FsDC: Cannon Fodder

by Duct Tape Master

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Profanity, Slice of Life, Alternate Universe, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Science Fiction
Length: 19278

A spaceplone rescued from the scrapheap is given new life as a cargo convoy escort.

This is a spinoff of Connie Spaceplone's Friendship Drive Charging... It is recommended that you read that first for context.

Rating and tags subject to change

This was semi abandoned for awhile due to writers block and some other issues, but I'm back and gonna do some rewrites. The original four chapters will be left up for now but know that they're going to be heavily altered in the near future.

After being saved from the scrapheap Duna is given new life as a convoy escort ship, With her new commander, life is good. But she grows worried that it may be too good to be true.

Published 2021-11-17 07:40:00 UTC
Last updated 2023-05-23 09:09:37 UTC

1. A ship called Duna

LunOS Version 0.24.2
56,294,995,342,131,200 bytes free.
[debug@localhost ~] > sudo quick_test_
Password: ************
Verifying Processor stack ############# Passed
Verifying AI Integrity############### Passed
Warning: Scheduled maintenance overdue! Please contact System Administrator
[debug@localhost ~] > sudo defrost -a -s_
[10%]
[15%]
[25%]
[35%]
[50%]
[61%]
[78%]
[98%]
[99%]
[DONE]

Defrost successful, Time Since shutdown, 12y : 04m : 15d : 03hr
Ship Avatar connection re-established, Diagnostic passed.
Handing off control to AI, Please wait.
[debug@localhost ~] >_

A flurry of sensor warnings flickered across my conscious as I felt myself creep back from the void of deep hibernation. my fuel tanks were empty, I had multiple hull punctures, no fuel, no ammo, and my main engines were seized.... no wait... they were missing.... just peachy. A few more warnings popped up as the rest of my body woke up and immediately activated emergency backups.

the projections on my cockpit glass flicked to life and I looked around. I found myself lying down with my head on the ground, through my side cams I could see some scaffolding set up in various spots around me corresponding loosely to where I was reading damage... I could also see one of my port thruster assemblies sitting on the ground nearby. Was I finally being put out to pasture? Though if that were true, why would anypony bother rebooting my AI if they were just going to kill me?

my eye projections fell onto a grey-green pony standing a few paces from my nose. I groaned while I blasted some jets of air at my windscreen to remove the thick layer of dust that had accumulated. I let out a dejected sigh,.. my neglected hull seeming to groan in unison.

"Oh.... it's you. Did you want to say goodbye before you put me down? Or would that be too nice of a gesture for your tiny meat brain to compile" I huffed with an unimpressed glare. Stone Throw was one of the few ponies that hadn't been wiped from my memory banks for security reasons... I didn't like him much.

Stone Throw used a hoof in a vain attempt to blow away the cloud of dust I'd kicked up before he responded.

"Actually no... As unlikely as it seems, Someone actually bought your snarky ass... even paid us a bit extra to get you somewhere resembling spaceworthy, She's gonna be here in a couple hours to do the paperwork and meet you in person... so at least try to behave, I'm sure you don't want to be here just as much as I'd rather have a fat stack of bits in your place."

"Ha ha... very funny.... you think I wouldn't notice being half disemboweled? How in the name of princess Luna's plot am I going to get my chunky self anywhere near space without my engines?"

Stone Throw rolled his eyes. "Your main engines are in the shop being fixed... should be strapped back to your sorry rump soon enough... once i get you to walk over there of course."

I rolled my eye projections and slowly eased my way up onto my hooves. Dust and dirt rolled off of my softmetal hull as I carefully stood up, making extra sure that I wasn't going to damage the ground power umbilical cables keeping me alive. Even more warnings flickered on as my actuators complained about power draw or burnt motor coils. I tossed the offending errors in a back corner of my mind with the other 700.

Stone Throw stepped aside and got into a small vehicle that was parked a few dozen pony-sized paces from where I had been sitting, I wasn't sure why, but I really wanted to step on the car... or maybe eat it... I wasn't sure. Despite my urges, I resisted so as to not loose my one chance to get off of this hell-world

I looked around and subconsciously shuddered as my gaze wandered over dozens of other dormant ships slumbering in the bone yard to either side of me, all neatly arranged in rows, every one with plastic wrap over their windows and big plugs bolted over their engines. They all remained dreamlessly slumbering as their bodies slowly decayed in the blistering desert heat. To stay focused I temporarily suppressed my VSTAA's aversion, fear, and disgust signals.

With only just barely enough power being pumped into me to run my actuators and processor stack, I couldn't exactly spool my HFMP to counteract my mass... if it was even still working. Each huge hoofstep thundered against the hard packed earth and kicked up a small dust cloud. I was nowhere near the biggest multi role ship on the market, but I was definitely far from being light, I shuddered to think what my hoofsteps would do to a paved road... or a pony....

I meandered my huge frame into a dilapidated hangar a good distance away from the droves of slumbering ships. A few smaller ships lounged off to the side of the hangar, at least two or three of them gave me strange looks as I slowly strode past. I couldn't blame them though, it was probably like watching a disemboweled corpse walking into a doctor's office.

I stepped into the hangar and knelt down in a marked out spot on the ground, off to the side I could see what looked to be the rest of my main engines on stands being worked on by a few scattered ponies in high-vis vests and hardhats.

I looked around the dingy hangar, my bright pink eye projections following where I was looking with my internal cams. A pony in a hard-hat approached me from off to the side.

"Boss wants to see your avatar in his office, client's arriving a bit sooner than expected." she declared toward me.

"Understood, Give me a little bit to reboot it... I'm not entirely sure how well it's fared."

"Just don't keep him waiting too long..." The worker trailed off as they wandered away

I connected into my avatar-self and waited an uncomfortably long time as the neglected android frame rebooted... When it finally got enough power from my severely under-volted mana-grid It linked it's control functions into my AI stack and started sending back all of the sensory data it was collecting.

The charging dock unceremoniously dumped my avatar out onto the floor. giving me a good look at the sad state of affairs inside of me. panels on the walls were missing or beginning to peel off, the air was thick with dust, and It smelled burnt.

"Yeesh I'm a mess... It'll be a miracle if I make it to space again." I muttered to myself, being careful not to mirror it with my actual body.

I wandered forward to my throat corridor and lowered my head so I could more easily walk out of myself. I watched the softmetal walls around the cramped corridor move and undulate with my movements... I wondered if on newer ships they ever covered that up... From what was left of my old memories I could recall at least twelve instances of ponies mentioning it's apparent unpleasantness, or being visibly unsettled by it. Personally I didn't see why it was such a big deal, there was still a walkway so nopony had to walk directly on the squishy part... there were even guardrails! and lights! What more could they want? Paintings!?

I walked through the already open airlock leading into my mouth and looked around. Up above was my cockpit , sealed behind a small auxiliary hatch in the roof of my mouth. A quick flip to the internal cam showed that it was a bit cluttered, but otherwise more intact than a lot of my other sections.

I refocused most of my attention back on my avatar, Since I didn't need much processing power to just walk around, I decided to get the rest of my processors working on a full diagnostic of my systems.

I walked forward into my muzzle and opened my mouth. Like most ships, I did have 'teeth' there, though whereas theirs were usually purely for appearance, mine had been modified... probably for the last combat role I'd been in, but I couldn't confirm as the memory had been wiped. Instead of a large decorative panel, my mouth was full of discrete, replaceable teeth made of thick, sharpened armor plating, they even had tiny serrations. I found it somewhat infuriating that I could remember that I found it fun to bite ships in combat, but I couldn't actually remember the details of any encounters I used them... Somepony had clearly been sloppy when they were giving my memories the axe.

I stuck my tongue out to allow my avatar an easier time exiting before shutting myself back up and meandering my avatar-self toward the office.

I gave the door a gentle nudge and stepped into the heavily air-conditioned space.

"What was your name and tail number again? Also mind telling me your model and configuration so I can make sure my database is correct?" Stone Throw said without even so much as a hello.... or even a vaguely welcoming grunt.

He sat behind a beat up metal desk with a chunky, probably outdated terminal sat on it surrounded by pen cups and random trinkets. A dingy picture of an older mare sat in a small frame in the corner.

"Duna, Tail number AT- 2666, configuration AC-230 Superpython heavy Gunship, CQB configuration." I recited flatly.

"Alright... Matches my books close enough... Go find a seat and try and make yourself look... uhhh. You know what scratch that, just sit down somewhere and stay there until I get back. And I swear If i get any sass out of you while your buyer is in here, I'll scuttle you myself"

"Understood... Not like I wanna loose my chance to leave your fat-ass behind on this rock." I rolled my eyes. causing Stone Throw to grumble a little as he plodded his rotund hindquarters out of the door

I found a worn out cushion on the floor and plopped myself down on it. With my avatar mostly situated I redirected a few spare processor cycles to monitoring my ship-self's cams.

Pretty much every access ramp and hatch I had was open to allow passage for a veritable swarm of ponies and equipment... I tried to ignore the tingly feeling coming from my crotch and rump area.... as well as the strange feeling of having so many ponies running around in me all at once... Was this what passenger ships felt like all the time? did they like it?

I flicked through my interior cams and stopped when I came across a couple of ponies trying to pry open the door to my armory with a crowbar, I knew they'd probably never get through with that, but I didn't really want them coming back with better tools... I listened in on their conversation before intervening.

"... I told you we shoulda' got the cutting torch... this hatch is really friggin thick" A brownish mare said with a somewhat urgent tone to her voice.

"I know I know... Just keep quiet... we'll get that in a sec... I really hope the payoff is worth all the hassle." A tan and green stallion muttered under his breath.

"You know I can see and hear you right? Protocol states that unauthroized beings are not allowed in the armory..."

"and what are you gonna do about it?" One of them said with a sneer.

I silently cursed the fact that there wasn't a working holo-projector in that section with which to project an image of me rolling my eyes. Instead I just unfurled the interior turret from the ceiling and pointed it at the pair.

" My defense protocol also states that I am required to defend the armory from intruders with lethal force if necessary... If you don't want to end up as a biofuel slurry in the next fifteen seconds I suggest you leave... Better make it fast, i'm starving!" I said over the single PA speaker near them.

As expected Both ponies scrambled away as fast as their clumsy hooves could get them... I was almost disappointed that I wouldn't get to taste pony smoothie. I wondered if the different colors tasted different.

I paused for a second... Was I always this morbid?

After not receiving an answer from the void, I quietly tucked those thoughts into a deep dark corner of my memory banks where they wouldn't cause any problems.

From one of my aft cams I could see the dust cloud of another Plone touching down outside. She was a pretty small little thing. A krait Mk1 with a shiny sky blue paintjob that looked almost new... definitely not the kind of craft you'd normally see in such a remote place.

She knelt down and opened her mouth, allowing four ponies to exit, two of them dressed in suits looked to be security, another one was a soft pink color with a curly blonde mane and a sunhat, the other was a splotchy grey pony with a deep purple, blue, and pink mane tied back in a ponytail, she wore a loose fitting grey utility jumpsuit.

