The Equine Starliner

Chapters

Chapter 1: Takeoff
Chapter 2: Commissioning
Chapter 3: Captain
Chapter 4: Transformed
Chapter 5: Hydroponics
Chapter 6: Pirates
Chapter 7: Exercises
Chapter 8: Drills
Chapter 9: Upgrades

Chapter 1: Takeoff

“Good morning, Doctor Builder.”

Dr. Fancy Builder bowed as he stepped into the Space Lord’s office.

Space Lord Matthews smiled. The man had been one of the first to get caught up in the fairly new- and still moderately unpopular but rapidly spreading- fad of naming children for what their parents hoped they could achieve; he had also achieved, apparently. “I hear you want to launch a civilian vessel under Navy authority?”

“Uh, Yes, Sir,” Dr. Builder answered.

“And none of the Guilds will let you launch under their authority?”

“That is correct, Sir.”

“Could you enlighten me as to why?”

“She’s equipped with a new type of FTL drive, theoretically capable of taking her where no other ship is currently capable of following. Unfortunately, while the drive itself is massive, the necessary support systems- from navigation to shields to power and so on- are even more so. As a direct result, she outmasses even the largest of our superdreadnaughts, yet only about two percent of her volume is available for passenger or cargo purposes- the rest is all systems. That puts her above the size and mass limits for the Personal Starship Guild and the Minor Yacht Guild, yet below the passenger-to-displacement minimum for basically every for-profit authority I was able to find.

“The Civilian Guild doesn’t like the potential of these engines to destroy the ship, since they require a full, live crew at all stages; her self-defence armament is too large for the Passenger Liner Guild, and her passenger-to-firepower ratio is too low for the Passenger Cruiser Guild. Then there’s all the freight guilds- which, aside from how none of them will allow any firepower, she also falls short of all of their freight-to-displacement and freight-to-mass minimums.

“And finally, she’s simply too big for the Science Guild. I think they’re afraid of fuel prices, though I’ve already loaded her with enough for her initial Testing Voyage and she is equipped with a fuel scoop.”

He scowled. “How about the LTL Guild?”

He shook his head. “She took longer than one year to build.”

“Up-and-coming guild?”

“She outmasses their station.”

“Unique Launch Association?”

“She was not built at an ULA-certified facility- and they refused to certify it until it’s empty.”

“The Cannon Liner Guild?”

“Her engines aren’t big enough for them, relative to her mass.”

“Hmm…” He rubbed his chin. “The Anything Goes Line?”

“Suspended last week for willingly working with the Black Fang.”

“Ouch. Um…” He thought for a few seconds. “I suppose that does tend to leave the Navy as the only option, doesn’t it? Aside from starting your own Guild, of course.”

He nodded. “And I don’t have ten members with their own orbiting ships.”

“True. Well… do you know what the requirements are for launching under Navy authority?”

He shook his head. “No idea, Sir. Wasn’t able to find anything.”

“Well, for one thing, every vessel we launch must be combat capable.”

He nodded. “I designed her to be capable of minor combat and self-defense. Especially considering her size, it seemed only prudent.”

He bowed his head. “So what’s the firepower-to-mass ratio?”

Dr. Builder raised the tablet he’d had under his arm. “Dry mass or wet mass?”

“Dry.”

“At least four kilogram-seconds per ton.”

“At least?”

“She’s equipped with several new weapons I came up with during construction- they haven’t been tested yet, and are not counted.”

“Ahh. Then she’ll pass that requirement under the Weapons Testing Exception.”

“Exception?”

“Yes- the minimum firepower-to-mass for naval launches is a hundred kilogram-seconds per ton.” He sighed. “I hope your untested weapons perform well- under the Weapons Testing Exception, if she still fails to meet the requirements after they are tested, she will be required to return to her drydock and denied permission to relaunch under any authority for at least three months.”

He winced. “... Alright, I can work with that.”

“Alright then. How about ammunition bunkerage- for how long can she maintain maximum rate fire?”

“She’ll be launching with well below a full loadout, but given a full load, she should be able to maintain maximum-rate fire with all tested weapons for forty-eight hours, though about two percent of them will have about five percent periodic downtime for reloading.”

“High rate of fire?”

He nodded. “She has a couple Incinerator gatling turrets, but the rest is from her fifty-hertz railguns. Her missile tubes are capable of a two-second shot delay out of the five-round on-mount magazine, with nine seconds transfer per missile from main magazines or from other mounts, for maximum surge of six rounds in twelve seconds; I ignored this surge capacity in my calculations.”

“How about for the untested?”

“She has a high-energy lateral accelerator weapon designed to accelerate masses of warheads to sub-luminal velocity, maximum magazine depth is six rounds per weapon. For testing, she will be launching empty warhead casings- fire rate unknown. She also has four externally-mounted one-off missiles designed for rapid eradication of a large assaulting force; all other untested weapons are energy weapons.”

He nodded. “Alright, that passes. How about fuel bunkerage- maximum combat power time?”

“That… would be a tricky one. I don’t yet know how much fuel she’ll run through at maximum combat power, especially with some of the experimental weapons consuming fuel directly as well. Maximum capable power, without weapons drain, should give her approximately three months from full bunkers.”

“... How about idle time?”

“Idling? Assuming all power is from fusion, a couple thousand years. Around Earth, or in other solar-suitable areas, and without significant drain, she can shut down her fusion plants entirely and operate off of live and stored solar power, for indefinite idle time.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’ll pass the requirements… but only because there is no maximum. If she has to return to dock, you can expect there will be a maximum by the time any relaunch comes about. Though, if she’s going to have a passive idle like that, what is her maximum combat time on stored power alone?”

“I don’t know. She’ll be able to run all tested weapons and engines for at least four days on the secondary reserves- but the primary reserves are also a new technology, tested on the ground, and I have yet to discover their limit.”

“Alright. Crew capacity and requirements?”

“To fully use all facilities at capacity without automation assistance, I estimate a crew of forty thousand may be necessary; she is designed to be capable of self-management, all the way up to AI-driven autonomous operation in both manned and unmanned environments. I expect her Testing Voyage to be unmanned, in case the engines- or something else- blows the ship.”

“And the firepower-to-crewmember limit is automatically met by the zero-crew capability… Passenger capacity to crew count, assuming full crew?”

“Two point five million passengers per crewmember- maximum passenger capacity by berthing is a hundred billion, maximum atmospheric life support estimated at half a trillion, long-term life support- including hydroponics and recycling- available for approximately one quarter trillion.”

“Good. Speed?”

“Under her traditional Distortion Drive, she should be able to hit twenty-five hundred cee; thrusters will impart approximately a quarter of a meter per second squared; magnetic drive, two meters per second squared. She is equipped with a new gravity drive- technology tested on the ground, but implemented at larger scale- that is theoretically capable of accelerations as high as fifty gees, and is confirmed to be able to exert at least one gee on the ground. Her untested engines have the theoretical capability to boost top speed and acceleration under any other drive scheme, in addition to their unique drive scheme- which, in theory, will allow the ship to travel interdimensionally.”

He scowled. “Hmm… That’s just barely within the requirements on the traditional engines, so it’ll pass. Interdimensional travel… I assume that means we won’t be able to spot her with another vessel from launch to commission?”

“Uh… No. Not unless you’ve got something similar.”

“Well, that is a requirement… and the very last one. With no exceptions.”

Dr. Builder sighed. “Right. So…”

“So at this time, I cannot authorize the launch under naval authority. But don’t give up- I’ll see if I can’t get an Engine Testing Exception to that on the books.”

“Ahh… Well, the launch reservation is for tomorrow morning.”

“Good thing I can still meet with the USN’s policymaking body tonight, eh? I’ll get you your answer, see if you can’t give her the go-ahead tonight.” Space Lord Mathews scowled. “Though with preflights, that might not be fast enough.”

“Oh, uh,” he chuckled softly. “She’s actually already started those, a few days ago. I can call her off until the moment she leaves the ground- though doing so grounds her for a couple of weeks to allow her to reset everything, and the time required for a fresh set of preflights.”

“... Ahh. Then don’t cancel it just yet, and I’ll be telling you whether or not you have to.”

Ten hours later, Space Lord Matthews tapped a comms combination into his terminal, then waited while it rang.

Finally, it answered… Voicemail. It played back the recording, gave him the signal.

“Good evening, Dr. Builder,” he greeted the silent pickups. “Good news. The Engine Testing Exception was approved, and you’ve been cleared to launch under naval authority with both exceptions. Your ship is cleared to operate completely without oversight for the initial, automated Testing Voyage, before returning for manned testing afterwards. I’m looking forward to hearing just how effective those new engines are!” He hung up.

Then he let out a sigh, and leaned back in his chair. That was right about the last thing he had to do tonight.

So he turned slightly to the side, to look up at the TV screen on the wall, showing the local news station. It looked like they were covering a car crash. “Unmute,” he commanded.

He could instantly hear the newscaster. “- estrian that was struck was just identified as Dr. Fancy Builder, who was just given a launch authorization by the United Star Navy…”

He looked back at his terminal. “That… That will be a problem.”

Author's Note

It's hard to launch a starship, isn't it? I mean, all you have to do is forget to push the 'stop' button...

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The Guilds:

Personal Starship Guild: For civvy ships to be owned & operated by a single person. Minimal size/mass, passenger capacity usually in the 10-15 range.
Minor Yacht Guild: For fancy civvy ships to be owned & operated by a single person. Much higher size/mass limits, minimum "fanciness" and luxury thresholds.
Other yacht guilds (not mentioned): They require ownership by a company and operation by a crew of 5 or more. Otherwise, she'd meet the Major Yacht Guild's requirements.
Civilian Guild: For public service ships, nothing dangerous allowed, any armament allowed as long as the ship's owner and crew are all certified by the Navy to operate an armed vessel. Must not jeopardize its own passengers at any point, though.
Passenger Liner Guild: For unarmed passenger liners. A few point defense turrets are permitted, but in general, they should rely on other warships for protection.
Passenger Cruiser Guild: For armed passenger liners. Capable of defending itself, but not supposed to attack; must meet a minimum passenger-to-firepower ratio, in order to make a large enough profit off the passengers while still paying the combat crew.
Science Guild: For Science! She meets their requirements, but the bean counters don't want to bankroll it.
LTL = "Lighter Than Light". They measure weight by construction time, apparently.
Up-And-Coming Guild: For up-and-coming "new" models... that can dock to their space station, not the other way around.
Unique Launch Association: So long as they can examine and certify the construction & launch facility before the ship is built, they'll launch any ship that is truly unique in at least one way- any ship willing to challenge the status quo, so to speak.
Canon Liner Guild: for passenger liners with MASSIVE engines, whose sole purpose is to get a few passengers to the destination as quickly as possible.
Anything Goes Line: Literally anything goes. Including stuff that explodes on the launchpad and outlaws like the Black Fang, hence the suspension.

By the way, if the various ratios cited in the military requirements are in the "ridiculous" category, I can change them.

Chapter 2: Commissioning

“Orbital Control to Vessel in orbit bravo-seven-three-charlie-niner-two-alpha-seven, come in,”

“Starship Athena in named orbit to Orbital Control, I copy.”

“Alright Athena, I’m going to need you to boost to orbit echo-niner-two-bravo-one-six-delta-two.”

“Starship Athena, boosting to Orbit Echo Niner Two Bravo One Six Delta Two, initial burn in six minutes, mark.”

