Chapter 1 - What's in a Name?
"Hey! What are you two idiots doing? Hand me the fucking wrench already!"
As for what those two idiots were doing, it wasn't really much. Mostly they were just joking around and stalling to see just how angry a certain griffon would get.
A couple of smacks up the head later they realized that that was a horrible idea.
"Relax Nash, jeez" an earth pony complained while rubbing his head.
One would think that one smack would be enough to teach a pony a valuable lesson about bad ideas.
Nashkata, still fuming a little, went back to work under the control panel of the cockpit (alone, again). The ship they were in was basically an old hunk of junk that had functioning systems, thanks to the efforts of its three new crewmembers and the contribution of the shipyard they were still docked at.
Nashkata, who was working under the controls of the ship, was a female griffon. Her feathers, which ran down from her head down through her neck, were a dark shade of grey. Around her eyes, it almost looked black, but that might have also been due to some makeup that she never told anyone about. Her eyes were ice blue and her beak was yellow. Her fur, which covered most of the rest of her body, was a dark navy blue, but her front feet, which were eagle claws instead of lion paws, were yellow, like her beak. Her wings were midnight black. As for size, she was built smaller than most griffons, although she was a bit more… padded in areas due to a lack of interest in any sort of class that required physical exercise, which she despised. What she lacked in physique, however, she made up for in intelligence. She aced most of her classes with flying colors, especially history. She was also incredibly accomplished at ship piloting, to the point where the instructor actually recommended her to this mission.
Nashkata was also very easily annoyed by her two friends standing around telling stupid jokes while she asked for help.
The two persistently and purposefully unhelpful stallions left before they could think of something else to do at the... ahem... "insistence" of Nashkata.
"Well, that was stupid." remarked a grey earth pony as they walked down the hall.
"No kidding. Her smacks hurt." replied the bat pony.
"Where are we headed?" the earth pony asked.
"Down to the shields. Engines and weapons might be up but we're going to die very quickly if we can't get those up."
"Yeah. Any idea what's wrong with them?"
"Looks like power supply," said the bat pony as they walked into the shield generator room, "probably something stupid like a bad power route." The shield generator room was just as dingy as the rest of the ship, but a little less austere. The room extended away and to the right of the door they had just entered, and the center of the room was dominated by a strange contraption on a circular ring. To the back right of the room there was a terminal and a seat attached to the floor. Most oddly, however, was the table in the right corner of the room, if you were still looking at the door. It looked out of place in this military ship.
"Yeah, well at least it isn't as bad as the issue with the oxygen systems was." the earth pony pointed out.
"Don't even..."
"...Yeah."
They popped open a plate near the shield terminal and took a look "under the hood", so to speak. After tinkering around for a couple of minutes they closed the hatch and stepped back.
"Okay Arts, I think you can fire it up!" the grey earth pony exclaimed.
Articule obliged and walked over to the terminal. The terminal was composed of just a screen and a keyboard, a keyboard which Articule used to activate the shields. The generator in the center of the room whirred to life and began spinning rapidly until it had reached a dull hum.
Articule was the bat pony who was responsible for most to all of the fixing done on the ship. He was colored similar to most of his species, but his fur had a strong purple tint to it and his eyes were a deep purple. His wings followed the same color scheme with a deep purple hue. In terms of stature, he was tall but a bit leaner than most of his species. Due to his constant work in engineering, he possessed a remarkable amount of strength. He had landed his spot on the ship with his skills in engineering, specifically his ability to fix old systems long past when they should have stopped functioning.
Flare was the earth pony. His coat was light grey, and his mane and tail were striped with charcoal and the same light grey in his coat.. His eyes were a brilliant gold, the kind that radiated energy and cheerfulness. He had excelled in martial arts and self defense and had the physique to show for it. He was also brilliant with all things weaponized on a ship, a trait that made him invaluable to the mission he had been assigned to.
“Did it work?” Flare wondered aloud.
As if in answer to his question, the speaker crackled to life.
“Nice job on the shield, boys” Nashkata said over the intercom. “Hey, does this thing work?”
Articule looked around and hit a button to the right of the terminal under some slats that seemed to be a communicator of his own.
“Clear as crystal. Now we can hear your beautiful voice everywhere!” Flare interjected, suddenly leaning over Articule’s shoulder and speaking into the comm.
