AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 251
ARES III SOL 248
Dawn woke Fireball, filtering down through the surviving magic crystals. The cave was a bit chilly, which explained why he awoke with two ponies, Starlight Glimmer and Spitfire, using his stomach for a pillow. Mark’s head lay on Spitfire’s stomach, while Cherry Berry lay sprawled across Mark’s body.
Breakfast for the others was leftovers from the previous night; cold baked potato, hay, and leftovers from a food pack opened up for flavor. For himself Fireball washed off the larger shards of lightning-struck crystal that lay among the plants and made his breakfast from them.
After that, it was time to inspect the damage and fix what could be fixed.
The storm hadn’t triggered a landslide to bury the airlock, but the wind-blown dust had piled up half a meter deep against the outer airlock door. It took a bit of wrestling to get the door open, and Mark and Fireball worked on cleaning out the mechanism while the others checked the cave’s solar collectors on top of the hill.
While Fireball and Mark wielded brushes and compressed air, they listened to the chatter over the suit comms. Cherry Berry and Spitfire had gone above the cave to inspect the solar farm there. The storm had left the solar panels alone, aside from a coating of Martian dust. (The dust swept easily away, suggesting that the improvised electrical grounding system had worked.) The sun feeder crystals likewise were intact, but that didn’t matter. There hadn’t been a third lightning strike, but the two bolts had caused the failure of five of the enchanted crystals in the ceiling. The solar collector crystals linked to those destroyed crystals were good only for snacks... if you could pick which ones were still live and which weren’t.
After sweeping off the cave’s solar farm, Cherry and Spitfire hiked across the ancient volcano to check the status of Rover 2. Mark had parked it next to a steep bit of slope on Site Epsilon’s northwest side, as ordered. Only a bit of sand and dust had piled up on the rover’s wheels, with a thin coating covering the roof. The airlock worked without a problem, and the inside appeared to be in good shape, still holding air.
While the others were outside, Starlight went through the farm and cleaned out the smaller bits of shattered quartz. None of the falling shards had done serious damage to the plants, but those shards could do damage to hooves or boots if left alone. The shattered crystals had broken in pieces as large as Mark’s hand and as small as glitter, but carefully, systematically, Starlight swept through the field and magically combed them out. Fireball asked her to save the bits for later, because waste not, want not.
Cherry and Spitfire got back to the cave entrance just as Mark and Fireball finished cleaning out the airlock doors. With the crew reassembled inside the cave, Starlight used the day’s magic field time to cut five new solar collector crystals from the ceiling, enchanting them with the same spell as the already existing ones. That done, each of them gave a goodbye hug to Dragonfly’s cocoon, suited back up, and left, dropping the new collectors on the hilltop before hiking back to the rover.
All of this had happened with very little conversation. Nobody wanted to talk. That suited Fireball just fine, since he usually didn’t feel like talking anyway. Start a conversation with ponies, and sooner or later feelings were going to come into it.
But Fireball admitted, silently, to himself, a profound sense of relief when the rover climbed out of the last gully and the Hab appeared in the front windows, a bit dustier than when they’d left it, but obviously inflated and intact.
“Thank goodness,” Cherry Berry said.
“I call first shower,” Spitfire stammered.
“No shower yet,” Mark said. “I have to turn everything back on and run full diagnostics. And before we do that, we need to sweep off the solar panels and send a message to NASA.”
“I’m go to bed,” Fireball rumbled. “Go to bed and go to sleep someplace where lightning doesn’t strike inside. Where there more than one way out. Where razor sharp things won’t fall on us at any moment. Where I have my own bed. And where ponies don’t put their heads on my stomach while I’m asleep!”
He realized, a few moments late, that he’d said more than he’d meant to say.
“Um, I said I was sorry,” Spitfire replied.
“I think that’s the most English I’ve ever heard you use at one time,” Starlight added.
“Bed,” Fireball said, and kept his reply to that.
Stupid ponies and their feelings.
TRANSCRIPT – TELEGRAPH MESSAGE BETWEEN ESA AMICITAS AND EARTH DEEP SPACE NETWORK (NASA)
(note: the approximate turnaround time from sending message to receiving answer, between lightspeed delay and time required to translate Morse code, averages one hour, five minutes. The process is sped up on the Earth end by automated Morse translation and transmission software.)
AMICITAS: Friendship calling NASA. Friendship calling NASA. All safe. Hab intact. Ready to restore power to Pathfinder when ready. Please advise, over.
NASA: JSC calling Friendship. Reading you two by three, heavy solar interference. Recommend check for residual static charge on Pathfinder hull prior to restoring power. Proceed by taking longest antenna aerial fragment, connect to Hab ground system using long cable, Starlight Glimmer use magic to touch aerial to Pathfinder hull. Keep aerial away from all other components. Over.