“Readback is correct, thank you.”

“Orbital Control to Starship Athena, come in.”

“Starship Athena to Orbital Control, I copy.”

“Athena, I need you to return to your prior orbit.”

“Starship Athena, returning to prior Orbit Bravo Seven Three Charlie Niner Two Alpha Seven, initial burn in two point three minutes, mark.”

“Uh… Readback is correct, thank you.”

“Orbital Control to Starship Athena, come in.”

“Starship Ath-!”

He switched off the tape, and looked up at Head Space Commissioner Kane. “As you can tell, she’s been responding properly and promptly to all our controllers. Maybe you’re using a protocol she’s not equipped for?”

Commissioner Kane raised an eyebrow. “I’m asking for literally anyone aboard,” he stated. “You’re asking explicitly for the bridge.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Try being a little more specific?”

He scowled, and left the Orbital Control Captain’s office. He’d fob it off on a junior commissioner- let them deal with the ship whose testing crew refused to answer the calls of the Office of Commissions.

“Commissioner West to Starship Athena Local Area Control, come in.”

Commissioner West waited silently, listening to the radio, for several seconds. He’d transmitted it on the general local control channel- the channel used by small craft approaching a larger ship to request injection into its dedicated Local Area Control Network, used to coordinate operations between small craft in the vicinity of a larger vessel.

There was no response.

He sighed. He couldn’t say he hadn’t expected that- every one of his calls to the testing crew from the surface had failed, so he rather suspected the testing crew might have either abandoned the controls, or abandoned the ship altogether. He’d even looked for personal numbers, but been unable to find any names for the testing crew- as far as his computer was concerned, the ship had been tested by a crew of air.

Which happened, when someone didn’t do their job properly and forgot to tell the computers who was testing the thing.

That was his third attempt at establishing communications via traffic control radio- so he had to assume the ship was unmanned. He switched to the general Vessel Approach channel. “Commissioner West to Starship Athena, prepare to be boarded,” he instructed, and put the mic down. He then tapped his controls, and drove his tiny little shuttle towards the massive ship.

It was easily the largest ship in space. He’d seen cargo ships, far larger than superdreadnoughts, that would have fit through a hole the size of just one of the massive engines mounted on the back of this thing.

And someone had abandoned it in space, just asking for it to get stolen.

This was particularly dangerous for a ship like this one- even at this size, it had been launched under Navy authority- which meant it was armed. He had been ordered to commission it into naval service as well, meaning it had passed all tests, and been confirmed to meet all the minimum requirements; all he had to do was give it a quick inspection, determine the crew complement and supplies required for a long-duration cruise, and assign her a USN name and call tag.

For the last of those, U.S.N. Athena was available, so he’d already reserved the name for this ship. He liked preserving names given to ships during their testing or construction phases.

It didn’t exactly hurt that the name ‘Athena’ was already plastered, in large letters, on the sides of the ship. Keeping that name would reduce the amount of work required to apply the new name.

Exactly as expected, as he drew close, the approach lights around an external airlock lit up. He sighed, and flew towards it.

He needed to get this done as quickly as possible, lest any… unsavory parties realize she was unsecured and swoop in for the treasure.

His docking procedure only took a couple of minutes, before he had the doors opened.

He paused before he entered the ship. For one thing, there was a strange tingly feeling in the air, drifting out of the larger ship’s airlock; for another, whereas his shuttle- and every starship he was aware of- had zero gravity inside, the screens on the inside of this airlock were apparently warning him of a full gravity shipboard. There was even a colored grab bar just inside the airlock doors, lined up perfectly with a line around the inside of the door frame labeled as the ‘gravity line’.

He looked at it for a few seconds, then launched himself forwards, grabbed that bar, and swung himself across the interface.

His stomach rebelled instantly. Except it wasn’t so much his stomach, since he didn’t have to fight to keep his lunch from coming up. He released the grab bar only half-voluntarily, stumbled on landing… and passed out seconds later, collapsing to the decking.

“This is Commissioner West.”

Head Space Commissioner Kane raised an eyebrow. It had taken forever, but he’d finally gotten ahold of Space Commissioner West. And not through is personal phone, either- the junior commissioner he’d pushed the Athena off onto had been incommunicado, marked as ‘aboard ship’, for three full days… and he’d only been able to reach him when he’d called the ship and specified for Commissioner West.

It was about time the ship actually answered his call.

“Are you okay up there?” he asked. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“Ah, heh heh, about that,” Commissioner West muttered. “Turns out this ship was unmanned… and apparently has an automatic call routing system. And I think I left my phone in my shuttle, after I was transformed.”

“You were… transformed.”

“Yeah. Into some kind of cartoon horse. It’s a good thing I brought a bathrobe, or I’d be running around naked up here.”

“Into… a horse.” He let out a small snort of laughter. “Then how’d you answer my call?”

“For one thing, these terminals are all touchscreens; for another, I’m somehow still able to grip things with my hooves. And even use my normal phone… don’t ask me how. No pockets to carry it with, though. I expect to have this arkship ready for her new Captain in a couple days. The challenge will be to find a Captain that’s ready for her.”

When he had ordered the starship Athena commissioned into Navy-run passenger service after only the automated deep-space testing, Space Lord Matthews had known that her commissioning would be a newsworthy event.

He had not, however, expected to find out that the commissioner had been transfigured into a creature the newsies had christened a ‘pony’ as soon as he stepped aboard. He’d apparently told reporters that he expected anyone else that stepped aboard to be similarly transformed.

And of course, in the commissioning document he’d uploaded to the database when he officially commissioned the ship into service, he had written that any crew sent to the ship should expect that they could be transformed in a similar manner, but might also be transformed in a different manner, or not at all. He had been unable to find the source of the transformation, but had apparently found his physical abilities to be completely unhampered- just rearranged in a somewhat confusing manner. He’d written that he saw no reason the new crew couldn’t operate it at or even above their prior efficiency levels, given time for adjustment to the new shape. He had, apparently, noticed a vastly increased physical strength after the transformation.

In the event, Space Lord Matthews was present at the assembly when the Commissioner’s shuttle landed roughly at the pad. Commissioner West then trotted out of it, wearing what looked like a bathrobe over his burnt orange fur and dark brown mane. He’d then waved at the gathered newscasters before climbing straight into the van provided by the base hospital per his request; he had, in an amazing show of bravery, volunteered to be examined, to determine whether the transformation was truly as safe as it seemed or not.

The Space Lord then watched the van leave, and made a prepared statement to the press, pertaining mostly to the technology that the ship was equipped with, that had been tested by its launch. The statement had been adjusted, over the last couple of days, to accommodate the suspension on crewing the ship until they’re able to determine that it’s safe to do so.

But of course, since EarthShips was very, very slow to build ships, there were several hundred thousand naval officers, stuck on half pay with no ship to work on. Most of them were fairly junior, since the senior ones tended to get picked first for assignments.

As a result, he happened to know that Personnel was already selecting the eventual crew, in the hopes that it would be cleared for boarding soon. Even so, they planned on sending the crew aboard in waves, just in case they discovered a problem in one of the earlier waves.

He had browsed those crew lists just that morning- and noticed an odd peculiarity, which gave him reason to visit Personnel after the event.

“Good evening, Space Lord.” It was Admiral East, the Head of the Personnel Department.

“Good evening,” Space Lord Matthews answered her. “I was browsing the crew list for the Athena this morning, and I noticed a bit of a peculiarity.”

“Ahh… Um, I should probably make sure you’re aware that it’s a prospective crew list, right? None of the officers on it have been notified, we’re waiting for Medical’s go-ahead before we send anyone. And I verified myself, when they assigned your daughter to it, it’s not out of the ordinary- she really is the best qualified officer we have available.” She shrugged. “It’ll be about time she gets off half pay, won’t it?”

He sighed. “That’s… not what I was asking about. I’m more referring to how every single person on that list is female.”

“Oh, that. We had a debate a couple days ago, and decided that, since it’d take too long to fabricate uniforms for them all and we don’t know what their measurements might be, we can’t expect that they will even be able to wear their uniforms once they board. As a result, picking an all-male or all-female crew was the easiest way to avoid any temptation from that- and we simply have more girls available where it counts.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You know the EEO people are gonna scream, right?”

She nodded. “Yes, they will. And in exchange, since we’re dumping so much female talent into one place, I expect the next few dozen ships will probably have almost exclusively male crews.” She shrugged. “At that point, most of our available talent will be male anyways.”

“And when they point out that the Athena is going to be the only Navy-operated passenger liner?”

“It’s a demonstrated fact that passengers are thirty percent happier when the only crew interacting with them are female than when they are male- the reason passenger liners keep getting in trouble for hiring less-qualified women over more-qualified men.” She shrugged again. “We’re still employing the men for the same ranks and job titles on different ships, so it’s not like we’re in violation. And, you’ll notice that almost ten percent of that roster is actually currently assigned to other ships- we had to do that, to fill the senior ranks. We’re shuffling male talent in to replace them.”

“How would we normally crew a new ship?”

“By pulling a majority of the crew from half-pay, but all the senior elements come from other ships, usually staying within grade, while we promote- or pull from half-pay- to fill the new vacancies on their old ships. That way, we get a solid core of active, current experience, capable of putting the ship’s company together and working them up relatively quickly, while a bunch of half-pay officers get to either hit their stride once again or acquire the on-the-job training that they need to be truly effective officers.”

“Yet Athena’s prospective Captain is on half-pay.”

“As I’m sure you know, Captain Matthews might be on half-pay, but she’s been working with the Space Police and all that- she’s actually got more experience than most of our active-duty Admirals. There was even some debate about whether or not to promote her, but we eventually decided it wouldn’t do to promote her from half-pay- a bad precedent to set, mostly, so we’ve assigned her an acting Commodore status. Even that is just a little junior for her post, but we’re completely confident she has the experience to do it right.” She shrugged. “The biggest challenge we’re expecting- aside from the transformation, of course- is that she’s used to relatively small ships, with crew compliments of twenty to thirty, rather than the hundreds of most of our ships, or Athena’s thousands.”

Then he scowled. “Which reminds me: When Dr. Builder requested permission to launch it two months ago, he told me he expected the crew complement to be roughly forty thousand. Why do we have so large of a crew list?”

“He must’ve overestimated what each crewmember could do, or missed a few stations,” she answered. “By the commissioning report, she needs a minimum crew of about seventy thousand, up to an ideal crew of ninety or a hundred thousand- both numbers meet all requirements as well. We haven’t gotten that far yet, though- and even if we do, I don’t want to throw all of our women at her anyways, especially with the transformation. Hence why she’s going to be technically undercrewed.”

He sighed. “I suppose it might be a good thing she’s supposed to have all sorts of automation capability, mightn’t it?”

“Automation…? Huh. The commissioning report made no mention of such- but if there is such capability, I suppose we’ll find out.” She shrugged. “Who knows, she might become our training ship.” She paused. “Hangon.” She tapped at her console for a few seconds. “... Huh. If we’re only counting operations crew, leaving out medical, cooking, and so on, the minimum is about thirty thousand, ideal forty.”

“That makes sense,” he mused. “He did want to launch her as a civilian vessel, so in the end, he was probably counting non-operations personnel as staff instead of crew.”

