> Ad Astra Per Derpy Aspera
>  by SparklingTwilight
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: Derpy Ascends
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I was a foal, my parents took me to the highest iridescent nacreous clouds north of Canterlot, near the forbidden Crystal Empire, and on them we watched the stars. My father struggled to breathe, since it was high in the stratosphere, and we were bundled up tightly. But I didn't have much trouble.

"It's because you're a champion, Ditzy," my father smiled when I asked why I was okay and he was not.

"Mommy and me are champions?" I smiled at my mother, who laughed.

"No, no, darling. I just have good lung capacity and endurance. It's helpful. Especially in spotting. But I can't be a champion."

"You're going to be a star," my father said. "A Wonderbolt. Up there among the constellations like Flash Magnus--you can see his helmet in the East. And if not that, then a leading weather coordinator or the nation's best search and rescue mare."

"I'd rather be like you," I said, meaning both of them.

"No," my mother shook her head. "You'll be better." My father and I had helped her get to the top--her wings were shriveled, ever since she'd been a foal.

"Yes," my father agreed. "Better. Don't set your sights so low."

"Mother is already the highest--"

"Yes, yes, the lookout position, with her semaphore. Aim higher though--the stars--go farther than any pegasus has ever gone. You have boundless talent. You were Equestria's top young flyer last year!"

"But only second this year... And you lost a lot of bits on--"

"I shouldn't have gambled. Don't gamble. Don't tempt fate. Don't brag. Or else curses can arrive."

He looked at my eyes, one of which was already starting to drift.

"Don't take risks."

I nodded. "But this is a risk?"

Father wheezed. "We're... I can't do this when I get older. Maybe not even in a few months."

"Are you ill?" I asked.

He waved it off. "But I wanted to go up here. One last time. Your mother and I--we had a wonderful night." He smiled over at my mother.

"You were conceived in space, Dear." My mother said, without too much effort.

I cocked my head.

"Some ponies consider this space. The very edge," she explained.

"And now we're here... again... as a family," Father wheezed.

I nodded. "I'll need to take risks to be a star."

Father sighed, "You'll soar among the stars if you find a good grounding. Keep that grounding in mind. Don't lose your way. Care about others, be good, and try hard. Keep trying. Be humble. Be purposeful in what you choose to spend your time on--no need for frivolity. Don't show off unnecessarily and don't take shortcuts. Do favors for others and you'll get benefits," he wheezed. "Your goodness will be rewarded."

"Or," Mother added in her soft voice. "Do favors because it's kind. Goodness isn't always rewarded by others. But if you know it's right and feel it's right, then it will be so."

"Of course your mother's right. Just know--please, Ditzy... please, know that even if we can't provide you all the monetary care you deserve... that we care about you and we'll always be there to support you." He ruffled my feathers and then we flew back, full of hope and joy and ringing ears from the pressure of a rapid atmospheric descent.

And the joy was tripled when I got my cutie mark, as we started the descent. A field of bubbles. Celebrating my hope and joy at being together with my family.

Six weeks later, Father and Mother were dead. My condition with my eyes was much, much worse. And, I was on my own.
> Chapter 1: Lightning Dust Against Space
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lightning Dust was the first pony to orbit our Moon, achieved while she was en route to achieve the even-more-difficult achievement of orbiting Marred. She felt she had to do more since Rainbow Dash beat her to space. Unofficially, my own high-altitude sojourns might have counted as being first, given the gradual tapering off of Equestria's atmosphere, but Dash's achievement is what the Princess had Moondancer scribe for History. Out of respect for the concept of kindness--one of the vital Elements of Harmony sustaining Equestria and protecting it from the ravages of windigoes, I'm not going to dispute that honor! Regardless, Lightning Dust was definitely the first pony to orbit our Moon. Except that hadn't been the plan.

Rocket fuel discharged behind her butt and she let loose a whoop that nopony heard because there were no echoes even if they had been able to hear it over the roar of her discharge. And even though pegasi could breathe in space and not have their heads explode from its pressure, Lightning Dust quickly found herself reconnecting to her mouth the "Device"--the PPBBDD--Portable Pony Bubble Breathing Diaphanous Diaphragm.

"Buck," Doctor Hooves had been right. The Device was necessary, despite its added weight. Its sealed mask around her snout wasn't too big, but the entire apparatus snaked around her body and consumed most of her weight capacity. Its excessive weight dragged on her fuel and reduced the amount of water and food she could carry in her saddlebags. But its cargo was vital. Oxygen molecules were too few and although she could breathe them in, everything else--hydrogen and helium floating in the otherwise vacuum of space needed to be converted to something more palatable. 

Pegasi could absorb the molecules and their sleek flying bodies could process them. But Lightning Dust wasn't an altitude-flyer. Few pegasi were, so the Device had been designed. Not for her only, though. It had been perfected for her nemesis, Rainbow Dash. 

Lightning Dust grinned, recalling Dash's washout from the Program--Dash's turn to taste bitter defeat. The Princess hadn't wanted Lightning Dust to summit space, since the Princess's best friend always came first. But it hadn't worked out for Royalty this time. The Princess could literally move the sun and the moon, but she couldn't micromanage everything.

And the Operations Director hadn't favored Lightning Dust, either. She was too distracted eyeing her prey and babying an older grown pony who shouldn't have been in the Program. 

And the inventor and mastermind of the space program didn't seem to care which pony went first except he kept yammering about his test pilot. Sure, the test pilot was experienced with rockets, but she'd never been a Wonderbolt or a stunt pony. Despite the other ponies' lack of attention--save for Spitfire's and that stallion's--the test pilot kept presenting, nattering incessantly on discursive rambles and making Lighting Dust bored sick to her stomach. 

Lightning Dust yanked the Device out of her mouth to spit. Spittle fell to her side and not back on her face because flying was flying, whether it was in the sky or in space which was just a type of higher sky accessible only by rocket or crazy alicorn flying magic, and she was an expert flyer who knew better than to spit where she was accelerating. She breathed in the limited hydrogen gases of space and struggled to convert them to oxygen, and she started choking. She had no idea how any high-altitude pegasus could manage the conversion. So, she strapped the Device back on.

Third stage of her journey now. Second stage had been at the edge of Equestria's atmosphere. She was past Moon--beautiful Moon with its pockmarked craters--even more beautiful to perceive after a loop-de-loop she'd executed--a view she improved by removing her helmet, which now hung clamped at her utility belt. 

Her head was hurting more now since the suit had vacuum-shrank into her hide to cut off airflow. It wouldn't respond that way if she wore the helmet, but she had wanted to buck that obnoxious egg. It seemed, though, that wearing it was non-optional for her, so she re-donned the helmet, screwed it on, pressed buttons on her hide-tight suit and re-pressurized.

The eggheads had told her to minimize donning and doffing especially since she wasn't well equipped to breathe in space, so fine--she'd do that. But she wasn't going to squander her opportunity to behold grandeur by looking at Moon or back at Equestria through a streaky blur.

Now she was into deep space, well on her way to Marred, the red fourth planet of the solar system--a planet crisscrossed with ancient canals, otherworldly wonders, and possible alien species to befriend that she was going to be the first pony to see up-close.  For now, though, it was just a discolored dot. 

Lightning Dust was the first Mare in deep space and she was going to be the first Mare on Marred.

And, because she'd really messed up, Lightning Dust was going to die.
> Chapter 2: The Doctor's Prescription
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"She is not going to die," Doctor Hooves shook his head. "Not anytime soon, at least. We have gone through the maths several times. She has the necessary thrust." He punctuated his words by tapping chalk against a looming massive board cluttered with calculations and, in one corner--a tiny cartoon of a pony being launched from a trebuchet.

"She exceeded her margin of error by performing that loop-the-loop."

Doctor Hooves sighed, "She has lost a certain percentage of her original thrust." He indicated an underlined number. "But she gained a gravitational boost. She should otherwise be able to complete the journey assuming she executes proper maneouvers to maintain proper orientation. Our observations confirm she has done this. Therefore, she will successfully arrive at Marred assuming there is nothing incorrect with the estimated rate of fuel burn and assuming she fails to perform another diversion from the mission plan."

"We have to bring her back."

"We knew her psychological profile included an--ahem--risk of "risk taking". Excuse the tautology. Or, is it a double-negative? Repetition? Probably yes."

"Doctor!"

"Apologies. The point is: because we foresaw this eventuality, we accounted for her performing at least one maneouver of this type."





Lightning Dust had seen the calculations. She'd been cautioned against showing off. But. She'd paged through every paragraph of the mission plan. The egghead ponies planned for margins of error. And there was just enough margin for her to perform one absolutely slam-dunk amazing show everypony could see... provided they had telescopes and were looking in her direction. But a ton of ponies certainly were doing that because she was first. 

Somepony else was going to do it first if she didn't seize the opportunity--probably it would be a government-backed Wonderbolt. She had this one chance. She was nopony as far as the corrupt Equestrian government was concerned, just a pony of whom nothing particularly great was expected. 

Because she wasn't a government-backed Wonderbolt, ponies tended to think she was an amateur even though her stunt shows were better than anything the Wonderbolts executed. Her expertise wasn't speedy or mass-coordinated ballet-like flying pieces, but her work was amazing in a technical and showmareship sense--her shows took serious skill. But all that was a big whoop as far as the Palace was concerned: almost all historically famous pegasi were Wonderbolts--except those who predated the organization like proto-Wonderbolt soldier Flash Magnus and clever-oh-so-clever Somnambula who might as well have been a unicorn at heart. Still, everypony who saw Lightning Dust's death-defying stunt show came to know that she was somepony special--even if they didn't want to admit it. 

And now everypony would know how great she was because of a most undeniable history-making reason. She'd be the first pony to loop around the moon.




"Shouldn't elliptically circling the moon have given her extra thrust? She'd use its gravity to increase her speed?"

"She diverted from the planned path. Gained some velocity, and will lose some readjusting to catch Marred's orbit. If she does not readjust her trajectory, she will be going very fast to nowhere."

"I don't want to announce her death. Her relatives..."

"She does not--doesn't--have any living relatives. Perhaps this is why she became a stunt pony? Nopony to dissuade her. Makes me think of myself," Doctor Hooves chuckled.

"As Princess," the purple pony before him frowned, "I have a duty to my little ponies to treat their lives as more valuable than anything, even scientific advancement. I cannot believe you recommended a pony with such a distressing psychological profile to take the mission. That was not a kind thing to do to her."

Doctor Hooves spread his eponymous pony hooves. "Yes, yes, yes, indubitably, but--and please follow me here." He led the Princess to a table, took a sheaf of papers from that table and sorted through them. "Yes, yes, yes. No. Ah. Here it is. Your signature." He showed her the approval selecting Lightning Dust.

"To be fair, Princess, I would have preferred my wife be selected, because she held more experience than any of these ponies. But that could not happen," Doctor Hooves frowned.

The Princess sighed, "I am so sorry, Doctor Hooves. I remember now why I signed off."

"You must have a lot on your mind, Princess."

"Rainbow Dash couldn't--"

Doctor Hooves opened his mouth, but Twilight Sparkle held up a hoof and continued. "And I don't blame you for the explosion that sent her to the hospital. We couldn't have expected diamond dog separatists to sabotage the rocket.

"We really shouldn't have made space achievements a race with the griffons. This waste is needless. Pointless. Discovery is admirable, but we should take our time to do it safely instead of making it a point of national chauvinism." The Princess frowned. "Will you keep running the numbers?"

"Of course, Princess." Doctor Hooves bobbed his head.

"Keep me posted, please." The Princess inclined her head slightly to him, then she trotted from the room.

Doctor Hooves tapped a hoof on the table, then he packed up and went home. 




In his house, surrounded by gears and half-built machines and the smell of grease and muffins and bacon, Doctor Hooves smiled and placed a foreleg around his wife's amble rump, giving her stomach a light squeeze as he did. "Hello, Dear."

"Hello, my Love," she smiled back at him, her lazy eye darting around. "How is the... project going?"

"It is going, my Dear, it's going... well... with spit and vim and vigor and all that jazz and the like. One knows."

His wife bit her lower lip, shied away from him, and dropped her oven mitts. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing outside mission expectations--"

"But outside parameters."

"Slightly outside parameters. A tea-leaf over."

"For want of a tea leaf, a Kingdom was lost."

"It's a ponyshoe, Dear," he referred to the classic tale.

"No," his wife shook her head. "Rather, yes, but I'm not wrong."

"Yes, yes, yes, analogies and all that jazz and like what, one knows."

"Was it sabotage?"

"No, no, no. Not this time. Self-sabotage--likely--but not diamond dogs or griffons. No evidence. Thankfully. Some had been talking of war. Reprisals. Tit-for-tat. All that bric-a-brac. Not deadly unless something else goes terribly wrong. Actually, somewhat wrong. A smidgen wrong."

"A tea leaf wrong?"

"Precisely!"

"What happened?"

He sighed, "You will likely read it in the paper tomorrow, so I suppose I can say."

His wife arched an eyebrow.

"Not that I have kept much at all away from you that--"

She sighed.

Doctor Hooves continued, "The ponynaut. She performed a loop-de-loop around Moon."

"Oh no,"

"But we suspected she might perform some sort of stunt. We accounted for this eventuality. We meaning me. The rest of the team didn't want to account for it. Especially the Palace advisors. Said that redundancy could lead to extra problems. Since it required more fuel mass. Still, water under the bridge and all that. She should still have enough to get to Marred and back. If nothing else goes wrong."

"But something always goes wrong!"

"She will, of course, be fine. She is, perhaps, according to her file--the best stunt flyer Equestria has. You need not worry." He reached out for her and she let him approach. He patted her belly. "Please don't worry. Just focus on living here." He patted her belly yet again. "Did I feel him move?"

She chewed on her lower lip. "She's not going to die?"

"No, no. Not at all. It could not... will not happen."

"But she could be stranded. If she isn't rescued fast enough, she would die."

"The team is manufacturing backup rockets."

"But almost no pony knows how to fly with rocket assistance. Safely, that is. Controlled."

"You needn't worry, Dear. The Program did not clear you once the State took over and they certainly will not clear you now that you have a passenger of your own."

His wife shuddered and she blinked. "Can you finish up the muffins, Love? I'm--I feel a bit nauseous." She rushed to the bathroom, clutching her belly.

Doctor Hooves busied himself taking muffins out of the oven, humming a showtune and tapping one hindhoof.

No matter what, Doctor Hooves, head of Equestria's space program, probably wouldn't die (anytime soon at least). Unless there was an assassination.




Thousands of kilometers away, Lightning Dust ate a meal-ready-to-eat packaged in a tin, full of protein and power to keep her ready to perform. She chewed on the sardines and hay and nuts for far longer than she would have were she merely flying a normal flight. She savored each bite, running protein chunks around her hard palate, soft palate, and the floor of her mouth. With nothing much to do for the next few days, savoring these not-quite-tasty meals was one of her few real pleasures. 

She belched, and she passed gas, focusing on the flow like she did when screwing around with the rest of her stunt team. She wasn't quite as good with control of that portion of her anatomy as Rolling Thunder but she'd probably be able to beat RT after some tight focus over the next few weeks of flying boringly straight in space.

The problem was, she pushed herself slightly off course with every release. She was pointed in the right direction and she had great control--she had been awarded her premier position because of her preternaturally good sense of direction. But she hadn't accounted for minuscule mispositioning caused by each occasion of her flatulence. This would become a disastrous mistake.

