Malice of the Void

by The Great Scribbly One

Rating: teen
Tags: Equestria at War, Alternate Universe, Changelings, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Science Fiction, Adventure, Griffons
Length: 10207

Months from home, the crew of the Imperial freighter Westtry struggle to survive an ancient horror.

It is the dawn of the year 1268ALB. For a century, the daring captains of exploratory vessels have lived action-packed lives of adventure and wonder on the fringes of known space. But once the danger of the week is thwarted, contact made with new civilisations and the magnificent starships move on, commerce follows in their wake.
The crews who ply the shipping lanes are a different breed from those swashbucklers. Their vital work brings with it a slow, quiet life. Voyages of months or even years to distant worlds leave plenty of time for crew to become family, often literally, and those born in the intersteller void feel most at home there, be they continuing their parents' legacies or enticed onto the crews of the renowned explorers.
Unfortunately, space is vast and in the infinite night still lurk ancient terrors, and a freighter far from home is far from aid when its daily life is interrupted. Too often, the sacrifices of their crews go unremembered by the explorer-enamoured public, but some tales are not forgotten.

Award-winning entry for the Seventh Annual Equestria at War Writing Contest! The Prompt was 'A Long Time Away'.
Despite being set in the future of said universe, no knowledge of the setting is required to enjoy this story. It takes place in the Quenta Roccolië timeline.
The appendix blog may be read here!
Contains largely E-rated content, but rated Teen for a single scene's emotional tones.
Thanks to Aydan Zamora and Light Shine for beta reading!
Credit to the Bissigverse for the cover art.

Published 2024-08-29 22:20:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-08-31 22:50:09 UTC

Interdiction

If being abruptly flung out of bed hadn't woken Thistle Patch, the emergency klaxon would have.

"Razz?" He called groggily from a heap on the floor.

No reply.

Emergency drills allowed muscle memory to assert itself. Before he had finished disentangling himself from the duvet, the Horse had already lit his horn and pulled a boiler suit from the drawers. A brown hoof smacked the cabin's computer access screen to both shut off the racket and open the door.

Isolated as it was, the corridor outside was empty, aside from the Blue Moon buntings. Thistle sometimes wondered if the Fezera-class' design team had arranged all the systems and holds, only to sheepishly remember that the crew needed to sleep somewhere and haphazardly cram in quarters wherever they would fit. It avoided noisy neighbours, at least.

For all his rush to reach his post in engineering, he couldn't help but choose a path which took him past the bridge and poke his head through the door, just to check on his wife.

There she was. Tall (by Pony standards), cream coat, pink mane, ill-fitting uniform. Raspberry tossed him a sidelong smile before turning to report something to the captain. The old Griffon looked groggy and had a mug of coffee clenched in one talon as he leaned on the rim of his command pit.

Having already expended too much time, Thistle galloped on, eventually plunging into the engine room so fast the door barely had time to open.

"PUT YOUR SUIT ON, DUMMKOPF!" A familiar Vraksian voice screeched from all of two metres away.

Ears pinned back, Thistle stared dumbly down at Chief Engineer Elytra for a second before noticing the protective garment still floating in his field. Snapping out of the surprise, he panted an apology and ducked out into the corridor.

A moment later he returned, doing up the last of the catches on his boiler suit. "What's the ruckus?"

"Something tripped ze safeties on ze Starlight drive. We've dropped to sublight," Elytra said, gesturing past the central drive apparatus. "Check ze batteries."

Nodding, Thistle trotted over while the royal-caste Changeling busied himself with the drive crystal. "Huh."

"Vat is it?" Elytra called.

"The batteries are down five percent from nominal. No, six. Have you got an overdraw on your end?" Thistle asked.

Elytra tapped at the drive console for a moment. "Nein. No malfunctions in control. Ring alignment is trim. Shutdown error 879... Unexpected battery depletion at ten-forty PM."

Thistle bent down and checked the battery logs. "The charge rate flatlines at the same time. It's like the magical background just went away."

"Shut down non-essentials and feed fusion power into ze converters," his senior instructed, trotting over to the comms panel by the door. "Ze captain won't like zis..."

"I thought I wouldn't have to deal with this molt on a freighter," Captain Gerlach groused upon hearing the news. "Last time I accept a new route."

Somehow, Raspberry doubted that. They had all been offered handsome pay by their contractor for this two year-long run, and nothing speaks quite like gold to a Griffon. Keeping that thought to herself, she idly rubbed her barrel and watched as the captain replaced the forward view on the main screen with a projection of the Orias system.

Unremarkable binary red dwarfs spun in mutual orbit, three rocky planets and two gas giants around the both, with a band of asteroids shuffling along between the latter like so many broody Penguins. A blinking blue dot traced the path of the Westtry as it crawled on momentum past Orias V.

"You were cutting it pretty close, helm," Gerlach commented, zooming the view in. "Must be something to do with the planet. Adjust heading to two-seventy by oh-ninety, half burn to standard-by-two. I want us well off the ecliptic plane."

The helmsgriff parroted the order in confirmation and with a soft rumble of the deck plating, Westtry began to dive on the screen.

A few minutes passed and Raspberry had begun wondering when the captain would sound the all clear when a faint fizzing tickled her ears. Frowning, she adjusted her headset and checked the offending channel.

To her surprise, it wasn't an unsupervised cub messing around but an external signal. Tying in the sensors, she ran an active sweep and identified the direction of emission, only now emerging out of the nearer star's radiation glare. She boosted the gain and ran a cleaning algorithm. The result made her heart skip a beat. "Captain, I'm picking up two signals near the system centre."

Captain Gerlach frowned. "Out here?"

Raspberry nodded. "I can’t get a match on the first one, but the second... It's a disaster beacon, captain."

"Put it on." Gerlach instructed.

Still broken despite the scrub, the computerised message crackled over the bridge's speakers. "–ediate aid. Repeat. This is ERSS Jam Wutt. -stellar carto–. –ife support s-tems offline. Rend– im-diate aid. Repea–. This is–"

Captain Gerlach swore under his breath. "Helm, cut thrusters. Play the other one, comms."

Raspberry obliged, and the bridge was flooded with a melodic pinging.

"It's looping. Probably another automated message," Gerlach observed, drumming his claws on the edge of the pit. "Helm, why are we still burning?"

Hermann Meckler, who had been rigid ever since the distress call, shook himself. Talons flew over controls and the gentle hum of the deck plates fell away. "Sorry, captain."

Gerlach turned back to Raspberry. "Time for the forlorn hope. Hail the explorer."

Raspberry let the request ping for a while. "No response."

The captain sighed as only an old Griffon could. "Blast it all. Give me shipwide."

Raspberry tapped the screen and nodded.

"Action stations, action stations, assume state one-zeblu! Non-operational personnel remain in your quarters. We're answering a distress call. Stay sharp." With the usual neck slice motion, he signalled the message's end. "Helm, plot a Starlight intercept to the Wutt, one-c. Engage only when the lance battery is cleared for firing. Stand by force wall."

"Aye, captain!" The helmsgriff responded as the bridge lighting dimmed, a bit too eagerly for Raspberry's liking. If he wanted action, the lad should have signed up with the Imperial Space Force when he had the chance.