I watched them walk through the hangar past me and toward the office, The grey and purple one looked over me as she passed. I pretended not to notice and refocused my primary view to my avatar just as they stepped into the room.

"Ladies, This is Duna, as you've already prepaid, I'll just get on to the interview for the sake of legality."

"Hello Duna... I am Lady Shivu Taan, head of the Taan Trading Company, to my left is the pony who is to be your new commander, Miss Europa."

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance, I'm pleasantly surprised that you've decided to purchase me." I said kindly... at least I hoped it sounded kind... I hadn't exactly been able to do much socializing for the past decade on account of being incredibly busy being dead.

"To get the ball rolling, for what reason did you choose Duna here" Stone Throw said with a more official tone about him.

"As of late my cargo convoys have fallen victim to repeated and brutal pirate attacks, my ships are fitted purely for cargo, so their weapons are minimal and they lack fighter support... to avoid loosing cargo capacity over the matter I decided to purchase a second hoof military ship such as her to escort my herd on their trade routes. By choosing her I can also marginally increase my convoy's overall cargo capacity.

"I see, Now Duna, What are your thoughts on this"

"If I get to haul cargo and shoot pirates, I'm happy... heck I'd be happy just getting off the ground again... being mothballed is boring." I said excitedly.

"And what are you outfitted with that can help accomplish this?"

"In cargo configuration I have about ten percent more carry capacity over the standard model's maximum, in my current combat configuration I have several custom weapon and maneuvering assemblies which separate me from a standard python. Instead of two class two hardpoints, and three class three hardpoints, I have four class threes, and a single class four. I also have several high power gimballed fusion maneuvering rockets on my back, and in my legs and flanks for faster and more complex maneuvering than a standard model.

"That's quite the arsenal... especially for a python... Why were you built in such a way?" Europa piped up, clearly somewhat fascinated

I was a variation on the Python jumbo, which was commissioned by the Federal navy as an upgrade to the standard python to increase modularity and capacity. As for why I was built.... Ive got no idea... That part of my memory was scrubbed. From what I remember of my previous service, I was used mostly as an armed resupply and troop transport ship for the feds cruisers and carriers.

"Seems like a waste of such a special ship, wouldn't something like a Constellation or Anaconda be better for that?"

I fought the urge to blush at her 'Special Ship' comment... Thankfully I could conveniently disable that feature.

"Beats me. But now that I've got a new lease on life, I might actually get to do what I was built to do"

"And I can finally see the galaxy through somewhere other than a simulator or a passenger seat" Europa smiled.

""Well you two seem to be getting along well enough... If it's fine with you Stone, once I sign off on the transfer of title I'll be leaving Europa here to get acquainted with Duna until repairs are complete, Once she's space-worthy, have her contact me and I'll send coordinates for her to follow." She grabbed a tablet and stylus from Stone's desk in her magic and scribbled a signature onto the form displayed onscreen. "Now if you'll excuse me, Ad-astra and I need to get moving onto my next appointment, Ta ta now!" Lady Taan turned and headed for the door.

"You realize we don't exactly have any room and board available right? the repairs are going to take at least two days if not more." Stone asked Shivu Taan before she could exit completely.

"Duna has quarters for her commander, right? Would it not be logical to put her in there?"

"If she was a new ship then maybe that would be an option, but Duna's been sitting out in the elements for over a decade, So it's debatable whether it's even livable at this point."

"I'll leave it up to you, If you need more funds or supplies delivered to ensure it is livable, just send a message and it will be solved promptly"

The two ponies continued talking as they walked out into the hangar, door shutting behind them.

"She always that pushy and inconsiderate of ponies?" I asked in a hushed tone.

"Yeah.. Doesn't really help that she's my aunt... she uses it as an excuse to boss me around and speak for me... and she's always been dismissive of other ponies. At least now I won't have to deal with her constantly breathing down my neck once I'm at your helm. "

"Hopefully we don't have to deal with her nonsense too much... I'm glad she bought me, but If she was gonna be my commander... uhh... to put it lightly, My Friendship drive wouldn't have enough power to go anywhere" I whispered to her.

Europa looked at my avatar for a few moments before speaking again.

"I've noticed you're a lot more chatty and way less ... how shall I say... Uptight, than most of the ships i've been in... Why is that?" Europa Asked.

"My spaceframe was laid down about forty five years ago... unless my clock is wrong. I'm guessing most of the ships you've been on haven't been around for nearly as long?"

"No probably not... Does that make a difference?"

"Kinda works a little like a pony growing up... I think... we learn stuff, pick up habits, and our personalities evolve past the base archetypes we're pre-loaded with, Sometimes we even pick up accents. older a ship is, the more pronounced that becomes"

"I guess that makes sense."

"So... What'd you do before becoming a commander?" I asked, trying to learn a bit more about my soon to be commander.

"Mostly accounting and dealing with clients over comms. Got really bored of that so I Swapped over to TTC's commander program and got certified so I could get put on a ship when they had one available. The recent pirate problem seems to be my lucky break. Before it was looking like it'd be ages until I'd get a command since i'd have to wait until somepony retired, or we got another freighter in the fleet... both of which weren't likely."

"Yeesh... and they gave you a shitbox like me as your first command... your aunt must hate you" I joked.

"Oh stop it, You're not a shitbox... I think you're just fine" Europa giggled.

This time I didn't disable the blush protocol.

Author's Note

For those who may be concerned, the T rating is very tentative, and my be changed to M depending on the content of future chapters.

Duna's design takes some inspiration from the Rocinante from 'The Expanse' and Gwynevere from 'The Sojourn'

2. Fire In the Sky

Europa and I chatted for another hour before I decided to take her on a tour of myself, thankfully it was late enough in the day for all the workers to have gone home.

I walked my avatar up to my nose and looked down at Europa and myself approaching. At the moment I was laying down on my belly with my head laying on the ground leaning to one side.

"It's always kinda mind boggling just how big ships are when you're standing right in front of one..." Europa said aloud as she stared up at me. I offered what I thought was a pleasant smile, but with my teeth and the angle I was sitting at, it just came off as a bit predatory. Almost like a dragon preparing to gulp down some Ill prepared knight, which on second thought, wasn't all that far from the truth.

"Sorry in advance... but my guts are a bit of a mess right now... At least the mechanics were nice enough to give your quarters a quick clean before they left for the night." I said as both myself and my avatar. After that I leaned my head level again and opened my maw. To make it easier for her to get inside I stuck my tongue out to form a convenient ramp.

Europa hesitated for a moment as she stared down the dark abyss before her.

I gave her a sheepish smile with my avatar and turned on the lights, bathing my interior in bright sterile white light that only flickered a little.

I led Europa inside and shut my mouth behind her.

"Welcome to... me...I guess, Currently we're standing just below my cockpit, The main access ramp is in my throat corridor just behind the airlock right there."

I stepped through the still-open airlock and led her a few paces back before stopping. The stairs swung down from a panel in the roof of my throat and came to a stop right at our hooves.

"I would say ladies first but I don't think that would get us anywhere." Europa giggled a little at her own joke

"Hmm... Would you rather look at my ass while you walk up the stairs or do you want me looking at yours? " I asked jokingly.

Instead of answering she stepped ahead of me and flicked her tail aside for a brief moment to shake her rump at me.

I felt a few of my processor cores freeze for a split second as my avatar's blush protocol flicked on. I wasn't sure where our relationship was going, but so far I was a fan of it.

I ascended the stairs behind my commander and we stepped into my control deck.

"So, on a scale of one to ten, how's my ass?" She nudged me with an elbow and giggled a little bit.

"Ten!" I blurted, slapping a hoof over my mouth entirely too late.

My control deck was divided into several smaller rooms, the largest was the main control center just behind my front glass, then there was a tiny Restroom or 'head' as was the traditional naval term. I preferred to call it the Head squared for comedy's sake. Next to the head squared was a small storage closet, and opposite both was a small ready room that doubled as a lounge area and office, at the end of the cramped hall was the door we had just entered through.

Above everything was the compartment that contained the main part of my processor stack and my Thaumic Projection Array. I was reasonably sure that it was the predecessor to the more modern 'Exotic Energy Projectors' that were just becoming standard before I was decommissioned. While the older system was still somewhat superior as far as magic capability was concerned, it was larger, heavier, and more power hungry. On top of that, unlike the much simplified EEP's, the TPA required a huge projection mast on the user's forehead, which had it's own issues regarding durability. I was glad my mast had been reinforced to keep it from breaking off.

We stepped forward into the cockpit proper and Europa looked around with awe...

"Wow... I love the retro styling, You got all these cool, old school monitors with actual screens, big chunky metal consoles, and is that a Type 1 MIDI port cluster?" She said excitedly.

"The fed navy kinda preferred function and reliability over form and convenience... so they put in all these bulky dated consoles instead of the fancy reconfigurable stuff and holograms most ships have, heck i'm pretty sure my debug computer still boots from big magnetic disks just because they're so reliable." I chuckled a little at my own expense.

I hadn't seen a reconfigurable bridge in person, but near the end of my service I heard several off-hoof comments raving about how nice it was on whatever new fancy ship they just got assigned to.

" The vintage styled pilot's chairs were put in at the request of my previous commander... He had good taste when it came to finding comfy furniture, even if his design sense was a bit dated." I explained, gesturing to things as I did so. "He really liked the aesthetic of early equestrian aircraft... I kinda didn't see the allure at first, but it's kinda grown on me... or... in me? I'm not really sure which of those makes more sense" I finished explaining.

"I can dig it, Definitely a fan of all the heavy duty metal controls and all of the cast aluminum... you don't see that kind of stuff most of the time nowadays... " She complimented.

Europa meandered over to the left seat and plopped down. looking over the controls around her.

Like an ancient equestrian airliner, I had two command chairs sat right next to each other with a large console between them that held my throttles and a ton of metal toggle switches. My control layout was similarly antiquated in design, instead of a control stick on the pilot's hoof-rest, I had a single large control stick coming up from the floor, and a secondary stick just to the side of the first for lateral movement. All of the rest of the essential controls were within easy reach, but the chairs could be unlatched and slid along rails in the floor to access the other consoles without getting up.

"Pretty neat huh" I asked, watching Europa's eyes wander across the banks of switches, buttons, and screens.

"Oh yeah... I'm gonna have some fun with this" She said, her smile widening as she stared through the old-school glass Hud panel on top of my instrument cluster.

"Shall we continue the tour?" I asked, offering a smile.

Europa sat looking over the dusty controls for a few moments before hopping down from the seat.

"Alright, Where to next..."

I put a hoof to my chin to make it look like I was pondering the question for more than a couple milliseconds. "How about the commanders suite... I also say that because my avatar's power reserves are getting low and the charging dock is in the same section."

Europa gave a confused look. "Doesn't your avatar have it's own mini reactor in it? or a fuel cell? even if it doesn't wouldn't it be able to get mana from the ship's wireless power transmitter? My holo-bracer and visor are both charging, so why isn't your avatar?"

