Yarost'

Earth-Equus Orbit, Station Gypsy, Sub-Level Three

"Gah! Damn it, not again!" roars Timeless as he stumbled back from the exploding junction. Acrid smelling smoke began to billow from the wiring as a small fire sparked. Timeless began to panic as he searched for a way to put out the fire, but coming up with nothing. Suddenly, an idea sparked in his mind. Activating his Stasis module, he sent a shot of light blue energy at the fire. The fire was enveloped and began to slowly flicker as it slowly burnt the wiring. "Bolts. Are you there?" Timeless asked on his ComLink.

"Bolts here, who's calling?" came a female voice.

"It's Timeless. I'm down on sub-level three and well..." Timeless said, trailing off.

"Is it on fire again?" Bolts asked simply.

"Y-yeah...it is..." Timeless said defeated.

"And you can't find the fire extinguisher?" Bolts asked.

"No..."

"To your left, five feet, behind the yellow panel." Bolts said with a small giggle. Timeless looked to his left and spotted the panel in question. Maintaining the Stasis, Timeless crawled over and removed the paneling, spotting the small fire extinguisher.

"Found it. Thanks Bolts." Timeless said, closing the call. Grabbing the extinguisher, Timeless knelt over and proceeded to put out the flame. With a sigh, Timeless set aside the extinguisher and bent forward to look at the wiring to see what went wrong. "Ah ha...some frayed wires are the culprit..." Timeless mumbles as he goes to work on pulling out the damaged wires and replace them. Once the wires were tired together and secured, Timeless placed the metal plating back over the junction and brushed his hands off. A series of pings went off again, signalling that it was time for Timeless to go on his lunch break.

*     *     *

After a brief elevator ride back up to Station Gypsy's central level, Timeless stepped out and entered the Crew Preparations area. Once he placed his Stasis module in his locker, Timeless let his helmet collapse, giving a sigh of relief.

"Those helmets get stuffy after a while..." Timeless mutters.

"Tell me about it!" chirps a woman. Timeless jerks and spins around to see that Bolts was standing behind him. She was a light gray Anthro, with a cherry red mane and eyes. She was well built, but managing to keep her curves at the same time.

"Oh, it's just you Bolts...and how would you know? You're not part of Engineering. You don't have a RIG!." Timeless points out.

Bolts rolls her eyes and flicks Timeless on the snout. "You lughead. I know what the helmets are like because I'm part of Maintenance. I have to wear the helmets after being worked on to make sure they're working properly." Bolts said, giving a small giggle. Suddenly, she reaches forward and yanks Timeless down by his chest armor, leaning forward as she purrs in his ear. "That...and I've worn your suit before..." she says in a seductive manner. Timeless jerks back, a furious blush over his cheeks.

"R-right then..." he mumbles, turning to leave the woman. Bolts giggles and falls into step with Timeless as the two leave the Preparations room.

"You going for lunch?" she asked, skipping lightly as she trailed him.

"Yeah, not sure what I'm going to have though." Timeless says simply. On cue, his stomach game a growl, demanding for food. "And I better decide soon..." he adds. Bolts giggles again as the two enter the Mess Hall. The hall was small, about the size of a living room, with two booths in the corners and a couple tables in the center. On the far side was the food line, and behind that was the Kitchen. And if there were workers who didn't want a home cooked meal, courtesy of the head cook Judith, there were three vending machine tucked together along the wall.

As of right now, there were only Timeless, Bolts, Sarah, and the only pony worker, Blitz, in the Mess Hall.

After Timeless and Bolts retrieved their lunches, they sat down with the other two workers. Sarah was a human in her early twenties. She was born in Kansas and was your average country girl, but one hell of a genius with the Nuclear-Proton generator that kept Station Gypsy going. As for Blitz, he was a mottled green, brown, and light gray pegasus with a set of three lightning bolts for his cutie mark. A scar adorned the right side of his face, leaving him with one blind eye.

"Hey guys, how ya'll doin' today?" Sara asked, scooting down a bit to allow Timeless an Bolts room.

"I'm doing fine. Hey Blitz, favor." Timeless said sharply. "As head of security, think you can set a restraining order on one of the other workers?" he asks with a smirk.

"Harassing the eggheads again, are we Bolts?" Blitz asked, looking to her.

"I just can't help that he's so cute!" Bolts said, giving Timeless' cheek a small pinch. Timeless chuckled and began to eat his lunch, savoring the flavor of the lemon marinated chicken. "Hey Judith! You back there? This chicken is amazing!" Timeless calls out, gesturing to his meal with a fork.