Thistle hooked a pastern through the nearest safety rail as the computer counted down to sublight and the ion thrusters abruptly fired against solar gravity. The jolt wasn't nearly as severe as the emergency stop, but caution never hurt. Much.

"Secure from drive," Elytra announced. "Thistle, batteries. Otto, keep an eye on ze ion drive. I don't trust ze computer with this much null magic around."

Cradling his sore pastern, Thistle limped over to the board. "Eighty-two percent and charging – slowly. Blimey, there must be a whole moon's worth of blackrock out there."

The comms panel near the door chimed and Elytra trotted over. "Engineering."

Gerlach's tinny voice came through the speaker. "We're going to need you for salvage operations, chief. Suit up and meet me at the shuttle bay."

"Ja, captain," Elytra acknowledged, flipping the switch off. "Thistle, with me."

"Me, on the shuttle?" Thistle asked nervously.

"You're ze computer stallion. Come on," Elytra ordered sharply.

As usual, the designers hadn't given much thought to larger races when they drew up the Fezera-class' shuttle, so it was quite a squeeze for the three pressure suited creatures to pile inside. Captain Gerlach took the pilot's couch while Elytra and Thistle made do in the back.

"Clamps released, take care out there," Raspberry's voice said over the speaker as with a lurch, the shuttle's nose dipped and its thrusters shoved it out of its berth.

Once Thistle's stomach had stopped threatening to migrate into his skull, he leaned forward to get a better view. Debris spun lazily past the canopy, small pieces occasionally bumping off the transparent metal as the captain delicately manoeuvred through the cloud. Metal, glass, plastic... For a moment Thistle thought he saw a body, but he couldn't be sure. Nor did he want to be.

"There's not much left of her," he breathed at last.

"Roamer-class, I think," Elytra observed. "Look at that engine strut. Ponies don't know how to build a ship."

"Don't underestimate them," Gerlach said, not taking his eyes off the proximity sensor. "They were a terror in wargames. Scoot and shoot, their doctrine’s based around mobility. But this was a science ship." He laughed humourlessly. "Probably why we weren't warned about the travel hazard."

"Do you think it was pirates, sir?" Thistle asked.

"Pirates wouldn't destroy the ship like this," the captain replied. "They'd want her intact, for her cargo if nothing else. Hold on."

With a twitch on the yoke, the shuttle tilted and into view swung a ship the likes of which Thistle had never seen. It was as if somecreature had decided to build a giant kingfisher from nothing but marble statues and mosaics, painted in bright and cheerful colours which clashed with the scorch marks and grim surroundings. All which visibly marked her as a warship were ball turrets mounted along the wings.

Thistle couldn't take his eyes off the alien vessel as they matched velocity, until Elytra nudged him. "Stay in ze shadow of ze shuttle. So close to ze stars, ze radiation vill be higher than our suits can take for long," he instructed.

"Got it," Gerlach replied, affixing his helmet. "Mic test."

"Clear," Elytra said.

"Ham and beer," Thistle countersigned.

After final checks on seals, Elytra depressurised the cabin and opened the hatch. Silently, the three creatures jetted the short distance to the opposite airlock.

"Give me a moment," the Horse said, aligning with what looked like a control panel. He unclipped a vacuum-proof computer slate from his flank. Only a few seconds later, the hatch slid open.

"That was quick. Good work," Gerlach praised.

"Too easy," Thistle muttered, frowning beneath his photoreactive visor. The slate had hardly booted up.

Gerlach caught the implication and drew his lance pistol as he entered the airlock. The others followed.

Inside, the ship was a mess. Pipes dangled from shattered ceiling panels and electrical scorches marred the walls. It was no less decorated than the hull, however. Vibrant frescos lined every wall, and every door was etched with fine calligraphy. A xenologist could have spent a lifetime studying it all; Thistle did his best to record as much of it as possible with his helmet camera. It helped take his mind off the nerves.

Elytra paused and pointed at a broken, sparking cable. "Zat's a main power line. Follow it back, and ve find engineering. They'll have main computer access zere."

"This is an En-keladim ship," Gerlach said as the group moved on again. "The Orias system is on the fringe of their space."

"They might have destroyed the Wutt if they thought she was invading." Thistle soberly speculated.

Gerlach shook his head. "They're a peaceful race. Most of them are artists."

"All those gun turrets didn't look very peaceful," Thistle replied.

Gerlach clicked his tongue. "Tch. You should read more history. Peaceful nations are maintained by strong deterrence. The Great War showed what happens when they aren't."

"I was born in Saddle Arabia, captain," Thistle reminded. "We didn't really study Equus at school. Eleventh century history's all about the Civil War and the Emirs' oligarchy."

"It's easy to forget. Who'd your kin fight for?" Thistle wasn't sure if the captain meant that to be rude or a compliment. With Griffons it could be hard to tell.

"I've never dug into who was where, sir," Thistle replied. "My family's from the south-west though, down Trotadla way... So I suppose a few must have been commies," he admitted with distaste.

"You're not the only one with divided ancestry. Some of mine shot at one another in the Battle of Winghagen," Gerlach commiserated. "How about you, chief? Any sordid parentage?"

Elytra, who had already begun to sag, took a moment to reply. "Ve don't talk about ze Bad Old Days. Zan am atá kaite, ach zós rózga, as zey say."

"It's been two and a half centuries," Gerlach countered. "You've got to reflect at some point or history will repeat."

Elytra shook his head. "If I may be blunt captain, you are a Griffon. Imagine if you ever mentioned Kemerskai, ze entire room stank like a septic tank. Ze Bad Old Days are dead, my great-grandmother is dead. We move on or we drown."

Captain Gerlach managed to look somewhat abashed. "Let's find you a machine to prod then."

The trio plodded along in silence, magnetic boots thudding dully on carpeted deck plates. Without the chatter, the ship suddenly felt colder.

Elytra's instincts proved correct, and beyond ornamented double doors lay a contrastingly industrial-looking engineering bay. Less damaged than other parts of the ship, crystalline lamps cast a cool blue glow across every surface, as well as the lanky corpse.

Thistle did his best to ignore the dead alien and found the closest apparent control panel. Lighting his horn, he unclipped his slate and booted up the translator software. "You said En-keladim, captain?"

Gerlach's voice was subdued as he turned it over. "I thought so, now I know. Poor hen. No visible injuries."

Thistle scrolled through the options and selected the appropriate one, proudly declaring itself an alpha build. Better than nothing, assuming it was the right En-keladim language.

As Thistle held the slate's camera over the button-festooned console, the algorithm did its best. "This looks like life support," he announced after some interpretation. Tapping what was overlaid as 'Refresh' made a cracked monitor flicker to life. "If I'm reading this right, there are some hull breaches and the bridge is exposed to vacuum. Bulkheads have sealed them off. Temperature is on the chilly side, but it's oxygen-nitrogen. Richer than standard. The translator's struggling with some trace compounds."

"Defensive systems here – it looks like they put up a fight. The laser arrays are fried, but the counter-missiles are still in their bays," Elytra reported.

