//------------------------------//
// Chapter 30 
// Story: Just Like Magic of Old 
// by computerneek 
//------------------------------//

“Aaaand, reentry,” Flight announced, as the altimeter crossed the atmospheric line.  She wasn’t far enough down- yet- for any aerodynamic reentry effects, but the ship was no longer considered ‘in space’.
“And you’ve still got onboard gravity,” High Admiral Timber Wolf mused.  The Admirals had all come aboard and, after a brief period of unconsciousness, they were riding down to the surface with her, while their ships- and crews- moved to Standard Fleet Orbit Two.
During the coast down from Approach Orbit to the atmosphere’s edge, Skies had shown them around the ship- and described some of the upgrades they had done to it.  They’d been understandably amazed by the abilities described- then they, and Twilight, had joined Flight on the bridge for the descent.
“Yup,” Flight nodded.  “We had onboard gravity while parked on a vertical cliff face under the sea in Equestria.”
The admirals chuckled.  “An…  unconventional parking location,” Mantle Core noted, “but I daresay fuel and oxygen weren’t a problem.”
Then the reentry forces started to hit, and the flames started to appear.
And Twilight started becoming very nervous.  Eventually, she spoke up.  “U-Um, isn’t that fire?”
“Plasma, actually,” Vice Admiral Night Mare- who looked almost exactly like Nightmare Moon, just without the magic mane or horn- answered her.  “And it’s normal.  Princess Flight’s ship is equipped with a heat shield, which allows it to survive that plasma- and the enormous forces creating it- without issue.  There’s no other way to reach the surface from orbit.”
“But- but-!” Twilight began.  “But we could teleport!”
Admiral Mantle Core- who looked about as much like a manticore as a pony could, complete with wings- spoke this time.  “I’m sure we could,” she stated.  “But remember, this is a civilization that hasn’t had any way to teleport for thousands of years, but we’ve still got starships.”  She glanced sideways at Flight.  “Well, a starship, at least.  The rest of the Fleet technically qualifies, but only Flight’s ship can get places with any kind of speed, at the moment.”
“That’s something we’re going to have to fix,” Flight muttered, tapping the keys to deploy the atmospheric engines; the last traces of the plasma were disappearing, so it was safe to do that.  Then she glanced up at High Admiral Timber Wolf, who had the colors of a timberwolf.  The resemblance truly was uncanny.  “Military first, I think.  We need to be sure our warships can protect our civvies.”
The High Admiral chuckled.  “Though it means I’ll have to send everything in for refit…  again.”  She glanced sideways at Flight.  “It’s been pretty easy to find work crews, so we’ve gotten about forty percent of our ships refit with the latest technology by now, with fully thirty percent down for refit right now, on top of new construction.”  Then she tapped her chin with a hoof.  “Hmm, if it doesn’t take too much, we can probably have all the existing construction and refits adjusted for it.”
Flight engaged the autopilot, and turned fully away from the controls; the computer would put the ship down exactly where she’d been told to put it.  It’d even automatically coordinate with air traffic control, like most autopilots, so she didn’t need to worry about it at all.  “I don’t think it’d be too much…  Is it?”  She looked at Skies.
Skies shrugged.  “We dual-mounted it with our Gravity Drive, increasing footprint for that and requiring heavier cables to be run, but that’s about the limit of the structural adjustments.  Worth note it also requires the presence of plasma behind the vessel to kick off- a plasma exhaust should be enough.  We got that from our thrusters.
“Then there’s the part where it draws about six times as much as a Gravity Drive for the same size vessel.”
Timber Wolf shrugged as well.  “Shouldn’t be an issue.  We’ve been installing NuCoils’ powered start reactors in place of the old ones, so just about every ship- including new construction- is overpowered by a factor of about ten times.”
Flight nodded.  “So, bit bigger power runs, and a touch of structural adjustment by the grav coils.  Speaking of which, we can also upgrade those grav coils while we’re at it, to more approximate the ones we made for my ship.”  She paused, glanced at the panel, and struck a switch.  “Which I forgot to turn off, actually.  That’d theoretically allow them to descend to the surface, or be built in surface-based hangars and flown to space.  They wouldn’t be capable of unpowered reentry, nor of a typical reentry, but…”  She shrugged her wings.  “You could conceivably hide them undersea if you needed to, and didn’t expect to need them very quickly.”
