The ecstatic little Kerbals soon gave up their happy demeanor upon realizing that they had 9 years worth of fuel and it would take them 4 years to get there. The entire rocket had to be assembled in space, and it sported a cockpit roughly 20m in diameter. Except, nobody was in it. Jeb had simply taped a brick the throttle lever and set an egg timer for 3 years.
Meanwhile, in the MKIII Hitchhiker containers, the crew of 56 were all doing various things, from eating to playing space ping pong to reading books. For the most part, everyone was having a good time in the relatively cramped can of a room. Jeb soon got bored, due to the lack of explosions and objects hurtling through space, so he ventured toward an airlock near the end of the room and switched on his EVA pack. A hiss and slam were the only sounds in the cold vacuum of space.
Positioning himself toward a different part of the titanic ship, he moved the forward controls up toward a massive circular can object. Minding the frail solar panels, he gently grabbed onto the ladder and opened another airlock. He was soon inside a room full of small, vertical tubes. Quickly climbing in one, he removed his helmet and set it on a table. His body froze, consumed in cold air. He closed his eyes, ready to go into a deep slumber and not to awake for another 3 years.
He imagined all of the amazing things he could dream of within 3 years and realized he was ecstatic to start sleeping. Upon realizing that he couldn't close his eyes, he soon became frustrated that his eyeballs were soon becoming less jelly and more ice. He soon jumped out, upon realizing that this was not a cryogenics pod. The ketchup fell from a shelf and took a comrade sandwich with it. He was in the refrigerator.
After three long years of doing nothing but sitting around and playing ping pong, the egg timer went off. Jeb finally returned to the cockpit with 4 other kerbals as he removed the brick and threw it at Bill Kerman. Throttling down, Jeb spun the navball with his tiny little hand toward the retrograde marker and flicked the throttle back up, at full speed this time. The navigation computer identified their blue circle slowly becoming smaller around a Kerbin-like planet. The pilot tensed up. He had burned retrograde for too long before realizing he had long passed apoapsis and was halfway to the periapsis. Quickly flicking his eyes toward the altimeter, the computer quickly stated that they were 65km above sea level and dropping.
Their orbit was too eccentric and the periapsis stood mockingly within the thinnest layer of atmosphere. Their approach to lowest point of orbit was in t-32 seconds. They were going to aerobrake. Fast.
The massive ship's hull stood up to the re-entry heat wonderfully, the vaguely rectangular prism shaped starship surrounded in a brilliant flame. The knife of a vessel stabbed its way through the atmosphere as the ship sunk into the gravity well. The trained pilot was losing his grip and his confidence. He tilted the ship upwards from the planet with the reactions wheels, doing next to nothing against the harsh air and damaging a softer part of hull. Jeb hopped up from the captain's chair and ordered Rodfrod to keep his hand steady on the navball.
Jebediah Kerman ran faster than his little legs probably should let him as he slammed against the other side of the command pod. He grabbed a hammer and smashed a weak panel of glass and punched the button labeled
! ABORT !
Rainbow Dash sat happily napping in a cloud overlooking the entirety of Ponyville, content knowing that she was the fastest thing in Equestria. She dreamed of the Wonderbolts, Daring Do, and her all eating hay fries after a show. They all danced and then flew over the crystal kingdom. Princess Celestia laughed and complimented Rainbow's awesome flying skills and great tricks. Twilight and Fluttershy brought an ursa minor home and dressed him up as a hoofball cheerleader.
Things make a lot more sense when you're dreaming, alright? Don't act like this is the weirdest dream that somepony can come up with.
Convinced that she should remind everypony of her title as fastest object in Equestria, she arose from her nap and stood happily on the cloud as she stretched and straightened her back with her rudimentary mattress. Without any warning at all, she took off from the cloud at breakneck speed.
The howling of winds rippled around her as her magical aura sharped an an air cone around her to protect from the deadly wind resistance. She neared the edge of the troposphere and slowed to a hover. She got a nice, hard look at the massive landscape that lay before her. The rolling green hills and snow capped mountains dotted the landscape, painted with a brush of village as the colors of the straw rooftops clashed perfectly with the near neon green grass. The entire scene stood unblemished.
For only a few seconds. A screeching wail rang through the air as some sort of white and gray rock blew off its wings with a thunderous volley of explosions. Much of flat white and gray plates still stood in their places, but many others were headed further and further away from the strange object. Dozens of massive black circles screamed with blue lines forming a radius around a central point in each of them.
And then it did the unexpected. An ear deafening roar shot across the thinning air. The creature belched flames and shot forward, nearly causing Rainbow to fall. The craft sonic rainboomed 3 times, as a mocking laugh to Rainbow Dash; a challenge, even. She would not lose this race.