uncombed mane back from her eyes, hooking it behind an ear. “Captain's duty, Tam. Issa'n old tradition.”

Another long pause, until Tami gently leaned in. “Captain?”

Trigger blinked, seeing Tami's eyes half close. She felt Tami's hand slide over her leg.

And grab something.

After a moment, Tami lifted what she'd grasped up, and the unicorn blinked at seeing Tami holding up the empty bottle that had been sitting between them. “Bottle's empty,” said Tami, sitting back again with a thump. “And I think I might be drunk, Captain.”

The silence was devastated by Hair Trigger's laugh, shattered into a million pieces. She firmly clapped Tami's thigh and forced herself up. Reaching across the shuttle, she acquired a bottle of water from the top of the cabinet and poured some of it into Tami's cup. “Then get a couple of these down you, and then it's time for you to get to sleep.”

“Aww...” Tami whined, letting the cool liquid go down in soft sips. “Was nice talking.”

“Well then, I've got a whiskey you can try back in my quarters on Claudia. We'll share it once we're there.”

Tami briefly looked up, and Trigger hoped the reference to home hadn't stirred worries, but instead the hippogriff just smiled and nodded. Making sure she had her water, multiple thereof even, Hair Trigger looked at the mess of a couple blankets and the long, rectangular seating cushions sitting on the floor. Neither of them could be bothered to replace it all, and soon after finishing her drink Tami dropped down onto it. The hippogriff lay on her belly diagonally across the gap between the benches, head flumped into a pillow. Within seconds, Trigger couldn't tell if she was already asleep or not, and wasn't going to dare shift her to one side.

Sometimes, Hair Trigger reflected on meeting her back when. She knew she’d done a lot for Tami. Had helped her since. She'd wanted to.

What she sometimes didn't say as much was what Tami had done for her.

Smiling, content in knowing for herself what that was, Hair Trigger stumbled over to the cockpit and hit the shuttle lights. They dimmed down, leaving the interior in pitch darkness. Unsteadily, she felt her way back past the chairs, vaguely aimed for her sleeping space. Her hip smacked the drawers and she almost tripped on the blankets. Finally, gratefully dropping down on her side, she let her cheek rest against her soft, cushy pillow, and sighed deeply, muscles relaxing.

A small giggling in the dark made one of her eyes open.

“Snrk! Hehe, Captain?”

“Mm? Tami?”

“I don't think that's your pillow.”

Hair Trigger sat up for a moment.

And then tiredly dropped right back down in the same place.

“It is now, Tam. It is now.”

A pair of hooves rested over one another, and gently descended upon the polished sheen surface of the desk. The motion was dignified and well-practiced, arriving on the varnished top without any excessive force or hesitancy. Yet this was a masterful example of such a movement, for Sweet Alyssum's hooves, despite the care, made an audible click on contact - a sound that would momentarily prick the ears of anyone that heard it. It was a simple, effortless motion to take the reins of any conversation. To disrupt someone's speaking in order to let her move into the silence without having to vocally interrupt.

Smile felt both impressed and inwardly disgusted that she'd fallen for it, her urging pausing for that half second that the station's director needed to swiftly move in like a gleaming rapier penetrating a guard.

“I understand your concern, Volatility Smile. But I have had a dozen captains and crew arrive in my office over the past hours, and all of them bring the same story. Drones, cargo, stranded crew? You are not the only ship to have lost something.” Sweet Alyssum wasn't smiling as she spoke, her sculpted, hard face holding an incisive look that ever-so-politely implied: 'I haven't slept in two days dealing with this; do not push me now, you little shit'.

The look matched the white-maned mare's surroundings. Alyssum's office was awkwardly shaped. No walls met at right angles, and few areas bore the same decoration twice. Majestic tapestries from various civilisations hung over sheet metal, and rugs so thick that Smile felt like her hooves couldn't remain straight on the floor overlapped in a fractal patterned collage of antiquated style. Even the desk's shining mahogany didn't match the glass and silver metal dining table crammed in the not overly spacious compartment she had chosen as her office. The only things that matched aesthetically with the rest of Medusa were the three uniformed griffons flanking them in heavy vests: Gerhard and two of the larger members of the security team. All armed. All wary. All watching Smile and Kerfuffle. She was glad that the griffon was with her, but Alyssum's office - normally a place Smile where enjoyed contesting her business smarts against the director’s - now felt like a challenge she could do without.

Feeling her brow narrow, Smile kept her composure. She would have much preferred to be sitting down, given Alyssum was. Standing before a desk felt like a plea, and that wasn't a feeling she enjoyed. “Director, the others are known beacons that Medusa is tracking. Nothing harder than drifting outside or in the same system. The issue at hoof here is that your own staff have yet to identify Captain Trigger's shuttle's beacon. That means they're in a different system. If you could ask your staff to use Medusa's sensor logs and the tanker's archive to trace where that rift might have sent the objects that got thrown through-”

“-then they would be busy doing that, and not doing what I have ordered them to, Miss Smile.” Sweet Alyssum didn't raise her voice, but the tone brokered little chance to reply. “Tracing an unintended M-Space rift needs a number of things. Most of all, time and numbers. Medusa's sensor array team would need to be dedicated to it for an hour, and not tracking the hundred and one things I need them to do right now.”

“An hour is-” Kerfuffle began.

“And even if!” Alyssum's voice rose briefly, the 'if' landing like a polite whipcrack. “Even if I were to do that, it would require multiple ships dispatched to act as relays to triangulate the route from Medusa it took, two per system within range! With how many systems surround us, that could be at least a dozen ships. A dozen ships that I need saving other crews and retrieving cargo worth over a trillion credits before any scavengers slide in. That's multiple days’ worth of work, if not more, to organise and carry out.”

Out the corner of her eye, Volatility Smile saw Kerfuffle bristle. The griffon had been getting quietly antsy, and this ongoing delay with nothing but worries for their friends was eroding even his normally immovable mountain of patience.

Slowly, he took in a breath. “The shuttle-”

Smile openly sighed at Sweet Alyssum's answer and trotted forward, placing a hoof on the other side of Alyssum's desk, leaning her head in a little. The director didn't react, her eyes didn't even blink to look at the touch. “Director Alyssum, that shuttle, in a best case scenario, may only have a few days of battery left. If it takes that long to track, then-”

“Then I am wholly aware of that, Volatility Smile.” Alyssum was terse, standing up sharply. “So if you would let us do our jobs, we can get to that one faster.”

There was another shift beside Smile. Kerfuffle leaned in, bringing his head lower. “And how fast will that be, Mi-?”

Alyssum cut him off. “Once higher priorities are dealt with for the station's security. This is the Periphery! Not a law-drowned imperial hub. The black will pounce on this station's assets if we do not resolve this.”

“Higher?! Higher pri-” Smile had to stop herself. She was livid. And she could feel Kerfuffle sharing the sensation, but this was going nowhere. Slowly, she drew air in through her nose, her hoof fixing her tie. “Hair Trigger and Tami have been part of doing a lot for you, Director.”

It was a poor angle and she knew it, but this was a stone wall. True to her hunch, Alyssum's brow hardened and the director shook her head. “They, and you for that matter, still owe me your debt for the vessel, Volatility Smile.”

“Then you'd lose that income; we can't function without them.”

A last ditch gasp of negotiating, and one that she knew was pointless right away. It wouldn't have worked even on a rookie. Alyssum raised an eyebrow, almost insulted. “Your debt pales compared to what I stand to lose if I don't secure Port Medusa. Now, I have much to do. Gerhard will keep you updated if we find anything.”

The older griffon moved forward, his body language speaking a polite but firm 'time to get out'.

But behind her, Smile already heard Alyssum's enormously heavy office door - more of an airlock - slam open and then shut with a deafening bang, punctuated by the startled shriek of the receptionist as Kerfuffle stormed out.

Volatility Smile gulped quietly, with a sudden and jarring feeling that the most intimidating source of anger in the room hadn't been the one behind the desk.

Tami's head hurt.

Her throat too.

In a monstrous trifecta, so did her eyes. All three locations wore a throbbing clench of dull pain that faded and returned every few seconds, almost enough to make her appreciate the deathly silence of a shuttle stuck in the middle of nowhere.

It wasn't the worst hangover she'd ever had. She could blame Verbena for most of those. But she still slumped in the pilot's chair with a weary, sunken face, claws lazily dancing across the (lowered brightness) controls. Hair Trigger was still asleep behind her, but Tami always found it difficult to go back to bed in the morning, even with nothing else to do. Instead she'd crawled up here to nurse her head and spend the last hour cringing and biting down on her knuckles at vague memories of things she'd said out loud to the captain the night before.

Now, sitting in silence, Tami ran a diagnostic on the shuttle's systems. She hadn't thought about it; doing that sort of thing was just a natural instinct for her, one of her core duties back on Claudia. Even if she knew all it would say is the engines were still inoperable, and the comms were still inoperable, and a dozen other things she wished she had were all broken, it was just habit. She'd contemplated what might possibly be fixed, but none of it was possible. Circuits had burnt out, engine housings had been bent, and the software in the nav-computer had been so corrupted she couldn't even launch the startup screen.

She winced. 'Back on Claudia'. That little thought made her long for the safety of the larger ship. For the feeling of reliability. For the company. With a sinking feeling, she wondered if she'd ever get to see the vessel again. See Kerfuffle or Smile or-

Tami shook her head vigorously, then groaned as her hangover reminded her not to. Those thoughts were driving a merciless set of barbed talons around her heart to grip and drag her down. That years-old enemy that would flow under her skin and seep into her brain to make her think ill of everything. Gently but firmly, she forced herself to focus on the same routine of checking the systems, her hands gripping three switches to test each external light. They all worked. Then on to the oxygen systems, and then a dozen more pointless checks to occupy her mind.

And yet, it wouldn't leave. Try as she might, the prickly sting of worry wouldn't stop prodding at her will from the edges of her thoughts. Fear. It was fear. And it was getting stronger. Every minute, every hour without some sign or hope, it grew in strength, making the shuttle feel smaller. Making the void outside feel larger. Suddenly she wished Hair Trigger were awake, but a sharp grip of anxiety bit back the urge to actually get up and wake someone else from the fragile relief that was sleep back into this nightmare. 'That would be selfish', it told her. And so she sat in silence, struggling to fight ‘it’ alone.

Oxygen wasn't a problem. The water electrolysis process was functioning and showed no signs of wear. The water itself was in fine quantity, and the condensation filters were working. The small reactor below their hooves showed no signs of becoming unstable.

Briefly, Tami curled up on the chair, rocking gently and hugging her wings around herself. There wasn't much else to do. She didn't even have any sketchbooks with her, and they were keeping their multibands turned off as much as possible to conserve power. All she could do was stare out at the stars she so loved and try not to let them feel foreboding. There were thousands. While they called it the 'black', out here it never truly was, and Tami sought refuge in the colour. The passionate red haze twinkling with its tens of thousands of years old light. The faint blue she could swear was out there that maybe meant the NLR was nearby. The yellow-white glow even when the nearest star wasn't in view.

Maliciously though, every one of them only spoke of despairing distance. Briefly, she shivered. It was getting chilly, she knew, but it wasn't just down to the temperature.

Then, she blinked. 'Getting?' Since when should she had felt it getting-

Suddenly, with a panicked urge, she reached for the systems diagnostics again and drew up the temperature management panel. She switched to a graph of the last few hours. She read it. And then, refusing to accept it, she read it again. It hadn't changed.

What had been a steady horizontal line had suddenly dipped sharply.

That dark grip on her heart turned to ice.

And squeezed.

Hair Trigger was still woozy, but her ears picked out the worried groan. The sounds of distress. Momentarily, her brain wanted her to mutter out something about it being fine to be embarrassed the morning after, but the follow up whine of genuine fear set a red alert running through to her eyes, forcing them to open.

Fluffy-headed, tiredness cramming her head like stale pudding, Trigger pulled her aching, body up long before she even knew what she was looking at. Briefly, she wondered why it felt cooler than last night, despite the blanket.

“No! No-no-nooo don't do that! Don't!”

Blinking sharply, she heard Tami's voice. High-pitched. Worried. With a groan, she dragged herself over to the pilot's chair.

“Tamphi?” she muttered, before things dropped into sharp clarity and she saw Tami's horrified face.

“Captain? You're-Look! It's-it's-” she shouted, and in a hurried voice, outlined the problem. “I-I don't know why! Something's broken! The power's in the battery but something's failed somewhere! The life support temperature control's broken, it-it-it can't retain heat!”

The bright touchscreen burned Trigger's eyes, but she could see the graph. In the last few hours, the temperature had fallen from about twenty-two Celsius to sixteen, just below the minimum living standard of any ship, and it seemed to be trending downwards. She carefully kept her face still. She'd expected some level of reduction; these shuttles weren't intended for this and they’d patched a few holes, but even her surface level knowledge of these things knew the decline shouldn't have been this sharp.

“Can we fix it?” she muttered, looking around her, but Tami only shook her head, her big eyes fearful.

“The s-system's intact. It must be something exposed on the outer hull freezing up. Maybe the heat sinks got locked on full open so they aren’t retaining any more.”

This was bad. She knew it was bad, and there was no doubt Tami would know it too. Loss of heat would only continue in space. Hair Trigger had heard the stories amidst her family about crews dying to cold exposure before starvation or asphyxiation. Never in her life had she imagined she might face the same horror those others did. Worse, in a situation like this. After robots, space-battles, possessed magic users and crime syndicates, this? This was what did it?

Hair Trigger fought the hardest battle of the whole excursion to not swear and rant profusely at the sheer unfairness of it all. She couldn't show the sinking dread that swamped her heart in front of the hippogriff. She couldn't. The revulsion at the thought of panicking the pilot any more gave her the strength to force it down again and take a slow breath.

“We've got blankets, and we've got time.” The words were stoic and firm, but it was all she could manage. “The beacon's out there. Just- Just sit tight.”

Tami held her hands to her forehead and Trigger softly turned the chair away from the panel displaying nothing but ill portents. She ruffled Tami's mane gently. “Hey, Tam? It'll be fine, okay?”

She felt like she was lying, but forced herself to believe she wasn't.

Tami nodded gently. “Aye, Captain. I-I just need to think about other things?”

“Good girl. That's it.”

Sniffling, Tami opened her eyes at last. “Like, um, once my dog Orbit did this really stupid thing...”

Now that was something Hair Trigger could cling to. Reaching past the turn off the offending diagnostic, she dropped into the co-pilot chair and gently floated a blanket up from the floor for each of them. “Tell me all about it.”

Yet as she listened, and smiled, Trigger was mentally bracing herself for the survival stage. The comfortable portion of just staying distracted was over.

Now, she knew, was when it got tough.

“Soldering iron!”

Kerfuffle absent-mindedly reached behind his toolkit and retrieved Tami's soldering iron from the rug of various tools. He handed it off to his side, feeling lilac magic lift it. It floated away into a large tent within Claudia's cargo hold.

He never took his eyes off of the ramp out to the hangar. Every few minutes, groups trotted or flew by. Hangar teams or other ship crews. And every time, he hoped one of them would bear a uniform and come rushing up to them.

They never did.

“Voltage gauge!”

His hands moved. A tool was lifted. It floated away into the tent.

Days now. Days of worry. Days of constantly being told to wait. Or to leave it to ‘them’. He had barely slept, and the reason felt as frustrating as this entire situation.

Simply put: he felt useless.

There was no mechanical challenge here. There was nothing he could grunt hard and lift up. There was no harm he could put himself in the way of. With Claudia idle under Port Medusa’s traffic lockdown he hadn't even had a lot of work to do. And yet if he ever went to bed or tried to work on another ship in the hangar it only stung with guilt, like he was working on something that wasn't the real problem.

The problem he couldn't do anything to solve, no matter how many times he broke it down into its abstract parts and put it back together.

“Arcano-wrench!”

Mrs Smiles hadn't been on Claudia much. She'd spent her days petitioning and queuing for updates. Trying to get any search and rescue groups on the line. She'd even tried the refuelling charities, hoping one of them could be fooled into sending ships to nearby systems just in case. She'd been busy.

“Arcano-wrench?”

Eleven had whatever inventive new project she was working on now. She rarely spoke about what they were while working, however animatedly excited she was about chasing down parts. Probably just to keep herself busy as much as Smile. Kerfuffle never felt like he could do that though. Not now. It was like a short circuit and it tore at him, looping around in pointless circles until it blew up inside and the problem had only gone back to square one and started hurting all over again. It reminded him uncomfortably of his sister Galena, and how he'd felt utterly helpless to do anything to stop her waning health while back home in Labyrinth. Even then he had at least known he could leave to find money for her. But for this new problem, no solution yet seemed apparent.

“Arcano-” There was a pause, a ruffle of a tent door, and then Eleven's bright eyes peered around into Kerfuffle's vision. “Kiffle?”

He blinked, startled, looking at the unicorn peering into his line of sight from the side, her body stretched around. She didn't look annoyed, just concerned. He slowly reached out for the tool. “Sorry, Miss.”

Eleven just put her hoof on his wrist, holding it down and stopping him. “You're hurting.”

She said it so simply, so crystal clear, that he couldn't muster even the energy to dare try to deny it. He nodded. “Yes, Miss. Tami and the Cap'n are all alone. An' I can't help them...”

The young unicorn frowned and nodded. “I know it's tough, Kiffle!

He was surprised to feel her shuffle forward and hop up onto her hindlegs to press against his chest, hooves spreading wide to hug, unable to get around him. A gentle warmth attempted comfort, and he rested an arm around her small shoulders. She said something, but it came out muffled. Shaking her head, making him feel the heavy fluff about his body wriggle, she looked up and tried again. “We'll get them! I know we will!”

Try as he might, Kerfuffle hesitant to agree. Eleven's fairy-tale princess innocence approach to some things could be refreshing and enheartening, but right now the situation just felt so barren. So harshly mundane in the realities of space travel gone wrong. But his momentary silence led to Eleven backing off a little, slapping one hoof into the other loudly and then swinging her foreleg up like a circus ringmaster. “And we'll find them with this!”

Behind her, the canvas tent billowed open in her magic, revealing the prize within. The light from the hold's LED boards washed inwards, illuminating a mess of components around an old starship nose-cone's innards. Kerfuffle raised his eyebrows, looking up. Wires were arranged in a chaotic mess, wrapped about the antenna that all ships used to transmit a rift-opening signal, and yet the more he looked there was an order to them, in colour if not in position. A pattern. A plan. Attached to it was a bridge's FTL computer and what looked like the transmit-receive array for a radar.

He took a sharp breath. He'd thought she had just been killing time. But this? His beak began to open, her beaming pride cutting through the murky waters of anxiety. “Miss, what is...” He got up, staring at it, as Eleven bounded over and hurried around it. She pointed out bit after bit.

“So see I had this, so I attached it to the mana-sucker! Which is what I called it because I don't know what you all call it! I can just see what it's meant to do! And then it goes to the vortex-accumulator, and then to the red-thingy before coming back to the hoofie-tappy-pad, which is a better name because you don't use 'keys' in this model anyway, and it's not a board!”

She paused, coming to a halt, and then hugged her own invention, rubbing her cheek on a circuit panel. “It's an M-Space Rift Tracker! I'm gonna figure out where they went even if those caveponies they call experts here can't figure it out even with a hundred of them and a dozen ships! Who needs triangulation when you can just ask the rift itself? They're very polite if you give them a little jolt of arcane energy! It's not ready yet, but I can do it! It's just all in the math and magic!”

Wiggling her forelegs, she mimicked 'math' and 'magic' colliding together with a sharp bonk of hooves, before dropping them down again.

Kerfuffle just stared. Then, he gently reached out, and clasped his large hand around her foreleg. “You're gonna save ‘em, Miss?”

“I am,” she stated definitively. “If... If everything I worked out works. Which it usually does! But this is sort of a new area of things. I'm not sure what else it might need to function... But-but I'm sure I can solve them! It's just a minimalist piece of inter-dimensional magic analysis, how hard could it be?”

Kerfuffle knew the answer: hard. Very hard. But if there was anyone he trusted to somehow pull it off, it was Eleven and her supercomputer of a brain. The young mare was a naturally born genius. That and her talent for magic were why Sidewinder had wanted her so badly for their horrific ends. If she believed in it, then so did he.

Her hoof raised up onto the wrist of his clasping hand. Her energy subsided, and there was truth in her words. “I'm going to try, Kiffle. I just hope I'm not too late.”

“Let me know if there's anything I can do? I'm...” He almost complained aloud to her, but solid belief in not burdening her in her moment of inventiveness pushed him not to. It wouldn't be right to complain about his feelings right then. He shook his head. “Sorry, just thinkin' about them.”

“I know, Kiffle,” she said quietly. “I know. I can't imagine how scary it must be. If I think of anything, I'll let you know.”

He let Eleven return to her work and resumed sitting by her tent, otherwise alone in the empty cargo hold, staring out the open hatch. Staring into the hangar. Through the hangar. Into the shimmering shield protecting them from the vacuum across the bay.

Staring into the stars.

Somewhere out there.

He refused to believe they weren’t waiting for them somewhere, yet clenched his fists, momentarily feeling a pang of worry about what would still happen if they were too late. It felt unsettlingly familiar - knowing that someone he cared about was in danger from a problem he could never solve. Eleven had given him some hope, the bright spark that she was. But even so, he worried idle and felt a groaning pit in his stomach - one that he recognised but rarely identified out loud.

It was frustration: a deep anger with no direction.

Without meaning to, he tried to imagine Claudia without them. Without seeing that smile, or hearing those jokes he didn't always get.

He couldn't.

Two blankets. There were two blankets.

Two blankets, two pillows, and whatever cushioning they could pull off the chairs in the cockpit.

Hair Trigger looked around her, clicking her tongue. The crates didn't have any padding; they were held in racks. There wasn't any fabric lining to the shuttle's inner housing. She shivered, then mentally kicked herself to stop doing that. Not yet.

Still, that was all they had.

She'd torn the cushions from the piloting seats and now sat on the floor using what was left of the breach sealant to repair them into a makeshift blanket. She wished she had the energy to be angry - the energy to rant and rave and somehow force the universe to change - but mental exhaustion was setting in. She'd been born on a starship. She hadn't even touched a planet until she already knew how to trot and speak. But the growing cold and claustrophobia were assaulting even her, and things were only getting worse.

Six hours ago, the lights had begun to dim. An hour after that a warning had flickered up, announcing that their boiling vessel was no longer operable. The thought of a warm drink to sustain them had since died. Various screens had flickered out ever since then. Every so often she would see one blink out as circuit boards and wires nearer the outside of the hull froze. The temperature continued to drop. Trigger felt her body shivering gently, a dry chill sitting idle in the static, quiet environment. Not dangerous - not yet.

Any of the quick-tempered rage she might usually have felt began to drift away, left only with a growing worry as the void sought to worm its way into their little shelter. What had once felt a cosy little time to be close to Tami and wait for rescue was rapidly changed. What had to be days had now passed with only the slow, creeping approach of an end they were powerless to prevent. Two? Three? It was hard to tell, but at her best estimate, they were closer to the end than they were to the start if no-one came.

Tami was sitting wrapped in a blanket between the chairs in the now barren cockpit, staring out at the stars. She could see the hippogriff's hands shaking as she wrung them over and over. It wasn't just the cold, that she knew, even if it was getting bitter.

“See anything nice out there, Tam?”

There was a brief pause, then finally a small inhalation. “Just a pretty blue one out there somewhere, Captain,” Tami replied, her voice hollow and quiet.

“You do love your stars, don't you?” Hair Trigger tried to hope her reflection in the glass let Tami see her smile. Pointless chatter was still chatter.

She didn't turn around. “Love a whole lot of things, Captain.”

'Questions. Keep questions going,' she told herself. 'Jokes or teases, hell flirt with her if you have to, just keep her thinking on that and not the nightmare we're in!'

“Well, that we know, huh? Can never walk onto that bridge without finding something pretty there, eh? Even if it's just you.”

The hippogriff just stared out into the dark, trembling and clicking her talons against one another anxiously. She made a gentle sound, like a tiny laugh. Trigger could sense the blush. “Like the stars, yeah. Always wanted to reach them. Be up here. Find all I imagined.”

“Mhm.” Hair Trigger picked up the sealant and went back to work. “Funny that. You say 'up here' a lot. Not 'out here'. Like it's always an escape from the ground for you, huh?”

“It's what it feels like, Captain. Spent so long looking up, it's hard to see it as anything else now.”

Hair Trigger sucked in the cold air and chuckled lightly.

Tami's head turned. “What was that, Captain?”

“Oh, nothing, you'd blush.”

Tami cocked her head. “What? Captain! Tell me!”

Hair Trigger felt her body heave and shudder as she finished her work, reaching for the other blanket. “Of all the crew, you call me 'captain' so much more in every sentence. I bet you'd call me that no matter what now. Like if you spoke at my wedding.”

Tami blinked. “You're...you're getting-to Tundra!?”

“No no! Well, not yet.” She winked slyly. “Just, can you imagine it? A speech saying 'To the Captain and Tundra', ‘cos you always call me it. Always that.”

“Because you are!” Tami gasped, and hugged her blanket tight.

“Do you even call me just that in your diary?”

“Yes!”

“Wow.”

Tami shook her body. “Wow, what? What would have made me blush?”

Hair Trigger winked at her. “You know my kind of humour. Imagine what kind of situation I found it funny to imagine you still insistently calling me 'Captain' in.”

The utter silence of the shuttle reigned for a moment as those big blue eyes stared back at the unicorn, and briefly she wondered if she'd left it too open, or pushed too far. But then she saw the blush forming, and then a claw slapping into her own head. Hair Trigger cackled, using her magic to ruffle Tami's huge mane.

“Caaaptaaaain...”

“Yeah I figure it would sound like that.”

“A-HEY!” She laughed. She actually laughed, and Hair Trigger felt a surge of victory in her chest. Every laugh mattered. Every few minutes she kept Tami smiling. Every little longer she protected her from the dread. Tami pushed her fringe back, biting her lip. “It's because it's what I saw all my dad's old crew doing to him when they visited, really. Even decades after he retired, they still called him that. Because they respected him that much.” She flushed, shuffling awkwardly, but her face was earnest. “It's because I feel that too. Because I've seen captains and I've seen captains, Captain.” She paused, thinking that sentence over. “What I mean is, I've seen ones that just have a rank, and ones who embody the word as I grew up hearing what it meant. Looking out for the crew, directing us, keeping us safe. You do that. So, well, it feels right, y'know? To call you it.”

Hair Trigger looked into that innocently earnest face and felt her heart swell, almost as much as it had the very first time. The first time anyone had ever called her that word properly. That had been Tami as well. She shifted, feeling oddly on the spot, masking it as moving her backside off of a cold spot between the cushions.

“H-Hey, Captain?” Tami's stuttering voice interrupted her thoughts, the cold making her pause.

“Yeah?”

“Why is your humour all s-so, y'know? Naughty?” Tami chirped up, losing volume toward the end, but with curiosity in her eyes.

'Good,' thought Trigger, 'she's thinking of something else.' She lay back against the steel hull and shrugged. “Had a lot of brothers but no sisters; a lot of those brothers were teenagers when I was growing up. Bunch of young horny stallions all cooped up in spaceships making jokes. Guess I got it from them. As for why?”

She thought about it for a moment. It wasn't that she didn't realise she had a 'rep' for it, and defaulted to it when needing to quip. It was just a thing she’d never bothered seeing as out of the ordinary. It was certainly par the course back home. She bobbed her head side to side as though uncertain. “Never was one to care much for 'keeping up appearances'. Guess I just get a kick out of getting to see the reaction from people as much as the gag itself. Low hanging fruit can still taste as good as any other after all.”

Tami nodded slowly. “I suppose...”

“That make sense?”

“Mhm.”

Hair Trigger paused, sucked her lip, then pressed further. Her voice drifted, her tongue catching the chill, but she asked it lightly. Quietly. “Tell me the truth, Tami. I know what you said when we were drinking but, have I ever made you uncomfortable with it?”

The pilot's eyes opened wider, then blinked. She looked away, and Hair Trigger could tell there was some soul-searching going on. That worried her. Any hesitation felt concerning. But eventually, the hippogriff shook her head rather definitively.

“No. Embarrassed, sure. Silly, definitely. But not uncomfortable. If anything, when you started doing it, I thought it meant that you respected me and thought I could take it on the chin. Like you had faith I'd be okay, because y-you didn't do it to people even I could see wouldn't be comfortable with it.”

Trigger nodded firmly. “Good. Cos' that's what it is.”

She smiled, and saw Tami return a tired one. There was a twist in her gut at the sight. Tami's smiles were something she always liked finding each day. A burst of joy. But this one was fading. Weaker. Smaller.

Then, as she worried, and tried to muster up her best tease to make Tami crack up, there was a loud electronic chime, three high-pitched warning notes. The sharp but heavy groan of electronics shutting down shot through the shuttle. The internal lights snapped off, plunging both of them into darkness.

The panel alarm was followed by a loud, terrified shriek, and she saw Tami cover her head, silhouetted against the faint texture of the stars. Trigger's own spine felt frozen solid, stuck in place as everything disappeared. No light. No heating.

“C-Captain?”

“I'm here, Tam. I'm here.” Hair Trigger could feel the words bite as she said them. 'Here' was the last place she wanted to be.

“I'm scared...”

“Don't- don't let it in, okay? Just keep saying what you were saying. Stuff you love, right? Can you do that for me?” She paused and heard no reply. “Can you?”

A tiny voice. “Yes, Captain.”

Trigger breathed in hard through her nostrils, wishing she could will her body into motion. But much as she wanted to deny it, the shock had rattled her. “G-Good, what else?”

“There's... There's fancy treats.”

“Good, what kind?”

“C-Cinnamon?”

There was a sudden silence from the hippogriff. Hair Trigger almost pushed her with another prompt, and picked up a blanket to hoof it over. But as she did, she heard Tami sniffle before she could say anything.

“S-Sorry, Captain.”

Gently, Hair Trigger laid down the blanket. “It's okay, Tam. It's scary, I know...”

Then suddenly, to her surprise, Tami shook her head harshly.

“I-It's not that! It's not! I-I'm fine! I just... I miss Orbit, Captain.” Her voice was dull.

“Been a while since you came onto Claudia, yeah.” Hair Trigger redirected the timescale, toying with a cup in her hooves, but the tone in Tami's voice made her pause, looking over at the young pilot.

Tami seemed not to hear her. “I miss him and his big goofy smile with his tongue out. And I miss my hammock. I miss Claudia. And my parents. And Kiffie. And Smile.” She took a loud breath, but her voice was dull and monotone. “And Whisper, and Tundra, and Eleven, and Vebs... A-and my orange chocolate cookies I hid below the bridge panels...”

Hair Trigger saw her look up, again staring out at the slowly spinning coloured stars, their glow lighting up her worn down face. She spoke again, almost bored sounding, but her voice began to pick up slightly in pace.

“I love all of them! And the magic we see when we go through a rift. And-And the nebula in the NLR! A-A-And piloting the Regulus, I-I-I...”

“Tami.” Hair Trigger got up. Her voice was gentle.

Tami's pitch rose up. Rapid. Barely breathing between sentences. “I always wanted to do it again! P-Properly this time! And take it through Saphiban's rings! And to go visit Equestria itself with M-Midnight like he said! Or see Zebraha at last! And I can't wait t-to see Eleven free of all this o-or go to a rave with Whisper!”

“Tami...”

There was a high strung half-laugh half-splutter from the shaking pilot. “And I'm going to book a romantic dinner for you and Tundra w-without you both knowing till you're there and-and-we'll pay off Claudia and we'll finally be able to just live free with our home. Haha! Hahaaa! And it'll be great, Captain! It'll b-b-b-be great and I d-don't have to worry! I'm not scared because it'll be fine! I'm not scared! I'm not-”

She paused. Then suddenly, her laugh turned to a panting, hyperventilating struggle. She began convulsing, chest rising and falling with a shaking, forced humour. Light from the sun glittered off a dampness on her cheeks, as the laugh sharply broke into heaving, choking sobs, and heavy tears began streaming from her eyes. Her voice cracked, breaking into hysterical panic.

“I’m not-I-I don't want to die!”

Held back for days, finally brought to the surface by the sudden darkness, her growing fear of the inevitable broke through the fragile barriers of her composure and began to overwhelm her. She held her head, wailing and rocking, hitting a falsetto pitch of terror.

“I don't want to die yet! Not freezing to- Not out here not like this! I don't want-I don't want to! I DON'T!”

And there was nothing. Nothing in the galaxy. No power, no evil, that could have stopped Hair Trigger crossing those few feet to grab the terrified, wailing hippogriff into a tight embrace, holding Tami closely against her chest to sway and stroke for as long as it might take.

“Hit it, Kiffle!”

Eleven's voice was barely audible over the whine of a portable generator echoing inside Claudia's cargo hold. Thick cables reinforced by brass rings jumped and sparked as Kerfuffle slammed the generator's 'input' lever up to allow power to flow into a strange contraption.

It looked like a Heartswarming tree, made up of a starship's rift-navigating antenna turned to face the ceiling, mounted on the swash plate of two linked sensor arrays. Two FTL computers were hooked up to it, mounted either side of the deliriously grinning pink unicorn, a set of borrowed welding goggles over her eyes.

As she watched, the antenna sparked at its tip, and flashed. White tendrils of magical energy began flowing around it in small spirals, attracted to the numerous pointed ends of the antenna like a magnetic field over some arcane piece of modern art. Rubbing her hooves, she closed her eyes and focused, her horn lighting up in a blazing glow, pouring her own magical energies into it. Supercharging it. Conducting her own knowledge of magical rifts to refine the power stored in it, until she was sure it was right.

“Smile!” She shouted the name, and behind her, Volatility Smile leaned in to click the connection to the computers on.

The theory was simple. The antenna on a ship helped navigate into a rift. Thus it had to be able to detect them. The sensor array could extrapolate complex data. 'Sensor fusion', she had called it. With some adjustments, the belief was that the antenna could detect the rift they wanted, and the sensor array combined with Eleven's own knowledge of arcane tears in reality could perhaps determine its exit point.

Opening her eyes, seeing the computers light up with lines of data, Eleven grinned. “It's-”

The magic began to waver. The bands of glowing power wobbled, and then snapped. Dispersing with a pop of overpressure that had all three holding their ears, the power within the machine cycled down.

Smile looked up. Kerfuffle stared awkwardly at the floor.

“-not working.” Eleven finished, then sighed.

“Well, let's try again! Don't worry, this isn't simple.” Smile rubbed the unicorn’s back. “So how do we-”

The unicorn shook her head. “No, no, you don't get it!” She pointed up at the antenna. It was still glowing faintly. “It needs time to discharge properly, or it'll be useless to try again. Maybe even melt it!”

Kerfuffle let go of the generator and stared at the strange dancing light remaining like an aura around the antenna itself. “How long?”

Eleven shrugged. “It's overcharged. Maybe... a day?”

All three of them paused. There was an uncomfortable silence. Kerfuffle felt impatience broil up inside. Delays. Always delays. The technology required to build this hadn't involved him at all. It had been areas he didn't know, short of some heavy lifting. Now it had failed, and he didn't know how to solve this either. It felt selfish in a strange way, he was happy that there was a plan at all, but every natural instinct said to do something more himself and not leave it to others to strain at alone, and yet nothing felt like enough. He tensed, and felt surprised at having to manually control his voice for the first time in a long while to not let others hear the mounting annoyance.

“Anything I can do to shorten it, Miss? Coolant? Get a fan on it?”

The unicorn leaned her head back, staring idly at the ceiling. “It'd save nothing. Inconsequential. Heat retains no portion of the mana to- Hey! Where are you going? Kiffle?”

Kerfuffle had started climbing the ladder up to the main street, toward engineering. He felt appalled at himself for just walking away from them - Eleven in particular - but an uncomfortable, impulsive resentment was swelling up inside and he wanted it nowhere near the others.

'Something to do,' he kept thinking. 'Something to help.'

Nothing.

The shuttle was quiet.

Hair Trigger sat by herself at the front, watching the last remaining diagnostic panel gradually tick down the temperature and routinely update that there had been no response to their distress beacon.

It had taken a difficult quarter of an hour for Tami's panic attack to subside. She'd exhausted herself to the point that it had become impossible to keep it up, or do much of anything. Gently, Trigger had encouraged her to drink some sugary juice and eat a little energy bar to quell the shock, then laid her down on one of the benches to rest, wrapped tightly in a blanket. She could see Tami still resting now behind her, facing the hull, just a bundle of fabric and pillows.

Hair Trigger had tried to sleep too, but it hadn't come. Instead she had dragged her own blanket up to the cockpit, and sat with a quarter-hoof of rum to quietly sip at. Not even enough to get a light buzz, but it gave her something to take momentary relief in. A burn to focus on away from the shivering cold beginning to overtake their metal coffin.

That was what it felt like now. An inert metal container whose temperature was slowly ticking down past eight degrees Celsius. She'd been in lower, but prolonged exposure was a slow-moving enemy. Already it felt like the cold was seeping into her bones. Into her head. She gulped a portion of rum. Even a successful rescue probably meant enduring an onset of hypothermia. It was a sobering thought.

Shivering, she clutched the blanket closer, wishing it felt warmer.

The truth was, however, that even focusing on the cold helped her not focus on the worse feeling lurking at the back of her mind: guilt.

It was illogical. She knew it was. This was not her fault, but she couldn't stop thinking about if she'd gone with Smile's idea instead. They'd have been back in the station by now. They wouldn’t be out here, freezing to-

She shook her head, not wanting to finish that thought.

It was upsetting. The last thing she remembered of Smile had been them arguing. 'What a way to part ways,' she thought, 'after having been through so much together. A stupid argument, then this.'

That same thought spread further out, winding through everything that mattered left behind. Not seeing Kerfuffle happy at his cured sister. Eleven was still without the peace she wanted. Whisper still needed them around, Trigger knew it. No chance to see Tundra, to give that big fluffy goofball one last squeeze. No chance to go back to her family since leaving to find her own ship, to show them what she'd done. So much left incomplete, undone by a freak accident.

Tensing up, feeling her teeth grind and grit, Hair Trigger harshly blew cold air out her nose, trying to push it all back. Whisper had talked about it once. The 'will to live' being a conscious mental attribute to surviving. She couldn't give in to those thoughts yet. Not yet. Better to sleep, kill them off with a bit of unconsciousness.

Knocking back the remainder of her small glass, she willed her trembling limbs into operation and got up to go back to her own bench. Walking through the cool air of the shuttle though, she paused, her eyes darting down to the figure opposite.

Deep in her own blanket, seemingly asleep, Tami was shivering far more than before, limbs clutched tight. Softly, she whimpered. Awake? A nightmare?

