The main spire that ran the length of the station was eerily quiet as I emerged into it from the rotating facilities torus. None of the usual humming of machines or rush of the air filters. I looked out toward the seal through which, mere hours ago we had narrowly avoided being pulled out into space. A lone spanner twirled past my face, clinking against a wall as I kicked off down the spire toward the third security station where I had first discovered the traitor aboard.

I unlocked the doors and climbed inside, the florescent light buzzing to life. Turning to the locked cabinet on my left, I tapped in the code and opened the arms cabinet. All defensive arms on board the station were non-ballistic, instead they used charged magic rounds that would not puncture the station hull. Magic rounds would dissipate when hitting a non-organic target and would only stun, not kill.
I grabbed all four guns and the twelve clips of ammunition. The guns were semi-automatic and fitted for both hoof grip and magic grip, and held fifteen rounds.

I stuffed them into a small bag I had brought with me, I began to retreat from the station, before realizing something. The security station could access the cameras set up around the station. I fired up the terminal and navigated to the camera access, noticing that more than half the cameras were offline. Scrolling through the camera feeds, I briefly saw Silent in the med-bay, Malin rummaging through some boxes, and Morning sitting sentry at the ladder to the central spire. Flicking through “NO SIGNAL” screen after “NO SIGNAL” screen, I stopped on a few flickering images partially hidden by lines of static.

I peered at the fuzzy screen before realising the camera was stationed just outside the first seal, or what was left of it, anyway. Silhouetted figures in EVA suits floated about outside the second seal which was just visible from this cameras view. It seemed either they’d run out of explosives, or knew better than to try again.

A large spacecraft was still attached to the docking station which had barely survived the blast, and seemed to be acting as a base of operations. I flicked to another camera and got a closer view of two ponies attempting to open the door.

Something about a yellow box on the wall next to them caught my eye. I zoomed in on it, attempting to read the letters printed on it chassis, which was in a foreign, yet familiar language. From what I could make out, it seemed to be the radio wave jammer that was cutting us off from Hoofston.

The yellow box and the language the label was in was disturbingly familiar. Then it hit me. It was from Saddle Arabia. I’d heard of the minor attacks by the deranged nationalists but this was one hell of a step up. A genuine terrorist attack. In outer space. Space Terrorists. The humor was lost on me however, as I turned around, flicking the terminal off, and exiting the security station. Malin was outside, hoof poised over the door switch.

“Ah, capitaine, Silent has awoken,” he said, “I thought you should know.”

“Thanks,” I said tentatively, pulling the bag of guns along behind me, “I’ll come down in a moment.”

“Oui capitaine,”

“Malin, you can call me Azura you know,” I said warmly.

“Of course, Azura,” he returned my smile before retreating back into the torus. Following him, I sung the gun bag around my neck and returned to the med-bay where Morning was comforting Silent.

“You saved me,” Morning was saying as I slid the door open.

“I did,” replied Silent, who was still lying on his stomach. I could see the burns on his back were almost completely gone, albeit still quite pink. That magic cream worked like, well… magic.

“Why me though?” pressed Morning.

“You were in danger.”

“Well thank you again,” Morning said before turning to me, “Oh, Azura. Where did you go?”

“I went to get some guns,” I said, levitating the bag from around my neck and placing it in the corner, “and I got some bad news.”

Morning’s face fell slightly as I spoke.

“Well, first of all, it’s the Saddle Arabian nationalists that attacked us,” Morning gasped but Silent just sighed and put his face into his pillow, sadly, “second, we can’t contact EASA because they’ve deployed a radio wave jammer.”

“What about magic communication?” asked Morning.

“Too far to transmit, and there’s no satellites in orbit to relay the signal.”

“Shit…”

“So,” I continued solemnly, “for the moment, we’re stuck on this station, with no incoming or outgoing comms.”

We sat there in silence for a long while, thinking about who knows what. Not talking to one another, not moving. After what seemed like forever, Malin spoke to the room.

“I believe there may be a way to disable the jammer,” he stood up and crossed the room to the electronic map on the wall, which was flashing red on two thirds of the mapped station, “In the maintenance area there is a circular cutter for emergencies. We may be able to use it.”

“Where would we put it then?” I asked.

Malin examined the map for a moment, beckoning for us to come closer. Up close, I could see that the map was extremely detailed. It highlighted areas of the station still in working order in blue, areas without oxygen in red, and places where the hull was missing in black.

“Where did you say the jammer was?” he asked.

“Right… here,” I pointed to the area just outside of the first seal, next to the door of the second security station. We peered at the map for a while, thinking.

“What about here?” Morning pointed to the afore mentioned security station. I stared at the room Morning had pointed out, analyzing her suggestion.

“It’s not intact. We’d need EVA suits to get there.”

“And where are these EVA suits?” Malin pressed.

“In there…” I pointed to the security station in question.

All three of us stared at the map, looking for a solution. After a while I stopped processing what I was looking at, and just stared blankly at the glowing lines snaking across the surface of the map.

“Here. Oxygen ventilation shaft,” Morning pointed to a central shaft that ran the length of the station,

“That could work…” murmured Malin. He was right. It could work, if we were very, very lucky.

“If that pipe isn’t damaged, we could use it. But that’s the main distribution pipe. Every three minutes, it opens the filters into space. Anypony in there would be killed instantly.”

“Why does it open every three minutes? Isn’t that just wasting oxygen?” asked Morning.

“It’s to clear all material obstruction. It is the main distribution line,” said Malin, taking the words out of my mouth, “and the magic filters stop anything gaseous from escaping.”

I looked up and down the station diagram and saw that, surprisingly, the main pipeline was completely undamaged. From what I could see of the station on the map, the pipe ran along the one side of the station that was still holding the entire thing together.

“So we just use the vent access in the spire to get there. How’re gonna get there without EVA suits? The only place we can get them is where we have to put the cutter,” I said, my brain whirring. I though back to my training in Hoofston, what they taught me to do in an emergency. The spell they taught me. The spell!

“I think I have a way!” I said, spurring Morning and Malin out of thought, “the spell the taught us in in training.” Morning and Malin gave me an annoyed look. “The spell the taught me in training then,” I corrected.

“It only lasts a few minutes, but it casts an air bubble around a pony’s face. Lets them breathe.”

Malin and Morning looked at each other, then at me. They were clearly thinking exactly what I was.

“Yeah,” I sighed, “I'm the one who has to go.”

Author's Note

Quality of writing fluctuates constantly. I write better on paper before typing it up. Unfortunately this isn't always an option.