“Fuck you Flare! Go fix the airlock so we can get the hell out of here already!” Nash yelled over the intercom.
Yelling over an intercom, in case you didn't know, ends very poorly for anyone who isn't deaf on the other end of that yell. Especially if they’re in a solid metal room that echoes.
“Nash, be quiet. You’ll break the intercom, and I’m not going to fix it if you do. We’re going to fix the airlock now, but the generator still needs some more work before we can jump." Articule spoke into the comm.
"Just go fix it!" came a less deafening command over the intercom.
Articule walked out the door into another hallway, but stopped Flare when he moved to follow.
"Go check up on the weapons room. I can do this alone."
"I've already checked the weapons systems three times! They're fine!"
"I doubt my ears will be if I'm in the same room you are with Nashkata on the other end of an intercom. Go."
"Ouch!" Flare cried in mock offense. He closed his eyes, put a hoof over his chest, and reeled back in an exaggerated manner. "That hurts -"
Articule was already in the airlock, well away from Flare's theatrics.
"Asshole..."
--------*--------*--------*--------
Airlock and cockpit fixed, the three crewmembers were down in the ship's generator, the most complex and important part of the ship.
"Lot of work for an old rustbucket" Nashkata complained.
"It has character!" Flare knocked on a box that looked rather important, as it had wires running from the generator through it to the rest of the ship, which promptly fell completely apart. "... Damn it!"
"Dipshit. Now Arts has to fix that too! And it's not like we know how to do anything with that generator.”
"Don’t worry. That was already completely destroyed. No hope of even building a new one, the wires are shot." Articule called from inside the generator. He had been working on the generator for the past half hour, and this type of noise was getting old.
"Really? Was that thing important?" Flare asked.
"It was a manual power distribution unit. It's just a backup, as long as the main one in the cockpit works it should be fine."
"Okay Nash, don't get blown up" chipped in Flare.
"Wow, wonderful advice Flare! I never would have thought of that!" Nashtaka sassed back at Flare.
"Happy to help! But seriously, you should think about things like that a little bit more."
"Yeah, because I love the thought of being blown up! I think about it every day!"
"You might want to see a doctor about that -"
"Hey, guys." Articule had emerged from the inside of the still cold reactor.
"Hey is that thing working? I want to get off the station's power and get going." Nashkata asked, peering curiously into the generator.
"I can think of something else you should really get off of before we leave."
"Shut up Flare! No one thinks you're funny!"
"Guys..."
"Uh huh. No one as in to say: you."
"Hey..."
"Kiss my ass!"
"Ok, just bend over and -"
"OI!" yelled Articule, cutting off whatever Flare was about to earn himself another smack by saying. "Give it a rest you two..."
Nashkata glared daggers at him.
"He -"
"I was thinking about the ship, and I realized something: it doesn't have a name" Articule cut across Nash, completely ignoring her attempt at defense that would only start another pointless arguement.
"So?" Nashkata inspected her talons, unimpressed.
"We should give it one."
"Why do you even give a damn?" Nashkata asked, now a little irritated.
"It's important. You'll thank me later."
"Oh shut up with all the 'you'll thank me later' bullshit! You always say that!"
"And you always end up thanking me."
"She never thanks you!" Flare butted in unhelpfully.
Articule gave Flare a look.
"Alright... what about Trash Heap?" Flare smirked.
"I'm not flying a ship called Trash Heap!"
"How about Junk Pile?" Flare gave Nashkata a look and raised his eyebrows twice in rapid succession, earning himself another smack.
"You're going to be sore as hell tomorrow at this rate."
"Nah, this is nothing compared to Royal Martial Arts. That was sore. This is funny!"
"That class... how many times did you break a bone? Five?"
"Only three, I dislocated my legs at least five times."
"No... Oh wait, are you counting that one time you tripped?"
"I thought we agreed never to speak of that!" Flare yelled indignantly over Nashkata's laughter. Articule just smiled.
"So have you got a name or are you just going to stall some more?"
"I wasn't stalling, those were some really good names!"
"I didn't spend one whole week fixing every system in this ship to have you call it a Rust Bucket."
"Yeah especially not after all that trouble we went through to fix the oxygen system!" Nashkata was actually blushing at the memory of that particular... incident.