An obnoxious alarm blared, Gerlach shouted and there was a clatter. The alarm shut off as quickly as it had begun.

Thistle almost dropped his slate in surprise at the ruckus. Quickly regaining his footing, the captain aimed his pistol at a door covered with hazard symbols of some sort. Elytra had pressed up against the console he had been examining and drawn his own weapon. "Are you all right, captain?"

"We're not alone," Gerlach rasped, before switching to an external speaker on his suit. "Didn't your mother teach you not to creep around?!"

The door remained stoically shut.

"I'm going back in. Cover me," Gerlach instructed at length.

Elytra readied himself, and the alarm blared again as the door slid open.

This time Thistle saw it looming in the doorway. A lanky biped, similar in both appearance and robe to the corpse now resting in a more dignified position by the wall. It was pale and hairless, except for a long blonde mane which vanished down the back of their tunic, with a razor-sharp but immaculately symmetrical face and eyes like slits. Its long arms ended in seven fingered hands.

It blinked, and that was the only way Thistle could tell it was alive.

Gerlach approached cautiously. "En-keladim? Can you understand me?"

The alien ignored him, staring blankly forward.

Lowering his pistol, the captain waved a talon in front of the alien's face. Then he reached out and firmly shook its arm.

The alien screamed and cowered. For a moment it stood, mouth still agape, then blinked a few times and held its head in its hands.

"We're here to help. Are there other survivors?" Gerlach said in a firm, but coaxing way Thistle had never heard from the old Griffon. He wondered if it was ISF training, or if Gerlach had dealt with this sort of thing before.

The alien gave no response, but didn't resist as Gerlach reached out again and led him into the main engineering bay, which fell back into silence as the alarm died.

Gerlach nodded to Elytra. "See if you can find out what happened."

Thistle managed to stop gawping at the alien – the first he had ever seen in the flesh – and turned his attention to the next console, which turned out to be for plumbing.

Elytra had more luck and beckoned him over. "I've found zeir superluminal engines. Zey don't use Starlight drive. It looks like projected anti-gravity."

"Bend space either end of your ship to cheat the speed of light," Thistle clarified.

The Changeling nodded, scrolling through menus. "Ja. Much less efficient than Starlight drive, but faster." He paused and rubbed his neck. "Ach, and why must zey put ze screens so high?"

Thistle snorted at that. It was nice for the shoe to be on the other hoof for once. "I wonder how they're powering it? Can you see an option to access logs?"

Rearing for a better view of the monitor, Elytra read through his slate. "Coolant, draw and feed, something intermix... I'm guessing zis is sublight related. Zat too... Hatcher below, this UI is awful."

"Found it," Thistle said, flicking a switch with the edge of a hoof. He skimmed down the list, then switched to the power draw logs. Most of it was either inane or illegible, but not all. "Whatever happened, it was two days ago, maybe three. They don't use the same clocks as us."

"I want to know what attacked them," Gerlach left the alien for a moment to peer over Elytra's back. "Do you have sensor records?"

"Unlikely from engineering, captain," the Changeling replied. "There's no power to ze bridge, so you'd probably need to access ze sensor suite directly, unless there's an auxiliary control room."

"Drat. I'll comm back to Westtry, then go another round with our friend," Gerlach said. "See if you can piece anything together. We need that data."

An hour of work bought Thistle a more complete picture of events. But 'what' as it turned out, was no substitute for 'why'. Elytra meanwhile had finished deciphering the environmental controls and deemed the atmosphere liveable, at least in the short term. It was an improvement on misty helmets and limited air supplies.

Gerlach had found a working dispenser and sat the alien down with a warm, sweet-smelling drink, which finally seemed to thaw him out of his catatonia. He had got up, slowly but under his own power, rummaged through a compartment and pulled out a device, which quickly revealed itself to be an audio translator. It took yet more time to zero in on Herzlandic.

"I'm Captain Gerlach, skipper of the Imperial freighter ISS Westtry. We picked up your disaster beacon, as well as an Earthling science ship," Gerlach introduced once the palaver was over. "We saw the mess outside, what happened here?"

Listening in over a cup of tea, Thistle got the impression that the En-keladim did not so much speak as sing, though right now this one was about as tuneful as a drunk Abyssinian. "First Officer Tekel, of the Ishtar. W-we are... were a patrol bird operating out of Ellor Eshúrizel. A day ago? Two? We responded to your kin's plea for salvation, but–" Tekel shuddered.

Captain Gerlach gave him a moment before pressing. "What happened to them? What attacked you?"

"They say the Beast was bound long ago and far away, but that..." Tekel waved an arm vaguely at the bulkhead, mouth working wordlessly. "That. It. I SAW IT! The gluttonous spectre of malice, borne upon a brush whose stroke overtook us all. You must flee. Run far, run fast, and maybe It will miss you."

"Be careful, captain," Elytra warned from the main console.

"We have to investigate, chief. Convocation Spacefaring Commitments eleven-ninety," Gerlach countered, though he softened his body language as he leaned back in to the En-kelad. "Tekel, please tell me what happened. A ship was destroyed."

"Devoured. We were too late to stop it. They called us. Begged us for help. One hundred of them. The vessel was rent. It ripped out their beating heart, left them to the void and turned on us. Our weapons were useless. We tried to save..." Tears welled. "The captain, she unveiled herself in the void, but its song ate her and it kept coming, and... and... I COULDN'T!" He buried his head in his hands and wept.

Gerlach gingerly patted him on the back and turned to Thistle. "Did you find anything?"

"Something smashed through their shielding and shook up the power grid. An electrical surge knocked out their lasers and from there the log's just floods of thrown exceptions and errors. I'm amazed the computer still works." Thistle reported.

"Thistle found a link into ze command system and rerouted it here. But ze files are fragmented," Elytra added pre-emptively. "We've set a system repair running, but it'll be a while before ve know if any data has survived."

"I told you, it's a spectre of evil!" Tekel declared.

"What does it look like?" Gerlach asked, measuring his tone carefully. "As lit–" He was interrupted by a bleeping. "Gerlach here."

Raspberry's voice came out the speaker. "Captain, we've picked up an anomaly on long range sensors. Shall I transmit to your slate?"

"Do it," Gerlach said. As soon as it booted, the screen shifted to a grainy video feed.

"T-that," Tekel stammered, pointing at the slate. "Evil is a storm in the stars."

Author's Note

See the appendix blog for detail on worldbuilding aspects such as the Starlight drive, the Griffonian Empire and the En-Keladim.

For context, 'Earthling' is an instance of translation convention at play, not referring to humans as it often does in sci-fi. Most of the peoples of the EaW world call their home Earth or something similar, just not in English for obvious reasons.

Pursuit

On the main screen, the puffy white cloud was still just a blob of pixels, but was visibly growing.

"I suggest you come back to the Westtry immediately, captain. We have the Wutt's black box aboard," Raspberry urged, eyeing the anomaly from the command pit.

"Not yet," Gerlach replied over the speakers. "Chief Elytra thinks he can get the En-Keladim ship flying again. We'll need the help if that thing catches up."

"Understood, we'll take you under tow," Raspberry said.