AMICITAS: Repeat procedure, please, over.
NASA: Take one aerial fragment. Attach long cable. Plug into Hab ground system. Use magic to touch aerial to hull, and ONLY to hull, of Pathfinder. Keep aerial clear of all other parts of Pathfinder. Over.
AMICITAS: Procedure complete. It made one hell of a spark. Glad I contacted you before attempting to restore power to Pathfinder. Restoring power now, over.
NASA: Roger. Report on Hab condition, over.
AMICITAS: Hab systems back online, diagnostic in progress. So far no problems. Solar cells covered with dust and sand. Airlock 1 moved about half a foot. Secondary potato shed filled with dust blown through cracks. Friendship unmoved. Rover 1 intact. Rover 2 fully operational. Five sun crystals in cave farm destroyed by electrical discharge. Over.
NASA: Good to hear. Return to radio at 0830 hours your time to report each sol until Pathfinder link restored. Out.
Ha, still standing! That all you got Mars?
*struck by lightning*
Oh good, just before I have to head to work.
I finished the trio/harmony part. Mark's verse is next, when I have time.
i.imgur.com/w3Rm38q.png
And with that, Mark and Co survive another attempt of the Red Planet to murder them, and even come off better than they did in the book! This calls for celebration. I suggest potatoes and alfalfa, with a dash of alfalfa and potatoes on the side. And water to wash it all down. :D
Another great chapter, length matters not in a masterpiece that updates this often with such consistent quality.
8947120
At this rate, I half-expect Mark to snap and start gnawing on Fireball's gems in search of flavor.
Well, that went pretty well. Not today, Mars!
Huh. I guess Mars was still sleepy. I bet we can look forward to more impossible shenanigans as the Red Planet starts feeling his oats.
Come to think of it, what would happen if one were to blast Mars with friendship lasers?
Well, that could have gone worse.
8947211
Banished to the moon!
Ha, he knows!
And to think, Starlight herself once said:
And later had this exchange:
Spitfire's hardly known for being in touch with that side of herself, so I guess it's really just Cherry keeping up the pony reputation
Also, I think fan art of them all cuddled up together would be lovely
8947211
Earth's atmosphere and oceans would migrate. After the way we treated then i don't blame them.
I have to admit, I had hoped that the crystals were going to convert the lightning into magical energy and broadcast it throughout the cave, enabling Dragonfly to leave her cocoon. Ah, well.
8947244
Banishing Mars to the Moon sounds like bad news for the Earth.
Heavy solar interference isnt something you want to hear when youre heading inside the orbit of Venus in a ship with less than 20 metres of radiation shielding.
8947292
Turn Mars to stone....... never mind.
Send it to Canterlot High.
Better yet, Starlight reforms it. One small step for Pony. One giant leap for Friendship.
8947307
Battery, I'd assume. After all you couldn't run a manned Mars mission if you only had electricity half the day.
8947244
Which one? Phobos or Deimos?
8947293 Not that kind of interference. Earth and Mars are getting close to the point where they will be on opposite sides of the sun from each other. It's still about sixty sols off, but the sun is close enough to the line of transmission that it's hard to maintain the connection. And it's going to get harder.
8947307 One of the Hab's hydrogen cells was transferred to the cave farm when they set it up. Not much point in the space heaters if they don't work when it's COLDEST.
8947337
Attention all personnel, at this time I need anyone who correctly predicted the casualty report of the Sol 247 storm to report to the betting cages and collect your winnings. I repeat, at this time I need anyone who correctly predicted the casualty report of the Sol 247 storm to report to the betting cages and collect your winnings. Thank you.
(Sorry, Kris... you're the author on this one. I'm gonna have to DQ you for advanced knowledge this time :P)
Should be "triggered".
8947063
To be fair, Martian lightning, as previously stated, is significantly weaker than any Earthly lightning. And it is not at all uncommon to survive direct lightning strikes on Earth. So, I imagine the odds of a lightning strike on Mars being fatal are very, very low. It would still be ideal if that didn't happen though.
Hey, would any female readers here be interested in singing/recording the pony parts on the song? (Starlight, Cherry, and Spitfire?) I'm still in the process of transcribing River's melody (haven't truly started on Kris's melody, since I started wrong), but when I'm finished, I'd like to get some singers to collaborate with me on recording that. I'll also work on creating an appropriate instrumental given the context in the story; something the magic battery would have made according to the narrative.
If anyone is interested in doing this with me, send me a private message. I think I'll make a dedicated Discord server for this.
8947119
Hey! You can't use C# minor! I'm using C# minor!