And because of this mistake, Lightning Dust was going to die.
> Chapter 3: Doctor! Doctor! On Target.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There were three types of assassination attempts against Doctor Hooves.



One: Doctor Hooves was provided an adulterated sandwich. Hay laced with arsenic. He started to eat it, was interrupted by his wife, set the sandwich down in front of a sideways rocket engine. Roasted remnants post-qualification-testing wouldn't trouble any pony or beast. 

The sandwich ruse was repeated three more times. Probably by the same bad actors. But maybe not.

The second time, he ate the sandwich, accepted a kiss from his wife, who accidentally stumbled and fell tangled in his limbs, forelegs jutting into his stomach inducing a gag reflex. He vomited out the poison. 

The third time, he was bumped by his wife, who simultaneously smashed a glass container full of rocket fuel as she flared her wings in surprise. That dropped sandwich was consumed a few hours later by a burly subordinate, who fell violently ill but ultimately survived, likely because the poison had been formulated for a smaller body frame. A nameless government investigator who smelled of chocolate and bon bons reported that the under-dosage must have been done under hopes no toxicology test would be undertaken, or if it was, that the chemicals would be mere traces by the time somepony ran a test. 

The fourth attempt saw Doctor Hooves ingest the sandwich. His wife was... away.




Two: A diamond dog performed a beg-salute, legs dangling like a rabbit's as it stood on both hind legs. Doctor Hooves looked over at his smiling wife who was clapping her hooves together at the performance, then trotted over and provided the dog a bit. The dog's eyes flared wide open and it grabbed in its teeth not only the proffered bit but also the carrying hoof. Doctor Hooves cried out and released the bit, which migrated down the dog's throat and caught in it. The dog jerked back, wheezing. 

"It's having a seizure!" Mrs. Hooves exclaimed, flaring her wings. "We have to save it!"

Doctor Hooves, wincing from the pain and the slobber nevertheless sprung into action and tried to perform the Heimlich maneouver. "I am not certain if this works on its anatomy--" he said.

"We have to try. I'll get help! Poor thing." Mrs. Hooves rose into the air.

Despite Doctor Hooves's best efforts, the dog choked to death.

Medical professionals and a couple of sunglass-wearing professionals from the government looked into the demise but didn't examine too deeply as there was little reason to suspect espionage. The professionals had arrived because the diamond dog was a foreigner and thus the strange death might be diplomatically sensitive.

At the moment of the diamond dog's death, the space race had still been in its infancy--matters would progress quickly over the next year, and much work had been done behind the scenes but Equestria did not yet know about that. 

Griffons from the Griffonian Socialist Creatures Republic (GSCR) had only a week before, on National Liberation Day, announced their intent to surpass the "arrogant ponies" and to demonstrate that even though ponies "controlled vast capital, that the labor of hard-working intelligent griffons will certainly outmatch the intellectually and morally bankrupt ponies now that the bourgeois feudal Princess Celestia had retired after a thousand-year reign of terror." Despite the violence of the statement, few ponies took it seriously. Most ponies' familiarity with griffons came from Griffonstone--a failed state hyper-capitalistic vassal protectorate of Equestria. The GSCR was across an ocean, a vast former colony of Griffonstone that had been lost, from Equestria's perspective, for hundreds of years after the Griffonian Empire's collapse.

A bit was found in the grass beside the dog, and it was quickly established that the dog must have spit out the one it had bit. Thus, nopony investigated the full circumstances of the demise too deeply, and the unidentified dog, whose existence the diamond dog embassy denied having any knowledge of, though they did accept a hefty donation in memorial of the dog, was buried without further incidence.

I ensured Doctor Hooves received proper medical treatment for his chipped hoof. He made a full recovery!




Three: Piranhas with teeth polished with poisoned toothpaste were released into Doctor Hooves' self-constructed hot tub. The piranhas ended up poisoning each other to death and neither Doctor Hooves, nor his wife entered the water after she side-eyed the bobbling heads while Doctor Hooves was preparing to back into the tub. 




Princess Twilight Sparkle ordered an investigation after the piranha attempt. And, in the course of that investigation, she discovered residue from a poisoned sandwich. Ponies were interrogated, among them the Doctor's close assistant, Roseluck. Peeved, Doctor Hooves filed a complaint with Mrs. Harshwinny who duly filed it away and never looked at it again.

Most accused ponies were cleared. Two were dismissed: a married couple with close contacts to griffons influenced by the GSCR--they'd been caught bird-clawed passing mini-camera-captured research. Their ingenious mini-cameras were seized and the Doctor and Twilight's special mathemagician consultant Moondancer marveled. 

The GSCR griffons had better technology than ponies had realized. Their political system was supposed to have doomed them to be backwards, but they somehow manufactured an advance that Equestria couldn't have imagined. Although Moondancer and Doctor Hooves salivated over the advanced technology, other government agents were assigned to reverse-engineer the cameras for Equestria's benefit. Roseluck and Mrs. Hooves kept Doctor Hooves on target and physically steered him back to his work.

Mrs. Harshwinny, Overseer of day-to-day operations, also stuffed her snout into the investigations. Mrs. Hooves found herself banned from project grounds in a technical sense if not a practical one--everypony knew whose spouse she was and the ones who were closest to him weren't particularly interested in keeping her out. It was impossible to say she was harmless since she caused innumerable accidents. But she definitely wasn't a spy. And she had important experience to impart. The pilot candidates, more or less, listened. But the emphasis on more or less was definitely on the less with respect to ones not named Spitfire or Soarin.

The government's leading theory was all attempts could be traced back to one culprit--the space-seeking griffons.

"I'm not so sure," Mrs. Hooves had commented, eating toast her husband had prepared in the morning, and nibbling a buttery muffin she had made last night. "Multiple creatures may wish the program ill. There could be doomsday cultists like the Rosy Crucifixtions or those Tartarus Gate minotaurs. It's against their religion to go to space."

"Who has time to listen to ravings of madmares and stallions?" Doctor Hooves shrugged.

"I think I have some pamphlets Roseluck's sisters gave me," Mrs. Hooves busied herself in a drawer and came out with a stack. "Here, I think. Sorry there's a lot of Neighponese restaurant menus mixed in. It might take a while to sort." She started turning over advertisements, squinting and cocking her head.

"I'm so close to success," Doctor Hooves said.

"That's great," Mrs. Hooves smiled. "But if your life is at risk, what are you weighing it against?"

"Knowledge! Invention! Wisdom!"

"It has been fun," Mrs. Hooves smiled. "But is that enough when the risk is really high? I don't want to lose you."

"Hope! It will bring hope. If we can leave Equestria, we can find resources elsewhere, friends elsewhere. Live elsewhere. More room! More experiences."

"I can get behind hope..." she looked back at her bubble cutie mark. "It's who I am."

"Yes, certainly," Doctor Hooves nodded.

"At least I think it's who I am. Though, I haven't always felt a lot of hope. What if my bubbles mean something else... like something related to--I dunno. I feel bad for saying this but maybe that hope you expressed is a bit ambitious. We can do a lot more on Equestria here to make friendship with other creatures... to make life better for everycreature! We can do things that will help everycreature every day!"

"Never fear, Dear! I could always continue work on the Time--" 

"But what about the horrible event last time..." Mrs. Hooves trailed off cracked a smile. "This project is good," she stroked Doctor Hooves' mane back and forth. "Maybe I spoke too hastily. I'm just bubbly and silly sometimes."

"Don't say that in such a discouraging tone, Dear. You're no sillier than me." They nuzzled snouts, then Mrs. Hooves returned to stroking her husband's mane.

"It's simply that... the time device is a little dangerous. Remember Minuette?" 

Doctor Hooves could feel her shiver through her fetlock. "She did make it back..."

"Eventually. Barely. Umm... safe timey wimey plans... seem a bit far off." She forced a dry giggle. "But promise me you'll quit these rockets if it becomes too dangerous. The benefits aren't worth the life of anypony. Could we live with somepony's death on our souls?"

"No," Doctor Hooves frowned.

"Besides, is there really a problem for ponies if griffons reach space first?"

"Then I won't have achieved anything."

"Really?" She looked around at pieces of rockets and equipment.

"We did so much together," he said. "I'd like to finish what we started. A wondrous capstone!" 

"But, before you said you cared most about helping ponies. And you're so good with Dinky."

"She's wonderful. I can't believe I never considered having a foal. Was too wrapped up in my studies. Snug as a bug eating up a book, I was! Self absorbed! Shame!" 

"Well... we came together. And it's right now."

"Indeed. Indubitably. Inarguably, yes."

"And we have another wonderful accomplishment right here," she navigated one of his hooves to rest against her belly.

"You mean--a--oh--"

"Mmm... we're going to have a foal."

"Oh, Derpy," Doctor Hooves kissed her. She set aside her pamphlets.




Back to the sandwich.... I wasn't there to help... and mission control was panicked because my husband was going to die....
> Chapter 4: What Came Before For Derpy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Helmet?"

"Check," Derpy said, her voice muffled by the mask slash windshield helmet attached to her face.

"What was that?"

"Check." Derpy pressed against the helmet, sneezed, and her snout jerked up and shattered the glass.

"Let's try again," Doctor Hooves said, voice still peppy.

"Sorry, I just don't know what went wrong."

"No matter, if the glass could not hold up to such a blow it clearly was not tempered enough. Iterate. We must iterate!" Doctor Hooves put a hoof on Derpy's flank. "You are okay?"

"Sure! But other than spindly cracks, I can't see a thing."

"Your helmet is rather covered in snot, but no worries, no worries indeed!" Doctor Hooves yanked on the helmet. It stuck. He twisted. "Shall we try twisting the other way?" No luck. "I'll brace myself around you." He hugged her tight and pulled and finally yanked it off. Panting, he lay with her now embracing him. "Leverage, Derpy. Leverage is important."

Derpy brushed the back of his mane and smiled at him.

His stomach rumbled, and she felt him shift away from her hide. Chuckling and crossing his legs, he disentangled from her and rose. "Yes, um... Iteration and leverage and--"

"Muffins?"  Derpy pointed at his stomach.

"Yes, indeed. Muffins. Carbohydrates. Flatbread or quickbread, one wonders? Helps a pony to think. Leavened bread. Ingenious! Right." Doctor Hooves scratched the back of his left ear and turned away. "It seems appropriate um.... for me to also now put on my... thinking pants. No? I believe I must see you here again in... how long do the delectables take to cook? It is getting close to your bedtime, correct?"

"Twenty five to thirty minutes. More than enough time."

"Brilliant! Brilliant, really. And of course, help yourself to some coffee I have in the strainer over there. Decaffeinated, of course." He meandered away, cogitating.

Derpy hummed to herself and went to prepare the muffins.




"I wanted him to have the best brain food," Derpy, black rims over her eyes, told her daughter, nearly as old as Derpy had been when she started her own family.

"Why are you reflecting on this, Mom?"

"Because..." Derpy trailed off and felt at her belly, which was rumbling and queasy in a way it hadn't been when she'd been pregnant with her daughter. "I'd known him for years, I'd liked him in a general sense, but that memory I just shared was when I really knew there was something special. Not just something I imagined before he 'graduated' from the orphanage.... I'm sorry."

"About what?"

"I... helped him at night with his temporal and rocketry research, after I put you to bed. I was really tired during that time."

"It helped bring you two together. I don't think I missed out."

"You're so sweet." Derpy kissed her daughter's cheek and ran a hoof through her mane. Tears welled in her eyes. "I hope...  everything goes well."

"Princess Twilight Sparkle personally approved the celestianaut," her daughter said.

"That's what they're calling it?" Derpy asked, a frown spreading.

"Some kids at the School of Friendship mentioned it. It's slang. But I think it's better than the official term. More romantic--it recalls the celestial skies."

"But we invented the other term."

"Sorry, Mom. The ponynaut..." Her daughter's voice trailed off.

"It's okay.... Replace it."

"No," her daughter shook her head. "I didn't realize it meant that much to you."

"It doesn't. It's ephemeral. Everything goes away, dies and changes. Decays. Like... Dad's theories on radioactivity. What matters is how we approach life and challenges in our here and now."

"Okay, Mom."

Derpy sighed. "There is some concern about the ponynaut's journey. I think this is a secret. But it's important to let you know because they might ask me... Spitfire's the only backup left."

"Mom. You don't have to worry about running a rescue mission. You're medically exempt!"

Derpy smiled, tight. "And removed from the Program after the Princess took control."

"That was because of your... growing bundle of joy," her daughter forced a smile.

"We didn't realize that until later. I was excluded from the start."

"Mom,"

"Everything I do just goes wrong, somehow. I don't want it to rub off on him."

"Doctor--Dad. Sorry, still getting used to that--"

"Don't worry. I don't think he minds."

"But I do." Her daughter pouted. "I like him."

"It's okay."

"Anyway, Dad made the rockets with you. He wouldn't have gotten so far without you. You succeeded!"

"There were so many setbacks."

"And then he successfully sent a rocket to space!"

"I guess he did."

"Yes, he did."

"Yes," Derpy nodded, and cracked a smile. "Oh," she felt her belly. "I guess he's kicking. Really hard and... I better go to the bathroom."

"When you get back, let's talk some more. You don't need to feel so bad."

Derpy rose and grinned at her daughter. "Maybe I'm just a smidgen jealous I didn't get to go. I'd done so much and, unlike a lot of things--I had a talent for it. It felt right." She crossed her hind legs and bit her lower lip.

"Mom, you better go to the bathroom."

"Thank you," she whispered and left.

I love my daughter. And she loves me... too much.
> Chapter 5: Twilight Hopes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lightning Dust was not Doctor Hooves' first choice for the mission, Princess Twilight Sparkle reflected, but the Doctor's first choice, though she was a kind mare, and although she had performed test flights before the government took over, wasn't reliable. She almost certainly would have died due to some accident if she'd been sent into space. She wasn't anything like the Wonderbolts or even Lightning Dust. She was just an ordinary mail pony at best. At worst... the Princess had lived within the mare's orbit in Ponyville and in addition to the mare's floating eye handicap... she also attracted accidents. Dropped pianos. Flaming mail. Crushed attics. Twilight and her friends had suffered--especially ex-Weather Coordinator Rainbow Dash who supervised the mare--Derpy Hooves, until she needed to be gently asked to consider alternative employment.

Rainbow Dash had been Princess Twilight Sparkle's first choice to go to Marred. Twilight, deep in her neurotically-beating heart, would rather no pony undertake the risk, but once her government took over the project, it became a politicized competition with the GSCR griffons. So, it needed to proceed. So many non-pony creatures were watching this race carefully. 

Princess Twilight was newly installed on the throne, so she lacked the historical gravitas of her 1000-year-reigning predecessor. And other creatures were taking advantage--pushing, pressing. Abyssinians seized Saddle Arabian yarn reserves and were rumored to be moving against their sheep farms. Although Princess Twilight could blast a pride of criminal Abysinnians... there would be collateral damage... especially since the Abysinnians were rumored to store stolen merchandise among civilians. 

Twilight didn't want to become known for cruelty. Songs still percolated among other creatures about Princess Celestia's decade-long post-exile-of-Luna rage, like those yawled at every Abyssianian wake. Twilight shuddered at recalling how embarrassed her embassy had been on discovering that nasty tidbit of history. Now, she, Equestria's Princess of Friendship, had no desire to be known for something so terrible as Celestia's Great Water Spritzing--it would destroy her. 