"... Okay yeah, we need to name this something awesome." Flare relented.
"Something Awesome? That's a terrible name!" Nashkata and Flare were at it again.
This time Articule lodged himself firmly in between them and shook his head. He was starting to regret even having them in the same room.
"I was thinking we should call her something significant to our mission. Because we're running the Tetrarchy's last real hope of survival across the universe, I actually thought we could call it 'The Last of Hope'." Articule suggested.
"No." Flare and Nashkata said at once. After a quick stare in shock at each other for having agreed without a thirty minute argument, Nashkata explained "Too dramatic, and also too complicated. I think we should go for something simpler."
"How about... 'The Drunken Dragon'? That sounds cool!"
"Except for, you know, the fact that name was used by a way more famous ship in history." Nashkata shot at Flare, ending that idea.
"I was thinking something like... 'The Grey Eagle'." Now it was Nashkata's turn to receive blank stares from her two friends.
"Let's avoid egotism." Articule indicated Nashkata's own grey eagle feathers. Nashkata made a face and all three took a moment to think it through, as they realized that this was not actually going to be that easy.
Articule mumbled something to himself.
"What'd you say?" Flare queried, leaning in to hear.
"What? Oh, nothing. Just... thinking aloud I guess." Articule said distractedly.
"But what did you say?" Nashkata asked, now curious as well.
"I just asked..." Articule's tone shifted from repeating to asking "What's in a name? What are we really trying to do with one?"
"Name the ship...?" Nashkata explained as if she were saying something very obvious to a scatterbrain.
Articule looked up and pushed the matter further. "Why?"
Nashkata looked confused, but Flare was used to this line of conversation. "Because we have to have a title to a ship to get through any regulated portion of space without any unnecessary explosions."
"No. We need a designation for that. We could just pick a ten digit number and use that and already be out of this shipyard. Up until now, that was our plan."
"Okay then Arts, if you wanted to do that then why'd you suggest a name?"
"That's what I was asking."
"Then why are you asking us?" Flare played his trump card in this battle of logic triumphantly.
"Because you asked me to." Articule responded simply.
Well, Flare thought it was a trump card.
Nashkata, who hadn't really been paying attention, finally explained "We should name this ship because our mission is more than just a courier job, it's going to be a struggle to cross half the known stars or so to save an empire that could be on its last breath. Griffons, ponies, dragons, changelings, and all the rest of them will remember this forever, assuming we don't die before we get there. This mission will be remembered as the famous last stand of the Tetrarchy, so we should give this ship a name like every other famous ship in history."
After a good minute of silence, Flare spoke up. "Wow. That's deep."
"Another thing: thanks to Arts, this ship runs, but it's the last of its kind. This ship's entire class was retired decades ago. This is the last Slipper class ship to ever see service in the Royal Fleet. We are the swan song of the class of ships that defined the past century."
"Nash, you're making me feel bad about calling this a hunk of junk. Stop it." Flare pleaded.
"Nash what did you say about the Tetrarchy?" Articule asked, now thinking deeply as well.
"This is its last stand?" Nashkata tried.
"No, before that."
"Um..." Nashkata looked up and made a thinking face.
"That this is its last breath?" Flare offered helpfully.
"Yeah... I kind of like that."
"You mean 'The Last Breath'?" Flare asked. Articule nodded.
"Yeah!" Nashkata agreed, looking back down at them.
"I think that settles it then. We'll call her 'The Last Breath'!"
The three friends all looked at each other and smiled.
"Five more minutes and then we're ready to jump." Articule said through his grin.
--------*--------*--------*--------
"All systems are go!" Articule said excitedly (if you're wondering what that sounds like, imagine a normal voice).
"Everything checks out on the scanners." Nash confirmed, now in her element at the helm of the ship.
"Articule, get down to the shield room. I want you on the manual control, or else were going to get killed. Flare, well hit the weapons. Anywhere else and the shields won't be of much use when you destroy something."
"Hey!"
"Unless you want to stand in here for the interstellar jump?"
Flare took a look at the one seat with a gravity anchor, a device that prevents one from becoming a splat on the walls by causing the user to accelerate at the same rate as the ship. It was occupied by Nashkata. Flare promptly left, followed by Articule.