For a moment, Hair Trigger stood still in the gap between the two benches, feeling the cold seeping in after moving. There wasn't much thought. Certainly no debate. With a single motion, she draped her own blanket over the quivering pilot. Softly, she pushed Tami inwards on the bench a little, freeing up some room.

“Cap...tain?” The voice was quiet and sleepy.

“Shh, just rest. I'm here,” she soothed, and clambered onto the bench to pull herself in under the blankets with the hippogriff. Hugging her chest up to Tami's back and wrapping her limbs around, she snuggled up tightly, feeling Tami's softer, fluffy body flex under her grip and pressure. She was cold, but there was some warmth still, and Trigger held on tight to offer some of her own, leaning her cheek in against Tami's neck.

After a moment, she felt a shaking hand grip her foreleg, clawtips pricking her fetlock. They held tight.

“-nk you...” The tiny, worried and dozy voice muttered, before she felt Tami shift, turning a little until they could both pull in close to one another under the blankets.

And around them, the shuttle spun.

And the temperature continued to fall.

There was a sharp crack, and in a blinding flash of light, the antenna's energies shattered into the ether.

“Urgh! Come ON!” Eleven spun and bucked a leg backward, knocking a bucket across the floor of the hold. She grabbed the computer screen, screwing up her face in annoyance, like she blamed it for offending her. “What is WRONG? It should work! It should! The maths are right!”

Beside her, Volatility Smile gently laid her hooves on the unicorn's shoulders. Disappointment gripped her stomach too, but the sight of Eleven of all ponies getting angry gave her pause.

“Something must be going wrong-”

“I know!” Eleven snapped, not directly at her. She threw both forelegs up, as though challenging the glowing antenna to a fight. “But I can't tell till I activate it each time! That's... That's another day a-and-and they're...”

She slumped down, holding her head. Smile gently rubbed her shoulders, watching Kerfuffle move in to disconnect the contraption's power with a defeated, neutral look on his face. “Think, sweetie. There's got to be something. If all the calculations are correct, and I trust you on that, then there's something else interfering.”

Face hidden behind her hooves, Eleven went quiet and still.

“Miss?” Kerfuffle settled down near the control panel, leaning his head down to her.

The unicorn started whispering gently. Drifting, complex words. Slowly, she closed her eyes and moved her hooves to her own ears, blocking out all sound and sight. Her mouth kept moving, rapidly, talking like a speed-reader, skipping over crucial sentence structure in her own little world.

“Detection-aura-means-coordinated-signal-in-flux-too-abstract-formula-never-no-overload-power-to-simplify-it's-wait-wait-combine-add-up-likely-numbers...”

Then her eyes jolted open.

“Options. It's options!”

Sitting down, Kerfuffle tilted his head. “What do you mean, Miss? Options, like, settings? Preferences?”

She shook her head, then got up and started pacing in a circle around the machine. “No! NO! Dirty! Errors! Uh-uh, see? Erasing! That's it! People keep opening rifts here every day since it happened, so they must have been gradually corrupting any lingering rift radiation to detect! It's trying to track ALL of them! And even if it could filter out the tanker’s big one, its signal trace is flooded with all the others that are too similar or in the same area!”

Smile looked up at the glowing poles, and twisted her mouth. “Like other hoofprints going over a trail you're tracking, right. Million credit question, Eleven. Does that mean it's impossible?”

There was a pause, and Smile felt impatience rise.

“Eleven?”

The young genius breathed deeply, then shook her head. “No! No it's possible, but all the data here is as confused and blind as most unicorns seem to be! I'd need the clean telemetry recorded from the incident itself, or it's not doable!”

Kerfuffle looked from Eleven to Smile, clearly finding this beyond his ken. He was looking antsy, Smile thought, obviously feeling helpless, and she didn't know the solution to that. “Port Medusa's sensor suite - Alyssum must have it on record. It was just the ships she said would take too long, but-”

“Forgot those idiots in their 'ships'!” Eleven retorted, stamping a hoof. “They couldn't track their own hooves! If I had that data that's all I'd need-”

“Then you could... Okay! Okay!” Smile was already bringing up her multiband, keying into Medusa’s administration wing. She scanned the available appointments for the director, or even just for Gerhard, and bit back a curse.

Kerfuffle stepped over, looking above Smile's head to see the screen. “How long? The Cap'n and Miss Tami are-”

“I know!” she snapped, and instead logged in via the market wing, trying to craft a high priority (and completely fake) trade request to try and get the attention of the automated priority process to connect to Alyssum. It was unavailable. She swiped that away and tried a direct call to the receptionist. It didn't even get forwarded.

“Damn it! It's-”

She felt a huge set of claws land on her shoulder and firmly turn her to look at a stern, shockingly serious face. Kerfuffle's eyes were narrow, his normally neutral blankness replaced by a burning, frustrated intensity.

“How. Long?”

Smile sighed. “Two days for the next appointment. I could try going up to her reception and-”

Kerfuffle listened to her. All this time, he had been as patient as he could be. He had mighty reserves of tolerance. He always had been that way. But helplessness, and having been reduced to sitting and watching as day after day was being added to the 'just wait' counter had been wearing away at it. All the while, two of his closest companions were under dire threat.

And even he had his limits.

Limits that had just been crossed.

The massive griffon suddenly stood up, embodying his full size. No slouch. No passive hunch to be on a level with others. He towered above the crystal pony and the unicorn with broad shoulders and enormous wings that snapped back with a whip-crack of air about his heavy, broad body.

“Kiffle?” Eleven sat open mouthed, meekly shrinking down. “Kiffle, wh-what are you planning to-”

“We're meetin' her,” he said, his voice brimming with certainty. “Now.”

He turned and, heedless of the pain of his injuries, surged out of Claudia's hold with a blast of air from his wings to do the one thing he now felt he could to help them.

The reception outside Sweet Alyssum's office was crowded. Creatures of all shapes and sizes had filled the waiting seats lining the thin corridor between the elevator and the reception desk. The lush statues and hanging frames of art that so set it apart from Medusa's hard steel aesthetic were obscured behind spacers, traders, mechanics, search and rescue captains, enforcers and more. One ancient security drone was frantically doing its best to ensure they were all obeying noise laws from ten years ago, much to the consternation of the overworked receptionist. Moreso her two griffon security guards, who kept finding their own shouts triggering the bot again and again as well.

But behind this chaos, the elevator rumbled open and an enormous fluffy shape strode out of it.

Shouted requests turned to cries of annoyance as huge hands pushed them aside, lest the strong shoulders knock them over. Kerfuffle didn't stop once. He drove through them at a ceaseless pace like a frontier train's snow-plough. One minotaur turned, snarling, and shoved back.

“Hey, wait your-”

There was a rush of motion that belied the normally gentle griffon, as he launched forward and grabbed. A moment later, the minotaur found himself hurled back onto the laps of four surprised zebras. Kerfuffle turned, stepped over a small deer, and kept clambering forward, his eyes locked on the Director’s door.

“We need to see her! Now!” he barked. A tone of voice so unheard from him.

The two security guards launched forward, barring him with their bodies. “Appointments only! There's a lot to-”

They didn't get further. Barriers. Delays. Anything that got in his way was just an obstacle. Armour and batons or not, he launched into them, shoving them and trying to muscle his way past. They grabbed, they tussled, and both got around his arms with professional skill.

“Back off! You can't just-HEY!”

He threw himself to one side, grabbing a guard's bandoleer strap and yanking him down, dropping his weight to throw the guard off their paws, and shoved him into the wall. The other got around behind him and he felt the baton clatter into his scarred back. Kerfuffle’s cry of pain quickly turned into a snarl, and he flung his wings in their face before lashing out behind him with a wild swing. His fist impacted on kevlar, but the strike threw the guard back with a gasping wheeze of a solar plexus being struck. Diving forward, he rushed for the door, only for the first guard to drive into him from behind. Then the second. A third came running out the side corridor at the frantic receptionist's screaming. Two spacers joined in. A dog pile started, trying to stop the enormous griffon from throwing his weight around.

“Get off! We can't wait any longer! They can't wait! I ain't lettin' em-”

“Sir! Stop or we'll use tasers! Cease!”

One reached for his holster, and Kerfuffle didn't hesitate. With one heavy motion, he flung his fist out and crunched it into the guard's face. Anger burned within. They'd become adversaries, trying to hold the crew back from saving Trigger and Tami. Fists that had learned their craft in Labyrinth's rough underhalls reluctantly lashed out to clear some room. Grabbing one spacer, he drove them into the guards like a projectile. A taser dart snap-banged into the ceiling as the shooter was bowled over. He heaved the heavy door open. Halfway through, a baton slammed onto his wrist, then another behind his knee. He dropped, grunted and struck backward, grabbing a leg. He didn't know whose it was, but he dragged them from their hooves anyway. Again and again the batons slammed down, until he drove the door back in the way of most of them like a shield and fell through the gap, still brawling and grappling with the last two. Screams and cries filled the air behind them as he landed on soft carpet, and looked up.

The livid face of the station's director stared down at him, but the guard swinging a baton didn't stop. It cracked into his head with a dizzying thud, and he felt forced to fight back. He rolled with two of Sweet Alyssum’s guards right in front of her, hurling one across the room such that they nearly crushed her glass table. The other toppled a wooden cabinet. Talons grasped at him, and he heard Gerhard's voice screaming.

“Kerfuffle! Stop this! You'll-AUGH!”

The mechanic muscled the older griffon down and shoved him away.

Standing up, he advanced on her -and met two rifle barrels pointed up at him, either side of Alyssum's head. He stopped dead, panting hard, staring at her eye to eye. He saw a trigger start to depress and sucked in his breath.

Sweet Alyssum’s hoof gently reached out, lowering the barrel. “Hold on, Reginald.” The voice was crisp and calm, but her face was firm and lethal. “Out of everyone I expected to ever try this sort of stunt, you weren't one of them. You better have an explanation to justify me not throwing you in the brig for a month.”

“We can-hah-save them!” he said breathlessly. Behind him, he could hear Smile and Eleven hurrying through the crowd that was peering through the door, but he kept his focus on her. “An' you wouldn't see us for the one thing we need in time! The sen-”

“I am aware, Smile already said. But that is no reason for you to come-”

“That was then, Miss! Beggin' your pardon but that ain't the case now! Not at all! Miss Eleven figured out how; we need just the data from your own sensors and we can do it! We can! We can!” He paused, panting, settling. “We can.”

There was a lethal silence. All eyes not on the battered, adrenaline-fuelled griffon were on Alyssum. She was known for her discipline, for not taking unruly acts well. She simply stared at him, then at Smile behind him. Then at the pink unicorn beside them. Only then did Kerfuffle notice Verbena was present, having been beside her half-sister's desk. The young earth pony looked stressed out, her eyes swollen, even sweating. Perhaps petitioning on their behalf? He didn't know. After a moment, the director put her hooves down on the desk. There was a firm knock.

“My father once told me of a griffon who did much of what you did in this very same office, Kerfuffle.” She spoke with authority and strictness. “Brutishly forcing his way in to make a statement when he had not been welcomed. My father was somewhat impressed. Impressed enough to grant the griffon’s request, with caveats. I always thought it a dangerously submissive move to capitulate to such a gesture.”

The hooves raised, crossing to rest over one another, her chin likewise rising. Her eyes were hard and piercing, directed more to the others outside who had suddenly become witness to this.

“I pride myself on knowing creatures who come through my station. Moreso those who work for me. And I know you, Kerfuffle. I know your attitude, and it's not this. You did find a way, didn't you?”

Chest rising and falling, he nodded once. Sweet Alyssum sat back. “Then you'll have your permission, but unlike my father, simply being impressed isn't enough. I give you this on the condition that I take possession of whatever it is you've created immediately afterwards. Such a device, I presume it is, could prove useful to me. Those are the only terms you'll get.”

“That'll do, Miss.” There wasn't a single ounce of hesitation in his voice.

“Director will suffice. Now get out of my sight. And the rest of you?”

She peered around him at the gaggle of spacers.

“Sit down and wait.”

There was a hustle of a dozen creatures all mutually deciding on the best bets for their current dealings. Within moments, a much more organised reception was settled behind him, and the door closed. Eleven shifted up, shivering as she clasped her forelegs around Kerfuffle's arm. Smile put a hoof on his shoulder. Before them, Alyssum keyed something into her personal terminal and nodded.

“Single use access. Tomorrow only. Take it or leave it.”

“We'll take it.” Smile nodded, her hoof gently rubbing Kerfuffle's back.

“I wasn't asking you,” Alyssum retorted, eyes fixed on the griffon.

Slowly, Kerfuffle nodded. “That'll do. Miss.”

There was a brief furrowing of her brow, before she waved her hoof in dismissal.

“Get out.”

They didn't need telling. Both Smile and Eleven moved to the door, Kerfuffle only after a second or two. Quickly, Verbena rushed out behind them after giving her half-sister a small smile.

Half a minute later, as they rode the elevator down together, Kerfuffle sat down against its rear wall and held his head with shaking talons.

Another ten seconds later, there was a soft pushing against him, and his eyes opened just in time to see a light blue mane atop a pink body burrow its way in below his arms to tightly hug him.

“Sorry...if'n I scared any of you,” he mumbled, bashful.

“You were amazing,” Eleven replied. “We got it. Tomorrow, we save them.”

Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow.

So long as it wasn't too late.

How much time had passed, Hair Trigger didn't know.

To check her multiband would have meant moving her foreleg. And right then, she wanted to do nothing but keep it tightly held around the form lying against her in the silent, freezing darkness.

Tami had been quiet for some time, just dozing in Trigger's embrace. Sometimes she would wake, and Hair Trigger would hear the fearful whimpers and feel muscles tense up as the pilot's consciousness returned to this place, but Trigger would always be there to squeeze tighter and rub up her back until the panic eased away again.

Hair Trigger stared blankly at the ceiling of the shuttle, half sat up, unable to sleep herself. She was shivering too much. Her ears felt prickly, and the cold was starting to work its way into her bones like icy vines creeping up an old building's wall. Her breath was misting. Every minute was a longing for something fiercely warm. Even the hippogriff’s body heat felt weaker and any extremities not in contact were cool to the touch until they were rubbed or squeezed between them.

If the time here had given Hair Trigger time to do one thing, it was reflect. She wasn't the sort to normally do that. There was always something to do. Some duty to perform, major or minor. Some issues needing thought. Someone needing a talk. And even if there was none of that, there was the future to be concerned about. The next job. How to help Eleven, or Whisper. What to do after Claudia was finally paid off. Now though, there was none of that. Nothing needing done, and no future assured. And it gave her time to think back on some things.

Her thoughts drifted to all of those in mind. Had she done enough for Kerfuffle? Why hadn't that big overly modest griffon just told her about his sister at the start? Moreso, what now? She didn't want to think about him having to work under another captain who might not see his value past the quiet aloofness the way she did.

The thought of her last interaction with Smile being them throwing barbs still stung. They'd traded them occasionally, but it had never been for long. She'd seen Smile's caring side. She'd likely land on her hooves. Somewhere. Somehow. With a new partner? Whisper? Probably. The thought of what they'd get up to together with no oversight terrified her.

But of Eleven and Whisper, there was just an odd sense of disappointment that gripped her as much as the cold did. That made her clench and shake and hold Tami tighter to steady herself as her breathing grew short and cut at her throat with icy air. Had she done enough for them in the time she had? She worried the answer was no.

And what of her promise to go and see Jelly Biscuit again?

And being able to return to her family. With her ship. Her crew. Her captaincy.

But past that, she couldn't avoid the one magic nerd in the room: Tundra. Her mind had been almost avoiding him, afraid that the memories of warmth, love and pleasure with him close by her would feel too painful and fruitlessly desired while freezing and alone. Weeks. Weeks at most she'd been around him, if that. Their relationship was still fledgling in its growth, and knowing that it might just stop because of one stupid accident?

That hurt.

Staggering her breathing, feeling the sting flowing through every gap in the blankets like a chill wind, she burrowed in again and squeezed tight into Tami to try and bury the negativity. Anger tried to burn to kill it off. It was her stable method. Get mad. Rage. Quash the emotions trying to harm the will to live. But it felt like trying to spark embers on a camp-fire in the midst of a roaring blizzard.

Slowing her breathing, she refocused and looked down on what she actually had with her. She wasn't alone.

She held Tami's upper body to her chest, the hippogriff stretched out beside her. Tami's head was cradled in Trigger's elbow, the join between their undersides keeping the remaining body heat close from face to tangled hindlegs. The unicorn could see Tami's face half hidden beneath that huge, thick mane. That heart shaped face with those rounded cheeks. She didn't deserve this.

Teeth chattering, Hair Trigger stared at her, and gently shifted to move that mane away from tickling Tami's lips. Squeezing the young pilot's cushy frame in, Trigger let her mind wander a little, taking comfort with the almost intimate physical contact and warmth to try and distract from the pain of the cold. The squeeze of their thighs. The rub of chest to chest. A cheek rubbing into her neck. The weight of the hippogriff pressing on her.

But it was fading. Their warmth was dying out as the empty black insidiously wormed its way in. But even so, the contact helped. The mutual tenderness gave her something worth staying awake to feel. It also made her smirk, as she realised she'd shamelessly thought about this before.

She knew the crew had long seen it. She even knew Tami herself had probably guessed it, and Trigger had been quietly relieved when the hippogriff hadn't once ceased to show the same affection, trust and closeness she always had after doubtless figuring it out.

Sometimes she wondered if her instincts were right that there was some in return too.

Once upon a time, before they'd both found some other form of relationship, Trigger knew she'd been tempted to ask. Hell, a part of Hair Trigger's brain that was 'open' about things more than most still got curious now and again about 'what if?'. She'd not deny that. Strength or flaw, it was there.

Now, here, on the edge of possibly the end, she didn't see any need to pretend otherwise, and let her mind think it freely for a few minutes. Just enough distraction. Enough pleasant thought to steal some comfort for herself away from the brooding terror.

She delicately brushed her hoof through Tami's mane. Just once every few seconds. Drowsily, gingerly, feeling her eyes being weighed on at last. The edges of her vision grew blurry, like frost growing on a misty glass pane. The hippogriff whined in her sleep, and Hair Trigger reached around, tenderly holding the back of her head to support her.

Time felt so slow. It creaked by. Inconsistent. Sometimes faster. Sometimes slower. Her eyes opened and closed. She didn't know if it had been instant or not. The stars gave no answers. The cold was so insidious she couldn't even tell when it got worse now.

Even with someone to clutch onto, it simply felt endless. A feeling she knew. A feeling she remembered. A feeling that still sometimes slid in like an unwelcome guest.

She had become lost already, and she now didn't know where to go.

The filly wandered without knowing where her wandering was even taking her. It was wandering that had got her into this dread, and yet more wandering wasn't helping her escape it. Tears flowing over tiny cheeks, sniffling and hiccuping, she held her plush dragon toy to her breast in a faint telekinetic glow, casting a sickly green hue around her. It was enough to illuminate the barest fraction of the monolithic metal jungle that was the primary hold. The largest space within the gargantuan cargo vessel she knew as birthplace and home, the size of a colony, a small town. Amplified by the shadows, the hold’s labyrinthian depths left her as but a speck in the darkness of a singularity.

Corrugated containers large enough to hold a small vehicle were stacked either side, so high that they loomed like skyscrapers streaked with acidic stains and discoloured bulkheads. They stretched up so high that they departed her light, their peaks unseen and their sheer walls brooding with cold, straight angles. The gaps between them were like dingy, cramped streets, streets made of diamond plate and rough-cut recycled steel that rattled and sheared off rust below her when she moved.

Hours. She'd been stuck wandering through the black depths for hours. The absolute scale of the hold created a strange climate of its own, haunting her with uneasy winds and areas of sticky condensation. She no longer knew which way was the front. No longer knew which way the ship was travelling. Where the port or starboard were. Turning and going back might be taking her deeper into the multiple kilometre long nightmare.

It had started as an adventure for the filly. An escapist fantasy to get away from the crew decks full of colts screaming and tussling and fighting. A chance to put eight decks of solid steel between her and them. It had been exciting. An excuse to pack up a recycled water bottle, a packet of rainbow sweets, her planetside jacket, and bring her dragon toy on her back as a companion. A reason to smile and imagine all the cool things she would discover.

At first it had been entrancing. Finding all the colours of identically shaped containers, each with their own bright logos that she imagined were guides to some hidden treasure. Running amok, heedlessly laughing and chasing her imagined trail, she had descended floor after floor down mesh gantries and catwalks into the barren darkness. Thrilling. Daring.

Forgetting the way home.

Sniffing back a runny nose from several bouts of wailing and crying out for someone to hear her, Short Fuse meekly stumbled on through the endless maze. She'd wanted to leave long ago. Her belly cramped with hunger and her hooves were sore with every hard impact. Sometimes it felt like her legs had to struggle to lift before they would slam down hard. Other times she felt like she could bounce. Gravity differed. It was scary in its dreamlike inconsistency. Other times there would be a blast of stinging warm wind, or she'd feel bitter mist flow past her. Her parents had told her the hold worked differently to other areas because of its size. It had sounded amazing.

It was anything but that now. Now, she was worried no-one would ever find her again.

Stopping at a cross, Short Fuse looked left and right. To her right there was a thick wall of darkness past an overhanging line of stacked muddy-red girders. She could see a lashed-down industrial forklift. Momentarily she considered honking its horn to attract someone, but its cab was sealed with thick armoured shields. To the front was only the endless trudge, the common containers everyone used, stacked high in absolute patterns.

To the left, however, she saw something.

The building-sized stack of containers tapered off and the inconsistent floor changed to a singular sheet of riveted steel squares. Tiny hooves wandering, Short Fuse stepped onto it, peering at a vague shape beyond it, looming with high walls and a mighty gate. Like a citadel, a castle from old Equestrian books. Floating her toy ahead, using her magic as a light, she saw chicken wire and a padlock up ahead.

Shivering, whimpering, she saw something else above it. A cylinder with a glittering eye that moved back and forward in a slow, deliberate motion. A camera? A sign rested below it, one she tried her best to read.

'Tobacco Storage'

She felt something crawling up her back and spun on the spot. Behind her, the darkness seemed to stretch out for her. Without the light of the toy, she backed away toward the seeking eye and suddenly ran toward it for help. Grabbing the floating dragon, she fled with scampering gallops before it, and began leaping in place.

“Hey! Hey! Help! Please help! Someone see! Someone! Please! PLEASE!” Her squeaky voice, thick and choked by bouts of crying, made her splutter and cough.

The eye of the camera stopped as it saw her moving, then a red light began to blink. On. Off. On. Off.

Short Fuse froze and sniffed deeply.

On.

Off.

A deafening klaxon erupted from either side of her. Sudden, violently loud, filling the dead silence and making her shriek. She hunched down, hooves over her ears, and screamed. It kept repeating, harsh and sudden, rising, never falling. Howling, tears in her eyes, she turned and fled in terror, back into the maze again. The sound didn't follow, but echoed in ghostly, ethereal wails between the mass of containers and the distant, unfindable hull. She turned corners, like it could chase her, sprinting, falling, sprinting, until finally she tripped, and fell against a vat of some goopy liquid, hunching up in the oily grease of the underbelly, trying to hide from it all to cry.

And the alarm she had triggered kept wailing, somewhere back there. Endless, haunting.

It wasn't-

-stopping!

Hair Trigger jerked sharply, snorting and feeling a spasm rock through her body. Then another. And another. Rapid. Violent. Making her muscles cramp and twist and feel out of control.

The alarm hadn't stopped. It had just changed. From a howling siren to an incisive digital beep in half second pulses that thudded into her numb head.

She realised it wasn't spasms. It was shaking. Terrible, uncontrollable shaking. Her eyes felt welded shut, her body prickly and numb. Gurning, twisting her burning facial features around, she felt her eyes crack open to a dark haze of glinting metal and barbed cold. It was all blurry, as eyes half locked shut and weighed down by crystals of ice pulled painfully open. Through the hazy mess, she saw a white mist emerge from her own panting mouth, lit up by a star's light. The ringed shapes of the shuttle’s bulkheads gradually came to clarity. Everything felt lazy and inconsistent. They shone like a reflective film, and Short Fu-

Hair Trigger shook her head. Aggressive, snorting angrily. Her stiff neck protested. She told it to shut up. She hadn't used that name since she left. Pressing her face into her foreleg, she tried to dull out the hammer blows of the high-pitched alarm before finally looking up again.

The sunspots of light on the deck, walls, and ceiling, they weren't the material reflecting.

They were ice.

A thin, frosty layer of ice was starting to form from condensation. And as she moved, the deathly chill arrived, piercing the numbness. She grasped down around the still and cold form of Tami with a sharp gasp. Never. Never in her life had she been this cold. Never had she held on to someone who felt this barren of heat. The blankets felt stiff and angular, frozen in place.

How long had she lain unconscious? How long had they let the cold seep in more and more? Part of her rebelled; why did she have to wake up now? To go through the freezing all over again, and worse?

She shifted and forced her limbs to operate. Wobbling, she laid Tami down and stumbled to the cockpit, slamming a hoof on the one remaining screen to disable the alarm, noting the grim text.

'WARNING: TEMPERATURE CRITICAL – LETHAL EXPOSURE IMMINENT'

Briefly, she looked out the misted window. Beyond it, nothing had changed. The white star burned still, somehow feeling like it was the source of this white death. The thought was illogical and senseless to apply malice to it, but lacking anything else solid to point at she couldn’t help see it as mocking them with its presence.

Shaking like a slums addict, Hair Trigger turned and shuffled back to the bench. Her head ached. She couldn't think. Was it better to sleep? Try and be comfortable? Or stay awake? Stay willing? She couldn't rationalise. Logic was being shaken out of her. Every breath felt like polar water down her throat. Her vision wasn't clearing. Falling, she dropped by the bench and held onto the still shape still in the blanket.

“...Tam...?” she breathed, barely a formed word. “Tam?” Her hooves rustled, rubbing and pushing the hippogriff. Fear gripped her at the lack of response, before she felt Tami shaking under her hoof. She could see wings rustling in the icy shuttle. Then slowly, an eye creaked open, frozen tears staining Tami's cheek.

She didn't speak. She just opened her mouth, then closed it, looking dizzy and confused. Her fluffy coat was speckled with twinkling shards of moisture.

“Jus'... Jus' hold on, Tam...” Trigger unsteadily clambered back onto the bench, pulling Tami's upper half onto her lap and wrapping her forelegs around the pilot. “K-Keep looking u-up at me. Eyes open.”

“Tired, C-Cap...tain...”

“I know.” Trigger gripped their bodies together, feeling the frigid, bitter absence of heat. Hair Trigger almost felt ready to drift off herself, but fought it back.

She could feel Tami settling, and saw her eyes starting to close. Summoning more energy than she could spare, she urged her body to jostle Tami about. She reached out, forcing her weak legs to rub and try to work some warmth into the pilot's body, rubbing her back under the blouse between the wings, or around her waist or shoulders. “H-Hey! Hey, th-that's an order, Tam.”

The eyes creaked open again. Barely. They fluttered.

Her pupils were very small, not focusing at all.

Hair Trigger felt a sinking dread take hold, an outcome she couldn't bear to think about seeing happen, and kept gently shaking, rubbing, speaking. Anything it took.

Anything to not leave someone scared and alone in the dark the way she'd once been.

“No! No, no, nooooo!”

Eleven’s wail of frustration was matched by the tears streaming down her cheeks as the antenna glowed, shuddered, and then sparked. She dropped the portable terminal, hooves hunching around her head as the magic bands began to fade once again. “H-How could it not work!? It doesn't make-no!”

Medusa's sensor operations deck differed from much of the station. Quiet, dark, with windows taller than a minotaur's height lining the curved wall that overlooked the satellite arrays atop the station's superstructure. Inside were several rows of high-end computing stations, each row elevated above the other like a lecture hall. Most bore orange holographic displays, but some bucked the trend with the occasional dark blue, green, and even one that seemed to shift colours every few seconds. The desk surfaces and tops were covered in coffee mugs, toys, and a veritable legion of post-it notes. Whiteboards littered the space around the edges, crammed in against the walls beside blinking server banks with duty rotas, frequency changes, and to Smile's surprise, insecure passwords written in scrawled marker pen. At once bleeding edge, and yet clearly somewhere its workers had nested in and personalised for their clique-inducing, sometimes elitist skillset.

Eleven's tracking machine had been rather clumsily carted up, and it felt quite out of place. Its presence seemed to perplex many of the small shut-in types that populated the intensely code-heavy job of operating a station's detection suite. They sat behind the deep orange glows of their workstations, peering between holographic displays of the surrounding system at the group occupying the viewing area near the records server. Volatility Smile could see a disproportionate amount of glasses on their bewildered faces at the arcane machine and its escorting security detail. Verbena’s presence clearly confused them - even more so when she'd done the database search on their servers herself.

Beside Smile, Kerfuffle wrapped a wing around the distraught unicorn, but Smile could see his head sink with disappointment. Eleven had staked a lot on her theory. And given her gift, they'd all wanted to believe it was certain, like many things she did always seemed to be.

She felt her own heart crushed. Perhaps this one had just been beyond her.

This had been what they'd wanted, a chance to finally set up with Medusa's sensor suite and its archives. To give Eleven all the data she needed to configure the rift tracker and find where the ship had sent everything. That was all she'd said she needed. The recorded data on the tanker's rift.

Slowly, Smile sat down on one of the wheeled chairs. Habitually she wondered what they'd missed. A fruitless thought, perhaps. She was no unicorn, let alone an expert on the astrophysics of the magic realm, but it was hard not to.

Kerfuffle's arms joined the wings and muffled Eleven's worries to a dull sound under the feathers and fluff. “S'not your fault, Miss,” he whispered, “wasn't ever certain, I think...”

A silence fell over the suite. Even those not involved quietened.

Smile got up again, suddenly restless, and trotted to the cool window. She'd been trying to ignore this possible outcome. Trying to see that there was a path. Believe in it. Now though, staring at the open void, she realised she'd have to come to accept that it may be the way it was. She closed her eyes and rested her sparkling forehead upon the glass, casting a shifting, glinting reflection back upon herself.

Behind her, Kerfuffle stared at the machine's antenna and wrapped his arms around Eleven. He stood still, feeling he had to be still. A bulwark for her now. Inside, though, past the short term guilt of having let his impatience grip him, even knowing it was the right thing, he couldn't help but feel he'd still let the Captain and Tami down.

It wasn't. He hadn't. He knew it. But it was there.

All because of one machine he couldn't work on not doing what he knew Eleven had told it to. Machines didn't do bad things, they just did what they did. If one didn't work, it usually meant it had been treated wrong, but he knew in his heart that wasn't Eleven's way. She wouldn't make those mistakes when she cared that much. And he trusted her. It formed a conflict. His trust in Eleven, against his trust in the inviolable consistency of inanimate operations.

The clash of ideals wasn't even a battle. It was a massacre. And it all came down in favour of the pink huddle sniffling into his chest.

His eyes narrowed at the unusual antenna and its connected appliances. He stared at it. Stared hard. Burrowed his train of thought into it. 'Why won't you work for her?' he quietly asked in his mind. 'Why won't you do the thing she's askin' so politely for?'

He had half a mind to grab it. Strip the whole thing down. Check every component. Spend seventy two hours awake doing it. Find the fault. But it'd be too late, and he barely knew how this unusual thing worked. He needed it to work now. Not later. Now. For her. For their friends. And for the first time in his life, he let displeasure turn his expression. An accusation. A torrent of utter blame, putting every bit of responsibility on that thing. Disappointment was written all over his face, directed toward that rickety, impolite contraption. It had let him down - it had let everyone down - and he blamed it for that.

Then, under his intense stare, there was a flicker.

Something between the strands of thin metal on the antenna: a faint glow. It had always done that when it had overloaded, glowed like a decoration for hours. But this wasn't the same. It was still running up and down in gentle currents, almost invisibly. A faint charge that hadn't dissipated.

“Miss? Uh, miss?” he spoke, opening his wings and turning Eleven's head back toward it. “I think somethin's different...”

Eleven's bleary eyes were bubbling with dampness, and she vigorously wiped them before peering at the contraption again. Then, she squeaked. Leaning forward, her horn glowed momentarily, and was followed by a high pitched gasp.

“Kiffle... It retained an activated charge! That means...”

She flew off of him, a pink blur. Smile sharply turned. Verbena blinked in confusion. A dozen glassy-eyed controllers meerkated over their desks as Eleven's hooves became a whirlwind of motion on the keyboard of the attached workstation. The rapid clack of heavy keys being enthusiastically slammed filled the room, and she looked up with a shock.

“It was shorting out because it was getting overloaded without knowing what to look for...” Eleven breathed the words more than spoke them. She got up and ran to Kerfuffle. “Shorting out!” She ran to Smile. “Given a proper signal it doesn't short out!” Turning, she almost gracefully bounded over the floor's many wires to Verbena and grabbed the shocked little earth pony by the shoulders. “That means we can try again! I can refine it! I can do it without waiting a day this time! I can-”

Behind her, a large griffon - the security escort - narrowed his eyes and stood up. “Now, you were given one go at this, weren't you? It took-”

A hoof grabbed his beak. Suddenly he found himself staring down at someone entirely different. He'd expected Kerfuffle to swell up and make a point; he'd been prepared for that. Instead, a glittering hoof dragged his gaze to see the sharpest, most severe face he'd ever witnessed on a pony. A crystal pony often seemed alluring, full of sparkle and light, but here her face only promised one thing: 'I am correct here'. Volatility Smile gave him a look of complete affront. A stare to wither the hearts of duty managers the galaxy over.

“I believe she gave us two chances. Sir.” Her voice held a lethal edge. That last word, separated for emphasis with the promise of verbal confrontation to come could have floundered many people's defences alone.

He clicked his beak shut, then opened it. “Look, I'm sure-”

“This is one of her ships we’re looking for. This is a machine she wants working. Do I have to march us both down so we can both tell her why it's being delayed? Why you didn't read your assignment report? She DID specify.”

Sweating, the griffon quickly gathered his priorities. Annoy the director in her office by bothering her with a mistake, or simply report that it took longer than expected?

“Shall we?” Smile let go of him and began to march for the door. He quickly felt his heart clench.

“No! No, two will be fine! Just get the thing ready!”

Smile lived up to her name. A creeping, self-assured 'thank you for understanding who is the one in the right here' smile of confidence.

Behind her, Eleven was oddly still. Normally one to be hyperactive and in motion even when working, she was focused. Quiet. Numbers flickered on the screen faster than Smile could follow. Silent, long minutes ensued in the dark control centre before finally, a hoof slapped a button on the sensor-panel housing. The antenna began to light up again. Magic bands leapt and curled. They danced, following the rods of metal and leaping from one to one.

And then cut.

After a few seconds of silence, they suddenly returned in a cascading glow of colour. The modules on the sensor housing gleamed in the reflected light. The antennas themselves fiercely burned like thick, shaped lasers, strobe-lighting the entire room. Ponies and griffons and zebras yelped and backed away from the unstable, unconstrained reaction of the machine as much as they did from the manically smiling and heavily breathing unicorn right beside it.

Then finally it shut off, leaving Eleven panting beside it like a B-movie’s crazed scientist. The computer screen lit up in orange text upon a black background. Numbers. Just numbers. Eleven brought up the multiband Tami had given her and plugged it in, hitting the commands to transfer data before standing up. She took a long breath, her voice simple and plain, suddenly exhausted.

“I have it.”

Five seconds. Five seconds’ pause of disbelief was all it took, before Kerfuffle, Smile, Eleven, and Verbena turned and ran for the elevators, hitting the key for the hangar deck. Within minutes they were sprinting over the decking toward Claudia. Smile paused to start the undocking sequence from the terminal at the end of their landing area. Kerfuffle flew ahead, carrying Eleven, enduring the pain in his back. He swarmed up the ladders to initiate the reactor core while Eleven headed for the bridge. Untrained perhaps, but she grasped at the FTL panel, parsed it, learned it, then began to enter the formula by hoof. Less than a minute later, Claudia's power core started to hum into a crash-start behind her. Smile leapt into Tami's seat and started preparing for undocking.

The dull rumbling turned to a great roar as the core ignited. Kerfuffle felt the engineering compartment shake around him, and patted the side of the reactor’s housing at hearing Claudia rush so diligently to operational power. Squirting steam wheezed from the hull's outlets, and vector engines rotated with a hiss of hydraulics. Turbines wound up. The floor shook with the promise of action at last. Of a chance come true.

“Not done this in far too long...” Smile muttered. Below them, Claudia's engines began to lift her off the deck, hanging in the air. Hangar crew reacted with shock at the unexpected departure. Their comm-set suddenly barked, a harsh voice biting out at them.

“Pioneer class, name 'Claudia' you are not cleared for-”

Smile was already readying her greatest bullshitting skills.

She was moments too late to speak, for another hoof grabbed the PA above her.

“You get that door open this instant you slacking oaf or so help me I will have WORDS with you the moment I get back to this station! Do you hear me? Do you? Do you need to remember which family owns this station? Owns your job? Do your kids on the crew decks need daddy to explain why he isn't bringing home food this week? Get. That. Door. Open. Or. I. Will-”

“Y-Yes, Ma'am!” the panicked voice responded, and slowly the doors began to pull open again, letting Claudia drop out into the black and immediately turn to set a course for safe FTL distance.

Between Smile and Eleven, Verbena gently replaced the handset, breathing out, looking at the shocked awe on their faces. She shrugged.

“Talent runs in the blood, what can I say?”

“I n-never did get to t-tell you what it was you did for me, d-did I?”

Hair Trigger whispered the words, rocking gently back and forth in the now sub-zero environment. Her teeth were chattering with small, hyperventilated breaths.

“W-Well...”

She couldn't feel her forelegs tighten around Tami. She was losing feeling. She only knew she willed herself to, and saw the crinkle of the blanket as it moved.

“I d-didn't know what k-kind of captain I'd b-be, y'know?”

She'd been talking for what felt like hours. Trying to give them both something to hold onto. Some sound. Something that wasn't a cold, empty void to fall into. She sniffed, hissed in pain at the prickling deadness in her limbs, and ruffled around to stir and rub the hippogriff as vigorously as she could. Tami's nostrils still moved. Her eyes sometimes slid a fraction open. The poor thing was exhausted, frozen, and confused from hypothermia.

She wasn't the only one.

“I wanted t-to be a good one b-but you never know. Y-you all g-gave me the chance to be a good one. B-but I think it's y-you who...”

She breathed in deeply, crunching her eyes closed. They felt like they'd stick. The air had a mist to it. She wondered if a seal had broken. Condensation was forming on every surface as the temperature continued to plummet. She wiped Tami's mane away from her face, hearing a gentle, fearful murmur.