She needed to adopt a gentler tone even though it took longer to resolve matters through kindness--her own friend group's tendency to ignore Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness, proved that, unless other creatures were more receptive to kindness--and nothing Twilight had seen had shown her that. Creatures who didn't build their entire society around friendship that could repel cruel ice spirits probably wouldn't have a stronger conception of friendship and kindness than ponies, she figured. And ponies daily struggled just to do the bare minimum even with those terrible consequences hovering over them. 

However, if she could shock and awe everycreature with an awesome accomplishment--reaching the planet--finding its postulated civilization that arguably left hoof-made canals on Marred, criss-crossing the surface between empty seas--then she could obtain the foreign creatures' polite obedience and respect.(Note 1). Probably. It might not work. They didn't think much of her defeat of Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis--the Stoned Trio, which saved the world... probably because foreign countries had also helped. And all her magical time traveling saving the world from a cultist madmare... nocreature knew about that. So, inventing an important justification, she backed the space program in all its reckless glory.






Note 1: The canals were first seen in pre-Celestia days. The seas they connected were, in old Ponish, named 'mares' for their apparent similarity to the heads of Princess Platinum and other famous female rulers. Chancellor Puddinghead, a leading stallion excluded from the naming, was compensated by having an asteroid named after him. And with pudding.






And Rainbow Dash, Princess Twilight's close confidante, had joined the Program, despite Dash's other obligations. Dash had heard that her archnemesis, the flippant and crass Lightning Dust, was trying to be the first ponynaut, so Dash took a leave of absence from leading the Wonderbolts--Equestria's premier flight team--and entered training.

Twilight put on a brave face and girded herself at the base of the hospital stairs. She ascended and trotted to Dash's room, where she knelt beside the pegasus' bed and sniffed a whiff of the cooling chemicals applied to Dash's burns. She tried not to look too much at the boils covering her friend's hide, or skeletal remains of wings that doctors said should probably grow back with proper diet. Probably... although there was a twenty percent chance something decidedly un-awesome might happen to them.

"Did she make it?" Rainbow Dash swallowed hard, then she sucked on the medical straw lodged in a side of her mouth.

"She's on her way to Marred."

"Lucky," Rainbow Dash said.

"If she comes back."

"She's not going to make it?"

Twilight Sparkle shushed her friend and hastily constructed a magical bubble of silence. "She couldn't resist the opportunity to show off, so she lost some thrust."

"Doing what?"

"A loop-de-loop around the moon."

"She couldn't save that for another trip?"

Twilight Sparkle shrugged. "She's always been a showoff. Doctor Hooves says she should be able to reach Marred, if nothing goes awry."

"She never should have been allowed to apply!"

"She turned her life around after getting rejected from the Wonderbolts..."

"For taking too many risks! She hasn't learned anything!"

"Creatures can change."

"Most ponies never do--deep down," Rainbow Dash huffed.

"Despite her many years as a leading--Equestria's leading stunt pony, she has not injured herself badly."

Rainbow Dash blew a raspberry. 

Twilight Sparkle smiled. "Glad you feel good enough to express yourself."

"That's about all the expressing I can do."

"Well," Twilight said. "The statistics do not lie. Over the last few years, you spent more time in the hospital than her."

"Because my tricks were more complex!"

"I do not disagree, Rainbow." Twilight Sparkle lightly patted her friend's haunches. 

"She's going to get herself killed."

"We can hope not. And pray."

"To whom? Yourself?"

Twilight's face reddened. "To Celestia."

"She's gone, Twilight. There's just you."

"She'll turn up again. Her and Luna. They're just at Sapphire Shores."

"Twilight, she's not a deity. At least not anymore. You said she was losing her--" Rainbow Dash whispered despite the bubble of silence. "At least she's not here. You're the only super-duper leader we've got, Captain of my country. And you've got me and the rest of your friends to support you!"

Twilight sighed, long and loud through her nostrils. "Times like these make me want to reconsider the donkeys' sky god. The Abyssinians' extensive pantheon, or the Minotaurs' ancestor spirits." Twilight massaged her forehead. "If they really could give out handouts and not just hope... and if they didn't turn out to be dark demonic spirits..."

"If the support of your friends isn't getting you past your anxiety, go back to your books. You know, like precepts of the ancient pegasi," Rainbow Dash said.

Twilight arched an eyebrow. "You've gotten into philosophy?"

"Theology," Rainbow Dash grunted. "Dad died last year and Mom broke out the old books. Dad read them to me when I was a foal and put them away since she thought they were garbage, but he was always paging through them when she wasn't looking. And... she figured we could feel him with us when we looked through..." Rainbow Dash gulped, then sniffed. "Like, you know about them, right? You're the biggest egghead there is--"

"I didn't study impractical topics."

"Right."

"But, no need to worry!" Twilight smiled. "I'll be glad to hear about it now!"

"Fine. I mean, I thought it was bunk when I was growing up, but you know, we--you, me and the others--sort of were the spirits of harmony and friendship when we went adventuring. Perspective makes a pony think. Basically, the concept is: we're all one. In the sky. On the earth. Everything. And every little butterfly flap, it all comes together, and it works in unison like a flapping wing aligning a spine and a purpose. That's why we pray. Well, why some pegasi pray. Sorry if this sounds stupid--ow."

Twilight applied some ointment on Rainbow's wounds.

"The point is, we're all here for you, Twilight. All pegasi. All creatures who like you. And since we're all here, expending our energy for you, even though we aren't with you in the precise moment when you're trying something, you can't fail with our friendship behind you."

Twilight's eyes teared up. "Thank you, Rainbow Dash." After a pause, she added: "Do you need anything?"

"Nah. Just keep me updated on how it's going," she paused. "And if you can get me an advance copy of the Next Daring Do book, that'd be great," she sighed. "Alright. I admit it. Again. I hate that mare... Lightning, but what's the backup plan if she doesn't make it? Can't reach Marred? What if she exhausts her fuel before she's flung around the planet or doesn't have enough to re-accelerate once she's been captured by the planet's gravitational field?"

Twilight Sparkle's nose twitched. "Until a certain point, she is reachable from Equestria. We can get to her with a rocket and a filled spare, hoof it off to her, join hooves and turn around, send her back and then the rescuer can head back as much as possible with the remaining fuel. Later, we send a third rocket with another spare, pick up the rescuer and everypony gets home.

"But at the 'no-go point' we can't get her back. There's a limit to how efficient rocket fuel can be and how much water can be taken. And there's the theoretical problem of the pegasus-oxygen-conversion ratio over time under stress--we just don't know so many answers. This project was--it's my fault it was rushed. You won't believe the technology those griffons have! My fault. Her blood will be on my hooves if we fail. Yes, she did something stupid. But Doctor Hooves planned for that. The technology failed. But that's because we went faster than we should have. But all that doesn't matter, probably. I hope.

"Because... she'll be fine. Just fine."

"How many spare rockets did Hooves make?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight Sparkle smiled a tight tired smile, bit her lower lip, then trotted out of the room.

There was one. A single spare rocket. And a second for testing that didn't have boost necessary for the range. It could get a pony part of the way and Twilight, if her magic held up, might be able to fly to grab the pony. They had one shot.
> Ponynaut Dossier: Derpy Hooves
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applicant Dossier #001: Derpy Hooves



"My name's Derpy Hooves." The blonde-maned mare nodded, one of her eyeballs jerking ungainly to a side.

After shaking her head, she answered the next mumbled question. "Yes, Mrs. Harshwinny, I did previously use another name. My birth name--Ditzy Doo. But I prefer Hooves. Even though it's an orphan surname. After my parents died of the feather flu, my biological relatives didn't want to adopt me. Since they don't consider me a Doo, I don't either."

Her answers to the next questions were written verbatim in a jaunty script.

"Feather flu. They died of feather flu."

"Health records explain my eye. Sure, though, I can talk about it. An accident detached my retina and then we all got feather flu and I got an eye infection and when the detachment was fixed, my eye was lazy and they said they could maybe do something if we paid a lot of bits, but I still might go blind. I can see fine. I just need to focus on where it's looking. In fact, it's a benefit seeing at unique angles. I have a special perspective. I've caught a few flaws in test equipment that way. It's not a problem."

"Excuse me. Sorry. My mail route has only lost six percent of its letters. It's a good record. Especially for Ponyville. We lose mailponies each year to attrition with all the strange happenstance from the Everfree Forest and whatever horrors seem to be attracted to the Elements of Hominy."

"Sorry, I meant 'Harmony', but hominy's pretty tasty. Not as tasty as muffins, though."

"Yes, some ponies do call me Muffins. I like them, a lot! But that would make it even more confusing--I'd be like, 'Muffins!' And everypony'd be like 'why are you shouting your name?' And I'd frown and say I'd just been asking for muffins. So, the short of my answer is, that's not my name, so I didn't list it."

"No, I didn't know there's a 'safecracking bindlestiff' named Muffins who operates on the Lower East Side of Trottingham. I've never been to Trottingham, except maybe as a foal."

"Yes, that IS just what a criminal might say, but what do you expect me to do?"

"Fine. You were just playing hard to see what I'd say. I don't appreciate it."

"No, I saw just fine out of my eye when your hoof reached out and pretended to slap me. I didn't flinch because I'm used to ponies playing tricks and didn't expect you would strike my head. I didn't think you were a mean pony. But maybe you are."

"It's okay. I forgive you, whether that was part of the official test or not."

"Yes, I have a daughter."

"I don't know the father."

"I don't want to talk about circumstances surrounding the conception."

"I--look at the police records. I don't want to revisit that. Please."

"Yes--they're not detailed but that's all I had to say at the time and it's all I can say now. It's been years. Please."

"No. I have nothing else to say about that."

"If anything occurs to me? Fine."

"I'm not married."

"I've never been."

"Do you really need to ask about sexual activity? This isn't going to be pubic record, right?"

"Public, sorry. No, I'm not trying to be funny. It must have been in my mind because of your inappropriate question, your eggselency."

"Then I don't want to answer it."

"I guess I'm a good-looking mare. You say that to everypony? I mean, I guess to mares, right?"

"You're just being polite? But your voice got softer when you said--"

"I really don't want to answer because ponies will make fun of me. I'm used to that, but my daughter's in school and these things have a way of creating weird situations. She might feel pressured. She already takes on a lot of pressure because I break  things and I'm not welcome in a lot of places."

"Yes. I'm still paying off items on an installment plan from when I worked as a mover."

"I worked for a week."

"The ponies were really nice. They let me pay the minimum as long as the interest rate could be triple the original. I'm helping them account for inflation."

"I play a pony named Usury Interest."

"I mean, pay.... You're not going to record that bit about Dinky, though? Me just talking about her getting embarrassed and worrying about her might cause other ponies to bully her. A few years ago, ponies bullied her about her cutie mark and... I'm just talking myself into circles and making things worse. Sorry."

An annotation beside the statement indicated--lack of confidence. Dangerous when isolated in space without support.

"Again with that question about... you know what."

"Fine. I keep talking myself in circles and spiraling like a tornado of tumultuous torment. I'm not sexually active."

"Not since Dinky's conception."

"For real. You don't need to lean toward me. It's uncomfortable. Oof." At this point, the applicant slipped off her chair and fell on the floor. After she recovered: "Sorry about that. But these questions are weird. I can't imagine the Princess--"

"She allowed you to draft them in concert with leading psychologists?"

"So... like Fraud? Psychoticanalytically tracing everything back to... private sorts of things?"

"Yes! I know all about Fraud. At the orphanage, they tried to prod into our minds. We had phrenologists and markologists to help us unlock our true potential and to determine if we had any psychological scars from becoming orphans. Fraud came a few times. When Fraud came, he really... made me feel uncomfortable."

"Yes, I didn't like Fraud's cigar sticking in my face--he did that to you too?"

"No, you just heard? Okay. But it was more than Fraud's disgusting fat cigar.... that pony was so... filthy. Not friendly. Just poking and prodding and tearing into us and he made a lot of ponies cry."

"Yes, I cried. A lot. He interpreted my dreams in really bad ways." Fraud's report, with all its salacious details, was included in the file and had led to a lot of trouble for Derpy especially in the wake of her single motherhood.

"And yes, I've been telling you the truth. I wouldn't lie to the Government. I don't have time for that type of recreation you're implying. I have a young filly at home and I focus as much of my attention on her as possible."

"Not inappropriate attention!"

"Of course, I understand that was a standard screening question, if you say it is. I have no reason to doubt you. Even though you're acting like a bully." A red note appended to the transcript indicated 'aggressive tendencies.'

"But it really is ridiculous." Interview notes, in red, detailed Derpy's aggressive flaring of her wings and another document diagramming pegasus wing behavior was stapled to it as corroboration, with a diagrammed picture labeled "aggressive behavior" circled.

"Foal Protective Services has already investigated me far more than they would the average mare. Just because I was younger and alone and I wasn't great at my jobs and had a difficult time arranging child care and had that legal trouble--it's really frustrating to always be looked down on and treated differently. That isn't a serious problem?"

"Oh, by Celestia."

"She's in school... just not flight school, and she won't be going to flight school because she's a unicorn. Unless she becomes an alicorn. A pony can dream, right?"

"So, the father was a unicorn--"

"Maybe. Probably. I already said I don't want to talk about it."

The interview abruptly shifted focus.

"Of course I have non-pony friends."

"I'd gladly share information with them."

"If it was secret, I'd keep it secret, though."

"I wouldn't be bribed by them."

"Yes... Dinky and I don't have a lot of bits but we don't need a lot. I haven't asked for a raise in years."

"Yes. I haven't gotten the best ratings for performance either."





"Fears?"

"What if somepony uses them against me?"

"You can redact those but you can't redact the bit on sex?"

"Because my fears can be used against me? Any part of this interview can be used against me and it will be if my past is prologue to anything!" Derpy broke out in tears.

"Thank you for the hoofkerchief. I don't mind that it's used. I'll use this part instead."

"Fine. I'm afraid of REDACTED. And I don't like being made to feel small."

"No, I don't have delusions of grandeur. I'm not a showoff. I--you can see my evaluations from weather patrol and the Post. There shouldn't be anything like that. And you probably have my psychoanalyst's records."

"Yes, from when I was at the orphanage. They're a bit old. I wouldn't think too much about them."

"No, I don't wet my bed anymore."

"I live on the ground because of my daughter. Not because of a fear of heights. That's wrong. I fly all the time."

"Fine."

"I can get going?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to spill the water."

"And I'm really sorry my wings are still spread out. I just. It takes a while to calm down. I'm not mad right now. Just worried about what--I suppose this is on the record too, I won't say too much. I'm real sorry."

"It's okay, I'll wipe it up. I've caused enough trouble. Sorry. Sorry. Just a wing here and lean a bit forward and--oopsie!"

"Sorry about the table. And your leg. I just don't know what went wrong."





The record was written. Documents included Derpy Hooves' performance and her grades in flight school and elementary school, her performance as a weather pony, as a mailmare, all her jobs. There also were Medical records, describing her wing injuries, lacerations from flying into windows and other structures. And there were recommendation pages, but they were not recommendations appropriate for the program: "She has a good personality." "She's friendly." "She cares about everypony." There was nothing about flight ability.

Most important, the pages noted Derpy's performance in the test program. Sure, she had been the Doctor's main test pilot and sure, she had tested a lot of failed equipment--but that was the key-- it was failed equipment. Equipment as failed as she. The tests all fell short of their goals. When an actually qualified pony took over, now that everything was supervised by the Government, the program was going to be better positioned to succeed.