A minute later, after the final checks to make sure the gravity anchors were all working, Nashkata fired up the engine. The generator had already warmed up and was working fine, thanks entirely to the efforts of Articule.
"Dock control, this is the Slipper ship The Last Breath requesting permission to exit." Nashkata said into a transmitter on the control panel.
"All gear is disconnected Slipper ship The Last Breath, you are clear to exit and make your jump." the transmitter responded.
Nashkata began to slide forward on the accelerator and gently coax the ship out of the docking bay. As soon as it was clear she increased the throttle and got clear of the shipyard before coming to a halt.
"Alright boys, let's see how this bad boy holds up. Jump in five." Nashkata spoke into the comm.
"Finally!" Flare yelled back at the helm through his own communicator. Nashkata scrambled to turn down the volume and reached for the interstellar controls.
The coordinates of the jump already set, Nashkata slid up the interstellar accelerator until it could go no further.
In what looked like little more than a flash of light, The Last Breath was gone, and its crew were off to the universe.
Chapter 2 - Off to Wherever
Out in a far reach of the arm of some spiral galaxy, an explosion of purple light burst out of nowhere, only to be followed by a large, old - looking ship.
The solar system that it had jumped to was of little importance - the area was loosely populated with other life forms and didn't have anything to offer, and certainly not a military base, given that the Grand Equestrian Tetrarchy no longer ruled here.
The shock waves from the collapse of the Tetrarchy were still rippling, storming in places, across the Known Stars.
"Hey, we're not dead yet! Woooooo hooooooo!" Flare cheered over the communicator embedded in his suit, which they had all donned pretty quickly before the jump. The channel he was using was a private link between the crew of The Last Breath, which rendered the intercom largely useless, to the immense relief of Flare and Articule.
"Well, how about that?" Nashkata smiled. "What's the specs, Arts?"
"Our shields ran well. All debris was diverted."
"That's a relief. How's the rest of the ship holding up? Any issues?" Nashkata asked.
Articule's shield terminal had a full display of the ship's systems and their status. "Looks fine.. The interstellar drive needs to recharge, however. It will take longer to charge because of its disuse."
“... How much longer than usual?”
“The process will take approximately twenty-four hours.”
“What?” Nashkata screeched.
“Twenty-four hours.” Articule replied.
“You didn’t tell me that the charge would take this long!” Nashkata yelled.
“Do you not understand the purpose of a communicator?” Flare interjected. “It means that you don’t have to yell or screech every time you say something and we’ll still hear you! Fancy that!”
“You’re cool with this?” Nashkata hissed, quieter now.
"I don't think yelling is going to help the situation!” Flare said, his own voice now raising.
There was a short beep to inform Nashkata and Flare that Articule had shut off his communicator.
"Rude!" Nashkata yelled.
"Stop shouting, goddamnit!"
--------*--------*--------*--------
After all the communicators had been switched off, a profound silence seemed to haunt the ship.
Articule, for his part, was obsessing over every single imperfection in the shield generator. Nashkata was in the cockpit, using a device that had replaced paper books long ago to read about the system they were in and the planet down below. This data was gathered from the ship's database, which had an incredibly useful map of the Known Stars, as well as data from the ship's scanners. The device being used to read this information looked like a generic paper book that changed appearance to match the book in question. It was Nashkata's prized possession. This device is called a book as well, and so Nashkata was reading reading a book on the system and colony they were near.
Flare, however, was exploring.
While they had done extensive work on the ship while it was in the shipyard, they had been in something of a hurry, and had only explored rooms with some sort of damaged or obsolete system in them.
Flare's eyes wandered over the hallway. This was a side path to get through to the cockpit without going through the shield generator room, which Flare had planned because Articule had almost certainly locked him out.
However, he had been sidetracked by a room off to the side from the hallway. Now inside, his eyes wandered about the dark room as his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the unlit but eerily spacious room.
It seemed as though the room was about as big as the shield or weapons control room, but it only contained a single computer rising from a pillar fixed to the center of the room, which had a gravity anchor and a seat in front of it.
Flare looked around at the walls for a light switch that he knew he would not find - space ships rarely have light switches outside of sleeping areas.
"Wow, it's dark in here."
Hearing his own voice seemed to make the room less creepy to Flare, and he walked up to the seat and sat down upon it and studied the computer.
