For the first time in I can’t remember how long, I actually have a little time off. I can't leave the facility perimeter, because that makes so much sense, but at least I can relax for today.
After eating breakfast and going for a few early morning laps around the facility, I settle back into bed with my copy of Daring Do: and the Sanctuary of Unrest.
Sadly, my peace and quiet is only kept for a time far too short for my tastes. Dusk comes in through the door, a record case in one hoof and a player in the other.
“Hey Rainbow, what’cha reading?” Dusk greats.
“It’s one of my personal favorites of the Daring Do series.” I answer.
“Oh sweet, I love Daring Do! Which ones your’ favorite?” He questions, his voice muffling a little as he reaches behind a desk to plug in the record player.
I tap a hoof to my chin in thought. “Hmm, I’d have to say that Quest for the Sapphire stone is my favorite so far, but I haven’t read all of them yet.”
“Well, if I had them I’d totally let you borrow the rest of them. I own the whole series, save for the most recent, I think.”
“Thanks, but I already got a friend who’s loaning them to me. She runs a library, so she definitely has all of them.”
Dusk starts to respond, but his voice is drowned out by the defining sound of a heavily distorted guitar and a pounding drumbeat.
“Guess I got it working!” Dusk yells over the music.
I try to bring my focus back to my book, but the combination of the volume and intriguing lyrics forces my attention back to the music.
“What band is this?” I ask.
“You've never heard Five Hoofed Deadly Strike before? They’re like, the best band in Equestria! Here, let me show you one of my favorites.” Dusk repositions the needle to the correct position for the song he wants.
It starts with a similar pounding bassline like the last, but the lyrics definitely get my attention more this time around.
Round one,
Swear to Luna do it for fun!
Just a dead pony walking with a spell ready and primed!
Ain’t a single ‘bucker left to fear,
See their lips moving, but I don’t want to hear!
The song continues on, but it has my undivided attention. I set my book down beside me and lean back, listening to the singer scream their heart out, the guitarist pound the strings, and the drummer flail against the pads. Before I even know it, the song is over.
“That, was, so, awesome! Please tell me you have more!” I smile wide when Dusk nods his head.
“If you liked that, wait till I show you my all-time favorite, ‘Spellproof’ I could listen to it all day.”
Before Dusk could change the song again though, Sequence appears in the doorway.
“I hate to break up the metal concert, but Fairweight needs you both in the conference room now. Something has just come up.” After delivering her message, she turns and leaves.
Dusk and I look at each other in confusion for a moment before scrambling to our hooves and rushing after her.
* * * *
When Dusk and I arrive at the conference room, we find the rest of the team there already deep in discussion.
"You can't be serious. Please tell me you're not serious." Sequence asks.
"I'm afraid I'm quite serious." Fairweight replies.
"Are we in danger of getting canceled??" Ignition speaks up.
"Probably not. If anything this will galvanize the council into keeping this program around."
“Somepony care to fill us in?” Dusk asks.
“Good, you both are here. Come and sit down; trust me you’ll want to sit down.” Fairweight instructs.
We follow his words, finding the closest seats and taking them.
“Just a few minutes ago, this holding crystal was given to me. Con-” Fairweight begins.
“Wait, a what?” I ask. I scan my memory for anytime Twilight might have mentioned something like this, but nothing comes up.
“It’s a magic storage device, for the most part. It can also be used like a magic mirror, where if you look into the crystal you can see what is on the other side.” Fairweight explains.
“Now like I was saying, I looked inside the crystal, and what I say nearly gave me heart failure.” Fairweight takes a breath before continuing. “As far as I can tell, this crystal is linked to an object that is currently orbiting our planet.”
Dusk and I both jump in surprise. No, there is no way. Who? When? How? So many questions race through my mind at once, each one clamoring for my attention.
“Two questions. Who, and how?” Dusk recovers before I get the chance to voice the same questions.
“Our best guess is the Gryphon Empire. Equestrian spies caught wind the Gryphon’s experimenting with similar propulsion methods as us, so it makes the most sense. As for how, we really don’t know. We have our theories, but no way of testing them.” Fairweight explains.
“So what’s our next move?” I ask.
“The plan for right now is to continue on business as usually. However, if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that we’ll be getting a lot more support from here on out. Which does, of course, mean attention from the public.”
“And that would be bad why exactly? Attention from the public means getting some more help. Unless of course, you planned on actually building this thing with only six ponies.” Ignition quips.
“Of course not.” Fairweight rolls his eyes. “But unless we very careful, the media could easily turn this into an unrecoverable fiasco.”
“What would they even have as ammo? It’s not like we’ve accidently dropped a rocket through some pony’s window by accident. Nor have we had any unplanned enormous fireballs on the launch pad.” Mercury pipes up.
“Let me put it to you this way, in over a year, we have managed to get a small tube up to around thirty five kilometers. In roughly the same time, the Gryphons have managed to put a small object into orbit. Pretty embarrassing if you ask me.” Fairweight explains.
“I guess that makes sense.” I mutter. “Was that it? Because if it was, we should probably get back to work.” I mentally giggle at the fact that I normally spend as much time as I can avoiding work.
“Last thing, Mercury has a few announcements regarding capsule design.” Fairweight takes a seat at the table to allow Mercury to take the floor.
“I don’t have much, so I’ll make it brief. I’ve come up with a preliminary design, so a small scale prototype needs to be fabricated and used on the next test rocket. Once we finalize the design, we need to make a full scale mock-up so that the operator will be familiar with the systems.”
“How far are we from our next launch by the way?” I ask, directing my question toward Fairweight.
“It’s actually a good thing we’re talking about this, since I’ve decided that we need to move the rocket into the next phase of testing. This means we have to scale the thing up another step.”
“What’s the increase this time? Another half meter like the rest of the scale-ups that we’ve done?” Ignition asks, jotting down notes in the pad that she brought with her.
“Double it.” Fairweight answers simply.
“A meter? Yea, it does make sense to start scaling up faster. Especially now that we know the Gryphons are so far ahead.”
“No, I mean double the size of the rocket.” The dead silence that follows Fairweight’s words is more disconcerting than could be described with mere words. It’s like a magic bomb was just dropped on the table, and we’re all picking up the pieces.
“D- double it? We can’t! We don’t know if the fuel-to-weight ratio is both linear and directly proportion yet! Not to mention, we're going to be adding a capsule now, which could completely throw us off in propellant requirement calculations. There is no way I could guarantee that the rocket won’t just explode as soon we light it.” I’m half surprised that Ignition doesn’t start foaming at the mouth. She trips over longer syllables several times, and the ‘I’m about to go insane’ look in her eye doesn't do much to inspire my confidence in Fairweight’s idea.
"Whoa there, calm down a seco-"
"Calm down? Calm down!? Are seriously telling me to calm down? What you’re asking me to do, will more than likely do nothing more than set us back even farther!” Ignition continues raving.
“And if we don’t figure out some way of speeding this up and getting decent results, we’ll end up as laughing stock. Never to be taken seriously again.” Fairweight answers with a tired tone.
Ignition sighs, and then rests her head on her forelegs which lay atop the table. “All right, fine. But if this rocket kills anypony, their blood will be on your hooves, not mine.” Ignition then stands and leaves, not bothering to wait to be dismissed.