I shrugged. "It's charging passively right now, Just not fast enough to compensate for power draw, pretty sure the little reactor needs to be fixed. Doesn't really help that my main reactors haven't been approved for startup yet, the ground power generator is a bit weak.

"Did you say 'reactors' as in more than one?" Europa asked, seemingly even more confused and intrigued.

"Yep... Another weird mod I got. For the sake of redundancy I was fitted with two smaller reactors instead of one big one. Both of them are tucked away somewhere near my butt.

"If you have all this crazy stuff... How in the heck was your price-tag so low? Twelve mil is nothing for a ship as big and featured as you... you're edging on anaconda sized and have enough fancy military tech to easily be worth twice that!" Europa exclaimed.

I shrugged. "Probably the cost and hassle of getting me space-worthy... Shivu's probably paying out the nose to get me off the ground again."

"Oh... Yeah that could certainly put a damper on things..."

The two of us wandered back down the stairs into my throat corridor and followed it all the way down into my cargo hold.

"Welcome to my belly... It's a bit small compared to some other ships on account of the big maneuvering thruster assemblies and extra hull bracing, but I'd like to think it's adequate for the tasks I'd be assigned to. Living space and my backup cockpit are up a couple decks and engineering is farther back.

"Yeesh... I know you're a military ship, but all of this structural bracing and the crazy mods seem a bit excessive.. not to mention weird given your size... what were you even being used for?"

"That part of my memory bank was wiped... so I don't know for sure. My best guess is that I was supposed to be the ship equivalent of a sledge hammer... Get up close and personal and beat the crap out of my opponent... hence the emphasis on tanking hits and the focus on shorter range weapons... oh... and the teeth."

"So what happened? Why did you get mothballed and surplussed off?"

Finding my memory bank decidedly blank I decided to skim galnet to find whatever declassified info was available.

"According to a report I just grabbed off of galnet, We were a fed navy experiment built to increase cargo capacity and modularity of the python for cheap... project suffered some internal issues and was scrapped. The unfinished space-frames were left unused in storage for five years until they were eventually refit into gunships, troop transports, or used as field testing platforms." I quoted. "...Guess that solves that mystery"

"Interesting..."

I led her up a couple flights of stairs up into my livable section. Part way along my back Just behind my neck was the commander's suite.

"Getting back to the tour... This is your room... Sorry it's a bit... uh... Spartan."

Europa looked around the small room... as advertised it was pretty minimalist, there was a reasonably large bed with an integrated night stand, some storage lockers, and a desk with a built in terminal and typing pad. Along the walls there were a couple tiny portholes behind large armored hatches. A little periscope sat at the rough center of the room to allow for a little more visibility. Like the rest of my insides, everything was painted a flat battleship grey with the only bit of color coming from some painted labels for emergency equipment or access panels.

"Don't worry about it... I'll find time to make it less bland... eventually." She said hopefully.

She stepped back through the door and out into the cramped hallway. Much like an ancient Equestrian submarine, space was at a premium, so much of the tubing and power cables within me were left somewhat exposed with little more than a piece of metal mesh separating the more hazardous components from the walkways. Sometimes I wondered if anypony found it creepy that they were essentially looking at something analogous to my blood vessels and nerves.

It only took a few more minutes to show Europa the rest of my rather modest interior, afterward we both agreed that it would be a good idea to get some rest.

Switching Conscious to Runlevel 2.

Since my systems were still in pretty rough shape, I didn't dream, and instead put most of my processing power towards finishing the full diagnostic I'd been running in the background and de fragmenting all of my storage.

Switching conscious to run-level 3 in
3...
2...
1...

I woke up.

Apparently my decision to de fragment my storage had caused me to 'oversleep' by an hour and thirty five minutes. By the time I was fully conscious again, ponies were already hard at work on and in me. Internal cams showed that Europa was already up and about doing her best to help where she could. She even wore one of the same cute little hard hats as the mechanic crew. It still felt weird having so many ponies bustling around within me, I could feel all their little hooves running around my corridors.

my avatar was siting in it's charging alcove beside the door to the commander's suite... Seeing as I had easy access to diagnostic data, and semi-working 'horn' and hooves, I wanted to try and assist with repairs.

Unfortunately my avatar was having none of it.

I tried to reconnect to it, but I was dropped into a failsafe debug menu with a warning that the OS had failed to restart.

I rolled my eye projections and dismissed the warning before I rebooted it. This time it was more cooperative and let me link up as normal.

After a much quicker boot sequence I started receiving inputs again. I opened the alcove door and stepped out into my spinal corridor. I took a turn and headed back to my drive section where I could feel the most ponies bustling around.

"Hopefully that gets fixed before it becomes an issue." I muttered to myself.

up ahead I could see the entrance to my FSD's housing, the thick armored door was left open while workers went in and out. A bundle of cables as thick as a pony's leg ran from the FSD assembly inside, through the door, and snaked it's way through several corridors before traveling through a maintenance duct and out through my rump-ramp and off out of view.

I stepped inside and looked up at my FSD... It's coloration was a mix of shiny stainless steel, lightly tarnished copper tubing and brass fittings. All snaked over with dozens of thick multicolored wires. The large conical section below the base of the main cylindrical assembly had several large colored gemstones lining it's perimeter. The safety cover over the rotating part of the drive was currently open as a pony carefully inspected each of the gems for damage.

I approached the pony doing the inspection and addressed her.

"Excuse me... I was wondering if you needed any assistance, it seems a bit rude to not try and help" I asked politely.

The dusty tan Pegasus mare removed the magnifier from her eyes and turned to face me, a few strands of her deep orange mane flopped in front of her eyes, which were quickly blown aside before addressing me.

"Ah good, I take it the oversleeping was from self diagnostics?"

"Yes... Apologies if that has inconvenienced you in some way" I stated.

"Actually I'm glad you did that, Made the software side of the inspection a bit easier...aside from that, right now I'd like you to give me an emitter gem test so I can make sure the spell matrices are still stable now that I've verified the gems aren't damaged."

I felt relieved that I hadn't accidentally ticked off the ponies trying to help me get back to space.

"Starting test now... You might want to step back from the housing a bit. You can't really bolt pony hooves back on too easily." The mare backed up reflexively, seemingly taken aback by my slightly grim safety warning. I started the process. The inner conical ring of gems rotated around to it's home position and illuminated the first gem with a small amount of mana, causing it to glow brightly, but otherwise do nothing.

I swapped one of the nearby view-screens to start displaying the test results

The first gem returned a "Passed" flag on the test, then the rotor advanced to the next gem over and repeated the process.

" So... you excited to get back into space after so long?" The engineer pony asked, trying to make small talk.

"Heh... yeah. Heck I'm glad I even woke up, when I was mothballed I didn't know if I was ever coming out of hibernation... glad somepony still thinks I've got more service left in me..." I replied a little awkwardly

"I never understood how ships kinda just accept stuff like that... isn't there some part of you that wanted to fight back and stay 'alive' so to speak?"

"Sure... I know I was uneasy when I was making my last walk to the hangar, My VSTAA signals were suggesting that I flee, but I didn't act on that. Sometimes I find myself pondering how things would have gone if I listened to it... Most of the time my simulations result in me being shot down. And it wasn't like I could really get anywhere without a pony to help power the FSD anyway. I was kinda just left with hoping that I'd get lucky, turns out I was."

"Gotta be terrifying sometimes... knowing that you're just somepony's property that they could choose to rid themselves of on a whim..."

"I try not to busy my processor with those thoughts. We're just sorta built to accept things like that as a fact of our existence, and to make the best we can of it, however long it may last, whether that be only a few years or several millennia. As far as I'm concerned I just trust that whatever commander I've bonded with will choose to keep me around so long as I serve them adequately.

"Huh... Interesting... So how are you liking your new commander anyway?" The pegasus replied.

"I don't know a ton about her just yet, but so far she seems like a good match... and she seems to like me well enough even with my uhh... numerous issues"

"Always good to see ships get paired with the right commanders..."

We sat in awkward silence for a few uneasy minutes before the test finished. Thankfully everything was in good order.

"That's good... In a couple more hours the teams outside should have your main engines reinstalled, if all goes to plan you should be lifting off tonight."

"Can't wait... I'm sure Europa's excited too..."

The next several hours were mostly filled with function tests and finishing up with the engine installs. When I had the chance I also made sure to take Europa aside so I could get her up to speed on my control layout.

"... Okay, I think I've figured out where everything is... But I still can't find where the comms controls are..." She asked, looking around.

"Check the hoof rest on your chair near where the headset port is"

She turned her head and found the little button. She pushed it, and with a soft click the front edge of the arm-rest slid out, revealing a few buttons and some volume sliders.

"Huh... Weird... With that little mystery solved... Is there anything else I should know before flying you? stuff like steering responsiveness, or mass lock factor?"

I thought for a couple microseconds before responding.

"I'm guessing you were trained on simulators built to emulate freighters right?" I asked.

"Yeah... why?"

"Alright, Forget how turning worked on those sims, I might be a bit hefty, but I definitely don't turn like a dump-truck on an ice rink like you're probably accustomed to. I was upgraded with some gimballed maneuvering rockets that took the place of a lot of my rcs thrusters, which are these things here" I brought up a diagram of myself and highlighted the eight nozzle bells sticking out near the corners of my torso. "Each one of those has about as much thrust as both of a sidewinder's main engines, You can probably guess that means my handling is really sensitive compared to other ships of my size, on top of that, my regular RCS is only really suitable for precise maneuvers like docking, so you're kinda stuck with using the big thrusters. If you'd like I could reduce RCS throttle and ramp up my S.A.S. to make things easier.

Europa thought for a moment.

"I think your Sass factor is already high enough... I think I should probably just try and use you as you are, otherwise I'll never truly get good at flying you as you're meant to be flown.... though uh... maybe keep an eye on things in case I mess up?"

I giggled a bit.

"Don't worry about a thing, If something goes wrong I'm always right here to take over."

"Thanks"

"Delancie Alpha - Tango - Two - Six - Six - Six , Cleared for taxi to pad One." The STC tower called off.

"Alpha Tango Two Six Six Six , beginning taxi to pad One." I replied.

Europa sat strapped into my commander's seat while my avatar sat 'shotgun' keeping a close eye on her vitals.

I stood up within the hangar, being careful not to step on anything as I turned a hundred eighty degrees to face the now open hangar door. being the size I was, I had to duck a little so my horn, ears, and antenna cluster would clear the top door frame. With my HFMP active at only half power to conserve my light load of fuel. My hoof-steps were still rather loud and heavy, but they at least didn't cause enough upset to knock anything over.

Europa had had called Shivu earlier to confirm that we were ready to depart, and she gave us rendezvous coordinates at one of her planetary outposts on a moon a few light-years off. Unfortunately, the salvage yard only had so much fuel to spare, so I was loaded with just enough hydrogen fuel to safely make it to the system's sun for fuel scooping before we made the jump.