“...who let me not b-be an angry one t-to anyone. I w-was a lot less-ngh! A lot less controlled before y-you came along, Tam.”

Briefly, after she spoke, Hair Trigger felt her chest tighten. Her eyes felt heavy. Multiple times she'd drifted off, before sharply awakening as something inside kicked and screamed that it wasn't time yet. Startling, snorting, she shook her head.

“Th-Thank you for that.”

There was a brief glimmer of an eye opening below her. Tami's body shifted ever so slightly, then dropped, like it couldn't muster the energy. One claw flopped in an attempt to reach, and her mouth lightly breathed something as it fell against Trigger's chest.

“Best...”

Then, the arm fell limp, the eye flickering, then closing. Her shivers began to slacken off. Hair Trigger stared, eyes widening. A sinking feeling welled up, and she forced her lazy, clumsy hooves to reach, to grasp.

“No, no... Don't you dare!”

She held Tami up, panic rising, pulling her mouth close to her cheek. There was a sharp relief as she felt breathing. But it was fragile, much lower than it had been. And fading.

“Don't you dare!” she repeated, her voice pitching up, and she gently jerked the hippogriff in her forelegs, stroking her mane over and over, speaking into her ear. “You stay right here! With me! Captain's orders! You hear me, Tam? You hear me?”

There wasn't a reply.

“TAM!”

Claudia roared through M-space with a heedless force. It wasn’t subtle or smooth, more like a cannonball out a barrel than a precision slide through the aether. Smile hadn't dared think about the damage it might be doing to simply select the highest possible speed, but the transition had been violent and jarring. Her stomach felt sick. Her head hurt, even hours after they'd departed.

She stared at Eleven; the unicorn was sitting in Trigger's seat, staring at the screens with rapt attention.

“How long?”

Eleven stared wordlessly at the FTL monitor, then looked up, frowning.

“HOW LONG!?”

Time felt as infinite as the void. But in the endless cycle of the shuttle's spinning, every second mattered to Hair Trigger.

Hooves pawing over Tami, trying to force any amount of warmth she could in, she rubbed her back, her hands, her arms, her sides. She hugged her close. She wrapped her. But the effort was exhausting, and the wrath against the galaxy driving her limbs slowly started to die off against all her efforts.

“Tami, please...” she whispered, reduced to holding her as tightly as she had for days now. Burying her face in that thick mane. “We'll... We'll...”

She barely knew what to say they'd do now. It was becoming clear that no-one was coming, even to her. Fighting down a whine of frustration, she leaned in and kissed the hippogriff's forehead again.

“You've gotta keep going. You can, girl. You can. You've done it before.”

A tight squeeze passed into a shuddering cough. Her own vision was fading. Her own sleepiness was setting in. She wouldn't last much longer either. She-

Trigger snapped awake again. Nothing was different, other than the light. Minutes? Hours? She didn't know.

Her vision swayed and distorted. Shapes were fuzzy-edged. She could swear she heard roaring water. Her heart felt too slow to work. Tami was very still, the barest pulse against Trigger's hoof. One slowing down. Minute by minute ticking toward this all being over.

“Don't you leave me alone, you hear me?”

She didn't even know if she'd said the words or not. It sounded totally unlike how she thought she sounded.

“Don't leave me alone here...”

Curling over, feeling the moisture, the cold, and the dark, she pushed her lips through Tami's mane and just held them against her head, panting and shivering, until she again felt a jump. An unconscious hiccup of dozy uncertainty.

Hair Trigger turned to cast one more hateful glare at that sun. It had taken on an antagonistic persona to her. A source of heat that refused to come and save them.

A colossal eye stared back.

She paused, wondering if she'd taken on delusions now. Or another dream. The white sun was bisected lengthways by a black shape, making its white sphere look like an eyeball.

That same shape turned, spinning, and expanded, covering stars, lights on its surface sharply activating, illuminating the shuttle.

Her mouth opened.

“We've got them! We've got them!”

Ahead of Claudia's approach, Smile could see the hull-lamps illuminating the frosted, misted out window. “It's... Oh stars, they've lost at least some life support!”

Smile screamed the words into the PA, struggling to angle Claudia in to bring the derelict shuttle in alongside the larger cargo vessel's airlocks. Leaving the autopilot to match the slow spin, she dragged up the full details from the sensors. She'd been right. Behind her, she heard rushing and clanging from downstairs, and hollered down the main street. “Temperature is below zero in there! We're going to have casual-”

She couldn't bear the word.

“Patch! Get down there! Now!”

“Affirmative!”

The drone buzzed by the bridge, heading downstairs. Rotors whining, it flew past Verbena grabbing every blanket and sheet she could from the crew’s rooms, dragging them into the cargo hold. In there, Kerfuffle was pulling the modular medical trauma table out from its container against the wall. He looked pale. His claws were shaking. Beside him, Eleven was watching through the airlock's internal camera on a small screen, bouncing from hoof to hoof.

“Almost... Almost...”

Smile's voice echoed from above them as the ship clanged and shook with a somewhat blunt and untidy docking procedure. “There! We're on! Get them out of there! I'm on my way!”

Every second was long. Every moment this close, mere feet away, felt dreadful. Kerfuffle didn't know what they'd find in there. An image entered his head, and he didn't like it.

He grabbed the airlock handle.

Trigger dragged herself across the floor. She felt the rocking slam of something docking against them, and then heard hissing. Pressurisation. The star's light had been cut out, and she felt her way to the airlock, fighting to undo the locks from the inside, lean her weight on the bar and drop her body, pushing with all her might.

Behind her, she saw Tami lying limp.

“They're here. I see them! Tam! Just... Just hold on...”

No reply.

“Hold on!”

Eleven and Kerfuffle heaved the airlock's handle, dragging it down together. They'd waited for the minimum safe pressure. The door, reluctant to be opened early, was stiff and moved roughly. Soon, Verbena's hooves joined them. And in a clattering of hooves, so did Smile's.

Behind them, Patch activated the trauma bed's life support machine. “Hypothermia likely based on sensor data. Preparing measures.”

With a vicious hiss, the airlock came ajar and jerked open. Something freezing cold slammed out of it and into Smile's chest. It made her cry out and fall back under it onto the deck with a heavy slap of her body.

Getting her breath back, shivering, Smile looked down her fallen body, and gasped.

It had been the change in pressure, an icy burst of wind erupting into their bay.

And beyond that, through the door, with a confused, aghast Kerfuffle staring around the frame, an empty shuttle.

Smile's mouth dropped. “What...”

The door sprung open outwards with a heavy clang, louder than anything she had heard in days. Propelled by the change in pressure, Hair Trigger stumbled and fell forward onto a hard deck. Her chin jarred. She felt stinging heat. Her ears popped. Coughing, choking, limp and weak, she rolled onto her back and stared upwards.

A face stared back down at her, backlit by unfamiliar running lights, one that quickly came into clarity, bearing a pleased smugness.

“Hello again, Captain,” purred Asset Margin.

---

Course / Vector: 68.9°-17.3°-91°

Velocity: 1,489 m/s

Navigation Status: Underway

Position check: 2 min ago

Position transmit: 8 months ago

GMO / SMSI: 9557433 / 215630000

Callsign: BT08LUA

Flag: Crystal League Corporate Navy

Length / Beam: 610ft-80.7ft

Fleet Tag: CRYT

Vessel: CLCN Adroit Animadvert

Current Tasking: Passive observation of Empire/NLR tension, Periphery Region, Jhurope
---

If the Adroit’s advanced and dedicated covert role were described to those who had never laid eyes upon it, then many common traits would be assumed about its appearance. Silken, curvaceous perhaps, and attractive to all the wannabe pilots of the academies to void-cruise in style. Others may assume it to be perhaps angular and razor-like, bristling with advanced weaponry and bearing enormous dishes or arrays to spy on the furtive and decrypt the galaxy’s deepest secrets.

The truth was somewhat less romantic. Designed to never enter an atmosphere in its entire service life, the Adroit was a formless skeleton of mathematical efficiency. Three rings more akin to a pre-artificial gravity design held around its long eel-like centre. Each ring bore mismatching reflective-coated boxes and ugly antennae protruding to varying lengths. Some pointed outward, some directly ahead. Its engines, far from being the mighty afterburners of sexy spy films, were low impulse and shielded behind nozzle-shrouds, yet surrounding them was an entire battery of inactive fusion-engine outlets held within inelegant compartments betraying a powerful FTL capability. Ahead of them were racks of super-heavyweight beyond-visual-range torpedoes, unwieldy and bolted to the two rear rings in asymmetric volumes.

She would not dogfight majestically. She would never sit in orbit and make a statement with her mighty presence. She would never take place in a battleline. But she could outrun an interdictor, go dark amidst the void, and cripple anyone who dared think they could blunder around pinging to find her. She was one of the prized and yet utterly deniable classes of the Crystal League: a long endurance spy craft and a deep space apex predator.

Yet in the two years since a silent commissioning she had never operated in anger. For the last two years her cream of the new-age crop of graduates had been paired with long serving old-hands and drifted in the dark observing everything but their distant homes.

Everything. Every signal. Every stray bit of dust out of the normal in the Periphery that drifted by the Adroit’s ever-seeing eyes.

The Adroit’s bridge was dark as the slow hours of the night cycle crawled by. The black crept in from the backswept windows, crawling into the gaps between bright orange holograms, flickering consoles and deep reclined seats. The bridge held two levels with eight workstations in all, and a soft red carpet ran down a gentle slope from the upper section to the hunkered recess of the helm crew’s three stations at the fore. Despite the vessel’s size the bridge itself was intimate, housing only a portion of the system crew. Most were sequestered down in the sealed operations room, leaving only a handful with a view out to the stars. Most of those stations were empty, leaving only three present at the helm: a griffon, a deer, and a pegasus. They were all young, with only scant murmurs of chuckled banter and the quiet, soft-edged chiming of their consoles daring to breach the atmosphere of the silent watch.

One of them, the griffon, reached up at the ping of a console and pulled down a monitor on a hanging arm above her workstation. “Another imperial frigate enroute, Sir. AIS snatched it heading to Mothellum. Few hours yet.”

There was no reply from either of the other two. The griffon’s tone had been easy, like a short, bored sigh. But she turned, tilting her head as only a griffon could. “Maybe two hours, four if they make a refuel stop, sir.” Another pause. “Lieutenant Commander?”

The pegasus at the main helm station between the other two blinked and sat up as though coming out of a funk. He turned briefly with a long breath and a smile. “Oh, sorry. Had my head in. Confirmed, one FFG, two to four out. Thank you.”

The griffon nodded, going back to her work and thinking no more of it other than an assumption her friend and current officer of the watch had simply been engaged in another data-page of astrometrics.

The pegasus, however, was not. Nodding along with his thanks, he turned back to using one feather like a lazy finger upon his console’s centre touchscreen, sifting through the local reports and events of the Periphery. Predominantly pirate alerts, he had been trying to discern a pattern, spot routine methods of evasion, or identify new tactics to adopt from the always inventive rogues. However something had caught his eye and made his wing pause in mid-air between sips of strong Caliphate coffee.

“Lieutenant, can I have four-eight-six up please?”

The deer to his left nodded. “Four-eight-six, Sir, aye.”

After a moment the deer swept a dainty hoof toward the pegasus’ station, and a full brief of a listed event passed over to his terminal. Spreading feathers, he expanded it, opening it.

Port Medusa… Freighter M-Drive Malfunction…

His keen, focused eyes skimmed over the troubling details. They all knew that station well, for it had been the focal point of tensions lately. Was this sabotage? A false flag? From the details he doubted it based on their current intelligence of the situation, but he dug anyway. Alyssum seemed to have it all in hoof, and most of the supplementary reports had been crossed off already. All except one. He prodded it, already tuning out of a brief conversation passing over his head from the other two under his watch.

Confirmed shuttlecraft skiff incident… Found empty… Registered to Space Jammers Inc…

The report slid over an image of the shuttle class. Confederate. Then over to a blue freckled unicorn with a green mane as the missing persons report drew up.

Occupants one Captain Hair Trigger, one Pilot T-

He stopped; the mug of coffee froze midway to his mouth.

Occupants’ location unknown upon corporate recovery…

His eyes were unblinking.

Suspected kidnapping during illegal salvage operation…

The mug clattered down suddenly enough to spill.

The lieutenants on either side looked up as the helmspony got up sharply, his pressed, sharp uniform over a spruce blue coat catching the light from the glowing consoles. “Sir?”

The pegasus was frantically dragging every screen around, downloading the whole report to his multiband, along with an imprint of the local area readings, unclassified ship movements and public-source action reports. Then he was already moving, fixing up his navy grey mane into an organised ponytail with his wings as he went. He walked, but moved with an alarmed pace across the deadened sound of the bridge. “You have the bridge, Lieutenant Serro. I need to speak with the old stallion.”

“Yes… Sir?”

The pair exchanged a look, but by then he had already marched to the starboard side door and passed through. The moment it closed, he broke into a canter toward the nearest steps, proceeding to the upper deck directly above the bridge: the captain’s ready room. Without any hesitation he keyed a panel by the door. “Officer of the Watch requesting an audience, Captain.”

After a moment the panel gave a trio of rising bleeps and a deep, mature male voice rang out. “Come!”

The door slid aside, scarcely interrupting the silent ship’s noise discipline as it revealed a small but comfortable office divided across the middle by a metal desk lined with firm sound-dampening foam. In contrast with the lowered lights, the captain himself sat sparkling a bright azure glint, a crystal pony of his homeland, staring into a blue-hued monitor. Captain Sun Dodger.

He was old, approaching retirement and held back from admiralship only by choice and a lack of time for the political niceties and mandates it brought with it. He was an intimidating force of nature aboard, a thickly built maelstrom of expectation and demand bound up to a fierce paternal frankness and love for his crew. The perfect choice for a vessel intended to forge the imagination of newer generations in how stellar operations could be conducted together with old experience. He looked up at the young officer, nodded a firm greeting, then went back to his reading.

The officer knew better than to assume he was being told to wait, nor did he want to. “Sir, I…” He took a deep breath, steadying his heart. “I wish to request an absence of duty for personal reasons.”

The captain didn’t look up, and did not reply.

“I… I realise the duty of my command and the opportunities afforded to me are beyond the norm.” The officer spoke with a wavering, hastily thrown together justification. “That our secrecy, even from the academy onto this placement was in reward for our scores and efforts, but I have come into… into news regarding a personal issue that I wish to declare to match the requirement for mandated leave in other ships which I know isn’t-”

Captain Dodger finally looked up. The old dog’s glare was enough to halt the clutter of attempted sentences. “This isn’t you,” he said, his voice direct and honest, “you’ve been in deep space since you were offered this, grinning and talking the ears off the rest of the crew about the vessels and phenomena we see. Never a problem with time away or isolation.”

“I-” the officer began.

“And furthermore,” the captain continued, “we’re in the Periphery. We’ve not had any contact with our families for months to remain signals-dark. And your only family is in the League. So no contact from them gave you this impulse either.”

The pegasus remained quiet. His captain just nodded, firm and impassively weighted in confident knowledge. “But all that aside I know why this is, Lieutenant Commander.”

“Sir, I understand this is-”

Captain Dodger snorted loudly, interrupting him by noise alone. “You’ve been one of my aces this whole long journey, son. You’ve kept morale up; you’ve become something of a heart to many of the young officers. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the quiet talks you have with some of them when they’re faltering. That and what you’ve brought to the helm- well, you make me long to yank it away from you and get at it myself again.”

The tall, broad-shouldered crystal pony raised his multiband and tapped a few commands. “We’ve got a replenishment coming in on the next graveyard watch to restock consumables. You can transfer with them to the nearest station and meet back up with them after. If anything it’ll stop the bleeding hearts gang back home pinging me every contact meeting about the lack of leave for crews on this sort of posting. You’ll have two weeks to meet back up with us. Find the same solid replenishment ship again; it’s scheduled for our next one too.”

“Captain,” the officer began, swallowing, hardly believing what he was hearing. “Sir, I… I assure this isn’t just a holiday request. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me on this, I just need to assure this is a genuine-”

Captain Sun Dodger reached out and turned his terminal toward the pegasus. The screen was hazed with a glare-shield, but behind it lay the same thing he had seen on the bridge. The young stallion went wide eyed.

“I know, Commander Vair. I know.”

There was a brief silence between them, as the old captain regarded his lieutenant commander’s break of composure. A look of amazement, worry, shock.

“Don’t ever dare think I don’t pay attention to the histories of every officer I bring out here. Now the Periphery is a dangerous place off-board, so stop by the armoury on your way out. I’ve authorised you to carry.” Captain Dodger paused and grumbled. “I’d rather the right person stay with me eventually than the denied person leave me because they feel they need to go behind my back. Besides, what you see on the ground in Medusa might prove useful to us if you really want me to justify this further.”

“Sir…” The young pegasus tried to not let his voice hiccup. “Thank you.”

“Do what you need to do, lad. Now, graveyard’s in two. Get your skinny butt moving, Vantage. Out of my ready room! On the double!”

He barked the words, shattering the quiet of the vessel, leading Lieutenant Commander Vantage Vair to salute on reflex before turning and galloping out, with only one last look at the screen facing him.

Upon it lay an image of an orange-maned hippogriff, an eager explosion of a smile between soft cheeks, spreading across a heart-shaped face.

Ice in the veins.

Clamming, suffocating, entrapping. The frost felt like it had penetrated beneath her skin, pulling her body apart and leaving nothing but a numb void in its wake. A nightmare where legs would not run. Where digits could not work. Where eyes could not see. Crushing the heart and mind until the pressure would squeeze her frightened and weary soul from her body.

Waves crashed against her. Tussling forces tugging over, round, up, down. Then gentler ones, a sense of travel. Dull colours devoid of shape, like the scathing aftermath of bright light, lazily moulded and sundered upon each other. Sometimes many, sometimes none. Then suddenly, bursts of white noise. Painful undulating crackles and throbbing hums, like crinkling paper and voices through thick water.

It all congealed.

And then came a soft feeling. A painful icy burning, not recognisable until it had seeped below the skin, growing, growing, until it faded slowly. She felt something seizing at her. Pulling, grasping. More than one. She tried to grab onto them, to numbly grasp and squeeze for comfort. But none of them would hold back, none of them would comfort her.

And she felt warmth.

The last time she had known warmth, it had come from someone. The one she knew had saved her life. Who? Captain! Her captain! The last comfort she'd clung to. It had to be, that’s what it had to-

Her eyelid split open, and memories cascaded through her mind. Painfully bright colours rushed in through the slit of vision, melded among moving shapes. She pulled them closed for what felt like hours. And then, at last, there was quiet, and she dared to open them again.

Tami tried to rub her eyes, but her arms wouldn’t move. Her wings felt flat below her. She saw four bulbs above her, and realised she was lying on her back. Thick warmth squeezed from every side of her body, a body that felt alien and swollen and stung as blood flowed again through her veins. With a monumental effort, she lifted her head and saw the inflated foil-coated suit about her.

It was a survival and recovery bodysuit, slowly heating up from water coursing through it. She could feel its thermal gel-packs in her armpits, around her neck and between her legs to target circulation. Intravenous tubes were inserted into her forearm, with a clear fluid dripping through. She lay on a gurney in a glass-walled room with lines of chromed shelving and immaculate white cupboards, but everything was blurry and everything outside the glass melted into a wash of colour. Her head whirled and she lay back down again, focusing instead on her hearing. There was the beep of a health monitor and a familiar, reassuring sound of a reactor core’s hum. A ship. She could smell antiseptic. A sickbay or trauma room then.

Cautious relief began to trickle into her. Every detail spoke of safety. Rescue. Recovery. The fear that she would die began to fade for the first time in days.

The sharp hiss of automatic doors retracting to her left proved a sharp rebuttal. Whirring and clicking as the running pistons hit metal, they revealed a huge shape moving through. For a moment, her heart leapt at the silhouette. Wide, tall, with large feathers.

“Kif-”

Red feathers.

Her voice died in her dry, hoarse throat, leaving Tami to stare up and to try to focus on the newcomer. A griffon for sure, easily as large as Kerfuffle, with crimson feathers tipped in a creamy white. He was older than the mechanic and held a datapad, his talons tapping away at it. His claws were long and purposefully kept sharp on the end of scarred, muscular arms. There was a hazy discolour to one side of his face, like the feathers had regrown only weeks ago. He didn’t look at her.

“The captain…” she croaked, trying to breathe harder. Tami tried to sit up, pushing her pained body as far as she could, but found it quite impossible. “Is she-”

Then she realised it wasn't her condition keeping her flat.

She was held down. Zip ties were looped about her wrists, feeding down to the gurney’s bars. A medical strap looped over her chest. That alone would have been understandable, but together? Tami’s heart began to thump faster, driving a tingling pain in her every extremity as blood flowed. The griffon’s face was inscrutable behind the sharp glare of the lamps.

“You are Tammani? The pilot of that ship? Can you hear and understand me?” His voice was heavy, leery with uncaring disdain.

She nodded fearfully.

“Speak your reply,” demanded the griffon. He sounded restless - unwilling to extend any interaction with her further than he had to. Tami nodded more frantically.

“Y-Yes… Sir, please, my captain, is she ali-”

“You fly PNR class?” He wasn’t looking up from the datapad.

“Yes,” whispered Tami. Her throat felt sore. Words were clumsy in her mouth, her tongue thick and bloated from cold swelling. She squirmed, looking away as her vision slowly recovered, seeing the large glass walls looking out onto an opulent vessel’s common deck. A slick gym lay nearby, with a juice bar, large hot tub, and a recreation area with an enormous panel screen and expensive sofas. Crystal lighting rigs hung from the ceiling, and every surface was smooth and pristine, shining with patterned white rock and dark laser-etched metals. What was this place?

“With no licence?”

Through all the heat, a cold spike of terror now began to flow through her. What was this!? Who was this? Police? She never got to answer.

“Class A pilot error incident on record at Chrysolite VIP Pilot Training Academy. Forced to acquire a job somewhere that lacked legality to keep you away from the controls of a starship. Qualification training covers personal to sub-capital class vessels only with failed first year training in evasion maneuvers and protection flying. Is this all correct?”

Tami didn’t know what to say, but she saw his powerful eyes suddenly train on her. They promised so many things, chief among them impatience. She felt like prey, a victim, a target under those uninterested, uncaring eyes that gave away only a hint of his true nature. She knew that look.

She’d seen it on Whisper’s face once in the rogue agent’s most terrifying moods. She saw an unfulfilled hunter brimming below the surface, forced into duties that did little to slack the urge.

A thick hand hit the gurney, making her squeal at the clatter of metal and the bounce of the surface. “Answer me! Is this correct? Is this you?”

“Yes, yes!” she yelped, trying to squirm, but the bonds held her firm. She could feel the heating suit flex and bubble as she tried to turn away and clench her hands over her face, but her wrists just jarred at the restraints.

“Understanding of class three universal systems for flight control?” He paused, then slammed it again. “Answer!”

“Yes! Yes I-I do!” Tami felt herself start to hiccup. The posture, the lack of proper breath, it all clammed her up. She wanted to look away, but she didn’t now dare.

“Classes for close proximity flight routing and object interaction. Hmph - passed on the third attempt only?”

She closed her eyes. She remembered that one. It hadn’t been the test. It had been the instructor. Her fierce commands. The sight of others doing so well ahead of her. The pressure of her classmates all watching her go last. “Yes… B-but it wasn’t the test, it was-”

“Less than impressive qualifications,” he snapped, interrupting. “Excuses are only window dressing; you failed. Hrm, it’s less than I’d hoped. It will do, but I will investigate this further to ensure there are no further lies about anything else you lack.”

He looked up, but Tami didn’t reply. She felt like she’d been slapped. Excuses? They were reasons. Weren’t they? Tami felt an uncomfortable stirring in her heart. The griffon shook his head and looked down at her.

“You suffered acute hypothermia due to your mistake in flying into that rift. In three days you will be well enough to be moved after we arrive.”

“Arrive where?” Tami felt so small, her voice tiny in response to his authoritative, punchy tone. She could feel a welling up, something unseen. Through her gut. Her mind. “Wh-Where am I now? The captain, is she-”

The red griffon locked his datapad and turned away, long claws tapping at the clean metal floor.

“Who are you? Please! Is the cap-is Hair Trigger okay!? A-Am I in trouble? Under arrest? I don’t know where I am!” She babbled, panicking, the thought of being left without a single answer starting to truly terrify her. “What’s going on!? PLEASE!”

The doors slid shut behind him, leaving her alone. She realised the glass of the infirmary was soundproofed. Aghast, she watched the griffon move across to the bar. He wasn’t even going to do something else urgently. He just sat to get a drink, taking his time and working on his datapad. He had heard her, she knew that. He was choosing not to answer her. Choosing. Only after finishing did he finally leave through a quiet half-circle of a door that curled out into the walls at the far side of the open health deck.

Now, Tami felt true terror start to take hold. Police wouldn’t have said ‘it will do’ about her qualifications. She wiggled her arms in the restraints until her body screamed at her for moving too much and forced her down again with exhaustion and pain. She felt her eyes turn wet, stinging the areas where frozen tears had burned her eyelids in the shuttle. The quiet infirmary became filled with fearful murmurs of worry and sniffling. She shook deeply, feeling utterly helpless. Alone.

“Please…”

Direly wishing she knew if her captain was even alive.

“Please…”

If anybody knew where she was.

“Please…”

If anybody out there would ever come.

Space tore open violently, an incandescent tear in reality ripping through it with hanging barbs of white light. The ship didn’t even wait for the edges to slowly draw open before it fired out of the rift. Claudia streaked into Saphiban glowing hot on her nozzles and trailing a vapour of rainbow tinted Æther behind her. Ignoring the normal protocols of remaining still until neighbouring ships could plot the new arrival’s location, she turned for the great metal monster of Port Medusa in orbit of the second planet and burned hard for the docks. Engines screaming silently in the black, she rocketed along the tops of the long trade queues waiting for an assigned port and aggressively ducked in ahead of the leading vessel, prompting other ships to take evasive action. Radio traffic around the station lit up. Angered traders and freelancers squawked their outrage at a ship ramming to the front, met with harsh demands from docking control.

Claudia ignored them all; Claudia only girded her frame and moved with an impassioned purpose. She rotated her thrusters and began to kill her speed as she turned, lining up with the shielded entry to a dock. Spotting an empty space, she simply pushed through, silence becoming a roar as her vectors held her up. Her presence sent ground crew scattering before she could drop landing gear and slam onto the heavy, meters thick deck of the docking level between two mining vessels. Seconds after the clunk-hiss of her forced landing on heavy hydraulics, there was an enormous crash of metal from beside her. A frozen shuttlecraft had disengaged from the hull’s starboard cargo mount, dropping twelve feet to the hangar floor and spraying cold mist from the shattered ice on its hull. Its underside dented on the impact, almost rolling onto its side before it toppled back over, becoming still.

Behind her, Claudia’s main rear doors ejected a pillar of vapour and began to open, managing only a meter in width before four figures squeezed and hurried out. Volatility Smile sprinted ahead across the decking to the bay’s standing terminal by the bow of the ship. Normally used for payment of docking fees, it offered the fastest connection to the station’s internal network. Not trusting the time lag of a wireless connection in the crowded station, Smile jammed the wire from her multiband into the terminal. She immediately began scouring local pickups and rescues reported during their time away.

Logic said someone else had helped their lost crew first, that they had simply been the second rescue to arrive. Experience, however, told her they might have still been the first. And so, as she let the search continue through hundreds of gigabytes of galactic data, she brought up her shipboard application and started to dig into the shuttle’s owner to look further into the origin of the job. The freighter accident that had started this whole mess couldn't have been intentional, she knew, but something was worrying her about the vessel simply being left behind after picking up Hair Trigger and Tami.

“Who would not recover something worth that much?” she muttered, voice terse and clipped, speaking only to herself, ignoring the growing circle of stunned creatures surrounding Claudia, or the distant shouting of Raw Deal regarding ‘over there!’ to someone else.

Behind her, Kerfuffle grabbed one of the shuttle’s icy panels and bodily tore it off to expose the innards. His eyes were focused, his movements strong. Dropping the hundred kilogram slab of metal like a toy, he squatted down to peer inside at the shuttle’s flight systems near the nose cone. He parsed its layout for a few moments, then grabbed a broken water pipe, braced himself, and tore it clean out of its housing to expose a bank of electronics behind it. Normally, treating any vessel so harshly might have offended his sensibilities. Right then, though, it was but a distant concern. He pointed at the exposed circuits. “In there, Miss; this model’s always got it below the sensor suite. Thinkin’ this pipe burst, lost the cooling for the heat sinks, blew them out. No wonder she froze.”

Beside him, a soft blue mane atop a pink head pushed itself and most of a unicorn's upper body into the shuttle’s hull, reaching where the griffon could not. Eleven started to try and reactivate some of the vessel’s systems and bypass the damaged components, dragging a couple new wires and tools from Claudia in with her. She was unusually quiet. Something about the intensity of the flight back had felt uncomfortable in a way she’d rarely known. She liked quiet. Normally she found it settling. In this case though, the quiet had been from absence. From loss. She had sat and watched Kiffle and Smile and Verbena stare at the ‘time until translation’ in Saphiban for hours, wrestling with a gut feeling that felt oddly familiar and yet totally new.

It had taken most of the trip to realise this was the first time in her new life that some of her friends might not come back to her again. It was eerily similar to how she had felt in the long, lonely wait on an abandoned planet for them to collect her after the Starw-

Eleven clenched her eyes shut.

“Miss? Everything okay in there? Is it too broken?”

“Like a really broken puzzle. And-” She wiggled and turned onto her back, her upper half entirely squeezed inside the shuttle. With a spark, something restarted, and a glow from the cockpit lit up the misted window. She sucked up the feelings, pushing them down. Deep down. Ball them up and just shove them neatly in a corner. Keep them quiet. Think quiet. Quiet.

“This design is inefficiently archaic. Even a normal pony would find it s-simple to fix. Unless you can’t get outside the ship. Or have a spare pipe. They couldn’t have done it.” She spoke with a muffled sigh inside the bow, and the strained tinge was all too clear. “G-Go on, Kiffle! I’ll find its brain.”

Kerfuffle looked down, one eye looking in at her, about to open his beak to offer again. She nodded more firmly. “Go!”

He paused, then stepped aside. “All right, Miss.”

Gripping into the door, its panel buckled from the ejection from Claudia, he yanked the emergency release and tore it open along its rails. Pushing his heavy frame up, he hunched inside the craft itself to investigate the interior once again now he had an atmosphere to work in.

Verbena Mint stood between the group, looking left to right between the crystal pony and the unicorn-griffon team. Her eyes felt wet with worry. She hadn’t dared let the others see her lapse in composure on the way back, doing what her half-sister always had.

“I-I’ll go speak with sis’! See if she knows anything!”

“All right, go!” Smile was firm and didn’t look up; Verbena couldn’t blame her. She turned and threw herself into a gallop, a gallop that lasted about two feet. Running directly into an immovable wall of flesh behind her, Verbena bounced, falling back onto her rump on the decking. Dizzed, Verbena looked up to see a sculpted, monstrous mask of glinting metal and marred plate stared down at her with eyes hidden by opaque glass inserts. Hanging decorations adorned the armour, the brass metal mixing with a dark earthy coat and powerful wings into a vicious, yet stoically still terror twice her height and eight times her mass. The beast’s mere presence was holding back an entire squad of security from approaching the bay.

Blitz made a low, rumbling sound in his throat. “The Director sent me to collect you and to kill the others.” He looked past the small earth pony. “I believe she was being hyperbolic.”

“YES SHE WAS!” Verbena shouted up at him, then took a breath. “Blitz! Tami and Hair Trigger. They’ve been taken. By someone. I-I don’t think it was a rescue. They’re gone.”

She gulped, seeing no change to the mask, but she’d been around Blitz long enough to know that meant nothing on its own. The quiet pause and then lash of his thick tail on the floor behind him told her everything.

“Your sister asked me to bring you to her. Come.”

He lowered down, resting a wing like a ramp that Verbena clambered up. “Thank you. Smile! I’ll be back, I promise! I’ll see what else we can do!”

She didn’t begrudge Claudia’s current command not looking up, before holding on tight as Blitz surged off along the hangar, scattering the crowds as he went. Verbena’s presence gave the security detail a reason to pause and simply observe. With the director's sister involved, none of them felt encouraged to dare act against Claudia's crew without double-checking.

Back inside the shuttle, Kerfuffle regretted leaving Eleven to pull the sensor-drive on her own, but he couldn’t sit still with this. Not after before. Not now that he could finally contribute something too. And so with a methodical process in mind, he started yanking up floor panels, pulling aside furniture and hunting for all the clues he could - even if it meant just running his claws over the hull to look for any damage or hidden compartments. Some clue. Something he’d missed on his checks. Anything. A frantic nature filled his movements; usually so careful and respectful, they were now filled with a growing rush and dire need.

Food packets. An empty bottle. Rugs and torn fabric. They had taken survival measures. Gel-filled gaps in the hull. They had repaired it as best they could.

A red hat.

He picked it up carefully, reverently tucking it into a pocket. The sight was crushing. So much of her in one object, but not her.

Eventually he started tracing the damage, wondering if it had been deliberate. He followed the pipe’s track from the broken area back. His guess had been right. Liquid leaking and a lack of functioning heating elements had pushed it beyond its design limit. The fault hadn’t been deliberate or left to occur on purpose though, that much he could tell.

One way or another, this had been an accident - at least to some extent. But it didn’t add up. They would have been reported collected by now. He thought it through. Accidental damage didn’t mean accidental cause. A vandal didn’t always know what exactly their hammer would do to a machine. That meant there was some other angle. Some other clues. Throwing away the burst pipes from his plans, he stopped tracing them and looked for something else, something someone who had planned this might want.

Outside, Smile rarely blinked. She scanned the contract of the job, having held off pinging the buyer yet as to the nature of what had happened. Every instinct told her to get in touch, to demand if the shuttle’s owner had been contacted by a search party, but she held herself back. Wariness instilled by months of living under the threat of Sidewinder made her uncertain. Instead she took the shuttle’s details and ran a background check on ownership.

The job had leased it to the crew as a temporary vessel. As expected, it was to be returned afterwards. The owner was a business, ‘Providence Holdings Inc.’. It didn’t seem to link to any site or observable activity. Private, no presence on the stock market. A false company? Or just a rich owner’s personal indulgences given official means to transport rare goods to their pleasure? The latter would fit. She dug further, cycling dates of issue, before noting one thing. The shuttle had only recently been assigned to Medusa despite Providence having had a presence there for years.

Given a hook, Smile tugged hard. She went back on the shuttle’s history, watching Kerfuffle strip away a seating arrangement to check the navigational computer for any sabotage as she read the serial number below an engine nacelle. Inputting it, she snarled at the lack of mandated free access owner logs in the Periphery, paid for the immediate vessel tracking application and drew up its ownership history.

“Kerfuffle!” she shouted out, reading through it. “This ship… It was built in the Confederacy ages ago.”

He looked out, nodding. “Yes, Missus Smiles. She’s an enduring one.”

Behind him, Eleven pulled out of the front, carrying the operating boxes for the sensor suite with her. “But it’s not original!”

Briefly, Kerfuffle and Smile looked over to her. Eleven showed them what she was holding. “I don’t know what everything in a ship is called. Or what models are which like you or Tami do, Kiffle.” She held up one box, then the other. “But I can tell when someone’s putting two things together that weren’t originally meant to be that way and had to make an ugly join.”

She gulped and gave a worried smile. “It’s like what I do. Whoever built it didn’t intend these to be used with it. But it’s VERY amateurish work.” She sniffed, adding her opinion of it quickly as though to distance her own talent from this example, giving the irregular weld lines and taped wires a disgusted look. “They even have spare ports for automation systems that aren't even being used left in there, and their electrical levels on it were waaaay excessive.”

There was a brief silence. Both Kerfuffle and Smile had ceased moving, and were staring at her. Eleven looked from one to the other and felt a pang of guilt. “Sorry, did I say something wrong? I just meant it looked cobbled together, not normal...”

“Like it came from a scrapyard, Miss?” Kerfuffle offered, his eyes narrowing.

Eleven nodded, looking lost. “Yes. Why? What’s-”

Smile brought up her multiband. “Manufactured in the Confederacy, off-record for some time, then turns up here shortly before the contract… Wait, I can trace this further, see where the original buyer was taking it. The shuttle disappearing in its records for a time like that? It’s a sign of an internal private buyer. Wait a minute and I’ll have it.”

Kerfuffle, however, wasn’t waiting.

The moment Eleven had confirmed it, he had started moving over to the shuttle. He heaved the entire cargo out through the rear doors with a clatter of glass and plastic, then lifted a floor panel. From the inside, he tore up the soft shock-resistant foam flooring, accessing a side of the engine that would never normally be checked. There would be no reason. Unlatching it, he dug into the nacelle from the other side, fervently looking for something. Something specific.

Smile paused, and finally managed to dredge up the ship that took the shuttle to the buyer originally. Looking back through its known destinations, one of them stood out to her only because she recognised the Confederate warning placed on its transit choices.

“Kavala…”

Eleven arched an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

There was an ugly crunch inside the shuttle. Kerfuffle emerged, carrying a short, heavy rod laden with wires and a connector valve. An engine immobiliser. A device intended to retard the start-up motor of any propulsion system on remote command. One he’d found in a confederate shuttle before in an equally unusual fashion. He held it up.

“It means, Miss, that we know exactly who took them.”

Captain Hair Trigger very much felt like lashing out at the nearest, meatiest object in her immediate vicinity.

She couldn’t see. The sack over her head was pulled suffocatingly tight - so tight about her neck it almost garroted her. Every time the talons she could feel on her body pulled or shoved, clumsy hooves betrayed her and she would stumble and drop. What was but a simple forced walk in darkness felt like an obstacle course of stinging pain as her recovering body attempted to let blood flow feel normal again.

Nearly a day, she guessed. Nearly a day strapped to a rack with tubes in her forelegs and the sweating, searing discomfort of regaining feeling inside a clammy suit. Nearly a day of passing in and out of consciousness. She'd seen faces, heard voices - old foes, recent friends, distant family - until she'd lost all track in the drifting between reality and dream.

The murmured, confused response she’d given to a question from the blurry shadows if she was feeling well enough to walk had then given rise to this violent drag. That, and the answer that those hazy shapes hadn’t belonged to those with her best interests in mind.

She heard the clink of metal cutlery. She smelled strong coffee. She felt the tile give way to smooth marble below her dragged legs. Walking was more of a stumble and her captors weren’t willing to wait. She tried to aim a bucking kick roughly for where certain spherical objects on her assailant might be but her limbs didn’t want to move that quickly. Her joints still felt frozen.

