Technicalities - A She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Story
By Maureen Leah
*click click click*
Hordak moved on to the next bolt and began turning it counter-clockwise.
He was interrupted by a knocking on the chassis around him. "Hey, do you have the six-sided hex driver?"
He paused. "Yes, I shall be done with it in a moment."
"'Kay."
He resumed working on the bolt, until *click click click* it was done. He continued on to the next bolt, with seven more to go after it. This was the fifth time he'd reassembled the inertial damper. This time, he hoped, it would actually keep working once he finished closing it up. He'd grown tired of having to repeatedly dismantle the sensitive yet critical component that seemed to want to work only until it was fully in one piece again.
After he had finally finished the last bolt, he sighed and slid out of the chassis. "I am finished. For now, anyway." No sooner than he'd said that did a lock of Entrapta's hair appear before him, a "palm" held open expectantly. He placed the tool into the "hand" and it immediately pulled away.
"Thanks sweetie!"
Hordak gave a little smile as he stood. He ran a gloved hand through the tuft of blue hair atop his white head. "Darla," he said, "Run level 3 diagnostics on inertial damper."
"Running Level 3 diagnostic on inertial damper."
He watched the holographic display as it brought up bar graphs and a diagram of the ship, an elliptical aura around it. He watched as the bars rose and fell, a few of them moving into red zones. He squeezed a fist and clenched his teeth...and then watched as they slid back into the green.
"Level 3 diagnostic complete. Result: Pass."
Hordak let out a long sigh. "Finally!"
"Good job, partner!" Entrapta said, not looking away from her work. "We can finally check that one off the list!"
Hordak picked up a clear bottle, filled partway with a thick green liquid, from the console next to him. He popped the top, drank a mouthful, and then closed it again. Yes, off the list. He gazed around at the engine room, taking mental stock of the things he and Entrapta, and her small army of helper 'bots, had repaired, rebuilt, cleaned up, and even outright invented out of salvaged parts over the past few months. And as spectacular as Entrapta's genius was, he could proudly say that his had also been exercised and, he believed, strengthened. He had discovered things, imagined things, built things that, back before he had met her, he never would have thought to do on his own.
Entrapta had brought out things in him that he'd never known he had. She hadn't just tested his intellect. She had shown him, really shown him, what it was like to be a person. He turned his gaze to her, her bottom half all that was visible outside the chassis of the hyperwarp engine. He could hear her muttering as she tinkered, her wrench clicking periodically, her legs shifting as she adjusted her position to reach some other component inside. He watched as her hair reached out, grabbed her fizzy drink, and pulled it back inside the chassis with her. There was a slurping, and then she set the drink back outside onto the floor.
Never, in his wildest dreams, could he have expected feeling this way about any being. For so much of his life he had been so obsessed with serving Horde Prime, and then obsessed with returning to him after he was cast out. He'd thought he was fulfilling a purpose, but in the end, it had all left him empty, alone. Longing.
And then he met Entrapta. At first she had shown him that this "backward" world had the capacity to understand and manipulate technology that, he'd thought, was far beyond them. That had intrigued him, but not prepared him for what came next.
She'd then shown him something he once thought alien, something he did not believe himself worthy of. Caring. Despite his flaws, despite his near-constant rage at all of creation, she had shown him love. "Your imperfections are beautiful," she'd told him. And for the first time in his existence, he'd actually come to believe he could be loved.
Even after she'd been cast out by his betrayer, even after he'd had his identity stripped from him, she had come for him.
He took another drink from his bottle, and examined the liquid inside as it sloshed around. She'd even invested the time and effort to synthesize and distribute a stable analogue of the nutrient-rich amniotic fluid he and his clone brothers needed to survive. He hadn't asked her to. He hadn't intended for her to do so. She had just decided it needed to be done, and then did it.
He truly owed her his life, in more ways than one.
"Eureka!"
Hordak turned to see her pushing herself out of the hyperwarp engine's chassis. "That's it! Darla's fixed! Let's go to the bridge and do a test run!" She leaped to her feet, grabbed his hand with one of her hair locks, and yanked him as she ran past. He dropped the bottle in his surprise and had to scramble to keep from falling over.
It was a quick semi-tandem jog to the bridge. Entrapta released Hordak as she reached the main panel. "Darla! Darla!" she practically shouted as she pressed her hand to the panel. "Darla! Are you ready to fly?"
"Beginning flight diagnostics."
The holographic display blinked to life, a large wire diagram of the ship. It rotated as various sections were highlighted in yellow, and then changed to green. Most of them, anyway. One section changed to red.
