The Engineer’s Wings

by Keeper of time RD

Chapter 24: To the Moon!

“So… What now?” Twilight asked once Scootaloo had finally stopped woohooing like a school filly on Hearth’s Warming Day who’d discovered a massive pile of presents. “Do we head for Canterlot? Ask Celestia how an airplane is supposed to get us to the moon?”

Both of the pilots laughed.

“What? Why is that funny?”

“You’re kidding right?” Rainbow Dash asked. “With this much power, I’d think it’s obvious!”

Scootaloo showed the elder pilot’s point by pulling back on the stick and pointing the craft at the moon.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Don’t all aircraft stall once they reach their operational ceiling?”

Dash just smirked and said, “I seriously doubt this thing has an operational ceiling.”

The night sky somehow managed to get even darker. Then Scootaloo’s eyes were drawn to the dashboard. Some of the instrument readouts weren’t actual instruments but illusions displaying the same information that the instrument would have. And at that moment, the altimeter readout had transformed into a model of the solar system. On top of that, the artificial horizon had become a small outline of the Silver Nova in an otherwise empty display in a way it reminded her a radar screen minus the sweeping line spinning around.

Not only did the instrument readouts change nature, but she, and everypony, felt the change, too. Given the location of the moon, their assent had been at most a sixty-degree angle, and yet they all felt that gravity had stopped competing with acceleration for the G-forces being exerted on their bodies.

At first, Scoots pulled the throttle back to one third, the same as she’d found most other planes used for cruising speed. But she saw that the speed indicator was still going up at an alarming rate, so she slowly pulled back on the throttle even more. It wasn’t until she’d brought the throttle all the way back to idle that the acceleration stopped.

And when it stopped, everything that could float did. Mostly in the form of tails floating up off of the seats and manes of those who wore them long enough, too. That and Applejack’s hat escaping from her head. Rarity quickly complained and used her magic to pull her mane back into a more normal position, and most everypony else laughed it off.

Releasing her magic, Twilight also found herself soon floating. Rainbow Dash also let go of the back of Scootaloo’s chair and found she could hover without flapping her wings.

Yet it was the oohs and awes of Scootaloo’s friends that commanded the attention of those in the cockpit. The other two fillies were making use of the illusion magic painted on the back of the cockpit walls to look behind them. When Scootaloo, Dash and Twilight looked back, they couldn’t help but join them in gasps of awe as they beheld the world behind them. The giant blue, white and green sphere stood as the final piece of unquestionable proof that they weren’t on ‘the world’ anymore.

“Outer space,” Twilight muttered in a mix of awe and disbelief. “We’re in outer space. We’re in outer space!” she finally cheered.

“That’s nice and all. But what’s that with us?” Apple Bloom asked, pointing a hoof back toward the moon.

Several dark specks had appeared between them and the lunar body. Although in Scootaloo’s case, the Goggles of True Light showed her more.

“It’s the same magic as the rest of the nightmares Nightmare Moon made to attack everypony back home!”

Rainbow Dash just shook her head and sighed. “I guess we should have known that Nightmare Moon wouldn’t just let us fly up to her front door unchallenged. But that begs the question, what kind of weapons does this thing have?”

“What makes you think it has weapons at all?” Twilight asked with a raised eyebrow.

Pointing to the control stick in Scootaloo’s hooves, Dash answered, “The stick has a trigger on it. I’ve only ever seen that for weapon systems.”

While the two mares continued to argue over the possible reason for a trigger on the control stick, Scootaloo searched the dashboard. Her eyes quickly locked onto a button that had a picture of four lightning bolts arranged in a cross, as if they were exploding outward from the center. ‘That looks dangerous enough,’ she thought to herself.

When she pushed the button, a new display appeared amidst the illusion of the outside world painted on the walls. Namely a set of light blue crosshairs appeared just beyond the transparent nose of the spacecraft.

Looking back at the dashboard, Scootaloo saw that the display she’d assumed was some kind of radar was living up to that assumption. It now displayed several red dots ahead of the tiny model of this Silver Nova star fighter. And those dots were lined up in the same way as the closest of the conjured nightmares ahead of them.

With a sigh, Scootaloo realized if she was going to fight, she needed to maneuver. And that meant dangerous acceleration be danged. She needed thrust.

“Hold on!” she said.

Although she only gave a fraction of a second’s warning before she pushed the throttle back in a little. The trio of rainbows coming out of the exhausts returned, and they shot forward all the faster. But more importantly, she could steer the craft again.

Rainbow Dash managed to grab onto the back of Scootaloo’s chair again, but Twilight reacted too slowly and was thrown back into the cargo hold before she got her magic to root herself to the floor again.

The young pilot pulled the stick and re-aimed the craft. All three fillies aboard screamed. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle did so like foals on a rollercoster enjoying the G-forces. But Scootaloo’s yelp had been one of surprise.