"Too risky," Gerlach rejected. "We can’t afford to coddle acceleration."

She shifted uneasily. "You surely don't want us to leave you!"

"Worst comes to the worst, we'll catch up by shuttle," Gerlach contingensised.

Raspberry sighed at the breach of good Pony sense, but orders were orders. "Wilco. Don't get my husband killed."

"Nocreature's dying today," the captain replied. "Gerlach out."

With another shake of her head, Raspberry double checked the sensor readings. "Three-thirty by triple-naught, Mr. Meckler. Two-thirds ion to standard-by-four."

The helmsgriff acknowledged and Westtry accelerated toward the distant Ellor system.

Aboard the Ishtar, Tekel's strained expression darkened toward despair. "You are the tool of malice, captain."

Gerlach's feathers bristled. "We offer to repair your ship for free, and that's your idea of thanks?"

"Your good will does not mean that it cannot be so," Tekel replied grimly. "Long have we operated a mining station on Gyönyörű's third moon, yet evil has arrived only recently. You must destroy it here, or it will follow, and it shall glut itself upon millions."

"Westtry is a freighter. We're even worse armed than the Wutt was," Gerlach dismissed, shaking his greying head.

"Then you will share his fate," Tekel said, expression hardening. "And so shall I."

Thistle looked over at them. "Do you have backups for the command protocols?"

Raspberry watched as on the sensors, the cloud began to close once more. "Helm, full ion ahead. Indefinite burn."

"Razz, our fuel supply," the duty technician warned as the low vibration in the deck plating intensified. "We need to perform a buzzard scoop."

"We don’t have time, Miss Graukralle. And that's 'ma'am', right now," Raspberry chided.

"Sorry," said her friend. "...Batteries are down fifteen percent."

"What's the drain?" Raspberry asked.

"Err..." The hen squinted at her board. "Hard to tell, ma'am. I'm seeing lots of little dips and spikes. The computer needs more time to average it out."

Raspberry rechecked the sensor readout. The cloud was dropping away, albeit slower than she would have liked. Lumbering out of the pit, she returned to her usual post and opened shipwide comms. "All claws, we've got a reprieve. If you need to take five for a drink, now's the time. Maintain skeleton postings at all stations, this isn't a stand-down."

"Shall I get something for Otto, ma'am? He's alone down there," Graukralle asked.

Raspberry nodded. "He'll appreciate that. Don't dawdle though, I... Yes."

Needs of biology fulfilled, Raspberry soon returned to a tense bridge.

"The magic drain is getting worse," Graukralle said without preamble. "Batteries are down three percent since you left."

"With the reactor hooked in?" Raspberry asked as she entered the command pit.

The engineer nodded. "We've shut off everything we can spare, short of ambient magic."

"Cut by half," Raspberry ordered. Inspecting the sensors prompted more. "That proves it. The cloud's closing again; it must be emitting an anti-magic field of some kind. Mr. Meckler, what's our current speed?"

"Standard by two point five," he replied.

Raspberry glanced at the readouts again. "Boreas preserve, it must be pushing four times our acceleration. Launch distress beacons fore and aft of our planned route."

On the main screen, the cloud had resolved into a clear visual as seen through the drive rings. Even as she watched, it shifted to an undulating blackness somehow darker than the void itself, through which no star could shine.

Biting her lip, she considered her options. Going superphotonic would strain the batteries, but win distance which would allow them to recover. Alternatively, dumping the cargo modules would allow better sublight acceleration. At this speed, they would fly on a predictable escape velocity from the system for later recovery.

"Helm, engage Starlight drive, point-five-c. Course oh-twenty by three-fifty."

Graukralle clenched her jaw as the computer counted down. At 'zero', the entire bridge crew were jolted as the ion drive cut out. Stars, planets and even the cloud dopplered down-spectrum.

Raspberry watched the sensor feed intently, her practised eye correcting for the distortions caused by the Starlight drive's operation. She didn't need eight years running freight to work out what was going on several AU behind them however, as the cloud gradually regained its unnatural hue, then turned blue. "Increase to one-point-one-c, Mr. Meckler."

Everything on the main monitor dopplered out of sight as the Westtry outran light itself.

Ice ran along Raspberry's back as the cloud failed to fall away on the tachyonic sensors. "It's still on us. How the–" Raspberry shook her head. She was in command, she had to stay cool-headed... Easier said than done. "Take us to full cruise!"

Meckler craned back to look at her disbelievingly. "We're still inside the termination shock, ma'am!"

Raspberry blurted the first thing which came to mind. "Reinforce the deflector with the force wall if you have to, but do it!"

"Ma'am, the magic drain..." Graukralle warned from Raspberry's left.

The Earther took a deep breath. "The closer that thing gets, the worse the drain. If we kick loose now, we have a chance to hide among the asteroids and let the batteries recharge."

"The batteries might shatter under the load! Even if we do get away, we'll be marooned six lightyears from home!" the engineer fretted hysterically.

"We might spook it if we turn to engage," Meckler suggested.

Between the risk-averse engineer and the walking stereotype of a hot-blooded Northerner, this was getting out of control. Where was Gerlach when you needed him? Deciding there was no use wishing, Raspberry tried to think of how he would act. "Last I checked, we weren't Aquileians, and this wasn't a committee! Follow my orders, Mr. Meckler."

"Yes, ma'am."

Graukralle looked sheepish. "Sorry."

"Later, if we live," Raspberry said firmly. "Divert non-essential electricals into the converters."

There was no sensation to the increasing rate of teleportation as the drive ramped up, each small jump already occurring too fast to be perceptible, but Raspberry could feel the drop in the ambient magic. She began to feel light-headed and lethargic, probably not helped by her condition, but the engines and force wall needed every thaum they could get.

At first slowly, but faster and faster, Westtry began to pull away from the cloud. By nature less sensitive to magic deprivation, Graukralle's talons flew frantically across her board, juggling power demands across the freighter.

An alarm bleeped twice and the computer's tinny voice came over the intercom. "Achtung! Anomalous gravitational field, course deviation!"

"There's nothing ahead of us, ma'am," Meckler stated, confused.

Shaking herself, Raspberry peered at the swaying monitor, then remembered it was still set to tachyon returns. She switched to gravimetry. "It's to aft. The..." She blinked, realisation dawning. "Sycaecia preserve, it's… not using a Starlight drive. Helm, evade!"

Sluggish reactions had cost them. Meckler managed to brace himself as the freighter groaned and shook around him, but Graukralle fell off her couch. Sapped of her magically enhanced fortitude, Raspberry smacked her head against the command pit's monitor. She was vaguely aware of falling, and then darkness closed in.

"How about zis?"

The monitor winked out and Thistle shielded his face as a shower of sparks rained down on him. "You killed it completely!"

Elytra muttered something unintelligible from halfway inside a nearby floor panel. "Don't reboot until I give ze word. I'm going to try throttling FTL drive power through ze sublight circuits."

Thistle sceptically watched the Changeling's hind legs. It sounded like a recipe for burn-outs and/or explosions. Beyond, Tekel had set himself up at the waterworks console, eyes not drifting from the monitor, whose fault diagram had been replaced with what looked like an installation wizard.

