#8

"Moonglow?"
"Yes, Rainbow?" She, too, looked surprised, not expecting her job to come into play.
"See if you can find a way to put some energy reserves in what moons and stars you can. If we can't get the belt fixed, I don't want to think about running out of power out in the middle of no where."
"Sure, Rainbow."
"Violet, see what you can scrounge up in the way of two-way communication free of our power. If our power's what's being attacked in all of this, then we can't rely entirely on it anymore."
"Maybe I can piggyback a signal off of a sattelite around Earth."
Rainbow smiled. "Whatever you have to do, Violet. Red."
"Yes, ma'am?"
"I need you and Twink to organize another major mining expedition. This is going to be big. I'll need a large stash, for Starlight, On-X, Krys, and myself to carry. Stormy will need a reserve to experiment with the rain and snow. moonglow will need them for creating a...what would you call it, Violet?"
"An astral reserve?"
Rainbow smiled again. "Sounds good. And the rest of you are going to need a constant flow to fight the poison. I want you to keep a close eye on the effect the poison has on any of these counterattacks. I want you to abort everything if it starts doing what it did to my belt. The last thing we need is a..."
"Main system malfunction," Violet chimed in.
"Right."
Red spoke up. "It's going to take a few days to harvest that many starsprinkles."
"That's fine. Brian, you head back to Earth and see if you can't find anything out before I leave."
"Sure."
"Violet, if you could-"
"Already thinking up blueprints, Rainbow."
"Great."
"And I'll take On-X and see if I can't get a lead on where Orin's got to," Krys piped up."
"Good idea."
Starlight spoke again, "And you, miss, will be in bed until the moment we have to leave. Twink and I can keep you informed and everyone in line."
Rainbow nodded and smiled good-naturedly. "That sounds like a plan."
Krys turned to face her. "Then let's get you back to bed." He bent down and lifted her up off of her feet, cradling her in his arms.
She blushed and her eyes widened a bit. "Erng, you don't have to-"
"You dragged yourself downstairs. Just let me do this, and I'll forgive you for that."
"O-okay."