Thus, the official verdict was:

Rejected for project Marred Mare. (Note 1)






Note 1: "Mare" meaning, as in Old Ponish, "sea"--referring to the cratered "seas" sighted on Marred that first led ponies to believe Marred might contain water, and with it life, and with that life, the possibility of friends!

Of course the first transit to Marred would merely survey the land, focusing on potential signs of habitation. But, eventually a pony would set hoof on Marred and either discover any hidden friends therein.

The project's name was not without its controversy, since Equal Stallion Rights Activists protested since the term "mare" inherently had a dual meaning referring to the female sex, but Operations Director Mrs. Harshwinny held fast against disputes, making clear that opposition to that term was really opposition to Old Ponish and opposition to Old Ponish was opposition to all the wonderful "History" of Equestria. And no right-thinking pony would want to do that.


> Chapter 6: Lightning Dust Continues / Twilight Tries / Spitfire Doesn't Make the Grade
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lightning Dust hurtled along. Marred grew no larger in her field of vision, so she looked back and watched Equestria fade smaller and smaller.

Lightning Dust had been awake for two entire days, too uncomfortable to sleep.  A couple of hours ago, she finished the last energy bar rationed for the twenty-four-hour period, and she felt a booming headache worse than what she suffered while hungover. Sleep-flying wasn't natural for pegasi. She'd sleep-flown a few times but those occasions happened while she was drunk-off-her-tail. Since she hadn't smuggled any of the sauce, that wasn't an option to help her knock-off.

"Next time, bring a couple of Pale Ales. Or Whiskey. Or Mead." She licked her lips. Marred--a lot bigger now than it had been a few days ago--looked increasingly like a tasty droplet of orangeish mead. She opened her mouth and sucked against her Device--tasting the imaginary drink, shivering as she did. Space was colder than she'd conceived. She had thought, despite Doctor Hooves' warnings, that she was definitely going to be warm since the sun was warm and there was no atmosphere lessening its heat. But it felt like she was in the shade. Of course, ensconced within her suit, her body was warm enough--Doctor Hooves had apparently included a warming function. Maybe, if her face wasn't so cold, she could rest her eyes.

She detached her helmet from the utility belt and placed it over her head until it caught against her suit with a satisfying socket match. The suit pressurized to adjust, then it clicked closed. After a while, she warmed up and her eyelids drooped. 




"She's approaching the point of no return. Do you have what we need to make an informed decision?" Princess Twilight Sparkle asked.

"Agreed. The ponynaut is off course. Slightly. But--Roseluck, run the numbers again."

"Can do, Doctor!" Doctor Hooves' assistant, a beaming red-maned beauty, winked at him, took a pencil in her mouth and puzzled out the calculations.

"And you... Moondancer?"

A bespectacled unicorn mare arched an eyebrow.

"Please check the calculations."

"I've already run them twice, Doctor. It's a worse situation than what your assistant calculated."

"Excuse me?" Roseluck spit out the pencil in her mouth. "I have a degree in--"

"And I graduated from Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns." Moondancer pushed thick rimmed glasses back up her snout. "And I'm better at this than you are."

Doctor Hooves' eyes grew wide as he skimmed Moondancer's calculations. "By Jove, I do believe you're right. Great work. Capital!" He beamed as he brought the calculations to Princess Twilight. Then, his face fell as he realized what the numbers meant. "We have perhaps an hour to send a warning--to maneuver around. If it arrives too late, the ponynaut will be stranded with no chance, assuming we cannot improve our rocket thrust."

"I'll beam the message to her!" Twilight Sparkle raced to the communications station, picked up headphones and confronted the apparatus, a mallet-shaped hammer key. "Hoarse code, right?"

"Indeed, Princess,"

"I'm a little rusty, but--"

"Then you probably shouldn't send it," Roseluck sneered. "Please move over, Princess and let me know what you want to say."

Princess Twilight's face reddened, "Of course. It's your job." Twilight slid over.

"Unlike some ponies previously employed here, I have sufficient University qualifications necessary to execute my duty. More than enough."

"You as sure of this as your mathematics?" Moondancer asked.

"Quiet you--" Roseluck's harsh tone cut off, and she turned to face the Twilight, asking in a simpering tone, "you would like me to send what message, Princess?"

"Yes," Twilight swallowed. "Ponynaut Lightning Dust! Please turn around posthaste due to the danger of exhausting fuel reserves. You must turn around."

"That's too wordy. We have to repeat this a lot. And it can get broken up and missed. Let's make it: "turn around. No go."

"...I suppose that works."

Roseluck's brows knitted and she began sending the message again and again and again.

"How long will you--"

Roseluck shook her head and held up a hoof. She continued to send the warning.




Lightning Dust dozed. That probably didn't matter as much as one would think, however, since she hadn't really mastered Hoarse Code during her training. She and Rainbow Dash were rivals, but they held about the same level of interest in intellectual pursuits. They could succeed, but they preferred to fill their minds with calculations for cool tricks rather than to memorize arcane data. The other participants, however, had grasped Hoarse Code. And Lightning Dust had known how to cheat.




"She cannot send a response," Doctor Hooves noted.

"How will we know if she understands?"

"If she stops. Or turns around. She might be able to execute a maneouver with landing thrusters, exhausting excess fuel. It could be tricky and she might end up pointed wrong, but she excelled in training."

"But she can't speak with us?"

"I developed something of that nature as a prototype, but the Government's Operations Director decreed it was too risky to send out untested equipment. It would, like this method, also only be reliable when Equestria is oriented in the same direction and the moon is not occluding--"

"I can move Moon."

"Not necessary. Thank you! But would that not affect the tides?"

"It's happened before," Twilight Sparkle frowned.

"Yes, yes. Of course."

"How close are the griffons to getting off the ground?" Moondancer asked.

"I'd have to ask Mrs. Harshwinny," Twilight said.

"Why isn't she here now?"

"She's with Spitfire validating equipment for the rescue." Twilight bit her lower lip. "On my orders."

"How's Spitfire doing?"




Spitfire was sputtering and gasping for air.

"We know you have had difficulties with pressure and extracting air from our simulation of space's vacuum," Mrs. Harshwhinny said.

"Not gonna be a problem, ma'am," Spitfire gritted her teeth together long enough to speak. Then, she coughed.

"Hem-hem," Harshwinny made a note on a piece of paper on her clipboard. 

"I've been high altitude flying for years. I can tough it out."

"No need to be a martyr."

"But I'm the only qualified pony. Even if it is rescuing an Icarus."

Mrs. Harshwinny raised an eyebrow. "A what? I'm not familiar with the slang? Though, I am familiar with the fable."

"Same thing. A recruit who flies too high and gets burned by the sun. Especially appropriate here, ma'am, as I've heard the scuttlebutt."

"And just what does this scuttlebutt imply?" Harshwinny sneered.

"Only that Lightning Dust performed a classic loop-de-loop. I'm aware that wasn't part of the plan. And you got me training on recovery equipment. I can connect the dots."

"Perhaps you can."

Spitfire smiled.

"You win some points for astuteness," Harshwinny chuckled. "But I don't think you can execute this mission."

"You going to recruit a greenhorn?"

"Not your problem."

"Should I stop testing?"

"We still need to validate the equipment, so no."

"Ha!" Spitfire laughed. "You can't fail me. There's nopony left. I'm going to save that hotshot. I'll push myself--just like I pushed myself before every performance."

"Let us validate the dual-stage rocket next. We have a one-quarter model for low altitude."

Spitfire's spirit was great, but her flesh wasn't willing. I'd know that feeling of loss, too. I still do. I don't want to go to sleep.





Lightning Dust received the message. Alarms in her helmet woke her, just as she had managed to doze off. She jerked and jolted but recovered quickly. She tried to make out the blips and boops that indicated the starts and stops of the letters of Hoarse code. But, they may as well have been Griffon to her, so she turned off the radio. 

The message could have been an emergency broadcast. Or, it could have been just congratulations. Or a reprimand. She checked her fuel levels, which were fine. She checked her bearing, which was off--a little. She activated her boosters and spent fuel to realign her trajectory. Then she checked her fuel again. It'd be close, but she could probably still get to Marred and back. At least--mostly back. Her head wasn't good with numbers. The message had probably been trying to warn her she was a little off course. Stupid rocket must have drifted. But she had a steady hoof and could realign. Everything was fine.

After an eventful couple of hours of blurry adjustments and several removals of her helmet to squint and check the bearings, Lightning Dust stared straight at Marred and used the Device to suck in oxygen, processed from space hydrogen and converted into something more palatable. Her Device still had enough chemicals remaining. She'd still be fine. And, if she didn't sleep, she could process oxygen from the floating space particles--for a while anyway. 

Swallowing hard, she racked her brain thinking back to the courses on Hoarse code and the letters she cheated from Soarin's paper. But, although she could conceptualize a lot in her mind's eye, she could only do that in the short term. It had been too long since the test. 

And she couldn't get to sleep for a long time after that.
> Ponynaut Dossier: Spitfire
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applicant Dossier #002: Spitfire

"Spitfire, ma'am." The orange mare grinned and stood at attention.

"Canterlot born and reared, ma'am."

"I was Captain of the Wonderbolts for over a decade. Fourth-longest tenure. Glad to have hoofed it over to Rainbow Dash, though."

"No, I didn't hoof it over because I was, as you incorrectly assert, ma'am: 'tired and done.' I kept up training after retirement. I hoofed it over because Dash earned it and I had an opportunity to win the Pegasusitarod."

"The Pegasusitarod is an endurance race across extreme environments. Teams of three use orientation techniques to grab pre-arranged checkpoint flags. We perform aerial acrobatic challenges and we drag massive quantities of equipment over harsh terrain and past gusty fjords and peaks to replicate Mage Meadowbrook, Somnambula, and Flash Magnus's historic delivery of necessary medical supplies to an isolated village.

"I could have done it as a Wonderbolt. In fact, I did do it as a Wonderbolt, and we fielded a couple of teams. But, this is something ponies don't win unless they train for it specially. At least, unless their leader trains for it specially. Last time, I ran it with myself, another retired 'bolt--Fleetfoot, and Soarin."

"Sure it was tough to do without an earth pony taking Meadowbrook's part. I took that part. Pulled the darned thing twenty one miles. See this scar."

"Ow!" Spitfire jerked away, then snorted at the interviewer.

"Not a problem. Wore a pack over it last week for training. Just didn't expect you to squeeze. Next question."

"And after my team won it, did I regret leaving the Wonderbolts? Yes. Tartarus yes, ma'am. Not going to deny it. But I took a month off, then joined the Appleloosan weather fighting team and wrangled fire tornadoes, haboobs, desert monsoons, and more. I kept my plot in the game--sorry, my hide in the flying game. And I trained the new Wonderbolt recruits and the Reserves as coach emeritus."

"Don't need to watch my bucking language? But this is a matter of public record. Don't want young ponies thinking a former Captain of the Wonderbolts supports potty mouths, Ma'am."

"If a pony in charge lets minor infractions go... ignores minor transgressions and deficiencies, then it's more like that greater infractions will be missed. Then, an accident might happen. And some pony under that Captain's watch might end up laid up in a full body wing and hoof cast drinking through a straw."

"The training I conduct does not get in the way of Captain Rainbow Dash. She takes a hooves-off approach. Rather, she focuses on individual training in the field. I work on theory and general lesson plans. Dash doesn't like being behind a desk, but she's a darn good coach one-on-one, and she had great ideas about performances."

"Parents?"

"Father died three years ago. Mother's in an old pony's home."

"Other dependents?"

"None."

"Relatives?"

"Got a cousin, Sunburst. Don't talk much. He's a bookish type. And a unicorn. Don't have problems with unicorns. I just usually am in the sky."

"Earth ponies? They're fine."

"Never been married."

"Had a few lovers. Strictly mares. Not seeing anypony now."

"Pegasi and earth ponies. One unicorn. Didn't like how unicorns use it, at least that one. I'm sure that not all unicorns are obsessed with using it that way. And one crystal pony pegasus during the Equestrian Games in the Crystal Empire.

"You awarded that location? Neat. A well run event! It had many challenging new courses nopony had ever seen before."

"I like frolicking with earth ponies because of their strength and straightforwardness. Didn't have one on my Pegasuitarod because it would have been too distracting. All those days bivouacking together without anything happening? I'm disciplined but I needed to focus all my energy on the immediate prize. Time enough for fun after hours. No, I'm not winking at you."

"Opinions on orgies? You coming on to me? No. Fine. It wouldn't be professional at this moment."

"Understood."

"You're right. I didn't answer the question. Sharp, ma'am, sharp. This is about our fitness for the space program, though. I don't see how it's necessary to answer."

"Fine. The question's because you don't want me to be influenced by foreign influences. I realize there are rumors of griffon spies. I'll tell you this in simple terms. I've never coupled with any nonpony and although other creatures are fine as friends, they aren't ponies. I don't feel anything saucy around them."

"I suppose it's difficult to feel saucy around creatures that I don't spend a lot of time with, sure. Maybe my opinion might be different if I had more exposure. But I went to flight school with some griffins and their smell--" 

"Sure, if I was profligate, somepony could honeypot me and pass on information to griffons. You want me to sign an agreement to not fool around while I'm a candidate? Fine. I'm a professional."

"Glad that's taken care of. What's next?"

"No offspring. Mares only, ma'am."

"I am aware of the options. No adopted or surrogate or whatever. Don't like foals. They're fine for other ponies but I'll be happy enough to have calm every night and drink nice cool tall mixed strawberry energy drinks."

"That was a funny quip, ma'am. Seems like we have some common opinions. After this program's over if you wanna drink and know each other socially, I'll take you up on it."

"Fears?"

"Nothing."

"Fine. Enclosed spaces. Don't like them."

"But space is about as wide open as it can get."

"I can keep to a straight line, follow orders. I'll get to a planet and back without any deviations."

"Helmets? This one and this one from your chart. Yes--none of the others. I wear padding, but nothing that restricts my eyes--save tight goggles. We call these two crash-pads. Got to see where I'm going. A full field view. Never been a fan of Pegasopolitan Empire's helms. I prefer Pharoahonic or Spartan accoutrements."




Spitfire's record was supplemented by her awards, achievements in the Wonderbolts, her rescue flyer commendations, weather fighter evaluations, Pegasusitarod medal, and of course her excellent flight school grades.

There was also a psychologist's report, appended after the interview. She was not cleared to enter small spaces. She'd been tested and although she performed, her physical tests had been in the danger zone. Her heartbeat--elevated. She'd been covered with sweat and had been breathing ragged breaths. And the test had only lasted an hour. 

But Mrs. Harshwhinny liked watching Spitfire fly. It was a minor discrepancy from procedure, but Harshwhinny justified passing her by adding a note about "spunk and inherent experience." Spitfire was the Wonderbolts former Captain. She had the Right Stuff on her resume. The Program could use her experience. From a governmental point of view, it was also efficient. With a retired Spitfire on board, they wouldn't need to poach another active Wonderbolt into the program... or risk a self-proclaimed hotshot weather pony somehow squeezing in. Mrs. Harshwhinny had nothing against weather ponies, she told herself. Lots of Wonderbolts started there. But, Mrs. Harshwhinny's face soured, weather ponies weren't used to speed. So, when the rockets roared, they probably were going to fail. Wonderbolts were all about speed. And speed was what the government decided was best for the Program's success. Follow the requirements, fill out the right forms, and everything would be fine.