"Try now!" Elytra called.

Thistle tapped the well-worn startup button and as it had a dozen times now, the monitor hummed to life with a cheery 'bing-a-ling'. After a cursory glance at the error log full of what he already knew, he surfed through a few menus to check if any of Elytra's tweaks had taken.

"How come the captain could tell our new friend over there's a male?" He asked to distract from the nagging worry that he was about to be smothered by an angry cloud. "He's so... Well, weird."

"Zey're like Minotaurs zat vay," Elytra explained.

"What if they're fat?" Thistle asked.

Elytra's leg waved a bit. "Zay don't get fat, like Changelings. Ze mane is another good way. Females like to wear it longer, as usual with you mammals." His head popped up as he examined a charred circuit board in the better light. "Didn't you read ze cultural induction briefing?"

"I'm saving it for just before we arrive, so it's fresh," Thistle explained, leaning over. "...I think that board's a write-off."

"Nein, ve only need zis part," the Changeling said, holding his slate over a relatively unharmed corner. "Auxiliaries within auxiliaries, good chunky design. None of zis nano-junk. Ze problem is ze mounting bracket." He ducked back into the hole, dangling in the way only a Changeling could. "Anyway, I wouldn't wait if I were you."

"I didn't expect to be working on one of their ships mid-voyage," Thistle protested.

"Not zat. You're going to have your hooves full with ze foal," Elytra clarified.

Thistle shook his head, not that Elytra could see it. "The due date isn't until the end of Eyrmon, we'll be well on our way home by then. Hopefully," he added as a pang of worry bit him.

"Trust Captain Gerlach. He charted ze Gumshoe Nebula on ze Curiosity, made first contact with ze Firmans, and survived scrapes you wouldn't believe in ze Golem Crisis," Elytra soothed.

"That's the problem, I'm not sure I do," Thistle replied.

"I can't speak for his exploring days, but I was zere for Ollia," Awe touched the Changeling's tone. "His tales aren't all zat tall."

"A few are. Keeps up the mystique. I hope you've had better luck than I."

Thistle jumped. Gerlach had made himself scarce checking the ship for any more survivors, and he hadn't heard him return.

"I said two hours, captain. It has been half zat," Elytra stated from his metallic den.

"And I know about buffer time, chief," Gerlach snapped. "We need engines."

"I'm no glory hound," he grumbled. "I said two hours and I mean two hours."

"At the clip that cloud was moving, it'll be on us any time now," Gerlach countered.

"It lacks elegance, but I have refurbished the command protocols from a backup and installed them here. Some rudimentary passive sensors survived the attack," Tekel interjected. The En-Kelad seemed much more present, now he that was working.

Gerlach plodded over. "Better than nothing. Let's see how far behind we are."

Tekel poked a few buttons and a wheel spun on the screen for a moment before an outside view appeared.

"You weren't joking abou–" Gerlach began, then froze with rising hackles. "What by Maar is going on?"

Gerlach blocked most of Thistle's view, but odd flashes darted across what he could see. He knew he should focus on the engines, but worry overcame that. He trotted the short distance and craned over the Griffon.

The Westtry swung across the view, cargo modules nowhere to be seen. The tractor unit was circling the cloud, lance battery pinpricking away into the haze.

Raspberry awoke, and was immediately dazzled. Squinting, Westtry's medbay swam into focus. Some might have called its roominess excessive for a nominal crew of fifty, but being trapped in a glorified tin can with a mad doctor is never healthy.

Firm claws pressed on her shoulder before she could try and right herself. "Keep still, you had a nasty bump."

"We were hit by a gravitational anomaly," she recounted, getting her bearings. "What did I miss, Guv?"

The Westtry's resident cook, bartender and part-time medic shrugged. "How long is a piece of string?"

Despite the pounding headache and ice pack, Raspberry felt better than she had on the bridge. The medbay had its own life support circuit. Channeling a little magic, she freed herself from Guv's grasp, rolled off the examination bed and stuck the landing.

"Where do you think you're going?" The astonished Griffon asked.

"I'm the only one left aboard with command experience," Raspberry replied, straightening the ice pack. "I'll see you later."

Guv raised an admonishing claw, then sighed and waved her out.

The moment the door closed behind her, the ship rocked with a rumble like thunder and the lights flickered. Hardly stopping to steady herself, Raspberry pushed through returning lethargy and headed for the bridge, strategising as she went.

"Westtry, Gerlach to Westtry. Come in, Raspberry!" The captain fiddled with his suit's comms, to no avail.

Thistle bashed the console in frustration as the system crashed once again. "Chief, I can't translate the UI if you keep pulling the plug every other minute!"

"Why don't you install ze translation software?" Elytra suggested.

"If I had the time to code a Portal 52 emulator, I'd have time to write the localisation by hoof!" Thistle fumed.

Elytra pulled himself out of the panel, his boiler suit thoroughly stained with oil. "Take a breath. Is zis really ze most important thing you could be doing right now?"

Thistle stomped a hoof and snorted. "Yes. I've finished hooking in your jury-rig."

"Chief, give me those engines!" Gerlach demanded. Behind him on the monitor, the Westtry had spun lopsidedly out of its loop. The cloud loomed behind it, as if to open like a maw.

"You have zem," the Changeling called, then added under his breath, "Just don't blame me if zey blow up..."

"That'll do. Full burn, Mr. Thistle!" Gerlach commanded, sweeping back to the improvised command console.

Elytra shrugged at Thistle and began to put his EVA suit back on.

“What a show of confidence," Thistle said with gallows humour, closing dozens of tabs.

Elytra paused, then looked down at the suit. "Oh nein, if ze reactor blows, we're all space dust. Zere's a coolant leak in ze core, I'm going in to repair it."

"Engines, compucolt!" The captain called.

"Working on it. Bucking popups..." Thistle replied.

As soon as he adjusted the power flow, a horrible groaning, whirring, screeching sound flooded the chamber. Gravity shifted and Thistle would have been thrown out the door, had he not been wearing his EVA suit and its magnetic boots. Tekel dangled from one of Gerlach's talons, and Elytra had to buzz his seldom-used wings to save himself.

The alien raised his translator with difficulty. "Inertial dampeners!" Reaching further, he pointed at a cluster of switches nearby.

Gerlach clanked up the floor, grunted at the alien lettering and slapped a switch at random.

Tekel slammed, Elytra skidded, but both hit the floor painfully. Thistle heard a bleeping and turned his attention back to the console. Three thrusters were firing, but one had failed to respond and was reporting a plasma fire. He shut off its power and rerouted the spare into the ship's batteries before sympathetic damage occurred. With that, the racket died away to a smooth thrumming.

"Come on, look at us, sweet and juicy..." Gerlach muttered. "If only I had some lances."

"Counter missiles!" Elytra exclaimed.

"We can use them like depth charges," Gerlach elaborated with a nod. "Quickly, we're closing."

Elytra interposed himself at the engine console. "I'll manage the power, you get to the bays and reprogram those missiles."

Tekel ran for the door, waving to Thistle. "Come, I will help."

The force wall flickered on the main screen, painting the bridge cherry red as Raspberry thundered onto it.