"I thank you!" Judith said, poking his head out. Judith was an African-American in his early thirties, born in Haiti. He learned to cook from his mother and studying abroad with the Zebras on Equus. "But thank my mother! She is the real cook, God rest her soul." Judith said with a chuckle as he retreated into the kitchen, then emerging to joining the others. He dragged a chair over and sat in it with his chest to the chair back. "So, what is everyone planning for the weekend?" he asks, looking to his co-workers.

"Ah'm visitin' family down on Earth. It's mah cousin Richards' weddin'." Sara said.

"I've got some patrolling to do in the Southeastern quadrant of the Tether Highway. Been getting reports of vandals lately." Blitz explained as he took a drink, giving a burp afterwards. Bolts' snout scrunched up in slight disgust.

"Well, I promised a friend I'd attend a party of his." Timeless said simply, giving a shrug.

"I've got nothing planned really..." Bolts said, giving a slightly sad tone at this answer.

"Hey, don' look down. Look up! Be bright! How about I take you to a movie?" Judith asked, bumping Bolts' shoulder with his elbow. Bolts gave a small chuckle and patted Judith's shoulder with a gentle hand.

"No offense, Judith. But you're not exactly my type." She said with a smile.

"Hey, a man can try, can't he?" Judith asked as he broke out into laughter. Suddenly he stopped, inhaling deeply. "Oh no..." he sniffed the air again. "Sorry guys! My joumou is burning!" he yells, bolting for the kitchen, muttering in Haitian under his breath. Once again, Timeless' RIG beeped, telling him it was time to work again.

"Alright guys, I gotta get back to work. The docking clamps need to be looked at." Timeless says as he gets up and grabs his tray. As he approached the trash can, Bolts bounded next to him and grabbed his arm, dragging him to the hallway. "Bolts? What are you doing? I gotta get to work!" Timeless protests. Bolts doesn't respond as she drags the engineer to a small storage closet, locking the door behind them after they entered.

"How about some pre-work fun...?" she purrs.

*     *     *

An hour later, Timeless was in the middle of an EVA walk on the exterior of Station Gypsy.

He definitely felt a bit more relaxed then before, glad for the fact that storage closet was soundproofed.

The only thing he wasn't glad for, was the fact that Bolts was a bitter when she was getting plowed. If Timeless were to remove his under suit from around his neck, one would see a series of hickeys and bite marks. "Just glad she didn't bite me while giving oral..."

As he floated in the quietness of space, his left hand was going from grip to grip as he pulled himself to the docking platform. He stopped for a moment, taking the time to look at the Tether Highway. Hundreds of space tethers connected the two planets with hundreds of stations much like Gypsy scattered around the area. Some were transportation hubs, others were maintenance bays, and a couple hundred were used for security purposes. To his right, Equus loomed, showing its dark side. Timeless could see cities like Fillydelphia and Manehatten twinkling in the darkness. On his left, Earth sat, the continent of Asia sitting in the suns' light.

"Timeless, stop enjoying the view and get to work. We've got four hours before the shuttle with night shift arrives." said Blitz over the InterCom.

"On it, Blitz. And you should really stop and take a look from time to time." Timeless replies as he pulls himself over to the docking platform.

"I do stop from time to time; and that's when I'm busting hooligans." Blitz replies. Timeless gives a small laugh as he pulls a small cord with a hoof from a side pouch, connecting it to a ring on the plating. As he began to remove the access panels to the docking clamp internals, sparks flew from the machinery. "Hey Bolts. What am I looking for exactly?" he asks.

"Well, reports are saying that the clamps are failing to properly magnetize to a shuttle. The only thing keeping a shuttle from floating away are the clamps themselves." Bolts replies. Timeless looks in closer at the small generators that power the magnets. "What do you see?"

"Three of the four power cells are flashing red. The fourth one is half green and half red. Need to replace the whole power junction." Timeless says as he begins to remove the power cells. To his right, a small spare parts compartment opened up, revealing the new power cells to Timeless.

"Hold up Timeless. Something's coming through on the wire." Bolts says.

"Bolts, no one says 'on the wire', anymore. Get with the program." Timeless says with a small chuckle. Silence falls between the two for a bit. "Bolts, I was just kidding."

"Timeless, something has happened." Bolts said in a voice of shock. Timeless stopped and floated there for a bit.

"What happened?" he asked.

"There's been a terrorist bombing."

Timeless could feel his gut drop out from under him.

Who would do this?

"Where at?" he asked, worry rising in his voice.

"New Manehatten..."