//------------------------------// // The Mare on the Moon // Story: The Wonderbirds... are... UP! // by Lets Do This //------------------------------// They took an extra orbit, just to be sure the repairs were holding. Then Pinkie snagged Gummy and tucked him into his pocket on her flight-suit, and she and Rainbow floated through the connecting tunnel into the LEM. "Thanks for agreeing to mind the store up here," Rainbow said to Spike. "I mean, this way we won't have any worries about having a ship to come back to, right?" "No problem," Spike replied. "It's your show, Rainbow. Yours and Pinkie's. Thanks for inviting us along, letting us be a part of it." "Best co-pilot ever," Rainbow said, holding up a hoof. Spike gladly bumped it, and gave her a thumbs-up. "And you take care down there, Pinkie!" Rarity scolded her. "Don't let Gummy wander off. And don't forget Twilight's experiment list. She'll never let us hear the end of it if we come all this way and then miss something." "Relax, I got it covered, Rarity. See you when we get back. And we'll bring you back some Moon cheese!" "There's no such thing, dahling. That's just a story." "No it's not!" Pinkie dug in a pocket of her suit, and pulled out a package of string cheese. "See? I'm bringing this with me, and when we get back, it'll be cheese that's been on the Moon. Soooo... Moon cheese! Yay!" Rainbow rolled her eyes. "The thing that frightens me the most is one day finding out that she's been the brains of this outfit all along." She waved a hoof. "See you two on the flip side!" Rainbow motioned for Spike to shut the CM hatch, and then shut the LEM side of it. And then she floated over to belt into place next to Pinkie at the lander's controls. She stared at the controls... at her own hooves on them. Just like Nellie Hoofstrong, about to land on the Moon. This was it. This was what it was all about. And she wasn't going to let anyone down. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Pegasus, this is Equestria, you're go for final descent." "Thanks, Fluttershy. Pinkie, watch our fuel clock!" "Rodger dodger!" "Okay, Equestria, we're closing with the surface... thirty feet... two and a half down... landing lights on... faint shadow... four forward, four forward... drifting to the right a bit... okay, down a half..." "Thirty seconds, Dashie!" "Forward drift... forward... annnnd... contact light! Okay, engine stop... engine arm off... engine safed... and... geez... that's it. We're here." "Yay!" "Uh, Equestria... Friendship Base here... the Pegasus has landed!" "We copy you down, Rainbow! You've got a roomful of ponies about to turn blue here. We're breathing again... thanks so much!" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Come on, Pinkie! The clock's ticking! And the whole world's listening in for this!" "All set, Rainbow!" Pinkie checked that her suit was sealed tight, then gave her bubble helmet a satisfied thunk with her hoof. Then she held up the spare helmet in which she'd safely corked Gummy so he couldn't wander away. Just to be sure, Rainbow double-checked the seals on their suits, and the regulators in the backpacks. Then, taking a deep breath, she threw the switch that pumped away the air in the LEM. She pulled open the hatch door, and backed out through it. Sliding down the ladder, she reached the flat landing pad at its base. And paused, her mind awhirl with emotions: the need to complete this phase of the mission on schedule and without a hitch; astonishment at suddenly finding herself here at last, after so much work and anxiety. And no small amount of trepidation... after all, how could a project so complex, so insanely daring, so capable of catastrophic failure in any number of ways, nevertheless have gone so right, putting her here at last... about to set hoof on the Moon... "You get stuck down there, Rainbow?" Pinkie called over the suit radio. "Just... livin' the moment, Pinkie," Rainbow replied, a little breathlessly. "Okay, I'm going to step off the landing pad now..." She struggled to remember the exact words Nellie Hoofstrong had used. She wanted this moment to go right... She reached out a hindhoof, and set it down onto the soft, crumbly powder of the Moon's surface. "That's... one small step... for a pony," she said, hoping the radio mike was picking her up clearly. "One giant leap... for everycreature!" "We copy that, Rainbow," came Fluttershy's soft voice over the radio. "Congratulations! We're all smiles and tears down here." "You're not the only ones..." Rainbow replied quietly. She took a few experimental, bounding steps, moving away from the LEM. This is it, she thought frantically, we made it! No matter what else happens, we made it here! I'm walking on the Moon. That's... soooo awesome... And then she looked around, at the grey, rolling emptiness around her... miles of it in every direction, right up to the strangely close horizon... and utterly devoid of life. Nothing moved out there, nothing breathed. Just endless gray dust and rock, and knife-edged shadows. Feeling suddenly alone, Rainbow swung back towards the LEM. "Pinkie! Get a hoof on! And bring the camera! We need a group selfie out here, right now!" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - They ran through the subsequent mission steps with only a little hoof-holding from Ground Control: collecting the contingency samples of lunar dust and rock... taking photographs... setting up a small Equestrian banner and a plaque which together denoted not conquest or territorial claim, but peaceful cooperation... "Let me take a moment to describe this to ya," Rainbow said to her radio audience. "First, there's the Sun, Moon, and Stars. And under that two large circles, showing all the lands of Equus. Underneath that it says Here ponies from the planet Equus first set hoof upon the Moon. We came in peace for every creature of our world. It has the crew members' hoof- and claw-prints, and the official signatures of the four ruling Princesses of Equestria." "That's wonderful, Dash!" Fluttershy said. "What? Oh, of course. Go ahead, Your Highness!" And then suddenly a different voice could be heard over the radio. It was Princess Celestia. "Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie..." Celestia's voice was somehow so strong and clear, she could have been standing right next to them. "...we cannot tell you how proud we are of what you and your crew are doing. Creatures all over this world, I'm sure, join with Equestria in recognizing what an immense feat this is. It inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and friendship to all of Equus. For one priceless moment in the whole history of our world, all creatures on this world are truly one: one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our hopes that you will return safely to us." "Thanks, Your Highness. It's an honor and a privilege for us to be here." "You've certainly earned it, Rainbow. And we'll look forward to seeing you in Horseshoe Bay on Thursday." "Um... Hello, Dash. It's Fluttershy again." "I could tell by your voice, Fluttershy." "Oh, right! Um... the next item on your list is collecting the remaining lunar samples..." "Just one second, Equestria," Rainbow said, sighing. "I have to go stop Pinkie Pie from using Gummy to see if she can bowl on the Moon..." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Faster than Rainbow would have believed possible, they'd gotten through all the post-landing checklist items. "That's it," Fluttershy said over the radio. "And you're way ahead of schedule. Uh, what? Oh. Twilight says unless you can think of something she missed, you've got five minutes to just hang out and enjoy the scenery, before we need to start the pre-launch checklist." "Thanks, Equestria," Rainbow said. "Okay if I go play a bit, Dashie?" Pinkie asked. "Sure, knock yourself out, Pinkie... I mean don't actually knock yourself out, but just... aw, heck, just take it easy, all right?" "Roger dodger, you old codger! Whee!" Pinkie began stotting happily in slow motion, bounding away across the landscape, kicking up small sprays of dust wherever she landed. Rainbow was halfway tempted to join her, to spend these last few minutes in a filly-like gambol over the dust plains. But somehow, her heart wasn't in it. She was feeling inordinately solemn in fact. She stared up at the blue-green disc of Equus hanging in the sky above them, and around at the gray landscape of the Lunar surface. She extended a forehoof, drawing her suited hooftip through the powdery regolith. She played with the dust for a while, digging channels, pushing it into little hillocks, making a little imaginary Lunar city... ... and suddenly sighed loudly. Pinkie came to a halt, and looked across at her. "What's wrong, Dashie?" "When we leave here, Pinkie, and they cancel the spell... all this..." Rainbow waved a hoof at the lander, the flag, the rolling gray landscape all around, "... will disappear. Everything will go back to normal, nothing but an astral signature, just a big light in the sky. We'll have a few rock and dust samples, sure, but this place, everything that we saw and did here, will be gone." Rainbow said nothing for a while, breathing heavily, tears in her eyes. Then: "We'll never be able to come back here again." No one said anything for a while. Then Fluttershy spoke up. "Oh, uh, what? Oh, sure! Excuse me, Dash. Princess Luna would like to say something..." A pause, then Luna's dour voice came on the line. "Commander Dash, canst thou hear us? Is this thing on?" "Uh, go ahead, Your Highness... we copy." "Indeed," Luna replied dryly. "Commander, a spell is but a capturing of truth and algorithm. And once written, a spell may always be invoked again, at near-zero cost." "But we've done what we came to do, Your Highness! We came, we saw, we walked on it. End of story. We're done here." Luna sounded amusedly disgusted. "Rainbow Dash, thou art not nearly old enough for that level of ennui! We have learned much from all of this. About teamwork, about the resilience of ponies... and of the other creatures who inhabit this world. And about what can be accomplished if we merely put our minds to it. We are in no sense done yet. You are not leaving this place forever. Quite the contrary: you have brought this place into being, into existence, simply by by wanting it, by travelling to it. Is this not a grand magic trick, in and of itself?" Rainbow nodded. Then she remembered that Luna couldn't see her. And then she remembered too, that Luna was maintaining the spell baseline -- in essence, the very ground beneath Rainbow's hooves. And even with that burden the Princess remained kind and patient enough to reach out and gently haul Rainbow out of her own self-imposed gloom. We don't deserve rulers like them, Rainbow thought. We really don't. "Yep... I suppose it is," she said aloud. "Thanks for reminding me of that, Your Highness." "Thou art welcome, my little pony. And we feel it safe to say that others will one day stand where you stand now. We shall return to this Moon, someday. But for now... it is time for all of you to come home..." She paused. And when she spoke again, her voice was slightly muffled, as if she was turned away from the mike, looking across the room. "... before my sister blows a gasket, trying to hold back her Sun..." "Well..." Rainbow said. "We sure wouldn't want that, Your Highnesses!" She took a moment to sketch one last channel in her Lunar dust city. Then she stood up. "Okay, Pinkie! Playtime's over. Time to pack it in!" "Awww... just five more minutes, Dashie? Hee hee hee! Juuussst kidding!"