Graukralle looked up aghast from her station. "Razz– Ma'am, you shouldn't be up!"

"I'm fine," Raspberry snapped. Her glare carried the weight of her lineage and Graukralle folded beneath those grey eyes. "What by the Archon's smelly armpits are you two doing?! Why's the bridge understaffed? Who– never mind," With the command pit's screen smashed, she stomped to her usual station. "Engineer, is the Starlight drive online?"

"Err... Yes. But the b-bat–" Graukralle stammered.

Raspberry didn't let her finish, she already knew. "Helm, any perpendicular course from the cloud, one-point-five-c!"

"Running didn't work before," Meckler warned.

"One-point-five-c now, Mr. Meckler," Raspberry repeated.

"Aye..." Came the sardonic reply.

The main screen turned away from the looming abyss and the computer gave its painfully slow countdown as the cloud's maw closed. The drive activated and for the brief instant the Westtry blinked through the fringes, it felt as though a pencil were being dragged down Raspberry's neck. She shuddered, but then it was over. The freighter burst into open space and the screen filled with blueshifted stars.

"On my mark, oh-eighty by two-ten, two-c," she demanded, turning her gaze back to the sensor readouts. Once again, she could feel her focus starting to slip as the lack of magic caught up with her again. "Engineer, adjust environment to ten percent thaumic background."

It helped, a little, and soon the gravitational fluctuation appeared on her monitor.

"Now!"

The crew were pressed toward their consoles by centripetal force as the Westtry dropped to sublight, blasted its thrusters and zoomed away again on its new heading. On the sensors, the cloud's signature vanished.

"One-eighty by oh-oh-five, one-point-two-c. On my mark again," Raspberry instructed.

"The batteries won't stand this much longer, ma'am," Graukralle retched. "Twenty-five percent."

"They won't have to. If we hide inside Orias IV's atmosphere, we should be hidden by the storms," Raspberry said with false confidence. "Give me a damage report."

The engineer coughed, thumped her barrel and rattled it off. "Fracture in battery six, external comms offline, starboard hydro pumps shut down, outer hull breach in sector Three-F, sectors Three-D through G have lost power. Damage control are working on the comms."

Raspberry nodded. "Good. Now, since we have a minute, would one of you mind explaining to me why we were wasting batteries in a firefight with something which trashed a Roamer?"

Meckler rose and turned to face her, tail lashing angrily. "When you can't run, you've got to swipe back. That thing's already killed two ships, and now it's trying to kill us!"

"We can't fight it," Raspberry said, keeping her tone even. Meckler was young and tough–of course he'd taken command. Using force would only escalate things.

"Then what are we going to do? Let it go!?" Meckler stormed.

"Yes. We're going to hide until it loses interest, recharge our batteries, pick up the captain and sneak away," she replied.

"Craven grass-muncher," he spat, stabbing a claw at the main screen. "That thing's a predator. A predator which can go faster than light! This isn't going to stop with the Roamer, or us. Next it'll be the Vilein, or the Griffton. What if it's the Asselt?"

"Don't bring my parents into this," Raspberry countered, holding a firm, straight posture as he bore down on her.

"Why not?" Meckler laughed feyly in her face. "It's already killed my cousin! She was a yeogriff on the Wutt."

Now Raspberry glared at the unruly helmsgriff. "And that justifies risking fifty-three lives, including four cubs?"

"I thought you spacers understood family, but apparently not!" Meckler squawked.

"Blood for blood, eye for an eye? Revenge before sense? If you think that's what justice is about back in Brantbeak, you should be ashamed. This isn't the fifth bucking century!" Raspberry snarled back.

The Griffon raised his talon, claws outstretched. Though blunted, it was not a sight ancient impulses enjoyed.

Raspberry fought down the animal. "Are you going to hit a pregnant mare?"

"You... Argh!" Meckler spat, but he lowered the talon. "Hiding behind your foal."

"Yes, if it means saving lives," she flatly stated. "Duty and dedication in all things. That's the spacer way. The cloud came from the direction of Orias V, where an En-Keladim mining outpost was marked on our charts. They're radio silent. Fill in the dots, Mr. Meckler. This is bigger than a few freighters and you're right, it has to be stopped. But not by us. Westtry isn't a cruiser. We've launched our beacons, but the odds are much better that we'll get a warning through if we deliver it to the Ellor system authorities ourselves."

"And what if while we're doing that, that monster sniffs back along our thaumic trail to home?" Meckler demanded.

Raspberry shook her head. "Firstly, Ellor is far closer than any of our colonies, and thus more at risk. Secondly, Adelina and Eagleclaw should still be on patrol near Newydd Rumare. Thirdly, if the worst does happen, that's a colony of what? Twenty thousand? Ellor Eshúrizel is a thousand times more heavily populated. It would be unethical to run home and stupid to throw our lives away."

"I..." Meckler seemed to deflate. "Fine. Yes. So long as that thing dies, Katrin will have justice. And the crews."

"Oh I intend to make that come true, Mr. Meckler. Back to your station," Raspberry ordered.

"Aye, ma'am," he replied, giving his breast a stiff thump with a balled talon.

At the engineering console, Graukralle sighed with relief.

With the bridge back in order, Raspberry looked back at the sensors, just in time to see the incoming gravitic fluctuation. "Evade!"

Thankfully, Meckler had already laid in the course before his blow-out, and Westtry spun again. It was close nonetheless, and Raspberry again felt the creeping cold as the cloud blasted past them. The force of the turn was no gentler than before, but brief before they were superphotonic.

"Approaching the planet, but we need to get this thing off our tail. Ideas?" Raspberry asked.

"I could use the force wall to leave a static shield behind us for a few seconds," Graukralle said cautiously. "It'd probably eat the rest of our battery reserves though."

"If we vent plasma from the reactor, it should blot out a short sublight ion burn," Meckler suggested. "After that, run silent into the atmosphere."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive," Raspberry noted. "What's your time frame, engineer?"

Graukralle shrugged. "I'd need to access the enchantment matrices to make the modification... The batteries will be dead before I'm done, at this draw rate. Sorry. It was stupid to suggest-"

"Another time, another place. It wasn't stupid," Raspberry reassured. "Get ready to execute the Meckler Manoeuvre."

Graukralle still looked upset, but Meckler at least seemed somewhat buoyed.

Seconds ticked by and the gas giant swelled on the main screen. Raspberry waited for nearest approach, spending the time alerting the crew.

She had barely finished when the planet began to slip off to the left. "Now!"

Westtry dropped to sublight and the planet turned yellow-brown. A sharp ninety degree turn later, Graukralle's console chirped and the bridge crew were pressed into their couches by an enormous burst from the thrusters.

"Shut down." Raspberry instructed after two beats.

The burn ceased and Graukralle opened a cover on her console. With a final glance at Raspberry, she flicked the switch beneath.

Immediately, the doors locked open and the bridge was plunged into silent darkness.

Fumbling under the dim chemical lights, Meckler rose, moved to the front of the bridge and pumped a leaver. Behind the clear monitor, a blast door cranked open.