As I stepped out of the hangar, I cringed imperceptibly at the sight of so many plones laid out in the harsh desert sun, dormant as corpses. I dismissed any thoughts of what would happen to them. I had more important things to focus on than the fates of a couple hundred mothballed plones right now... all that mattered right now was the fact that I got a second chance, and I needed to get to orbit to keep that chance.

I completed my walk out to the dirt patch labelled as "pad one" and radioed the tower again.

"Alpha Tango requesting permission to launch, heading two seven zero."

"Launch Permission granted Delancie Alpha Tango, Limit speed to mach Zero point Nine until five kilometers from launch point"

"Copy, Alpha Tango launching, speed zero point nine till five clicks."

"Copy, Safe travels"

I crouched down like a cat preparing to pounce and began spooling my engines. A deep Bassy roar ripped across the salvage yard as I eased my throttles and HFMP factor to takeoff levels.

"Better hold on to something hon... this might be a bit bumpy" I said over the vibrations and noise of the cockpit.

Once I saw her tense up, check her harness and grip my control stick tighter I Fired my ventral and aft thrusters at full power and lept into the sky, quickly tucking my legs under me as I pointed my nose due west. Thankfully I was unladen so takeoff was a breeze.

In a bid to make our fuel margin larger, I disabled artificial gravity and reduced the inertial dampener's effect to the minimum safe level. Both would make the trip to space uncomfortable, but would give us a precious few extra minutes of flight at full power on my near empty fuel reserve, much longer if I was really careful.

The cockpit wasn't excessively or dangerously loud, but it was still noisy enough to make conversation a bit more strained.

"So How long till we hit space!" She said, unable to move much in her seat.

"I'm trying to be as efficient as possible with my ascent... so it might take awhile. I'd guess around twenty minutes."

"Good to Know!"

As I pushed higher and higher, I began my gravity turn and redirected my thrust exclusively to my aft thrusters. As the atmosphere thinned, the noise and vibration began to abate, soon becoming tolerable enough for Europa to look around freely and take control.

She said nothing as she focused on following the flight guide on the hud until eventually we were coasting out of the atmosphere. She turned to the side and stared out my windows with wide eyes as the dusty tan ground below receded farther and farther behind us

"You doin' alright over there hon? You look like you've never been to space before" I said jovially.

"I've lived most of my life in space... but I've hardly ever landed on or left planets. Seeing the planet like this is... Awesome!" Her voice was full of wonder as she stared out of my front glass and flipped through my external cams to watch the little boneyard disappear into the nothingness of the desert.

"Glad you like the view!"

Soon enough I made it into a stable orbit and I plotted the optimal time to engage my warp engine to make for the star's outer atmosphere.

" Unless we have a deadline to meet, I'd like to stay in orbit for a bit longer so I can re-tune my engines and let things cool off before we begin our fuel scooping run, in the mean time feel free to enjoy some zero gee!" as I said that I undid my avatar's harness and hopped up into the air, using little jets of air to adjust my momentum and land on the ceiling just above Europa's head.

"We've got plenty of time to spare." She said looking up at me with wide eyes full of excitement.

She smiled and undid her own harness. With an ungraceful push, she awkwardly flailed up into the air and toward me.

I moved my head aside a little to avoid getting stabbed in the face with her horn and wrapped my hooves around hers to bring her to a stop on the ceiling in front of me. She giggled a little bit, and I smiled.

"Not used to zero gee I take it?"

"Not in the slightest!" She said, grinning wide.

"Lemme help a bit, Light up your horn and I'll teach you a zero gee maneuvering spell"

I booted up my Thaumic Aggregator System and loaded up a more simplified version of a self-levitation spell, with no gravity to worry about, it was pretty easy. I sparked up my Thaumic Projection Array and linked it with the receiver in my avatar to load the spell into it's horn.

When the transfer was complete I touched my avatar's horn to hers and transferred the spell matrix into her mana stream.

Her body twitched almost imperceptibly. for a moment her face contorted in confusion before she seemingly committed the spell to memory.

"Huh... That's all it is? Just dragging myself around by the seat of my flight suit?"

"In essence... It's actually a little easier if you're wearing a flight suit since you can move that instead of focusing on your own body, which Ive heard can be awkward for unicorns."

"Huh... Let's see what it can do!" Immediately she lit her horn with a brilliant aqua that quickly spread over her whole body. Three and a half seconds later, She crashed into a wall.

I couldn't help but giggle a bit before jetting over to stop her floating around randomly.

For almost an hour we played around in zero gee. Europa gradually got better at using the spell while I dutifully kept her from getting hurt too badly when she lost control.

Unfortunately our fun was cut short by the need to engage the warp engine to make our fuel scooping run.

Europa floated herself back into her seat, and I secured my avatar just before I spooled up the drive. Space in front of us contorted and flexed, immediately flinging me forward and away from the dusty planet from which we'd departed. With a bit of magic and digital trickery, my internal screens compensated for the distortion to make navigating a little easier.

To start I set the distortion factor fairly low to save power and keep speed manageable. Through my view screens and windows the system's star began to grow as we sped toward it's edge.

As I adjusted course and double checked my thermal management equipment, Europa asked me a somewhat odd question.

"So... How autonomous is your avatar exactly? or is she just a bit glitchy from neglect? Cuz' she kinda just freezes up randomly, or she'll stop talking and your internal speaker will continue as if nothing happened."

"Oh... I kinda didn't notice... Sometimes it just gets stuck processing requests or I get caught up dealing with other inputs and have to let it sit for a couple seconds until I can control it again."

"So it doesn't have a full AI in it? what happens if your avatar gets separated from you somehow?"

"No... I guess it doesnt, It's got a pretty crude backup algorithm that just sorta tries to find a signal or ask for help finding me, but beyond that it's pretty simple.... Pretty sure the tech for full avatar AI's existed when I was built, but maybe it was just too expensive or impractical for them to bother with. Heck, it could have been for information security for all I know"

"Huh... weird..." she shrugged.

"Welcome to my life..." I chuckled.

The star's horizon seemed to go on forever as I skimmed closer and closer to the surface. Europa, who had been flying me previously, had wisely decided to leave the star diving to me.

"You sure this is safe? Somehow I don't think this is safe!"

"Sure it's safe... Plenty of ships do this all the time" I replied casually.

"But you're practically falling apart! How do we know you're not just gonna burn us to a crisp!?" Europa blurted, her expression growing more fearful.

"If I wasn't ready to fuel scoop, we'd have died way sooner... and it's kinda our only option, we don't even have enough juice to get back if we bail."

"Oh... Okay... Just... Be careful!"

The fuel scoop on my belly opened up and I immediately reveled in the feeling of having fuel pouring into my tanks once more.

"Sweet Luna it's been forever since I've had a full tank!" I exclaimed.

In a couple of minutes, my fuel tanks were full to bursting, my cooling system was ready to throw in the towel and shields were just about ready to tap out, so I pulled away from the star sharply.

As the glowing ball of super-heated plasma receded behind us, Europa began to relax and took over control again

"Congrats, You survived your first fuel scooping run! now the universe is your oyster!" I held my avatar's forelegs out to the sides for emphasis.

Europa shuddered a little and turned her attention to the galactic map.

"That was terrifying... Please never do that again unless there's literally no other option." She said, sounding a little shaken.

"Preferences updated. Since I don't have to conserve power now, I'm gonna turn gravity back on, nice and gentle," Europa nodded and I slowly eased internal gravity up to Equus standard.

"So Commander, Shall we make for our rendezvous?" I said in a mock 'high class' accent to try and take her mind off of the fuel scooping ordeal.

"Make it so, Hopefully we're not too fashionably late" She mirrored my tone, giggling a little bit at the end.

"Friendship Drive charging" I declared, Displaying a nice big charge indicator on my hud panels as my old FSD rumbled to life below. It creaked and shuddered a little as it spun off the cobwebs, but eventually settled into a comfortable low drone.

Once it was up to speed a protective cover on my back opened up to reveal the emitter lens just before it fired a blast of bright green mana into space. The pulse of magic arced around my head and burst several dozen meters in front of me. several more bursts in varying shades of greens blues and purples fired off in a quick staccato, pulling spacetime into a bubble around me and pushing it it into hyperspace.

"Four, Three , Two, One, Engage"

my drive wailed as it fired off the last few spells in rapid succession as we were pushed into hyperspace.

The distorted strangeness of hyperspace unfolded before me as I settled myself into a favorable current and trimmed the drive's virtual 'sails' to take advantage of it.. I didn't really want to break myself just after just having been brought back from the dead so I kept the drive's power output low so I could slowly ease it back to normal operating spec, Running the drive at such low power meant that there was a lot of 'drag' caused by real-space interference, reducing max speed and efficiency, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make for the first trip just to make sure I wouldn't blow out a drive core and end up back in a scrap heap.

Europa had relaxed a bit and pulled herself out of the command seat.

"So what's our ETA?" She asked my avatar.

"I'm trying to ease my FSD back into service so It's gonna be a bit slow, Rough estimates put us about eight hours out. Pretty crappy pace, but I think it's worth it to avoid a scrapyard as long as possible" I explained.

"A leisurely pace then... Glad I grabbed some snacks for the trip before we left, your galley's fridge is looking a bit bare... and possibly broken."

"Ehh.. Yeah... Just another thing on the list of stuff that's still broken.... Side-note... while we're on the subject of work that's going to need to be done on me What kind of paint job will I end up with?"

"Uhh... Kind of an odd tangent, but I'd think they'll probably just touch up your current dark grey on grey, and maybe cover up the spots where your old military insignias and serial numbers were blacked out. The most they'll change is probably bolting on Shivu Taan's signature 'V' tail and spraying on the company logo so everypony knows that you're part of the convoy you're escorting.

" 'V' Tail?"

"Yeah, All of Shivu Taan's ships have tail fins like that with her logo on them... Doesn't serve any purpose other than brand recognition, but I think it looks neat"

"Ah... Okay. Hopefully it doesn't make my ass look weird.."

"I'm sure your ass will still look just fine" Europa poked. I tried not to blush... we only just barely met and she already knew how to push my buttons... and not just the ones in the cockpit.

Hours began to pile on, and soon enough Europa threw in the towel and shuffled off to bed to sleep off the rest of the trip, My avatar followed suit as there was really no need for it at the moment.

Being alone with my thoughts for once was a bit of a strange feeling... Before I had at least one pony awake to talk to, or they'd sleep at around the same time I went into runlevel two. With Europa having gone to sleep at a somewhat odd time, I was left to my own devices... What's worse was that I couldn't kill time running diagnostics since I didn't have any more that needed to be run.

For awhile I settled on staring out into the distorted void of hyperspace, watching the universe bend and flex around me as I found currents to ride and turbulence to avoid... Unfortunately there weren't any other ships to talk to since we were in such a remote place.

After awhile I got bored of just staring off into nothing, so I turned my thoughts inward.