Rainbow Dash had also felt the unexpected. Possibly making her the only pony on board who understood why Scoots was sweating bullets right now. The craft flew differently in space than an airplane in the air. The G-forces were not what either pilot had expected to feel from such a turn.

With her hooves preoccupied with clinging to the back of the pilot’s chair, Dash stretched her wing down and pressed its tip against Scootaloo’s shoulder. “You’re a smart kid, Scootaloo,” she whispered into the filly’s ear. “If anypony can adapt to handle a machine, it’s you!”

The young pegasus relaxed her muscles a little and collected her thoughts. The G-forces had been… for the lack of a better term, slidey. Like riding her scooter on ice, when the thrust from her wings did more to steer than the wheels of the scooter.

Just like her scooter on ice.

With that thought, Scootaloo narrowed her eyes, tightened her grip on the stick and whispered to herself, “I got this.”

Once again manipulating the stick, Scootaloo piloted the spacecraft. This time she didn’t bother trying to aim properly. This time she squeezed her hoof around the trigger right as the crosshairs slid across her target.

Twin lightning blasts launched from either side of the Silver Nova’s nose, racing toward the nightmares closing in on them. One of the lightning bolts struck the target and exploded with ionic fury, destroying the nightmare given form.

At that, one of other the nightmares, one that had taken the form a dragon, took that as its cue to shoot back. And so it opened its mouth and shot a dark purple fireball back at the silver spacecraft. As did any other nightmare with a means of ranged attack.

Slightly surprised by the volley of shadow magic, Scootaloo threw the Silver Nova into evasive action. And while she dodged most of it, one blast of dark magic tipped the wing of the spacecraft. When it did, she noticed a blue bar on one of the displays deplete slightly and then began to regenerate slowly. Given the bubble-like symbol next to it, it wasn’t hard to guess that the blue bar was the shield strength indicator.

And so the battle began.

Scootaloo blasting and weaving her way through wave after wave of nightmares, and the conjured nightmares shooting at or trying to ram the silver fighter craft in the brief moment they had in range before it zipped on to the next wave.

Although the sheer speed she was flying at meant she was only close enough to actually make out what the nightmares were for a brief moment before zipping past them to the next wave, the orange filly couldn’t help but feel a shiver run down her spine every time she passed a headless horse. Or worse, her own nightmare as represented by the occasional crashed Lightning Bolt Mark 1’s that somehow still flew and took a few shots at her.

Unnoticed by those amid the battle, an ursa minor was herded away from the fighting by its mother, who watched with wary eyes. And the ursas weren’t the only two celestial creatures who had come to a sudden understanding of that mortal word ‘fear’ as they pondered if the silver invader’s wrath would be sated with the moon who had provoked it, or if it would sunder all the heavens in its vengeance.

Eventually Scootaloo broke through what seemed to be the last wave of summoned nightmares. Yet her reprieve didn’t last. Even before Sweetie and Bloom had said, ‘What’s that?!’ she’d seen the giant, starlight form of a massive nightmare creature rising up off the surface of the moon to intercept her.

The leviathan coming at them was easily the size of Ponyville or at least its mesas. Although it could have easily shrouded the town’s cliff districts too with its wings spread. Scootaloo couldn’t put a name to the creature’s form, though. It looked like the winged-shadow-wolf-from-hell to her, but if there was a breed of wolf that had wings, she didn’t know of it. Although now that she was looking at it, she had to agree that it was a truly nightmare worthy sight.

If that wasn’t enough, the nightmare hell-wolf opened its mouth. But rather than howl or growl, the nightmare-induced screams of a billion foals filled the minds of everypony aboard.

Like everypony else on the Silver Nova, Scootaloo grasped her head, putting her hooves to her ears in a vain attempt to block out the sound of terror incarnate.

Well, almost everypony else. Rainbow Dash shuttered at the sound, but she wasn’t about to surrender her death grip on the back of the pilot’s chair. More importantly, as soon as she opened her eyes, she saw Scootaloo with her hooves clasped over her ears instead of the control stick. With her hooves occupied, Dash reached out with her wings and used them to push Scoots’ forelegs down from her head and back to the stick.

Having her hooves forcefully moved snapped Scootaloo out of her panic enough for her piloting instincts to wake back up. And the first thing they told her to do was to grip the stick and resuming piloting the spacecraft.

And not a moment too soon, either. As soon as she turned her attention back outside, the first things she saw were five orbs of dark magic that had appeared near the massive nightmare creature. One just beyond the tip of each wing, more in front of each forepaw and the final one just beyond the creature’s open mouth.

With the moon framing it, everypony could see the starlight beast perfectly, and no pony needed the help of Scootaloo’s goggles to guess just how bad the impending attack would be. Most screamed in panic. Rainbow Dash managed to gasp the word ‘dodge,’ and even before she heard it, the filly at the controls quickly pushed the stick forward to do just that.