Hordak examined the warning message pointing to that section. "The air chillers have a low-flow alert," he said.
Entrapta wasn't listening to him. She was standing, her eyes and mouth open wide, letting out a peal of excitement. He knew better than to try to interrupt her in this state, and kept his silence.
They continued watching. Every other section eventually turned green. Darla's voice spoke up: "Hull integrity at 137%. Anti-gravity generators at 112%. Sublight engines at 143%. Hyperwarp at 105%. Internal dampers-"
"We should reset those baselines," Hordak said.
"Yeah, probably," Entrapta said. Hordak was surprised she'd actually heard him in her zeal. "But them being over 100% is pretty cool too, don'cha think?"
They listened as Darla continued rattling off the statistics, every single one passing except for the air chillers.
"The chillers could need primed," Hordak said. "The coolant may have settled after we charged it."
"We can fix that one later," Entrapta said. "After her maiden flight!"
"Wait, you mean-?"
She mashed several buttons on the panel. "Darla, flight systems startup!"
"Activating all flight systems."
Hordak knew better than to argue. He also knew to do one other thing. As the floor began to vibrate with the power of the ship's engines coming to life, he pressed a hand to the panel. "Attention!" he said. He could hear his voice echoing throughout the ship. "Clear the area around the ship! Preparing for takeoff!"
He imagined - he hoped - that only robots were nearby. Entrapta wasn't always cautious when she was this excited. He checked the proximity scanners, glad to see no life traces within the danger zone of the ship. Then again, Entrapta's living staff members tended to stay away whenever he was present. In this case, it was a good thing. He felt the ship lurch, and hoped briefly that the inertial damper he'd just fixed would actually kick in before they were smashed into paste against the bridge's rear bulkhead.
"Here we go!" Entrapta jumped into the command chair, bringing the holographic controls to life and manipulating them almost frantically. The ship lurched again, but the motion was gentler this time.
"Gravity generators online and engaged. Internal dampers online and engaged. Structural integrity field online and engaged."
The scene outside, the exterior of Crypto Castle and the horizon beyond, started falling away and turning ever so slightly to the left, visible through the massive transparent metal ceiling.
"Yesss!" Entrapta said. She tapped away at the holographic controls. There was a loud thrumming that caused the floor beneath Hordak's feet to buck ever so slightly.
"Sublight engines online."
"Space," Entrapta said, tapping more controls as she continued, "here...we...go!"
The scenery through the front bulkhead immediately started whizzing past. Hordak felt only a slight lurch backward as the ship started accelerating. He sighed in relief. "The inertial dampers worked," he pointed out, not reporting their success as much as he was trying to assuage his own nerves. He knew Entrapta's work, and he knew he could trust her pre-work and her calculations, but history had taught him to not be quite as confident in his own.
"Woohoo!" Entrapta called as she pulled back on the virtual control stick.
"Altitude 3000 meters. Altitude 6000 meters. Altitude 10,000 meters."
As Darla continued calling off their ascent, Hordak watched Entrapta. Her excitement, her sheer joy at this invigorated him. And that he had helped make it happen, that he had managed to complete a project that was constructive, not destructive - it felt good.
He smiled. Seeing her this excited, this happy, filled him with a joy he couldn't have understood before he'd known her. It was enough to make him forget, for the moment, that he was dying.
VVVVV
"Landing cycle complete. All systems nominal."
"That was so much fun! I can't wait to tell the guys!" Entrapta leapt from the command chair and onto Hordak, squeezing him tightly. He returned the embrace.
"Congratulations," he said. "I knew you could do it."
"I knew we could do it!" Entrapta said. She took his face in her hands and kissed him hard, excitedly, on the lips. This sensation, this closeness of pressing lips, was still new to him. He had never once experienced it in his life before meeting Entrapta, but he had to say he enjoyed it. "This is so exciting! We get to go back to space and we'll be going to all different planets and it's gonna be even better than last time and-"
He listened to her continue on. Never before would he have had the patience for this kind of speech - "prattling" he'd have called it. But with Entrapta, her excitement was infectious. He smiled, and when she finally stopped to catch her breath, he said, "It sounds like you'll have an exciting adventure."
"You bet! It'll be - wait...you'll be coming too, right? To space?"
"I…" He paused. He hadn't put much thought into it. He wasn't even certain he would survive to see the ship's completion, much less worry about whether or not the Princess Council would allow him to do so. "Would that not violate the terms of my punishment?"
