Voyage of the Farlander

The Grand Equestrian Empire has gone through some rough times. They have been locked in a stalemate with a rebel group calling themselves the New Equestrian Republic for a few years. The galaxy-wide war has stretched colonies belong to both sides pretty thin. Most resources go into the war effort. So when a planet calls for supplies for the ponies that live there, it is the job of cargo freighters like the ECS Farlander to bring those supplies.

The freighter was docked on the Horseshoe Station, receiving the last of the shipment from the elevator that connected the station to the planet below. The Farlander was to bring this shipment of food and relief supplies from Harvest to Gemstone, an Empire mining planet that was recently hit hard by the Republic. While the Farlander isn’t the only ship doing this run, it’s by far the biggest ship doing it, and therefore has the most important cargo.

Of course, since the Empire’s war efforts are taking up most of their resources, the Farlander only gets a skeleton crew of four, plus one AI. One of those crew members was running late to actually board the ship. She was a pale tan unicorn wearing a black form-fitting jumpsuit that covered her from the neck down and even the tail. When she finally boarded, she was greeted by an upset teal earth pony. “You’re late.”

The unicorn bowed her head apologetically. “I’m sorry. I got lost in the station.”

The earth pony sighed and led her to the bridge. “Right, well let’s get you introduced to the others, then we can finally get going.”

On the Farlander's bridge was another earth pony and a scarred griffon with a cybernetic talon. While the griffon was tinkering with her prosthetic the earth pony, who was sitting in the captain's chair, appeared to have fallen asleep while the ship was being loaded.

As the earth pony and the unicorn entered the griffon looked up at them before reaching out and shaking the sleeping pony. "Hey boss, wake up." She said, the shaking quickly waking the pony.
"Huh, what?" He looked at the griffon before noticing the other two ponies. "Oh, you're here. Good to know." He smiled at them before yawning and scratching the back of his head. The griffon just face taloned.

The unicorn gave a quick salute to the captain before speaking. “Um, good evening, sir. My name is Pepper Pizzazz. I was the one who applied to cook for the crew.” She took a brief look around. “Um, where is the crew anyway?”

The earth pony beside her shrugged. “Sorry to say it’s just us here. This ship is important to the Empire’s trade network, but the budget cuts are hitting us hard. Though it’s great to have somepony onboard who can cook. I’m Frosty Works, the resident engineer for this tin can.” She introduced herself. Pepper looked towards the other two for their introductions.

The griffon idly waved at the Frosty and Pepper. "Hi, I'm Valkyrie. Guess I'm the closest thing to security here. That's... Jammex. Don't bother asking about the weird name. I did and there really isn't much to tell." She goes back to messing around with her talon.

Jammex gets up off his chair and stretches. "Uhhh yeah, what she said. Anyway, we ready to get this show on the road or what?"

As Jam asked that question, the holo-pedestal beside him lit up and the holographic image of a purple pegasus with a wavy mane appeared. “All the cargo has been secured and we are ready for departure. Waiting on your word, Captain.” The AI said.

Pepper squealed with excitement at the sight of the holographic pony. “Oh my gosh, is that an AI?! So cool!”

The hologram looked at Pepper and giggled. “First time seeing an AI?” She asked, to which Pepper nodded. “Well nice to meet you. I’m Viola, the ship’s AI. I’m basically the one running 99% of this ship.”

Jammex nodded at Viola. "Great, the let's power up the engines get out into the big black." He said, spinning around on his chair. Valkyrie just rolled her eyes at him before turning around and looking at a bunch of monitors. Jammex turns to face Frosty. "I'm not really sure what you two should do. I guess you can go and make sure the engines keep operating as they should Frosty." He then looks to Pepper, "and you should probably go to the kitchen and get familiar with it, Pepper. It's gonna be a long trip after all. Viola can probably handle anything else. Valkyrie and I will probably be up here on the bridge if you need us though. That's all for now." With that he spins back around on his chair, facing away from them.

Frosty gave a nod and left the bridge. Pepper was a bit slower to leave, taking her time to look around at her surrounding as she wandered towards the kitchen. Strangely enough, the room smelled of pizza briefly. Viola smirked as they left. “Aye Captain, keying engines now.” The ship lurched slightly as it separated itself from the station, then turned towards the vastness of space as Viola spun up the FTL Drive. “By the way Captain, I read through Pepper’s file. It’s quite fascinating. You should give it a look.” She said before her avatar disappeared.

Jammex shakes a little in his seat as the ship lurches away from the station. He then nods at Viola. "I'll get to later. Probably for the best to know everything I can about everyone else here." He then slowly spins around on his chair as the FTL drive powers up. Valkyrie rolls her eyes yet again before getting out of her seat.

"Well, I'm gonna go grab a beer, I'll be in my room if something happens up here." She says as she leaves the bridge, heading for her quarters and leaving Jammex alone on the bridge.

Frosty trotted towards the engine room. Before they set off, she heard noises coming from that area. She didn’t find anything wrong then, but it never hurt to check for anything that might have come loose during the jump. And if somepony snuck onboard, she had a wrench with their name on it. Also a griffon whose job it was to deal with intruders. But she’d get the first whack in. They were her engines, after all. Nopony but her was going to mess with them.

As lunch neared, Pepper was working to make a great first meal for the crew. She was startled by Viola’s vocal appearance from the speakers. “Heya. Smells good, Pepperoni.” She said cheerfully.

Pepper picked herself up off the ground after pratfalling and glared at the speakers. “Hey, a little warning would have been nice! And my name hasn’t been Pepperoni since before the Empire was formed, so I don’t know how you knew.”

“Lucky guess.” Viola teased. “So your file wasn’t lying, then. You really are that old?”