Harshwinny later noted in red, somewhat hypocritically, but she worked hard to justify the exception: "Not Cleared for space operations or rescues. Continue to test with the supplemental oxygen helmet? May overcome her difficulties given time."

Cleared for project Marred Mare.
> Chapter 7: Derpy Watches
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Derpy clutched her stomach and grimaced, but she pushed through the pain and made her way to the testing grounds. She waved at the guards who flew up to meet her.

"You can't be here," one said.

"Only authorized personnel."

"I'm not authorized anymore?" Derpy bobbed in place.

"You were removed from the program."

"But I can visit?"

She was banned, but the first guard looked at the second. "She is married to the Doctor."

"Can you not touch anything?" 

Derpy nodded.

The first guard smiled at her. "Welcome back, Derpy."

The second guard glared at the first. "I'm checking with Mrs. Harshwinny."

"You can take me to her," Derpy said.

The second guard sighed. "Sure," and she waved for Derpy to follow.

Minutes later, they landed behind Mrs. Harshwinny who was absorbed in thought, staring at Spitfire who was struggling to affix a helmet to her head. Every time technicians attempted to mount it, Spitfire shied away.

"Whoa. Whoa there." A big strapping technician held up a hoof. "Follow the hoof, pay no attention to the mare behind your right ear--"

The mare behind Spitfire's right ear yelped in pain. "Don't nip me!"

"Sorry," Spitfire bit her lower lip. "Reflex."

"Doomed," Mrs. Harshwinny facehoofed and hung her head, whispering quieter the repeated word: "doomed."

"We could forgo the helmet and merely use the Device... the PPBBDD... instead of a helmet. If claustrophobia is a problem." Twilight Sparkle suggested. 

"There may be pressure problems," Mrs. Harshwinny said. "If the candidate cannot wear a helmet at all, the candidate may be depressurized during a descent or frozen in space. It may also be necessary during an emergency--if the Device ruptures and the ponynaut cannot properly convert space elements to oxygen, then nothing could be done."

"Of course.... but perhaps there is a way to create an alternative that solves those problems without the need for such a claustrophobia-inducing helmet. If ponies work around the clock--"

"The helmet is already clear glass, Princess," Mrs. Harshwhinny frowned. "We can solve many problems, but production of prototypes takes time. And refinement," Mrs. Harshwinny added. "I am not a materials mare though, so you may receive a more precise answer from Doctor Hooves. Still, several days is not enough time to change the designs. This helmet has been developed over months through much trial and error. The first versions cracked. Any other pressurization apparatus will be shaped different and may have unique gravitational stressors. If it breaks in space, there's likely to be no chance of fixing it, not even with duck tape.(Note 1)"





Note 1: Duct tape.





"Duck what?"

Mrs. Harshwinny held up a shiny roll of material. "Hooves invented it. We use it to tape up beams and sagging rods so ponies no longer need to duck. It also works to seal cracks. But only small ones. If the fracture is lengthwise--"

"Then there's nothing doing!" Derpy added.

"Yes. The original test pony had several shatter and in our vacuum simulator--speak of the devil!" Mrs. Harshwinny bolted slightly, then returned to glare at the gray mare. "What brings our lovely disastrous detector here?"

"I heard there was a problem. I want to help."

"You're out of the program. We have enough difficulties without you bringing up new ones."

"Should I escort her out?" The second guard asked. "We brought her here to see what you wanted to do with her."

The ponies inserted the Device in Spitfire's mouth and then placed the helmet over her head. She closed her eyes and breathed heavily. 

"Calm. Reduce your rate of oxygen intake. Imagine you're flying high."

"Mother bucking Celestia, you mother--" Spitfire hissed, a tinny sound outside of the glass helmet. Then she gulped in a couple of deep breaths.

"Try flying. That should calm you down."

"She's still having trouble with tight spaces?" Derpy asked.

"Yes, she is. How did you know?" Harshwinny demanded.

"The Doctor told me."

"Of course. You're married."

"Yep!"

"Weren't you a test pilot in the early stages, before our Government assumed control over the program?" Princess Twilight Sparkle asked.

"Indeed I was," Derpy shook Twilight's non-proffered hoof. "Been a long time since we've seen each other socially. Though we never were close friends. Not a particularly harmonious relationship, right? Ha-ha. How's the Princesspality doing? Spike? Shining Armor? Your friends?"

"Very well in all cases, I think," Twilight Sparkle said. "And as to my question?"

"Silly me." Derpy batted her forehead with a hoof. "Yes! I was a test pilot. But I didn't make the grade. Had an interview with the Missus here and it didn't go well, I guess. I don't always make the best impression when talking, you know." She grinned a goofy, self-deprecating smile. "But I know what happened to Soarin and Rainbow Dash... although I suppose everypony knows that. Sorry if that wasn't helpful. But I also know Lightning Dust has run into a bit of a dustup. I think. That's why you're practicing so much with Spitfire."

"I can't confirm or deny any of that," Twilight said.

"Nor do we need to. Please run along. Doctor Hooves should be at his usual workstation. Inside." Mrs. Harshwinny pointed toward the building.

"But I need to speak to Pony Resources. You. Right?" Derpy cocked her head at Mrs. Harshwinny.

"To what end?"

"I want to confirm my availability to participate in any necessary rescue."

"Dear," Mrs. Harshwinny looked at Derpy's protruding belly. "You weren't acceptable before and now you have other matters to focus on."

Derpy patted her mound very lightly and a tinge of pain coursed through her, which she knew wasn't something she should normally feel. "I'm... It's important to be friends to ponies and to be helpful. I think I can help. Maybe advise Spitfire on how to use the helmet. It's safe. She needs to know that. After all the iterations that broke with me, this one stuck. It's really good. She doesn't need to be afraid."

"If she doesn't listen to us, there's little chance she'd listen to you," Mrs. Harshwinny said.

"Sorry," Derpy cringed. "I need to... bathroom."

Mrs. Harshwinny rolled her eyes. "No need to return."

Derpy tried to ascend with her wings but the pain was too much and she alighted and trotted to the privies.

"Not like this isn't a matter of life and death or anything," Mrs. Harshwhinny sighed.





Spitfire took off on the scale test rocket and she made it to the stratosphere, wearing the hated helmet, blinking incessantly and heaving breaths. She alighted again after the short jaunt, took two steps and, red-faced, she collapsed.

Mrs. Harshwhinny looked at Twilight.

"We will do everything we can to prepare her."

Derpy peeked out the privies and saw Spitfire's fall. Then, with a wince of pain, Derpy hung her head and clutched her lower barrel. And she retreated.

I wish I'd called for a Doctor. Medical or spousal. But it probably wouldn't have changed much. Still, my mind was maybe too much on others who didn't seem to care too much for me.
> Chapter 8: Soarin and Rainbow Dash Set the Record Straight
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight Sparkle checked in on the other two ponies who were qualified to go to space, although neither of them would be traveling there anytime soon.

Soarin and Rainbow Dash recovered now in the same room. Soarin's injuries were far less prominent than Dash's--a cast around the head, a bandaged wing. 

"Is there anypony, Wonderbolt or not, who could make the rescue?" Twilight Sparkle asked.

"Maybe Vapor Trail? But she turned down the offer three times." Rainbow Dash speculated. "She's afraid of space."

"Is that worse than claustrophobia?"

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash said. "Space is like the least claustrophobic place. There's like nothing there."

"It's not so wide open when a pony has a helmet."

"Fine. But what's wrong with Spitfire? Diamond Dogs get her too?"

"Medical reasons."

"Something worse than what happened to us?" Rainbow Dash guffawed and indicated her tattered wings with a head nod.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss it."

"She works for me," Rainbow Dash said. "Bubble of silence?"

Twilight Sparkle cast the bubble and spoke to Dash with her back facing Soarin. "Spitfire won't wear a head-encompassing helmet. She panics. Passed out."

"Is a helmet reaaaally necessary?"

"She may have pressurization problems when she makes her descent. And anything could happen in space. That's why you trained with helmets."

"Strictly speaking, Spitfire and I didn't. Not full glass, anyway," Rainbow Dash said. "We were the control group."

"Why was there even a control group?"

"I'm not an egghead," Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Scientific method, I guess."

Twilight sighed.

"What about Thunderlane?" Soarin suggested.

"Maybe if we have three months. Twilight needs three days," Rainbow Dash said. "Thunderlane's not exactly quick on the uptake. Doesn't react fast enough until his muscle-memory's trained. He's a braggart but ultimately a beta. A follower. And no way he's picking up Hoarse code in a few days. Unless they've got the two-way radio ready, there's going to be a disaster."

"Blaze?"

"Her husband would say no."

"Not his decision," Soarin said.

"I'm not sure I could live with myself if she... didn't come back. She has four kids. One has special needs. Her husband's already supporting the household full time, but she's retiring in six months--as soon as she gets her pension."

"She seems like our best bet." Twilight Sparkle said. "We'll train her and Thunderlane."

"Neither are high altitude breathers."

"And we need a high altitude breather, why?"

"We don't need one. But one would be good to have," Rainbow Dash said.

"A high altitude breather could go without the oxygen tank. Rather, could only have one oxygen conversion tank. It would allow for more fuel to be filled," Soarin explained. "You'd have greater range."

"How common are high altitude breathers?"

"Not very," Rainbow Dash said. "I'm awesome, but I don't have that skill. Vapor Trail's the only one with that skill on the Wonderbolts. She already mastered anxiety and imposter syndrome before we let her in, so I bet she can get over her fear of space."

"In three days?" Twilight Sparkle asked.

Rainbow Dash made a face. "Fairly speaking... probably not."

"That's quite an amount of faith in your team, Cap'," Soarin said.

"You disagree?"

"There's no perfect choice."

"I'll go," Twilight Sparkle said.

"No way!" Rainbow Dash said. "You can fly and, like Luna, you'll probably be able to breathe in space. But you raise the sun and the moon. You're needed here!"

"With a rocket, I could do it in a day. Probably. And I might be able to raise the sun and moon from afar. I'd just need to figure out how the trajectories and distances change and make a few alterations."

"Lightning Dust is more than a single day away. The Doctor can't make a rocket go any faster," Soarin said.

"Soarin was our best theoretical student," Rainbow Dash noted.

"Only because I wasn't sleeping in class," he said.

"Maybe the world needs a few days of darkness. Some darkness in exchange for a life--it's a good trade, right?"

"You can't save everypony, Twilight," Rainbow Dash said. "If you leave us with a few days of darkness or solid sun, more than a single pony could die. I don't want to play the egghead... but it's like when we had to make decisions about weather in the patrol. Some things could really help a single farmer, but those same things might cause an unexpected flood that washes out a bridge. Everything's interconnected. You need to keep your eyes to the periphery, scanning all the time. Even the best pony can't do everything."

Twilight stared at Rainbow Dash. "I know you don't like Lightning Dust--"

"That ain't... doesn't--sorry, Applejack's been wearing off on me. That doesn't mean I want her to die. I'd be the first pony racing to save her if I could. Sure, Dust is a jerk and conceited and a lousy drunk--at least she was. I really doubt she's given up on the sauce. I guess ponies can change, but still--Dust? Really!"

"Focus, Rainbow--" Soarin urged.

"Yeah, whatever. But, Twilight! Are you going to sacrifice innocent lives to save somepony who knew the risks of going to space?"

"You're right. I can't do it myself."

"Can Celestia or Luna?" Soarin asked, citing two other alicorns.

Twilight looked to a side. "When they retired to Sapphire Shores, they lost a lot of their power. They weren't in the best shape when I saw them. They gave up immortality, you know."

"Oh,"

"--can't save every pony..." Twilight sighed.

"What about Princess Cadance, or Flurry Heart?"

"My sister-in-law and my niece? Cadance doesn't have the power, I think. I'll ask. She's never flown to space. She was a pegasus before becoming an alicorn, so she should be good at this. Maybe riding a rocket would help? It's not like she hasn't been tossed like a torpedo before.... Flurry Heart though--no way. It's far too risky. She'd do it. But she's in the Mirror World... and the portal won't open for a week. Darn. Flurry Heart would be a good choice. But we can't open the portal except when the dimensions are overlapping.

"We'll need to train all of the ponies you listed," Twilight Sparkle said.

"Fine. But there's an option who's not a Wonderbolt--"

"Scootaloo?" Twilight Sparkle named Rainbow Dash's flightless pegasus protege.

"She'd like it, and I bet she'll get to space one day, but we don't know how maneuverable she'll be, rocket or not even though she's no stranger to strapping them to her skateboards. But there's no time for that since we never tested a flightless pony."

"I'm sorry the Program excluded her."

"She'd have been good at it."

"Should I add her to the list?"

"If Doctor Hooves thinks it's safe. He's only tested with flying pegasi. When something goes wrong, we've flown to the ground. If it goes wrong for Scootaloo..." Rainbow Dash trailed off.

"Maybe a parachute," Twilight Sparkle thought.

"There's the mass problem, but yeah, I was thinking about a parachute too. But we'd have to figure out the orientation so it isn't singed by the rocket and doesn't get tangled and holds up in the atmosphere. Sugar cubes. We should have had Doctor Hooves start on developing that ages ago."

"Sorry we moved so fast," Twilight Sparkle said and there was a long moment of silence before she returned to her questions. "If not Scootaloo then... who were you thinking of?"

"Derpy," Rainbow Dash said. "She has her flaws, but--"

"She's pregnant, Dash," Twilight Sparkle frowned.

"Oh," Rainbow Dash knitted her brows. "Guess that explains it. Really glad I didn't say anything. Yeah, she probably won't want to go up. Train the three 'bolts. Whoever performs the best should make the attempt."

"Anyways, she failed ponynaut qualifications," Twilight Sparkle commented about Derpy.

"I was clearly going to be a better ponynaut," Rainbow Dash noted. "Or are you calling it a celestianaut now? Scootaloo said something that--"

"They're ponynauts," Twilight Sparkle made a peeved face.

"Derpy will be happy to hear. That was her term, I think."

"It was!" Soarin confirmed.

"Yep. But why was Scootaloo calling them celestianauts? I was strung out on morphine when she came in but the term stuck with me. Barrel rolled in my dreams."

"Some ponies are... missing Celestia's rule."

"That's why it wasn't twilightnauts."

"Likely. The new term sends a bad message to international malefactors."

"That you aren't in command of your little ponies' trust and respect?"

"It has been causing so much trouble. There's been an incursion by yak separatists, defecating on pony farmland they claim was yak lands a thousand years ago... given that the county's called Yakponytaphwah county,(Note 1) they may have an argument. I have my best and brightest ponies investigating that. We wouldn't want to object to their claims and then find out our ancestors accidentally colonized the land without providing proper compensation!





Yakponytaphwah County - Meaning, in Yak, "the land split between ponies and yaks."





"Then, on the other side of Equestria, some ponies decided it was better to fence off part of the buffalo range despite my clear request to them to, despite our change of regime from Celestia to me, to continue to NOT grange the range."

"What the range, now?"

"Grange--I mean enclose the fields like a granger would."

Rainbow Dash stared at Twilight with narrowed eyes.

"Grangers are farmers."

"Just say that, then."

"Sorry,"

"And ponies say that I show off," Rainbow Dash chuckled. "You eggheads with your pointless thesaurus synonyms are really something else. Surprised anypony even hears you out some times."

Twilight Sparkle sighed. "Celestia didn't have that problem. Ponies respected her."

"Because she torched a lot of houses a thousand years ago."