The computer had a series of images on it, each one in color. As he glanced through the images, he noticed one in the center that gave an overview of the ship. It showed the layout of all of the ship's systems on his current floor, and had a button to switch to the top floor, which contained living quarters, or the bottom floor, which contained the generator, storage bays, and a few other odds and ends that helped to make the ship run.
He looked back at the images and realized that each one displayed a room. He decided to experiment, and clicked on an image, then on the weapons room. To his surprise, the image changed to show the weapons room.
"Wierd..."
He clicked on the image again and then clicked on the shields room. Suddenly a live feed of Articule obsessively buffing a scratch on the shield generator flared to life on the space that the image used to be on. He repeated this for the cockpit and got a feed of Nashkata reading something or other. Flare wondered if it was something inappropriate - he had once walked in as she was looking at her roommate's copy of Fifty Shades of Black, and not even Articule would let her live it down.
Flare looked back down at the ship diagram so that he could see some more rooms, but instead noticed a button labeled "Door Control Mode: Off" in the upper left hand corner of the diagram's box and grinned.
--------*--------*--------*--------
"Holy shit!" Nashkata dropped her book as the door to the cockpit suddenly started slamming open and shut repeatedly.
Nashkata looked at the dashboard and checked for some sort of malfunction or control accidentally activated.
Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the racket stopped.
"Old rust bucket..." Nashkata muttered to herself as she picked her book up off the floor and kept reading.
--------*--------*--------*--------
The doors to the shield room began slamming open and shut. In response, Articule cast a baleful look at the camera hidden in the corner of room. The doors closed and stood still.
--------*--------*--------*--------
Articule sat engrossed in his new find. What he failed to realize, despite all that the computer had taught him, was to appreciate how quiet certain doors were.
"HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Nashkata yelled right into Flare's ear.
And that day he learned a valuable lesson about doors and how silently they can open.
"Holy mother of the Big C, Nash! What the hell?" Flare complained loudly, rubbing his ear.
"What do you mean 'what the hell?'" Nashkata almost sputtered. "What the hell were you doing?"
"Testing out the systems." Flare replied.
"Right."
"Look, I was just trying to kill some time, okay? And it feels like I entered this room just minutes ago, so it's obviously working!" Flare said.
"You did walk in here a few minutes ago."
"What? How long have we been stopped?"
"About fifteen minutes."
Flare groaned and fell out of his seat, where he was replaced by Nashkata.
"So what is this anyway, stalker system?" Nashkata asked, looking at the live feeds of the shield room and the cockpit.
"I dunno..."
"Well, you have only been at it for fifteen minutes."
Flare just groaned loudly again. "I'm so bored!" Flare whined.
"Stalking is not the answer, Flare."
"It is sometimes!"
"... What?"
--------*--------*--------*--------
"So... Articule... what are you up to?" asked Nashkata while staring at the shield generator. Her features were arranged to clearly indicate how very nonplussed she was.
"Fixing."
"Obsessing, more like." Nashkata shot.
Articule said nothing, but instead elected to continue poring over every detail of the shield generator.
"And... why?"
"Why not?"
"Fuck you."
"I'm busy."
Articule gently pushed Flare's head away from the generator, it had been steadily drifting closer. "Why do you care?"
"Because it's pointless."
"Details are never pointless."
"They can be."
Articule pushed Flare's head away from the generator, it had been mere inches away from the pristine surface.
"Well, how are these important?" Nashkata asked.
"... I don't know."
"Then why are you doing it?"
"Pass the time, I guess." Articule was starting to shut down under interrogation, so Nashkata decided she really didn't care enough to press the matter further. However, she whipped her head around at Articule's next words.
"Flare, why are you licking the shield generator?"
--------*--------*--------*--------
"Well... this is nice!"
Flare had dragged Articule and Nashkata onto the top deck, where all of the living quarters were.
“Yeah… no.” Nashkata was thoroughly unimpressed. When it came to this ship, it wasn’t the first time by any means, nor by the same means aforementioned would it be the last.
Flare inspected the sleeping quarters, grin wide across his face. He went to take a look down under one of the beds - maybe something had been lost there long ago!
Instead, something growled at him.
Articule and Nashkata threw him strange looks.