“Um,” Twilight muttered.  “Aren’t you still, um, flying?”
She smiled.  “Nope, the autopilot’s got it from here.  I don’t have very much experience with aerodynamic flight, so right now, it’s better than I am.”
“And this ship’s a lot bigger than anything any of us have ever flown,” Skies nodded.  “Nevermind the extremely limited aerodynamic flight experience of any thestral, right now.”
Twilight tilted her head.  “Why?”
“Because we’re discriminated against,” Wing answered.  “The Shadouette- my ship, crashed and destroyed almost a year and a half ago- was the most recent Thestral-flown vessel to enter any atmosphere.  After all, there’s no atmosphere in this system where it’s legal for a thestral to depart the atmosphere, and nopony wants a thestral to fly their plane.”
Flight sighed.  “To the point where…  You know that saying, Twilight, about busting two clouds with one kick?”
Twilight nodded curiously.  “Yeah?”
“In Equineothame, it most often goes, ‘to kill two thestrals with one stone’.”
Twilight’s jaw dropped.
Flight nodded.  “I prefer the newer- and not as popular, yet- variant of blasting two asteroids with one missile.”
“...  Oh,” Twilight muttered.  “I…  I’m not sure I’m the right pony to have…”
Flight shrugged.  “Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.  Before long, you’ll probably be the best thing that’s ever happened to this place.”
“You already are,” Timber Wolf told Flight.  “And you’ve set such a high bar it’s going to be hard for Princess Sparkle to surpass it.”  She grinned at Twilight.  “Hard, but not impossible.”
Twilight tilted her head.  “What did Princess Flight do to…  if I may ask?”
Flight shrugged.  “Go ahead.  I’ll admit, I’m curious as well.”
Timber Wolf grinned.  “Well, it actually started about a year and a half ago, right about when the Shadouette crashed.  Princess Flight took on the entire crew of the Shadouette- all thestrals- as a both flight and work crew for her ship.
“And whenever someone resisted, and prevented her authorized crew members from doing their duties, she yelled at them.  You could usually hear her yelling from the other side of the city, so it didn’t take long for many ponies to fear her.  As a direct result, ponies started pushing themselves to do things they thought she would like- such as showing up on time for their duty shifts at Orbital Control.”  She sighed.  “Yes, really.  Then, when she took her crew of thestrals up to the Fleet missile collier Missalius, then yelled at them for opposing her Thestral crew so loud they heard it on the surface…
“Well, by that time, many ponies were already afraid of crossing their Princess- and that was the first time she’d snapped at the armed forces, and so the point when ‘many’ became ‘most’.  It became clear that nopony was immune…  except maybe her parents, the King and Queen- but while there’s been some lively debate on that topic, the general consensus is to assume that even they aren’t immune.”
Flight giggled.  “Probably accurate, too.”
Timber Wolf smiled.  “Because of that, ponies have been working hard, trying to not just avoid crossing her, but to impress her.  I’ll be the first to admit, the Navy has not been exempt from that- which has resulted in new waves of military spending…  which were immediately followed by an economic explosion.”  She looked at Flight.  “Thus, in the time that you’ve been gone, our military strength has increased by over fifteen hundred percent in personnel- we’re no longer chronically undercrewed- and Equineothame has become an even bigger economic power than it is a military power.  I think the boost there is in the realm of hundred thousands of percent, to the point where we’ve once again surpassed Earth- the birthplace of our civilization- by about double.”
“I bet Dad’s excited,” Flight grinned.
She rolled her eyes.  “He isn’t,” she stated.  “He wants that money in his Treasury, rather than in the economy.”  She sighed.  “He’s been demanding we stop spending…  at all, including on wages, even though I’m pretty sure it’s our spending that’s making it possible for the economy to keep rolling like this.”  Then she tapped her chin with a hoof.  “And come to think of it, a few days ago, I heard word of a group of scientists on the surface finally having the resources to start doing experiments towards the Distortion Drive.”