She nodded. “He never did seem to understand spacefaring personnel requirements very well, did he? At least the ship has all of the tools and everything- he must’ve worked with a passenger liner designer for her passenger and crew sectors. Speaking of which, we ran over the schematics, and found that she actually has no dedicated crew quarters, except only for the bridge officers and the heads of the various sections. All the rest were, on the schematic, noted to be assigned rooms in the first class passenger sector… which has a capacity of almost half a million, and looks like it was designed for as many cabins as we need to be sectioned off for crew quarters- even with closing bulkheads. That’s about what we’re planning on having them do up there.”

He scowled. “Which reminds me. How about if she has a hull breach?”

“From what Commissioner West told us, she looks like a passenger liner, but there are well-hidden security bulkheads everywhere. When he tested one of them, it slammed shut with an airtight seal completely silently… and faster than the bulkheads on most of our ships, actually.” She looked up at him. “If the Athena isn’t a warship, she’s the next best thing.”

Author's Note

They never know what they're getting into when they step aboard new starships, do they? At least he took it well...

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So I logged on to publish this story, and found out that a transwoman amongst us has been thrown out into the snow by her own parents just for being trans. She’s asking for help, if you have any to offer. Unfortunately, I don’t, right now- though had this happened next month instead, I will.

Chapter 3: Captain

“Good evening, Admiral East.”

“Good evening, Space Lord,” Admiral East bowed.

The Space Lord smiled. “So what brings you to my office?”

“Ah, yes. It’s about the Starship Athena.”

He gave a single, short nod, prompting her to continue.

“It’s been a few months, and even though they haven’t finished their analysis of Commissioner West, Medical’s results have been looking very good- and in anticipation of a positive overall result, I’d like to start polling our active duty and half-pay officers to see which ones would be willing, if assigned to the vessel or otherwise required by their duties, to get transformed in a similar manner.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And when people on your crew list say no?”

She shrugged. “Then we don’t assign them to the vessel.”

“And when a majority of people say no?”

“Then she ends up under-crewed, preferably in the weapon mounts, since those are fairly easy, overall, to fill up later.”

“Will they be given any special incentives?”

“No- my plan is to send this poll out to a majority of our officers, including everyone on the list but at least three times as many not on the list… and to have the exact same wording in every case, with no hint as to the position at stake.”

“And when people start asking when they can board?”

“We’ll explain that the poll was a pre-planning stage in anticipation of a result from Medical, but that nobody will be boarding until and unless we get the go-ahead from Medical.”

“Alright, you have permission. Go ahead and make your poll.”

Space Lord Matthews raised an eyebrow as Admiral East entered his office for the second time in twice as many days. “Good evening, Admiral.”

She bowed. “Good evening, Space Lord.”

“So what is it this time?” he asked. He was in a rather sour mood, after his entire morning and much of his afternoon had been occupied by disciplinary hearings, a funeral, and a press release connected to the two Navy vessels that had been caught supporting the Black Fang, one of the most infamous pirate groups known to the USN.

“It’s the Athena once again, actually. Medical emailed me this afternoon to inform me that all of their tests were good- and we’re clear to send people aboard. Commissioner West is in recovery from the latest bouts of tests, so they’re planning on waiting to announce it until he’s able to walk out of the building and return to his job. I wanted to check on when you wanted me to send her crew their orders, and when for them to execute them.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that your purview?”

“Well yes, normally, but with the Athena, especially considering we commissioned her without actually evaluating her capabilities and only assuming she fit the requirements, I figured you might want to be part of the process.”

He sighed. “Alright then. With your poll a few days ago, how many are left?”

“Pretty much all of them, actually. It was mildly alarming just how many of the women selected the ‘no problem’ option- and how many of the men selected the ‘only if necessary’ option.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So your poll results have cemented the all-female crew?”

She nodded. “Only sixteen men responded favorably to the transformation potential, and they were all fresh recruits at the lower ends of their classes- which is a category we haven’t been considering for the Athena anyways, simply because she is so massive I don’t want anyone with only a weak grasp of how to do their job causing a problem that sends her careening through controlled space.”

He shuddered at the thought. “Alright. How did her prospective upper ranks respond?”

“I was actually surprised that not one of those had a negative reaction,” she stated, “so they’re all still on. Much of the bridge crew- including Captain Matthews- even selected the ‘oh absolutely’ option- which, on the poll, explicitly specified that it meant they would choose to get transformed even if not required by their job or assignment. I rather suspect they have been following along with Medical’s public updates as well- only last week, they confirmed genetic compatibility with untransformed humans, despite his significantly modified genetics.”

He tilted his head. “How’d they do that?”

“Well, I know his wife was involved, and that she’s expecting now…”

He blinked, then shrugged. “Makes sense. But that really only confirms that male transformed and female untransformed are compatible enough to conceive, but not necessarily enough to bear live young.”

She nodded. “Agreed. I did send a follow-up poll to all the positive respondents to that effect, and not one of them responded negatively to it.”

“... Alright then. How big of a crew do we have lined up?”

“We’ve been able to fill out her crew lists entirely, actually- a full hundred thousand. We’ve also been swapping some of them out these last couple months, to give Captain Matthews the best people we can.”

He sighed. “Alright, go ahead and send them in. You’ll probably want to send them their orders a little ahead of time, and definitely send them in waves, in case something comes up. Speaking of which, what waves are you planning?”

She bowed her head. “The first wave is set to actually be just the Captain, alongside a crate of supplies and a robo-helper to move and open it for her, in case she’s not able to adapt to the new form fast enough to do it herself. We’ll then wait for her go-ahead before we send each of the following waves. The second wave will be all her bridge officers and senior members of each department, including Medical and Culinary; there will be enough people in enough stations to make the crew self-sustaining as far as food and so on is concerned. They will board with a series of large crates and a few more robo-helpers; primarily an initial food supply and about one percent of the ship’s eventual hydroponics supplies, which should be more than enough to sustain her entire crew long-term.

“Naturally, they won’t be expected to plant all her hydroponics sectors immediately, but they will be expected to plant enough to be self-sustaining, and regularly expand it to allow for new crew coming aboard. The third wave will be entirely medical personnel, with all of their supplies- then the following waves will be spread across all departments, in order of seniority.”

He nodded. “Alright, sounds good to me.”

Captain Kayla Matthews, despite having a tactical background, was adept enough as a small craft pilot that she had been asked to fly herself up to the massive ship.

There was a part of her that was eager to find out how she would look as a pony… and part of her that was worried about her future naval career. This thing was, essentially, a passenger liner, after all; she’d checked the documents, and aside from a multitude of energy weapons- which ought to make pretty good point defense, but would otherwise be largely useless thanks to their dismally short maximum range- the ship was only slightly better armed than most passenger liners.

She also had an absolutely stupendous passenger capacity.

As such, she was a little worried that this was the Navy’s way of sweeping her under the rug, so to speak- on duty, but out of the way, and on a largely useless ship. Would they even consider her for another ship?

She sighed and, even though she knew it was unmanned, lit up her transmitters on the approach frequency. It was a habit her instructors had drilled into her, and there was no harm in talking at an empty ship anyways- it just wouldn’t respond.

“Captain Matthews to Starship Athena, come in,” she began.

To her surprise, a response came back, in a melodic, female voice, which practically oozed calm confidence. “Starship Athena to Captain Matthews, I copy.”

It took her only a fraction of a second to recover. “Requesting insertion into the Local Area Control Network for approach control.”

“The Starship Athena’s Local Area Control Network is on frequency zero niner four three niner seven two niner six, use callsign Athena One.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Frequency zero niner four three niner seven two niner six, using callsign Athena One,” she read back, simultaneously tapping the frequency into her transmitter.

“Readback is correct.”

She tapped the enter key, waited a couple seconds in case there were other ships talking on the frequency, then spoke. “Athena One to Approach Control, requesting internal berthing.” Local area control network frequencies were permanently assigned at construction, which virtually guaranteed no two ships would share the same one- so the mothership was referred to not by name but by the particular part of it the pilot wanted to speak to.

The exact same voice answered her. “Approach Control to Athena One, proceed at your discretion to Bay Four Niner Seven Three, located just aft of the middle of the T. Caution internal gravity of zero point five meters per second squared.”

She blinked. Internal gravity? She didn’t know that was even possible! “Athena One, proceeding at my discretion to Bay Four Niner Seven Three, caution internal gravity at zero point five mps squared.” As she spoke, she saw a tiny, horizontal thread of light appear on the shadowed hull at the described point- she was on the dark side of the ship- and start growing taller.

“Readback is correct.”

As she accelerated towards the bay, she had to wonder to herself if this really would be the purgatory she was expecting. It was a passenger liner… but it had internal gravity. That would be the very first non-fictional artificial gravity that wasn’t based in centrifugal force!

She would have to find out what other secrets the ship might be hiding.

She let out a snort. Like the automated traffic control system- at least, she assumed it was automated. The ship was unmanned, after all.

Author's Note

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Whoops, I’m a few days late... oh well.

Chapter 4: Transformed

When Kayla came to, she was lying on the deck next to her shuttle.

“Ow,” she muttered, while she rose to her hands and knees… which, exactly as she expected, was a normal standing stance now, since she had been transformed. There were so many new sensations, from her ears to her tail to the way her new body moved, that she elected to ignore them for the time being. She checked the chrono she’d had strapped lightly to her wrist; it was now somewhat uncomfortably tight, as her forelegs were rather thicker than her wrists had been.

She raised an eyebrow. She had only been unconscious for five minutes.

So she looked around at herself. Her uniform- one of her least-favorite ones, since she had known there was a chance it would be destroyed- was completely ruined. The sleeves had exploded outwards, and the upper few buttons ripped off to make way for her larger neck. Her trousers didn’t show as much damage, but they had their own set of tears- and as she moved her legs, they tore some more.

As expected.

So she stripped the remaining fabric off of herself and swept on the bathrobe she’d brought out with her for just this situation. She did her best to ignore the wings she spied on her sides during the operation, and slowly walked her way back into the shuttle.

It only took her a couple of minutes to activate the robo-helper that had been sent with her, and to strap the control panel to her foreleg, where she could reach it easily with the other hoof. Exactly as Commissioner West’s report had suggested, she found it fairly easy to grip and manipulate objects as if she still had hands, even though she no longer had multiple fingers with which to operate the touch screen interface.

Then, she guided the robohelper out into the passage the bay was attached to… and looked both ways down it.

She didn’t have a map.

However, on the wall opposite, there were a couple of color-coded signs. One glance at the floor informed her that these signs coincided with colored stripes on the carpet. The red one, whose sign pointed both ways and read “Bays 4951-5000”, formed a T where she stood, with the branch stopping at the door back into the bay. There was an orange one that pointed left and read “Engineering- 2mi”, and a blue one that pointed right and read “Passenger Quarters- 7mi”. There was no indication for the bridge.

The green one, which read “Lifts”, also pointed right.

So she turned right, and followed the green stripe. The carpet was oddly comfortable against her bare hooves, but she could only imagine the amount of work required to keep it clean.

It didn’t take long to reach the lifts. The green line forked to the left before any of the other lines bent- and when she looked at the wall to her right, it was with the same arrows and everything- except that the “Lifts” sign was pointing up.

Looking to the left revealed a bank of five large lifts, all five doors sealed shut.

She shrugged. She might as well find out what kind of lift system she had to work with.

As she approached the lifts, the door in the middle- which was also the one closest to her- emitted a soft chime and slid open, revealing a large, roomy lift car… that was also carpeted. It looked large enough for a few dozen people- or even to qualify as a cargo elevator. As a matter of fact, when she stepped inside with her robohelper, it looked almost like it was a remodeled cargo elevator.