“Maybe we should go check out the mess hall?” Nashkata offered, faintly impressed by the noise-making capacity of Flare’s digestive system.
“Hold up. I think there’s something under here- AHHHHH!” Flare ended his questioning suggestion with a scream, which immediately caused Nashkata and Articule to scream too. Flare, for his part, was clutching his sides with laughter, while Nashkata and Articule hastily disengaged themselves from clutching each other in fright.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe that worked! You should have seen the looks on your - OOF!” Flare’s outburst was cut short by a kick from Nashkata, expertly aimed for his gut (it was a rather familiar target after a few months of knowing him).
"Owwww..." Flare groaned, clutching his stomach.
"Well then." said Articule, who had walked over to the bathroom.
Flare got to his hooves and walked over and took a look into the bathroom. "Well then."
Nashkata followed them and peaked inside. "Well then."
“... Guys, I don’t really want to go to the mess hall anymore.” Flare said.
“Yeah, maybe the showers would be better.” Nashkata complained, drawing her head out of the bathroom and attempting to waft away the smell of whatever was in that bathroom.
--------*--------*--------*--------
“OH HELL NO.”
“Communal showers! Don’t drop the - OW GOD DANG IT!”
--------*--------*--------*--------
“Remind me again why that was necessary?”
“Look, Flare can just spend some time alone in the shower room. It’s all going to be okay Artsy, don’t worry.”
--------*--------*--------*--------
“GUYS THIS ISN’T FUNNY!” Flare screamed, pounding on the door to the shower room, all alone.
--------*--------*--------*--------
“Wow…” Articule was standing in the atrium of the ship, a room in the center that had large see-through panels that seemed to let every star into the ship.
He looked all around, taking in the sheer magnitude of the cosmos.
“And to think… we have to fly across all of that.” Nashkata said.
“It’s so… empty…” Articule said, as if he didn’t even hear.
“Sure is.” Nashkata said.
The two sat in silence for a couple of minutes more, staring out into the vast expanses of an interstellar ocean.
“We won’t be alone.” Articule said simply.
“What?”
Articule just gave Nashkata a meaningful look.
“Well... yeah. Space has all types of creatures. Of course we’ll meet some.”
Articule just went back out to staring out the atrium. “Which one do you think is Equestria?”
“I don’t know!”
“... And you’re the one piloting the ship.”
“Listen, we have this great thing called a navigation system. Without it, we’d be lost. How am I supposed to know which of those millions of stars is Equestria?”
“I don’t know. Let’s just head in the direction of whichever one it is.”
“It’s going to be hours until we can do that!”
“Well then maybe you should get back to your Fifty Shades of Black.”
“I will hurt you, Articule.”
--------*--------*--------*--------
“Guys? Seriously? GUYS?”
“...”
“...”
“YOU ALL FUCKING SUCK!”
--------*--------*--------*--------
After a couple of hours, they finally let Flare out of the shower, upon which they received smacks upside the head from him for leaving him in there. He also forced them to look at every single minute tally mark he made on the wall (there were about sixty, he had actually just made a bunch all at once). Nashkata just laughed in his face at his horrible sense of time while Articule tried not to laugh. In response, Flare stormed out, muttering something about setting up a martial arts room on the bottom deck. Nashkata went back to the cockpit to read her very non-sensual book, while Articule went to some other part of the ship to obsess over (hint: it was not the bathroom).
And so they passed the time this way.
In addition, since there were no days or nights in space, they kept their own clocks and slept at different hours - Nashkata went to sleep first and woke up last, while Flare crawled into his bunk late (although any individual who was on the top deck, had there been any besides Nashkata, would have known immediately). Articule, on the other hand, took a series of short naps in or on various spots of the machinery.
Eventually the interstellar drive recharged, and the three prepared for another jump.
--------*--------*--------*--------
“All systems good.” Articule replied over the intercom.
“Okay guys, remember. No. Freaking. Screaming.” Flare reminded everyone.
“Screw you, I do what I want!”
“Damnit Nash!” Flare yelled back.
“Jump in five!” Nashkata said, cutting the shouting match short.
Articule and Flare planted themselves firmly in their seats and braced for jump. The jump itself passed without notice for them.
“We made it - HOLY SHIT!” Nashkata's voice went several octaves higher into a full on scream.