"Oh, no, if I talk to Glimmer I'm sure she'll make an exception. You're my lab partner! You're my...my...friend," she said, blushing. "I want you to come with us. If you - want to, I mean."
Hordak smiled again and placed his hand on the side of her face. "How could I say no?"
"Great!" she shouted, planting another hard kiss to his lips. "You get Darla settled while I go call Glimmer! Oh this is so exciting!"
He watched Entrapta run off through the rear door of the bridge, and then watched it close behind her.
Hordak strode to the command chair and sat down. He tapped an armrest button and the holographic display came back to life. He checked the various systems and set each one to shut down. The ambient noises around him began to whir down and stop, eventually leaving the bridge in near-silence and only illuminated by the light of the sunset, shining just over the peaks of the mountains of Dryl.
"Shutdown complete."
He tapped the armrest button again and the holographic controls vanished. He stayed there, though, bathed in the sunlight.
He didn't know how many more of those he would see. He only knew it would not be many. He needed to retire to his quarters and perform what had become his daily ritual of testing his blood. It helped him get an idea for just how well his body was holding up, though it hadn't helped him predict how much longer he actually had. There was no precedent for this. There was a flaw in his genetic code that even Prime's technology could not pinpoint and correct. Not that Prime would have wanted to expend any effort on such an endeavor anyway.
For all the technology they had been able to salvage from both Prime and the First Ones, none of them had helped him figure out how to keep his own body from falling apart. The various exo-suits Entrapta had made for him helped him function, even took away much of the pain, but in the end, his existence was limited.
He leaned back in the command chair and, despite those thoughts, he smiled. If there was one thing that he felt would make his remaining time worthwhile, it was that, until his last moment, he would keep making Entrapta happy.
That was now the main purpose of his life, and it was enough.
VVVVV
"Wait, you want to what?"
"I want Hordak to come with us to space!" Entrapta said, facing the communication screen with hands pressed together.
Queen Glimmer's image stood still for a moment, and Entrapta briefly wondered if the signal had frozen. Finally: "I - Entrapta, I -"
"Come on, pleeeeease?" She pressed her hair locks together over her head, imitating the pleading gesture 3 more times. "He's the best engineer and we work so well together!"
Glimmer pinched the bridge of her nose. "I - I'll have to talk to the Council. I mean, I know he's been...doing good things lately, but before that-"
"What he did before doesn't matter! He's a good person now! And he wants to do good things! And...and I need him. To come. With me." She stared at Glimmer for a long moment. "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?"
Glimmer's shoulders raised and lowered, and the sound of a sigh emitted from the speaker. "I - guess it'd probably be fine with the Council. They probably wouldn't complain about Hordak not being on Etheria, anyway."
"See?" Entrapta said. "Win-win!"
"Okay, okay," Glimmer said with her hands up, chuckling. "He can come with us. I'll make sure Adora and Catra know."
"Yay! Thanks Glimmer!" Entrapta mashed the button to end the video call.
"Wait, we need-" The screen went dark and the speaker went silent.
Entrapta spun on her heels and ran toward the rear door of the lab. "Hordak!" she cried. "Hordak, I've got great news!"
In his room, Hordak gently placed the tip of a pipette to a dot of blood on his forearm. He drew the dark bluish liquid into the pipette and then squeezed it back out onto a small white strip he held pinched between the fingers of that hand. He dropped the pipette onto the bed, plucked up a small black device, and slid the strip into a slot at the bottom.
The device's display came to life, and several numerals appeared onscreen. He grimaced at these results. As he feared, the previous evening's results weren't a fluke. Toxin concentration was indeed increasing. One of his critical organs, the equivalent of a human kidney, was beginning to fail. He grumbled under his breath.
"Hordak!"
He snapped his eyes toward the door, and then immediately shoved the small device and the discarded pipette under the covers of his bed. He dabbed the blood spot with his shirt, smearing it as best he could so it didn't stand out on his white skin.
His door burst open. "Hordak! She said yes!"
He rose to his feet and Entrapta leapt into his arms. There was a sharp stab of pain from his back, but he bit down hard to keep from letting it show. "So - I can leave Etheria with you? To the stars?"
"You betcha!"
Hordak smiled and touched her chin tenderly. "That makes me very happy."
"Now I just gotta call Adora and Catra and let them know we're ready to go!" She released him and ran back out of the room, leaving his door wide open.
He sat back down, his glowing red eyes staring at the empty doorway for a long minute. As he did, a blue-eyed robot rolled in. It was essentially a canister on wheels, with arms and a head seemingly tacked on as afterthoughts. It rolled up to him and gave an electronic-sounding inquiry.