Eventually there was a clean swish of a quiet doorway, and Hair Trigger felt her balance upturned as someone threw her through it and down to the ground. A hand grasped her neck and shoved her face into the smooth, hard floor. Then, a cold metal barrel pressed behind her right hindleg’s knee.

“Try anything and you’ll wish you hadn’t.” A male voice. Experienced. Mature. Familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

Hair Trigger coughed, lying still and trying to snort the bag out of her mouth and nose. “Sounds like leftovers day at Craz-AGH!”

The butt of a gun rattled into her side, making her ribs flare up in a reminder that feeling had indeed returned to her body, before she felt herself being yanked up and the hood ripped from her head. Light cascaded into her vision and Trigger gasped and winced, looking away from the blinding source. Her eyes ached in their sockets. She blinked and looked around the floor; the light from off to the side of her vision arced and spread into long flaring lines. Even the texture around her seemed hazy, shifting on the walls in a way she couldn’t grasp.

A voice spoke out from in front of her, effortlessly confident and particular. Well intoned with a touch of bemusement. “Welcome back, Captain.”

Trigger froze in place. Squinting, she turned her eyes back to face forward. The room wasn’t bright, quite the opposite in fact. The floor and walls were a twinkling black marble. Angular for the most part, blocky when they weren’t, immaculately clean and minimalist like the inside of an obsidian monolith. A deep, heavy desk rose from the floor to her right, built of the same material. An aquarium rose up on her left, its quartz glass polished so well that the water and the pony-sized ghostly translucent eel within seemed to float in mid-air. After a moment, Trigger’s adjusting eyes saw text scrolling across some of the seemingly normal blocks. Unseen projectors or transparent displays were rolling stock market numerics and predictions around her, shifting and transferring from one block to another as they changed. The lower they got, the closer they came to the great desk in the centre.

The stunning, painful light however, had come from the far wall. Or rather, its window. From the very bottom of the floor to the fifteen foot high ceiling was an enormous concave bulge from the side of the starship itself. Completely see-through with only four running support pillars to break up its shape, it gazed out into the cascading deluge of whirling colour that was M-space. Surging past from right to left in streaks of impossible rainbows and violent eddies, it told of a mightily powerful ship hurtling through the unusual dimension at speeds Claudia could never hope to match. It was the sole source of light in what was clearly an office.

And the sole source that backlit the one who now spoke again.

“I’m happy you could make our scheduled meeting.”

A slender figure stood staring out into the immaterial vastness, cast in shadow by the bright visage of M-space before her. She was tall, clad in an offensively well-fitted black and white suit that lit from her horn’s red glow. The tinge of cream coat and a two-tone green mane and tail contrasted the tailoring.

Trigger knew immediately that what she’d thought to be a confused dreaming image was indeed reality. The recognition was immediate. Even if it hadn’t been clear, the sheer arrogance to stand that way -the exact same way she’d once met in the past- was enough to let her know precisely who had found them and let her anger surge to the surface.

“Where is Tami you obsessed rich-bitc-HRRN!”

Hair Trigger had been standing up, but a rifle butt to the back of her hindleg dropped her fragile, still shivering body back to the floor. She winced, and looked up into the twisted, scarred face of a dark red hippogriff.

Garwyn didn’t hesitate. The finely suited hippogriff reached down and yanked Hair Trigger back up, faced her to Asset Margin again and planted his hands on her shoulders. Asset was approaching, swaggering with forelegs almost crossing over one another - somepony who could afford to take her time, to revel in life’s little moments, until she came just outside of hoof’s reach of Trigger.

“Oh, your pilot’s around. Alive, you’ll be glad to know. You should be thanking me really, neither of you would be without our intervention. I don’t think any other ship was closer than a few days from finding you.”

Trigger snarled back, not entertaining for a moment showing any gratitude. “I want to see her, I want you to prove sh-”

She gasped again as Garwyn struck her side with his open palm. His other claw grabbed her hood as she buckled over, wrenching her neck to keep her from falling over. “You don’t get to make any negotiations this time.” His voice was brimming with pent up aggression. Trigger could sense he was being held back by orders from striking again and again. But she also saw something else: a smirk was growing on Asset's face the more she pushed about Tami.

Instinct kicked into her cold, clouded brain. Neither Asset nor Garwyn knew Tami as anything more than a pilot in her service. They knew nothing of how close they were.

Of how much they could hurt Trigger by possessing her.

It went against everything Hair Trigger knew and desired to not demand over and over. She wanted to bargain and shout and refuse to do a damn thing until they let her see the hippogriff. Even so, she realized she had to reel back on it - to keep herself in the dark about Tami and just hope with all she had that her pilot was all right. It hurt to imagine, to not know, but she knew it had to be done to protect her pilot.

She met Garwyn’s eyes, then looked back at the smirking unicorn standing easily in the centre of the office. Asset made a rich, deep-voiced laugh and wandered off toward her desk, seemingly happy with Trigger being silenced on the matter. Trigger noticed with some satisfaction she still moved with a limp.

“I see I’ve not stopped being a pain in your ass in a while then?” She tried to make a chuckle, but her throat felt thick and clumsy. “Hope you think of me every time you sit down for the crap you pulled on us!”

Asset paused, and Trigger saw a steaming mug lift from the table and tilt toward her.

“That mouth will get you killed someday, Captain. You know, last time we met we got on famously. We shared morning coffee. We talked of leadership. We were in and out in under fifteen minutes; that’s fast in my world. It’s a pity you had to decide to be a little shit and ruin it all on the way out.” Her voice took on a poisonous, spitting anger, and Hair Trigger felt some subdued pleasure in knowing the mare was still so seethingly furious about losing. Asset whirled on the spot and glared daggers at her, the hoity expression clenching into an affronted disdain, her voice biting. “You didn’t really think I was going to ignore you forever, did you? Someone who put such a stain on my record on Kavala? Do you have any idea, any idea at all, how many competitors I’ve had to fight off in the wake of what you did? How much financial loss I incurred?”

Hair Trigger coughed and breathed out hard, glaring daggers at her with a hoof gesturing around at the extravagant room on the high performance ship. “Oh, I’m sure you’re struggling.”

Asset raised a hoof quickly as Trigger felt Garwyn raise his fist to strike again. The motion stopped him in his tracks. “Money is not the question. It is credibility, Captain. When a nobody from the Periphery can humiliate you, rivals start gathering. I would have come after you sooner but suffice to say I’ve had to handle more immediate problems first. Thankfully, now that I’ve reasserted my position-”

She spread her forelegs and did a small pirouette around while coming closer to Trigger. Her short ponytail and long fringe strands were so starched they barely moved. Pausing, she finished by kneeling down to Trigger’s height. “I could finally tie up some loose ends and make it very clear that you don’t just get to cash out and walk in this game.”

Asset went to tap her on the cheek, but Trigger shook her head away from it with a snort. The motion suddenly made her aware she didn’t have her hat with her. “Yeah? Almost killing an entire freighter to catch us didn’t seem like some game to me. Those were innocents you crazed bitch!”

The trillionaire scoffed and snorted. “Oh, you think I did that? Oh no, Captain. What do you take me for? Come, sit!”

She trotted away, and Trigger felt a shove from behind. Glowering back at the barely restrained Garwyn, she wandered in toward one of the jet black seats. Sitting wasn’t any more comfortable. The pressure on her skin was making her feel fragile, like paper that could rip as the swelling all over died down. Squirming, it took her a second before realising this office was almost identical in shape to the one on Kavala, just varied in its elaborate tricks. ‘How neurotically egotistical did you have to be?’ she thought.

Asset sat ahead of her in a tall-backed chair. She stared over, grinning smugly and rotating her chair left and right slightly. “I recall you dislike my coffee, so none for you I’m afraid.”

“Good, thought I was going to get tortured again,” Hair Trigger spat back at her without blinking, and felt rage elevate at Asset’s casual laugh.

“Garwyn asked to, you know? He’s a little peeved at you from last time. His brother’s not let him once forget losing to you and your griffon-friend in a fistfight, has he?”

“Every time we spar.” Garwyn sat behind Trigger, arms crossed. She could see he still bore a scar on his face. His beak looked off centre; it hooked a little as he stared down at her. “Just give me a reason.”

Asset chuckled. “Perhaps in time. But anyway, you asked about my coming for you! Honestly, it wasn’t all that complicated. Give a quick job again and again and lightly deny others until you took it, immobilise the shuttle, whisk you over after stun grenading the crew compartment and-” She clapped her hooves loudly. “-there we go. I didn’t expect to have to use my own vessel’s private transponder to relocate it out here but, well, I suppose it paid off. The freighter, I regret to tell your little conspiracy growing mind, was a legitimate accident. At least, I think so… Who knows, I hear a lot of people want your head these days. Maybe I crossed paths and didn’t know it.”

“You’d love to hear you’re not even top five.” Trigger leaned back in the chair.

“Please.” Asset winked. “I’ve done my research this time. I think I’m at least in the top three at this point. But right now, I’m the one you should be concerned about. Let’s see…”

She pressed a button, and Trigger groaned as the obsidian behind Asset lit up, hurting her eyes. The twist to avoid looking stung even more. She just wanted to lie down again, feeling weariness at even a short journey creeping in, but she doubted she could walk more than a few feet, let alone try to make an escape.

The blocks formed an adaptive screen, displaying a scrolling bill of credits.

MRSR-04 Mining Drone x5 - 60,000,000cAether Class Yacht (Platinum-Edition) - 457,000,000cConfederate PN-01 Shuttlecraft - 700,000cPlanetdrop Series Modular Colony Warehouse - 2,700,000cJump Scrambler Republic Police Model - 15,000,000c84mm by 618mm High-Explosive Rounds x 1,600 - 2,112,000cFuel Expenditures - 4,100,000cTraffic Collision Insurance - 315,000,000c

Hair Trigger scrolled her eyes over every forming line of the bill, feeling an intense sense of pride grow, moreso as she caught Asset’s frustrated, irked expression as the bill of their last encounter continued. But then the listings began to get rather specific.

Audio Systems Purge - 82,000cCrew Medical Expenditures - 900c (Insurance Excess Minimum)CEO Medical Expenditures - 900,000c (Private with cosmetic work)

“Oh I see you treat them VERY well compared to yourself, Ass-et.”

Asset spoke rather disinterestedly. “They signed the contract.”

Downtime Loss of Profit - 14,451,120,002cNovalite Leather Suitcase (Black) - 2,300c

“You HAVE to be joking.”

“It was a very good suitcase, Captain,” Asset Margin bitterly commented, and let it continue.

Complimentary Coffee - 20cBaking Soda - 150mg - 8cTomato Sandwich - 5c

“Oh COME ON!” Hair Trigger thumped the solid desk, then wished she hadn’t.

“I am merely surmising all of the payment due to the responsible party. It would be unprofessional of me to ignore the fine details of-”

“It would be unprofessional of me not to tell you to kiss my still distinctly un-shot ass.” Trigger spat the words over the table.

Asset paused, and Trigger saw the mug shake again as the unicorn fought to control her own temper. She took a breath, then leaned forward on the table to take a long sip of her coffee, but her eyes betrayed an internal fury and her voice took a more precision strike of whipcord cadance. “-of proper compensation. I shall presume you will pay now?” She raised an eyebrow before grinning at the anger on Hair Trigger’s face, her own temper simmering down a touch. “Oh come now, Captain. I’m not unreasonable. I’ve left the anger to Garwyn and Kreer. It’s only around fifteen billion credits really, and I’ve even left out the dozens of billions I lost in share sales and wetwork I had to conduct to keep my stability on Kavala. Shall we discuss recompense then?”

Hair Trigger held her mocking gaze. This was a show trial; Asset knew Trigger couldn’t produce that sort of money. She was enjoying this, and Trigger had no wish to play into her games. She kept quiet. Asset only smirked at her.

“Struggling? Tried down the back of whatever mangy couch you must have on that rusty ship?” Asset winked. “Can’t call your business friend for a little handout? What about Sweet Alyssum? Oh I’m sure she’ll bail you out to the sum of her entire quarterly earnings right now on that miserable station. Shall I give her a call?”

She wiggled a hoof beside her ear, then took another long sip of coffee, making a horrific sucking sound into it while waiting for a response. In the silence that followed there was nothing but the undulating warble of M-space warping around the hull. Eventually Asset sighed at Hair Trigger’s furious stare and shrugged. “Well then, I suppose we’ll have to discuss my repayment options more formally then. Thankfully for you, I predicted that you’d be a stubborn little brat and had one prepared earlier.”

Asset’s voice grew into a touchy, spitting annoyance. She lifted a remote idly in her magic, clicking. One of the jet black blocks fizzled and reformed. Trigger felt her heart clench as Tami’s smiling face looked back at her. The photo she knew her pilot used as photo ID. Qualifications ran down the bottom of it.

“My mining operation has grown a little understaffed as of late from recent expansion. I could always use another drone... pilot. So I’m more than happy to have a newcomer into the workforce as contracted servitude to pay off your debts to me. It’s legal on Kavala, you know? If one cannot repay what they owe? I mean, I effectively paid for the modern labour laws there so I would know!”

Her smile turned deadly. “If she’s half the pilot she was in your escape, oh I’m sure she’ll be able to work it off before retirement age. Maybe. Compound interest can be a bitch, can’t it?”

Hair Trigger fought hard to not launch herself over that desk. To not use her magic to tilt the coffee into Asset’s face. To not call her a savage bastard. She couldn’t. She could not dare let them think of Tami as anything other than a piloting asset. Even so, the mere thought chilled her blood all over again. Trigger knew Tami well enough to understand what such a thing would do to her. A lifetime sentence, cut off from everything she loved, doing nothing of passion and denying the wanderlust Trigger knew she sought, all while facing brutal, soulless treatment.

The thought was too terrible to contemplate.

She bristled. “You want us to pilot your drones? Be your little toys to laugh at on shifts?”

Asset Margin was barely listening. Her desk had beeped, and from its surface, an integrated screen rose out of it to display something for her. Trigger could see an incoming call on it, a fluid animation rolling waiting for a pickup. Reading it, Asset smiled. “Oh? Not ‘us’. Just her, as amusing as getting Kreer to be your floor manager would be. You? Oh I found a better use for you.”

“Let me guess. String me up? Torture me to death? Airlock me?”

Asset laughed, her deep, rich voice sounding oh-so enthused by the thought. “Oh you are so dramatic. Nothing so grandiose. I’m a businessmare, not a tyrant. I have something else in mind for you, but, alas, we have gone over time for our little standup, shall we say? I have a meeting to attend regarding just what to do with you, so I’ll be sure to let you know what’s happening as soon as I can. I’m sure its arrival won’t be too long. I’ll have the contract for Tammani drawn up, and you can rest and recover until we arrive.” Asset stood up from her desk and gave Trigger a sudden snorting look of anger. “This is what happens when you screw with me, Captain. I was never going to let you go for the shit you put me through, nor your crew, trust me I have things for the others too in due time! Take her away, Garwyn dear. Take that wretched little midget out my office!”

“Ma’am.” Garwyn didn’t hesitate or blink an eye at his boss’ anger, dragging Hair Trigger from the chair with savage strength. She was thrown down and shoved across the office floor before she could recover enough to turn and kick out at him. Hair Trigger felt her clothing slide on the marble and groaned as she got up. She breathed in, out, in, out, and felt a nasty streak turn up. She saw red. She swung around.

“HEY, ASSHOLE!”

Asset Margin whipped her head up from being about to accept the call. “WHAT!?”

Hair Trigger just gave her best shit-eating grin. “Nothing, just wanted to see if you responded to Ass-hole.”

Asset almost looked about ready to hurl the lamp from her desk, and only ceased when Garwyn suckerpunched Trigger’s gut for her, grabbed her, and flung her across the room. The unicorn thumped into the doorframe; she was promptly grabbed by her clothing and then forced back into the stifling black hood. Once again she found herself being dragged across polished marble, back to the dark isolation of the brig, with Asset's smug laugh ringing in her ears.

Port Medusa’s level four disembarkment terminal was still running more slowly than it ought to. Crowds pushed past huddles of bored, impatient visitors still waiting for their cancelled flights to be rescheduled out on the higher arrival deck. Aromatic street food stalls had been dotted against every wall, while some opportunistic marketeers had even set out their wares in the middle of the terminal floor or around the walls. Here and there, floating security drones broke up fights with barked threats. The cavernous terminal reeked of sweat and oil from its clamour, mixed with spice and grease from the street food, giving the air a thick, artificial cluster and making a normally very open space feel very close indeed.

Yet amidst its congregation of all species, age and walks of life stepped a figure in a dark sweater and jacket, a hood pulled up about his head. Sorting his saddlebags, he made its way through the crowds past the ramp of a landed vessel and followed the faded paint on the deck toward the check-in desk.

Thirty impatient minutes later, he finally moved up toward the very drained receptionist. An exchange of ID was performed. A declaration of armament was given. Papers were stamped.

As he waited for the papers to be handed back, his head turned to the colossal windows behind the desk. They were thirty feet tall, curving slightly to match the shape of the station's ring-shaped hangar level.

“Is there anything more I can help you with?”

A multiband rose, bearing an image of a Pioneer vessel. “Where is the cargo vessel, Claudia?”

Gold rim passed within millimetres of white ceramic. It did not touch. Slowly, it tilted and a clean, quiet stream of thin orange fruit tea flowed from a spout into the chalky cup. It was gentle, precise and elegant in its motion, and almost silent.

And it entirely mismatched the current ambience of Director Sweet Alyssum’s boudoir lounge upon Medusa.

“You can’t do nothing!” Verbena Mint slammed her hooves on the table, making the formal place setting of tea judder and shift. “Trigger’s one of your employees, and Tami’s my best friend out here!”

“Putting aside the amount of times I feel like I have this conversation every day-” Alyssum held the pot steady until the cup stopped shaking, then continued. “-I did not say I would do nothing. I said that there was little I could do.”

Verbena narrowed her eyes. “Don’t play words with me to my face! I’m not an employee begging for a handout! We have proof! Come on, you’ve got a fleet gathering with Karme-”

Suddenly, her half-sister’s voice crept upward, and Alyssum sat up straighter. “Your foreknowledge of that deal is regrettable, Verbena. Regardless of the situation with a single ship I will not reveal my entire hoof to the galaxy to handle one petty revenge from a far off rival. I. Am. Sorry. But this is the Periphery and you knew that coming out here. I will not ruin this sector’s chances to come together by jumping the gun on this, and I will not have you making an outburst of that aloud where others might hear! Am I understood?”

She didn’t expect Verbena to kowtow and apologise or even agree or ‘understand’. Alyssum was quietly proud to see that she did not.

“Then what CAN you do?”

‘That’s better’, thought Alyssum. Verbena made to speak, but the triple bleep of her comm-panel on the antique desk at the other side of the colourful, elaborately carpeted and tapestry-ridden room caught her attention. She carefully sipped her tea. “I did ask not to be disturbed. Can you remind them of that, Verbena?”

The young earth pony huffed at the delay, moving over to jab the button with a hoof. “What!?”

A startled receptionist replied, “Volatility Smile, Kerfuffle and er-one other here to see you, Direc-er-Miss?”

Verbena locked stares with Alyssum across the room and spoke without breaking eye contact. “Send them in immediately.”

She let go of the communicator and advanced back to staring at her sister across the table, her own tea sitting completely untouched. Alyssum didn’t move anything other than to tilt the cup upward in a long drag of the fragrant, sweet-tart drink, her eyes remaining thin and inscrutable. There were thirty seconds of silence between them ahead of the bloop from the door signifying visitors.

“Come in!” Verbena moved aside, leaving room beside the table and the heavy fabric cushions surrounding it.

While the room itself was layered in fabric, criss-crossing rugs and hanging drapery, the door ground and hissed when it opened; heavy machinery characterized every level of Port Medusa, no matter the status of a given deck’s occupant. Behind it came the trio. Volatility Smile strode in confidently, followed by Kerfuffle and then Eleven. The pink unicorn wore a large cyan hoodie over her head, looking like an exceptionally reluctant and moody teenager.

“Director, we-”

“Verbena has already briefed me, Miss Smile. She got your message about the identity of the kidnapper some minutes ago.” Alyssum put down her tea and gave a flat look to her half-sister. “Indeed we have just been discussing it.”

Smile stopped short. ‘Stars bless that young mare’, she thought. The receptionist had been aiming to deny them for a moment. “Then I’m sure you’re aware of the severity of the situation, Director. Asset Margin is not only a rival attempting to pull one over you by taking two of your employees, she did so after attempting it in your own backyard.”

Alyssum remained quiet, watching Smile, before looking down. “As I recall, I suppose I should say Acting-Captain Smile, your deal that went awry with Asset Margin was against my own recommendation to stick to the Periphery and not to indulge in the rivalries and temptations of private system owners amidst the empires. And that this plot was a result of your personal interactions with her unrelated to me. Would that be correct?”

“Sis!” Verbena shouted out, but Kerfuffle’s voice was louder.

“This ain’t just about contracts, Missus Alyssum!”

The outburst was short, and even the griffon seemed surprised by the effect his own voice’s volume and power had for a moment in silencing the room. He quickly regained his footing. “This is two folk who don’t deserve this gettin’ taken from you and us. You know the sorts of stuff going on with us these days.”

Beside him, Eleven looked up with wide eyes before sucking in air and planting one hoof down. Her own voice was gentler, more appealing to an emotional pull. “The Captain and Tami are what keep that ship together, Mis-Mrs? Just as much as Smile and Kiffle. They’ve helped me stay away from Sidewinder-”

Smile raised her eyebrow. “Eleven, should you-”

But the pink unicorn pulled down her hoodie, letting her ears spring up. She turned her head to gesture at the two with her. “They and the others kept me safe from a group who wants to take me away too, Mrs Director! And they did it because they just felt it was right - they didn’t come asking you to help with it then! That’s how good they can do, and-and I don’t think you would want to lose them so, please! Please give them a chance!”

Kerfuffle looked down at her in shock. Eleven being willing to reveal herself and her situation to push the issue? His drive momentarily hiccuped in admiration of her heart, even if he knew there was little chance Sweet Alyssum hadn’t figured her out days ago. He nodded, picking up from her. “An’ it matters to us, Mrs. And it matters to your own sister.”

Kerfuffle looked over at Verbena, seeing the earth pony quivering, worried like any of them. “An’ you don’t let a sister down. Ever. Not unless you wanna’ lose all respect forever.”

Eleven reached up, stroking the griffon’s arm with a hoof. Smile looked back pensively. She didn’t expect emotional plays would work with Alyssum, but she couldn’t have stopped those two if she had tried.

Sweet Alyssum took one more long draught of tea, and inhaled its scent.

“Asset Margin has, since your last visit, substantially enhanced her operations.”

She opened her eyes and touched her unlatched multiband on the glass table, making it project a small holographic image of Kavala and the substantial asteroid field around it. “I don’t know if it’s where she’s taking your friends, but it is most likely. Kavala is her fortress after all and the only place I know of where she exhibits utter control… and where she needs to be seen to make an example. Since you last visited the mining operations have increased, despite her facing heightened tensions from her corporate rivals, and I have observed her taking new holdings in unspecified trade, highly protected and not listed on public markets. Very ‘know a friend of a friend’ type, and one I have not yet penetrated. With its profits, she has set up a new station in orbit handling the drone fleet, security drone perimeters running automated protocols that the Confederacy really aren’t too happy about and recently spent almost thirty billion on something I cannot actually determine.”

Alyssum pointed to the new station amidst the asteroid field, and a construction convoy moving near the moon. “She may not have the influence - the soft-power - I do, but I won’t deny she certainly has the financial advantage. And that’s why there is actually little I can do. I can find her hidden accounts out here and crash them, but that’s of little consequence to someone who makes their fortune from in-system mining. I can provide you with her recent purchases I identified, but I cannot go sending hired pirate ships into a war on Confederate territory, particularly not as they would have to pass through the Republic en-route at this moment in time.”

Smile pursed her lips, sitting on a cushion to observe the hologram. “We’ll take that at least. What you sound like you're telling us is that getting in there is impossible, and that we won’t know where to even start looking once there. There’s a whole planet, and now even more of an orbital infrastructure”

“That won’t stop us tryin’, Missus.” Kerfuffle quickly added. “They would for us.”

“Quite.” Alyssum reached down to the table’s touchscreen control, sending the data Smile’s way. “But you’re a single unarmed ship with - forgive me for the insult but I saw your landing - a non-specialised pilot and only three aboard.”

“Four,” Verbena techily muttered to herself.

Sweet Alyssum ignored the comment. “I can’t stop you from trying. I can even provide you with some aid in the form of intelligence. But at present I see a suicide mission, Volatility Smile.” Alyssum put down her tea, sat up, and gave a very firm, very frank look with a level, mature tone. “Perhaps it’s time to cut your losses? You of all ponies I know are familiar with the concept.”

There was silence in the room. Verbena looked horrified at the suggestion. Eleven held on to Kerfuffle, who glared with an intensity matched only by his last visit to the director. Volatility Smile stood still. She met Alyssum’s eyes head on. There was a subtle tremble about her, and then her mouth opened with great care and precise volume.

“Thank you for your time, Director.”

She turned, trotting toward the door. Something about her declaration, her motion, carried the others along with her. Kerfuffle looked distinctly unhappy, Eleven glanced between them all as though wondering why there wasn’t more. Several awkward seconds later, Verbena was the only one left by the door itself. She gave her half-sister a disappointed look.

“I can’t believe you.”

Alyssum caught her eye with a firm, meaningful look. “You ought to.”

“They’re still going to try, you know that right? Whether or not you believe they can!”

Verbena left, slamming a hoof into the controls to close the door behind her, leaving Sweet Alyssum alone. The director took a sip of tea in the refreshing quiet, then keyed her multiband, tapping into the cameras in her own reception area.

“On the contrary, my beloved sister. I’m rather hoping they do.”

She put down her empty cup and watched Smile go from a maintained walk to a head down, determined canter toward the elevator, shoving a stallion out of the way to collect her rifle, pack, and get out of there. Alyssum smiled to herself.

“Oh dear. I think I may have pushed her a little too hard.”

“Now arriving: Kavala.”

As though on command, the cascading aether of faster than light travel sharply cut to a sedate black on all sides of Asset’s vessel, a transition so quick and sharp that Tami instinctively braced on the gurney for the jolt. None came. Instead, the ship glided through the translation from M-space to its destination with the grace of a ballet dancer. Tami scarcely felt a thing below her in the deck.

The curved starboard corridor of black marble she was being rolled down was lined with long rounded rectangular windows of clear polymer out to the void, each of them embossed with injected golden lines forming images of alicorns, wyrms and other magical beasts. She’d barely noticed them before with the light of M-space, but in the black they stood out and contrasted to flourish magnificent artwork along every meter of the long, spacious route. Briefly, Tami had wondered why a vessel had such a wide running compartment on its side, until she’d realised that this was a pathway for staff to roll giant tables, grand pianos and lavish sculptures down to events. She’d already been taken past side doors to a grand ballroom that would give the Silver Dome serious rivalry in its opulence. This was no rescue vessel, nor a military ship. It was an enormous yacht, a luxury tour ship for the megarich of the kind she’d often wanted to see. Just not like this.

Every muscle in Tami's body still stung. They had removed the heating suit an hour ago and instead dressed her a thick set of padded navy blue overalls. Ill-fitting, they pinched at the waist but, along with a heat-retaining blanket, were keeping her shivering body steady. That said, Tami had a worrying feeling as to how uniformly mass produced the overalls looked, like something she’d seen deck workers wearing before. Worrisome speculations as to her captors' intentions whirled through her mind, making her close her eyes. Whining, she turned her head to see the quiet stars, just for a moment to-

“Be quiet, girl.”

The simple words shocked Tami out of her distractionary tactics, and instead mounting fear twisted her gut. They weren't loud, but they were forceful. They carried a rough, threatening undertone that clashed with the sophistication of the luxury vessel. Kreer. She’d figured out who it was after her muddled brain had finally put together the clues and remembered what the others had told her. Kavala was the final confirmation of who had taken them. The massive griffon was right behind her, his movements eerily quiet. She’d been surprised to not be tied up or cuffed. He wasn’t even armed. It quickly occurred that she posed no threat to him; his physical presence was all the security necessary.

The outer passage of the ship led to a curved door of gilded frames, large enough for a small vehicle. Yet Tami could see the mandated warning stickers by its control panel, indicating that it was a sealant door, one that would lead to a disembarkment chamber with an airlock. It slid apart gracefully, and beyond it Tami witnessed the true extravagance of wealth. What on most ships would simply be a utilitarian compartment beside an airlock was an enormous entrance lobby. A trickling fountain of a suggestive, fluffy deer, spouting water from her pursed lips rose up from the very centre of a patterned and paved slab floor. To her left, arching staircases ran up each to a higher level, like a mansion’s main hall rather than some mere receiving gantry for onboarding guests.

Fighting the urge to whimper as she realised this meant a departure from the ship, Tami glanced to her right instead. Through the heavy glass surrounding the airlock she could already see the gold and orange planet glowing in the dark, spotted and surrounded by a whirling cascade of asteroids on all sides that became increasingly clear as they closed in. They’d arrived at the same unique jump point Claudia had once used, the planet’s loophole from Confederate law, and Tami could see massive cargo freighters laterally shifting to permit this VIP vessel’s entry through the narrow corridor. She hid within those details, evading the terror at her situation gnawing inside by stargazing and following the whizzing drones that surrounded the space lane they kept clear of asteroids. She saw yellow-armed handlers that could drag the shifting rocks around or recover smashed drones, star-shaped omni-directional ‘roid-cutters’ with powerful orange beams, dull gun-metal grey brutes the size of cruisers that acted as mobile recharging and repair stations with flat hulls to mount and land smaller craft upon.

As Asset’s yacht rolled and turned them down toward an auxiliary pathway in the cluttered, dangerous field, she saw something else. Something new.

In the inner layers she could see the same orbital stations with their reaching cables and long, thin arms extending from bonsai-tree shaped hulls: freighter mounting points and docking tethers. Beyond them the rolling, knurled cylinders of reprocessing plants spun and lines of waiting vessels dotted the void between them all - Kavala’s gargantuan mining operation. But between it all she spotted trios of small remote vessels gliding on smooth patrols, not as erratic and active as the mining drones, these had larger vector engines on each of the four sides like a cross around a central sphere, and as one group passed by them she saw what could only be a traversable twin-cannons mounted in a rotating gimbal at its centre. There weren’t many, but Tami winced as she easily identified the hole in drone security from last time had been closed.

They escorted the ship’s arc into the asteroid field with tiny puffs of vapour from their engines as Tami felt their destination change. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the rocks and planet whirl out of sight. She’d expected to go to the surface, but now it all silently swung away.

“What? What’s happening, where are we going?” She sat up, the motion causing her to gasp from lack of breath.

Kreer interrupted. “Quiet. You’re not going planetside. You’ve got other plans waiting for you.”

Tami turned and looked up at him with wide eyes, her pupils shaking. He didn’t look back, but just stared above her head. Her imagination did leaps of horror, but there were scant seconds before she finally saw where the ship was headed.

Through several side routes in the orbital field, cleared by drones for smaller vessels than the ‘cargo monsters’, Tami could see another station hanging in orbit, as large as any of the refuelling or mineral processing facilities. But while they were blocky, modular and at best had sheets of pre-made curved metal on their bulbous tops, this was cohesive in its design, with no prefabricated modules, universal sockets or mismatching silhouettes of different eras on its greater silhouette. It looked as though it had been hand-crafted as a singular, one off creation. Something by a designer who had an artistic vision rather than quotas to meet. Each side of its top third curved over in great arches like the pauldrons of some ancient suit of armour. Lines of clear glass rolled across them, shining through to layers of internal levels behind them with castle-like protrusions and towers rising up from between them, making for a maze of observation decks and sensor arrays, shaped to look like an orchard of trees around the bases of the towers from afar and shielded between the thick shoulders of the upper hull.

The lower section was made of two great monoliths of hull with an adjoining bridge, forming an ‘H’ shape. Their monolithic sides were built from vertical flat extensions, layered and thickened until they reminded her of an uneven stack of paper standing on their end. All of it bore a long worn bronzed pallor that once might have shone in gold and brilliant cream paint. The whole station was ringed with docking lights of sapphire blue guiding arrivals into the upper and lower gaps of the ‘H’ underside where she could see great bays and docking gantries. Crystal shaped elevators traversed on the outside of the hull, shunting vertically and horizontally around cavernous spaces and glinting when they caught the light of the moon.

Yet as Asset’s yacht closed in toward it on a docking vector and drew closer to one of the extended gantries for large vessels, the sheer natural beauty began to taper off and Tami saw the truth.

It was devastated. Her eyes had been enraptured by the greater shapes, but she could see holes in the station’s hull between the restored bays, void-ridden compartments open to the black. One of the pauldrons was shattered, a dozen decks inaccessible behind it. Racks and racks of mining drones were haphazardly bolted onto recognisable Confederate mounting points, disgustingly inconsistent with the aesthetic. The art that had formed the shape of the upper docking bay was now an ugly, automated assembly line in perpetual motion to repair and replenish the drone fleet. It all almost prevented her from finally identifying what the station really was.

A great moulded symbol worn down by time and erosion was emblazoned on the middle join of the large ‘H’ shape, a symbol she’d not seen since her time within Æther Corps on Equestria’s moon. Two alicorns in a spiral around one another, both of burnished hull plate to stand out in separate colours when the reflected light from Kavala or it’s shattered moon caught it. Portions of the symbol looked bent and torn. Then she realised, almost all of the damage was on one side of the station, the side facing the exploded moon itself, giving Tami the last confirmation she needed.

It was a pre-wyrm orbital station. Asset had restored, no, ruined a pre-wyrm artifact of rare significance to expand her drone operations. There were perhaps only single digits of such pieces left intact in the entire galaxy.

Affronted, Tami almost missed that the station wasn’t alone in this separate area of Kavala’s operation. Hanging in space perhaps twenty kilometers distant from it Tami could see something unusual in the distance. It was large, the size of a small station unto itself, merely dwarfed by the monolithic giant beside it, shaped like a massive satellite dish. Angled downwards with great mirrored frames extended from its edges, it gave the impression of a colossal chandelier hanging in the darkness. It was surrounded by what Tami recognised as science vessels, their articulated arms working on its unusual technology.

She hadn’t a clue what it was, and Tami knew well that she was a passionate expert at void-structure identification.

“Admiring my latest commission there, Tammani?”

Tami froze at the sound of the voice, her body feeling rusty and unwilling as she turned to see what had to be Asset Margin looking directly at her. The tall, green maned unicorn wore business attire, lacking only the jacket, leaving her black waistcoat and brilliantly clean and smooth shirt visible below. Tami could see its tips lined with something, like a gentle hint of silver, a soft highlight of expense. If the tone hadn’t been clear enough, Tami saw the limp, remembering her captain’s grinning story. With the door below the stairwells closing with a hiss, she was flanked by two others, both female, one an earth pony carrying the suit’s jacket for her, the other a zebra rapidly working on a multiband.

“It-It’s…” Tami stammered.

“Delightful, I know.” Asset strode on long legs around the fountain and sauntered closer, patting Tami’s chest, turning her to look at the station again and standing far too close for the hippogriff to be comfortable. “Repurposed from a colony to emergency use when Kavala began work against the Wyrm threat, then left derelict when the moon exploded. They called it The Sun of the Night. Ostentatious perhaps.”

Tami briefly considered the gilded framing and marble across the mansion of the yacht.

Asset continued, “It’s a nightmare to buy stations into Kavala, so I had the simply brilliant idea to take an old relic and use it as a spare hull. Drones don’t care if half of it’s sealed to the black now, do they? And I promise...”

She leaned in to whisper. Tami screwed her eyes closed.

“The insides are just as splendid; you’ll enjoy your time flying for me there. I am told you love your ships. I expect great things from you.”

Tami gulped, looking away from her and trying to muster words. “The… The Captain, where is-”

“And I presume you saw my other little project waiting just off it?” Asset pointed to the satellite. “Well I can’t say too much but… Well, it’s wonderful what you can dig up on Kavala sometimes.”

She purred a small laugh out and clapped Tami’s back, making the hippogriff go stiff with pain as her recovering hypothermia stung through her body. “As for your ‘captain’...”

She turned and gestured to one of her aides. The zebra spoke, looking panicked. “She… She will be here in about five minutes, Miss. I sent the request as you asked to Kreer to-”

Asset’s brow stiffened. “I recall asking you some time ago to have her ready for my being here at eleven shipboard time, Amari…”

Amari gulped, noticing her earth pony companion shuffling away from her. “It’s still five to eleven though, she’ll-”

“And I am here. Amari, Amari, Amari - when I say I want someone there for when I am there, I mean when I am there. The schedule moves around me, not you! Do you not think, filly?” Asset groaned. “In fact, get out of here! You’re fired! Go!”

“Miss-”

“GO!” Asset roared across the hallway. “Get out of my sight!”

The zebra, terrified, turned and galloped away up the gilded staircase behind her. Tami, cowed by the shout as much as the poor mare, heard Asset grumble and was surprised to see the unicorn looking at her as she spoke. “Typical. The day somepony invents a drone-assistant…” She rubbed her face with a hoof. “Kreer, open recruitment for a new intern. There’s always more where that came from.”

Tami swallowed deeply, risking a nod to placate the short-tempered trillionaire.

“Ma’am,” the huge griffon rumbled, tapping onto his oversized multiband. “Garwyn’s coming up now.”

No sooner than he spoke did the doors opposite where she had come from slid silently apart, and Tami’s eyes erupted in size. Behind them was a red hippogriff, a similar shade to her own captor, but she barely noticed, her eyes spotting only the blue coated unicorn staggering ahead of him in restraints. They both saw one another at the same time.

“Tami!”

“Captain!” Tami’s legs moved before she could think, clumsily dropping from the gurney. She hit the floor, gasped, and bounded forward. Emotions swelled in her. Relief. Safety. Gratitude for saving her life. Enough to drive the weak, poorly hippogriff to throw herself into Hair Trigger’s grip and momentarily believe if she did, then all this would be fine.

Kreer’s hand, however, stopped her short. The huge griffon had bounded along behind her, and Tami yelped as claws grabbed the back of her collar, stopping her dead. Her hooves skidded on the smooth floor as her top half stopped dead above them, almost falling on her side, her stretching hand missing her captain’s reaching hoof by inches.

“Tam! It’s all right! You’re going to be fine, okay? You will be fine! Don’t struggle, just-”

“Captain! Captain I-I don’t know what’s going on, what’s happening? They aren’t telling me it’s-it’s-” she panted.