"Is that how it is?" Twilight asked. "Fear is how a pony gets respect? Not a proffered hoof of friendship."

"You've got me and the rest of the Elements of Harmony to help you out. And the Pillars of Equestria. And the Young Six."

Twilight sighed, "I ask so much of you, tearing you away from your happy home life, your hobbies and jobs, your health--" she bit her lower lip and looked away from Rainbow Dash's shattered wings.

Rainbow Dash growled, "We do it because we want to. Just because you do us a favor doesn't mean we have to do one in return. We're obligated, right. But we don't keep a record of who's been bailing out whom. That's not how friendship works, Princess of that self-same-named term."

Twilight Sparkle shared a chuckle with Rainbow Dash.

"You were saying something about Derpy, though?" Twilight Sparkle asked. "Before I digressed? Like I usually do."

"T'aint no thing," Rainbow Dash winked, and winced. "She started the testing program. She figured out a lot of cool things."

"Remember when she reached the edge of the thermosphere?" Soarin laughed. "Came back all singed after falling faster than a sonic rainboom. An assisted one, of course." Soarin checked to see if the maneuver's inventor, Rainbow Dash, was offended.

"Built up a lot of friction," Rainbow Dash said. "Walked away from it, too." She raised an eyebrow at Soarin.

"I had heat shielding when I went up. Even after that, though, I couldn't take a hot-hoofed step after landing. Had to jump in the lake!" Soarin noted. "Derpy got burned more than any of us and as far as I saw, she smiled and laughed through it. She's got the right stuff to go into space, if she can."

"But she failed the qualifications," Twilight Sparkle said.

"Maybe they weren't testing the right things?" Rainbow Dash suggested. "Eggheads get full of themselves, you know."

"Yes... I do."

"I know when you started as Princess, you delegated. And you've gotten really better at that. You have to delegate," Rainbow Dash said. "Just like I delegate in the Wonderbolts. It isn't being lazy. It's being efficient."

"And--"

"And when you delegate, results may turn out in weird ways sometimes. Maybe, and I'm just guessing here, you provided some strict ideas about who was going to be more likely to succeed. Ponies with certain qualifications. But did you think about including a path to becoming a ponynaut for ponies who'd done the same task we were testing?"

"No. Because no pony had."

"One pony did. She went to the edge of space."

"The report didn't say anything about that. It just said Doctor Hooves occasionally tested with the assistance of some community members."

"Huh," Rainbow Dash said.

"Who wrote that report?" Soarin asked.

"An anonymous concerned citizen who wanted the program to succeed. It was recommended  as a project that could benefit from government assistance and oversight."

That request caused so much to go wrong. A lot went right at first--the Program developed fast. But speed isn't everything, regardless of what some Wonderbolts might say. They want to be good ponies, but not every question is answered by a straightforward solution. Some questions need to be approached from a side.
> Ponynaut Dossier: Soarin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applicant Dossier #003: Soarin

"Soarin, at your service," the dark blue pegasus inclined his head.

"Hoofsberg, between Gatlingberg and Tackling."

"Nope, I never met Elvis, or saw his ghost. Don't even play guitar myself. Just a country-ish boy at heart who remembers crop dustin' a field or two."

"You're right, I don't affect an accent when I'm usually speaking. I was born in Hoofsberg and grew up there, but in my adolescence, I moved to Manehatten to train for the Wonderbolts. Left the country behind."

"I've been serving for a number of years. My specialties are aerial maneouvers and artistry. Cloud dancing, et cetera."

"I joined the Program due to a bet. Rainbow Dash said no stallion could make it to the moon and back."

"I don't think she was being mare-supremacist about it. I think she wanted her wingstallion at her side and figured I wouldn't sign up otherwise."

"She wasn't wrong. I've no interest in space, but I am interested in getting Dash to do the Wonderbolts' laundry for a year. The right way. When she was a newbie, she shrunk all our uniforms. Three times."

"I guess it is pretty stupid to want her to do it again. She also put too much detergent in and had us all itching for a week, once. But she really hates doing it."

"No, I don't hate her. I tease because I like her! As a Captain. It's comradely. Don't earth ponies do something similar?"

"Well, you're missing out. Little japes, jibes really bring ponies together."

"Next of Kin? My parents, a couple siblings, nieces, nephews."

"Not married, ma'am. There aren't a lot of stallions to go around, so I figured I'd live the celibate life."

"Not all the time. I had a minor medical incident once and swore it off after that."

"It's in my medical files. I'd rather not discuss it."

"Yes, I could use protection if I feel like exploring what's out there, but I need to keep in tip-top shape. Don't want distractions. It's never a good idea to hang out too much with groupies. Gets to one's character. Wears on one's soul. Probably will go looking, though, after I settle down and I'm not swamped with adoration. Besides, any pony: mare or stallion or whatever can imagine themselves with me now. If I settle, then they won't," Soarin beamed.

"Sure, I like the attention. And the sponsorship deals. I'm going to be able to relax."

"Might retire in a few years. Nopony stays too long in the Wonderbolts. I could see myself helping out again at the farm and in the community. Skywriting, crop dusting again. Good calm tasks."

"No foals. Couldn't happen."

"No. I wouldn't take money from a mare. I'm not money-mad. I just want some honest bits and then I won't need to bother with promotions and signing autographs."

"I am not planning to adopt children. I like foals, but I'm a terrible uncle. Wouldn't be a good dad."

"Okay. You got me there with those recommendations from my siblings and their progeny. I admit it. I'd be glad to have a foal and I regret not having one. Maybe something will happen after I retire. But I don't need the distraction now. I'm great at my job, but that's because I focus on improving myself. If I don't focus, I'll lose my edge. Not everypony can be Blaze. Don't know how she does it."

"Blaze is a fellow 'bolt. She's got four kids and returned to the job each time only two days after giving birth!"

"No, there's nothing between me and Blaze. Didn't we just go over this?"

"Fears?"

"Commitment, probably. I'll admit it. Connection, yeah. I'd rather joke about things than not. I'm self-aware, but I'm doing what I want on my terms."

"Don't worry about it! I'm happy! See this smile?"

"That's all? This was a really easy interview!"





Soarin, the only stallion considered for the program's first round, had an impeccable record. It started rather poor in elementary school, improved in flight school, then his marks and achievements ballooned when he reached Manehatten and he received his private tutoring and eighteen hour-a-day training.

Cleared for project Marred Mare.

What they didn't know, until he was hospitalized, was that he used performance enhancing drugs.
> Chapter 9: Derpy Space Program
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Derpy was in more pain than she had ever been in. And then it passed. She looked down and saw blood, clotted up like a ripe fruit, and something else. She faded in and out of consciousness, and remembered how she'd helped the space program.




Doctor Hooves set taut lines for the catapult.

"I have placed titanium-entwined restraints here--"

"Titani-what?" she asked.

"Titanium, my dear Derpy."

She smiled at the affectation even though the Doctor called many of his friends 'dear'. Still, for Derpy, it felt special when those words were directed at her.

"Minotaurs processed this magical physical matter and I acquired it by trading something they considered of equal value. It is extremely strong. Its tensile strength should provide you power to travel sufficiently aloft, if aimed at a particular angle. And that is why we are atop this hill."

Derpy looked around the green fields, then back at the catapult. She tugged at the leather straps of her head padding.

"This smells like cow," she commented.

"The straps also came from minotaurs."

"Oh," she nodded.

The Doctor, who may not have known, didn't tell her how minotaurs flayed criminals and processed them into useful materials.

Derpy only achieved the edge of the troposphere and flew away when her vertical motion was arrested. 

"Was it what you expected?" she asked.

Doctor Hooves pondered. "We're going to need auto-propulsion."




Doctor Hooves sought investment and received it. And he developed a rocket. A powerful blast of energy that could propel a pony to great heights.

Derpy Hooves strapped a rocket to her back. "This is fine. It weighs less than my afternoon postal run!"

"Capital!" Doctor Hooves smiled and shook her hoof.




The flashbacks were coming out of order.




Derpy leaned forward and listened to the Doctor pontificate.

It was the first time they tested, loaded high on hot chocolate,  a dash of honey mead, and special muffins.  Dinky was away at a sleepover with Featherweight and his parents knew where to find Derpy if anything went wrong. And Doctor Hooves knew where to find Dinky if anything happened to Derpy. Still, she'd been vacillating on whether to take the risk for a while. She'd watched the test rockets go up and blow up. The last few hadn't though. 

Derpy was smiling. She finished her last chewy muffin and she whispered, "I'll do it."

"What, Dear?"

"I'll do it! Dear..."

"... what?"

"What you've got out back. The prototype."

"The Super-Tensile Device for Star-Launching."

"Yep!" Derpy stumbled to her feet, then she flapped her wings and raced to an open window, and flapped through it. "Last one there's a spoiled muffffffffin!"

"We should wait until we're not so... wired," Doctor Hooves said.

"I can fly away if it launches bad. You said it needs a pegasus!"

"Think of Dinky," Doctor Hooves recalled Derpy's daughter.

Derpy sniffed. "You said this was safe. And you needed me tonight. Me."

"Very well," Doctor Hooves blinked. "I'll operate the bellows." Soon, he was jumping up and down on the bellows, pumping tension upon tension into the trampolinelike Super-Tensile Star-Launching Device.

"Now, stand perfectly still until I'm done inflating this and, oops." The Doctor dropped something and accidentally unlatched the hook with his shoulder as he bent down to retrieve it.

He looked back up and Derpy was gone. The Super-Tensile Star-Launching Device decompressed and its occupant had ascended high into the sky with an "Ooops!"

"Bother!" The Doctor smacked one of his hooves against his forehead, according to what he later told Derpy. "I really should have given her this altimeter." He clutched his dropped tool and peered into the darkness where he couldn't see much of anything. "Also, I need to add some lighting to flood the area with luminescence. Flood lighting. Yes... Yes."

After she made her way back, the two of them laughed over the mishap and they repeated the experiment several days later with an altimeter. Even though Derpy's launch had fallen far short of their goal, the point of the testing was to determine just how high she could be launched with these particular mechanics--to take the concept as far as it could go and then to iterate.




A sort of trebuchet was tried, and Derpy, violently propelled, ascended and vigorously flapped her wings to attain angled liftoff but the added boost just wasn't enough.




Eventually, the Doctor settled on rockets. Chemical combustion. Many of his rockets exploded ignominiously--thankfully without a pony strapped to them. 

Derpy's conception of what happened was fragmented, informed by Doctor Hooves' recollection and her own mind knitting together the interstices.

Doctor Hooves' friend Roseluck managed procurement. Her time working in the flower shop with her sisters had schooled her in supply and demand. She slicked back her blood-red mane and stuck her snout in the air. "No, Doctor," her whiny voice asserted. "Nothing on market is stronger than the minotaurs' titanium. I'll have them send three of their purest dalmatian-forged pieces."

"Isn't that a type of diamond dog?"

"Right. Dalmatian diamond dogs are the finest titaniummongers."

"Fascinating. How do you know?"

"Floral merchants travel and pick up wonderful tchotchkes, from Tamagotchis to tiddlywinks to titanium and all kinds of kitsch. Somepony has to make arrangements."

"I see, I see. How did I ever come to be so blessed to have you at my side?"

"Because you're such a kind, handsome stallion," she winked.

He beamed and went back to his work.

She rolled her eyes, then strolled over and stroked his hindquarters. "You're going to be the envy of everypony when you perfect this project. It's your best."

"No, no, no." He shook his head. "The Time Altering Really Dashing Interdimensional Separator is my capstone. But it doesn't work."

"This is a better use of your time."

"If only we had access to radium..."

"But we don't have that... hypothesized element, regardless of whatever bizarre news my sisters passed to you, so let's focus on what works."

"Griffon scientists are working on it--"

"And they'll never trade their research away. It's all smoke and mirrors."

"They're working with Kirinia. We need to see about testing kirin-powered rockets--"

"Focus, Doctor.  It's time to test your solid-fueled rockets on a pony. Distractions are your bane. Really, you're helpless without me. I cannot fathom why you wasted time with that pegasus testing launch concepts that made absolutely no sense. If I'd been back from my trip, you'd have saved months."

"I needed to understand the alternatives. And their mechanics. Are you ready to test?"

"No, no, no," Roseluck backed away. "You should bring her back and have her try it."

"Who?"

"Your blonde test dummy." Doctor Hooves hadn't related Roseluck's precise words, but Derpy suspected Roseluck must have called her that, since she heard her whispering the joke on other occasions.

"Derpy!" he nodded.

"If something goes wrong, she can fly away. I can't."

"An excellent point. Rocketry will provide all ponies the power of flight. But, in these initial tests, we should focus on simplicity. With pegasi pilots, we need worry less about fail-safes like parachutes."

"Precisely. I'll get the materials ready."




Doctor Hooves hummed and prepared the rocket, strapping it around Derpy's belly and indicating where she could tug to release the equipment.

"Okay!"

"If anything feels wrong after ignition--tug and detach. Understand?"

"Yessir!" Derpy answered in her oft-peppy tone, which always played an octave or two higher when she was near him.

Doctor Hooves ignited the wick and raced back to a bunker he prepared. Roseluck joined him there and offered a helmet. 

"Ingenious," Doctor Hooves commented.

"What?" Roseluck asked.

"A helmet. I wouldn't have thought--"

"Dr. Bore didn't insist on proper safety accoutrements? I remember quite clearly from our University... We attened a few years off from eachother, but still."

"The tester should also be wearing one..." Doctor Hooves ignored Roseluck's comment.

"She's a pegasus. Shouldn't be a problem."

Derpy, hanging in a harness pointed up, hummed as she waited.

Doctor Hooves placed the helmet on his head and Roseluck donned hers. After a ding, Doctor Hooves tugged the chain to detach harnesses, which if still attached at the point of ignition could tear apart the test pilot when restraints pulled down while the rocket forced up.

Ignition came with a roar. Derpy shot up and the harnesses detached with perfect timing. And the rocket fizzled. Derpy flapped her wings and alighted on the ground, rocket still strapped to her back. "Doctor! I don't know what when wrong--" she said just as the rocket's backup ignition activated, and she went hurtling horizontally. 

Foliage whipped past and, with her keen pegasus vision, she glimpsed a copse of trees distantly ahead but approaching more rapidly than was safe. She beat her wings and strained for elevation. She succeeded in slightly altering the trajectory and felt the ragged foul kiss of a branch against her belly. She ascended a bit, then the rocket's fuel exhausted and she detached the rocket and made her way back, bleeding and holding her belly.

Roseluck volunteered to help her to Nurse Redheart. Doctor Hooves studied data and made his edits.

When he wasn't brainstorming, Doctor Hooves visited Derpy in the hospital and cared for her daughter, taking her to school and playing with her until the hospital knit up and discharged Derpy. The scratches had mostly been superficial, but Derpy had lost more blood than ideal--to the extent that losing any blood could be called ideal--and had required a transfusion. Doctor Hooves had gladly given. He was quite compatible with Derpy, it turned out. 

After emerging from her treatment and spending a few weeks focusing on time with her daughter, Derpy returned in time to try Doctor Hooves' next iteration, the Rocket Mark II, complete with a cushion-padded helmet tested by the rambunctious Cutie Mark Crusaders in a demolition derby--with iterations worn during the event and tossed to be battered in the center of the rink. 

He also added a fail-safe for the launch. If the harness did not automatically detach, the rocket wouldn't ignite. "You were lucky!" he told Derpy. "You could have been torn apart. I ran the numbers and even miniscule environmental factors could have interfered with my timing in pulling apart the harness restraints."