The touchscreen control panels arrayed around the lift were certainly new. Even on the newest ships, they still used hard buttons- even on the three-dimensional lifts. It was more reliable- and, in a zero-gravity environment, it was easier to both use and prevent accidental presses. However, this wasn’t a zero-gravity environment.

She stepped closer to the nearest such panel to inspect it. A wire frame of the entire ship was displayed at the top, with a little dot to indicate its current location- along with a location code across the bottom of the frame.

Towards the bottom, she could see a full, digital keyboard, with letters, numbers, and a few extra keys with entire words or sector codes on them. Overlaid over the keyboard, however, was a prompt- the computer had apparently guessed her destination.

Select Destination: Captain’s Quarters?

She shrugged, and tapped the ‘yes’ key. The prompt went away, the doors closed, and… She didn’t feel any motion, but the display up top indicated that the lift was moving, mostly horizontally- and fast.

As it moved, she had to wonder how it had guessed where she was going. Had that prompt been left by Commissioner West, or was there some kind of AI system in the ship, capable of guessing where she wanted to go?

Finally, when she stepped out of the lift, there was a small blue banner above the arrow signs that read Crew Quarters. The very first sign was also blue, pointing left, and read “Captain’s Quarters”.

So she turned left and followed the blue stripe. As she walked, she wondered what other AI systems might be present.

She’d have to ask her Electronics officer- assuming she had one, of course- to look into it.

“United Star Navy, Personnel Department,” Admiral East said tiredly, answering her comms.

A sky blue ‘pony’ with a bright sunlight yellow mane looked out of it. Her features were a lot softer than Commissioner West’s had been- she was very definitely a mare rather than a stallion. She was wearing a bathrobe and her ‘badge necklace’, a necklace they’d crafted to hang around a pony’s neck to display name and rank, until and unless proper uniform requirements could be decided upon for a pony… and even then, for before the pony’s measurements could be taken. The name was hanging just low enough to be out of the frame.

“This is Captain Kayla Matthews of the Starship Athena,” the pony greeted.

The Admiral nodded, her expectations confirmed. “I take it you’re ready?”

She nodded. “Yes, I’m ready for the first wave. Just, uh…” She glanced to the side. “Warn them to wear their bathrobes and badge necklaces for getting out of the shuttle; the transformation is basically immediate, and, uh… their uniforms won’t fit afterwards.”

When her call to Personnel ended, Kayla let out a sigh, then turned in her seat to take another look at her day cabin.

It was enormous. It had to be at least fifty feet on a side!

She left the desk chair, with its enormous, decorated desk and almost painfully easy-to-use comms system, and trotted across the room to take a peek through some of the other doors out of the room.

Her bed chamber was also huge. This wasn’t just space that didn’t normally exist on a warship- this was space that didn’t normally exist on a passenger liner… or even on the surface, for that matter. The designer of this ship must’ve just had a truly ridiculous amount of space to use up, and nothing better to fill it with.

The second door from her day cabin held…

“I have my own swimming pool!?”

Author's Note

A short one this time, sorry. Next one should be longer, though...

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Aaaand, I'm late. Not nearly as late as Chap. 3 was, at least!

Chapter 5: Hydroponics

One of the first things that Kayla noticed about the first wave of her crew when she met them outside the bay was that there wasn’t a single stallion among them. The very next thing was that some of them had spiral horns sticking out of their foreheads.

But even so, stumbling around and fumbling with robo-helper control panels they might have been, it still didn’t take them very long to stow their belongings in their assigned chambers. They filled the last of the ship’s dedicated crew quarters- and, as noted on the orders, further crew would be assigned cabins in the first class passenger quarters.

And after that, it also didn’t take very long for them to move to their duty stations and start their work. The Officer’s Mess was stocked in no time, and hydroponics was well on its way.

After giving them a full day to get settled in and start on their duties, Kayla met up with her bridge crew. As expected, every single one of them was a mare. Which was strange; every ship she’d flown under the Space Police had over eighty percent men, and even under the United Star Navy she’d never been aboard a ship that had less than seventy percent men in its crew.

“Okay then,” she began, looking between them. They were seated around one of the larger tables in the Officer’s Mess.

Her exec officer, Captain River Song, nodded sharply. “I’ve been in contact with the ground; I’m told the next wave will be the rest of our medical contingent.” She turned to look towards the most junior officer present- her supply officer.

Lieutenant Supply Crates, her supply officer, sounded a little unsure of herself when she spoke. “Most of the supplies we took aboard have been stowed; we should have Hydroponics planted past the threshold within the next three hours. Captain Wrench was down there earlier, looking at what she said looked like mass farming facilities, so it may even be faster than that.”

Kayla nodded silently. Captain Turning Wrench was her Head of Engineering- and, like both her exec and supply officer, had been caught in the ‘baby job naming fad’. Turning Wrench was the third in seniority aboard the ship, and so would normally be present for a meeting like this- but had instead sent them a message to inform them that she was busy with her duties.

The purpose of the meeting was for the otherwise unoccupied senior and bridge officers to conduct a quick examination of how things were proceeding about the vessel, after all.

The next person Captain Song turned to was Commander Loose Cannon, her tactical officer.

Commander Cannon spoke firmly, with an air of experience. “We have yet to start taking aboard either munitions or fuel, as far as I am aware. As we also haven’t had any of my people come aboard yet either, I haven’t been able to get started on that front. I was, however, able to run a few tactical exercises on the bridge.”

“Wait, you found the bridge?” Lieutenant Commander Sharp Ears- her communications officer, and the only bridge officer with a horn- asked.

Commander Cannon smiled. “Yep. Just punch ‘bridge’ into the lift control panel. Or say it, those are the best lifts I’ve ever seen. You’re looking for the main bridge, not the secondary or tertiary ones.”

“... She has three bridges?” Captain Song asked.

Commander Cannon nodded silently.

Captain Song stared for a second, then facepalmed- no, facehooved. “Oh boy.”

Kayla nodded briefly, and turned to Lieutenant Commander Quick Thought, her electronics officer. “What kinds of AI systems does she have?”

Lieutenant Commander Thought blinked. “I haven’t noticed any. I’ll get right on that.”

She nodded. “I noticed a communications AI on my way in, and she predicted where I was going when I entered the lifts. Might be a good place to start.”

Commander Cannon raised one forehoof. “She also presented me with what felt like a custom-tailored tutorial exercise when I launched my console simulators. I thought at first that it was a standard tutorial exercise, but it recommended using my wings to help boost my efficiency.”

L.C. Thought rubbed her chin with a hoof. “So either the builders knew we’d become ponies, or someone adjusted the exercises to match? But Commissioner West didn’t have wings, so it’d have to be… what, within the last two days? Yet…” She scowled. “Yeah, that’d have to be some kind of AI system.”

Captain Song waited for a second, before looking expectantly at the last mare in the room- and the only non-navy mare in the room.

Corporal Bringing Thunder, the only marine to have come aboard so far, bowed her head. “I’ve had no trouble so far- Marine Country is ready and waiting for my people. In the meantime, your ship has some pretty good solo training facilities.” She rubbed her chin. “As a matter of fact, I’m not sure if I’d be surprised if she is successful when I request a deep swamp thunderstorm in one of the training caverns later.”

Kayla raised an eyebrow. “Caverns?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“So how’s it coming?” Kayla asked, walking down the hydroponics bay. She wasn’t yet confident enough in her balance to try trotting.

Captain Turning Wrench looked up, from where she had an access panel open on a massive sliding gantry. “Mornin’, Cap. It looks like this thing is electronically controlled, but I’m not seeing any control stations.” She gestured around the room.

“Could it be computer controlled?”

She looked over at the massive hydroponics spread, completely devoid of water or plants, and up at the gantry. “Possibly.” She slapped the access hatch closed, and reinserted the bolts holding it secure. “Would be a rather significant departure from the norm if it is.”

Kayla shrugged. “This ship is already a departure from the norm,” she informed her. “Weapons, observation deck, enough passenger capacity to carry every human being left on the surface of the Earth, and enough engines to get them elsewhere in a reasonable amount of time. Nevermind that only a tiny fraction of her volume is dedicated to livable spaces to begin with.”

Captain Wrench shrugged. “True, I suppose. Everything down in Engineering looks much more like I’d find in a warship, though, so I guess I keep thinking of her as one.” She trotted over to the computer console on the wall near the door.

Then she paused. “... Oh.”

Kayla looked at it, and smiled. “I suppose we should start expecting her to have an unprecedented degree of automation, shouldn’t we?”

The header across the top read ‘Automated Farm Management System’- but more importantly, there was a dialog right in the middle, with an image indicating that the computer had identified the supplies that had been left in the room- and offering to engage the automated system to bring this bay online.

Captain Wrench smiled. “Yes, she certainly does seem to have that.” She tapped the ‘yes’ key, and the gantry ground into motion, towards the standing supplies. They watched, and as it drew close, doors all along the gantry opened up, revealing a legion of manipulator arms with various tools. Some fairly generic grabber arms picked up the supplies and started partitioning it across the other tools, which also started their tasks, as the gantry started sliding, slowly, back down the length of the bay, leaving planted soil behind.

Chef Sharp Knife, who was really considering changing her name, walked up to the door into the first farming bay she’d planted the day before… out of the four total she’d managed. She needed to water the crops, to properly germinate the seeds.

If she was entirely honest with herself, she had been amazed she had managed to plant two entire bays before any of the rest of the new crew were available to come help. As it was, assuming Captain Turning Wrench had gotten the planting gantry in that one room working, there were probably a total of nine bays planted. She had quickly grown envious of most of her crewmates’ wings- though glad she didn’t have to deal with a horn to bang on things.

As expected, the door slid open in front of her- then she stepped in… and froze.

Tomatoes. Potatoes. Beans. Wheat- no, only half of the wheat line was grown; the other half looked like it had already been harvested and replanted by the massive gantry sliding slowly across the spread, all amidst an amazingly natural looking rainstorm coming down from the ceiling. The tomatoes were also being picked as she watched, but the potatoes and beans didn’t look quite ready.

Then, she had planted it the day before. How in the world was it harvesting already?

She stared for almost two full minutes before her head snapped around, and she headed right back out to check the next bay.

Naturally, it was also already harvesting.

The third bay wasn’t quite ready for harvest. When she glanced at the computer panel next to the door- which she’d ignored before, since it hadn’t displayed anything immediately useful- she saw a similar display to the ones she’d noticed in the first two bays on her way out: It was displaying a top-down view of the spread, with color-coded patches for what she had planted where… and statistics.

The section at the top of the display- closest to her on the spread- indicated “Romaine Lettuce: Growth factor 973.6x; Harvesting in 0:31:08”

She blinked. The harvest timer was ticking down in seconds- and as she watched, the growth factor dropped to only 973.5 times.

“What the hay…?”

She had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t be preparing pre-prepared rations for the crew today.

At the bottom, there was a soil moisture readout. “Raining in 1:02:37.”

She dashed back to the second bay.

Growth factor… almost four thousand times.

She rushed back to the third bay. Still 973.5.

She looked at the spread. She had done the first and second alone, but a couple other officers- one a pegasus, one a unicorn- had helped with this one.

She had an experiment to perform.

She jumped up on the spread, and trotted down the length of it, between the aisles of plants. She repeated her trip between each of the other rows- and noticed when the massive gantry suddenly started moving, arms shifting down to harvest the lettuce and the carrots.