“Well isn’t this precious?” Asset’s chuckle cut anything Hair Trigger had to say short. The suited unicorn trotted idly over by the fountain, putting herself between her prisoners and smiling at Trigger’s furious look. The great station loomed behind her, and an extending umbilical was moving closer to the airlock. “I thought you’d want to be here, Captain. See your pilot away.”

“Away?” Tami breathed, momentarily struggling in Kreer’s grip. “What’s happening!?”

Asset raised an eyebrow, dragging her hoof through the crystal clear water. “What? You think I’d want this excuse for a farm-tractor pilot working my drones? Perish the thought.”

“Flew well enough to show your toys up last time.” Trigger spat the words at her, throwing her head to the side to try and shake Garwyn’s claws from her shoulder without much success.

“As I remember it, they were ready to rip your ship apart with you in control, Captain.” Asset smirked.

“As I remember it, you once had an intact ass a mare might want to hit, or do your drones do that for you now too?” Trigger gave a furious, biting look.

Asset sharply inhaled, her face screwing up. “Garwyn?”

Tami witnessed the hippogriff viciously smack her captain around the head with an open palm, drawing an angered snarl from the unicorn.

“That mouth of yours is going to get you punished sometime, Captain. You’re like a broken record.” Asset bitterly spoke, before the yacht rumbled at the station’s umbilical connecting to it, the airlock hissing open moments later. The earth pony assistant coughed lightly. “Ready for disembarkment, Ma’am.”

Asset recovered her composure enough to take a deep breath and smile. “Well, as I said, I thought you’d want to be here, Captain. To see your pilot away to her new career. Wish her luck. After all...”

She reached over, wrapping a foreleg around Tami’s shoulders to pull her in, as though for a joint photograph. “It’s probably the last time she’ll ever see you.”

Tami’s eyes went wide - her blood ran cold at the calculated tone in Asset’s voice. Heedless of the pain, she beat her wings hard and flung herself forward. She felt claws scratch through her heavy overalls and heard Asset’s annoyed intonation, but Tami didn’t stop, not until she could throw herself onto the unicorn, grabbing tightly and feeling forelegs wrap around her.

“Captain no, no no no… I-I-I-” she mumbled into Trigger’s shoulder, and felt a hoof pat her back and stroke through her mane.

“Don’t worry, Tam.” Trigger’s voice was low, immediately comforting, and Tami could sense the depth of effort to keep it level and quiet. “This ain’t the last. It ain’t.”

The hippogriff couldn’t form words, just a mumbled whine, and held tighter.

“Just stay safe. It’ll be okay. It will.” A pause. “You’ll make me proud. You always have.”

Tami wanted to reply. Wanted to think of the words to say, but claws grasped at them both and tore them apart. Tami felt herself being dragged back onto the gurney by the umbilical, and wheeled off through the airlock, toward the great pre-wyrm station.

She loved her captain’s confidence in her - she always had. But right then Tami had another cloying feeling in her gut as they were separated. One she recognised, and had never wanted to feel ever again.

A friend was being taken by those who would do them harm.

Volatility Smile had little break in her stride. Crowds parted if they had any sense, and those who didn’t care or didn’t notice quickly found there were ways to physically shove past someone without actually lifting a hoof. Most who saw her face, even those hardened to a hard life in the void, quietly made room in advance. Every few steps she looked down at her multiband and tapped three or four times, then proceeded onward. She ignored a shout from behind. She ignored Crazy D’s loud call of greeting.

What she did do was stop to terrify the vendor of Medusa’s small-arms and on-board protection licence provider into taking a downpayment, slam her multiband into the contactless pay screen, and walk away with a dubiously legal authorisation to carry laser weaponry across the NLR border for the next month. There would be no halts at the border.

Volatility Smile wouldn’t accept anything halting her now.

She rounded the top of the heavy steel staircase onto -rather purposefully- one of the quieter levels of Port Medusa, an observation ring. Situated the deck above the market and the docks Claudia rested in, it bore predominantly digital businesses; navigation assistance agencies, independent banks and insurance outlets blazed their wares in vivid blue and purple neon. The lights reflected from the single window running around the entire circumference on the outside, the viewport that gave the deck its most common use to the layman, a place to come to get away from the crowds. A handful of other occupants were scattered here and there, laid back on the benches or sipping hot drinks near the bubbled windows. Most were just seeking a place to sit, either in small groups or in one case, a grey-blue stallion simply sitting by himself.

Through an inner window between the modules containing the varied businesses, Smile could see the bustling, steamy marketplace below where they’d exited the elevator. Crazy D was serving a veritable horde, and fear of NLR blockades was leading to more crews crowding the station. The noise had made it impossible to think. And right now she had to do just that.

“Missus Smiles, wait up!”

Volatility Smile turned her head, seeing Kerfuffle, Eleven and Verbena round the stairwell to the same level. The griffon was holding the unicorn’s hoof to help her through the crowds surrounding the steps.

“What did you find out?” Smile’s tone cut right to the chase, the trio stopping sharply.

Kerfuffle shook his head. “Ain’t no bounties offered or claimed, Asset’s stayin’ quiet.”

“Damn it.” A small vibration on Smile’s foreleg led her to pause outside of a mercenary escort hiring guild, its pricing board casting her crystal body into an azure hue. Looking down, she scowled at the screen.

Space Jammers Inc. Public Message Service:

Inter-Sector Message Update complete:

Inbox;

No new messages present
Sent;Outgoing;

Mailing Lists;

No new messages present

The pause gave the trio a chance to gather around her, Eleven still huffing gently at the effort she’d taken to push through the hordes below. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. That’s the point. I’d hoped incoming mail after a full reconnective update would maybe give us something. Or the bounties. A clue. Asset’s ego driving a ransom or wanting people to know. Some information. Anything.” Smile bitterly snorted and lowered her hoof. “No. If she cares about us, she isn’t showing her hoof yet.”

“She’d want money? Like a ransom?” Verbena looked from Smile to Kerfuffle, eyes wide and hopeful. “It sucks to give in but Tami’s boyfriend could-”

Kerfuffle shook his head, briefly looking regretful that the suddenness of his movement had hushed the young earth pony. “Sorry, Miss. That’s not how she does things. Money won’t do it, this is revenge.” His face turned, his cheeks tightening with his eyes growing hard to look at Smile. “An’ you know it wouldn’t work to offer, she’d just laugh.”

“I know.”

“An’ we need to get them back. We’re gonna’ do it.”

“We will. We did it with Whisper, we’ll do it with Hair Trigger and Tami.”

Smile seemed distracted, looking down at her multiband again. She hadn’t looked up much since storming out of the director's office. All the way down the elevator, even in the market’s crush. She moved apps around, her hoof sliding and tapping at great speed on the glass screen.

Eleven, quiet as the others carried forth their better knowledge on this second enemy apart from Sidewinder, trotted softly in place from nerves before sighing. “So… Sorry, what are we doing then? I didn’t realise there were so many enemies out here after you. What’s different here, though? We’ve done everything else, we can do this!”

Her hopeful spirit stood out at odds in the quiet observation lounge. Kerfuffle nodded. “We will. It’s just…”

Smile momentarily paused, then smacked her own multiband with her hoof, dropping down to sit on the closest bench by the window and leaning the back of her head on the cool glass. “It’s just that based on what the director gave us that place is a fortress now. Stations, planetside facilities, security drones. Stars, there's even records of an electromagnetic lockdown device for any vessel they don’t want doing its own thing.”

She closed her eyes, grimacing. “And we’ve got one unarmed, highly recognisable cargo ship with no real pilot, only four crew and no idea where those two are even being kept, if they’re even still together. Any friends we have either don’t have the resources to change things, or if they do, they aren’t close enough to help us right now. So if I sound tense it’s because I am not letting this day end without having a plan for when we do go in. Because we are.”

Volatility Smile fell quiet, the rush of anger and adrenaline that had kept her rushing to collate information finally starting to peter out. She raised a hoof down the deck to the mercenary booth. “So we need to start preparing immediately.”

Kerfuffle shifted a little uncomfortably. “Missus Smiles, this is a crime. We shouldn’t need to do it ourselves. This ain’t Sidewinder. The Confederacy don’t like her either. There’s the police.”

Verbena nodded. “Yeah, Tami told me about the loophole! They’d take any chance to throw her under!”

“We’re Periphery based, the incident didn’t occur in their space so it won’t give them a legal mandate. But yes, the Confederacy would no doubt be happy to - with a small bribe - give us some intel on Kavala. They monitor her much closer than Alyssum does.” Smile looked back down at her multiband and started sifting through contacts again. “The wonder of the Confederacy and how to pass any barrier.”

Kerfuffle gave a somewhat perplexed look at her comment on his home, Volatility Smile just smirked. “I’ll get started on that. Verbena? Show me somewhere I can get a cross-sector communication.”

Verbena proudly smirked and blew a raspberry. “As if I haven’t figured out the ways into Medusa’s database on foreign police forces yet.”

“Good. Kerfuffle, Eleven?”

The unicorn, looking unusual in her hoodie, spoke up first with a definitive and eager stamp on the decking. “You need us to do what creators do and come up with a way in and out of a place that doesn’t want us there, right?”

“Right.”

“We can do that! Kerfuffle knows all about Claudia and how to hook anything up to her better than anyone in this galaxy.”

“An’ you know more about every other bit of invention better than anyone in this galaxy, Miss.” Kerfuffle stood taller. “We’ll get back to Claudia an’ we’ll get to work, Missus Smiles. We’ll come up with somethin’. Together. In fact, while you were trottin’ ahead we had some thoughts.”

Smile held up a hoof. “Let me guess, Eleven’s going to break what I know of physics.”

Both the large griffon and the grinning pink unicorn nodded eagerly in perfect sync. His claw turned to a thumbs up.

“And this has never been done before?”

The joint nodding shifted to a proud shake.

Smile narrowed her eyes. “And this has no chance of splicing timelines, creating a self-cascading singularity, shattering the fragile veil of sane-space or otherwise irreversibly affecting the galaxy’s stability of physics at large on a macro-scale?”

There was a pause. Kerfuffle turned his head to Eleven. She screwed up her face in an innocent shrug, hooves upturned. Turning back to Smile, his claw leveled out flat and tilted side to side.

Smile sighed. “Bring it to me once you have something.”

“We will. Promise.” Kerfuffle lowered himself down and, with a ballet dancer’s grace, Eleven turned and hopped up onto his back. Kerfuffle tensed as though to move off, but paused on the spot. “And, er… I’ll…” Resolve stiffened his form. “I’ll figure out what to tell their families. The report that they’re missing will get to them before any good news does. It oughta’ come from us.”

Smile saw that Eleven bore a warm smile behind his head at his thoughtful awareness, and gave a slow nod. That wasn’t an easy task he’d set himself. “You’re the best of us sometimes, you know that?”

“Well…” replied Kerfuffle, scratching his head.

“He is.” Eleven held onto his back and pushed her head over his shoulder. “Let’s go! I’ve got several ideas forming and I need my design palace back on Claudia for it.”

Smile hesitated. “You mean the cargo bay.”

Eleven just shrugged. “When was the last time you ever used it for that? My name is more accurate these days.”

Kerfuffle smiled. “To the design palace it is. We’ll stay in touch!”

The pair rocketed off, the pink unicorn holding on tightly for dear life as the griffon swerved to avoid a blue stallion getting up from a bench. Left behind, Verbena Mint smiled after them, feeling eased by their confidence. After what she’d seen Eleven do lately, she had just enough hope to feel whatever the unicorn had cooked up would work.

“Verbena? Come on.”

Nodding, Verbena turned and pointed down the observation deck. “All right, far side! There’s an admin station there separate from the main resources deck, we can log in from there and get whatever sis’ has on the Confederate police.”

The pair took a fast stride around the opposite edge of the station from where Kerfuffle and Eleven had departed back to the hangar, the look on Smile’s face giving any would-be salesperson reason to stand away. Verbena felt a touch awkward to walk in such quiet, until eventually the temptation to break the ice was overwhelming.

“Do you really have a plan?”

“Yes,” replied Volatility Smile, “to get intelligence first, then see what help might be worth a damn if there’s any way through.”

Her words were curt and clipped, and again gave way to a silent progression between synth-trees and thick bulkheads. Verbena sighed. “Smile, be honest… Is Asset the type to hurt them? Will Tami be-”

“We’re going to get them, Verbena.” Smile turned her head to look at the shorter teenager. “That’s all that matters. If Asset’s made one great mistake, it’s thinking capturing the captain means she put us out of action. She didn’t count on the brains still bei-”

Then she paused, and Verbena saw Smile’s eyes glance backwards once, before rounding to the front again. “Verbena, listen very carefully, don’t stop trotting.”

She certainly hadn’t been stopping. “What? What’s-”

“Does your sister normally have you tailed to protect you?”

Verbena felt a sudden chill of imminent worry pass through her. “Usually Donner, but I kinda rushed off to be with you and- Wha- Wait, lemme look and-”

“Don’t turn!”

“Trust me.” Verbena whispered, and then shouted out loud. “Selfie!” She grabbed the crystal pony around the shoulders. Laughing too loudly, she held out her multiband in front of them both but rather than taking a like-baiting pursed lip and ‘cheeky eyes’ image, she scanned the reverse facing camera toward herself. At first she saw nothing, but after re-angling her multiband her eyes caught a figure coming right behind them, slowing as they did. Snapping a picture, she let go, and held it between them.

Blurred, hooded, alone.

Not one of the types her sister would assign to guard her, particularly not since Blitz and Donner had arrived. Verbena shook her head to Smile, and cursed under her breath. “They’ve been tailing us since we started moving. I saw them come up the stairs and sit down, didn’t think much of it but...”

They rounded the corner to the admin wing, a blocky station module that jutted out from the circular hull of Port Medusa. A large sealed door separated it from the main walkway, flanked by an info-board displaying tech support numbers and cross-sector price-rates. Verbena ran up to the blinking door console while Smile kept an eye on the windows, using the reflection to spot the figure moving in after them as they shifted to the mismatching floor of the new and empty area.

“So what do we-” Verbena began.

Smile’s tone was hard. “We take the gift we’ve been given.”

She slowed, and Verbena felt her worried protest fall flat as she saw Smile subtly reach for her laser rifle’s strap. Since the kidnapping, other than leaving it aside on the executive level, she’d never taken it off. Pausing, she waited until the hooves behind her came closer, motioned with her eyes to the nearest corner and hard cover for Verbena, and then swung around, rifle coming up.

The instant she did, she saw the pony behind her throw aside their coat. A shortened weapon similar to Whisper’s SMG flipped open and extended its buttstock automatically, a stubby barrel pointing her way.

“STOP!” She swung the weapon to bear on their head, and found herself staring at a stallion hunching into a trained posture to point his weapon back up at her.

“Put the weapon DOWN!” he bellowed out in response, his hood falling back. A navy grey mane, well trimmed and kept, spilled out above focused, intense eyes. “NOW!”

“You first.” Smile didn’t let up, slowly trotting aside to get the line of fire away from Verbena behind her. The stallion, a pegasus she now saw, did the same.

He shook his head by the tiniest of fractions. “Volatility Smile, of Claudia and the Space Jammers?”

“Who’s asking?” she replied firmly.

His face tightened. “Where is Tammani? What have you done with her!?”

The atmosphere in the entranceway of the data centre fell silent. Slowly, Verbena crept around the side, eyes on the stallion. She blinked, looking deep in thought. “Wait…”

“Now I need to know who in the stars is asking me.” Smile didn’t take the glowing sight atop her rifle away from centre mass on the stallion. Something tugged at her mind, something stuffed deep down in memory, but with a barrel in her face and her radar to trickery strung too tight to dare fall for a possible misdirection. “Tami’s been taken from us-”

“To who!? Sold?”

Smile caught a hint of worry in his voice, daring to lower her rifle by a couple inches. “Listen, I think you’ve got it wrong! Tammani is our friend! She’s been kidnapped and-

Verbena stepped forward. “Yes, I do know you!” She carefully moved forward hoof by hoof, and Smile saw the stallion’s barrel jitter side to side. “It’s… your name, it was-”

That was it! Smile’s memory finally dredged up the face. The spruce blue, the slim body and the broad shoulders. She'd seen him before - in Tami's prom photo.

“Vair…” Verbena spoke triumphantly with a pointed hoof. “Vantage Vair.”

‘Bless that young mare’s memory’, Smile thought. She saw the stallion’s eyes react in genuine surprise, but the gun didn’t lower. Below the coat, Smile could see a bulletproof vest, Crystal League issue she guessed. Navy. He looked uncertain, disbelieving. She had to keep pushing.

“Tami’s not even supposed to be out here, she-”

Smile cut him off. “We’re not lying! We’re on the same side here, I promise! Look, I'll prove it.” She thought quickly, trying to find something of worth, before remembering one thing. She raised her voice. “Final exam in Basic Flight for spacecraft, you were both together in a shuttlepod since you were the two top students. It’s where you both, well, culminated your growing relationship after sneaking on board treats”

Vantage stared back at her, one eyebrow shooting up in off-guard confusion. “What!?”

Smile just nodded again, a confident smile creeping on her face. She had this now. “First time.”

“You know- But-” His focus wavered, looking utterly bewildered, wings drooping. He shook his head and stood up straighter, quickly reasserting his aim. “Okay, how drunk did she get to tell anyone that story?”

Smile didn’t miss a beat. “Two shots and half a cider.”

Vantage Vair stood rock still, and then dropped the barrel, clicking the safety back on. “All right, that’s definitely Tami.”

He stood up more fully as Smile relented in turn, looking twitchy from adrenaline and nerves, and more than slightly embarrassed as he glanced and saw Verbena’s ‘hey, I knew too’ shrug. He sighed. “Lieutenant Commander Vantage Vair, Crystal League Corporate Navy. ”

“Volatility Smile, Acting-Captain of Claudia.”

“Verbena Mint, official bestie. What are you doing here? How do you know about Tami? Was it my message to you?” She bit her cheek, muttering quietly. “Please don’t be because of my message from her multiband, look there was vodka and-”

“Another time to explain that, Verbena.” Smile cut her off, trying to hide her own smirk at the outcome. She had always aced interviews. This had been no different. It was always about who you knew, not what you knew, they said.

Smile knew best that it was really what you knew about who you knew.

Vantage looked behind him, folding his weapon away, something Smile recognised as a League Naval PTW: a shortened carbine with a blocky magazine and extending stock that could be held quietly under a weather-cloak of the uniform and auto-folded into a firing state within seconds. True to form, it whirred as it collapsed into itself to tuck under his coat.

He spread his hooves. “Volatility Smile, I have a lot more questions for you about all this.” His face had lost its confrontational edge, but it still held accusations and intense worry. “Forgive me but I have to question why I should trust that she’d even be in some Periphery cargo operation to begin with. Tami’s one of the best pilots I ever saw. She should still have a year of teaching left in the Chrysolite VIP Academy before qualification to something, again forgive… more than this? How could she have even been here?”

With a long breath, she slung her rifle and glanced at Verbena; the earth pony seemed to come to the same conclusion. “Well…”

Volatility Smile hung her head, the gradual realisation taking hold. She nodded in agreement. “I think you’d better come with us. There’s- there’s a lot you need brought up to speed on about Tami.”

Amid the cluttered debris of Kavala III, the Asset Margin's extravagant yacht shone greater than any object surrounding it. Reflective heat-tiles enabling the twenty five thousand ton vessel to enter an atmosphere twinkled in creamy spiral patterns, while its ruby solar fins trailed glitter in their wake thanks to artificially coloured vector nozzle outlets. A star of sophistication, it glided between asteroids as automated drones left their workplaces to manually attach and thrust the rocks clear of its lazy path, enabling the thick, nigh-impassable barrier above the surface to be bypassed by a ship many times outside the safe size limit.

It was not, however, headed for the surface. Instead, as it moved away from the ancient pre-wyrm station, the vessel angled toward another object in space. One much larger and eerily closer to the planet than something of such mass ought to be; the cause of its desolation.

Asset’s yacht instead headed for Kavala III’s shattered moon.

Growing in size until it dominated the bridge’s viewports, the bone white corpse of the gutted satellite emitted a faint rumble into the silent void; a rumble that could only be picked up by sensors looking to hear it. All around the moon, cracks in the exposed mantle stretching the size of continents groaned and shifted as they had for centuries. Ghosting drifts of white dust that had hung for hundreds of years flowed into the wake of the luxury vessel, twisting in unusual contrails and following it from the transfer of momentum. The yacht turned, gravity reasserting its will as the vessel shunted below the level of what was once the surface, into the great crater from which a full third of the moon's mass had been torn. The crater that had exploded out to become the very field that now made the ship’s owner rich beyond measure. As it approached, hanging security drones with electromagnetic pulse generators in domed dishes turned with focused intent. Waived by a signal to permit right of passage being sent to the drone station in the asteroid field above, the automated units turned back to their waiting positions.

Now alone, a single speck above a yawning darkness so wide the ship could no longer see its edges, Asset’s yacht began its long descent into a crater so deep its bottom was obscured in a deep cosmic gloom. The slopes to the surface became a high horizon, one that stretched higher than a planet’s sky from the ground. The effect was uncanny; the sheer scale threw off the senses until those looking up from within would feel like the crater was much thinner than it could possibly be, or that the edges simply disappeared and seemed closer than they really were. It formed a world lit only by the planet itself, an inverse of how celestials were normally lit from their parent star, creating spectacular views when the crater pointed directly at Kavala and had it fill every inch of what passed for a sky.

The missing gap in Kavala’s moon was a legacy of desperate madness to combat the seemingly unstoppable by testing things of scales unknown, only to find that very ambition becoming its own destruction to the power they’d sought to match.

Upon the very site of that great hubris, Asset had built her most exclusive endeavour.

The floor of the crater was a mass of void canyons and mountainous shapes, and upon the side overlooking the black above and the deepest point below now lay a silvery-white structure. Luminescent, it glowed in the devastated, cragged fracture of the moon like coral reef, shaped like mushroom caps on the wall of a cave. Circular complexes of several decks each surrounded a low, wide, flat-topped central structure, all of them supported by a framework of enormous legs embedded into the surface. Bubbles of poly-glass covered balconies that ringed the lush decks, while the top of some structures bore clear sheets through to lush agroponics gardens. When the planet passed by, it would all glitter like diamond, and when the crater was enveloped in darkness it would shine like a lonely beacon of safety in a past galaxy’s devastation.

The structure was, however, incomplete. Scaffold still spoiled much of its right hand side, while a skeletal framework implied a still far-off dream of what would someday be a hanging landing platform without any visible support. Holographic images flickered on approach as the yacht levelled out, projected from hanging beacons to guide the vessel into a yawning, open hangar. The main dock was split between a cavernous lower section for storage and maintenance of ships, and a resplendent upper quarter that served as a passenger terminal. Shaped and styled like the front of a mansion, with glassteel umbilicals ready to extend, the terminal waited to greet VIPs in the most luxurious terms as they were dropped off. Their vessels would then slide by and drop downward into the less prestigious docks waiting below to wait on their charges.

The complex, once complete, would be exclusive beyond measure. A place of meeting for those who wanted to be seen and to talk, but only to their peers and strictly in unobserved private. A club for the unthinkably wealthy and the ethically malleable.

An Equestrian hymn praised the glory of the stars themselves as great doors rose and swept away like wings before the entering party, sharply dressed freelancers in gleaming uniforms of viridescent jade-green snapping to a formal poise. Beyond lay twin arch-laden mezzanines running down a white marble reception hall with a grand display of natural flowers and a pricelessly old antique life-size sculpture of all four Princesses together atop a clear fountain. Grand staircases rose towards event halls, a palatial spa that was still under construction, and accommodations to make a president envious. Relics of all six major civilisations were displayed in glassteel boxes in an effort to stun and attract those who could afford anything, from thousand year old Zebrahan amulets to a hull plate from the Confederate’s first FTL capable ship after the Wyrm Wars to a fragment of the Crystal Empire’s castle on Equestria. Most ostentatious of all, a secure box atop one of the imperial staircase landings contained an open display - a magenta cushion bearing several fragments of Nightmare Moon's armour. These were once-in-a-lifetime salvage, salvaged from one of the Grey Fleet ships that had tried to smuggle them from the Solar Empire to the nascent New Lunar Republic only to be intercepted and destroyed in Mothellum.

Hair Trigger saw none of it.

Blinded by the coarse bag over her head, she was getting very deeply sick of being shoved, cajoled and talked down to upon this entire journey. Instinct told her she wasn’t planetside, and this didn’t feel like any station she’d visited, leaving an unusual sense of displacement. None of the clues her ears and nose gave her suggested anything other than a hidden asteroid base amid Kavala’s field.

Around her she could hear the rapid cantering of assistants or waiting staff. The floor felt too smooth for an office or prison. The heavier snaps of guards coming to attention were obvious, and yet the sounds echoed. Large rooms, then, she presumed, with Asset’s tendency for minimal overworked staffing. She felt an elevator, then more walking and a stairwell. Every so often she could hear Asset’s limping gait and annoying tendency to make a half-hearted toneless hum as she led them, clearly appreciating whatever place she’d made. Garwyn kept a tight grip on Trigger, directing her and standing ready to stop any deeply wished attempt to shut that humming up every time it started.

Trigger very quickly began to find new depths of hatred for this mare. In a way she was glad for it. Anger was better than fear. Adventures lately had taught her to lean into that, Asset simply made it much easier to do.

Garwyn caught her neck, preventing her from advancing any further. A moment later, the hood was yanked from her head. Searing brightness shone into her eyes and blinded her all over again. Wincing, grunting and turning her head away, she muttered bitterly, “If I open my eyes and see a stage...”

“Hardly, Captain,” replied Asset with impatient eagerness.

Painful brightness in her eyes, Hair Trigger opened them by a slit. Several bright lights shone from high above. Spotlights. Focusing her sight, Trigger nearly recoiled.

They were not in a corridor, nor a mere room, but an enormous hall, flanked by thick colonnades of dark jade-green atop a shimmering, black marble tiled floor dotted with white speckles. Arched balconies ran around its edges above spiral staircases, and she could see cloisters to either side leading to display halls with huge windows into a dense black.

What had made her react was not the wondrous architecture, but the great glass cases that filled the hall. Atop crafted wood lay artefacts of all shapes and sizes - relics of a time that by her reckoning should probably remain lost. She saw unusually designed firearms and their ammunition from centuries ago, sets of thick void-armour bearing emblems of lost civilisations, inactive monomolecular blades and a case of shimmering magical orbs. There were blank-eyed wrecks of automata between the colonnades, posed to stand guard. Arcane crafters of a kind never since replicated without magic sat with example three-dimensional prints ready to demonstrate. Vials of ominous substances sat behind triple layered glass near warheads of a kind Trigger knew had been banned even by the Solar Empire.

And above everything, between hanging examples of ancient void-automata, dominating everything below the spotlights was a colossal skeleton, its mighty feet resting on two platforms in the middle of the museum-like cloister: the bones of what Hair Trigger knew had to be that of a dragon. Its mighty jaws were supported open and twisting, howling silently.

A moment later, and Hair Trigger’s eyes found the truly horrifying detail of this lost technology. Every case, every item, bore a magnetic seal bearing a digitally displayed number.

Price tags for the unearthed horrors created to fight gods.

Suddenly she remembered the pre-wyrm station, and before that the entire peninsula of ancient crashed vessels on the surface of Kavala. Asset had the resources, the time and the freedom to dig and dig…

“Oh… Oh you’ve gone off the deep end now you crazy bitch.” Hair Trigger couldn’t even muster up any volume to her words, her eyes wide with shock and wonder.

Asset strolled behind a glass counter, opening it to retrieve a gilded pistol. Trigger recognised it from idly browsing articles on old age firearms; it was a needle-firing model, intended for a poison she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemies. Asset stroked it with one hoof as though it were a delicate flower.

“One small find in my trash pile and that would be eighty million credits, thank you very much. Minimal effort, pure profit.” She grinned. “Welcome to the Desideratum, Captain, my recent venture. In a few months I’ll have my first party here, you see. The invited kind who might be interested in this sort of thing. Purely by recognition of course; a clientele so small and elite that even the Silver Dome would be jealous.”

Hair Trigger wanted to protest, wanted to speak of what some of these things could do, but there was no world where Asset didn’t also know. She’d no doubt priced them accordingly. “All the digging, the mining? It was-”

“-intensely profitable, Captain. Hardly just a means to an end, but also a useful process to unearth what else was buried in the ruins and wreckage.” Asset held the thin-barrelled pistol like it were a foal, before floating it back inside its container. “The best of those in affluence know you always need your next expansion ready before it occurs. I’m sure your suited and shining friend might have lent you such entrepreneurial guidance.”

“You have no idea…” Trigger deadpanned, before grunting to avoid any single sentence sounding too familiar. “So eighty million credit question. The fuck did you bring me here for then? Test dummy for your kit during the show?”

Asset made a teasing smile, tutting with a waved hoof that set Trigger’s blood boiling. The audaciously strung out answers were getting to her, but she swallowed her frustration down to deny a reaction. Asset’s waved hoof signalled Garwyn to drag Trigger forward again. Shaking him off, Trigger made to trot on her own, but felt him grasp hold.

“You’re not walking in here alone. Not a chance, small fry,” he growled, and held on to her as they approached the far door. Hair Trigger felt the hood once again thrown over her. She groaned aloud.

“Starting to feel like you’re scared of me knowing something.”

“Please Captain,” replied Asset smoothly, the inconsistent tap-tap-taptap of her hooves obvious ahead of her on the smooth floor. “Garwyn?”

“You’re a unicorn,” he grunted, giving Hair Trigger a hard shove. The texture of the ground changed. “You have magic that can grasp things, and you’ve got a habit of breaking things belonging to Miss Margin. You’re not seeing anything fragile unless we want you to.”

Stairwells proved a painful exercise in the hippogriff's impatience. After three flights there was a set of heavy-sounding doors. Trigger lost track of her memory of the route after an elevator. Eventually there was a quiet, lacking the gentle chimes and jingles of the great halls. The complex sounded deserted, with nothing but the occasional group of roughly bantering guards standing-to at Asset’s passing or the hum of something automated. Along the way, she listened to the exchanges.

“Take us down, Linear.” Asset spoke to an unseen pony.

“Down to which floor, Ma’am?” A young stallion’s reply.

There was a sigh. “Garwyn, strike him off, find me another intern. This one’s no good.”

She felt Garwyn shove the pony out and hit the button himself.

“Keep good employee retention don’t you?” Trigger snarked.

“And now you know why I prefer drones. Which one of us is the trillionaire, Captain?”

More walking. Round in circles. After one final clang of a door, Hair Trigger felt the oppressive quiet of a smaller chamber. One much smaller. Claws grabbed her forelegs and dragged her upward until her hindlegs dangled. She kicked out, but found nothing but air. Tight, biting pressure squeezed about the fetlocks of her foreleg. Chains. They tightened and raised, until she felt herself hanging a couple feet above the floor.

Only then was the hood torn from her head.

The room was made of dark metal, hexagonal in shape with one side extended in a short rectangle where Hair Trigger had been turfed into. A faint amber light overhead failed dismally to light the corners. But it did illuminate the top of Garwyn and Asset Margin ahead of him.

“Welcome to your waiting room, Captain.” Asset routinely spouted the title in a mocking twist of every sentence, bobbing her head side to side. “You’ll stay nice and safe here until such a time as… Well, I come to claim my profit.” She leaned closer. “I’m just dying to know what you’re thinking right now. You must be shitting yourself more than you were before you came into my office the first time. What’s going through your head, hmm?”

Trigger looked back, making heavy breaths as she felt her forelegs pinching and her shoulders aching already. She could see a table to her left, unusually rustic by Asset’s standards, bearing metal toolboxes, rope and chains. There was a browned drain right below her, and the door looked heavy and reinforced. It didn’t look like a designed cell, more an unfinished shell of some future storage room. She breathed in the rust and damp, exhaled through her nose and looked Asset dead in the eye.

“What I’m thinking is, whether I’m in deep trouble or in for a hell of a good time depends entirely on what side of that door has a lock.”

There was a twitch in Asset’s eye, and the smile creaked out with great effort to not scowl. “Well, you’ll get to know it. You’ll certainly have enough time. But now I leave you.” She turned and moved off to the door, a splendidly dressed guard opening it for her from the outside. Trigger hadn’t even seen there was one under the hood. “Garwyn would like a ‘chat’ of his own.”

The scarred hippogriff crunched his knuckles together in none too subtle an implication.

“Restrain yourself to just some overdue catharsis, Garwyn. Don’t damage the goods like your brother usually does. I mean it.” Asset whipped her head toward her security chief at the warning, the two long strands of mane over her forehead wavering. “I’ll be back in a while, Captain. Enjoy your stay.”

She exited the door, slamming it closed, leaving Trigger alone with Garwyn. The hippogriff shuffled over, his face at Trigger’s hanging head height. “And just so you don’t try anything surprising, Captain, that brother of mine? He wouldn’t hesitate to do much worse than I ever would.”

He grabbed her rapidly deteriorating hooded top and held her closer. “He’s with that pilot you care for so much. If you or any of your friends try anything? He wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. Immediately. So let's keep things professional, shall we?”

The fury encapsulated within Hair Trigger’s weary body had been building enough. She snarled and lashed her forehead forward to jab with her horn, finding the most intense lack of result when he simply leaned back, picking up the plank of wood in one claw.

“But for now? This is payback for last time.”

“Didn’t put me down for good then,” Hair Trigger muttered, and steeled herself for the first impact she saw being swung in.

Vantage Vair didn’t need to be told who lived on the bridge.

He had walked alone onto Claudia’s nerve centre after half an hour of hearing things he was still struggling to maintain his composure over. In a lull, he’d had to ask Volatility Smile to pause. He had needed a moment to collect his thoughts. Now finding his way to the bridge, in the last two full minutes he hadn’t moved more than a few feet from the thick plate door other than to stand and stare.

He saw the paintings - deep purples, ocean blues and raging crimsons banding across a sparkling, multicoloured haze over black the way he knew she saw space, differently from anyone else he knew. The colours meshed and blended better than any he remembered, betraying years of personal improvement.

“Hey, instructor’s asking us to come down for a brief and-oh wow.”

Vantage could see the hippogriff between her dorm room’s bunks. He didn’t know her name yet. She was gently applying a streaking azure trail behind a comet arcing through the deep black. The length of its glittering tail told of a huge velocity in deep space, free of tugging gravity holding it down. He stepped in with a smile, relaxing his posture at her skittish wince.

“I… Uh, yeah I guess. I know I’m not very-”

“It looks great, really got it moving. What is it? The League Chaser? Wait, no, blue. Gotta be the Wonderbolt Comet then?”

She looked at him with big, blinking eyes. “Yeah… How, wait, you know?”

Vantage smiled and held out his hoof. “Vantage, think I’m in the room just upstairs.”

“T-Tammani.”

Warily, she took it. And cast against the streaked yellow sunset of Chrysolite, Vantage saw the most incredible smile creak onto that face as he spoke of his photos of that same comet he could show her.

He’d always loved Tami’s paintings.

Gently, Vantage picked up that same brush, fallen and placed it on the easel’s lip. Years of service had seen it gradually reduced from doing smooth, trailing detail into a messy spread drybrush. Rugs and hanging tarps covered the bridge in comfortable, soft materials. It made it homely. Warm.

Like her.

Looking toward a side of the bridge, he couldn’t resist a small, weary smirk as he recognised the off-hand vector control window by the right-side console, swapped with the power-regulation tab.

“So why do you always arrange it like that in every shuttle anyway?”

He reached across the cockpit, tapping the single panel display in front of Tami.

“Like what?”

“Backwards? You’ve got the vectors there. Left clawed?”

Tami giggled and shook her head. “Nah! See, the Gleaner RB-Eight was laid out like this by default before the single-panel refit came for it. Aaaand that’s the one I learned about first at home from my dad’s tech-manuals.”

“The Tammaran.” He grinned wolfishly, and saw her cheeks glow.

“Doooon’t,” She flustered and waved a wing at him.

“It is adorable, that you’re-”

She squealed in embarrassment and curled away from him in her seat, giggling uncontrollably. “No! Don’t say it!”

“-named after a ship.”

She batted his face with a wing. “Vantage!”

They laughed together.

The console recognised his proximity, chiming and lighting up from his hoof passing over it. The touchscreen glowed in the quiet bridge, raising a login screen wallpaper of Orbit lying on his side amidst a Hearthswarming celebration. It cycled through various images of astral phenomena and ships he knew she’d adored.

‘How could I have not been there for her when she needed me?’

The question pierced his mind by surprise, and Vantage realised he’d been reminiscing to trick himself. To dodge the guilt he knew would be coming. He’d wandered up here to feel closer to her. Like he’d caught up now. Like he was there to help. The thought disgusted him. His secretive career boosting choice to join the Adroit program had cut him off, but still he’d believed she was having as much fun, as much success as he had been.

Turning from the console, he saw her hammock. He saw the blanket upon it, stars and moons of all brilliant colours. Compass Rose, Tami’s mother, had bought it for her.

“I can’t do it! I can’t!” Tami’s voice cracked under choking sobs that made her convulse and incoherently grasp at nothing in front of her. “It all messed up! I didn’t mean to it-it-it just-”

Vantage didn’t even consider hesitating. He’d grown up the eldest of five under a single mother; it was built into him to react. He dropped beside the hippogriff that had fast been becoming a close best friend and wrapped his forelegs around her. Her claws squeezed him tightly, and she buried her face into his chest. “A-And then it all went wrong! I panicked and-”

“It’s okay…” He breathed the words and rocked his body to sway her. “It wasn’t your fault. The master alarm was set way louder than it should have been, I checked. Someone playing a stupid prank.”

“I-I couldn’t! I just froze when it-it-I-just- If anything like that happens I’m going to fail and it’ll all go wrong!”

“No it won’t.”

“It might...”

He squeezed her tightly, rubbing his cheek on top of her head, into her mane. One of his wings pulled her blanket from home over both of them, stars and moons shielding them in gentle warmth. He had tuition in a few minutes, but it could go to hell right now for all he cared.

“But it might not. And if it doesn’t, it’ll be because you’re being the pilot I know you are.” He looked down and saw her damp, wavering eyes staring back up at him. “Take your time. It’s okay to feel like that. Hey, how ‘bout we go sneak into the simulators and do it again, just us? The janitor owes us anyway to look the other way. What’dya say?”

Sniffling, Tami held onto him much closer than he expected. “Mhm, okay… They’re set to the Despair system I think.”

He stroked her mane before even realising he’d dared be so forward to do so. “Then how about we set it to Confidence instead?”

Vantage felt his jaw tense, and he stared at the floor.

He’d found all the confidence in the world, not even knowing Tami had fallen into the depths of despair for years. The thought that he’d ever laughed and smiled, completely and guiltlessly ignorant as to her state brought actual, physical pain to his gut.