Pepper nodded. “And yes, still perfectly safe in case you were wondering. Now then, when lunch comes around, could you let the others know?”

“Sure. Also, might want to grow out your tail a bit. It’s shorter than it was earlier.” And with that, the AI went quiet once more.

Valkyrie made her way to her quarters, stepping through the open door and going over to a mini fridge next to her bed. She opened it and and pulls out a small bottle of beer before prying the cap off with her beak and spitting it into a waste paper bin. Sitting on the end of her bed, Valkyrie leans against the wall before taking a swig from the bottle. She'd spent all day screwing around with the weapon systems on the ship to make sure they didn't get blown up by some random pirates ten minutes into the journey and now she just wanted to sit back and relax for a while. She took another swig.

Meanwhile, Jammex was sitting up on the bridge, idly batting at some fluffy dice hanging above one of the consoles and occasionally spinning around on his chair. Being bored out of his skull with nothing to really do up on the bridge, he decided to get up and head over to the cafeteria. As he trotted along the hallways of the ship he ended up accidentally taking a wrong turn and was now headed towards the engine room.

To call the engine room a mere room was an understatement. It was second largest room on the Farlander, right behind the main cargo hold. It had to be, considering how big the engine was. After all, a small engine could not hope to push a massive fully loaded cargo ship through the vastness of space. The engine itself was surrounded by floors and decks, so that an engineering crew had easy access to the majority of the engine, making repairs a breeze for anypony, not just pegasi or those working with gravity turned off. Frosty loved that about this ship. She hated working under zero-g conditions.

At the moment, Frosty was on the upper floor on top of the engine. The strange noises started up again, and she needed to make sure it wasn’t an issue with the engine. If something happened during FTL transit, there wouldn’t even be enough time to scream. Viola’s scans of the engine showed nothing wrong with it, so she had to look to see if anything else was making the noise. Maybe something got loose. If that was the case, Frosty had to search the whole room top to bottom to find it before it became a problem.

Of course, there was a third possibility, one that lingered in Frosty’s mind and kept her wrench tight in her grip. The possibility somepony stowed away on the ship. That would be a stupid decision on their part as even though the crew only consists of four, they had a talented griffon for security and an AI who could vent the room they would be hiding in. Frosty also had some combat experience, and was frightfully deadly with her wrench.

The noises in the engine room grew louder as Frosty neared the portside exit of the engine room. She could swear she heard hoofsteps, though maybe that was her going crazy. Either way, she was visibly tense as she searched. A clattering to her right made her jump. When she looked at where it came from, there was nopony there. “Bah, look at me. Jumping at nothing. Can’t I stave off the craziness for a few more days?” That was when the door behind her opened, startling Frosty again enough to get her to throw her wrench at whoever was there. Thankfully it missed, and embedded itself in the wall. Then she actually looked and saw it was Jammex. “Oh! Sorry Captain. Thought you were a stowaway. Anyway, what are you doing here?” She asked.

Jammex, despite obviously being lost, continued aimlessly wandering around the engine room. He knew that he'd eventually find a sign directing him to the cafeteria and that even if he didn't he could just ask viola to show him the way out.

"May as well see how many different shades of grey I can see before getting out of here." He thought to himself as he opened the door to see Frosty. The next thing he would see was a thrown wrench embedded in the wall next to his head. He thought he heard Frosty saying something but he was too busy staring at the wrench, wondering how a blunt object could get stuck in a solid steel wall though he did pick up on her asking what he was doing to which he replied "Oh, just... Well, not much else for me to do, really. Spinning on a chair and batting at some fluffy dice only kills so much time, you know?" He said, smiling and trying to forget the fact his brain was almost pulverised by a wrench.

Frosty chuckled nervously. “Yeah… Though we do have a recreation room. Were you trying to find that?” She asked, pulling the wrench from the wall. She winced at bit at the dent it made. “Yikes, that’ll be tough to fix. Hey Viola, we got any more of those motivational cat posters left?”

“Ships records do not indicate any such posters were brought onboard.” Came the AI’s reply. “Lemme just check the… Ah, yes. There are a few posters in Storage Room C. Gee, I wonder how those got there.”

“Maybe it’s because the ponies running things are so incompetent that they let a ship this big go with only four crew members and a snarky AI.” Frosty shot back.

“Point taken. By the by, if you want to get to the rec room, it’s down the hall, to the left, and up two floors.” Viola then lit up the ship’s lights to point the way. “And I recommend you go as well Frosty. It’s not healthy to be cooped up in here for the whole trip.”

Jammex shook his head. "Actually I was headed to the cafeteria but I guess it doesn't matter all that much." He shrugged before reaching out and poking the dent, wincing at the thought of what would have happened if that had hit him.

He turned back to Frosty when she and Viola brought up the cat posters. "Heh, I'm sure they'll come in handy if we find some space station suffering from a critically low meme supply... Wait, the posters do happen to just be memes that were printed out, right?" He smiled awkwardly as he wonder if the joke he made had totally fell flat or if he could salvage it somehow. "Anywaaaaaay... I'll be going to the rec room." He said as he stepped around Frosty and continued down the hall, following the lights Viola turned on to show them the way.

“Oh, they’re the meme-iest.” Viola replied, and while they couldn’t see her, they could easily imagine her with a big grin on her face. Frosty rolled her eyes at the AI and followed Jammex to the rec room.

The rec room of the Farlander was modest in size and content. Certainly bigger than a crew of four needs, but not big enough that it could distract a full crew at once. There was a pool table in the center of the room. A few arcade machines decorated the back of the room. A small theatre system was set up to the right. To the left were a couple vending machines, a cabinet filled with board games, and some table to play them at. There was also an old jukebox in the corner, which was playing some lighthearted music.