The orbs erupted into columns of purple flames that shot out at the small silver star fighter. Although with the sheer size of the nightmare beast, there was plenty of room between the beams of dark magic. And with a dive and a swerve, Scootaloo managed to mostly get out of the way.

The one beam that had been the most centered on where they were did manage to graze the tip of a wing. Blue magic light flickered over the surface of the silver wing as the craft’s shield magic was made visible while it struggled to protect the spacecraft.

And poor Scootaloo practically had a heart attack when she noticed that the blue bar showing the shield strength had lost 40% from the hit. If a grazing blow could do that much damage to the shields, she didn’t even want to think what a direct hit would do. No, unlike the smaller nightmares, there was no margin for error with this behemoth.

With that thought in mind, she jammed the throttle to full and squeezed the trigger to get off a few shots of return fire.

For such a large thing, the nightmare moved with surprising speed, actually managing to dodge some of the shots. Although its sheer size allowed some of the shots to land, just landing far from their intended target, like striking the lower body instead of the head, for example.

And to everypony else, the shots that did land didn’t seem to do anything. The surface of the hell-wolf only rippled for a second like drops had fallen in a pond reflecting the night’s sky, but the wolf didn’t seem to respond as if it had been hurt. However, thanks to her goggles, Scootaloo could see the truth. The nightmare’s magic did in fact weaken with the blows. Not much given how much magic was in the gargantuan conjuration, but it did weaken.

With a swerve and a roll, she dodged the house-sized claws that took a swipe at the silver star fighter. With that behind her, Scoots zoomed along the creature until she was over the spine. As she zipped between the demon wolf’s wings, she pulled the throttle mostly out and made use of the sliding nature of flight in outer space by pointing the nose of her craft at the beast and holding down the trigger to strafe the nightmare’s back the rest of the way. As soon as she neared the nightmare wolf’s tail, Scootaloo put the thrust back up and pointed the spacecraft back at the moon.

They didn’t get far before Apple Bloom gave a slightly panicked warning, “It’s gaining on us!”

A glance over her shoulder confirmed the claim. On top of that, the nightmare was gathering the magic for another volley of shadow beams. Scootaloo’s heart was racing as she wove her way through the beams. A shiver ran down her spine as she watched five new craters appear on the moon thanks to the missed shots by the nightmare. A yelp escaped her lips when the beast’s jaws slammed shut close behind. Then a sigh came when she accepted the truth, as impressive as the Silver Nova was, it wasn’t fast enough to run away from this fight.

With her eyes focused, Scootaloo spun around to reengage the hell wolf.

Worried glances were exchanged by the others as another strafing run against the nightmare beast seemed to produce no results. Thankfully, Rainbow Dash silenced the muttering that started by reminding everypony to let the pilot focus.

It didn’t take long before Scootaloo noticed the beast slowed and became an easy target for a second or two after firing a volley of shadow beams. And so she took up squeezing in a few return shots as soon as she’d dodged said blasts.

Every near miss practically gave the young pilot a heart attack, be it dark magic, massive claws or jaws. Doubly so whenever a grazing blow ripped away a large chunk of shield energy from her star fighter. Then the moment of truth came. One of the hundreds of lightning bolts fired from her ship’s cannons struck the nightmare wolf and it suddenly stopped. Cracks formed in the starlight beast’s form and spread across its body. Then it exploded in a shower of purple stars flicking out of existence against a background of true starlight.

“You did it, Squirt!” Rainbow Dash shouted among the other cheers that filled the space plane.

With the nightmare beast destroyed, nothing remained to stop them on their way to the moon. As they neared the moon, an obsidian castle came into view and gave them a clear indication of where they needed to land. Landing took a few tries before Scootaloo finally managed to put the spacecraft down without bouncing back into space, but she eventually managed to touch down softly enough to stay on the lunar ground.

The three fillies watched from the cockpit as the six mares galloped through the gates of Nightmare Moon’s castle. Scootaloo sat with an itchy hoof over the throttle, ready to take off on a moment’s notice should anything attack. But now that the mares with the Elements of Harmony were here, the owner of the lunar castle seemed to have lost interest in the vehicle that had brought them.

“So… how long do ya suppose they’re going to take in there?” Apple Bloom asked after a few minutes of staring at the keep’s open doorway.

Sweetie Belle shrugged as there hadn’t been anything for them to see since their older sisters had busted down the doors and stormed in.

Then almost as if on cue, a prismatic tornado emerged through the back of the keep and was quickly followed by a bright flash filling all the windows. “I’d say about that long,” Scootaloo answered.

Sure enough, a couple minutes later the mares reappeared. Although the fillies raised an eyebrow when they noticed a seventh mare was now among them. Their curiosity peaked even higher when they noticed that the newcomer was an alicorn with a midnight blue coat and silver mane.

“Who’s this?” Scootaloo quietly asked of her honorary big sister as the mares came back aboard.

“According to Twilight, she’s Celestia’s sister, Luna,” Rainbow Dash answered.