"I'm sure you did the best you could!"

"Yes," Doctor Hooves sighed. "And thankfully, you survived. But, ideally you will thrive! I promised Dinky."

"That's great." Derpy smiled.

"Yes, we'll conduct our experiment safer and slower this time."

The next rocket also blew up. Derpy miraculously was propelled into the air while the launch pad was obliterated. She flew clear and although surrounding trees were covered in shrapnel, she had nary a scratch.

"We should develop a suit to absorb shrapnel and detritus...", the Doctor speculated. "Not only because of explosions but because space may be dirty. We do receive meteorites. And space is pregnant with asteroids. Yes, yes, you've given me an excellent idea, Derpy." He hugged his test pilot. 

Roseluck, as usual, sighed and nodded. "Can you provide me the list of materials to source?"

"Yes, yes, of course," Doctor Hooves stumbled over to her, and they went over the necessities.

Derpy went home and tucked Dinky into her bed, humming a lullaby.

"Is Doctor Hooves going to be taking care of me in the future?"

"I'll be here for you, Dear. It was just a silly accident--I have them all the time."

"Sure, mom," Dinky said. Derpy kissed her daughter on her brow. "I think he likes you."

"Does he?" Derpy whispered and backed out of the room, then placed a hoof over her trembling heart.




Derpy woke up in a hospital, feeling empty and medicated. She felt her belly and closed her eyes.

Something terrible had happened. She'd live. She had a lot to live for. Good deeds to do.
> Ponynaut Dossier: Rainbow Dash
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applicant Dossier #004: Rainbow Dash



"Why's my dossier after Soarin's?" The rainbow-maned pony snipped and leaned across the table, encroaching on the interviewer's personal space.

"We registered on the same day," the pony answered. "He cut in front. It should be me that has number three in front of her name on your file folder."

"It just means I'm the fourth pony interviewed, not number four in the program? Fine. Next time make me the first pony, since I'm the coolest!"

"For the record? Rainbow Dash. Isn't it obvious?"

"Cloudsdale's where I was born. Come on--you can get that information off the back of any trading card or my cereal boxes."

"Wonderbolt-O's, Cap'n Dash's Magic Froot Loops, things like that. Sugar and energy make for a balanced meal."

"No. I eat a breakfast with a lot of protein. Need it for my tricks."

"My cereals aren't cash-grabs. They're fine for short performance bursts. If a pony wants to build the right type of muscle and maintain energy over time, they need to eat a different meal mix. Ponies just need to know when's right to use each type of fuel. If you put the wrong fuel in the tank, then you're well, going to crash when you most need the performance."




"Youngest Captain of the Wonderbolts... not anymore... but when I started, yep. You're right. I've been in charge since Spitfire retired."

"I'm going to space because it's there and it's awesome and I'm awesome and it'll be double rainbow awesome when I get there and it'll be even 20 percent cooler when get back and stick a landing after a rocket-assisted double sonic rainboom."

"Sure, I'm also doing it for Equestria. Princess Twilight Sparkle personally asked me to help. This is about all ponykind. I'd do anything for the Princess--Element of Loyalty right here." She beat her chest.

"Relatives? Got my parents, an aunt and uncle, older boy cousin and Scootaloo."

"Lovers? I've had a few. But they couldn't keep up with me."

"No I don't regret--next question. Come on."

"No, they weren't all ponies."

"Excuse me, I don't have to answer that."

"I've got a special dispensation from the Princess." 

An endorsed document was affixed to the page, accompanied by an official protest from the interviewer that an exemption for favored ponies risked the program's respectability--and it was unfair to ponies who lacked connections.




"Talk about that bet with Soarin'? Fine. I wanted to light a fire. He was coasting. He's better than he thinks he is, and he just sort of plays around instead of honing his craft."

"Sure, he thinks he practices all the time and sure that's the official report. But he doesn't push himself. Somepony can practice and get good at what they're doing. But that doesn't mean the pony's going to innovate or reach another level. Soarin will never be a leader until he takes charge. In space, he'll be alone. He'll have a chance to be awesometastic-cool."

"Yeah, I want my team working as much as they can."

"No, I don't have much time for hobbies outside of naptime and nighttime."

"What's a good amount of personal time?"

"Enough time for a lot of naps and to do a second job. Even though I'm the Element of Loyalty, I still have time for sleep and all that jazz." Rainbow Dash performed a power pose the same as a famous one depicted in a Palace stained-glass window and on a trading card that was also tucked into her file.




"Yeah, I've had wing injuries before. Always recovered. I'm still a top flyer."

"Yep, a pony beat me last year in a race. I'm getting older. You think I'm afraid to admit it?"

"I'll fight any pony who thinks I'm afraid. And I'll fight any pony who doesn't believe I'll still beat nine out of ten ponies at anything!"

"It's been at least a year since I've fought anypony, and he totally deserved it!"

"No charges were filed. I won the fight."

"No, the Princess didn't make the charges disappear. They're not in your file, right?"




"Fears?"

"Not living up to my friends' expectations."

"Great. That's it?" Rainbow Dash zoomed off.




Rainbow Dash was, quite simply, the best pegasus flyer in decades. She'd reinvented the sonic rainboom--a move so fast it broke the sound barrier. With a rocket assist, who knew how far or fast she could go? And she was a hoof-picked candidate of the Princess. It didn't matter that she had close relationships with creatures other than ponies. Mrs. Harshwhinny didn't pursue that line of inquiry. Unlike any other candidate, Rainbow Dash was beyond reproach. It almost didn't matter what she answered. Of course, there was no question that she was:

Cleared for project Marred Mare.
> Chapter 10: Second-String Candidates and a Derpy Option
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Derpy left the hospital, blank-faced, cradling her belly and speaking to her husband. "Bleeding stopped. He's gone..."

Doctor Hooves hugged her softly. "You don't need to worry about the program. I'm sorry if you worried."

"This doesn't happen because of that... they say. It's... just something that happens. Hormones. I'm marred... Happens to all sorts of ponies. We don't talk about it. It's not your fault. We can hope. We can be good. But this happens."

Doctor Hooves wept.

Derpy blinked dry eyes above caked tear lanes. "I want... I want to save a life," she said.

"Unnecessary," Doctor Hooves said through his sobs. "We have new candidates. They can complete the mission. You are recovering."

"Give me two days. You need that time anyway. It won't be a delay."

"You have been away from the rockets. The technology has changed. We have two-way radios now! Probably... I suppose that won't matter much... but other technology changed--it's. I am so sorry," he paused. "What about the risk and Dinky--"

Derpy swallowed, "What does Dinky say?"

"She's too young to have an--"

"Excuse me," Derpy pushed away from Doctor Hooves and stared into his eyes. "Ask Dinky what she thinks. She's older than I was when I was on my own."

Doctor Hooves' eyes stared past Derpy, to her side.

"I help when I can. The pony who's out there suffering, she didn't bring this on herself."

"She did a loop-de-loop around the moon," Doctor Hooves said.

"But if everything else went right, she would have reached Marred?"

Doctor Hooves bit his lower lip.

"It's our responsibility, then. I can do this."

"You can breathe better in low oxygen environments than anypony. But we cannot outfit you with sufficient water and provisions. You will be--you will be drifting--especially if we cannot arrange a third rescue rocket to pick you up."

"Neither rain nor sleet nor dead of night will stop the mailmare in her journey. That's my day job, Dear," Derpy insisted. "I'm used to hardship. I've done the Yakyakistan mail route. Trudged across the peaks. Braved the Everfree forest. I can do this. I'm not sure the others can. They're talented. They're skilled. But they aren't high altitude ponies."

"I--of course, there are points to be considered."

"Ask Dinky."

"And that will make it fine? You'll put that on her conscience?"

"She'll say she understands, not that I should go, but that I need to."

"This isn't a religious thing, is it, Dear? I know you spoke with those donkeys about The Way and--"

"No," she shook her head. "Although that is an interesting belief. This is about equinanity."

"Okay," he hugged her. "I'll make the preparations... but if you aren't cleared health-wise," he looked at her belly. "Then you will not go. Without your health, you will be unable to rescue anypony."




Doctor Hooves returned to Mission Control.

"There is a new option, Mrs. Harshwhinny," he turned to the Operations Director.

"New technology?"

He shook his head. "We bring back Derpy."

Mrs. Harshwhinny made a disgusted face. "She was rejected. And isn't she pregnant?"

"At least one pregnant mare made an important flight that saved lives."

"Marathon," Harshwhinny said.

"Yes."

"She also died after the journey."

"Her foal was born."

"You don't value your wife much, do you, Doctor Hooves?"

His face went red and his limbs trembled. "Excuse me, Mrs. Harshwhinny? Did I not hear something highly offensive just now?"

She stepped back.

"Excuse me? I suppose--believe--understand that I did not hear such a thing," his voice raised, louder and sharper. Roseluck approached him from behind and placed a hoof on his shoulder. He shook it off and reflexively kicked back. Roseluck narrowly avoided his hoof. 

"I did not hear some meddlesome government agent whose assistance I did not request and who does not know a fraction of the practicalities involved in strapping a canister of explosive-fuel on her back and propelling herself high into the sky at the risk of herself and her loved ones because she wants to bring hope and inspiration--because she knows she has skills other ponies lack--because she is brave and kind and good and wants to save other ponies' lives. And this is HER OWN CHOICE."

"And it's the government's choice to reject her. We don't need a pegasus with her record of accidents endangering herself or others."

"You need to consider her as an option. There's a ponynaut in space--who the other candidates are not going to be able to save because they have barely been able to demonstrate they're able to take care of themselves."




Vapor Trail heaved into a bucket.

"How much alfalfa did you eat last night?" Thunderlane asked her.

"Dry--bleh--heaves."

"I thought you were a high altitude pony?"

"I've got... altitude sickness. I can breathe up high, but I get dizzy. Especially if I ascend too fast--urk!"

"This is really not the right assignment for you."

"No--urk--it isn't."

Thunderlane patted the nape of her neck.

Not too far away, Blaze was speaking with Mrs. Harshwhinny and hoofing over a sack of bits. Mrs. Harshwhinny disappeared into her office and Blaze walked off the path to wait. Mrs. Harshwhinny called out to her and Blaze turned, then twisted an ankle. 

Medical ponies raced to treat her. "Sounds like a sprain," a paramedic commented. 

"It's broken. I heard a snap." Blaze asserted, even and emotionless--her trademark cool.

Ponies gathered, and Mrs. Harshwhinny took the lead in controlling the crowd. "Now, now, nothing you can do here will help. We don't want to crowd our ponynaut, or else she may get even more injured." She patted Blaze's hoof, and the two shared a knowing glance. Then, Blaze was carted away in a stretcher.

"I guess I'm your only option," Thunderlane commented to Mrs. Harshwhinny. "Got the practice rocket ready?"

"Indeed we do, but there's still some more training that needs to be understood."

"Let's get it over with," he said. "The sooner I do, the sooner I'm a big darn hero rescuing Lightning Dust. Oh, Flash, that'll be an irony. She talks such a big game with her Washouts being safer and more clever than the Wonderbolts, then she gets herself stuck in the middle of nowhere because she's a showoff, and she's farting herself off course. Classic Wonderbolt washout material," he chuckled.

"Fine," Mrs. Harshwhinny said, "Let's go over a few items concerning rocketry safety--disconnections and trajectories. You don't want to end up in the same situation." 

She led Thunderlane away, and then turned stock-still and said, "Princess," with a nod to the Princess of the Crystal Empire who had alighted before her.

"Where's Twilight?" Princess Cadance asked. "I'm ready to help."




The first problem was the test happened ten hours before Thunderlane was scheduled to go up. They were too close to zero hour where no matter how fast they went, they weren't likely to reach Lightning Dust before her water reserves gave out.

The second problem was someone had either sabotaged the test rocket, or something was wrong with it. It exploded only a few thousand feet up. Thunderlane didn't disconnect himself in time. Princess Cadance, observing in the air, raced to save him as he spiraled out of control. Shrapnel and fiery matter struck him and Cadance. She wrapped him up in her wings, protecting him with a magic bubble, and they hurtled into the ground, triggering a shock-wave and a collapse of an overhanging arch--which cracked the bubble.  Hours later, the two, gravely injured, were pulled from rubble by Twilight Sparkle, and neither were ponynaut candidates anymore.

"We need to shut this program down," Twilight Sparkle said, eyes rimmed black, hooves massaging her temples.

"And lose Lightning Dust?"

"There isn't anypony else who's qualified to save her. Spitfire and Vapor Trail both washed out for health reasons. We could contact the griffons, maybe, but that's mad. They've been sabotaging us constantly--probably were behind the exploding rocket."

"Have you asked Discord?" Moondancer suggested.

A grinning draconequus manifested himself, a tiny umbrella in one claw and a scale model rocket in another. "No, no, no," he shook his head. "I've been observing and I cannot possibly assist you with this trifle."

"It's a pony's life," Twilight glared.

"Excuse the flippancy," Discord frowned. Then he oriented himself upside down. "I'm trying to flip my heart about this situation. But, see: I cannot go to space."

"Why not? You've got amazing powers."

"I do. I do!" He magicked up a bouquet of roses shaped like smiling faces. "But you need to realize there's a creature in space that will all-too-soon make her appearance if I pop up, so to speak."

"If it's a danger, that's nothing new. It won't be the first time we cleaned up one of your messes."

Discord, manifesting a pork pie hat, shook his head. "I am the danger. I am the one who knocks... sometimes. And I herald the danger other times. This is a danger with more power than me. Death. The destroyer of worlds. When she is aroused, she will batter us into smithereens."

"I find this hard to believe--"

"Ask Fluttershy," Discord blinked out. Almost immediately, he returned, manifesting his life-partner, a tan pegasus pony not known for her skills in flight. "Fluttershy? Dear?" He asked.

She looked up at him.

"Done transporting those fish?"

"Not all of them made it...", she sighed.

"Really? I could have sworn I didn't misplace them..."

"Discord?" Twilight forced an even smile. "We don't have a lot of time."

"Yes. Fluttershy, Dear. Haven't I shown you memories of Cosmos? And didn't I tell you why I don't go into space."

She nodded. "It was scary." 

"Fine," Twilight bit her lower lip. "If Fluttershy says so, then I won't press you Discord.... But... Fluttershy's afraid of everything!"

"Not as much as I used to be!" Fluttershy clarified.

Discord snapped his claws together and Fluttershy disappeared. He sighed. "Regardless, Twilight... I can't do it. I'm afraid. Trading one pony for dooming everypony. You and your friends are powerful, Twilight, and good. But Cosmos is pure malice. She's eaten worlds. Coated me in silver and made me announce her depredations for a century--did absolutely despicable things. I only captured her due to a fluke. Won't happen again, no, no, nope!" Discord blinked out of existence, leaving behind a shrieking plush Discord toy that thankfully also de-materialized several minutes later.

Tacitly, the ponies present shared glances, and they moved on to other topics and never spoke of the Discord interlude again.

"There is one pony." A frowning Doctor Hooves said. "Our test pilot."

"But Mrs. Harshwhinny rejected her."

"She has more hours of test flight than anypony."

"But she was rejected by the rubric--"

"That rubric was fashioned by somepony who knows nothing about rocketry or space."

Twilight Sparkle bit her lower lip. "But isn't Derpy... pregnant?"

"She was." Doctor Hooves sighed.

"I'll have to bring a present--"

Doctor Hooves slightly shook his head.