Then she trotted over to the panel again.

Growth factor… 1013.7. The timers for the turnips and the soybeans had also jumped down a little bit, with corresponding increases to their growth factors.

She bolted for the fourth bay.

The massive gantry was just finishing harvesting the spinach- with a growth factor listed at 723.9. Right, another officer- a pegasus- had joined for this one. The rain was scheduled for nearly two hours. The broccoli was going to be harvested in about half an hour.

She tapped the suddenly obvious comms button on the panel, and called the first two that had helped her the day before.

Then she waited impatiently.

Finally, Commander Silver Spanner- the unicorn, from engineering- and Commander Shock Cone- the pegasus, the commander of their small craft fleet and the one that had flown their shuttle in- walked in… and immediately dropped their jaws.

“Yes,” Chef Knife stated simply. “Commanders- I wanted to ask for your participation in a quick experiment.”

They looked at her.

“Experiment?” Commander Cone asked.

She nodded, and gestured towards the panel. “These plants are growing at just over seven hundred times the speed they normally would- and when I trotted down the aisles in the first bay you helped me with, the plants over there sped up. All I need is for you to trot down these aisles, one at a time of course… so we can tell if it’s unique to the, erm, regular ponies, or if it’s something that works for every pony.”

Commander Cone shrugged her wings. “Sure.” She then hopped up onto the spread and started trotting.

Commander Spanner, however, scowled. “What if it’s something unique to just you, though?”

She shrugged. “Then the next test would be with other regular ponies, to find out.”

They then watched Commander Cone complete her circuit and hop down from the spread. Exactly as had happened the previous day, the soil didn’t seem to like sticking to pony hooves, except when they wanted it to.

She checked the display. “Hmm, no change.”

Commander Spanner then jumped up to make her circuit.

Also no change.

“Well then,” Chef Knife muttered. “I think that concludes it. Either it is just me, or pegasi and unicorns don’t have it.” She tilted her head, and looked towards the two commanders. “Makes me wonder what you have instead?”

Across the room, the gantry started moving, harvesting the broccoli.

It was a somewhat amazed-looking Captain Kayla Matthews that appeared when Admiral East answered the call. “Yes, Captain?”

“We’re ready for the next wave,” she answered.

She raised an eyebrow. “Something happen? And have you already got the hydroponics up to establishment?”

She nodded. “Chef Knife just fed everyone a fresh-cooked meal… from the farms, not the initial rations. Yes, we’re already harvesting- something like four or five times so far, I’m told.”

“You’re kidding me.”

She shook her head. “I kid you not. Turns out the earth ponies- that’s what we’re calling the ones without horns or wings now- can make plants grow faster just by touching the soil they’re growing in. And we have regular farms, rather than hydroponics.”

“... Alright. I’ll send the next wave.”

Author's Note

The fast-growing-plants effect is also present in Equestria, and even at the same strength. The reason it's so much more effective aboard ship is because on a planetary body, most of the magic goes down, and is never exposed to plants. Hence, the reason random gemstones are so common in Equestrian soil: Crystalized earth pony magic. As a matter of fact, this is why rock farms are almost exclusively operated by earth ponies, and never have any vegetation. Shipboard, the magic remains concentrated in the plant-bearing portion of the soil- and so, gets dumped into the plants en masse. It's entirely likely that, if the soil was laid but unseeded and the earth ponies of the crew treated it as a dance floor, it wouldn't take very long at all to become a solid block of gemstones (the magic prefers to pick the plants if they're close enough, hence why Sweet Apple Acres doesn't have gems at the surface, but the Gem Fields- with no vegetation- do).

The reason Equestrian potted plants don't explode like this is in part because they don't touch the soil/plants for long- and in part because the magic can "jump" a short distance to other bodies of soil. Thus, if an earth pony worked a greenhouse on, say, the 5th above-ground floor (or higher) in Equestria, with no pots or whatever else on lower floors, they'd get this rapid growth effect (which stops at "harvest ready" or "fully grown"). Same if it was in Cloudsdale. Here, the nearest body of soil to jump to is too far away, since it can't jump nearly as far horizontally or upwards as it can downwards, and these farming bays are not vertically arranged.

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Chapter 6: Pirates

“Medical… every last one?”

The mare that had led the second wave of crew out of their shuttle- Surgeon Commander Fast Stitch- nodded to Kayla. “Save only the shuttle pilot, yes. I understand they sent us up as the second wave so that we could deal with any issues that might arise from the transformation.” She glanced down at herself. “Though to be fair, I’m not so sure we’ll be able to deal with any such for quite a while, just because…” She sighed. “It’s going to be fun, running some examinations, from which to fabricate fake ponies to practice operations on. I hope you’ve got the facilities to do that?”

Kayla shrugged. “Captain Turning Wrench- head of engineering- found something that she said looks like it might be part of a larger manufacturing system in one of the reactor rooms, but other than that, I haven’t heard anything.”

“The reactor room?”

She nodded. “She also said it was a strange place for that kind of equipment- but that wouldn’t be the first peculiarity we’ve found about this ship.”

She raised an eyebrow.

Kayla smiled. “Well, aside from the gravity you’ve probably already noticed, and the transformation, she doesn’t use hydroponics, but standard farms. None of the higher-ups seemed to realize that, but it was apparently in the reports, so we got the proper resources for those farms despite constantly calling them hydroponics.” She scowled. “And wouldn’t the reports from Commissioner West have been enough for the anatomy…?”

She shrugged. “He’s a single pony- specifically, a single earth pony. Even without the earth, pegasus, and unicorn… races, one pony would never be enough to represent an entire species- no, we need several… and preferably not of only one sex, either.”

She sighed. “Well, to my knowledge, we don’t have a single stallion aboard yet…”

Surgeon Commander Stitch also sighed. “That’ll make it easier to build a profile of a mare’s anatomy, but mean that if a stallion comes aboard and gets hurt, there may be very little we can do. Speaking of which, the medical team alone should have enough unicorns for that purpose, but we won’t have enough earth ponies, let alone pegasi.”

She scowled. “Yeah, it is interesting how so many of the medical staff are unicorns, isn’t it? Aside from you, we’ve only really got senior officers aboard, so we don’t have very many earth ponies or pegasi. Perhaps the next waves will carry more…?”

“Come to think of it, can pegasi fly?”

“Um, presumably. I mean, we’ve got plenty of lift- despite how small our wings are- but nopony has yet figured out how to control it and actually stay in the air. Well, without turning off the gravity, at least. And even then.”

“So how- Wow, that’s bright.”

Captain Turning Wrench looked up at Kayla’s comment. “They all lit off about five minutes ago,” she informed her. “Warning buzzers and everything. They’ve gone into something called a ‘reverse generation burn’.”

She scowled, looking between the massive power plants and the head of her engineering department. “That sounds… wrong, somehow.” The massive power plants were whirring, a point of fire concentrated right at the very center, with no apparent material to keep the miniature star from escaping.

She shrugged. “That’s what I thought too- but when I looked into what it meant…” She shrugged. “Honestly, I can’t think of anything else to describe it- apparently, it’s converting excess electrical energy into viable fuel.”

“With every reactor in this room?”

She nodded.

“Where are we getting the power to do that from?”

“Good question.”

Lieutenant Commander Quick Thought needed only about five minutes, her Captain waiting behind her, to get the answer she was looking for out of the computers. “... Huh. It looks like each of those bays Chef Knife planted on her own have actually been harvested once every hour or two since planting- and that the earth pony ‘make plants grow’ ability doesn’t just accelerate growth, but it does so by creating matter. It would seem the ingredient stores have been filled up beyond what we could reasonably be expected to use, so the ship has automatically begun burning up some of the excess, converting it into fuel.” She looked up. “She’s taking advantage of the creation of mass to resupply herself. Like-!” She looked back down, tapped a key. “Yup. We’ve already got two more warheads than we had when we climbed aboard, yet none have been supplied.”

“We’re… growing weapons and fuel, then?” Kayla asked.

She nodded. “It certainly seems like it. And Chef Knife is spending her free time planting the rest of the bays by hoof, one by one, so it’ll probably only increase. At the moment, that matter reprocessing thing appears to be running at less than one percent of capacity- I wonder how long it’ll be before we have it running at capacity?”

“This is the Captain,” Kayla said, answering a comms call from the medbay, where she had been helping her hospital crew settle in.

Commander Loose Cannon, her tactical officer, looked back out of the screen. “Captain,” she greeted. “I’m on the bridge, and it looks like there are some pirates coming for us.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course, now they want our ship.”

“Looks like a Cruiser-scale vessel, has not responded to ID queries.”

She sighed. “I’ll be right up.”

She terminated the call and, with one last look at the medical staff, she took off for the nearest lift. The doctors she’d been working with moments before had waved her on, even though there wouldn’t be much that she could do to protect the ship. She knew her entire bridge crew would already be gathering on the bridge; she had planned an exercise for as soon as she finished getting the medical staff settled in.

It took her only a couple minutes to reach the bridge.

“Captain is on the bridge,” somepony announced- who, Kayla didn’t really care.

Captain River Song, her exec, looked up. “It seems the automatic has been sending them collision and unauthorized approach warnings,” she informed her. “It actually just escalated to demanding a full reversal as well, rather than a course change.”

“And the pirates?”

“We think it’s a Black Fang cruiser,” she answered.

Suddenly, at her console, Commander Cannon gasped. “What- The approach warning just triggered a targeting radar pulse. Confirmed, enemy is a Crusher-class Black Fang battlecruiser. Looks like the final warning has been transmitted, too.”

“Final warning?” Kayla asked.

She nodded.

“Play it for us,” she ordered. “Well… if you can.”

She tapped a key. “Ahh… Oh. Playing back, Now!”

The same voice as had guided her in rang out of the bridge speakers. It still exuded that calm, but it also had a hard, almost dangerous, edge to it.

“Unregistered Vessel, this is your final warning. Approach to this vessel has not been authorized. Reverse your course immediately, or this vessel will engage hostile.”

Silence held for almost a full second.

“Did the automatic just threaten to open fire?” Kayla asked.

“... Yeah,” Commander Cannon muttered. “And… Confirmed, we have a shooting solution- fire control is online.”

Kayla scowled. On any ship she had ever been on, in order for fire control to be online, someone would’ve had to have inspected various runs, and several switches thrown throughout the ship. Not to mention, someone would’ve had to inspect the weapons- and only the ones that had cleared such an inspection would be allowed to fire.

Yet, judging by how the tactical officer hadn’t touched any controls before announcing the shooting solution, fire control had come online entirely on its own.

“What about their fire control?” Kayla asked.

“Uh… Yep, they’ve got us dialed in too. The computer is assigning their weapons a near-zero threat value, though. Um… Oh, that’s it. They’ve got basically only missiles, and point defense is online.”

Kayla nodded slowly. “I suppose they’re already within point defense range, aren’t they?”

She nodded as well. “Meaning we can pick off their missiles as soon as they’re fired. The same is also true in reve-WOAH!”

Outside, the hostile battlecruiser had, despite several warnings and active fire control emissions, crossed an invisible line in space that it had been expressly forbidden to cross without even attempting to alter its course.

The sensors mounted on the Athena obediently noted that fact- and then the shipboard AI ordered a weak point selected and fired upon.

