Space Engineer over Equestria

The first thing to register was my hair, it was caught on something inside my helmet. That shouldn't have been possible. The entire inside of the helmet was smooth, and my body was shaved clean except for my head.

I briefly remembered the wall of murky white, which shouldn't have been possible either. Twice in one... I checked my watch.

I guess I'd been out for days. My hair had probaby just grown down to the seal between it and my helmet.... perpendicular to gravity. Wait a minute... My watch was on my wrist, but for some reason there wasn't a screen view of it. The view was analogue.

My helmet was off...MY HELMET WAS OFF?!

I felt a uncontrollable surge of fear, and fought my way to my feet before realization hit me. If I'd been out for days, and my helmet had been off the whole time. That means I had turned on the oxygen system. That also meant my ship was running with at least engines and inertia control on, or else I would have slammed into one of the asteroids by now.

Whatever I had hit, its effect hadn't been permanent. A surge of relief washed away my panic. Wherever I was, I was safe for now.

I looked at the cockpit, the console's screens acting as if nothing had gone wrong... strange. I slipped myself into the seat, and I tried to run a diagnostic for the time of my black out.

Nothing.

Curiouser and curiouser. I know for a fact that there was a system malfunction back when I blacked out, I remember it strongly.

I couldn't see any physical damage from the inside. Of course, that didn't mean the outside wasn't dented five ways to Hel's. Still, what was illuminated by the yellow light looked fine... if the barrier had damaged me, it would probably have been visible from the window...

Wait, since when had there been a star? I looked up and examined my view from the window. Whatever the milky white thing from before was, I couldn't see it now. All I could see was a star, asteroids, and a few planets. Weird! I could feel myself getting pretty sick of weird, but I turned back to my console. I couldn't afford to waste time. I should be on the brink of... somehow my uranium reserves still had a few kilos left.

That cinched it. There had been a barrier of sorts, and it had to have stolen away some of my inertia. There was no way my remaining uranium could have stopped the ship, run all these lights, and kept me breathing. In fact, it would have had to have stolen a sizable chunk of my energy. I probably would have been forced to go cold for these past few days if it hadn't been there.

Man, good thing I still had that spare suit in the medbay. It's easier quicker and safer than trying to repair whatever the damage to my current suit and helmet is, and I don't have enough uranium to waste on shit like that. I'd just have to be careful, and make sure my turret was still protecting me against meteors. If things went sideways and I got cloned, I'd just take my time and repair my broken suit then.

I ought to have some more uranium by then anyway.

I slipped out of my suit and wasted no time getting the next one on. Every second was a wasted second. I did take the time to transfer the suit's energy back into the ship, gaining me at least another minute of air.

With a flip of the switch the screen brought up the dozens of mineral deposits sitting in the asteroids ahead of me. There was uranium, platinum, gold, silver, iron, nickle... barium, thorium? Scandinavium?! how did normal type 9 gorram asteroids have this sort of ... I looked down at the mass readings for the asteroids. They were huge behemoths, each of them dwarfing the normal set of asteroids I worked with. Then I looked at the mass readings for the minerals.

... the asteroids were nearly 75% mineral, and only 25% plain rock. I had struck a motherload of unbelievable proportions... I was set for life. I would never have to move again. I could become as rich and successful as one of those moon barons!

I...I have to have more uranium before I asphyxiate.

I chose a surface deposit and adjusted my trajectory to come to a stop right above it. The asteroids were strangely still too. If I could get enough thrusters to stop the one with the most rock, and mine out the rest, I would have a permanent home till... well I didn't age anymore, so I'd live like this for a few hundred years...

Crikey.