P:AE Group 2, Team Z83

Appearance: Natural

Curunir wrote:"Glad to see you got something to eat: as well as becoming reaquanted with your feet!"
"Everything looks good, as far as I can tell: do let me know if you are still feeling unwell."
"You should be fine, long as there's nowhere else we'll be flyin'." the zebra joked.

"Thank you, Doctor Salve. I think I shall have to go unpack now," she said, walking out the door.

Of course, she had no intention of doing so. Not yet. She wondered what Coral Wrench was up to; almost immediately Lakaida had taken a liking to that girl. And a sea pony! Lakaida had never seen a sea pony before; truly, a momentous occasion for a changeling to see a new race.

Persuasion:

Once out of earshot, Lakaida whispered to Ruby. "See if you can figure out where Coral went. The quick way," she said confidentially with a wink.

That's code for...:

Piloting:

Doctor Salve smiles and waves goodbye as you leave the room.

Ruby is not able to determine Coral's exact location, but she does discover that there had very recently been a video call in the room, and that Coral and Flairvoyant were logged for a scout mission, also open to Lakaida and Gearick. Ruby thinks she could probably send a message to the video screen or a computer back in the room, if anypony was still there.

You think you could probably fly an aircraft- can't be much different than flying under your own power! (It is a bit different, but it'd certainly be possible! You could probably fly something as long as conditions were ideal: just not very elegantly. The hardest part for you would probably be takeoff and landing without scraping anything, or crashing).

You're not sure if you know any pilots specifically: you do remember pretty much every pony (and otherwise) you've seen today, in the halls and cafeteria. A couple of them have cutie marks that might imply piloting skills. Of course, you wouldn't have their names, and you certainly don't have their ID cards.

-----
(Waiting to hear from Flairvoyant and Gearick as to what they're doing, but Coral and Lakaida will be able to meet up in the hangar bay)
----
Extra information for Gearick:
As you're looking at the engineering net, perhaps as you are about to log off or do something else, you see sensor pings in level R: more magical anomalies like those during flight. They're all concentrated in one place: first a very brief major one, followed by a few minor disruptions. They're not setting off any alarms though, so they appear to be harmless.

It was something to think over.  A quick survey might be faster with fewer to get prepared but it was probably best to get used to the rest of the crew in a low stress mission.  Following Coral Wrench to the hangar, she asked, "So what do you say Coral.  Think we should bring the others with us?"

Appearance: Pegasus

"The quick way," Lakaida had said.

Ruby's eyes blanked momentarily as she spoke: "Searching databases... done. Organising data. I conjecture that Coral Wrench is most likely in Hangar Z preparing for a scouting mission. While the mission is also open to you, I would not recommend taking it."

"Oh, really Ruby, don't you worry a bit much?" she said, turning into a pilot-y looking Pegasus she had seen in the lunch room; noting that it was quite a bit easier now.

"You do know you don't have to do that, right? And wouldn't succeed anyways?"

"This is more fun! And I'll be less liable to get mobbed on the way by fanatics and haters."

"You haven't flown a plane in years!"

"At least forty of them. It'll be fine, Ruby," she finished, trotting in the direction of Hangar Z. "Music maestro!" she said in a sing-song voice.

Ruby rolled her eyes as a song started from an internal speaker...

((I'm gonna go ahead and assume that Lakaid and Ruby can get there between them.))

((Also going to butcher a perfectly good verse in order to try and ponify it a bit.))

Appearance: Pegasus

Lakaida was singing along as she went. It wasn't one of her songs, but it remained her favorite; it made her feel more like she belonged, the first verse particularly. Her lungs were still surprisingly strong, and she didn't feel out of breath from it as she sang and trotted...

"I'm Equestraian made,
Apple cider and buckwheat hay
My momma taught me wrong from right

I was born in the South,
Sometimes I've got a big mouth
When I see something I don't like;

I gotta say it!"

At this point, she started making up her own words.

"We've been flying this ship
For a might long ways
Paying no mind to the time
Well, this planet's brand new
Here we've come out of the blue
We left our home somewhere behind.

Slow down, you're gonna crash,
Baby you're a-screaming it's a blast, blast, blast
Look out colt, you've got your blinders on
Everypony's looking for a way to get real gone
Real gone
Real gone"

She came into the hangar sometime later, still singing it (It had taken several repeats of the song) and coming up on the last verse as she approached Coral and her plane.