8947719
I'm sorry? River Babble sang that portion in E Major, not C# minor (and yes, I know those are relative keys of each other, but it's a major key song). I didn't know anyone else was transcribing either version. I'm not sure if you're being serious or not.
Fireball is Best Warm Pillow.
"leftovers from the previous night; cold baked potato"
"leftovers from the previous night: cold baked potato"?
...Nothing went wrong? Really? Huh.
Sorry about the headache.
Something discovered thats related to Sojourna, given is CPU and processing requirements, how it was done in the 80s. Multiple CPUs make light work.
I forgot how little Ram, Flash Sojourna had, but given it moves even more slowly, I was thinking maybe simulation, emulation of a paged multi board system was possible.
To think, Geminis processors are each less than 1% the power, ability of a Dollar Store USB hub CPU.
That Stump has taken an awful amount of electrical energy. How much more before it turns the Cave, into Caveorite.
8947561
I had 5 bits on the collector crystal.
Why can’t they just stay at the Hab and Cave until the next Mission lands beside them? I’m pretty sure there was a reason but I missed it.
8947247
LET'S SEE THOSE BIG, HAPPY SMILES!
8947283
Eh, seems a bit far fetched. But the weird weather does portend to greater things happening in the future as more magic gets dumped into the environment. I still feel Mars isn't actively out to "get" Mark and crew, rather it's a huge grumpy bear that got woken up. If you were a mouse, or even smaller like an ant, the bear wouldn't know or care about you as it rolled over, stumbling to its feet gracelessly. Your own concern would be not getting stepped on.
8947724
I was being facetious, though I am writing up a new arrangement of my own, partly mixing my first idea with Kris's verse melody. I'll be interested to hear your finished version!
A similar portion of my score.
8948027
Because Hermes is already on it's way back, food is tight at best and every moment they spend longer on Mars is another moment something could go catastrophically wrong.
8947437
They're pretty deep underground with all that thermal mass around. It's a bit colder at night, of course, without sun and with crystals letting infrared out, but I really doubt that it's worth wasting battery's resource.
8948103
I see you're focusing more on Kris's melody, while I'm focusing on River's because I got the rhythm wrong on Kris's at the beginning and haven't gone back to it. Maybe if you're focusing on that version, I won't have to do it. What do you say?
Edit: I have made a dedicated Discord server for this music project. PM me if you'd like to be in it.
When did they get compressed air?
8949065 Atmospheric regulator and/or Ares III MAV fuel plant, if no other way. It's a handy tool in a dusty environment.
8949083
Right, space. Bottles filled with the stuff. They even have a compressor in the rover. Sorry, my brain misses things sometimes.
8949236
Did she ever try cherry leaf tea? She has the ingredients.
Note: Storm apparently PO'd it didn't do you in. Turning around 180, image now looks like 'rage face' on satellite.
I get that.
All of yesterday and a good chunk of today.
Seems to be fading now though, thank Luna.
Wartime Poster time!
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I just noticed this one says potatoes something something give you ENERGY
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I'm reminded of a similar scene in The Dresden Fillies, where Dresden and the Mane Six all fall asleep in an exhausted pile after a long and tiring adventure. Somehow the author got art of that, and, completely out of context, he used this pic of smug bastard Harry Dresden in a pile of mares as cover art of his side stories entry on fimfic
So yea. I need art of this!
Well, at least it was lightning-blasted quartz. That probably adds some flavour; it even sounds like a dragon recipe
Probably easier to just leave 'em; not like there's a shortage of space on top of the cave.
Oh, wow. Comms loss avoided yet again!
Well, it wouldn't be a total loss now anyway, with them having the morse fallback. No space pirate Watney this time!
For a moment, I read that as referring to the crystals inside the cave, and imagined the sort of horrors an internal sunburn could cause. And now that I think about it, while it was never actually mentioned, the light collection spell must have had some sort of limiter on it to restrict it to visible and possibly infrared light to keep everyone in the cave from getting super ultra skin cancer. Mars has no ozone layer, and so despite the lower intensity of Martian sunlight compared to Earth sunlight, there'd still be way more ionizing radiation in it.
reminds me of a sci-fi story where a ship that had dropped out of hyperspace unexpectedly picked up an absurdly large static charge. they used a wire MILES long and it blew up AN ENTIRE MOUNTAIN and melted half the ship!
10033822
Sub space Explorers by E E 'Doc' Smith.
Huh... Mars go to war but nobody died... That a surprising outcome
Nice chapter. For ones no major fuck over...
...How did they do all-caps in morse code?
10608813 It's one of the advanced courses you can take at Strong Bad Typing School.
Mars must be absolutly livid, just wasted all the power in the weather gun
Crew get the point for surviving AND not losing communication!