He pulled the device and pipette out from under the blankets. The robot opened a slot in its chest, and he dropped the pipette and testing strip into it. "That is all," he said. The robot closed the slot and dutifully rolled away, closing his bedroom door as it left.
Left him alone with his thoughts.
He would have the chance to return to space once again. Not under Prime's will, but his own. To spend what could very well be the final hours of his life with the one person he could truly call a friend. The one being in all of existence whom he could truly say he loved.
A part of him hoped they could leave soon, before his condition worsened to the point that his newest exo-suit would no longer mask his growing ailments. He wanted to see space once more, with his Entrapta. See the stars shining in her eyes one more time. See the pure joy in her face as they slipped the bonds of Etheria's gravity well to explore the galaxy.
Show her his appreciation for all she had done for him, before his defective body finally gave out. If he could do these things, then he was sure he would be able to leave this life as a good person.
VVVVV
"Wow, the ship looks great!" Adora said. She ran a hand on the hull. "It's all smooth too!"
"Yeah, totally doesn't look like it's falling apart anymore," Catra said with a smirk, exposing one fang. "Hope this thing isn't still a death trap."
"Oh believe me, she needed a lot of TLC," Entrapta said. "A lot of welding, a whole bunch of epoxy, wiring, a brand new inertial-"
"We-we get it," Adora said, raising her hands. "You did a great job." She glanced to Hordak, smiling. "Both of you did."
"Thank you, Adora," Hordak said. He glanced to Catra, who seemed to be avoiding looking at him. "I am - looking forward to showing you what the ship is truly capable of on our voyage."
"'Our' voyage?" Catra said, turning to him.
Hordak nodded slowly. "Entrapta and I will be joining you on your - 'road trip'. Queen Glimmer approved."
"Oh. I - I, uh…" Catra stammered.
"That's...a really good idea!" Adora said. She placed a hand on each of Entrapta's and Hordak's shoulders. "Of course we'll need the best engineers on Etheria to come with us!"
"Y-yeah," Catra said. She cleared her throat. "Yeah, the, uh - the more the merrier."
"So when do we leave?" Entrapta said. "'Cos we can go right now if you guys want! Wouldn't that be fun? Just hop into space and go wherever! We've all got our own rooms in there now, and there's fresh supplies, and there's-"
"We should probably check with Glimmer and Bow first," Adora said. "They - probably have to get things together. Catra and I need to get some things, and we probably have to-" She stopped.
"Oh right, with the whole queen thing," Entrapta said. "Well, we'll be here when you're ready! We've got all sorts of other new tech to play with in the meantime!"
As Entrapta rattled off the various things she and Hordak could do while waiting, Adora had been standing still, staring. Catra noticed this and stepped forward. She placed a hand on Adora's shoulder. "Hey, Adora? Something wrong?"
Adora felt Catra's presence, but didn't hear what she was saying any more than what Entrapta had been saying. A strong feeling had come over her, one she couldn't overlook or ignore. Something was wrong. Very wrong. And getting wrong-er by the moment.
There was a rumbling above them. Adora looked upward, and the others followed. They could all see a streak of fire trailing across the sky above them.
"What is that?" Catra said.
"Something is entering the atmosphere," Hordak said.
"Woooooow," was all Entrapta could say, dragging the word out as she followed the fireball.
"There you are!" Catra and Hordak turned to see Swift Wind descending toward them. The white pegacorn landed soft on the hard stone ground, folded his wings, and trotted toward them. "I was wondering when you'd finally get back!"
Adora and Entrapta never took their eyes off the fiery object above.
"So - um...the other day I sensed a really weird thing," Swift Wind said. "Like when Adora...well anyway, that fire thing up there?" He gestured upward with his snout. "The feeling's coming from that thing now."
"This is not good," Adora said.
Entrapta ran to her toolkit, pulled out a set of binoculars, and ran back toward them. She examined the flying object more closely. "There's something inside there. It - it kind of looks like Darla!"
"A ship?" Hordak asked.
"A First Ones ship!" Entrapta said, her excitement in clear contrast to everyone else's trepidation.
"What is in the direction it's heading?" Hordak asked
"The Whispering Woods," Catra said. "And Bright Moon."
Adora finally returned her gaze to her friends. "Come on, we need to get to that thing now."
VVVVV
"Closing on landing zone."