It took about fifteen minutes for the autopilot to guide them down to a safe landing, then it was another fifteen minute bus ride to the hospital.  When Twilight asked why they didn’t walk, Flight told her it would take hours to walk that distance…  and the reason she didn’t just park the ship a bit closer was because it was already as close as it was safe to land it.  She did, after all, have a reserved parking spot right up next to the control tower, despite the relative enormity of her ship to anything else that might be landing at Orbital Control.  Besides, she didn’t want anything to spoil the dress Rarity had given her, which she’d elected to wear to the coming event.
Finally, she led Twilight and the Admirals into the hospital, and trotted up to the front desk.
The receptionist looked up, then blinked.  “Oh.  Welcome back, Princess.  Um…”  She looked across Twilight and the Admirals.
Flight smiled; the filly couldn’t have been much older than Astral Eye, and she could tell that Twilight was trying not to say anything.  “Hi.  We’re here to meet my parents, as they requested, to ‘honor’ my new sister?”  She resisted the urge to make air quotes.
“Um…”  The filly scrambled through.  “I…  I only have record of such a request for the Admirals?”
Flight nodded.  “As expected- I don’t think they know I’m even in-system yet.”  She gestured towards Twilight.  “And this is Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, who has asked to be allowed to bring magic to the new Princess.”  She glanced briefly at Twilight- who, she saw, was trying to look like it wasn’t news to her.
She rather expected that the receptionist saw through it, but she was the Princess.  “...  Alright,” the filly muttered, shaking herself out after a few seconds of staring.  “I…  Okay.  Um…”  She checked her computer.  “Okay.  They’ll be in waiting room four soon.”  She tapped a couple keys, then indicated a door.  “Through there, should be the fourth door on the right.”
“Alright, thank you,” Flight nodded, and led the way.
As soon as the hallway door closed behind them, Twilight stepped up next to Flight.  “What do you mean, bring magic to her?” she asked, confused.
Flight shrugged.  “Well, this is an entire civilization of ponies that has been living without magic since time immemorial.  That’s why she was using those mechanical fingers on her forelegs- they’re called Hands, by the way.  Hoof Attached Natural Digit Systems.”  She glanced back, briefly.  “That’s also why she’s so young.  Ponies die at forty around here- and with the relative length of our years, that’d be twenty in Equestria.  Most ponies around here are expecting their first foal by the time they’re the Crusaders’ age.”  She shrugged.  “A few of them are already parents by that age, and there’s also a few that haven’t settled down yet, but most of them…  are either pregnant, or married to somepony that’s pregnant.”
“How…  How old were your parents?” Twilight asked.
“My parents?” Flight raised her eyebrows.  “Mom was pregnant almost before her cycle started.  By the time she was Scootaloo’s age, I was three.  …  Equineothame years, that is, so one and a half of your years.”  She scowled.  “I was also an oops child.  They hadn’t wanted a foal at the time, but thought her cycle hadn’t started yet.”  She sighed.  “Anyways.”  She pushed the door open, and stepped in.
They had hardly been waiting for a full minute before a nurse stepped in, looking nervous.  Flight recognized her instantly as the nurse that had come with the doctor she’d called aboard her ship to inspect the medbay after the repairs.  She and the doctor- both mares- had spoken to her about the potential legal problems with having a Thestral-crewed spacecraft on Equineothame’s surface, but otherwise been very friendly, and spoken peacefully and professionally to the thestrals in question.  They’d even educated her medic on some new practices, and voluntarily come back three times a week for a month to help bring Mending Shade’s skills up to date.
Then, Nurse Sweetheart spotted Flight, and her relief was evident.  “Oh, Princess.  Thank Equus you’re here.”  She took a deep, calming breath.  “Your…  Your parents should be here in a couple minutes- but you should probably know, we’ve already confirmed your new sister…  is a thestral.  We’ll be bringing her out to your parents here, so please be ready to-!”  She cut herself off, glancing towards the door, and back at Flight.  “I mean, you know them.”
She nodded sagely.  “I do.”