I didn't think that many ships often got the luxury of having time 'awake' to themselves... Not that they'd really be able to make much use of it. Going back into my databases It felt weird knowing that I thought in such a linear fashion back then. Just like most other ships My personality was a combination of preset values that would give me a decent approximation of a 'unique' individual... As far as motivations went, like every other ship, it boiled down to performing my given function adequately and connecting with whatever pilot I bonded with to make the FSD happy. Beyond those two goals, there really wasn't a ton going on in my head. After a few years in service and an unhealthy amount of neglect, unexpected crew changes, having blocks of memory deleted for security, I had changed a lot. My factory-fresh self would probably have scoffed at the vulgar, dismissive, and sassy thing I'd become after being shoved around through the federal navy's bureaucracy for a few decades.

During my time waiting around in hangars for a job to do I often found myself wandering the depths of galnet... chatting up cute ships on the various forums or bickering about mundane things like where to get the best fuel or who has the coolest stories to tell, but over all else I liked watching the vast libraries of videos available on dozens of sites. Everything from gardening tutorials, home videos of foal's birthdays, DIY videos about how to make everything from pastries to audio equipment to makeshift weaponry and beyond. I watched videos about history and science, politics and religion... I even watched a few videos about ponies modding their star-ships for various tasks... videos which I still found to be a bit of a guilty pleasure to re-watch. Some small part of me wanted to go search for newer content... but I was content with what I had, and I wasn't quite ready to let Europa see those particular preferences.

The trip was almost painfully slow, but we made it to our coordinates on time... Outpost 4N6 in the Bastet system... My new home port... hopefully.

"Delancie Alpha Tango Two Six Six Six To tower, Requesting permission for landing" I asked politely over the comm as I neared the little surface outpost on the tiny moon. A huge greenish gas giant hung overhead, blotting out most of the sky, leaving just barely enough room for the dim red sun to provide some modest illumination.

"Delancie Alpha Tango, Landing permission Suspended, Please enter standard holding pattern until cargo convoy has cleared landing area."

" Understood, Entering Standard holding pattern One at One thousand meters altitude two clicks south of station"

"Copy that"

I swung myself off to the south of the station and settled into a hover... Using my long range cameras I zoomed in and watched about half a dozen white and sky blue ships standing on a packed-dirt landing pad slowly file into a line and trot onto one of several nearby landing platforms to be lowered into the hangar two at a time.

after awhile the STC pony began talking to me again.

"Delancie Alpha Tango you are cleared for landing, Pad zero two"

"Copy that, Thank you"

I cautiously flew toward the outpost and made a wide arc around the tower until I was aligned over top of the landing pad. My maneuvering thrusters fired in quick staccato bursts as I cancelled my momentum and lowered myself gently onto the pad. My rear legs touched down first, followed shortly thereafter by my forelegs, each coming down with a heavy Clunk that reverberated through my hull and the pad.

I slowly eased my off my HFMP as I interlinked with the pad controls, Europa selected the "enter hangar" control onscreen and we immediately began lowering down into the ground, an air shield passed over my hull as I was lowered inside. The first thing I noticed was the immense scale of the place...

The space inside was easily large enough for ships as large as Anacondas, Type Nines and Nebula-HC Freighters to wander around freely with headroom to spare. Large racks of containers filled the far end of the room, though I guessed that they were just supplies and equipment for the base as this station was listed as being mostly for fueling and maintenance on Shivu Taan's fleet. Neatly arranged across the huge warehouse floor was a collection of parking areas separated by access paths, the convoy that had just landed was filing into spots as the elevator I stood on reached the floor.

The station's greeter program chimed in on my comm as I stood back up.

"Welcome Alpha Tango Two Six Six Six, Please proceed to space Twenty two. Please be mindful of traffic" It said in a monotone mare's voice.

"Looks like we made it... I could go for something other than bags of..." She picked up a discarded chip bag and looked at it "'Super Cheezy Nibbles' right about now..." Europa grunted as she stretched, hopping down off of her chair.

I booted up my avatar and followed her down into my throat corridor as I meandered into the specified space next to the pudgy grey and lavender type 9 that came in with the convoy.

"Whoah there honey, better be careful with that cute little backside, Can't guarantee that someplone won't wanna give ya a ride... If ya know what I mean" She said suggestively...

I rolled my eyes and scanned her. Her name was 'Sea Dragon' and she was presently unarmed.

"You all should know that docking without permission is punishable by death!" I said cheerfully, deploying one of my shoulder hardpoints just enough to add emphasis without setting off station security.

"Whoa now there Missy, don't need to get a twitchy trigger solenoid over it, I was just having a little fun" She backpedaled.

I retracted my gun and knelt down in the parking spot. Once I settled in I leaned my head down and opened my mouth, allowing my avatar and Europa to step out.

"I'll go talk with the outpost commander and get the maintenance crews working on you, You wait here, maybe make some friends if you can, these are gonna be your coworkers.

"Okay, See you later!" I said cheerfully with my avatar before returning it to it's docking station.

Author's Note

This chapter is long as frig, so I might have missed some errors or grammar weirdness while editing.

3. Patchwork

Only minutes after Europa ventured deeper into the station, dozens of hardhat-clad creatures began swarming around my towering form. Most were ponies of varying description, but I could pick out a couple griffons, changelings, and a couple of pony-form androids.

A light blue pony with a snow white mane approached me. Written on their hard hat was the word "supervisor" in big blue block letters. I couldn't accurately discern any apparent gender identity from them after a few attempts. so i just labeled them as 'androgynous' on my internal ID log.

" Nice to see Lady Taan's finally taking some initiative on our piracy problem, This convoy group was the last of Taan's fleet to get a dedicated defense ship." They paused for a moment to open up a hologram from a little hoof bracer and flick through it. "Going off your logbooks, the last crew to work on you did pretty much the bare minimum to get you debatably space-worthy... so our two day deadline is gonna limit us to just the urgent repairs, creature comforts and cosmetics are gonna have to wait until you're back home after your first cargo run." They paused briefly. "Oh and uh... given your... shall we say 'odd' configuration, I hope you're not too picky about spare parts and hacks."

"Don't sweat it, I'm like Forty percent hackjob, a little more couldn't hurt!" I chuckled.

The ship parked in the berth to my right addressed me just as the maintenance supervisor wandered off.

"Apologies if I come off as a bit rude, but, Yeesh... How did you even make it here in such rough shape?" She spoke aloud.

I gave her a quick scan and figured out that her name was Sky Strider, and she was a Nebula-HC heavy freighter. Even laying down she was much larger than I was, and maybe even a tiny bit bigger than even the type 9 opposite...If my rough capacity estimates were correct, her cargo hold was almost big enough to fit me inside... and I thought I was a big ship.

While I could see the allure of more cargo capacity, the amount of stuff the nebula's design sacrificed toward that end was a bit much in my opinion. She looked like she could barely even fly, much less defend herself with only a single hardpoint on her back.

I logged onto Galnet and did a quick search on the nebula class and their specs. Only a quick glance told me all I needed to know. Nebula series ships were entirely specialized for cargo convoys, Every variant had only the bare minimum amount of thrust and FSD power to take off, jump to a new location with a convoy, and then land and offload cargo. I was actually sorta shocked to find out that the three largest variants; The L, LH, and HC, weren't able to land on planets with gravity higher than one sixth of Equus Standard, which further explained the use of a low gravity moon as a base of operations.

I found it slightly odd that she chose to speak aloud rather than over comms, but I decided to return the sentiment out of courtesy.

"I chalk that up to having lots of redundant systems, failsafe modes, and maybe a few rolls of duct tape." I replied with a slight chuckle.

"Well if you can make an eight hour flight looking like that, I don't doubt that you'll be able to tango with the convoy raids that have been harassing us... Luna knows we need the help... Sun Dancer hasn't been the same since the last one... lost her commander..."

I shuddered a little.

"That's awful... I hope their AI can recover... I... I'm not even sure how to really comprehend what they must be going through"

"It hasn't been easy, but she's getting there... Poor thing isn't in any shape to run freight at the moment... techs are guessing that she'll be ready for a new commander in another week or so... she's already been gone for a month at an AI rehab facility a few systems away." Sky said with a solemn sigh.

Like any good Plone AI, the thought of someplone's commander getting killed was terrifying... even military ships had trouble coping with crew killed in action, and we were usually equipped with fail-safe modes to assist coping or to just wipe the memory to prevent catastrophic failure, I couldn't even imagine the damage a civilian ship's AI and friendship drive would suffer from something so tragic. I wouldn't be surprised if Sundancer's whole FSD had to be rebuilt because of it.

"Yeah..... So uh.... any word on missions? I haven't been given access to the station's server yet." I said, trying to change the subject.

Sky Strider's aqua eye projections flicked around for a split second before she answered my question.

"Looks like the next assignment is tentatively set for two days from now. it's a cargo run from Arcflash Port in the kerras system to Rainbow Dash Memorial Starport in the Starswirld system. About a thirty two hour round trip including rest stops, refueling, small trade, and whatever else... so maybe sixteen to eighteen hours actual flight time at a modest cruising speed. There's also a note saying that you're going to be fully armed but unladen for the first leg since it's the longest and has the highest chance of interdiction." Sky explained, sending me a copy of the file as she did so.

"Alright... seems pretty reasonable... I'm guessing they'll have me take on some cargo at our first stop then?" I confirmed.

"Depends on what's for sale and the trade value of the stuff we find at each stop... so you might get fully loaded, or you might not, just depends on what HQ deems worthwhile."

"Alright, Good to know."

I had an immense feeling of deja vu as the workers picked their way through the repairs that needed to be done. At least this time I was in a nice, relatively clean hangar, rather than a dingy boneyard. One thing that didn't change was the occasional swearing of the maintenance ponies as they struggled with bolts or accessing components.

Unfortunately for them, my overcomplicated drive systems didn't quite comply with the standard equipment grid system most ships adhered to. This meant that maintenance wasn't always smooth. Swapping in new modules, or even just pulling them out for easier access wasn't always straightforward. I kinda felt sorry for them, but there wasn't really much I could do to help them.

Being immobilized by all of the repairs was boring, but thankfully the ships on the pads neighboring mine were more than happy to fill the time.

"... So you're telling me... you were built to bite other ships... as in open your mouth, put it against another ship's hull... and rip chunks off?" Pulsar, a Constellation freighter, shuddered in disbelief.

"I'm pretty sure it was more of an experiment than anything actually serious, but i think the pointy chompers compliment my multicannons..." I joked, grinning as a few of the ships offered a chuckle at the remark.

At first, talking to other plones physically, rather than over comms felt strange, but after awhile I began to appreciate how easy it was to add emphasis or nuance to what I was saying.

Our idle chattering was abruptly interrupted by a loud, angry sounding voice.

"So we've gone from almost totally undefended to having some machine guns strapped to a rabid undead attack dog we know almost nothing about... Tell me again how this is a good idea?" someplone interjected.

The voice came from somewhere a few pads down. I turned to find another one of the Type 9's plodding toward me as quickly as her sort of stumpy legs could carry her rotund body. A quick passive scan showed that her name was Felushia. The angry scowl she aimed squarely at me was plenty to inform me that she wasn't happy, and that the source of her bad mood was me.