The tactical computers responded to the demand with a second pulse of high-energy radar- and, when they received the requested hull map from the radar analyzers, they picked some of the thickest armor available and selected a weapon for which even that much armor still constituted a ‘weak point’. Finally, with its target selection reviewed and approved by the master AI, it sent targeting information to the selected weapon.

The ship’s energy weapons had been discounted as useless by every single military person that looked at them- but not a single one had realized that the dual barrel plasma turret that had been selected outmassed most fully-loaded cargo shuttles by many times- and also outmassed some of the lightest destroyers all on its own. The weapon powered on almost instantly, and swiveled around as quickly as if it had weighed only a couple of pounds.

Finally, the on-mount sensors locked onto the target, the quantum link to the multilayered energy targeting system at the heart of the vessel was established, the inertial compensator field was deployed, and only one of the two massive barrels was discharged, hardly a second after the line had been crossed.

The kickback from the blast caused the discharging barrel to lurch backwards by almost five feet, before it was thrusted back forwards to enable the turret to reach its maximum sustained fire rate of over two hundred rounds per minute- even though only one round had been authorized. Even with how massive the ship was, the inertial compensators still made a miniscule push on everything shipboard in order to prevent any perceived vibration aboard ship- and the engines immediately kicked in with the automatic stationkeeping function.

The incoming battlecruiser, one of the largest and heaviest vessels classified as a Battlecruiser, didn’t see the lightspeed weapon until after it struck. Its computers had guessed that it was coming, after every sensor pointed at the larger ship had been fried by the preceding radar pulse- and any of its crew capable of the same amount of reasoning within a single second might’ve guessed it too, but been unable to react in time. The massive bolt of plasma slammed into its port forward corner and exploded.

Armor peeled apart. Missiles, fuel bunkers, and reactors alike were shattered by the blast, consuming fully one quarter of the hostile vessel’s mass.

That battlecruiser, unfortunately, didn’t have any inertial compensators. Its entire crew died instantly- and it was only thanks to its designers overbuilding its structural components that the rest of the frame didn’t crumple under the force.

Moments after the blast dissipated, fuel spilling in from other breached bunkers mixed with leaking atmospheric air and encountered molten red hot metal at the fringes, resulting in a secondary explosion that rocked it again, sending it into an uncontrollable spin and pushing it just slow enough in the orbit that, on the suddenly unattended bridge, suborbital trajectory alarms went off, in addition to just about every damage alarm on the ship.

It would slam into the atmosphere, and fall to the surface, in less than an hour.

It was no longer overtaking the larger warship in its orbit.

Author's Note

Those pirates are oddly well-organized, with even their own vessel classes, aren't they?

Patreon, Discord.

... Forgot to publish it for two days. Sorry about that.

Chapter 7: Exercises

“What the hay…?”

Kayla watched her exec scroll through page after page after page of performance information connected to the exercise they’d just completed. When she’d left the bridge, after the ship had been parked back in its orbit, Captain River Song had been putting her background to good use and helping the helmsmare- a midshipmare fresh out of training- pull off a few moves in a simulated exercise. She’d headed for her day cabin, pulled up the exercise results…

In the fleet exercise, her ship had been one of the top performers, despite taking on over ninety-five percent of her crew hardly two days before- including her helmsmare. She’d had a few amazed comments from the other admirals, and at least one asking her how much she thought the uniqueness of the ship itself had either contributed or detracted from that number.

Then, like every other computer terminal on the ship, her terminal seemed to have a bit of a mind of its own as well. While she was looking at the overall fleet performance breakdown, a little notification had popped up in the corner of the screen, declaring a crew performance breakdown was available for her review.

Naturally, she’d clicked on it.

This performance breakdown had been… interesting, to say the least. The document was arranged a little differently from the Fleet ones, and it broke down the performance all the way down to not just per-crewmember but per-task as well, with excruciating detail… and a final percentage performance rating for each person.

Apparently, she herself had demonstrated good command of her tactical instinct, but had missed a couple of potential situations and an opportunity to inflict massive damage to the Aggressor force very early on… and demonstrated very little knowledge of the abilities of the vessel, and at least one false belief in that regard as well. She’d been assigned an overall performance rating of hardly fifty-eight percent.

She hadn’t noticed Captain Song doing much during the exercise- but the performance review told the story of some hard calculations and other preparations that ended up not being necessary, but were classified under the Exec Officer’s duty to be ready for whatever the Captain needed. She had the highest performance rating out of any of them, at a mere sixty-two percent.

A couple of the other senior officers had decent percentages- and Commander Cannon was the only other one above fifty. All the junior officers, however, had performance ratings in the single digits- and at the bottom of the list, there were nearly four hundred that had actually slept through the maneuver and been assigned zeroes.

Finally, the hundred-thousand-and-oneth (and very last) entry on the list, was also the highest percentage on the list, even though it was sorted by percentage.

The reason was clear, though- as was the reason this entry wasn’t accompanied by a performance breakdown.

It was, after all, titled ‘AI Completion of Crew-Assigned Tasks’... and marked at a whopping eighty-seven percent. Its brief description indicated it to be the ratio of the number of crew tasks that had been completed by the ship AI to the total number that had been presented to the crew.

So she had called Captain Song down to look at it.

It took the mare nearly five full minutes to read down it- and she let out a gasp when she reached the bottom.

“... Well,” Captain River Song began. “I… suppose we know where we need to improve.”

Kayla nodded. “That and I think we have a pretty good clue, now, to exactly how much computer support we have, too.”

River nodded. “Part of me worries about having the computers covering our backs like this, but…” She tapped the tablet with a hoof. “That’s going to be pretty handily offset by a performance monitoring function like this.”

Kayla nodded again. “It’s going to be pretty hard to slack off or miss something and never realize it- and considering that our performance in the Fleet exercise was not perfect, either our AI is also imperfect… or it waited for us to catch our mistakes before stepping in at the last possible second.”

“Well the first of those is definitely true,” River agreed. “The latter…” She looked at the tablet again. “Let’s be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was true as well.”

Kayla sighed. “Makes me wonder if that AI is actively monitoring anything right now, or if it’s just waiting for us to do something?”

River scowled. “Well, nopony ever pushed an ‘AI On’ switch, so I’d guess it’s at least watching for exercises like that one. And this kind of detail suggests it’ll be watching us basically anytime we’re on duty…” She tilted her head. “Come to think of it, how did you come across this breakdown?”

She blinked. “It popped up while I was looking at the Fleet breakdown,” she muttered. Then she stopped, and facehooved. “Well of course it’s watching what’s on my screen. It’s displaying what’s on my screen.”

“And predicting our lift destinations with an alarming degree of accuracy, and on my way down here, I ran into Corporal Bringing Thunder in the lifts- she was headed out to address an automated alert pertaining to undue violence in the passages. Third one today, she said- and none of them false alarms, so far.”

Kayla raised an eyebrow at the mention of the head of the ship’s Marine contingent, and so also the head of the shipboard police. “So, we can probably assume that it’s either watching us or ‘using its discretion’ at basically all times, for various purposes. And is probably listening to every little thing we’re saying, too.”

River nodded. “Probably analyzing our words not just to tell when we’re assigning tasks to each other, but also possibly to help it do its own job better.”

Kayla nodded as well. “Whatever its ‘job’ is, beyond watching us and covering our backs, yes.”

“Come in,” Kyla called, as the door into her day cabin slid open. It was only two hours after her exec had left, and fast approaching dinnertime.

It was Commander Quick Thought, her Electronics officer. “Captain,” she greeted, with a bow.

Kayla nodded. “Commander.”

“Well, I… did a little digging, in the records from the exercise,” Commander Thought admitted. “It didn’t feel like that kind of exercise should have felt. So… I turned up a little snippet. During that exercise, the ship was operating in ‘Commanded Autonomous Mode’... and as near as I can tell, it has been from when you first stepped aboard to now.”

“Commanded Autonomous Mode?” Kayla asked, one eyebrow raised. “What’s that?”

“Well, I did some more digging, and it seems to be the lowest available autonomous mode of operation. Basically, the ship is running every aspect of itself, but it is doing so with the direct goal of doing what we tell it to- well, specifically, what you tell it to. It looks like it has acknowledged that we are operating it with your permission, and so has interpreted… well, everything, to mean that you want it to work with the crew… Not simply obey the crew, that’d be a ‘manual’ mode of operation, but work with them. And as near as I can tell, it’s decided that the best way for it to work with the crew at this point in time would be to train the crew to better work with it.”

“Then the exercise…?”

“More of the same, I guess. It did what it could to train the crew with direct control, but was still under autonomous control, so the AI made sure that the ship as a whole did roughly what you were asking for- knowing that it was an exercise, of course. I think it also acknowledged the purpose of the exercise and tried to do the same for the other ships in the fleet, too.” She glanced down at her tablet, and back up. “Finally, it seems to have acknowledged gaps in knowledge on basically everyone’s part- for example, during the exercise, you gave the order to open fire on ‘all tubes’... but only about a percent of our missile tubes fired, because some forty percent were not loaded, another thirty percent only had war shots in them, and the rest would’ve caused us to burn through the practice shots too fast.”

She looked up. “... You mean to tell me…”

“That we loaded enough practice rounds for one shot each from only thirty percent of available tubes? Yes.”

She put her face in her hooves. “There were four thousand pallets.”

“I know.”

“Are we sure she isn’t a warship?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t able to find anything definitive, but she certainly looks like one.”

The comms panel chirped briefly. Lieutenant Commander Sharp Ears tapped it a couple times, briefly. “We have our targets,” she announced.

It was a ‘random target practice’ exercise. Each ship was to proceed independently from the rest of the Fleet, which had all been parked in a singular orbit around one of Jupiter’s moons, and engage a set of probes floating in some random orbit… while maneuvering as if all the probes around the moon, including their targets, were enemy warships.

And of course, their initial orbit was the only orbit that didn’t intersect with any probes- the ‘safe zone’, so to speak.

This also meant that, no matter their target designation, they would have to leave the safe zone in order to reach their targets… then return to it in order to end the exercise. It didn’t exactly help that they were deliberately not informed of what orbit their targets held, only what codes they had printed on their hulls. It was supposed to incentivize coordinated teamwork- if the entire party engaged in such practice moved together, one ship of the resultant fleet would be allowed to engage each set of probes encountered. They were not, after all, allowed to engage each other’s probes.

Kayla gave a quick nod. “Alright. Commander Cannon?”

Commander Cannon gave a sharp nod, and tapped away at hers. “Probe IDs received and… Probes identified, they’re on the far side- and we’ve already got a shooting solution, too.”

She looked at the tactical officer. “What?”

The mare looked back up at her and shrugged. “I guess we can see through planets and shoot around them. Without using missiles.”

“Without using missiles,” Kayla repeated.

She nodded.

“Confirm for me that we won’t be shooting through Io?”

It took her only a couple taps. “... Confirmed. We’ve got curved trajectories for energy weapons, and my console is assuring me they’re possible.”

“... Alright. Make sure we’re firing in a direction that won’t hit anything if they don’t curve, and engage targets.”

“Got it. Engaging…” There was a brief pause. “Now!” She glanced up, then back down. “Targets eliminated?” She glanced up at Lieutenant Commander Sharp Ears.

The L.C. watched her panel for a second, before it chirped. She took a second to read the message. “Hits confirmed,” she announced. “Our targets have been destroyed.” Suddenly, her panel chirped again. “... Er, comms request from Admiral Northern Lights.” Another chirp. “And Admiral Southern Ice.” Another. “And Commodore Crushed Rock.” She ignored a fifth chirp, and looked up. “All requesting video.” A sixth chirp. She glanced at her panel. “And there’s the Space Lord.”