They sat in silence, watching the starry void and close as one could get to nature on a freighter. Seconds turned to minutes and the atmosphere of the gas giant began to draw close. They would have to switch on soon or plunge to crush depth.

Stars began winking out. First one, then three, then six, then twenty and suddenly the shifting blackness was apparent.

Meckler blurted some things which didn’t bear repeating.

"Steady." Raspberry whispered, as if that mattered.

The cloud closed leisurely, and the bridge began to feel like a crypt.

Graukralle shuddered. "Ma'am... It should have worked. It m-must be following our magic. I'm sorry."

Raspberry fancied she could hear humming, sickly sweet paired with the needling cold digging into her skin. She waited no longer. "Power on! Raise the force wall, navigational deflector to maximum, full burn beneath the clouds!"

The lights came up first, followed by the air conditioning. Monitors began to flicker to life, displaying painfully slow loading bars.

Meckler didn't wait for his. Springing from his couch, he grasped the ship's wheel, which would not have looked out of place on an aeroplane, and took manual control over the thrusters, allowing RCS to give them some, any delta-v until the ion engines came back online.

They never got a chance. The ship shuddered and the lights flickered as impossibly black lightning crackled across the hull.

Then the window turned yellow as the Westtry began her tumble into the welcoming embrace of Orias IV.

Author's Note

Eyrmon in the Imperial calendar is roughly equivalent to February to mid-March in a Gregorian context. The events of the story takes place in early Blaumon, or early January.

Destruction

"Thistle, give me those missiles," Captain Gerlach's tinny voice demanded in the engineer's ear.

"Two minutes, we’re doing this manually," Thistle replied, up to his shoulders in a warhead.

"We have seconds," Gerlach snapped. "It’s fire or death."

"Then you've got fourteen missiles programmed for thirty second detonation," Thistle acknowledged.

"That'll do. Clear the loader."

"Understood, Thistle out." Extracting himself, he waved to Tekel, working on the next missile on the conveyor. "Time to skedaddle, the captain's ready to relive his glory days."

Tekel shimmered oddly and bent bonelessly as he slid free. "May his impatience not cost him."

"I'm surprised you're happy to let him commandeer your ship like this," Thistle commented as the pair headed for the ladder down to the lower level.

Tekel wiggled his hands by his side before sliding down the poles. "I forfeited him when I failed my captain's trust. Now through trust I atone." At the bottom, he smacked a button on the wall and rune-encrusted breaches swivelled open. Pistons shunted two missiles in and immediately the ammunition lift whirred to life past where Thistle was still struggling with the ladder. Tekel had already moved to a nearby console. "Conduct for me."

"Tekel says we're ready. I think," Thistle said into his comms.

Gerlach's reply was as urgent as it was uncharacteristically singular. "Now!"

Thistle echoed the command and twin thumps echoed from the breaches. A second later they opened, and the cycle repeated six more times.

"Hull temperature two hundred and climbing!" Graukralle reported.

"If I die because of a system update, I'll haunt you, Thistle!" Meckler griped, hauling on the wheel.

"Graukralle, status," Raspberry demanded.

The engineer shook her head, feathers frazzled. "The system's booted, but I've got error lights all over the board! Switch to auxiliaries, Hermann."

"Don't you think I've tried that?" He snapped.

Graukralle shrugged desperately. "If in doubt, off and on again."

"Boreas be with me..." He clicked the switch once, twice.

The deck plates rumbled, acceleration padding was tested, and through the window, yellow darkened to starry black.

"Close blast shield, main viewer on," Raspberry instructed. "Helm, take us to low orbit."

Just then, a pair of flashes illuminated the cloud’s depths. Two more along the edges, and the form seemed to recoil, flecks of darkness fraying away into the void. Then she caught sight of the wounded bird's graceful flight as it soared past the explosion-wracked cloud.

Meckler cheered at the sight. "Maybe between us, we'll kill that thing!"

"Not today," Raspberry replied, leaning forward. "We've got a window, let's use it. Plot an intercept course with the cargo modules, best speed sublight. Keep us down solar wind of the cloud. Engineer, let the batteries run dry and shut off all draw. Passive sensors only."

"It's on us, great!" Captain Gerlach announced over the comms. "...I think it's great. Give me best speed, chief!"

Closing the forgotten channel himself, Thistle craned around Tekel to see the targeting scanner, on which the cloud was closing fast. Despite that, he was immensely relieved to see the Westtry moving off. "Let's get to work on more missiles."

"Fourteen warheads, and it is merely angered..." Tekel moaned in contrast, slumping down with his back to the console. "Save your energy and pray for salvation."

"But we made that thing flinch!" Thistle countered. "It's just a problem of scale. Do you have anything bigger?"

Tekel shook his head. "The secondary explosion risk is too great aboard a bird so small."

"Then we need to jury-rig something..." Thistle mused. "What does your ship run on? Fusion?"

The translator struggled with the reply. "Anathema to the prime corporeal."

"Anathema... Hates, opposed to, the opposite of," Thistle muttered, then stomped a hoof. "Do you mean anti-matter?"

"Wow, that ship's fast!" Meckler observed as the Ishtar's ion trail blazed away on the projected map.

"Too fast, maybe," Raspberry qualified, watching the external camera feeds on her station's monitor. "The cloud's veering off."

Tense minutes passed as she watched, praying it wasn't an intercept course.

Captain Gerlach thumped his console as Thistle and Tekel arrived at engineering. "Like a dog with a bone. I'm taking her in again."

"I cannot keep zese plates spinning much longer, captain!" Elytra called back. Changelings didn't sweat, but if they did, this one would have been stood in a puddle.

"We... Might have a solution to that..." Thistle panted.

"Take ze controls, I'll go into ze core and shut off zat coolant leak," Elytra instructed urgently.

Thistle held up a hoof. "Hold on. This ship runs on anti-matter. If that gets loose, it'll be the biggest explosion since the Elysium bombing!"

"Shockwaves..." Gerlach mused, turning to Tekel. "You said 'its song' ate your captain, correct?"

The En-Kelad sucked in a breath and shuddered.

Gerlach strode over, reared and planted a talon on his shoulder. "Tekel! Pull yourself together!"

Tekel screwed up his face and shook his head. "It sung to us as it killed us."

"It's a living cloud, emphasis on 'living'. By definition, it has to have some sort of control," Gerlach reasoned.

A certain desperate excitement entered Tekel's voice. "A loud enough bang will disrupt any orchestra!"

"Precisely!" Gerlach let go of the alien and turned to Elytra. "Chief, can you rig the reactor to explode remotely?"

"Ze way it is? It's harder to stop it blowing up." He paused thoughtfully. "If Thistle is right, we can easily shut down ze containment units. But we don't have a transmitter."

"Just use the transmitter aboard one of the escape pods." Gerlach turned to Tekel. "Tell me this ship has escape pods."

The En-Kelad nodded. "Even unclothed, one cannot survive long in the void."

"Zere is no time," Elytra insisted, not taking his eyes off the console. "Even if we had ze shuttle, we vould need to install command protocols to access ze computer."

Tekel straightened. "Then here I shall remain, and deliver justice for the fallen."