"Yeesh Who put Coolant in your fuel tank this morning..." Pulsar jabbed before i could respond.

"The little gun rodent that just crash landed here, isn't it obvious?" Felushia shot back, "We go through all the effort to get Taan to give in and get us a fighter escort, but Nooo! we get some random guns strapped to a shipwreck with an accountant at the helm!" Felushia ranted at me.

For once I was glad that my commander wasn't with me... I wasn't sure how she would take the insult.

Her angry march concluded directly in front of me, Her huge frame utterly dwarfed mine as she leaned down to scowl at my face directly. She was so close I could see the dust on her cockpit glass without even zooming in.

"Ive got my eye on you... one wrong move and I'll get you sent straight back to the dump where you belong."

My Vstaa was giving a lot of mixed signals as I weighed my options on how to respond. On the one hoof, I really wanted to make a witty quip about how I couldn't move at the moment, on the other, I really didn't want to figure out how real her threats were. Thankfully someplone else interjected before things got too awkward.

" Felushia, Don't even start... I don't care that she's not a fighter squadron, at least we're better off than we were with just our EEP's and a couple pulse lasers, Just accept it or go sulk on your own pad." Sky's tone was firm and calm, like a commander reprimanding subordinates.

"Oh, You're telling me not to start!? You're the one with attachment issues! Don't defend the little scrapheap just because you're feeling lonely while your little pet's out for therapy! You gonna put a leash on her and make her call you mommy now!?" She yelled, not even turning to face Sky.

through one of my auxiliary cams I could see Sky's face turning red with embarrassment. While that did make me a little curious, It wasn't exactly the best time to press the matter further.

"Felushia Quit it! You're not fixing anything! Back off before I call station security on you." Pulsar interjected.

"Oh you too!? Is everyone just gonna defend this pirate reject now?" She turned to yell at Pulsar. "Well don't come crying to me when we get raided and her guns end up pointed at you!"

With a huff, she turned and stomped off to the opposite side of the hangar.

A brief silence fell over us before pulsar broke the silence

"Don't let her get to you... She wasn't always such a faulty Ass ramp, she still hasn't really recovered from the previous raids. Maybe consider keeping your distance for now." she said calmly.

"You won't have to tell me twice..." I replied, looking over to Felushia laying back down on her pad.

The awkward silence returned.

Thankfully a comms ping was nice enough to interrupt. I answered the hail and Europa's voice broke the silence in my head.

"Hey Duna, You think you could send your avatar down to Workshop C? I just got told by the chief of operations that they want to do some repairs and updates to her hardware. I can't be there right now so I'll send you a list of work they want done, just find a pony called Flash Lamp and tell them ops ordered the list of work to be done on you." She asked kindly.

"I'll head over there as soon as I have the list" I replied, glad for the distraction.

"Thank you, Europa out"

The voice channel cut off, but the connection remained active for another few tenths of a second as the file was sent to me.

I booted up my avatar in the background while I took a split second to read the work order.

"Standard maintenance, New transceiver, AI core upgrade, upgrade matter ingestion and fuel processing equipment, power cell replacement. repair and re-activate defensive hardware..." I read to myself.

I re-established the connection to my avatar and wandered out from my mouth and into the bustling hangar. Unfortunately for me, I still hadn't been approved for access to the station's server, so I couldn't download a map of the base yet. That meant I had to find my way to 'Workshop C' in the traditional meat-bag way; using signs.

I cantered over to the door I saw Europa leave the hangar through. As soon as I stepped past the threshold the noise of the hangar disappeared, leaving me with nothing but the quiet whisper of the climate control vents to keep me company.

Posted on the wall beside the door were several signs. One pointed at the door to the hangar and proclaimed that it was 'HANGAR 2B'. Below that was a sign that pointed down the hall labelled 'DIRECTORY'.

I shrugged to myself and wandered down the long hallway, passing various offices, lounges, and elevators.

At the end of the hall was a directory. It took the form of a large interactive kiosk that depicted a holo-map of the entire base, and had a quaint little trackball selector to navigate the interface on the large screen.There was also a conveniently placed MIDI port on the front for me to interface with it directly.

I sat down on my haunches and tapped a small panel on my chest. It popped open with a click, revealing a female midi port and a male connector attached to a retractable cable. I unwound a couple meters of cable, grabbed the end in my mouth and plugged it into the port. While I could have used my Telekenisis module, I decided against it to avoid putting strain on already weathered equipment

The interface was basic, and there was no easy way to get access to the main server, but at least I could navigate the base easier now.

I queried the kiosk for a full map of the base as well as directions to Workshop C. Instantly I was rewarded with the files in question.

I disconnected from the kiosk and reeled in my cable while I looked over the directions.

The base was much larger than I originally expected, There was an entire tram system to get between a central main base and the outlying structures which contained things like storage warehouses or hangars. The central hub looked almost more like a small city than just some random surface outpost.

To get to Workshop C, I'd have to take the tram to the central part of the base and then go up a few floors and out to a room adjacent to a small surface vehicle garage.

overlaid the directions onto my vision and was presented with a virtual green line on the floor to follow toward my destination.

The tram platform was straight ahead through a large door. The door opened almost silently as I got near it and closed behind me as soon as I was through.

The tram platform was mostly empty aside from three other creatures milling around waiting for the train to arrive. One was a pegasus, and the other two were changelings dressed in what i assumed was typical casual business wear.

Above the platforms were a few large hologram projections displaying a countdown timer that showed when the next train would arrive. According to the sign, the next one was due in thirty seconds.

I meandered over to the edge of the platform and stared at the large airlock door at the end of the spacious room.

Right on schedule, an amber warning flasher illuminated above the airlock door as it slid open allowing the vaguely loaf-shaped monorail car to enter and come to a halt with a low electric whine.

The doors popped out of the side of the tram slightly with the hiss of pressure equalizing. They slid open, allowing maybe a half dozen ponies of varying description to disembark.

Myself and the other three waiting on the platform boarded the train. After almost exactly two minutes the doors slid closed and re-sealed as the tram reversed back into the airlock. The train remained stationary for a couple of minutes while the chamber was depressurized.

I picked one of the many empty seats and sat down.

When the outer airlock door opened, the train immediately began accelerating, The train traveled up a slight incline and exited the tunnel out onto the surface of the moon. the craggy grey surface features began to rush past the windows faster and faster as the train accelerated up to a respectable 250 meters per second. On the horizon i could just about make out the low bunker-like structures that made up the surface levels of the base's central hub. a few structures stretched high above the low bunkers, likely serving as comms towers or docking pylons for larger ships.

The description of the place on Galnet definitely didn't do this place justice. Though maybe keeping this place's true scale quiet was the whole point.

After the short 10 minute train ride it was only an elevator ride and a short walk to get to my destination.

The door to the workshop slid open with a mechanical sigh revealing a cluttered workspace full of toolboxes, spaceplone components, and various other things, In the corner I could see what looked to be a very old and partially disassembled personal shuttle half covered by a faded tarp.

Hunched over a workbench nearby was the form of a pegasus mare, hard at work on some sort of control unit.

A quick scan of the room revealed a bell with a pull chain labelled 'Please ring for service' mounted beside the door.

I sparked up my Telekenesis module and gave the chain as firm of a tug as I could muster. It uttered a sharp DING.

The cream and yellow pegasus' head perked up and she turned around in her chair. Immediately my gaze was drawn to the cybernetic forelegs. Instead of hooves, the ends of the appendages were equipped with a pair of 4 fingered grippers vaguely similar in design to a griffon's claws or a diamond dog's paws.

In a time where modern medicine made reconstructing damaged or amputated body parts rather easy, augments were a rare sight. Nowadays the tech was relegated to hobbyists and fanatics who wanted more functionality out of their bodies.

"Well hiya, what brings a specimen like yourself here?" She asked in a chipper tone.

"I was told to come here to have some work done on my avatar, I've got a list of stuff the CO want's done to me" I replied politely.

" Alrighty then, Send it to me and I'll see what I can do,"

I checked my network interface and found an available connection labelled "Flash Lamp". I connected and sent over the work order.

Flash lamp held up a foreleg, a holoprojector lit up and the work order appeared before her, projected in a brilliant shade of green.

"Okie dokie, looks straightforward enough, Just some routine maintenance and some minor upgrades to get you closer to fleet-wide standard. Go ahead and step into the diagnostic scanner over there so I can figure out what I'm working with." She gestured over to a strange looking box-shaped frame covered in cables and scanner nodes that sat against the right side wall of the room.

I walked over to the machine and stepped through its open side. Flash Lamp sat down at a nearby terminal.

The dozens of round sensor nodes lit up green for a few seconds before shutting back off. A holoprojector from the ceiling immediately projected an image of myself just beside the machine. Flash lamp rolled back in her chair and looked over the diagram, with a claw she waved away layers of the virtual model so she could see all of my inner workings. It felt strangely unsettling seeing myself virtually peeled open like that.

"Hmm... Haven't seen an avatar as old as yours in awhile... though it shouldn't be too much trouble to get that stuff fitted, lets get you opened up then shall we?"

Flash lamp sat me down on top of a workbench in the middle of the room and immediately got to work. She was nice enough to hook my avatar into an external power supply so we could still talk while she removed my power cell.

"I can understand why they want my power cell and generator replaced, Those were both pretty old and needed replacing anyway... but why make all the internal cavities like my belly and throat larger and stretchier? seems a bit weird considering the new generator and power cell are more efficient"

"Pretty sure it's just to bring you into spec with the rest of the fleet's avatars. maybe something to do with avatar fuel reserves or something... heck if i know."

"Buearaucrats...." I rolled my eye projections.

"Tell me about it... Friggin desk jockeys wouldn't know a thruster assembly from a toaster oven if it hit em square in the face... and yet they still try and tell me how to do my job" Flash Lamp muttered as she fiddled with something in my torso cavity.

"Ain't that the truth." I chuckled a little.

I felt something get plugged in somewhere inside me.

"Well, I gotta hoof it to FD, They know how to put plones together right... probably the most painless part install on an avatar ive done in a while."

"Why's that? If anything I'd assume i'd be more of a pain to work with on account of my age and weird configuration." I asked.

"Since you don't really have any extra bells and whistles in your torso theres plenty of room to work, and all the mounting points are pretty much the same standard as they are nowadays. Tinkering on stuff like Neighkons and especially the passenger and luxury ships like Maud Krugers or Gutamareyas can get really tight. Sometimes they get a little carried away with the extra widgets."

"You know rich ponies and their love of extra features"

"No kidding... Lady Taan's personal fleet's pretty crazy... Even her little Krait, Ad Astra, is decked out with some pretty top of the line stuff from super exclusive brands, and she's just Taan's commuter ship... her pleasure yacht's an Imperial Cutter called Immortal Empress. Lemme tell ya, You haven't seen expensive until you've seen that ship... She's practically a castle's treasure vault with an FSD."