She rolled her eyes. “Onscreen, all of them, in conference.”

“Got it.” She made a couple of taps.

Finally, the massive display at the head of the bridge- normally a tactical display, to show the overall situation broken down on the various panels’ displays- blinked into a tiled comms mode. Nineteen separate comms feeds appeared in a neat grid display, with the last empty space occupied by a live view of her own bridge- the outbound feed.

Several of the other Admirals, Commodores, and Captains blinked a couple times, before Space Lord Matthews spoke.

“Captain Matthews,” he said slowly. “Did… Did you just fire energy weapons on a curved trajectory to hit a target that was on the far side of a planetary body?”

“Uh, Yes, Sir,” Kayla proclaimed. “It turns out the Athena can see through planets and shoot around them. With energy weapons.”

“Are you sure she’s not a warship?” he asked.

Kayla shrugged her wings. “We… haven’t found anything definitive, but she certainly looks like one.”

Author's Note

Have you ever wished you could fire that laser beam around a planet to hit something on the other side?

... Me neither, but this ship can do it. And if you're wondering how, there was a clue in the last chapter, when the pirates attacked...

Patreon, Discord.

Chapter 8: Drills

“Two,” Captain River Song sighed.

Kalya looked up, at the bicycle lamp she’d set next to the control panel for the massive power plant, with the light rope strung around the plant, all blinking away merrily. It was a fire drill- and she had selected this location explicitly because the duty watch for this reactor room had a habit of slacking off.

Yet, two whole minutes into the drill, and nopony had shown up to even shut the plant down- it was still, just like all nine others in the room, running at almost ninety percent of maximum power in ‘reverse generation burn’.

She sighed. “I’m starting to hope there’s automatic firefighting capabilities in here,” Kayla muttered.

Finally, the door opened, and somepony charged in, wearing an oxygen mask and holding an extinguisher. Kayla glanced at the tablet in her hooves- it was a power tech from a nearby reactor room.

The mare stopped once she had entered the room, and looked around, apparently confused. It didn’t last long, though- after a moment, she seemed to spot the false fire… then darted instead to the side, where the room extinguishers were hanging neatly in a row. There, she flicked up a plastic shield and put her hoof on the power plant emergency stop button for a second. Finally, she looked up at the plants, withdrew her hoof, and bolted forwards to mime using her extinguisher. As she did so, she barked into the communicator built into her oxygen mask.

“Fire uncontrolled, reactor room four-seven, source unknown!”

Kayla smiled. The mare was acknowledging that, at this point, the room would likely already be shrouded in smoke, making it difficult to see through it- especially with the power plants still guarding their miniature stars which, in a smoky environment, would mask the fire very handily. Kayla noticed, in the readout on her tablet, that every plant in the room had gone into automatic shutdown when her hoof had been detected on the emergency stop button, even though she hadn’t pushed it.

Roughly fifteen seconds passed in relative calm, before the power tech threw down her unspent extinguisher, turned straight around, and galloped over to the door- where other, unused extinguishers were hung neatly on the wall. She seized one and returned with the fresh extinguisher to resume miming using it.

This continued for what seemed like forever before, right around the four minute mark, the mares that were supposed to have been working there stumbled in. About two thirds of them appeared to be drunk.

Kayla facehooved when they plucked all the remaining extinguishers off the wall, tested them on each other, and then wandered in the wrong direction with them, effectively playing with the extinguishers.

Very suddenly, the amount of light in the room went down. A quick glance up the room indicated why- the power plants were no longer guarding miniature stars, and had started spinning down.

At the same time, another tech from reactor room four eight galloped in with another extinguisher to relieve the first mare.

“Plants off!” the first mare announced to her comms. “Fire on Fusion four-seven-dash-three!”

Kayla nodded. With the massive power plants shutting down, the glow of the fire would be more visible through the smoke, which wouldn’t have quite reached complete obstruction of view. Plus, the fading glow of the plants could easily have been used, in combination with familiarity with the layout of the room, to identify which plant the fire was nearest to.

Then a third tech from the other room galloped in, just seconds after the second, holding one extinguisher in one forehoof and carrying two more on her back.

Finally, right about the five minute mark, three mares in the full firefighting gear stepped into the room. Commander Cannon, the first of the three, stopped to look briefly around the room.

“Where is the hose?” she barked.

“Hose here!” somepony called, from out the still-open door.

“So how bad’s the damage?” Captain River Song asked Kayla, as they watched the bridge officer commanding the firefighting party moving into the room with the firehose.

Kayla looked down at her tablet, and tapped the ‘results’ tab- which hadn’t been there before. “Total loss,” she answered. “Fusion containment failure.”

River winced. “Yikes.”

Kayla nodded. “Forty thousand tons of atmosphere, ten reactors, and a good-sized segment of our hull blown apart and ejected, forty-seven compartments open to space with almost three thousand casualties and nine hundred dead, thirty two lost to space. And that’s the optimistic estimate, assuming the automatic shutdown interlocks worked so we only had one runaway.”

She winced again. “What’s the pessimistic one?”

She scrolled to the side. “Um… Total loss with all hands. If all ten reactors in this room are running at high load when one suffers containment failure, none of the shutdown interlocks manage to stop a reactor before it is destroyed by another explosion, and the reactor ejection system fails to vent the plasma overboard by blowing holes in the hull and jettisoning some intervening compartments, the reactor rooms are close enough to each other- and enough of them are running right now- to blow the whole ship apart.” She sighed. “I know who I’m yelling at tonight.”

“On the other hoof,” River noted, “Ensign Hot Fire over there demonstrated exactly what those idiots should have done.”

Kayla nodded, glancing up at the first mare that had galloped in. “And she did it well enough I want to say the LT over there actually did some localized fire drills. Maybe we can use them to help train the rest?”

She nodded. “Possible, yes.” She glanced up at the fire crew. “I’m more disappointed about how the fire crew needed a bridge officer to get them moving.”

“And Commander Cannon at that,” Kayla sighed. “She’s consistently had the highest performance rating in every single exercise we’ve done yet, even including myself.”

Three Days Earlier, in Fusion Four Eight…

“Alright, ponies,” Lieutenant Hard Line, the officer in charge of the room, announced. Only a few ponies looked. She scowled, then filled her lungs. “Attention!”

There was a sudden scrambling as ponies turned to pay attention, and lined up in front of their duty stations.

“That’s more like it!” she barked. “In a minute, we will be doing a fire drill. This time, our target is not speed, but to learn how to properly respond to a fire in our reactor room.” She scanned across the gathered ponies. “Does anypony know the proper procedures?” She scanned down the line.

Ensign Hot Fire, the tech assigned to Reactor Four, and the one mare on the entire shift that Hard Line had caught working during her resting shift, was the only one that raised a hoof.

She picked somepony else on purpose. “Ensign… Cold Iron!”

The ensign, the tech assigned to Reactor Seven, blinked. “Uh… Get an extinguisher and call it out?”

Hard Line sighed. The ensign wasn’t wrong, per se, but she also wasn’t right. She was missing something- a very crucial first step. She turned. “Ensign Hot Fire?”

The ensign bowed her head. “When preparing for a reactor room fire drill, it is ideal to idle the reactors ahead of time- the emergency stop can do heavy damage to the equipment, so we don’t want to use it if it’s not a real emergency, and an idle reactor reaches the ‘safe’ point- where the E-stop is disarmed- in about seven seconds, or five seconds after flame disappearance. Once the drill starts, we still go for the emergency stop button, located under a shield by the extinguishers- but only touch the button in a drill, versus pressing it in a real emergency. This orders all reactors in the room into standard shutdown, versus the instantaneous- and very damaging- emergency stop.” She bowed her head again and took a fresh breath. “Once the stop is actuated, runaway reactors will be either physically impossible or immediately apparent- and in the lack of one, we can continue with standard shipboard firefighting techniques. A real emergency stop also electrically isolates each reactor, but will not defeat the on-mount batteries.”

Hard Line stared at her for a second. She hadn’t known half of that- which sounded very ship-specific. “Where did you learn that?”

“It’s in the vessel safety manual stored in paperback form under every control console and in electronic form within the console itself, chapter forty two, reactor room emergencies.”

Kayla stepped quietly into Fusion Four Seven once again. It was almost two full days since the disastrous fire drill, and crew attendance had improved in here- however, she and Captain Turning Wrench, the head of the entire Engineering department and the mare she had entered with, had been getting automated ‘dangerous behavior’ warnings for this room twice that day already.

She immediately saw the problem.

The techs had cobbled together some kind of basketball hoop against one wall, and had smuggled in a real basketball, which they were playing with.

With a backdrop of the massive, open-air reactors with their whirling components just waiting to get smashed into by a heavy basketball.

Then the door opened behind her, and when she glanced back, it was Corporal Bringing Thunder with a column of her marines.

Thunder sighed, then glanced to the side. “Snipe the ball,” she ordered, quietly.

The soldier she’d ordered selected a cartridge from her belt and loaded her weapon.

“Go touch the e-stop button,” Kayla muttered to Turning Wrench, “but don’t push it.”

Captain Wrench nodded sharply and moved quickly- but quietly- towards the fire extinguishers.

Before she could reach them, though, one of the rogue techs spotted them. “C-Captain!” she cried.

Another one caught the ball, glanced towards the door, and then flung the ball aside. It looked like she was trying to hide it behind the reactors.

Unfortunately, her aim was off, and it sailed straight into the heart of the first reactor in the row.

And, of course, the whirling thing slammed into it with an echoing bang.

The bang wasn’t just from that collision, though. The ball managed to survive to be launched almost directly at Kayla, missing her by mere inches- but that reactor component didn’t. Whatever it was, it broke. For a mere fraction of a second, which Kayla attributed to the adrenaline flooding her system from the moment she’d realized where the ball was going, that whirling thing had nearly stopped… and that particular arm of it was noticeably bent to the side. As it did so, the control panel at the foot of that reactor turned blood red- and the miniature star at its heart seemed to tilt… towards the rogue techs.

Then, right as the star started expanding towards them, something shot straight into it from the rest of the reactor, from both above and below, converting most of it into a block of ice.

Some escaped even that strange ice explosion, though, and escaped the bounds of the reactor, blasting out across the rogue techs. As it did so, Kalya noticed all nine of the other reactors also becoming instant blocks of ice.

Next, while the techs were recovering from the wave of fire and the immediately following icy shockwave, there was a sharp cracking noise as the bent arm thing broke completely off of the reactor, and fell down on top of them.

And finally, the melodic, infinitely calm AI voice came on the overhead.

“Fusion contained,” it announced. “Reactor Ejection System disarmed.”

Corporal Thunder took a deep breath, then let it out. “Orders, Captain?” Kayla could tell she was holding herself back.

One glance behind her told the story. The ball that had missed her had struck one of the marines on the back of the head- that mare was lying, unconscious, on the floor.

She took her own deep breath, and let it out. “Take them to the brig,” she ordered. “Every last one.”

“Haven’t even had her for a whole month, yet already destroying her,” the yard manager sighed, looking out the window at the massive starliner berthed externally to the Fleet station in Earth orbit, which also served as their orbiting shipyard.

“To be fair,” Kayla grumbled, “it wasn’t me that blew it up.”