He raised a wing to his eyes, rubbing gently with a sharp sniff.

“I’m so… so sorry, Tami...”

Behind him, the sharp clip of hooves on metal made him turn his head. Volatility Smile briskly trotted into the bridge, stern eyes glaring at him. In the artificial light, Vantage was surprised to see what looked like winding scars coming up from below her collar, like a lightning strike’s jagged edges etched into her glittering body. She seemed to assess his state in seconds, opening her mouth while casting a hoof about the bridge-turned-living space.

“We try our best to help her since we saw her worries first hoof. We love her here, Vantage.”

“So do I.” He looked at the floor, words but a whisper. “And I wasn’t there when she was in pain.”

Smile showed little reaction to the battle he waged to remain steady before her, but gave him time. Right now, with her captain and Tami on the line, he knew her offering a brief silence was as valuable to her as anything. Already he was grasping the disciplined, driving force in this mare. That, and her eye for opportunity. The bridge felt somehow cold and empty, despite no change in lights or running. Vantage wasn’t even a crewman and yet he could feel it. There was a void in here with those two chairs empty, that drained it all to a dreary, cold compartment of a simple ship.

“I want to help.” The words came suddenly. Quietly.

Smile nodded. “You can pilot a ship?”

“Almost as well as her,” Vantage said quickly, raising his head to look at her with wavering eyes. “I’m not going to leave her alone this time, Volatility Smile. I’m not.”

She advanced, and he was surprised to see her extend a hoof toward him. “I’m sorry about what happened, Vantage.” Her voice was steady, firm, poised, but he felt the honesty. “If it helps, Tami never spoke of you as abandoning her. Not once. I know for a fact she doesn’t see it like that.”

Vantage took her hoof in his, surprised at the strength in the shake. “Thank you.” He took a steadying breath. “PNR-03. Pioneer. I could figure her out. And then I’ll make her dance for you if you need it. Whatever it takes.”

Smile sucked her bottom lip, angling her head to the bridge stations. “You’re free to go for it. Might have to use the port side station though; I don’t know her password.”

He considered that statement, seeing the personalised items on the port side too. “But you know your own captain’s if that’s her side?”

“Admin has to have backups.” A wry smirk came across her face.

“Thank you Miss, but I have a feeling I might be able to guess hers quickly enough.” Vantage turned and looked at the console again.

Smile rolled her eyes. “Oh please, I have that enough from others. ‘Smile’ is fine.”

He didn’t hear her. His eyes were staring in sunken realisation at the scrolling wallpapers of Tami’s console. The goofy, conditionless love of a golden retriever was on many; Orbit had judged him worthy of barreling him over several times before. But the canine had moved to a new photograph. One of-

The stars shone from the balcony outside the dorms of Basic Flight. They shone just the way they’d always loved staying up far past lights out to watch and talk.

‘Quiet Time’ they’d called it. Anything but. Excited chatter about stellar phenomena, about mysteries, about whether a new ship would be popular. He’d never had anyone to be so open and passionate with. She’d given him an outlet to a love he’d never known he had so strongly.

And he stared into her eyes as she gaped at a sky unpolluted by light and saw a face as though she’d never even seen it before. Endless, self-reviving adoration and need. Her want, no need to go up there had dragged him along, inspired him, pushed him beyond his own limits just to keep up with her scores.

He felt nervous. An impulse was building in his gut, his foreleg around her shoulders. He wanted to say her name, try to hint something. Imply it. Make this easier to control.

“Tami-” He started, but when he saw her bring her attention to him on that bright, heart-shaped face, he just knew. He leaned in and bumped his lips to hers, holding his foreleg around her in a gentle squeeze. There was a surprised squeak, and then a gentle pressure of warm lips. Clumsy, he felt their teeth collide with a jarring knock, and he quickly retracted.

“Sorry! Sorry… I just, uh-” He began, until he saw her staring back at him. “Tami?”

“Ah-” Her shock turned to blinking disbelief, and then she breathed in sharply. She stared at him in a new way, and then stiffened up as though her mind switched gear from idle to FTL in seconds. She leaned in an inch. Then again. “Sorry-sorry-wait-wait I was just surprised I-”

“Are-”

He never finished his sentence before she unexpectedly dove against him, as though he might have suddenly said no if she hadn’t, and they tumbled together, her soft mouth finding his again.

The photo showed her as happy as he’d ever seen her, squeezed cheek to cheek with a unicorn of sable black coat and bright amber eyes. A well kept mane of teal, blue and rosy pink draped his head, his foreleg squeezed about Tami’s shoulders as she held her multiband up in front of them for the photograph.

He knew the look on her face. He knew.

Vantage Vair felt a deep hollowness in his chest, sighing openly with closed eyes. He nodded and didn’t really know why, but felt a hoof come to his shoulder. He turned back to see Volatility Smile’s carefully firm but honest face. “It was over three years, Vantage. You know that she-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s just… Yeah.” He let out a long breath through his nose and swiped the login screen to replace the photograph with the password entry field. “It’s all a lot to process. That’s all.”

It had always been ‘till then’. Naive for two such young people, perhaps. He’d not found anyone since, not in his environment. Almost once. Almost. He understood. He understood. He was happy someone had been there after this crew had stepped in to help her. But some deep part of him that had imagined she’d been happy all the time he’d been away had always thought-

“You sure?” Her eyebrow raised questioningly.

“Yeah,” he lied.

She looked disbelieving, and pulled him back. “Ship’s not leaving yet. I was going to hunt through the Confederate records for any intelligence on Asset Margin before we met you. That still needs done. Now. And from what you tell me about yourself, you could give me more of an ‘in’.”

Vantage pulled his eyes from the screen. His voice was terse and direct, feeling like just a junior midship officer again. “I cannot utilise the CLCN’s full intel bank, but I brought several reports with me on the local area and its rivals, and recent open-source shipping databases of vessel AIS pings to public systems. More than you’d find without our processing power. All legal.”

“Then you better come with me. If you want to help, we need to know what we’re facing first before we start trying to ask who or how.” She turned and strode for the door, before pausing. “And Vantage, look. I said Tami doesn’t blame you.” She shrugged. “And for what it’s worth, I’ve chased ambition too. Even if it meant leaving somewhere, not knowing when I’ll be back to ease people who might be worr-” She paused, as though rethinking. “To that extent at least, I understand.”

“Appreciated.” His voice felt breathy. “Genuinely, I mean, sorry I’m just-”

“I know. Come on, let’s put that drive to better use, hm? Don’t worry, if anyone asks, I’ll just tell them it’s shock at your meeting Eleven and, er, what she can do. Sorry, we forgot to give you a heads up about that.”

He made a brief snort of amusement, but it was without any real mirth. “Magic… Not lying to say that’s a shock. I’m still trying to process that one.”

“You’ll get used to it, we’ve had to go through that a few times. Sudden yelps and cries like that are normal around such unicorns. Now, let’s go. Stuff to do.”

She left the bridge at a fast trot, and he heard her speaking to Verbena below. She was right. Today had brought a horrid truth about his best friend’s life to him, only to then reveal it was but a stage of a greater pain she was fighting. One he’d always known Tami was battling inside even from the first days he’d known her. He'd always respected her resilience, and wished that she would someday take pride in it.

He’d missed the start of this battle.

He wouldn’t miss the end.

Vantage Vair rolled his shoulders and cantered after Smile. He almost managed to avoid looking back once more at the bridge.

Almost.

The interior of the Sun of the Night was unlike any other Tami had walked within. Unlike the brutal sheer faces of Port Medusa, the angular VIP Pilot Academy, the cosmopolitan stretch of the Crystal Heart or even the relic of Isla del Dragón.

Lying on the rolling gurney, flanked by two griffon guards in murky green ceramic-composite plate, Tami was moved from between floors away from the airlock’s musty, moulded lobby by a circular floored elevator. Broken murals of ponies playing together lined the insides, but their faded wonder paled as the doors opened into a tall atrium that made her gasp with its scale.

A hundred people flew and galloped and ran. They climbed, hammered, cut and welded. Around them, a multi-domed ceiling rose four floors up with spiral staircases running between fence-like brass railings on each of the open plan mezzanines. Huge gaps with rounded sides were cut into the walls along the wings of the atrium’s connecting compartments. Tami at first thought they had been burned through by tools, until closer inspection made it clear they had once held stained glass, long shattered and in mid-cleanup from the ground. Pillars mirrored the external design of layered vertical metal in what once might have been gold and cream, arching above in complex weaves to join the dome’s form. Between the golden lines she could see cracked illustrations of painted day and night skies mixed above on the insides of the domes, like the roof of some grand castle or palace.

What once might have shone in metallics and polish was now rusted and marred by centuries adrift as a wreck. Wall and deck plate might once have been silver-lined white, but now they were a scarred black and at best a muddy beige. Ancient balconies had fallen, now supported by newly erected frameworks that mismatched the ancient style so sharply that it only magnified how obscure this style was in the modern day. Many compartments were sealed entirely with flashing biohazard warnings. Others were open to the void, their walls behind the glass doors exploded to the edge of the station.

Being wheeled by the works to install new wiring and repurposing the compartments, Tami felt a great sense of loss. Where modern stations had a sense of practicality and economy, the Sun of the Night, conversely, felt alien. The word had little use within the developed galaxy, but in this case it fitted well. Little was sharp-edged. Everything bent in complex arcs, even the corridors might once have looked like angular masterpieces, but in the void-torn decay and inadequate lighting they were more like ancient and darkened bones. The Sun of the Night was being gutted one deck at a time, as though grafting inelegant cybernetics to a once dignified corpse from a lost race.

Beyond the atrium’s busy centre lay colossal windows, their holes patched and sealed, looking out into the massive construction and docking space in-between the sides of the station. She could see dozens of robotic arms collecting, dismantling and repairing drones before returning them to their mounting recharge points, ready to be held in the void for their pilots to take control. Others wound and built drones from scratch out of plate metal. A production line to replace, repurpose, repair and relaunch the casualties from asteroid mining. She let her eyes go wide at the sight - what she saw outside the window was only part of a massive hangar. Through its shielded exit, four hundred metres away, a second dock was also under construction.

“What… What was this place?” she croaked, curiosity overcoming her nerves.

“Your place of work,” Kreer snapped, either mishearing or deliberately ignoring the tense of her question. He walked beside the gurney, having passed over to one of the hard faced guards to push it. They moved by the high windows into a curling side corridor of rib-like framing. It arced down in a long slope to cross between decks, something virtually unseen in most stations. “The drones you saw are what you will pilot in indentured service to Asset Margin’s mining operations.”

“I’ve never-” Tami whispered, and was cut off as a warning siren suddenly shattered the already bustling noise of the atrium. She yelped and hid her face away when a PA system barked overhead.

“Intruder alert! Section eight! Section sight!”

Kreer keyed his multiband. “The hell is going on up there?”

As he listened to the reply, the alarm ceased.

“Then GET it fixed!” he snarled. Tami began to wonder just how badly damaged this place still was.

He pushed Tami on. “Now, your limited qualifications still make you viable for piloting. Kavala has no strict mandate.” Kreer’s voice continued from behind her. “You will learn and you will perform. I’ve been told to make sure of it and to keep an eye on you while you’re here. You are our only indentured worker, so you’ll get ‘special’ security.”

There was a bitter hint to his tone that Tami decidedly did not enjoy. The sloping corridor came to more cramped conditions of black and brass, a crossroads on the edge of the manufacturing line. The noise was horrific, hissing and clanking shaking the industrial passageways as Kreer directed them deeper into the station.

“You will be provided accommodation and meals that will be deducted from the commission made from mineral acquisition. So don’t worry about starving. We don’t want you to fail to pay back your debt.”

Kreer sounded mocking, and Tami wasn’t certain if it was to her or to the whole idea.

“H-How much?”

“You will see.”

A thick door juddered as it opened, stalled, and then ground the rest of the way. Tami couldn’t see them, but she heard rampant chatter as they moved by accommodation racks for other mining workers. She could smell the latent sweat and thick scent of caffeine from kitchens. Immediately, she felt a clenching terror at being thrown in amongst those she didn’t know, an outcast ‘criminal’ to them.

She needn’t have worried, but the reality was no better.

Under the audible calls of changing shift patterns and assignments, she was wheeled out of their area, by a stairwell marked for ‘Secondus Drone Control Room’, and through to a quieter side of the station’s deck. Here she saw red runes of ancient script above locked doors, each bearing an observation window into a brig. Identical compartments of cells fanned out from the central chamber like the vanes of a leaf; two levels with five doors each. At the foremost door, Tami found them pausing.

“This is where you’ll stay whenever you are not on shift.” Kreer dragged her with a shocked yelp off the gurney, walking with his claws painfully around her wrist. Stumbling, sick, Tami whined and struggled to get him to let go, but found herself being sharply turfed through a barred door.

The compartment was dark, half-hexagonal in shape with a cell on each of the three walls opposite the main door, gunmetal and obsidian facings lit by the faint white of Kavala III through the long, narrow window lining the outer edge. Thrown in the leftmost cell, Tami found a light sheeted bunk, a bare metal chair and desk both welded to the floor and a small access terminal bolted to the desk itself. Strip lighting above, offering a dismal halogen glow, barely helped.

“The computer contains details on what you need to pay back and on drone control. You’re already a pilot.” He scowled. “Apparently.”

“I… I’m actually-”

He knocked the door closed. “So your training shift begins in eight hours. Then maybe they’ll finally see this is a stupid idea.”

Tami hunched against the desk, looking over at the deep red griffon peering through at her. The guards waited outside. “W-Wait, I’m still not recovered, I feel sick! I-I’m not ready for that!”

“No, apparently you’re not.” Kreer pointed at the computer. “And your flight history makes that obvious. I don’t expect much, but if you can avoid crashing another object in training you’ll maybe be able to earn Miss Margin something at least. Learn quickly.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Or it’s me you’ll be hearing from. I am not a babysitter, and I don’t want this task to linger around you. So if you fuck up again, it’ll be me and I’ll not be pleasant, understand?”

Tami could already feel a deep shivering overtaking her. She didn’t understand. This was all too quick. Too sudden. Too big.

“Eight hours till first shift. Clothes will be collected, provided, and cleaned. Food will be delivered three times per day between shifts and before lights out.”

“But-”

“This is your life now. No-one knows where you are. There’s no-one left to come for you. Get used to it and get your head down, and don’t fail another employer.”

And just like that, he turned and stalked off unhappily. Tami got the sense of a predator stuck behind bars just as much as she was. One who longed to let out darker urges. She finally let out her breath when he disappeared.

And was met with silence.

A dark, bare, and utter silence in a warped, alien construct.

That last remark had hit her like a slap. Holding herself, she numbly hit the keyboard on the desk out of a will not to ruminate on those words. She saw a basic UI display. The login - simply a collection of numbers for username and password - had been left for her on a note. Entering after three failed attempts from her unsteady claws, still sitting beside rather than on the bare chair, she saw it was less a computer and more simply an extremely limited workstation for datasheets and shift patterns.

She saw the large numeric displaying how much she was debited by, and her heart nearly stopped.

She saw the average mineral worth intake quota expected per day by most of the voluntary workers on the station. Modifiers for types of mineral, collection rates, repair costs of broken equipment.

Good with numbers like any FTL user, Tami did a mental calculation, taking the averages and applying them to a seven day working week, applying the modifiers, worry welling up inside as each number fell into place.

Twenty eight years.

Twenty eight years.

By the time she worked off the debt Asset expected of her, she would be almost fifty.

Clutching her sore, still chilled body, Tami whimpered and huddled up on the cold floor. The events since waking up had been all so fast. From the infirmary to the captain and Asset, then the station, now here. She barely grasped what was even happening. She hadn’t even begun to piece together her feelings on the certain death she felt she’d evaded. Already she could feel it all congealing, forming into a heavy ball of stress ready to lay on her shoulders.

It had all been so… clinical. Brought here, given a job, told that was it. No drama, no last effort. Just that’s it, you’re a slave now in some backwater independant.

Twenty eight years.

She didn’t even realise how long she sat trying to process the horror of that, until she screamed at the sharp siren alert of food being delivered. The door opened, an automated, tracked aid winding through and placing it through a hatch on her cell door. It left silently.

Tami shook terribly, the one mundane event pulling the trigger. Gripping her head, she felt it all collapse, all crash upon her like a wave. The terror and the sheer utter solitude of her lonely cell, so far from help. So far from warmth. It was everything she had known before. The loss of her ability to go where she wanted. To be trapped.

Panic rose, like a cloying demon stretching its claws over her shoulders, seeping in like the moulded, broken decor of the station’s brig. It crept down the walls like those rib-like bulkheads, winding toward her. The old feelings began to come back, and she felt her already horrified mood edging closer and closer to a precipice she knew she couldn’t dare fall in again. One she couldn’t imagine the effort to stay away from on her own for twenty eight years.

She hadn't even realised she’d started crying until her effort to shake her head broke the sob into a stuttered hiccup. No, no she couldn’t. The thought of being back there, back where she had been three years ago; she couldn’t face it. Heedless of the pain, she got up and paced. What would the captain do? What would Kerfuffle do?

She paused. What would Whisper do?

Tammani looked around.

The Sun of the Night was still in mid reconstruction. It lacked things. Electronics were still being fitted; Asset had prioritised industry above prisoners. Tami was the first. Mind racing, she sat on the bed and tried to wipe her eyes. Figure out the logic - it was what Kerfuffle would do, right? Find something until-

There’s no way they can find you here.

She whined and forced air through her teeth to shove the thought away. What might the station lack? What was the route to have something to do here? Whisper would know; an Agent would know. Eyes blurring, she looked about the chamber. Dared to look at its drooping arches and long broken patterns to search for what felt wrong. Her eyes scanned. Something felt like it was missing, but she couldn’t figure out what. Everything was so unnatural and half-broken that it melded together. Then, finally, she saw it.

There were no cameras.

No-one was watching her. They had left her to her own misery, to wait obediently. They thought her a defeated coward.

They’re right.

Reluctance surged. Fear. Fear of what this thinking would do. The urge to do nothing, do what they said, to not risk it, to just let them win to avoid any consequences; it was overwhelming. Tami froze, summoned up all the courage she could, and went to war within. Quiet. Personal. Yet savage and hard fought. Shivering, claws gripping her sickened, weary body, she remembered everything they’d told her. She wouldn’t let it take her. Not again.

She almost had it. Almost-

A siren hammered into her ears from just above her cell door. The PA system crackled.

“Intruder alert! Intruder alert, section nine!”

Sheltering, she waited till it cut off again, the horrifically loud noise having startled her frantic, hurting nerves.

“Think THINK! I won’t let them-” she whined and beat the side of her head once, a claw over her turning, clamping stomach. “No camera… No cameras! It means… It means… They can’t see if I-I-I-”

She turned and saw the computer station.

And started trying to find something that could unscrew a bolt.

“So if Claudia's main capacitor banks redirect the excess charge into the auxiliaries-”

“-since they're not needed for the BIG jump across any stellar distance-”

“-then it'll give her enough space to handle this activatin' much quicker than normal, right Miss?”

“Yes! That’s it! And by doing it this way, it’ll prime the fold in space. Then it can pop in more quickly and stagger the expenditure to just what we need. Ah, come on-oof!”

Eleven almost fell as she hopped from the rusted hull of an orbital tug to the discordant mess of pulled circuitry heaped up opposite it. Wires and connectors tumbled down the side in a miniature avalanche, rolling to a halt by Kerfuffle’s claws. The big griffon heaved, dragging out an enormous cable over four inches in diameter and lined with insulant, bending polymer. He checked the tri-bar output on its tip, then started hefting eighty kilograms of it onto Claudia’s cargo-sled behind him.

“Careful up there, Miss!”

“I’m fine! Oh!” Eleven circled, before leaping up and diving down into the fifteen foot high pile of discarded parts, hips wiggling in the air as she dug and scrounged. The enormous junk heap was just one of nine of Port Medusa's obsolescence bay, the graveyard for unsellable scrap and the worthless possessions of those, well, ‘repossessed’ by its owner. Beaming spotlights from above shone down on it, giving stark contrast between a spectrum of hull colours and deep shadow in the crevices between. Kerfuffle moved in the quiet, deep valleys of heavy chassis and fallen reactor housings, carefully muscling over the bulkheads fallen between the slopes. Eleven bounded and skipped between peaks and through the scrappy heights.

They’d been hunting for the past hour for materials to use in their plans. Schemes, as Verbena had put it after seeing Eleven clap her hooves and rub them above the drawn schematics, but Kerfuffle had gently opposed applying a negative tone to anything Eleven created. Requirements arranged, they’d come to the lower decks to assemble their shopping list. Eleven was trailed by a sparkling row of transistors, switches, diodes and resonators that all mimicked each jump and prance she made, like school children following their teacher in a game. Every so often two of them would press together and, if they connected, floated down to the grav-sled. For his part, he would check the type of what she found, and ensure to attain the supporting frameworks that could connect them to Claudia.

“Kiffle, what about this?” She held up a red-encased superconductor. “I could do a lot if I could use one of these!”

He tilted his head and peered up. “Sorry Miss. Claudia ain’t really meant to work with them.”

“Not work with, or not work with until I try?”

He smiled at her. “Sorta like if you asked me to grow hooves, Miss.” He felt a brief well of contentment at the giggle he heard echo down from far above. “But if you can find one like it, except green, and connect ‘em together then it’ll be able to understand her better.”

“Okay!” There was a rustling as she started digging among the smaller components up top, like a foal at Hearthswarming being told the entire tree’s presents were for them. Kerfuffle almost had to remind himself to keep looking for a number of tungsten alloy restraints. At least, until the voice came again from up top.

“Soooo… That pegasus? That was Tami’s other mate? I didn’t assume she had more than one.” Eleven didn’t really look down as she floated two things to her hooves and took a deep look into them.

A blue and grey pegasus had followed Verbena and Smile into Claudia earlier. Kerfuffle had felt awkward at his initial wariness. At that moment, unknowns felt like threats, but the moment he’d heard who it was he felt like they’d been thrown a lifeline.

He’d heard Tami talk about Vantage. And whatever chance had brought him to them, he hadn’t needed to hear him say he’d help to know he would for one simple reason. That as far as he considered it, anyone Tami trusted that much and who had helped her with her problems simply had to be a good person. He shook his head gently. “I don’t rightly know every detail, Miss. Didn’t see fit to go askin’, but Mister Vantage and Miss Tami weren’t able to stay together. Seems he’s a good one though. Still cares about her enough to come out here right now.”

“And he’f helfing?” She tilted her head, voice muffled from holding several tools at once in her lips, magic picking out the individual ones she needed out to pry apart a device she’d found.

Between the parts of our running series, 'Loose Ends', there is another lovely gift to bring you all. Another story from the creator of the world this series is based on, Napalm Goat himself.

As is his want, this story takes a whole new perspective from the normal crew. Not only that, it takes us to a whole new time period of the setting, going back a few decades from our present day of the normal stories to look at the origin of a character briefly met in the last chapter. In addition, it gives us an unparalleled look into the events surrounding the 'War of the Two Crowns'. The great civil war that split the pony civilisation into Nightmare Star and Luna's followers.

But more than that, a look into the realities of those few born with an unusual gift... or curse.

The doorbell rang out with a happy chime.

“Can someone get the door please?”

“I’m on it Mom!”

I had to be the first to get it! My hooves carried me through the living room and down the corridor until I slid on the tiles and slammed against the door with a soft ‘oof’. I reared up to reach the lock panel and the door slid open silently.

“Uncle Wavelength!” I jumped into his outstretched forelegs and felt him easily lift me up.

“Oh, you’ve grown so much since I last saw you!” His fluffy feathers tickled my back, making me giggle.

“That’s because I’m nine now! Remember?”

Uncle Wavelength smiled as he ruffled my mane just above my horn. “Oh of course, my little niece is not so little anymore!” He tickled my back again and added with a smile. “How could I forget?”

I batted my hoof on his chest, still giggling. “Y-you alway- always forget!” I let out another giggle. “It’s cool you came, but you just missed dinner!” I turned and yelled down towards the dining room. “Mom! Dad! It’s Uncle Wavelength!”

Uncle Wavelength lowered me to the floor as Mom and Dad came over to say their hellos. Mom hugged him tightly as she always did, briefly rubbing their necks together. When it was his turn, Dad stopped and instead of shaking Uncle’s hoof like he always did, he laughed out loudly. “So my good-for-nothing brother-in-law finally made it to Colonel! Maybe I can find you a job as my secretary up in orbit!” Then Dad gave Uncle the biggest hug I ever saw him give. Well, except the ones he gave me.

Uncle flapped a wing dismissively and laughed back. “Just you wait General Bolt Action; give me a year and it’ll be me calling shots on that platform!”

“Stop it you two!” Mom giggled and started walking down towards the living room. “Come on Wave, I can at least offer you a coffee and some cake.”

I eagerly followed close behind them. Cake was the best.

Dad chuckled at Mom before asking Uncle. “How did you even get here from the starport? The highway is still closed for repairs and the traffic is a killer at this hour.”

“Oh, easy. Took the monorail to downtown, then a bus to the stadium and from there…” He shrugged and ruffled his feathered wings. “Just a fifteen minute flight to the suburbs.”

Dad rubbed his forehead and chuckled again. “Right, I should have guessed.” He looked at Mom and rolled his eyes. “You never told me your brother is so eager to get so physical for an officer.”

Mom laughed as we entered the living room. “Oh you should definitely watch out or they’ll really make him your boss and send you offworld.”

Dad and Uncle sat on the couch, still talking boring soldier stuff, while Mom went to get the cake. I ran over to my Summer Sun Keep castle and grabbed the newest addition to my collection, then doubled back towards the couch.

“-and with things heating up in the core worlds I expect-”

“Uncle! Uncle! Look!” With my magic I pushed the plastic pink pony right between dad’s and uncle’s muzzles. “Look what I got for my birthday! I call her Princess Pinkerton!”

I grinned.

“She’s pink!”

Uncle Wavelength looked at Princess Pinkerton and smiled, then winked. “That she is! You want to play a bit after dessert?”

I threw my hoof in the air and shouted, “YEAH!”

Dad reached out a hoof and grabbed Princess Pinkerton from my magic. “Alright, Uncle promised to play with you but first we’d like to talk a little, okay?”

I nodded. “Sure Dad!”

“Sweetie, please take your toys off the table, otherwise we won’t have anywhere to place the dessert,” Mom called out as she entered from the kitchen holding a plate full of cake in her magic.

I scooped up Prince Perfect and Dark Lord Nightscream, then giggled as I pressed a small button on Princess’ Pinkerton’s butt and tossed her with the rest as I mimicked her voice, “Let’s fly to the castle!”

As soon as Princess Pinkerton and the others landed with loud clattering of plastic in Summer Sun Keep castle on the other end of the room near the door to the patio, I turned around and eyed the sliced pieces of cake Mom had brought. Of course I grabbed the biggest piece I saw and brought it straight into my open muzzle. The thick icing crunched as the poppy filling made its way between my teeth.

Delicious.

From her favourite wicker chair, Mom smiled at me as her magic floated a napkin to clean my cheek. She then picked up the remote and passed it to me. “Go watch cartoons for a bit, okay dear? Mom and Dad need to talk with Uncle.”

I nodded, then grabbed another piece of cake and stuffed it into my mouth before running to the other side of the room. I sat right in front of the huge TV and set it to the cartoons channel.

Commercials.

Nearly choking on the cake I groaned. “Ugh. Why?!”

My magic tapped the button again, switching channels.

‘She’s been in great form this seas-’

Tap.

‘-the nest secured, the male sets off-’

Tap.

‘I’ll take space exploration for five-’

Tap.

‘Secure yours only with Sidewinder private busi-’

Tap.

‘-group of violent dissidents opposing Princess-’

Ta-

I gasped. “Princess?”

That was no princess. The screen showed a huge herd of ponies yelling and shaking colourful signs. Not far from them, on the other side of the street were even more ponies, but they were wearing strange, bulky clothes and held super soakers. I knew they were super soakers because they sprayed water at the yelling ponies. I just didn’t know why the water was orange and made the yelling ponies try and dodge it.

There definitely was no princess, but I kept watching. The yelling ponies looked funny covered in orange. They yelled a lot too. The water must have been very cold. Just as the bulky ponies drove a huge, boxy truck with the strongest super soaker I ever saw the view changed. This time to even more yelling ponies. There were so many, probably more than a thousand! They walked closely together along an open street, passing by what looked like burning cars. At first I thought there must have been an accident, but the ponies weren’t scared; maybe it was some sort of theatre? The view got closer and I could hear the yelling ponies clearly.

‘Down with the sun!’

‘Down with the sun!’

They kept repeating it over and over. I made a face. Why would anyone want the sun to go down? Night was boring - there’s nothing to do but sleep.

‘Down with the sun!’

‘Down with the sun!’

That gave me an idea. I trotted over to the castle and picked up Dark Lord Nightscream, then went back to the TV.

‘Down with the sun!’

“Down with the sun!” I started chanting along with the ponies on the screen as I floated the Dark Lord up and down. “Down with the sun!” He was the bad guy; of course he’d want to down the sun!

“Down with the sun!” I started moving my hooves in rhythm as Dark Lord Nightscream bobbed up and down.

Mom came over quickly and took Dark Lord Nightscream from my grasp.

“Mooooom!” I stomped my hooves on the floor and gave her a pout.

“You can’t go around doing that!”

I couldn’t tell if Mom was angry or sad; I thought both. “Why? He’s Dark Lord Nightscream! He hates the sun!”

Mom sighed and knelt down. “No sweetie it’s…” She looked towards the TV behind me and blinked a few times. Now she looked very sad. She looked down at me again and smiled, then nodded.

“Go to your room, and please never say anything like that again. Is that clear?”

I was confused. Mom never told me to stop playing in such a way before. And she never asked me to not play again either. I didn’t like that. “But Moooom! I don’t want toooo!”

Her magic grabbed Dark Lord Nightscream tighter and floated him out of my view. “No buts, young lady! Go to your room and stay there for now.”

I raised my voice. “I don’t wanna!” I stomped my hooves again. “I want to play with Uncle Wavelength!” I stomped harder. “Now!”

“Mom, Dad and Uncle are very busy now. You’ll come out when I say so.” Her voice turned softer. “I’ll explain later, okay? Now please sweetie, go and let the adults talk.”

I hung my head and shuffled my hooves idly.

“Is that clear?”

I frowned. She couldn’t see it. “Yes Mom.” Her magic gently pushed me towards the stairs and my room. A moment later I was inside and closed the door behind me.

Stupid adults.

Stupid TV.

“Stupid sun!”

Mom had taken Dark Lord Nightscream prisoner. How was I supposed to play alicorns and wyrms now? I angrily kicked my hoofball and jumped onto the bed, then reached out my magic and grabbed a piece of paper and some crayons.

At least I could draw them.

I lit my horn and picked up yellow and orange, then started drawing. I made a big orange circle and filled it up with yellow. Then I began adding sunshines one by one.

Just when I got halfway there, something scary happened.

I heard a zap and felt a pinch at the base of my horn. The crayons dropped on the bed sheets.

I lit up my horn again to lift the crayons-

Zap and pinch. I gasped. It hurt.

I looked straight down at the paper. Right in the middle of the yellow sun was a dark red dot. I haven’t used red at all…

Another red dot appeared. Then another.

I noticed they fell from somewhere above, like raindrops.

I looked up to the ceiling but couldn’t see anything. Instead I felt something icky run down my lips and chin.

Then everything went dark.

I could hear the principal’s voice through the door as I sat waiting in front of his office.

“-started a fight, which ended up with another student in a hospital with a broken nose and a concussion.” There was a short pause. “Missus, mister. Due to the danger she poses to other students, I’m afraid your daughter will be suspended from school duties as a punitive action for the next fortnight.”

What? No! Mom will kill me!

“I’m sorry Mister Tome Catcher…” That was Dad. “...but I find it hard to believe our daughter would do such a thing.”

“She’s not some… delinquent!” Mom sounded angry; she wasn’t yelling yet, but she was getting there.

I looked around the empty hallway. Principal Tome Catcher had kept me waiting here for so long until my parents got to the school, the other kids had already gone home. The classes were quiet; even the janitors were gone by now. I never thought school could feel so empty. It was creepy.

“Please, let me explain fully.” His chair scraped so loudly I winced. “During the midday recess, she approached one of the teachers in panic. She couldn’t speak coherently and instead dragged the teacher with her to the empty tennis court. There, the teacher found another student collapsed on the ground.”

I’m so sorry, Comet. You are my best friend. Please, please, please don’t hate me.

“After a quick checkup to determine her injuries, a school nurse was called.”

I didn’t know what else to do. It was so scary.

“When questioned on what happened, your daughter admitted she was the one that hit the other student unprovoked.”

“I don’t believe it!”

Mom, please don’t get mad…

“She said the same when I personally questioned her shortly before your arrival.”

What else was I to say?

“My daughter did no such thing!” Mom sounded scary.

“Honey, please, let the stallion finish.” Dad sounded sad.

“I’m sorry, but these are the facts we are faced with. It is my personal recommendation that your daughter should use the suspension time to attend a psychiatric evaluation.” Silence. Even Mom didn’t yell. “If this act was truly unprovoked, we might be dealing with some kind of anger management issues.”

I lied.

I had to lie. Even if both Mom and Dad hated lies. I hated them too.

But I had no choice.

I sniffed as slow tears started. Then reached down a hoof to lift the edge of my uniform’s skirt. It was still there.

My brand new cutie mark.

I squeezed my eyes shut and pleaded.

“I don’t want you…”

My whisper could have been heard on the other end of the corridor. I blinked the tears away and sniffed again. It was still there. As visible as it was right after when I…

When I hurt Comet with my…

Another sniff.

With my…

I closed my eyes, wrapped my forelegs around my chest and hugged tightly. The memory came back instantly.

We were watching funny stuff on her multiband. Just… things. Animal vids, people falling over. Stuff. We were laughing so hard that my head ached and Comet was crying. I wanted to show her that one vid with the keyboard cat. I grabbed her multiband in my magic and then…

Darkness.

When I woke up, Comet was lying on the ground. Her face was hurt.

There was blood. Most of it Comet’s.

I only noticed my nose was bleeding as I ran to get help.

I was so scared.

I couldn’t tell anyone.

“-elieve it! We raised her better than this!”

I let out a whimper and started crying again.

I watched the white hills roll by on the other side of the window. Every now and then a village could be seen in the distance; most of them were far away from the road, separated by open fields covered in yesterday’s snow.

Watching them was the only thing preventing me from giving Mom the stink eye as she continued her tirade.

“It’s been barely four weeks in the new school and I have already had calls from the teachers.”

Her concerned face reflected in the window I kept staring through.

“They told me you are late to class constantly, don’t do any homework and act rude when questioned about it.” Her gaze briefly shifted to the side mirror as she switched lanes. “And don’t think I’m unaware of that exam you failed.”

That was just before the winter break. How did she know about it already? That old hag must have ratted me out. I frowned, face still turned towards the window.

Mom’s voice softened. “Sweetie, we’ve been over this already. This is the third school in the span of two years, and that is on top of you already being a year behind.”

“Mhmm.” I didn’t think I could have looked more disinterested even if I tried.

Apparently Mom wasn’t taking the hint.

“You know me and Dad try to provide the best for you, always.” She took one hoof off the wheel and ran it across her face. “But we can’t do it on our own! If you keep burning through every chance we give you, one day there will be no school left that will accept you! What then? Do you want to go to a public school?”

“I guess not.” My voice was void of any emotion.

“Sweetie, please. It’s time to take this seriously.” She sighed again. “It’s your future we’re talking about.”

Briefly I wondered if I could've crawled back to the backseat and just… fallen asleep or something. “Get off me, Mom.”

She gasped. “Get off you?! I’m trying to help!”

I whipped my head towards her and gave her a hard stare. “Well maybe I don’t want your help!” I slapped my hoof on the dashboard. “That school sucks anyway!”

Mom gripped the wheel tighter and gave me a stern look. “Don’t talk back to me young lady!” Her expression only hardened after I gave her a disinterested shrug and a roll of my eyes.

“Whatever! Why should I even care if they’ll expel me soon anyway?!”

She blinked a couple times, then continued quietly. “Of course you should care. It’s your education, your adult life. You can’t just ignore it all.”

I seethed through clenched teeth. “What - ever!” My hoof slapped the dashboard again, this time stronger. “I have no friends!” My voice raised with each sentence. “I have no idea what the teachers are talking about! Somehow people found out I-” The memories came back in a flash. “T-that I put a colt into a hospital in my previous school!” Just like I did Comet before. “They call me names!” And just like with Comet, I lied. “They know I go to a doctor and take pills to not beat them up!” I lifted my hooves and pulled hard on my mane. “I! DON’T! CARE!”

The pulse in my head was thumping wildly, I could feel another headache mounting.

Mom’s face turned sad; she hadn’t looked this sad even when she found out I got expelled the last time. “Oh sweetie… I will do anything to help you. Dad will-” She blinked and frowned briefly, then lit up her horn and levitated a pack of tissues towards me. “You’re bleeding again.”

I blinked as I felt a drop land on my foreleg.

Mom continued quietly as she returned to watching the road. “We’ll talk about it with clear heads once we get home, okay?”

“Okay.” I sniffed heavily and reached out with my magic to take the tissues.

Darkness.

I was shaking. The foil blanket they covered me with didn’t do much.

My head was still aching. I kept staring at the snowy field before me. Past the small crowd of firefighters.

Past what was left of our family car.

When I woke up I couldn’t move. Three large stallions had to carry me before sitting me down on the firetruck’s steps.

Two of them stayed behind to see if I was hurt. One was asking questions while the other checked me for injuries. I couldn’t focus my eyes on him. Even when the other shone a small torch straight into them. I couldn’t make out his voice at all, but I heard something else. Something that I couldn’t have heard. Two ponies talking. One mare and one stallion.

“-careened off the road at high speed, flipped a few times and came to a stop in an irrigation ditch. No skid marks.” That was the stallion.

“You think it was a DUI?” The mare almost sounded bored.

“We already took a sample from the deceased. Nothing.” He let out a sigh. “Maybe something will show up after it gets through the lab properly.”

The mare clicked her tongue. “Well, there’s no ice on the road. Could be mechanical failure?”

“Maybe.”

“What about the passenger?”

“The boys are giving her a look over right now, but she appears to be fine. Physically at least. Just some bruises and scratches. Seems to be in deep shock though.”

“How old is she? Fourteen?”

“Thereabouts.”

“Shit.”

I lied.

I wasn’t in shock. I wasn’t hurt. I could have walked and talked if I wanted to. But I didn’t dare to move a muscle.

I was too scared.

I idly poked the takeaway salad with my fork. Pecans, escarole and a bit of chives.