"Real gone!" She finished, reverting back to her natural form so that the sea-pony would recognise her.

"I think I know one way, if I got a strong enough impression of their minds from earlier." Coral starts concentrating and her horn starts glowing- when suddenly Lakaida appears, reverting to her natural self from a pegasus she didn't recognize. Coral lets her spell die off, turning to the changeling. "Hey there. Do you have any way of contacting Gearick to ask if he wants to come with us to do a little aerial survey? I think I can, but I'm not completely confident in being familiar enough with him to do it, or even if he's willing."

"Well, I pretty much just want to know whether or not he wants to come, so it should probably just ask him that, and provide the information of where we are." Coral says, not quite catching on to the fact that the floating robot is probably trying to say that it wants to send a video of her saying the exact stuffs.

Appearance: Coral Wrench

Lakaida giggled quietly. "Remind me to get you your own sometime. I can't believe you made it all the way through college without one, dear! Here, I'll take care of it."

She studied Coral's face briefly, and transformed into a duplicate.

"Action!"

"Hello Gearick! Flairvoyance, Lakaida and I are going on a scouting mission, do you want to come? We're in Hangar Z presently, so just come join us and if we don't hear from you soon we can assume you don't want to. Oh, if you're not Gearick, could you pass this along to him? He's tan colored Unicorn, Magitechnician I think. Thank you! Cut."

"Cut and sent."

Coral blinks hard at her new twin, blushing slightly. "Do I really look like that with four legs?"

"Well, we should probably get going soon, but we have about 10 minutes or so, I think, to wait for Gearick if he wants to come."

((Do we have to put on flight suits?))

Appearance: Natural

Lakaida allowed the Friend Mask melt away. "It's also a very cultural sort of experience. For a changeling, meeting a new race is always a wonderful experience; because it adds to the repertoire of forms. Once I've seen you in action I can craft my own, personal appearance."

Lakaida, Flairvoyant and Coral receive Gearick's reply, and make preparations to make their scouting trip. You go up to the young dragon flight technician who is on duty, checking up on your craft to make sure nothing degraded in the past 40 years. You show him your IDs and he swipes them, looking relieved as a little green light is lit. "I was worried it wasn't going to take there for a moment, what with the corruption of some of the crew data files. That would've meant a whole mess of paperwork otherwise. You're good to go!" He clears away some cables and tools that were cluttering up the area around the ship, and goes and fetches you appropriate flight suits, simple, black uniforms similar in appearance to the ones worn by the Harmony crew. "Those'r supposed to track your vitals, to make sure we know right away if anything goes wrong, and also have a built-in parachute- not that you'd even notice: doesn't add any extra bulk or make it less comfortable! Designed by Ms. Spark herself, I've heard."

The ship itself is quite small: large enough for a team plus a little bit of room for a small cargo. The cockpit has space for a pilot and co-pilot, and has a large bubble window from which you can see in practically any frontal direction. There are two spaces behind the cockpit for passengers, with screens to monitor video or scanner input during flight. The craft is capable of hovering.

-----

Meanwhile, Gearick does a quick search to narrow down the exact point of the anomaly. It appears to be in an Archive room on deck R. You manage to locate the best route that also passes by a magitech lab, to pick up a specialized magic scanner in addition to your all-purpose one.

Coral gets into her suit as quickly as she can, impatient to be somewhere less solid.

Appearance: Natural

Lakaida wriggled into her suit with Ruby's occasional assistance. "There we are! Onward!" she announced, half flying, half jumping into their shiny ship...

Flairvoyant happily wriggled into her flight suit and then entered the vessel.  "Well, I know I have piloting credentials.  I could go ahead and get this thing in the air or I could lend a hoof while someone else takes the lead."

"You should probably take the main pilot's chair, since you're the official pilot of our group. Once we're in the atmosphere and stable, I'll probably switch with you so I can control the exact views I get. I would also just feel more comfortable controlling it down there than I would entering the atmosphere, since it's not too different from swimming via machine." Coral takes one of the two passenger seats, strapping herself in.

Flairvoyant cheerfully sat in the pilot seat.  "Just felt like making sure. I'm ready if everypony else is."