He nodded, then plucked his tablet from its magnetic microgravity holder. The station didn’t have onboard gravity, after all. “No worries,” he informed her. “Happens about one out of every ten times they crew a new vessel with mostly half pay or new recruits. Some idiots manage to find their way aboard, do something stupid, and break it.” He shrugged. “And actually, you’re lucky if you managed to keep it down to only one casualty. They usually manage to kill someone, and there have been a couple of ships that were lost with all hands because of it.”

She sighed. “That was almost us,” she stated. “It was only thanks to the safety interlocks that the reactors stopped fast enough to prevent a major explosion- and even then, they almost weren’t fast enough.”

He shook his head. “But at least they worked, didn’t they?” He sighed. “I should have a survey crew ready within the hour, see what it’s going to take.”

She looked at him. “You’re aware that anyone that steps aboard is going to become an anypony, right?”

He winced. “Right, yes. I’ll… do what I can, then.”

When Kayla returned to her ship, she went straight to the damaged reactor room. It was mere hours after the ‘accident’; thanks to budgetary constraints, new ship construction was painfully slow… which left a lot of yard capacity sitting idle for things like repairs. It hadn’t exactly hurt that she had been in standard Earth orbit, and not far from the station, when it had happened.

When she stepped in, she froze, and scanned down the line of moving reactors. None of them were blocks of ice any more, but every single one of them was moving intermittently, doing something- even the one with the missing arm.

She trotted up to the control panel to look at it.

According to the panel, the thing was going through a ‘post emergency shutdown damage review’. It had already determined that one ‘containment field projector’ was damaged, and apparently also found damage to the track that they spun around on, plus a few other damages likely induced by the thermal shock of turning a miniature star into a block of ice.

“... Wow.”

Kayla raised an eyebrow at the survey team lead. It had taken them less than an hour to come aboard and make their way to the reactor room. “So what’s it going to take?” she asked. The reactors had stopped moving just seconds before they entered.

The stallion looked up at the damaged reactor again. “Well… I… According to everything I know, this machine is physically impossible- yet here it is.” He sighed. “Meaning, we simply can’t fix it. We can replace it, but while this thing uses a lot of fairly small parts, we won’t be able to just carry in a new reactor- we’d have to cut a hole somewhere.”

“Could we disarm the reactor ejection system and just remove those panels?”

He blinked. “Wait, she has an ejection system? There’s compartments all around us!”

She nodded. “She’s apparently designed to eject some passenger compartments, possibly with passengers, in order to get a runaway reactor overboard- and reduce the damage.”

“... Ahh,” he muttered. Then he walked over to the reactor panel, which was displaying a list of damages. “Then, what’s the line voltage on these things?”

Kayla shrugged. “My chief engineer said the reactors- and the entire electrical grid- runs on a variable voltage… with all superconductive cabling. She said we’re running at about four hundred gigavolts right now.”

“Giga-!?” he gasped. “Er… Yeah, there’s not going to be anything we can replace it with, either. Best we can do is megavolts- you’d have to shut them down to go to higher voltage, at which point…” He trailed off, staring at the panel, then sighed. “At which point just one of these things in another room would outperform something like fifty of what we could put in here.”

Very suddenly, reactor number six emitted a couple of clunks and started moving intermittently again.

Kayla looked.

The yard stallion made his way over to peer at the control panel. “... Huh,” he muttered. “Looks like most of these reactors were damaged by the sudden shutdown, but this one remains in operable condition. It’s running a pre-ignition self-test.”

Finally, the survey crew left. Kayla pressed her head against the wall of the empty room, and groaned. “Athena, why do you have to be so unique?” she asked exasperatedly.

“This vessel was designed and constructed as an experimental prototype vessel. This vessel is capable of self-maintenance; the reactors in this room are scheduled for automated repairs in four point six days.”

Her head snapped up, once she realized what she had just heard. “Wait, you can talk?”

“Affirmative.”

“Then…” She tilted her head, and asked about the biggest mystery about the vessel. “Are you a warship?”

“This vessel was planned to serve as either a civilian exploration vessel or as a museum piece upon return from testing, assuming this vessel was not blown apart by testing exercises. However, this vessel does meet the requirements to be classified as a superdreadnought-class warship.”

She closed her eyes. “So in other words, nothing definitive, but you sure look like one.”

“The definitive answer would be no, this vessel is not classified as a warship, despite meeting and exceeding the requirements.”

She sighed. “Then what are you classified as?”

“This vessel was registered and commissioned into naval service as a passenger liner.”

Author's Note

Is it obvious that I wrote the first half or so of this chapter immediately after watching SmarterEveryDay's video about submarine fire drills?

Patreon, Discord.

Chapter 9: Upgrades

Kayla stepped quietly into Fusion Six Two- one of the other reactor rooms with a crew of slackers- and looked around.

Immediately, she saw another fake basketball hoop, and a rack underneath it to hold multiple real basketballs. At least nopony was throwing them around.

“Gah! Captain! Th-This isn’t what it looks like, I promise!” It was the nearest tech- who was doing something at the base of the hoop.

She raised an eyebrow. “Then tell me what it is,” she ordered.

“It’s… Uh…” The tech looked at the hoop, then back at her. “A basketball hoop.”

“You do remember how Fusion Four Seven got blown up, right?”

She flinched. “Y-Yes. Um… We, er, predicted something like that, so we never use the hoop without an appropriate shield set up to contain any… stray balls.”

She raised the eyebrow. “And this shield?”

“Well, ah… The, erm, maintenance mech over there ripped them out, so…” She gestured towards the far end of the room, where Reactor Eight was off, a large machine- decorated with the ship’s badge and name- replacing parts on it.

Kayla looked at the mech, and back at him. “And you didn’t think that perhaps you should use one of the exercise chambers in the crew quarters for your basketball court, not here?”

“Well, uh… if we did that, the LT wouldn’t be able to play whenever she had nothing to do.”

“That’s the point!” she yelled. She didn’t like ensigns that tried to rat out their own lieutenants, and would have to review the footage… No, ask the shipboard AI. “I want that thing down and out of here immediately, you hear?” She glared dangerously around the room. “And no playing on the job, I don’t care how slow it is!”

She then marched past them while everypony else in the room scurried over to the hoop, clearly trying to avoid her ire.

She walked up next to the massive mech, and watched it reassembling some of the reactor’s innards for a couple seconds. Finally, she spoke. “Athena?” She wasn’t yet sure exactly what got the AI’s attention for conversation.

It answered, the voice coming from the mech. “Yes, Captain?”

“What’s… this?” she asked, gesturing towards the mech- which hadn’t interrupted its work at all.

“This Mark Nine Space Construction Vehicle is installing upgrades to Fusion Six Two dash Eight, following the design failure revealed by the destruction of Fusion Four Seven dash One. The upgrades are addressing issues pertaining to structural integrity in the event of an impact and containment field destabilization detection, and adding new features that will allow a preemptive Emergency Stop to be actuated when an imminent containment field destabilization is detected- a feature which would have prevented Plasma Escape on Fusion Four Seven dash One, and in so doing rendered the precautionary Emergency Stop of Fusion Four Seven dash Two through Ten and the brief arming of Reactor Ejection System Four Seven unnecessary. Additionally, the reactor will be more likely to retain operability after an Emergency Stop.”

She scowled, tilting her head. “Where did these upgrades come from?” she asked, as the mech finished putting together what looked like the spinning ring assembly for the spinning arms- ‘containment field projectors’.

“These upgrades are part of an automatic self-upgrade routine, after a weakness was detected during the above named incident. So far, seventeen reactors have received these upgrades.”

“Ahh,” she muttered, unsure if she should be glad or worried that her ship was creating its own upgrades. “So…” She glanced across the room, to where the basketball hoop had just fallen to the floor with a clang. “What about the basketball?”

“Reactor Rooms with such sports taking place were selected for priority upgrades,” the machine answered. “Any sports installations, including hoops and ball shields, have been removed from these locations. Some were subsequently reinstalled by crew members.”

Her eyes narrowed. It had only been two days since the event- the damaged reactors, then, had not been repaired yet. “Well then. Have the Colonel- or her people, or whatever- round up the ponies involved in such horseplay, and bring them to see me in my quarters.”

“Orders received. The Colonel is currently running her elite team through a blizzard scenario, and is expected to have the players ready for judgement in approximately one point seven hours.”

She tilted her head. “Is expected…?”

“Simulation confidence is niner seven point niner three one two percent.”

“Oh.”

Several crew replacements later…

Kayla looked up as the door to her quarters slid open, revealing Captain River Song. “Good evening,” she greeted.

River bowed her head. “Evening to you too, skipper,” she returned. Then she sighed. “The crew is… mostly working, now. The latest replacements seem to be actually trying to do their jobs. I think. We can probably finally get the Admiralty off our necks.” The ship had been assigned to the Fleet- and participating in Fleet exercises- mostly just to kill time, after all. Especially once it had been confirmed that it was a passenger ship, the rumor was that the Admiralty had a long list of assignments just waiting for them.

Kayla sighed. “Even though that means taking on passengers.”

River nodded. “We can be fairly sure our crew won’t be killing them, at least.”

She shrugged. “Well, might as well. Athena?”

River raised an eyebrow; Kayla hadn’t told any of her officers about the talking AI.

Then it answered. “This vessel’s waste processing plant is undergoing expansion after design capacity was found inadequate; initial expansion completion expected in four one point niner three hours, for long-term capacity of four niner three seven passengers beyond current crew; further expansions are scheduled to increase long-term passenger capacity by four million in one six point three one days, then an additional two one seven million in niner two point seven one days, and finally to originally intended capacity in niner one seven point two three days.”

“... Uh…” River muttered, caught between surprise and disappointment.

Kayla facehooved. “Of course there’s something wrong.” Then she looked up. “So how many can we take?”

“Maximum average passenger capacity, beyond current crew, is approximately two six one niner two three point seven one ponies until the secondary expansion is completed. Combat redundancies will be made unavailable by an average of over one niner two six one seven point two seven passengers.”

“What if we offload to external waste processing facilities?” River asked.

“This vessel can currently support approximately two one seven million passengers, provided resupply on intervals no longer than two point six one days. Final scheduled expansion will raise independent long-term life support capacity to two niner one billion.”

“... Or approximately three times as many as we have the beds for,” River noted.

Kayla nodded. “Redundancy. Or we could have them share bunks and sleep in shifts.” She let out a snort. “In any case, yep, we’re officially ready for our first assignment.” She tilted her head. “Athena, can you take care of that for me?” Reporting the ship as ready for duty was, after all, one of the most paperwork-intensive tasks there was- and since it consisted exclusively of paperwork, literally thousands of pages of obscure information about the ship that she’d never need again, all Captains despised it- and it usually took a couple of weeks to fill out.

“Will she be able to?” River asked quickly, an eyebrow raised. No known ship had any kind of paperwork assistance, let alone automatic completion.

Kayla only shrugged.

“Affirmative,” Athena announced, as Kayla’s console blinked to show the completed paperwork on it. “Ready to submit Readiness for Duty paperwork, four one six niner pages.”

She glanced at the console, and smiled. “Ahh, so that wasn’t a vain hope,” she mused. “Send it in.”

Author's Note

Sometimes, you have to tell the AI what to do. And sometimes, it does stuff you never knew would be necessary, long before you find out it was necessary...

Any guesses why that final expansion is scheduled three years out?

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Huh, I guess I prepped this for release a while back and forgot to publish it. Whoops, that changes today!