Again.

I scrolled through my Chirper feed. It was the same as it had been yesterday and the day before. And the last two months.

“Princess, no devices at the table.”

I sighed and put the multiband away. “Sorry Dad. I’m just…” Instead of continuing, I forked a piece and put it in my mouth, then gave Dad a small shrug.

He looked at me with concern; I could clearly see the dark bags under his eyes. Dad had been working a lot since Mom left us, doubly so since the insurrection in the core worlds had started. With how often he had to stay long hours or work on weekends, I barely saw him these days. Even back when Mom was around the house had felt big. Nowadays, during the time I was left alone, it felt monumental.

“Hey, Princess,” he started with a small smile.

I couldn’t even force a weak smile back.

“Why the long face?” His eyes were gentle as always, but I could see that he was worried.

I poked the salad again. “I dunno Dad…” I looked towards my multiband, then to the pictures of Mom and Uncle that were hanging on the nearby wall before sighing. “…all of that.” With a heavy sigh I put down my fork and pushed the half empty bowl away, then looked up past him across the granite table. “Is it really true? Is Princess Luna really trying to topple the Empress?”

Dad’s face hardened. I didn’t understand much about his job, but I knew that as one of the highest ranked officers on Nova’s Contrast - in the entire sector - there were things he couldn’t tell me even if he wanted to. He kept quiet for a moment, his face keeping that serious look. Finally, he spoke again. “I don’t know.” His features relaxed. “But don’t worry about it. We are far enough from Equestria that this disturbance won’t affect us.”

“Are you sure? I saw leaflets around the school and the shopping mall.” I rubbed my forehooves one over another. “And last week Rocky said that her older brother’s coltfriend joined some creepy thestral-only group.”

“Nothing to pay attention to; it’s just some anarchists trying to cause noise.” He took a deep breath and shifted in his seat. “So anyway, how is school?”

I looked down at my hooves and shrugged. “Everything’s the same, but also different.” I brushed my mane behind one of my ears as I looked up at him again, but never into his eyes. I could never again look into his eyes.

Not since Mom.

“I guess I’m not used yet to how they do it outside of private schools.” It felt strange; no one expected me to do my best any more. No one cared where I came from or who my parents- parent was. It felt as if I were invisible. No one paid any attention to me except the bare minimum. Even the teachers only gave me a slap on the fetlock if I did something I shouldn’t have.

I was alone. After all that happened in the past, maybe that was for the best.

Teachers barely registered me as long as I took my notes. Classmates didn’t really talk with me. I had no friends at the school at all. Dad was away up on that stupid orbital platform, working all the time. Mom was gone.

I felt so very alone, but I was too afraid to get closer to anyone. Or it would happen again.

I was certain.

“Hey! Are you listening to me Princess?”

I blinked a few times and looked towards him. “Sorry Dad. I… I zoned out.”

He stood up and walked towards me, then extended a hoof and rested it on my shoulder with care. “Maybe it's those new pills? Do you think you’d be better with the ones you had before?”

I shook my head lightly. “No, I… I’m okay. I haven’t had a headache in a while.” I rested my hoof on his without looking up. “I feel fine, Dad.”

Lies.

A fortress of lies and loneliness; that was what my life amounted to. Something was very, very wrong with me, but there was no one who could have helped. There was no one to talk to. And even if there was, what would I have said? No one would believe me. I wouldn’t believe myself. There was no way out.

None.

Shortly after Mom died I thought I’d found one, but I was too weak to do it.

I was too scared.

I opened the door to my room and ushered the colt inside. We dropped on the couch by the window and breathed heavily for a moment. It had been a three block canter to get back home before the start of the curfew and even then we didn’t make it in time. I was glad I hadn’t brought my scooter. The riot suppression drones would have caught us instantly.

I let out a breath as I wiped the sweat off my forehead. “Fuck, that was close.”

Bronze Band grinned as he unzipped his saddlebag and pulled out a six pack. He opened two bottles with the bottom of his hoof and passed one of them to me with a wink. “Don’t sweat it babe. I told you we’d make it just fine.”

I grinned back as I grabbed the bottle. “Well, thank your friend at the store for me.” Alcohol was hard to come by for a filly who was not exactly of the age to buy it yet.

Bronze nodded and clinked his bottle to mine with a smile. “Hey, anything for the birthday girl!”

We laughed as we took a swing of the beers. I then stood up, walked into the middle of the room and struck a pose. “Well… You’re two weeks late.” I pointed a hoof at the saddlebag filled with bottles and gave him a naughty look. “But seeing as you were away and are the only one to appreciate my sweet sixteen, you are excused.”

Bronze took another swing and wiggled his eyebrows. “And I’ll appreciate much more than that!” He then made a show of making himself comfortable on the couch and patting his own thigh.

I took another gulp of the bitter beer and spun around the room, then giggled and stepped over. Carefully I climbed up on his thighs and hooked one foreleg around his neck. “We got booze, we got the entire house to ourselves. What now, hmm?” I smiled as I felt his hoof rub on my flank.

He moved his face close to mine and whispered. “Oh I dunno, how about we find out?”

I flashed a grin, then closed my eyes and leaned in until our lips met. Our tongues soon followed. It wasn’t the first time. Bronze Band and I had been a thing for a long time now - since last semester. He was two years ahead of me. Of course Father didn’t know. He’d probably call in tanks or someshit on Bronze if he found out.

We separated after a few moments and I took another swing.

“Hey, I really like your new thing.” He shot me a sly smirk.

I blinked. “Huh?”

He reached out a hoof and touched it to the large ring hanging from my nose, prompting a chuckle.

“Oh yeah! I had to treat myself! Because if not me, then who?”

Bronze raised an eyebrow with a cheeky smile. “And your old stallion knows about it?”

I sputtered and laughed. “No way, he’d kill me if he saw it.” I lidded my eyes. “I put it on only for special occa-”

My ear flicked. There was a car pulling into the driveway. Instantly I bolted up from Bronze and towards the window. Even through the darkness I saw it clearly.

“Shit!”

Bronze Band walked over and put a foreleg around my flanks. “Babe what’s wrong?”

“It’s my father! Shit, he wasn’t supposed to be back! He can’t see you!” I looked around my room in panic. I could have tried stuffing Bronze into the dresser or under the bed. “Fuck. Hide that beer, quickly! Fuck-fuck-fuck! I’m so screwed!”

I could feel my heart thumping. This was bad. Very, very bad.

“Hey, hey, relax! Look.” Bronze Band pointed a hoof through the window. “I think he’s not coming.”

“Wha-?” I peered through the glass. Father was standing on the driveway, next to the still open door of his car. He was talking on his multiband - I couldn’t tell what about - but it was clear he was very agitated. He paced a few times, shouted something, then quickly returned to the car and started reversing out of the driveway. With a screech of tires he was gone.

Bronze let out an amused chuckle. “Looks like your pops forgot to order some poor fucks to the front lines.”

“Shut up! It’s not funny!” I hissed. Only after a minute did I breathe out. He was gone. I rubbed my temple, I could feel another headache mounting.

Bronze reached out and moved my hoof away, then grinned. “Come on, it’s okay. He’s gone back to his platform.” His other hoof rested at the base of my tail and pushed my flank towards the couch. “You need to relax. The night’s still young.”

I shuffled out from under his hoof and walked slowly across the room, then flopped down on the couch, dejected. “Shit, Bronze. I don’t know…” I winced and put my hooves up to hold my head as a wave of migraine struck. “H-he might be back; I don’t like this.”

Bronze Band sat beside me, hooked his forelegs around my waist and pulled me close to his body. “Come on, it was your idea. It’s your birthday party!”

“I guess...” Another wave of pain. “Argh!” I squeezed my eyes shut to make the ache less intense. Only after it mercifully receded did I speak again. “No. No Bronze, sorry.” I barely weaselled out from his firm grasp and stood up, then moved to the edge of my bed. “I-I don’t feel like it anymore.”

I heard him get up and rush over beside me. His tail brushed up against my thigh. I turned my head to tell him off, but his foreleg rose and grabbed my chin. He pulled me into a kiss - before his tongue could make its way inside I broke away and with a swift motion slapped him across the face.

Bronze Band recoiled in shock.

My eyes went wide as I noticed a thin smudge of red coming out of his busted lip. “I’m sorry! I-I didn’t mean to…”

He held my gaze for a second, but then his eyes lit up with anger. “You’ve done it now you slut!” He threw a hoof straight at my muzzle. I felt blood in my mouth. Before I had a chance to recover, he charged me, grabbed my throat and started choking.

The fear kicked in like a cold shower.

I quickly looked at the lamp on the nearby nightstand.

And grabbed it with my magic.

Darkness.

I woke up with a gasp to the sound of scalding blood pulsing through my head and the taste of iron in my mouth. Carefully, I opened my eyes and sat up.

My room looked like a bomb had exploded inside. The lights were out. Shredded curtains fluttered on the evening breeze where the windows used to be. Pieces of furniture and my things lay scattered all around. It took me a moment to come to my senses and remember what happened.

Then I saw Bronze Band. Or what was left of him.

I gasped and covered my muzzle at the sight, feeling wetness on my upper lip. If I didn’t know, it would have been hard to tell that it used to be a pony. His limbs, neck and back looked like they were twisted fully around. Many, many times. There was so much blood.

I gagged at the smell and looked away. My body was shaking with uncontrollable spasms of disgust and fear. My head spun like a cyclone and my breathing was accelerated so much I wasn’t able to grab enough air into my lungs.

It took a monumental effort to slow down my breathing; my brain started into full gallop even despite the aching migraine.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think of anything - it was too hard. I was too scared.

No.

I was terrified. The house was ruined, Father was away, Bronze was-

“Argh!” I winced as another spike of pain hammered into my frontal lobe.

I held my head in my hooves and massaged my skull. Slowly and with painful feedback the ache receded. It wasn’t gone fully, but thankfully, I could think again. After a few moments I gathered up enough courage to look up at the bloodied pile of meat by the wall, then back at the hole where my window used to be. I had to do something. Anything.

“Run.”

It was as if my mouth spoke for me.

So I ran.

Even with the curfew, someone must have seen the room explode. The only thing I could think of was getting as far away as possible. I grabbed my black hoodie and hurried down to the garage, nearly tripping on the stairs in the darkness - the power was out. Once there, I hurriedly unplugged my scooter from the now defunct charger and hopped on.

I didn’t think about where; I just drove. What had I done? What had happened? I was unable to even begin explaining it to myself. It all went by so quickly. I could feel the rushing air wrestling the tears out of my eyes. What would I do now? Would I go to prison? What would I tell Dad? My heart was racing so fast I felt like I was about to have a heart attack, yet, I couldn’t force myself to slow down for many minutes.

Or look back.

A sudden shudder that nearly made me fall brought me back to reality as the scooter hit a speedbump. I looked at the street ahead.

It was strangely empty. No cars, no people. As though I had been left stranded alone to fend for myself. It took me a few moments of driving to realise how alone I was. Even despite the ordeal I just had been through, a small part of my brain screamed at me to pay attention to how out of place it felt. Even the drones enforcing the curfew were gone, and they had been patrolling the streets ever since martial law was enforced eight months ago.

Maybe it was for the best. I dreaded to think what would have happened if I was found out, especially after what I left back home.

The mere thought threw me further into a sheer blind panic to not dare stop.

My scooter carried me eastwards. The large, two story family houses quickly gave way to industrial buildings as I approached the riverfront. I knew that if I wanted to be alone, this was the place to do it; no one lived here and at this hour the workers would be long gone. With a screech of tires I turned and drove the scooter over the curb at an empty bus stop, then started along the embankment along the wide river. After a minute of following it I reached a large pylon sticking upwards from the ground and stopped my scooter at the base. Still trembling, I jumped off, then took a step forward. Immediately my legs bent under me and I dropped down. I took a haggard breath and squeezed my eyes shut, then began evenly breathing in and out as I counted steadily in my head. After a minute of this I found enough strength to stand up and keep moving towards the ladder on the side of the pylon. The security lock on its gate was busted; I broke it myself weeks ago when I needed a place to be alone with my thoughts.

My hooves started climbing the ladder on their own. As they did, I tried to calm myself down, but no matter what, I couldn’t get the sight of Bronze Band’s mangled body out of my head. It haunted me.

Just like Mom’s wrecked car, or Comet’s busted face. Or the dark red dot in the middle of a bright crayon sun.

The pylon started shaking, and with a horrible racket a high speed monorail thundered on the track above. I groaned loudly as the noise made my headache flare up again. Less than a second later the cargo train passed and I could continue upwards. I carefully climbed onto the track, followed the rail to the middle of the bridge and grabbed a second ladder, then up again.

Soon I was at the very top, right above the river and the track. I looked around as the wind whipped my black mane around. The shining towers of downtown on the other bank glimmered in the distance. I had a perfect view of this side of the city. Only the dark red of the moon and the blinking lights of the orbital infrastructure graced the cloudless sky above.

I sat down on the strut, facing the river.

I covered my face with my hooves.

And then I cried.

I didn’t know how long I sat there staring at the Grand River and the surrounding city.

Finally, once the tears eased enough to allow me to look at my multiband, I noticed that it was nearly midnight. I took in a haggard breath and looked around. It was so quiet. Only the murmur of the river below and the distant clatter of the drone-operated cargo trains leaving the trainyard could be heard. The city felt strangely peaceful.

It wasn’t much of a reassurance.

I wracked my brain on what to do, but quickly I realised there wasn’t much. I had no idea why this kept happening to me. I had no idea where to go. What to do. Who to talk to.

I sniffed and rubbed the still seeping tears away, then looked up to the sky, past the dark red moon, towards a small grouping of faintly blinking lights high above. I brought up my multiband, frowned as I noticed the battery was in the red and swiped away the lock screen and its dozen notifications before tapping the contacts widget.

I sniffed again as the tone of the call sounded off.

“C-come on…”

The dull tone kept repeating.

“Come…” Another sniff. “Come on.”

More tone.

I begged. “P-pleas-”

A click, followed by a voice. He sounded relieved.

“Princess, I tried to call you but the lines were overloaded! How are you?”

I sputtered loudly. “Dad! Listen, I beg you!” My voice was breaking between words. “S-something’s wrong with me. I-I… I don’t know what to do!”

Immediately his tone turned into one of concern. “What? Are you safe?”

I sniffed hard to stop my nose from running. “Y-yes, I think so but-” I couldn’t bring myself to finish.

“Tell me what happened.”

“T-the house… a-and Bronze…” The words choked in my throat. “I just… I just want you to be with me Dad. Please c-come down.”

I could hear a regret-filled sigh on the other end. “Princess…”

The tears started flowing with renewed vigour; I knew what he'd say even before he finished.

“This is very important. I’m so sorry but I canno-”

I screamed, not into my device, but at the blinking lights high in the sky.

“What’s more important to you than your daughter calling for help?!” The accusatory scream morphed into a pitiful whimper. “Don’t leave m-me. Not you too.”

Dad’s voice lowered, he spoke with a soft whisper. “You’re my child. I would never…”

Suddenly, a loud wail of alarm made him pause, it was coming from his side of the call. Immediately Dad put on his military voice. “Listen to me, Princess. Whatever happens, I want you to keep away from the city!”

I spoke through tears with a shaky voice. “D-Dad? I don’t understand.”

“Do you hear me? Stay in the ev-” The connection cut.

I looked up towards the lights again. And then the night turned into day.

I let out a scream of pain as the mute flash burned my eyes and felt a brief panic overwhelm me as I realised I couldn't see, my sight replaced with a fierce, dancing afterimage. It stung, ached in my skull, until with relief I began to see shapes again. The respite was short lived. My hooves went up to my wide open mouth and my eyebrows shot up as I watched a miniature sun birth in the sky.

Right where Dad’s platform had been a moment before.

Despite the gargantuan detonation, there was no noise. Not even a murmur. I sat and stared into the brilliant light, heedless of my hurting eyeballs.

I couldn’t blink the view away.

I couldn’t even think.

The distant ball of pale light kept expanding rapidly until it gradually dimmed and changed into a strange, multi-coloured aura radiating from the epicentre. I couldn’t even begin to process it before the horrifying silence was interrupted by a howling scream that reverberated through my teeth. It started on the outskirts. A low pitched wail, so loud it was audible from kilometres away. Then the other, closer districts joined in, only intensifying the noise.

Civil defence sirens.

It was then that my brain started working again and I finally realised what just happened.

The War of the Two Crowns had come to Nova’s Contrast at last.

I sat on the bridge, motionless, still watching the spot where the explosion had occurred.

Where Dad was.

The sky was still brightly lit, but it wasn’t fire. It glowed with every colour of the rainbow. Swirling streams of light moved and danced without rhyme or reason, sometimes nearly dwindling only to then glow boldly. I could have said it was beautiful, if not for one thing that made my heart stop: the gargantuan remains of the Sector Strategic Headquarters Platform breaking apart and burning in the atmosphere.

I knew he was still there. He wouldn’t abandon his post.

Even for his daughter.

I had no more tears to shed. I just stared in silence.

The only constant in this nightmarish vision of my world was the moon’s disc, dark red and high in the sky. It remained where it had been since forever, watching the planet and its inhabitants suffer below.

I couldn’t care less about any of it. I didn’t even care about what had happened back home.

In an instant. Dad was gone.

Forever.

I was alone.

The sirens kept droning endlessly meanwhile, but then something louder drowned them out. An explosion somewhere off to my side. I didn’t register it at first, but my ear flicked when I heard another one and my head snapped towards it out of reflex.

Out in the distance, towards the stadium, I saw a plume of smoke rising steadily. Then something fell from the sky and another explosion appeared on my other side, much closer; a flash followed by the sound of glass shattering and car alarms going off. Then another, and another. I felt the shock waves wash over me, pounding on my chest with each distant hit. The bridge trembled as I tried to desperately hold and not slip into the water below. There wasn’t anything else I could have done.

A part of me still couldn’t believe what was happening, even though I knew exactly what was going on. The distant bangs of more explosions only confirmed the worst. At some point the sirens cut off suddenly, their wail replaced by a distant and distorted voice.

“People of Nova’s Contrast III, the time has come to join our brothers and sisters in the core worlds and rise up to fight for the freedoms of equestrian citizens! As the symbol of Nightmare Star’s oppression burns in the sky, brave freedom fighters commence the fight for your right to a better tomorrow! A tomorrow free of tyrannical oppression! Free of forced subjugation! Free of unfair treatment and double standards! To every soldier of the deceitful regime, lay down your arms and join us! Overthrow the tyrant! To every patriot listening, join the fight for justice and equality! To restore Equestria to its harmonic values! To restore its rightful ruler to the throne! For the Night Princess! To victory!”

Then it went quiet, leaving only the rumbling echoes of explosions and firefights somewhere far away. Finally, I dared to look around fully.

The city was bathed in darkness, its normally shining towers now obsidian monoliths like daggers stabbing the heavens. Here and there among the buildings were smoke plumes reaching higher and higher, mushrooms of tar with angry orange underbellies. Every now and then, a shooting star would fall to the ground somewhere in the city and crash with another explosion. Some of them would go for the hills on the distant horizon. As if in retaliation, the hills would launch trios of long, golden lances; they dashed nearly vertically towards the sky and the stars beyond, then disappeared quickly or turned into tiny, orange puffs as they collided with one of the dark shapes therein.

A long time passed. Long enough for the few remains of Dad’s command to disintegrate on re-entry or crash behind the horizon. Long enough for the bombardment to cease. Long enough for the dancing lights in the sky to vanish. Long enough for spaceships painted with crude crescent moons to descend and unload troops all over the city.

Long enough that I stopped feeling anything.

I stood up and started walking. My body was numb, yet, something pushed my hooves one before another.

Anywhere but here.

The city was under siege. There was a war going on, yet I was still to see even a single living pony. I tried calling the emergency services, Dad’s adjutant, even the school’s counsellor, but all lines were offline or busy. I kept trying so long that my multiband's battery finally died. As I rode on my scooter, I could hear sporadic gunfire echoing through the empty streets around me. Sometimes it was just a block away, sometimes echoing from between the buildings from afar. Every now and then, engines would roar above only for the whoosh of a missile followed by an explosion to ring out somewhere else. It felt like no matter where I went, there were dozens of pocket battles all around, but never close enough for me to actually see them. Each of these tiny pieces conjoined into one, massive conflict consuming my city. Eventually the noises were left behind; instead I started seeing the damage. Bullet ridden walls, collapsed buildings and finally a burning wreckage of some kind of military vehicle. I stopped when I noticed one of the crew lying still in the middle of a pedestrian crossing. She was three or four years my senior at most.

I got off my scooter and looked down at her face, lit orange by the burning vehicle and frozen in an expression of disbelief. I wanted to feel sorry. To say or do something. To feel angry at Luna or Nightmare Star or whoever was responsible for all of this.

I felt no-

“Hey you! Get out of there, there’s live ammo inside. It can still cook off!”

I kept staring at the corpse, even when the voice approached me.

“You deaf or wounded kid? Come on! You should be long gone by now!”

A hoof grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back. Away from the fire and the dead mare. Only after we took a few steps away from the wreckage did I look at the stranger: a pegasus mare, clad in military uniform and carrying a rifle on her side. She ushered me past a blasted coffee shop and towards what used to be a police station. It wasn’t the first time I had visited, though this was the first time I wasn’t looking at it from the back of a police cruiser. The thick-walled building appeared damaged, with scorch marks and bullet holes visible on the facade. Here and there I could see large holes caused by some sort of explosions; many of them were covered with sandbags. The entire station looked more like a stronghold.

There was a gun in almost every windowless frame, and those that did not have one were blocked by sturdy shutters. Once another soldier frisked my hoodie thoroughly at the entrance, we passed the fortified lobby and entered the station proper. I realised the building sheltered at least three dozen people inside, mostly ponies, but also a couple griffins and deer. Quite a few of them were hurt, some severely. The majority of them wore police uniforms, but there were a few that were clearly soldiers like the mare who brought me in. Nearly all of them were busy with something, taking care of various weapons or frantically patching up the damaged building. On top of that there were a number of various drones hovering around, many of them the usual riot suppressors, but I also spotted a few beefier models, clearly military.

“Over there, sit down.” The mare nodded at a nearby office chair.

I did as instructed and looked more closely. The inside was nothing like I remembered it from after one of my stunts ended with the involvement of the police and my very, very disappointed Dad. I felt awful guilt grip me as I remembered his face when that had happened. Now it was too late to apologise. I took a shaky breath and swallowed hard, then attempted to push those terrible thoughts back as I glanced around the room. The station was in chaos; desks moved either to barricade some of the doors or pushed together as impromptu operating tables for the moaning wounded with drawer contents spilled on the tiled floor. I noticed there were a few filled body bags lying in one of the side rooms. All of the screens in the station were dark and the lights barely worked, dimmed from their usual brightness.

The mare took off her helmet and knelt down next to me, then pulled out a bulky medical scanner and started to move it over my chest. “Are you hurt? Any pain or blood loss?”

I weakly shook my head, so she kept scanning in silence.

After a few moments I let out an elongated sigh and spoke quietly without looking at her. “I’m fine. Just hungry.”

The scanner beeped and the mare packed it in her satchel again. She rummaged in one of the pockets on her chest and passed me two protein bars, then spoke somewhere to the side before walking away. “Nothing to do for me here, Sir.”

Another voice picked up as someone else approached, this one older and more firm. It reminded me of Dad. “You shouldn’t be here; all civilians should be in an evacuation shelter or outside the city. What are you still doing here?”

I hung my head and stared at my own hooves. “I don’t know…”

“Come with me.”

I wearily stood up and looked at the source of the voice: a sturdy-looking earth pony in full combat gear. His brows briefly raised as my eyes were nearly level with his, then indicated with a nod to follow him. He led me through a corridor nearly filled with crates marked as medical supplies and ammunition. We passed a trio of soldiers crouching down around a bucket filled with bullets as they painstakingly pushed them into their empty magazines. Their hard faces gave me a curious glance as I chewed on the gifted protein bars. The old stallion led me up a short flight of stairs and opened a door to a small office. He motioned for me to enter and followed in before closing it behind us. It was a mess; whoever was occupying it before had left in a hurry.

“Sit down please. I need to ask you some questions.” He indicated the plush chair behind the desk while he himself sat on a defunct holo-table and rested his rifle against the side. He then let out a weary sigh and removed his helmet.

I could clearly see grey streaks in his short, citrine mane and an ancient scar running down from the corner of his lip to the chipped ear on the left side. I watched him in silence; only then did it become clear that the stallion was exhausted. I knew very well what he was doing - he didn’t want to show any of it to his troops. Dad used to do it all the time.

I squeezed my eyes shut at the painful memory. Only after a few moments did I finally manage an elongated exhale and opened them again. Immediately I noticed the golden oak leaf on the collar of the stallion’s uniform.

I also spotted another pony waiting in the corner. Another stallion: a unicorn in his late twenties with a copper coat and a short platinum mane. He was the only person other than me in the entire place that didn’t wear a uniform, instead opting for a simple pair of jeans and a black turtleneck. He did however have a pistol holstered on his shoulder.

I looked between the two of them before taking a short breath and asking the older stallion quietly, “Are you going to lock me up for trespassing Major?”

His face softened. “No, no. Don’t worry. I could do that for breaking the curfew, but I believe we are past that point now.” He frowned and looked through the window at the main floor of the station and the work below. “You’re a civilian in a warzone. My duty to the Empress is that I make sure you’re extracted as soon as possible or provided safety and care if extraction is unavailable.” He took a long pause. “Regardless of your… allegiance, you are still a citizen of the Empire.”

My eyes squeezed shut as I heard him talk. “I take no sides, Sir. I don’t want to be a part of this… war. Never wanted to.” I looked up at the old stallion again. “But…” I took a deep, shaky breath. “My father, he…” Like a subtle melody, the emotions were coming back. Confusion. Guilt. Sorrow.

I sniffed and continued. “My father was on the SSHP when it…” I sniffed again and swallowed hard, then steeled myself and continued with a forceful voice. “He was part of the general staff in Sector Defence Headquarters.”

The greying stallion raised an eyebrow towards his companion before addressing me again. “You’re a general’s daughter? Whom?”

Despite my eyes getting wet again, I kept my voice level. “Brigadier General Bolt Action, Sir.”

His expression didn’t change; he just looked somewhere to the side and nodded lightly. “I knew him. Good officer, though it has been many months since we last saw each other.” He turned to me and stared straight into my tearful eyes. “I’m sorry.”

It took a lot of effort to keep myself composed. I dared not to blink to prevent the welling tears from flowing as I kept my head as still as possible. “Than-” Another sniff. “Thank you, Sir.”

The major stood up and moved to the window, turning away to allow me a moment to compose myself. Once the silence was becoming unbearable he started again. “For the sake of your father I won’t lie to you, girl. We have little idea of what’s happening; the rebels struck fast and disabled or jammed all comms.” He nodded to a large paper map of the city attached to the wall with duct tape. It was dominated by the two rivers - Deepwater to the east and Grand River to the west - splitting the city into three lanes. The map was filled with a legion of white and blue pins. The majority of the blue ones were visible on the west side, where my home was. I knew one of the white pins denoted the station I was in at the moment. Other white pins were scattered all around, often dangerously close to the blue ones. “Before everything went dark, we received reports of armed insurrectionists popping up everywhere. Some military and security units even defected to their side.” His tone became spiteful. “They must have planned this for months. It’s chaos.” The major took a brief pause and returned to his aloof, professional voice as he pointed a hoof at the eastern side of the map. “The closest evacuation shelter is on the other side of the Deepwater river. I cannot guarantee your safe extraction from the city, but it's something. The starport should still be operational, even despite the destruction of the SSHP. Unfortunately, what was left of the garrison fleet had to break from orbit.” He let out a heavy sigh. “We have no idea if this is an isolated event or if it's happening on other inhabited planets in Nova’s Contrast.”

Finally I managed to get a hold of myself and turned to the stallion. “What should I do?”

Before the major could answer, an urgent voice from the main floor called out.

“TANK!”

The building shook as an explosion collapsed a wall near the main entrance and raised a massive cloud of dust and debris. I cowered as every gun pointing outwards began firing in return.

The major threw his helmet on and grabbed his rifle, then barked towards the silent stallion nearby. “Get her out of here - use the garage exit!”

Before I realised what was happening, the copper unicorn was already leading me by my hoof. We rushed through the narrow corridors of the station but had to pause to let more soldiers carrying various weapons let go the opposite way.

“Where ar-” Another explosion shook the building, making me stumble.

“Not now! Move it!” The pistol-armed pony kept leading me until we descended a set of stairs into the underground garage. There, he broke the glass on a wall mounted case holding tokens with digital keys and ushered me towards one of the parked police cruisers.

A minute later the cruiser broke through the gate and slid into the street, leaving explosions, gunfire and the desperate defenders behind.

I watched the dark, red moon in the cloudless sky as I emptied the small water bottle I had found in the cruiser and tried to ignore the distant sounds of war coming from all around us. The city was still dark; no lights worked anywhere. The red glare of the moon and the widespread fires were the only sources of illumination. I couldn’t make up my mind if I shivered from dread or the night breeze seeping through my hoodie. I forced myself not to dwell on it. Behind me I heard a curse and a slam of the hood closing.

“I guess it was in the garage and not on the streets for a reason.” The stallion - Prism Gleam - I had learned, passed me from behind and nodded towards the dark street ahead. “Come on Miss, we have to hoof it from now on.”

I idly played with the piercings in my ear before slowly standing up from the bench and following the older stallion. “Where are we going?”

The unicorn spoke without looking back as he began marching with confidence. “You heard the Major; I’m taking you across the downtown and over the river, then to the shelter near the starport. We’ll have to find a way to cross over somehow - the metro is disabled and I have no idea who holds the bridges.”

He led me along a sidewalk; we passed boarded up storefronts of all kinds. Abandoned cars clogged the street so tightly they were nearly piled on top of another. This part of the city looked barely touched by the fighting - there was no visible damage, but there were also no people anywhere.

It felt like a ghost town.

The quiet was making me uneasy. It was also causing me to think about my situation, and I didn’t want that right now. I needed a distraction.

“Prism Gleam, Sir?”

The stallion walking beside me half turned his face to look at me with one eye.

I bit my lip. I wasn’t sure if I should ask, but on the other hoof, this pony was probably the closest thing to a friend I had left in the entire city. I took a breath and tried again. “Why are you helping me? Who are you? ”

He turned back to look ahead towards the street. “I’m part of the Imperial military.” He shrugged. “It’s my duty.”

I habitually rolled my eyes. “Yeah, but so was everyone else in that station.” I chewed the inside of my cheek in thought briefly. “I don’t get it. I’m no one special. There are hundreds of thousands of others in this city that need help more.”

“I was given an order, I have to carry it out.” He looked at me again, his expression softened. “And you are a general’s daughter.”

I blinked, confused. “So? Dad is… gone.” I glanced up towards the moon and the empty spot near its disc where the geostationary orbit of the SSHP had kept it for the last twelve years. “And it’s not like I know any military secrets.”

Prism Gleam shook his head lightly. “It’s not about that, Miss. We take care of our own, and if they fall, we take care of their family.” He gave me a bittersweet smile. “Even though we never met, I’m sure he’d do the same for me if the roles were reversed.”

I furrowed my brow as I tried to recall Dad ever mentioning anything like that. I knew I’d never asked, even back when Uncle Wavelength died. I was too young to understand much of what was happening at the time.

We walked in silence for long minutes. The expansive shopfronts soon gave way to multilevel office buildings, bars and clubs as we entered the downtown proper. We had to take a few detours; the streets were blocked by rubble from damaged buildings or the hulks of wrecked vehicles. I couldn't tell which side they belonged to. Once we passed the bombed out and still burning ruins of the governor’s palace I spoke again. “You didn’t answer my other question.”

Prism shrugged as he stepped over a fallen streetlamp, then offered a hoof to help me. “Not much to it; I’m a navy officer. I shouldn’t even be here.” He nodded as I hopped over the obstacle on my own. “Got stranded here during my trip home when the loonies blockaded Spite last week. I’m supposed to be on a long term leave, you know?”

“Oh… well.” I brushed my mane aside as I tried to give him a smile. It didn’t work too well. “Sorry your vacation didn’t pan out.”

As Prism opened his muzzle to answer, a sudden pop sounded out ahead and a blinding white light rocketed straight at us. It skipped off the asphalt a few times, hissing, before stopping at our hooves and intensifying massively until we couldn’t see a thing. Before either of us could react, a gruff female voice called out.

“You two there! Stop and get on the ground! Slowly! Do anything other than that and you will be fired upon!”

Even despite covering my eyes with a foreleg I couldn’t see a thing; the flare was too strong.

“You have five seconds!”

I heard Prism hiss to my side. “Do as they say. Nothing else we can do now.”

Slowly we knelt down, then flattened ourselves on the ground. I could feel my heart thumping against the cold concrete as a few sets of hooves approached in a hurry and one of them kicked away the blinding light.

“Heads to the ground, don’t move!”

Someone was searching me, patting my sides and chest. I felt the fear edging in again. “I live here! We just want to-”

“Quiet!” the mare shouted.

Another voice called out from above me, this one a stallion’s. “She’s clear!”

“Check the other one!”

I kept my muzzle shut as I trembled on the street. It wasn’t from the cold.

“Got a weapon here!”

I heard one of the figures next to me shift as they took Prism’s gun. After a few moments the same voice barked out, “Clear!”

“Pick them up!” the mare ordered.

Someone forced me back to a standing position. Before me, I could see two ponies. There was one more behind, holding Prism Gleam. They all wore normal street clothes, none of them matching except for the military vests on their chests and black fabric masks exposing only their eyes. Each of them also held a laser rifle, the type I only saw in holovids and SimR games before. On top of all that, each of them had slit pupils and a pair of leathery wings on their sides.

The mare looked up and gave both of us a hostile stare. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

Still shaking, I took a deep breath as I attempted to gather any semblance of courage. “I-I said I live here, we just wanted to get s-somewhere safe!”

She narrowed her eyes with suspicion. “The callout for evacuation was given long before the fighting started. Why didn’t you leave?”

I blinked. There was no call…

I looked at Prism Gleam with confusion.

He gave me a regretful nod.

I looked back at the leader of the masked thestrals with mouth agape. After a moment I spoke with uncertainty. “W-what day is it today?”

Even despite the mask, I could see the annoyance mounting on her face. “Monday.”

That meant it had been Sunday when I was alone on the bridge just a few hours ago. Suddenly, Dad’s last words made sense. It had been Saturday when Bronze Band and I had thrown my birthday party.

My veins froze. I felt faint. My legs turned into putty as I felt my strength give.

“Miss!”

“Catch her!”

One of the bat ponies grabbed me before I hit the concrete. With their help I managed to somehow stay upright, but I was far from calm. I could already feel a fast-approaching headache. Outside I was like a puppet with its strings cut, but inside I was a boiling cauldron of emotions. How did this happen? I had been out cold in my devastated room for a whole day? How come no one noticed? Whatever I did to Bronze Band was not what happened ever before. It was all so hopelessly confusing. So suffocatingly harrowing. I couldn’t even begin to explain it to myself. A brief, awful thought pierced through my mind like a burning lance, only a trail of hurt and mangled flesh left behind.

Was I going insane?

Was this how it felt to lose one’s mind?

I barely clung to consciousness as the thoughts raked my psyche. But as quickly as they appeared, they vanished, leaving a sub zero trail of horrifying realisation in their wake.

No, it wasn’t my mind.

There was a cold, black hole in my heart, it sucked in everything I held dear. Its frigid tendrils gripped my brain and my body, freezing it, immobilising it. The pale darkness overwhelmed every other colour of my life as it tyrannically injected its venomous influence into my being. Over the years, one by one, the joyful parts of me had dimmed. They didn’t die; I knew that. I knew that because sometimes, when I really paid attention, when I was quiet and alone, I could have heard their muffled, pleading cries carried on the still wind from the deep, darkest dungeons of this forlorn fortress.

I’d lost Comet, Mom, Dad…

Now I felt like I was losing the final person that truly mattered.

Myself.

Despite my stupor, the mare in front of me grimaced and stepped over. She pulled out a small device of some sort and barked at the pony supporting me. “We don’t have time for this. Hold her up!”

The stallion that held me grabbed my mane and brutishly pulled my head back until I was face to face with the mare. She reached a hoof and put it to my left eye, then pulled it wide open.

“Leave her alone!” Prism Gleam tried to protest from the side but someone gave him a violent shake.

“Cooperate and you’ll be free to go!”

I was still too stunned to offer any resistance as the mare moved the device closer. There was a beep and a brief flash of green light as the laser mounted inside scanned over my exposed iris.

The mare lowered her tool and looked at the tiny display on the other side. “No match.” She turned and addressed Prism Gleam. “Your turn.”

“What are you-” His words were cut off by a painful groan as someone punched him in the gut.

The same mare continued from outside of my field of vision. “Your sketchy story tells me you two are not just some ordinary civvies. Keep still, unicorn!”

There was the same beep, only this time it was followed by another one.

“Well, well, well. Wouldn’t you know?” The smugness in the mare’s voice was only accentuated by the humm of laser rifles powering up. “Captain Prism Gleam, Second Flotilla of the Ivory Guard.” She whistled a happy tune briefly. “Current command: Battlecruiser Veneration.” Her leathery wings snapped open. “You’re far from your ship, Captain. But I’m afraid your journey ends here. You’re coming with us.”

The stallion holding me called. “What about the filly?”

“Leave her be. She’s no one important.”

I was let go and immediately dropped to my knees. Despite my numbed senses and the mounting headache, I could already hear a scuffle developing as the two of the bat ponies moved in to grab the captain.

Suddenly, one of them yelled in alarm. “Motherfu-”

I looked up from the ground to see Prism Gleam holding one of his assailants in a headlock, the captain’s own liberated pistol hovered in his magic beside their temple. The other bat pony stepped away and immediately raised his rifle to point at Prism’s head, as did the leader.

“Stay where you are and put the lasers away or he’s dead!” Prism took a few steps backwards, using the captive bat pony like a shield.

The other two thestrals held their ground, but did not lower their rifles. The leader yelled in return. “Don’t be stupid Captain! We have our orders; let go of my stallion and you will be treated fairly as a prisoner of war!”

Prism let out a mocking laugh. “War? This is a rebellion! You should be treated like the traitors you are! I said drop them!”

“You know I can’t do that!” she hissed. “But maybe this will change your mind.” A set of hooves approached me, then I heard the sparking humm of the business end of a laser rifle come closer to my head from the side.

Prism was livid, his voice echoed between the buildings. “You call this fighting tyranny?!”

“Drop. The gun.”

I whimpered and squeezed my eyes shut as the neon red glow illuminated the side of my face.