"Captain, he won't be able to both fly ze ship and keep ze reactor stable," Elytra warned.

"Then I'll stay too," Gerlach volunteered without hesitation.

Elytra shook his head. "You don't have ze slightest idea how zese controls work."

"I've been around the block a few ti–"

Elytra spun, drew his lance pistol and fired in one smooth motion. Gerlach fell to the ground shuddering. "You are not an engineer!"

Thistle looked between them, mouth agape.

"Zere is no time. Take him to ze escape pod," Elytra ordered, dropping his gun and turning back to the console. "Goodbye, captain. Mr. Patch. Congratulate Otto on his promotion for me."

"Erm. I'll... We'll all miss you, chief. Goodbye, Tekel." Thistle watched for a beat longer, then lit his horn and dragged the stunned captain away.

"You'll make a fine engineer one day, if you stop forgetting your clothes," Elytra said.

Thistle blinked, scooped up the two helmets propped by the command console in his brown field and gave the captain one last tug.

The doors slid shut on two noble souls.

"Is there anything left in the lance battery?" Meckler asked, watching the cloud on the main screen. Even at full burn, it was gaining on them.

"There's some residual power in the capacitors. One, maybe two shots worth," she replied.

The helmsgriff turned to Raspberry. "The captain's plan failed, ma’am. Requesting permission to die with honour."

"The captain doesn't believe in no-wins, and neither do I," Raspberry denied.

If only finding that third path was so easy. It did look an awful lot like a choice of evils.

"We could abandon ship," Graukralle suggested.

"We'd starve before our distress beacon was even heard," Meckler countered. "I'd rather go quickly."

"You won't go anywhere yet," Raspberry said firmly. "That thing doesn't turn as well as we do. We can give it the run-around until our fuel runs out."

"That's your grand plan?" Meckler snarked.

Raspberry slammed a hoof against her console and stood, leaving a shallow dent behind. "Enough, Mr. Meckler! The longer it has to chase us, the longer it isn't looking for new targets and the more energy it wastes. Playing smart is not dishonourable, but if you want to wait for glorious death locked in the cleaning cupboard, I can for arrange that too!"

"Ma'am..."

Stressed, Raspberry turned on Graukralle. "What?"

She flinched.

Raspberry rubbed her face with a pastern. "Sorry. What is it?"

Graukralle pointed past her. "Your screen."

Raspberry followed the shaky claw. On it, a blueshifted shape had appeared from behind the planet, skimming in a gravity-assisted arc just above the cloudtops.

Happy to grasp any straw, she clambered back onto her couch. "It's the captain! He's... going to ram the cloud? Two minutes to impact."

Worry flooded through Raspberry's guts. It seemed stupid when she was in mortal danger too, but Thistle was on that ship too.

"One minute."

"Forty-five."

"Thirty."

"Twent– Helm, full RCS to port!" She shouted as her eye caught something.

Meckler, to his credit, didn't question orders this time. Over the rattling of the deck, the manoeuvring thrusters were unnoticeable, but the Westtry slid on its course all the same.

Praying the small contact she had spotted was what she hoped it was, Raspberry watched the main screen as the Ishtar plunged into the cloud like a bird of prey and vanished.

The cloud writhed and grew. Within a second it had ballooned to vast proportions, filling the screen. It seemed as though it would engulf the Westtry and hope would wither to despair once more, but then it opened like a blossom. Within lay a star, its radiance illuminating that impenetrable darkness like nothing else had and withering it. The light waxed to its zenith and faded, collapsing back in on itself. A few motes of darkness lingered around the fringes. They drifted, seeming confused, but then as though caught in a wind, they were scattered and frittered away to nothing. The last twinkle of light wended against that current and passed.

The bridge was silent for a moment, until Meckler stood and whooped.

As though a spell were broken, Graukralle slumped down, rubbing her face with the palms of her talons again and again. Raspberry let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Quietly, she checked her sensors, those which hadn't been fried by the explosion.

"Mr. Meckler, match velocity with the object I've highlighted on your panel," Raspberry ordered once the cheering died down.

The pod was travelling at enormous speed on an escape trajectory from the system, but it had no acceleration. Over the next hour the Westtry closed the distance, locked on her telekinetic tractor and began to slow to EVA-safe speeds.

The next morning, Raspberry met the captain for debriefing, right as he was finishing writing the condolences to Elytra's family.

"I'll be charitable with Mr. Meckler's record. He wasn't exactly 'compus mentis'," Gerlach said from within the quarantine chamber once she had finished. "We'll have to see about training somegriff up on the helm who doesn't already have a critical action station."

"You think he'll snap again, sir?" Raspberry asked.

Gerlach shrugged. "Can't be too safe. We'll need to fill out engineering too. Assign Muck to that, it's about time he moved up from waste reclamation."

She took a note. "I can't believe Elytra's gone."

Gerlach sighed. "I know. Stubborn old bug. I don't know if I should thank him for saving me or be annoyed. Something he said on the wreck makes me wonder if he had something to prove..."

"Sad might work," Raspberry suggested.

The captain chuckled. "You know he wouldn't want that. Eyes forward, the Vraksian way. How are you doing?"

She automatically touched the bandage. "Guv checked me over, we're both fine. Missing Thistle though."

Gerlach tipped his head. "He's just one over, you know."

Raspberry gave him a faux-flat look. "No wonder you ran away to space."

"I never was afraid of a tachyonic relationship," he laughed. "Speaking of which, I need to write to Stella. Dismissed."

Raspberry nodded and stowed her notebook before plodding down the corridor to the next window.

Thistle looked up from his slate when she tapped the glass with a smile. "Hi Razz. Or should I say ma'am?" He greeted with a grin. "I hear you were brilliant."

"How about 'love'?" She replied, resting her forehead on the glass.

"That'll do," he replied, crossing the chamber and reciprocating. "Great to see you again, I thought you'd be on bridge watch until evening."

"In a bit. After breakfast." Raspberry sighed and rolled her eyes. "One night and I'm already pining."

"Just six more to go," he soothed.

Time passed. "I should get food," Raspberry said eventually.

"The sensors won't recalibrate themselves either," Thistle replied.

She felt stuck though, her heart climbing into her throat. She drew a ragged breath and the façade fell away. "I thought we were going to die, Thiz."

"We didn't."

"But what if you'd had to stay? I–" She stepped back, feeling tears run down her coat. "We can't do this again. It was sheer dumb luck we both lived."

Thistle shook his head. "Teamwork got us through."

"My family has a saying: 'Adventure chases some.'" She glanced toward the other quarantine chamber, rubbing her barrel. "This isn't my first scrape. I... think we should set up groundside once we get back home. We’ve got the Idols."

Thistle bit his lip. "We've got time to think. Don't rush into it."

With a sigh, Raspberry nodded and pressed her forehead to the glass again. "I love you."

"I love you too."

Author's Note

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this short tale as much as I did writing it. Do please leave constructive feedback, it helps me improve as an author.
The appendix blog is now available here. Do take a look for more worldbuilding fun!

Given the scope of their efforts, thanks again to Light Shine and Aydan Zamora, a wonderful good cop/bad cop duo of the beta reading world if I ever encountered one.