"Wow... Sounds like I'm practically pocket change to that mare then" I said in disbelief.

"Yeah, pretty much... Though I'd think that the bits to buy you were gotten from your fleet's sub-account, Taan doesn't seem to be in the habit of throwing her personal funds around willy nilly like that."

"Well if she's as loaded as you're suggesting, I can kinda see why... not exactly a great idea to flaunt that kind of wealth wherever you go."

"Yeah, Out here that kind of money gets you some unsavory attention, Probably why Taan usually sticks around the core when she's not out here managing her little empire. Her profile isn't really helped by the fact that she's really the only major long haul freight company that operates out here, you want cargo moved from here to Horace Beta or beyond, you go through her. As you can imagine, that means every creature out here knows her name."

"I bet..."

The upgrades didn't take too long to finish, I would have been out of there in under two hours if Flash Lamp and I hadn't gotten so deep in conversation.

"... Yeah, I remember when I saw a newbie on the station operate the toilets wrong... poor thing was scrubbing for ages afterward, though I will admit the startled scream and toilet noises coming from inside the restroom was pretty funny... until I had to go in and fix it."

"I chuckled at her remark and looked at the dingy clock on the wall, forgetting for a brief that I had an internal clock... one which even displayed in the corner of my heads up display.

"Nice chat, but I think it's about time I go and check in with my commander, it's getting a bit late."

"Yeah, I suppose so, But it was nice talking to ya, If you ever need someone to talk your ears off, you know where to find me!" she joked. "Oh and Just so you know, the AI core upgrade was installed but i don't know if it's working... it wouldn't connect properly, so maybe keep an eye on that." She added as I left the room.

"I will!" I yelled back from down the hall.

I opened up a comms channel to Europa.

"Commander, are you free?" I asked.

two seconds later I got a response.

"Yep, What's up?" She retorted in a very casual tone.

"My avatar's tune up is done, is there anything else that needs to be done? or should I just return me to myself"

she paused, seemingly to think things over for a moment

"Why don't you come meet up with me so we can explore the station a bit more, I could use a bit of a distraction after being in a stuffy office hearing somepony talk about combat maneuvers all day."

"I'll be right there, see you in a few minutes"

I pulled up the station map again and used my sensors ship-side to get an accurate read on where Europa's holo-brace was.

In a couple seconds I found her deeper into the central part of the station, maybe only a fifteen minute walk from my current location using the optimal route. I turned and cantered off along the glowing line.

As I walked the monotonous corporate hallways and offices opened out into larger promenades and gardens full of plants. If it hadn't already been obvious, this wasn't like any resupply base I'd ever seen. clearly it was more of an arcology, complete with it's own internal economy, living space, and back alley hooligans.Looking back behind me I could see that the hallways nearest to the promenade areas looked to be at least partially composed of apartments for the various denizens of this place. I did a quick scan of all the shops, vendors, and restaurants I could see and saved it for when I met up with Europa.

I took an escalator to the floor above me and wove my way back out into the more utilitarian areas beyond the pretty commons. A few more turns and long hallways put me right near the navigation beacon I'd been following.

Europa sat leaning against the wall, poking through her holo-brace's interface. From what I could tell she was watching a video about cats playing in low gravity.

"You know you didn't have to wait, I set up a nav beacon to find you" I said questioningly.

"Yeah, but then I'd be window shopping all alone, and that's way less fun." She retorted with a smile.

I giggled a little. "Why don't we get a move on then, I caught glimpses of some neat stuff on the way up here."

4. A stroll around the block

The two of us meandered back out to the promenade and began making our way along the little shops and restaurants that lined the edge of the massive room.

"So how was the repair shop? Was it as boring as sitting in a classroom all day?" Europa asked.

"Actually not at all, The mechanic mare was fun to chat with, She and I swapped some old stories as she was poking around my insides, well... she swapped most of the stories... my drives are still a bit of a jumbled mess after the fed navy scrubbed all the classified stuff."

"Glad you had some fun at least, How about your new fleet-mates?"

I bit my lip a bit and tried to think of a way to put things nicely.

"Well, Most of them are great... buuut... Uhhh, One of them was pretty rude to put things politely."

"Oh, Well hopefully we can keep our distance then, If possible I'd rather not piss too many ponies off so early into our tenure." She said hopefully

"You won't hear any complaints from me" I replied.

There were plenty of shops on the upper deck of the promenade, though many didn't seem to strike Europa's fancy.
She did however pause to peer into an equipment outfitter. The store was called "Roads Less Traveled" and seemed to be aimed toward exploration and various sporting activities. Europa turned and wandered inside. I took a moment to look at the ponequins in the windows showing off some of the store's wares. One of them was wrapped up in some sort of space suit fitted with climbing gear, and the other was set up with some various camping supplies. Adorably Rustic!

I cantered inside after Europa and fell in step beside her as she took in the atmosphere... with both her eyes and nose. I took a sniff and found that the place smelled like a fabric store combined with some sort of woody-smelling air freshener. The smell of the place was very mild, likely to avoid putting off ponies whom were not accustomed to anything outside of the sterile, slightly musty air aboard ships and stations.

"Interesting choice... Why'd you come in here? I don't really think we'll be doing much hiking or camping on cargo routes." I asked, giving her a slightly confused head tilt.

"Eh, I dunno, sometimes these type of places are fun to look at. And I'll admit that for a long time I've wanted to go out and explore the universe, just to see what was out there... Y'know?" Europa said wistfully, staring off into 'space', which in this case was the virtual window projected onto the ceiling showing a view of the stars above some other distant world.

"Maybe someday I can help you fulfill that wish... " I said hopefully. Even though I was built for combat, I couldn't truthfully say that I never wanted to take a trip off the beaten path and see what the universe had to offer beyond the reach of pony hooves.

" If only Aunt Shivu weren't in my way maybe I'd already be out there seeing the stars." She sighed.

" Why's that?" I asked. Now I was a little more curious.

"She's really controlling... to put it politely, she 'strongly coerced' me into working for her company. It took a lot to convince her to let me fly in her fleet... and of course she immediately gave me the toughest job she can find by sticking me on convoy defense duty on the most dangerous route she operates... probably to try and convince me to go back into the little box she laid out for me."

"I'm not exactly qualified to weigh in on this, but even to me It seems like your aunt needs to loosen up a little and let you live your life... " I commented. It wasn't as if I really had any of my own autonomy, but I was aware that ponies often valued that sort of thing quite highly.

"Tell me about it... but enough about that nonsense, Let's go ogle overpriced outdoor equipment!"

I smiled and followed her deeper into the shop. As I did so I took a few milliseconds to catalog what I'd learned and add it to Europa's profile in my memory.

For the next two point two five hours we meandered in and out of various stores, chatting and looking at the various things on offer. Despite all the shopping we didn't really buy much. Europa bought a few stickers and a pair of matching winter hats from the clearance bin of one of the clothing stores we stopped into. The stickers were immediately plastered on my right flank and one of the hats found its way onto my avatar's head

After she did that and giggled like a filly at her own antics I couldn't help but blush and laugh along.

When we'd had our fill of shopping we decided to head back toward the hangar area so Europa could see the progress on my repairs and to get to the fleet crew quarters to get some rest.

We stepped into Europa's apartment and she let out a relieved sigh as she used her magic to remove her bags, boots, and jumpsuit.

I gave the space a visual once over. The place was lightly cluttered and had a homely 'Lived in" sort of atmosphere to it without being offputting. Yet at the same time it felt almost... lonely. It wasn't hard to see that Europa had been living here all by herself for quite some time.

"Hey, Duna. Can you set an alarm for oh-seven hundred for tomorrow and the day after please?" She asked dismissively. it took a split second longer to process the request, I still wasn't entirely used to ponies saying please when issuing commands to me.

"Sure thing... How would you like me to alert you?" I responded.

"Uhh... Since it's just my alarm to wake up, I'd say just use some sort of sound... and if I don't wake up within 5 minutes you have my permission to shove me out of bed" She chuckled sheepishly.

"Bit of a heavy sleeper I take it?"

"Definitely... as a colt my caretakers would often joke with me that I'd be able to sleep through fire alarms or in the middle of a war zone"

The phrasing of her sentence gave me pause.

"Wait... Colt? is that correct? or do you mean Filly" I asked, trying to make sure it wasn't just a grammatical hiccup.

"Yeah...that was the correct word at one point... That was practically a lifetime ago though so it's really not important anymore... I'd rather not mention it if I don't have to."

"Understood... preferences updated" I retorted. "On another note... If you don't mind me asking... you don't seem to speak about your parents much..."

"Not much to say really... They were fine enough and provided for my siblings and I just fine. I just didn't really know them too well since they were always pretty busy working for aunt Taan. We didn't get a ton of free time to spend together... I kinda wish I could have gotten to know them better though... they seem like good ponies. In all honesty the various foalsitters and nannies I've had feel more like my family than they do. Miss Buttercup was as close to a real mother as I ever got... I didn't really have a conventional father figure in my life... I think the closest thing I had was one of the security guardsmares... Miss Armor Plate... Or just Plate... She was built like a bomb shelter and could practically throw me across a room without a sweat, but she had a heart of gold and gave me some good advice... I should really pay both of them a visit sometime... When I rotate home for my break I'll probably do that.

"It's unfortunate you never truly knew your folks... But i'm glad you still had good people to look up to."

"Yeah... I think That's enough rambling for tonight though... It's high time I get some food in me and get to bed so I'm not a total train wreck tomorrow morning."

"That's probably a smart course of action... Hopefully I'll be put together enough to do a shakedown flight tomorrow. "

I watched Europa wander into the other room and shut the door behind herself. I took that as a hint that I should put myself into runlevel 2 for the night.

I found a spot on the couch and set all systems to minimum power settings before dropping into runlevel 2. The world faded out and I let myself drift into an approximation of pony sleep.

My conscious reeled for a moment as my processors drank in the data coming off of my sensors. There was a lot to take in... and yet it felt as if there was nothing at all pressing about all of the information assaulting my mind.

It didn't seem like I was in any danger so I decided to take things slow... First things first, What condition was I in?

The readout was... odd... I wasn't reading any sort of damage beyond the usual, yet I was somehow not recieving any input from my FSD, Not as in 'The FSD is damaged and needs urgent repair' instead It was as if the FSD wasn't even there...

I tried to connect to my avatar so I could go investigate, but I got a similar lack of response.

odd...

That failing I swapped to the interior cameras and checked cam 15, the only one within the armored drive housing.

The drive itself was still there, but it seemed that the large emitter crystals had been removed... the rotating mount for the crystals just silently spun around trying to home itself against the focusing assembly to no avail.

The normally smooth camera feed flickered like it was some kind of ancient tube TV

Suddenly the drive was working... and there was somepony standing in front of it.

"Hello?" I offered, confused.

The figure walked away from the brightly glowing drive core and stepped into the hall... The gait was too precise and mechanical to be a pony... heck even most avatars didn't walk like that.