Suddenly, there was another yell. “LT! Now!” It was followed by an ugly sound of a kick hitting, and Prism Gleam groaning in pain. Half of a second later, a single gunshot filled the empty street and the groan turned into a gasp.

I opened my eyes wide in shock as I felt a drop of warm liquid land on my cheek.

My eyes shifted to the glowing laser emitter next to my head.

I reached out with my magic.

Darkness.

I woke up to someone shaking me. My head was pounding once again; the steady thump-thump thump-thump of blood pulsing in my skull only made it worse. I opened my eyes to see a face fill my entire vision.

It was Prism Gleam. He breathed out with relief. “Thank the stars.”

I blinked a few times as I squeezed a hoof to the base of my horn, then looked around.

It was carnage. The thestrals had dropped where they stood. Red pooled around them in large quantities. Their clothes were torn, their limbs, necks and backs twisted.

I stared with wide, unbelieving eyes at the sight. A moment later, I heard Prism’s voice.

“Hey, hey look at me!” His hoof gently cupped my chin and turned my head to face him and away from the corpses. “It’s okay, we’re okay. Don’t think about them.” Despite his encouraging words the older stallion looked like he had seen a ghost, but he managed a reassuring smile. “You saved us.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but my lip just shook uncontrollably. “I… I…”

Captain Prism Gleam leaned in and wrapped his forelegs around my back, then, with gentle force held me close to his chest. “It’s okay.”

I sat there, feeling numb. Only after a full minute did I manage to speak again, in the faintest of whispers. “I did this.”

Prism replied quietly as he still held me. “Yes, I saw it all.” He moved his head from my shoulder and looked deeply into my eyes. “This is not the first time, is it?”

I sniffed and shook my head weakly.

He held his gaze hard. “I know what you are. I’ve met unicorns like you before.” His expression softened again. “I know some people who could help.”

That took me by surprise. “Others like me? You mean there are more?”

He nodded as he continued, his tone carefully measured. “There is a place, far away from here. A place where unicorns wield magic just like you do. They could help you, teach you how to control it. You are not alone.”

I sniffed again and rubbed a stray tear away from my eye. “How do you know this?”

The captain broke off his hug and offered a brief chuckle. “Let’s just say I do some work with them from time to time.”

“Do you know what is happening to me? Can they…” I hesitated. “...cure me?”

He shook his head. “It is not my place to tell you, but I do know where we can find someone that can.”

I clasped my hooves in a pleading gesture. “Who?”

Captain Prism Gleam stood up; only then did I notice a bloodied piece of cloth bound around his left foreleg. His eyes shifted to the wound as he saw me looking. “Just a graze, I’ll be fine.” He reached out his other foreleg to help me up. “As for who? There was a unicorn visiting the city just before the attack. I know he is part of this group; he will help you if we reach him.” He added quietly, “And if he’s still alive.”

I grabbed the offered hoof and pulled myself up. “And where is that?”

The stallion grimaced as he picked up his pistol with his magic, secured it and holstered it down. “That is the issue. The local barracks or the HQ, but those are piles of rubble by now.”

I fell in after the older unicorn as we began walking away from the grisly scene. “What do we do then? I need to meet this pony!”

Prism nodded with conviction. “Don’t worry, Miss. We’ll figure it out.”

And so, we started walking. I didn’t know where Captain Prism Gleam was leading me. I only knew we were moving to the opposite side of downtown, towards the Deepwater river. I followed quietly behind as I pondered for a long time what the captain had told me. I had to in order to distract myself from thinking about Bronze and those thestrals.

Hopefully, somewhere out there in this city was a person who could help me. Someone who knew what was happening to me. Someone who could explain what was going on inside my head. I felt a sudden pang of guilt; if I’d only spoken with Dad, maybe he knew that someone too? Maybe if I told him back when I hurt Comet, they would have healed me by then.

Maybe…

Maybe Mom would still be alive.

I took a deep, shaky breath. I felt like all of my choices had led me here. To these empty streets and bombed out ruins. To this dark world of gunfire, suffering and death. Everything from before felt like it was a hundred lifetimes ago.

I looked around as we made our way down Sunrise Avenue. Back in the day I used to come here after school - sometimes instead of school. The many cafes and restaurants here always offered a nice place to sit down and enjoy a little break from the monotony of the day, be it with a cup of overpriced coffee or a craft confectionery. It was always full of people; many of the city’s most popular hangouts were around here or closeby, no matter if it was day or night. Now it was nothing like it used to be. The shop fronts were smashed; the glass and articles on the display were strewn across the sidewalks. Many of the trees lining the sides of the street were burning or had been shattered to pieces by weapons fire or vehicles.

The surge of emotions was so overwhelming, my knees nearly bent in on themselves. I cast my eyes on the abandoned street - so many memories - yet I instantly realised it would never be the same. Both the city, and my memories of it. It finally dawned on me that whatever was going to happen next, my life would never be the same, and what I left behind would be just that. Memories.

We passed abandoned cars, burned out husks of military trucks and decapitated tanks. I even spotted the tail section of a dropship sticking out from one of the collapsed buildings.

And of course, bodies. I was worried that I wouldn't feel repulsed by looking at some of them. Half burned, crushed or otherwise mangled.

I hadn’t done it. I hadn’t killed them. Unlike those bat ponies from before.

There was war all around me, yet the only war that mattered to me at the time was the one inside. The battle for the city between the Lunar rebels and the Empire was only an obstacle preventing me from achieving victory in my own fight.

And like with all wars, I knew that no matter the outcome, I would walk away from it a changed person - something I heard Uncle once say. Only now I realised how right he was. I was still scared, filled with regret and guilt from a dozen dashed hopes before, but that simple promise from Prism Gleam helped me hold on to the last piece of myself that I hadn’t lost.

I was not alone.

A crash of breaking glass shook me out of my musings. I expected another confrontation, but the source became obvious quickly. Up ahead I saw Prism Gleam smashing a vending machine with a levitated piece of concrete.

Once he was done he looked towards me with a shrug. “We’ve got to eat something.” He tossed his makeshift tool away and reached into the machine with his telekinesis. Momentarily, a few foil-wrapped bars floated out. He beckoned me over before passing me a couple of them with a disgusted grimace. “You take these, I’m allergic to nuts.”

We were surrounded by death and destruction, and yet I felt a single, weak chuckle emerge from me at his jovial tone, faltering and dying on the spot. I grabbed the offerings in my own grip. “Deal, but leave me some of the fruity ones. I... love strawberries.”

He smiled back as he sat down on what looked like the burned out wreck of a military drone lying next to the machine and readjusted his improvised wound dressing. “Sure thing Miss.”

I reached into the machine and grabbed myself a can of sweet soda, then joined the captain on the husk. We ate in silence. The crinkle of foil being torn open and the crunch of pressed granola between my teeth were a welcome distraction from the dangerous ambience of the city.

After four bars I finally had my fill; I hadn’t realised the extent of my hunger. I opened my can, only for the drink to hiss and spill out violently. “Oh for fuck’s sake!” I shook the sticky drink from my wet foreleg in annoyance and began drinking what was left of the can’s contents.

Prism Gleam munched on a chocolate bar for a moment before finally swallowing. He pointed a hoof at me. “Aren’t you a little too young to use language like that?”

I finished what was left of my soda and tossed the can away, then gave him an affronted stare. “Aren’t I a little too young to kill people like that?”

He opened his mouth but remained quiet, then blinked and looked away with remorse. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s fine.” I shrugged and levitated another can from the machine. This time I opened it carefully. “I’m not exactly a perfect daughter material.” My hoof brushed against the piercings in my ear and nose. “As shown in the picture.”

“Trouble in school?”

I sipped the sweet soda and shrugged. “Long story.”

“Right.“ Prism nodded awkwardly. He habitually checked his multiband only to lower it again as he was reminded of the communications blackout, then turned his gaze to the open sky above.

I drank quietly. As I finished I felt the corner of my mouth raise up slightly. “Let me guess. No kids?”

To my surprise, Prism Gleam laughed. “No, not yet.” His face turned to me, but his eyes were still glued to the sky. “Got one on the way though. A daughter. That is why I’m on leave. Expected delivery time’s next month.”

The empty can was crushed in my telekinesis as I shrugged. “Right, well. I hate kids. But grats I guess?”

He nodded to himself with a content smile before standing up. “Thank you Miss, but we should keep moving.” He pointed a hoof up the nearby street. “Up the hill, maybe we’ll be able to see something from there.”

I peered into the darkness ahead and followed.

“Radiant two one. Come in Radiant two one…”

“Radiant two one. This is Gravity. Please respond…”

With some effort, I climbed through the door of the huge military truck and took a seat on the passenger side, then yelled, “Captain! Over here!”

The radio in the overhead compartment squawked again - a young stallion’s voice from what I could gather. “Radiant two one. Come in.”

Prism Gleam entered on the driver’s side and reached for the hanging microphone, then depressed the side button. “Are you reading us, Gravity?”

There was a long pause before the same voice replied. “Unknown callsign, identify yourself.”

I gave the captain a concerned look, but he waved a hoof in a calming gesture before replying to the query. “I’m an officer of the Imperial military, mission priority gold. Is this channel secure?”

“Stand by.”

There was a long pause. Finally another voice replied over the radio, only this time it was female and with a tone betraying age and experience. “Unknown callsign, this is Gravity actual. Cockatrice.”

I raised my eyebrows; none of this made any sense to me, but from the speaker’s calm tone I judged we weren’t in trouble. Yet.

The captain replied without hesitation. “Statue, I repeat. Statue.”

Another pregnant pause. As Prism waited for a reply I looked around the inside of the truck. It was massive. I could have easily moved between the two front seats - indeed there was a platform to stand on and a circular hole in the roof that led to a semi-enclosed turret holding the biggest machine gun I had ever seen. Further down was a spacious compartment with a bunch of folding seats lining the sides of the vehicle. The entire floor was littered with bullet casings and empty ammunition boxes. I also saw traces of dried up blood and spent medical supplies. There were no other signs of the crew, probably because the entire engine section and the front wheels of the vehicle were mangled after a hit from some large weapon of an explosive variety.

“Unknown callsign, switch to three two five, reestablish contact and provide callsign. How copy, over?”

“Three two five. Wilco.”

I heard the captain reply in a calm manner and fiddle with the radio’s knobs as I climbed up through the hole in the roof and into the turret.

“Gravity actual. This is Veneration, over.”

“Go ahead Veneration.”

“I have an HVA class gold with me, requesting assistance from any available unit, over.”

“Negative Veneration, all Imperial units were to RV on the eastern side of the Deepwater river and hold the line there. The loonies control both sides of the Grand River to the west and their assets are pushing eastwards through downtown as we speak. I can’t spare anything right now, over.”

I grabbed a set of electronic binoculars resting in a small compartment on the inside of the turret, then looked down towards the west, past downtown and the Grand River. The image enhancer in the device allowed me to see freely in the darkness. Even though I could not see past the higher buildings, somewhere out there was what used to be my house.

“If you can’t make it towards us, please advise on how to get to you. Our position is… standby.” I could have heard the captain scramble in search of a map or other navigational aid.

I called out without taking the binoculars off my eyes. “Tell them it's the Palm!”

“What?”

I looked down through the hole to see Prism’s confused face peeking up. “By the museum of fine arts! If they are from around here, they’ll know.”

Prism Gleam keyed the radio again. “Our position is the Palm.” He followed with a heavy sigh. “Over.”

The reply was nearly instantaneous. “Understood Veneration. Your best bet is to go directly east to the Deepwater river and find some sort of watercraft to reach the other bank. How copy, over.”

“What about the bridge?”

“Negative - we’ll be demoing it and all the others momentarily. You won’t reach it in time.”

That was bad.

“Damnit. Gravity, I’m a Captain of the Ivory Guard holding a priority gold asset. Do you realise the severity of the situation?”

The voice on the other side sounded dry. “I have my orders, Captain.”

Prism’s voice rose, not in volume but in intensity. “You know I can override them, correct?” Again I was reminded of Dad, but not the General Dad. Prism’s voice had the razor edge of a parent who was willing to do anything for their child, just like Dad’s from many years ago. Only then I realised I wasn’t the only one who wanted to get out of the city because they needed to see their new future.

After a long pause the voice on the radio replied, “Copy.”

Prism called out to me. “How long will it take to get there, Miss?”

From the small hill we were on I could see the Deepwater river and the Whitewoods Bridge. Like the voice on the radio had said, I spotted tiny figures moving around on the other bank, even some light vehicles slowly rolling by between the buildings. “From here? About fifteen minutes to the bridge itself. Less if we gallop!”

Prism Gleam picked up again. “Give us twenty minutes Gravity. If we won’t make it, blow it up.” He paused and added with a subdued voice. “We can’t carry the radio with us so you better not be trigger happy. Over.”

“Understood Veneration. Twenty minutes. Gravity out.”

Prism Gleam jumped out of the truck and started heading towards the bridge. “Come on, Miss. We gotta go.”

“Uhh… Sir?” I pointed my hoof down the street towards the west. Through the binoculars, I could easily see a number of hovering drones and soldiers moving through the streets a few blocks out. They were slowly heading towards us.

Prism Gleam looked where I was pointing, then turned back at me and hissed. “We gotta go, now!”

I quickly scrambled from the turret and jumped down from the passenger side door, only for Prism Gleam to catch me and grab my foreleg firmly before tugging me the opposite direction of the patrol.

We ran for the bridge, but the captain’s wound slowed our progress. Despite the delay, we breathed a sigh of relief when we reached the west bank and the passage over the river was still standing. It was a wide, four lane bridge held by long cables jutting out from the sides of the road and anchoring to the single, massive pylon in the shape of an inverted ‘Y’ in the middle of the river.

“It’s still up!” I gave the captain a hopeful smile.

“Then they better keep it that way until we cross. Come on!”

It was a far run ahead - the bridge was over a kilometre long. There were a number of abandoned vehicles littering it, but fortunately not enough to slow us down significantly. We ran past still idling cars with their doors open. Spilled bags and other baggage strewed their contents of clothes and other mundane items on the concrete. The closer to the middle of the bridge we got, the more there were. It took me a few moments to realise why. This street led directly out of the city and towards the starport.

I slowed down a bit to allow Prism Gleam to catch up. With a little effort I climbed on top of a nearby family sedan and looked towards the eastern side through the binoculars I still had with me.

Just as the bridge ended and touched the other bank I could have seen a hastily erected barricade. Civilian cars had been smashed together and reinforced with sandbags - here and there I could see barrels and helmets poking out. In the middle and behind the barricade stood a large, wheeled tank-like vehicle. On one of its long antennas a flag bearing the Imperial sun lazily fluttered on the night breeze.

I froze as the wide, stubby barrel quickly shifted to point straight at me with perfect precision. Thankfully, instead of spewing death, something else happened. A small hatch opened at the top of the turret and a pony poked out; they brought up their own set of binoculars and looked directly at me. The pony raised a hoof and started gesticulating but I had no clue what they were trying to say.

I looked down towards Prism Gleam. “C-captain? I think you should come and see this.”

With a grunt he climbed onto the hood, then carefully joined me on the roof. I passed the binoculars to the captain and watched as he observed the barricade. After a moment he shifted them from his magic into his hoof, and then his horn started flashing in irregular bursts. Some were just quick winks, some a bit longer. I couldn’t discern any patterns, but after a few seconds of this he spoke quietly without lowering the binoculars.

“Alright, we still have time to cross it. I told them it’s us; they’ll provide cover if needed. Once we’re acro- huh?”

I looked back towards the barricade, only to see the vehicle suddenly reversing. A fraction of a second later tiny explosions detonated in the air at its front and sides, obscuring it behind an impenetrable cloud of grey smoke. Another fraction passed and I heard a loud whoosh passing us from behind and racing towards the barricade. The missile swerved and hit short as it exploded in a fireball on the concrete divider in the middle of the bridge, close to the barricade. Then the air filled with bullets.

“Down!” Prism Gleam yelled, tackling me to the road.

I groaned painfully as the Captain rolled off me. “Ow…”

“You okay, Miss?”

I blinked and stared at the night sky and the red moon above, only nodding after a moment. “Y-yeah.”

He crouched above me and looked around. “The loonies are attacking the bridge from the west bank - right behind us. We need to move or we’ll get caught in the crossfire!”

I winced at the noise of bullets, rockets and who knows what else passing all around and along the bridge, then looked at the captain with fear.

Prism Gleam looked down when no answer from me was forthcoming. He gave me a hard stare, but once he got a good look over me, his expression softened. “Miss, if we stay here there won’t be a happy ending.”

A bullet ricocheted off one of the nearby cars, causing me to recoil in fright and let out a brief shriek.

Captain Prism Gleam pursed his lips, then breathed in and out slowly. His brown eyes locked with mine. I couldn’t see a hint of fear, only steely determination. Despite being half his age, he yet again reminded me of Dad. He leaned even closer and offered me a hoof. “I promise I’ll get you out of here, but you have to trust me, Miss.”

I swallowed hard and gave him a tiny nod, then grabbed his hoof and pulled myself up. Once we were both standing, he beckoned me over to the divider and pointed towards the western bank. “They are trying to take the bridge with ground forces; that means they cannot use their aerospace assets.” Seeing my lost expression, he explained further. “Which means all is not lost. The starport could still be a viable route off-planet.”

I watched the fire exchange between the both sides of the river. It looked like most of the firepower of the two armies was around the banks and not the bridge itself. The night was bright thanks to the full moon, but I could still see bullets that looked like colourful beads streaking above the rushing water. Some of them would bounce off whatever they hit and eject into the sky at high speed or drop on the ground in weird arcs, only to disappear like dying embers. Every now and then something bigger whizzed by one way or another. I could only see the speeding plumes of fire as they hit buildings and exploded with loud thumps and raising clouds of dust. It was the strangest, most chaotic light show I have ever witnessed.

“W-what do we do?”

“Let’s focus on getting across first. Follow me, keep your head low. We’ll use the vehicles for cover until we reach that barricade.” He gave my shoulder a pat. “Are you ready to go?”

The thoughts in my head screamed that I was absolutely not ready, but I forced myself to ignore them and gave the stallion a firm nod. “L-let’s go.”

Captain Prism Gleam drew his pistol and started running to the nearby vehicle. “Go!”

I followed as quickly as I could, trying to make myself as small as possible.

The gunfire on both banks was becoming more and more intense. I couldn’t tell if either side was winning. I couldn’t even see the soldiers. We ran, bounding from cover to cover as the chaos around us intensified. I kept my eyes firmly on Prism Gleam as he led me between the abandoned cars. We ran between them, sometimes having to cross the concrete divider in the middle of the bridge to avoid going through open space. One after another we were getting closer and closer to the east bank, but our progress was slow. More than once we had to stop and hunker down as bullets whizzed dangerously close from one end to the other.

Only a bit more than a hundred metres left.

It was in that moment as we ran towards the next piece of cover that the worst happened. Prism Gleam was running only a few metres ahead of me. Just as he was about to reach an upturned delivery truck, something exploded nearby with a deafening boom and a lung emptying shockwave. I was thrown off my hooves and tumbled on the concrete painfully; my ears were ringing and my side hurt from the fall. The bullet storm surrounding us intensified tenfold. In my dazed state I could see the tracers going both ways directly above us. They weren’t shooting around the bridge anymore - the fighting had moved directly onto it. Still hurting, and not daring to stand up, I rolled onto my belly.

And that was when I saw Captain Prism Gleam.

He was lying by the divider, not moving. A large spray of fresh blood was visible on the concrete, slowly running down it in red streaks. My heart sank as I instantly realised he was dead.

The war around me turned into silence. The whizz of bullets disappeared, rifles muted and rockets vanished. The only things I could hear were my still ringing ears and the blood furiously pulsing through my head.

I reached out a hoof towards the captain in desperation and yelled something, but my brain did not register what it was.

I felt like I did back when I saw Dad die. Like when I watched Mom’s coffin be put into the ground. Like when I read the text from Comet saying she wanted to never see me again. The cold void was back, calling with its haunting voice as it yet again struck and ripped away something from me with its freezing, razor sharp claws. It took over my heart and my body.

The walls rose yet again. The gates were shut. Once again I was proven what I already knew: everyone close to me got hurt.

An overwhelming feeling of heaviness washed over me, I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t get up. Instead, the Captain did.

The cacophony of the battle returned to focus with the force of a sledgehammer. My eyes bulged out as I watched the stallion drag himself along the divider and prop his back against a wrecked sports car. He looked around with a grimace of pain until he spotted me and yelled.

“Get up!”

I didn’t have to be told twice. Still stunned from the emotions, I crawled, then crouched and started with my head low towards the stallion, heedless of the bullets in the air between us. I didn’t know if they were aiming at me. I felt them skip on the concrete around my hooves, piercing the air so close my brain conjured images of them going through my mane and clothes. Loudly rattling against the vehicles around us. Yet, somehow I managed to get to the captain’s side. “Y-you’re alive!?”

He held a foreleg to a small shrapnel wound at the base of his neck: a small wound that, despite the pressure, bled at an alarming rate. I immediately added my own to squeeze harder, but the blood was still flowing. It was all over his cheek and neck; it stained his clothes and hoof. His voice hissed through clenched teeth. “We need to get this dressed quickly!” Even though he still sounded confident, I could see it in his eyes. He knew he had only minutes left to live. I took off my hoodie and rolled it, then squeezed it on the wound, but we both knew it was only a temporary measure.

I looked to our left, towards the barricade. There was less than a hundred metres of open ground towards it. I could see soldiers firing their weapons on the other side. A few of them were yelling something towards me, but the intense gunfire made it impossible to hear anything. It also made it impossible for them to run over and help. The wheeled tank from before was back again - it poked its turret above the barricade and a brilliant beam of jade light discharged over my head towards somewhere at the other end of the bridge. I turned to follow the beam to its target.

Near the middle of the bridge I could see the incoming force. A few dozen soldiers bearing leg bands with crescent moons and armed with rifles bounded from cover to cover as their comrades covered them with machine gun and rocket fire. They were moving with trained discipline and purpose. But the biggest threat was the metal beast slowly advancing in the middle of the group: a large tank, only this one didn’t have a single cannon sticking out of its turret. Instead it had three thinner barrels rapidly firing high explosive shells, as well as a quartet of missile tubes arranged around them. Red hot lines of melted armour were visible on its plating, but none seemed to faze the beast. It rolled over the abandoned cars, effortlessly pushing them aside with a large dozer blade on the front or crushing them under the weight of its mighty treads.

It was coming straight at us.

I looked down at the captain; he didn’t seem to register me anymore and was pale as a sheet of paper. I didn’t know what else I could’ve done - I had no medical training, and I could never have crossed the last stretch with the captain on my back under so much fire.

I grabbed his hoof in mine and squeezed. I shuddered at how weak his grip was.

He looked up at me with barely open eyes. His lip shook as he spoke weakly. “Don’t leave… me.”

I swallowed hard before I spoke with a fragile voice. “I-it’s gonna be okay, Captain.” I could feel the tears already forming in my eyes again. “J-just hold on.” Something exploded back near the barricade as the monstrous tank fired a missile. “Think of… think of your d-daughter.”

I didn’t know if I was trying to bring comfort to him, or myself, by holding his hoof like that. Probably both. Yet I didn’t think of what might happen to me. My eyes shifted up towards the sky. It was as it had been for almost the entire night - stark and cloudless. The dark red disc of the moon presided over the besieged city from high above.

It reminded me of the red dot in the middle of the orange sun drawn with crayons on a sheet of paper.

I blinked with realisation, then lowered my head down to the captain and lit my horn.

I removed the hoodie and reached out with my magic. At first I tried to hold the wound together with my telekinesis, but it didn’t seem to work. I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed harder. Thoughts swarmed my mind - of my first school, of home and my parents. I gritted my teeth as I purposefully thought of the hurt I had caused. I forced myself to remember despite the pain. Comet, Mom, even Bronze Band and the thestrals. The headache rolled in instantly. Groaning painfully I pushed myself harder and pumped more magic into the hold. I ignored the clatter of treads and the gunfire. My focus was on one thing and one thing only.

I felt the wound squeeze shut. My eyes shot open as I exclaimed with glee, “It’s working!”

Liquid dripped from my nose as another wave of headache hit. An avalanche of hurt at the front of my skull.

Darkness enveloped me.

Gone was the staccato of gunfire and the roars of explosions. Gone was the heavy noise of the armoured beast. Gone was the weak grip of Captain Prism Gleam, the smell of burning wrecks and the wetness on my lips.

But I could still feel something.

It felt like a lucid dream, a barely perceivable sense of self hanging in nothingness as a disembodied entity. It had no right to be here, no right to exist. And yet, It did. There was no bridge. No body, no senses, no thoughts. Not even time. But despite it, I felt myself. I was. Nothing but consciousness robbed of a material form. It felt strangely calming, yet alien.

Did I really feel lost, or did this reality demand that I be?

Deep inside the void all around me existed a point. It felt weak, like a final ember of a mighty bonfire suffocated by a snowstorm. I reached out towards it but I couldn't find an entrance. I searched and searched, hoping to find a crack in its incorporeal shell. It felt like an eternity, but at the same moment in the nonexistent time, I was also aware that I have been inside already from the beginning - or maybe it was until the end? I couldn’t tell.

The point just was.

Suddenly I felt a surge, one that has been covering me already. It was a massive jumble of concepts I couldn’t truly decipher, but I already knew their meaning. It was ingrained in my subconsciousness. It was in my nature, like breathing or hunger.

I moved deeper.

Images, sounds, tastes, smells, touch, but not. They did not exist, but I was viscerally aware of them. I knew exactly what they bore. Another consciousness.

It was regretful, scared, full of guilt and confusion.

And it was dying.

A titanic wave of emotion hit me. But this one belonged to me.

Rage.

It hit like a monsoon, sweeping over the dying point, sweeping over myself. I felt like I had been shot from a cannon. In less than a blink of an eye everything came back. Time, thoughts, body, senses.

Bridge.

I opened my eyes. All I could see was red. That was when I finally understood. It was never darkness - it was blood.

It quickly drained from my vision, but my surroundings were still covered in red. The source became obvious after a few uncertain seconds: the aura of my horn. It shone brightly like an emergency flare, lighting up the immediate vicinity in its crimson glow. Tiny magical sparks sizzled off it and dispersed into the air around me.

My gaze moved down to the captain. He was still breathing; the telekinetic grab on his wound was still holding. The blood had stopped flowing.

But I knew the stallion that had risked everything for my sake was dying.

I looked towards the incoming beast of a tank. It was less than thirty metres away, its autocannons spewing shells towards the barricade behind me. I stood up from behind our cover and faced the beast. Heedless of the weapons fire all around, I reached with my magic.

I knew exactly where to go.

But this time the world did not vanish. I was simultaneously in two places: standing on the bridge among the firefight and diving into the void again. I ignored the bullets whizzing by just as I ignored the oppressive nothingness. I pushed myself further and further; the void felt only more and more alien. It actively pushed me back, but my magic was fueled by the white hot furnace of my boundless fury. The beast tank was drawing closer, flattening the cars before it. It felt like months and seconds at the same time, but finally I reached my destination.

Three points located close together. I didn’t waste time in sensing them properly. I didn’t intend to be gentle.

Once I was certain I could’ve reached all of them at the same time, I pushed outwards.

Rage.

Dad.

Prism Gleam.

My city.

My home.

Sorrow.

The senseless bloodshed.

Mom.

Comet.

Loneliness.

But both of these were like a drop of water in an ocean in comparison to the one emotion that dominated nearly my entire life.

The walls stood still. But the gates were blasted open, and out came a flood.

Fear.

The aura around my horn detonated in a flash and expanded outwards in a massive shockwave. Like a tidal wave it rushed along the bridge, taking the entire breadth of it and then some more. It surged over the abandoned cars and through the covering soldiers. The moment it reached the beast it stopped firing, but the wave kept going and going.

I felt physical pain. Only after a moment did I realise I was screaming so intensely that my throat was hurting. My horn felt like a white hot steel rod was sadistically being screwed into my skull.

None of that stopped me. I had to let it all out.

The crimson wave of magical energy kept on rushing ahead. In less than three seconds it reached the halfway point of the bridge. In five it reached the other bank. I lost sight and sense of it by then.

I stood still in the middle of the road, my legs locked tight and wide to allow me a stable purchase. My breath was shallow and quick, my muscles were shivering from exertion. I felt like I had just run a marathon. My eyes were wide open and unmoving, blankly staring at an imaginary point somewhere at the other end of the bridge. I could feel an intense teste of iron in my mouth and wetness all over my lips and jaw.

Suddenly there was a dull clank. A hatch on the top of the beast opened; momentarily a pony scrambled out, attempting to claw out of the confined turret with sheer, animalistic panic in his movements. He was hungrily gasping for air as if he just surfaced from underwater. His fatigues were soiled. The soldier was quickly followed by two others, each of them clawing out in fright, heedless of one another. They scrambled down their machine; one of them even briefly fell down as he did and crawled for a few metres before finding the strength to get up and flee. I saw their faces.

They were filled with terror.

Only when the three crewponies frantically turned around and ran in blind panic did I realise the other lunar soldiers were gone too, their weapons dropped where they had stood. It took me a few moments to register what was happening further around me. The firefight was over.

The bridge was nearly silent. I could hear the crackling of the burning wrecks around me and the soft murmur of the river below. The wounded city was silent, holding its breath in shock at what just happened. It wasn’t the only one.

I stood there for a while, attempting to gather my jumbled thoughts. I still couldn’t believe what had happened. Deep down in my heart I knew what I did, but that didn’t mean my brain had an easier time processing it. I needed time to even start wrapping my head around it all.

The clatter of many hooves approached from behind me, soon joined by shouted orders and the sounds of movement. Shapes shifted on the edge of my vision with practised urgency.

I flinched as someone grabbed my shoulder, as if I had suddenly been woken from an awful nightmare. A young, uniformed griffiness with an unfittingly soft face was looking at me. Her beak was moving as she addressed me, but only after she snapped her talons in front of my face and repeated with urgency did I catch her words.

“Come on! We’ve gotta get you to a safe distance!”

My unfocused eyes shifted to the griffiness as I worked my dry mouth to reply, but no words came.

She reaffirmed her grab and started dragging me away; the sense of motion finally sobered me up and I looked around as I followed the griffiness at a brisk pace. There were other soldiers around, most of them covering our retreat, but there were also a few that swarmed around a simple stretcher carried by a hovering drone. Even as we ran they were already treating Captain Prism Gleam. I briefly glanced at one of them working their hooves on properly securing his wound.

We ran towards the battered barricade; once we crossed its threshold I heard a shout and series of minor explosions behind us. Half a second later they were followed by a humongous crash as the bridge collapsed into the Deepwater river below.

The moment we were in the safety of the barricade, the medics began in earnest on the captain. I could only stand by and observe their backs as they huddled around their charge and committed to their grisly duty. Codewords I couldn’t hope to understand were firmly spoken with urgency, dressings were applied, emergency blood bags were hooked up.

“I’m not sure I want to even know what happened there. Are you alright?” It was the same griffiness from before. Despite the dirt and the obvious weariness on her face, I could see the tiny smile on her features.

It was enough to finally grab my attention fully. “I-I’m okay. I think.” The moment I uttered those words I felt the tension in my body released. With a heavy sigh I flopped down to sit on the concrete as my muscles slackened.

The griffiness raised her wings in alarm. “Are you sure? Miss? Do you want me to get you a medic?”

A stallion’s voice spoke out closeby. “That won’t be necessary.”

We both looked at the newcomer. He was the strangest pony I’d ever seen - definitely not a soldier. A unicorn in his mid thirties with a pristine white coat and short, swept back, neon pink mane. The sides of his square but welcoming face were covered by sideburns. Despite being a full head shorter than me, his body was built with the robustness I’d expect from a professional hoofball player. Most of it was covered by a simple grey cloak. But the most curious feature was the stallion’s long and curved horn.

He seized me with his azure eyes and calmly spoke again. “You performed an incredible feat out there. Please, I need to speak with you urgently.”

I looked between the unicorn and the griffiness. “B-but… the captain. Please!”

The soldier raised up her talons in a calming gesture. “It’s okay. I’ll keep an eye on him for you!”

The strange unicorn gave me a reassuring nod. “You can be certain he’ll be in good care. Now please, I’m sure you have many questions and only I can answer them.”

Just as we started walking, I heard a familiar voice from the side. I stopped to look down.

“Miss.”

It was the captain. He reached a weak hoof from the stretcher even as the medics were still working on his wound.

“Thank you… for saving my life.”

I trotted over and knelt down, then grabbed his hoof in mine and squeezed it close to my chest. Something about his words hit me to the core. After causing so much pain, I had finally used this strange power to help someone. My eyes started to water.

His hoof squeezed back and the captain gave me a weak smile in return. “I’ll be fine.” His voice was barely above a whisper and he still looked pale like a wall, but the shine in his eyes was more alive than I had ever seen it.

I tried to say something but I couldn’t; I was overwhelmed with emotion.

The captain only nodded with gratitude. “I told you we’d figure it out.”

Sniffing hard I finally managed to find words. “T-thank you C-captain.” I sniffed again as a single, fat tear rolled down my cheek. “For everything.”

He smirked weakly. “Just doing my duty.”

“Alright, he’s stable, get him to the evac point!”

We separated as the stretcher started moving again. I watched as the group of medics escorted the captain away and towards a nearby truck. Neither of us broke eye contact until he was loaded inside and the vehicle hastily drove away towards the starport.

“Miss, if you please.” The strange unicorn’s voice grabbed my attention again. “Come.”

I fell in with the stranger and we walked for a few moments, away from the barricade and the remaining soldiers. He led me towards a small side street and an unassuming building there, then down a short ramp and into a sparse basement. Once there, he lit up his horn in a purple glow to banish the darkness and indicated a crate covered with camouflage canvas.

“It’s no palace, but it will give us some privacy. Please, sit. You must be exhausted.”

I did as he asked, mostly because he was right. My limbs were sore and the last dregs of the headache still swirled inside my skull. Not to mention that my horn was still hurting.

Once I was sitting the stallion continued. His tone was calm and practised; he reminded me of some of the teachers from school. “I’m Tenebrous Fulgurate. I’m a magister of the Æther Corps, a covert organisation dedicated to the study of what little magic still exists in the galaxy. One of our primary missions is to find and assist unicorns that express untamed magical abilities.” He gave me a serious stare. “Unicorns like you.”

I listened quietly as the stallion commanded my whole attention. This was the pony Captain Prism Gleam had said could help me. This was the pony I had been searching for, for far longer than I had ever realised.

Tenebrous continued as he stepped closer. “Normally an investigation would have been called, then the Wilding event would have to be verified.” His expression softened. “But given our current situation on Nova’s Contrast, and the fact I have bore witness to what you did on that bridge, I can safely attest that you qualify for the assistance of the Æther Corps.” He reached out a foreleg and placed it gently on my shoulder. “You possess a gift that many could only dream of, young lady.”

I looked down at the hoof, then up and along until our eyes met. I had no idea what he was talking about, but it seemed like there were other unicorns with the same problems as I out there. “I-it’s not a gift. I hurt people.”

Tenebrous smiled softly. “That is because you lack control. Training. Knowledge.” His grip on my shoulder tightened. “You are older than most we find, but I can see that you hold considerable power. You just need to learn how to tame it.”

“H-how do I do that?”

“Is your family here in the city?”

My eyes drooped to the floor and I shook my head.

“Somewhere outside? In the Empire or abroad?”

I shook again; the added sniff was enough to make it clear to the magister what I meant.

“I see.”

I sensed movement and the stallion’s face filled my vision as he sat down in front of me. “We can offer you a home - a place where you could learn how to utilise this magic and so, so much more.” He spoke with wonder reserved only for those who have seen actual miracles with their own two eyes. “A community with others like you and the tutors to help.” He took a short pause as his hoof wrapped around the edge of his cloak and showed me its lining. A glittering fabric of dark amber, embroidered in faintly glowing golden symbols I had never seen before along the entire inner layer. “We can offer you a purpose.”

I rubbed my nose with a hoof as I sniffed again. “W-what do I have to do?”

“You seem to be mature enough to make your own decision.” Tenebrous slowly stood up. “But I must warn you: if you decide to follow this path, there won’t be turning back from it.” He added with conviction in his voice, “You’ll become a part of the Æther Corps. You’ll become one of us.”

Even this brief overview was too much for me to process. I had my doubts. What exactly did becoming one of them entail? It all sounded like a huge decision not to be taken lightly. But then…

Mom and Dad were gone. I had no friends. My home was destroyed and my city was a warzone. But most importantly.

I never wanted to hurt someone I cared about ever again.

I took a sharp breath and looked up at Tenebrous, then steeled my voice. “I’ll do it.”

The magister softly nodded. His magic floated a horseshoe sized metal token somewhere from the folds of his cape before he pushed it into my hooves. “I have duties here, but I will use my magic to take you away from the city and somewhere safe where others will take care of you. Give them this once you arrive; they’ll know it was me who sent you.” He took a few steps backwards and took off the brooch holding his cape together: an opaque lime gemstone cut in the shape of a closed eye. The magic holding it intensified and suddenly a kaleidoscope beam of energy shot out of the brooch and hit a nearby wall. A swirling point appeared on the concrete and quickly expanded. After a few seconds it was big enough to allow me to fit through. On the other side I could see a swirling vortex of impossible colours.

My mouth slacked open in surprise as I gave the stallion a questioning look.

He only smirked with a reassuring smile. “Every journey begins with a first step.”

My disbelieving eyes moved between the stallion and the hole in the wall, then again and again. Finally, I took a deep breath and stood up, then walked the last few steps to the swirling portal. “Tenebrous, sir. Can you please take care of Captain Prism Gleam for me?”

The unicorn nodded. “I promise, I will miss…” He blinked, as if he had just reminded himself of something important. “I’m sorry, I never caught your name.”

I looked over my shoulder at the magister.

“Blood Moon.”

And stepped through the portal.

Back when I took Tenebrous Fulgurate on his offer, I had no clue what life had in store for me. At the time, I didn’t know that after six weeks of siege the Empire would be pushed from Nova’s Contrast for the next two years. I didn’t know that the next time I would see Captain Prism Gleam would be at his daughter's inauguration ceremony to the Ivory Guard over two decades later. I didn’t know what secrets and mysteries would be laid bare before me. My mind was opened to a universe of possibilities available only to the privileged few across the entire galaxy. It’s been years of sweat and tears, of hard work and seemingly insurmountable challenges. But with the help of those around me, of those like me, I pushed through. One after another those obstacles were conquered, even mastered.

It’s been many years since that day, but I found all that I needed and much more. Knowledge, and with it control.

Family.

For the first time since I can remember, I’m happy.

I’m at peace.