The pilot of the ship tapped a button on his holographic console and the landing zone started zooming into view. As he watched the approach, the display started to become distorted and pixelated.
"Heavy interference detected."
"Can you compensate?" he said, his voice deep and even.
"Attempting to compensate."
He watched as the display cleared, slightly, but then continued worsening again. "Unable to fully compensate. Soft landing probability 43%...41%...37%..."
He tapped a button on the command chair's armrest. Straps popped out of the chair from several positions, rolling over his blue uniformed-chest and legs and interlocking at his solar plexus. "Prepare all systems for landing."
The ship bucked and shook. He tapped the holographic display, turning it off and watching out the transparent hull at the front of the ship. He felt a bit nervous, but his training allowed him to force those feelings into the back of his mind. He had been trained in visual landings, but not in ships this size. Not that it mattered much to him at this moment. You will succeed or you will die, his memory replaying the mantra that Last Resort had drilled into his head from the moment it had awakened him.
You are not allowed to die, Prince Adam, he thought, echoing the same orders his own commanding officers had told him time and time again. Your orders are to survive.
The ship bucked again. "Attitude stabilizers compromised," the computer reported.
"Dammit," he muttered.
"Unhelpful speech," the computer chastised. "Brace for impact."
Adam pressed himself into the seat as further restraints flipped out and over him, securing his limbs and head in place. He manipulated the controls on the armrest as best he could with the limited mobility the restraints allowed, watching the trees whipping past just below the nose of the ship, getting closer every second.
There was a crosshair projected onto the transparent hull, indicating his target. He nudged the controls ever so slightly in the direction of the crosshair. The ship protested but complied, the crosshair crawling toward the center of his view.
Suddenly the ship bucked as it swiped across a particularly tall tree.
"Shit."
"Unhelpful speech."
He struggled to maintain heading toward the crosshair, bringing it front and center again, and simultaneously reducing forward thrust and increasing power to the antigravity generator. Every tiny motion he made caused the target to swirl around the view screen. Finally, the crosshair disappeared, replaced only with the words:
TARGET TELEMETRY LOST
Something was actively trying to stop him from landing. The warnings Last Resort had given him were correct. Something was actively trying to keep him from making it to his objective.
Several large tree limbs whipped up directly in front of the ship. He barely had time to react, but it was too late to evade them. He increased forward thrust. The tree limbs smashed against the front of the ship, striking the transparent hull hard. The limbs were severed and flew off over top of the ship, leaving residues of sap and pulp directly in his field of view. He grumbled a foul curse.
"Unhelpful speech."
He pulled back hard on the thrust, put the antigrav into the red line, and swallowed his stomach as the inertia from the sudden deceleration attempted to tear him from his seat.
Finally, he could see a clearing in the seemingly endless mass of trees. It was a small one, one that would be underneath him in seconds. He made the split-second decision to land now rather than risk further damage to his ship. He engaged thrust reversers, hit the landing gear controls, and cut the antigravs.
The ship shook, dropped in a brief free fall, and with a groan, settled. After a moment, he released the chestful of breath he realized he'd been holding in.
"Landing completed. Warning: systems compromised. Navigation systems are offline. Hull integrity is at 72 percent. Atmospheric-"
"Not now," Adam said. The arm restraints released, and he tapped the point at his chest where the restraining straps met. The straps retracted. "Extend the landing ramp. I'm continuing on foot."
"Landing ramp extended."
Something here was actively trying to stop him. Being on the ground outside the ship did not mean he was safe. He would be more exposed than before, but at least he would be much more able to maneuver than in a 10,000 metric ton ship. "Last Resort, begin auto-repairs. Focus on systems needed for a quick liftoff."
"Acknowledged."
"Whatever's waiting down there, I'm not taking any chances."
"Unhelpful speech. Your orders are to locate the Crystal Castle and establish contact with the Light Hope OS."
"I know," Adam said through gritted teeth. His newest "commanding officer" was almost as obnoxious as his parents had been.
"Unhelpful speech."
Adam rolled his eyes and stood. This planet - Etheria, as it was apparently called, was definitely dangerous. He finally understood why they had gone to the trouble of putting him in stasis just so he could come here. Mara had failed. The "experiment" had failed. His ship had almost fallen out of the sky just to get him here. Now it was up to him, the last hero of Eternia, to finish the job and save his people.
He held out his hand, and a sword appeared out of thin air. Gripping its hilt tightly, he raised it high above his head.
"By the power of D'Vann!"
~~TO BE CONTINUED~~
Part of the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power series: "One Last Road Trip", by Maureen Leah