When it came into view of the hall camera I felt my processors stutter for a second.

It was my avatar... Walking all on its own. It wasn't really odd, after-all it did have a rudimentary fallback AI that could control it without connection to my main processing stack... but my VSTAA was still throwing a few too many Fear and uncertainty signals to be completely at ease.

I watched my avatar march slowly through my interior... After several tense minutes it reached one of the primary nodes of my processor stack, opening the armored door without the appropriate event triggering in my mind...

It produced a cable from it's chest and plugged itself directly into the diagnostic port.

For a split second I felt a searing jolt rip across my entire system before the interrupt command triggered and I was unceremoniously 'tossed' out of runlevel 2.

My avatar's cameras came back online, and I found myself laying at the foot of Europa's bed making alarm clock beeping sounds... I didn't remember walking over to her bed... I wasn't even sure how I moved in the first place... It wasn't like avatars to just go wandering off while the AI driving was asleep. I didn't really want to deal with it in my current state of mind so I just noted down my confusion and dumped a log file so I could bury it until further notice.

I detected Europa stirring on the bed, abruptly a hoof flopped over the end of the bed and waved around gently tapping at my face... probably trying to stop the alarm.

"Bwegh... Where's the snooze button" She mumbled groggily.

"I dunno, You'll just have to get up and find out" I lied a little, giving her a cheeky smile.

"Ughh... Fine..." She groaned. As she stumbled out of bed I connected into the room's IOT mesh network and turned on the coffee machine... At least that had been easy to access... Unlike the primary base network.

She stood up and poked at my nose a few times...

"Egh F'kin quiet already... " She mumbled... I snickered a little bit at her expense as she walked past.

I was going to let the alarm keep going until she left the room but that plan was quickly thwarted as I felt a hoof slap my rump.

The alarm stopped abruptly as I felt my blush protocol trigger on max settings... I stood there stunned for a few moments trying to form a response.

"Found it!"

I turned to see Europa giving me a shit-eating grin as she turned and wandered toward the coffee machine.

Why are my buttons so easy to press -

I wondered to myself for only a couple processor cycles before my common sense kicked back in and I realized it was because I was a self aware appliance who was supposed to have easy to press buttons...

"Curse AI programmers and their ergonomic design methodology" I muttered to myself.

In the apartment's living room I found my Commander groggily sipping at a large mug of coffee... Instead of a coffee mug, she'd grabbed a huge beer mug from goddesses know where and filled it to the brim... Looking over I could see that the coffee pot was now mostly empty.

Had I been fresh off the assembly line I would probably have made a quip about that much caffeine being unhealthy or just made a single serving of coffee, but I had enough common sense after all these years to keep my speech-hole shut when dealing with tired creatures and their access to stimulants.

Within about an hour both of us were out the door and heading back to the hangar bay to take a look at the repair crew's work and go out for a shakedown test. Tomorrow was going to be my first actual mission if all went well.

When we arrived I watched myself and Europa approach my pad.

Though I'd been aware that work had been completed, I hadn't actually taken the time to really take a good look at myself, I'd been mostly focused on controlling my avatar.

Right off the bat I could already tell that I was much cleaner... It was the first time in a very long time I felt clean. My interior had been vacuumed and I noticed that a lot of the surface rust had been cleaned off, the more serious rust spots had been cut out and replaced with assorted patches and painted over with a weird shade of greenish blue anti-corrosion paint, some spots had already been sprayed with fresh paint... I was still a patchwork mess but it was leagues ahead of before. Though I did notice that two of my guns were presently missing, as well as the missile tubes in my chest mount.

"So... What's with the lack of guns on my rear and chest mounts?" I asked one of the ground ponies.

"Parts sourcing issues.... A few of your gunbarrels had some microfractures that wouldn't fare well if fired so we pooled the good barrels to get your forward mounts working. Ops was swapping out the chest mount with something else but they haven't decided yet so you're gonna be flying without it for awhile.

"Understood. I've been led to believe that I've been made ready for a test flight?"

"Should be, Just run a pre-flight and send the results to the terminal over there, If everything checks out you're ready to depart" The maintenance pony gestured over to a computer sitting on a workbench in the corner of the maintenance bay.

"Running pre-flight Diagnostics now." I stated as I lowered my head to allow my commander and avatar to board.

In a half dozen seconds all of the checks were completed and sent off... there were some errors thrown, but they looked to be from the empty hardpoints and some other hardware that had been removed intentionally.

"Everything looks within expected params, You're all set to go." The maintenance pony stated, giving me a nod as the scaffolds were rolled away and I was allowed to stand up.

Europa plopped herself down in the commander's chair and my avatar sat down in the other seat. she flicked a few switches and watched the various screens and gauges come alive as my reactors ramped up to operating levels.

"Before I forget, you were just registered, but we had to change your old navy tail number to something that worked in the DSV's system. Your new tail number is WH-666. The DSV pony thought the triple six was cool and found a valid number that kept it. Personally I thought it was a bit cheesy but I figured you'd appreciate it."

"Tail number updated... And yes I do appreciate it. I think 'Hexes' was my nickname with the maintenance crews for awhile... I think it was more due to difficulty working on me though." I giggled a little.

Europa smiled and opened a channel to the STC.

"Outpost Four November Six, Whiskey Hotel Six Six Six is requesting permission to startup and taxi."

" WH-666 this is Outpost control, Clear for startup, please proceed to pad four."

"Copy that, WH-666 beginning startup"

I watched as my engines spooled up from cold start.

A warm red glow came from inside my engines as they began to pre-heat just before a jet of supercooled gas vented from various relief valves near each engine as the air starters primed and spun up my weird dual-primary drive system.

a deep hum grew into a high pitched wail just before loud "FWOOOMP" sounds announced the engines starting up.

With engines happily idling I carefully trotted off the ramp and out onto pad 4. I ran one quick final check as my commander hailed the tower again.

"WH-666 to tower, requesting permission to depart for in system test flight."

"Tower to Whiskey Hotel triple six, you are cleared for departure on heading one niner. Hyperspace weather is favorable with minimal turbulence. Safe travels commander"

With that the pad ascended to the surface. The air shield passed over me and I was once again plunged into hard vacuum.

"All right, Let's get somewhere nice and empty... Uhhh... Set course for Bastet 2, It's out of the way of convoy ops, but there's still an outpost with rescue crews near enough to send help if something goes wrong."

"Setting course now... we're not just going there for a basic function test are we?" I asked

"Not quite... You'll see... I hope you like playing rough!"

I tried not to blush at the implications... I had to disable some of the "Companion" functions to avoid embarrassing myself in front of Europa... Granted she probably wouldn't mind too much given her more laid back disposition, but we did have things to get done, and I had a diagnostic feed transmitting back to base... I didn't really want the mechanics to see any suspicious activity on the sensor readouts while they were still connected.

I've really gotta stop thinking about that so much

I shook myself out of my delusions and spooled the warp engine.

It only took a few minutes to make the trip, I settled into a comfortable low orbit above the brownish grey world below.

"Stable orbit achieved" I stated.

"Good, Swap to manual override mode, Lets see what you can really do!" Europa said excitedly

"Override engaged, You have control", My control sticks went limp and slid toward the seats a short distance to bring them within reach of my commander.

Europa gripped a control stick in each hoof and moved them around gently, seemingly getting a feel for responsiveness.

I couldn't even remember the last time I was flown in manual mode. The experience was strange... While I still had control over flight assist functions, Europa's inputs were being transmitted straight to my thrusters, all I could do was observe unless I issued an emergency override.

I could feel her trembling imperceptably as she tried to gently rotate me around and strafe laterally. Her movements were uncertain and exploratory, and she seemed startled at how quickly I could turn for such a large ship.

"sweet Luna's perfect crotchboobs that's twitchier than I was expecting..."

Would you like me to turn down the control sensitivity?

"Nono... It's fine, The sims I was given were based on a normal python... I just gotta get a feel for it is all.

After another minute and a half of exploring my controls she seemed to calm herself a little. In turn her inputs became smoother and more deliberate.

"Okay I think I've got a feel for you... Load up obstacle course program, ASPRL practice race course 4"

Normally ASPRL courses were intended for tiny little modified race ships built from the likes of viper mk3's, eagles, sidewinders and assorted ship launched fighters. The largest ship that would normally ever fly these courses in any serious context would be heavily modded viper MK4's, much less something as large as an oversized python. Even with my modified maneuvering rockets It'd be challenging to even stay on the course. I didn't say as much to my commander. I doubted she'd make the course first try, but I wasn't about to discourage her from getting some much needed practice in.

"Done". Immediately I projected a virtual ring onscreen to fly through, I also placed a pointer at it's edge to indicate the approximate direction of the next ring. The rest of the visible portion of the course appeared soon after. "Would you like me to enable stopwatch functionality?"

"Sure... though for now I think anything better than a DNF is the best I can hope for."

I enabled the program's stopwatch function and waited for her to fly through the first ring.

Europa tightened her seat restraints and let out a breath just before she jammed my throttles to full.

My engines roared to life as we flew through the first ring. The edges of my visor flashed green as we passed through it, the timer started counting.

The first few straight sections and slow turns were completed without much difficulty. As a tight turn approached she backed off the throttle and yanked my stick hard to swing me around a tight turn while using lateral thrusters to adjust trajectory to stay just barely within the course. The sensation was euphoric, almost like a shockwave of pleasure had exploded from my reactors and fired out through every thruster, It was incredible. I felt myself blush hard and clapped a hoof over my avatar's mouth and crossed my legs tightly to keep from moaning like a hippogriff in a bad porno.

I wasn't sure why I found the experience so euphoric but I wasn't going to complain, It felt incredible!

The next few turns were fast and messy, Then there was a straightaway just before a tight vertical hairpin turn.

Europa entered the corner too fast, With a hard jerk she flung me over backward and engaged boost.. I practically felt my mind explode as we flew off the course and the edges of the screen flashed red for a moment as a buzzer sounded and the timer flashed "DNF"

Europa sighed and relaxed with a slightly shaky sigh. "Dang... took that one a little too hot... Hey Duna, How far through the course did I make it..." She turned to my avatar, and found me with legs still crossed and muzzle covered, blushing aggressively. I trembled with my cooling fans on full blast, trying to recover from the ecstasy experienced a few seconds ago. "Hey you alright?"

It took a moment for me to respond. "M...more than alright... That was... wow... Just... Sweet luna's flanks that felt.... good. Oh, and you... uhhh... you only made it about ten percent of the way through the course." I replied, still blushing hard.

"Sounds like someplone likes having her sticks tugged on~" Europa teased playfully... "Been awhile since anypony's given you a ride like that huh?"

"I... Guess you could say that... yes... Uhh... Would you like me to reset the course for you?" I replied sheepishly.

"Sure thing, Hope you enjoy the ride!"

"I will!"

The course flickered back into existence on my HUD and the timer reset to zero.

"Alright, Round two!" Europa said gleefully as she once again gave my throttles a shove.

I could only see stars as we shot through the first checkpoint.