"Oh," Twilight Sparkle understood. "I'm so sorry.... We couldn't ask her to fly this mission."

"Doctors cleared her. I tried to dissuade her. But she's right. She's our only shot at this rescue."

"You're confident?" Twilight said.

Doctor Hooves nodded. 

"She's confident?"

He nodded again.

Twilight tapped a hoof against the table a few times. "Fine. Do it. Send me the forms. I'll approve."
> Chapter 11: Out of Roseluck
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roseluck, Doctor Hooves's platonic work-companion and excellent all-around-assistant fumed under her breath.

"We've got literally thousands of pegasi in Equestria and somehow that... differently-abled pegasus is going up? Everypony's bucking mad."

"What's that?" A useless government-lackey stallion good only for errand-running asked her.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Go make me some coffee."

"You got it!" He beamed.

She watched his rump retreat, bouncing up and down, and bit her lower lip.

"I'm a bucking loser," she rubbed her forehead and looked down at the calculations, blurry both because of her tired vision and her tired wavy mouthwriting. "But maybe she won't come home."

Roseluck reflected on what led to this juncture.




"Attention to the Office of the Princess:

"It may please you to know that several of your little ponies have been industrious and inventive in a way that merits bringing the fruits of their labor to your attention. While I realize these inventions have likely not gone completely unnoticed--for it would be strange for you not to notice contrails of flying contraptions--we call them 'rockets' being launched, interfering with weather control and general pegasi safety--what may have gone unremarked is what these inventions mean for Equestria.

"A wonderful inventor named Doctor Time Turner Hooves has been testing a new invention the like of which has never been seen. He has been assistedby a number of members of the community, all for the glory of science and knowledge.

"His endeavor is quite selfless, but with the government's resources, it can fly higher.

"He plans to send a pony all the way to Marred. This wonderful achievement, if it could be popularized under the auspices of Equestria's new ruling Princess would cause everycreature to greatly celebrate her rule. It was sad that in the aftermath of all creatures coming together to defeat the Stoned Trio that some creatures looked down on Equestria for requiring their help. Equestria looked weak. And other creatures resented Equestria for being the locus of world-threatening problems. This is no secret."

Roseluck included clippings from reputable newspapers that her conspiracy-minded sisters had collected and catalogued. For once, their paranoia had been useful. They could keep their rantings about a deep state controlled by lizard ponies, and deep deer manifesting topside in the light of every third new moon, but the papers' rumblings of mustachio-twirling yak supremacists and rancid rogue dragons menacing Equestria's outskirts were very real problems.

"With a rocket to Marred, Equestria will look strong. Other creatures have magic, even without friendship. Equestria needs to demonstrate it is strong even without external aid... not because we dislike others but because we do not want to over-burden our friends. Although other creatures have magic: they do not have this technology. Only Equestria has it. And with it, any pony will be able to reach anything in space. 

"Stars. There are thousands of stars. Around each star rotates planets. And on those planets reside other creatures that could be friends. With the government's backing, we can quickly reach those new friends."

Roseluck included details about the program's technology, rockets, and more. She mentioned herself, a paid assistant, and because it was expected, she included vague references to testing pegasi. There actually had been a second pegasus once, an orange youth by the name of Scootaloo, who hadn't gotten very far with an early test of a sort of "space elevator". The Doctor had Derpy take a long string pole to a cloud and held it there while Scootaloo tried to ascend. Despite Derpy's best efforts to keep the pole firmly attached to the cloud, it kept bending and Scootaloo nearly plummeted to her death, saved only by Derpy's quick dive. So, Doctor Hooves scrapped that idea.




After the Government took over, Derpy was Rejected for Project Marred Mare. Roseluck got what she wanted, and then some.

A few days later, Roseluck was alone with Doctor Hooves. She'd set up sweet-smelling candles and sweeter-smelling candies, sugar cubes, and candied hay. He'd come back to the office after dinner, like always. And Roseluck had finagled it so that other after-hours ponies were far away.

"Roseluck, this is so nice!" He smiled--a guileless grin.

She put a hoof against his haunches. "It tastes even better than it smells."

"I wish I hadn't had such a large main course." He rubbed his belly.

"Maybe we can exercise a bit of it off?" She nuzzled his side with her snout.

"I fear if we did, that I may regrettably empty the contents of my stomach."

"I could help you empty something else." She continued to nuzzle him, and she gave him a couple of quick little bites. At that, he spooked.

"Pardon? What? What?" His head jerked from side to side and he reared.

"Calm down. Calm down, Dear," She raised her hooves in supplication.

"Oh. Oh. Oh!" His eyes grew wide and he made the connection. He bit his lower lip, curling it over near-completely. "Oh, my. Oh, dear."

"Yes," she smiled. "It's been a while and we've been really busy, but it's time we take our relationship to the next stage. Center stage." She gestured to the table. "We're both desperately in need of relaxation and joy after putting in all these hours. And you have more time for recreation now that you're working for the Government. Their ponies can handle our menial tasks. We can delegate."

"Oh, dear," he said.

"Oh, Dear!" She smiled, misunderstanding.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh dear."

She reached for him again, but he shied away.

"Roseluck. I am so sorry. I knew we had that one rather intense date night but afterwards, you left so quick and we  resumed working in a completely professional manner."

"I rubbed your rump every day!"

"I thought that was a friendly massage."

"It was!"

"It appears one of us may have conceptualized it as a more-than-friendly massage."

Her eyes darted away from his. "True."

"I am sorry to say, Roseluck, that your interpretation of my interest in you has been misplaced. I, in fact, am besotted with another, who is, it turns out, is likewise besotted with me."

"Who?"

"You may know her--"

"Derpy."

"Yes! Indeed. You surmised it. Capital. That will save the need for a protracted discussion about the circumstances since you clearly noted the attraction."

"But why--"

"I was concerned when she was dismissed from the Program, so I brought her flowers and muffins and chocolate and we got to talking. And then her delightful daughter made a slightly rude suggestion and we stared at each other, mouths stuffed with pastries and we fulfilled the suggestion her daughter had posited--we kissed. And we talked some more and then it was decided."

"What was?"

"That we would be married."

"When? You arranged it so sudden!"

"So sudden but not soon enough, I think. We really were missing out!"

"You're already..." Her voice trailed off.

"Married! Of course. Last night."

"Without telling anyone."

"It was a spur-of-the-moment event. Mayor Mare performed the rites and Dinky witnessed it, along with Minuette."

"You invited Minuette, but not me?"

"It was spur-of-the-moment. You were hard at work with Mrs. Harshwhinny, arranging personnel governance. I asked her if you could take time off. She said: 'absolutely not'."

Roseluck lowered her head. "Fine."

"We would have been honored to have you. You were there the day I realized Derpy also lived in Ponyville! But alas, it was not to be. Apologies but you must excuse me, I was just returning to grab a few notes to puzzle out at home."

"Not in the office?"

"No, no. I have certain... obligations...."




Roseluck at least managed to get the Program to ban ponies from taking notes home. Of course, that meant she had to spend even more time at the office, but it was worth it to keep Doctor Hooves close. Even though she probably shouldn't have bothered since he didn't spare her a lusty smile or a touch. She fumed for days. And he barely noticed. 

She sought revenge, by way of indigestion, with a probably safe amount of arsenic. But, he somehow didn't eat an adulterated sandwich. It was burned up on the test bay floor. She tried again, and he ate it! But that horrible Derpy Hooves visited him at Mission Control on her way to lecture ponynaut candidates... and kissed him and fell on him and he vomited it all out.

She herself felt like vomiting, but she tried one further time... and the wrong pony ingested the sandwich and then there was an inquiry and Equestria thought foreign creatures were trying to undermine the space program and they started getting really aggressive about questioning.

Roseluck had given up then, until...




Derpy was still sporting her pregnant belly and she was testing rocketry equipment.

"Why not one of the Wonderbolts? Sure, Spitfire had certain problems, but none of the professionals? The best Equestria has is Derpy Hooves?" Roseluck sputtered at Mrs. Harshwhinny, who nodded.

"How? Surely there's a better option?"

"You need not be concerned about any risk to her fetus," Harshwhinny put a hoof on Roseluck's shoulder and gently--but oh so awkwardly--tapped it. "It has been removed."

"She got a bucking abortion to go save that buck-up?"

Harshwhinny shook her head, then leaned over and whispered into Roseluck's ear. "Accidental miscarriage."

"Oh," Roseluck's ears stood at attention, and she brightened and she almost chuckled, but she placed a hoof over her mouth and swallowed the laugh. "Oh." Her face contorted as she tried oh-so-hard to not triumphantly laugh.

"If you need to excuse yourself, I understand. I considered bringing in a psychiatrist to console Doctor Hooves, but he is taking the situation surprisingly well. Throwing himself into work--always a good sign. Idleness is the Hoofmaiden of King Sombra, one knows. But you were close to both. Perhaps you could use mental health support?"

"No. No need," Roseluck shook her head violently. "But--" she jerked her head toward the door. Harshwhinny nodded. 

Soon thereafter, Roseluck was cantering toward the toilets. Once ensconced and having locked the door behind her and ensured that no ponies were in the immediate vicinity, she started cackling. And a plan started forming.




Roseluck had fixated on the Doctor and he'd fixated on work. She'd thought he preferred stallions. But then a hotflank showed up and he had no interest in him at all. So, she'd started showing off and touching him. Months later, she worked up courage to ask him on a date.

They transitioned from work in his home office straight to dinner, which they prepared together with food he bought on her request, garnished by sweet smelling flowers from the shop she shared with her sisters.

"Nice trim," he commented.

She blushed.

"Trimmings..." he corrected.

"Already thinking about later?"

"Yes! I need to trim the flanges on my time machine, but I conflated that brilliant conceptualization with trimmings on your wonderful plate. This raises an idea--"

"Why don't we set aside work for now?" She placed a hoof on his foreleg, smiled and directed him toward dinner. Throughout, she leaned forward and nuzzled him from time to time. But he was distant, lost in thought.

"You've really given me a good idea!" he nodded.

"I love your enthusiasm," she said. "And I love the way your mouth moves."

"My mastication?" He stopped chewing on a celery-piece.

"It's so stallionly," she sighed. "All the stallions in Whinnyapolis were smelly farmers, pimply and greasy, dumb, or too old. You're just right."

"Why did you come to Ponyville?" he asked.

She frowned. "I mentioned this before."

"Sorry. Yes, yes, I recall."

She sighed, "No problem. Just to make sure you're not guessing: Mom set my sisters and me up with the flower shop. She thought it could make a lot of money. But she couldn't afford Canterlot. We were supposed to start here, in the rump-end boonies of Canterlot's exurbs, and parley our business into something bigger."

"Ah, yes."

"But I'm going to bow out before that happens. I'd like to bow out with a successful, clever pony. Like Mom."

"She sounds like a good businessmare."

"She grows all sorts of flowers and edibles. She's always inventing new lines. Always has a plan in her head. Like you."

"Sorry that sometimes those are the only items in my head."

"It's all right." She touched his shoulder. "Have you thought about settling down?" She walked around the table and sat beside him. Then she started stroking his underbelly, working toward his private flap.

He gulped. "On a first date?"

"Dear. We've been dating ever since you invited me here to help with your experiments. And don't tell me we haven't been flirting on-and-off."

"We may have, I suppose. I was impressed by your interest in science."

"And... you liked me too."

"I..."

She grabbed hold of what fell out of his flap. "Are you getting full?"

"My plate's about half finished."

With her non-squeezing forehoof, she picked up some food and fed it to him.

A knock came at the door. "Special Delivery!"

Roseluck fed another helping to Doctor Hooves.

"Special Delivery! Ma'am or Sir, I see your candles are lit!" The lilting voice traveled to the window, which was partially open. "I'm sorry this delivery is so late, but it was a rush and we were backed up--understaffed." Roseluck moved away from Doctor Hooves.

"There you are! Ma'am and Sir! I have a package that needs your signature."

"Oh!" Doctor Hooves rose and went to the door. "I was expecting some gears from the minotaurs. They fashion great tools!"

Roseluck sulked and watched him easily tuck himself back in, which was a bit of a disappointment since she'd hoped to have excited him more.

When he opened the door, a large crate appeared, carted by a huffing blonde-maned pegasus, who sat it beside the door and pulled out a stylus. "Please sign here, Mr. Hooves," she said. And her eyes went wide. "Time Turner?" she asked.

"I prefer Doctor Hooves these days," he said. "I'm proud of my doctorate but also of my time in the orphanage. But that is no matter. No large matter at all. Indeed!" he clarified, spreading his forelegs and embracing Derpy. "It has been so long. I did not know if I would ever see you again!"

Roseluck tapped her hoof on the side of the table.

Doctor Hooves continued enthusiastically greeting Derpy. After a while, Roseluck got up and cleared her throat.

"Of course. Where are my manners? Derpy--here is my assistant, Roseluck! And Roseluck, this is Derpy Hooves!" he beamed. "We grew up in the orphanage together! She's lovely!"

"Is she?"

"I hope you two can become great friends. We'll need to have a threesome tomorrow."

Roseluck's face contorted.

"Derpy--do you still like muffins?"

She nodded exuberantly.

"Then it's settled, we'll have muffins together downtown."

Roseluck shook her head, realizing the Doctor had, again, committed a malapropism. Although the word he used wasn't particularly wrong, it was still an unintentional double-entendre.

"I'm sorry," Derpy gestured to her mailbag. "I have a lot of deliveries. I need to move on."

She hugged the Doctor again and they shared their goodbyes.

"It was nice meeting you too," she nodded at Roseluck.

Roseluck glared at Doctor Hooves, who moved with a jump in his step. "I'm so glad we found each other! We were best friends."

Roseluck looked between his legs as he hummed and busied himself in the kitchen, pulling out ingredients to prepare coffee. Her face grew beet red as she saw his body had responded vigorously to meeting his old friend. 

"I need to go," she'd said. And left immediately.




After Derpy got married to Doctor Hooves, she got pregnant. Immediately. She was not only hoarding Roseluck's stallion but also the next generation....




Roseluck glared as Derpy had the equipment fitted. She'd go up on the morrow.

If Roseluck could reach the equipment and make a few tweaks, then she could guarantee Derpy wouldn't return. A plan formulated.

But then she thought of a simpler plan. It wasn't certain she could safely reach the equipment--the Government was on high alert for sabotage. But, her sisters could use their connections with conspiracy newspapers--contacting the newspapers' more-reputable reporters and she would use that back-channel to inform the Princess of rumors that could cause trouble for Derpy. The reporters had helped her before, with her anonymous letter about how the program could benefit from government insight.

Tattletaleing would be more reliable than sabotauge and it'd confuse issues and sully Derpy's name. If something went wrong in space, Derpy'd still be the pony who saved Lightning Dust, but she'd also be known as the pony who selfishly sabotaged the program to ensure she had a chance to go up. Then, Doctor Hooves wouldn't mourn her. Then he'd be able to make the right choice.

Roseluck would make her own luck.




The pony with wrapped sweets as her cutie mark gave her report to Princess Twilight.

"You no longer conclude diamond dog separatists conducted the sabotage?"

"No, Princess."

"And you think a pony on the inside did it? The poison sandwich? The diamond dog incident? The piranhas?"

"Yes, Princess."

"This profile suggests the pony could be 'somepony with a penchant for disaster. A nihilist. A weirdo. Someone driven to take drastic actions for personal gain?"

"Yes, Princess."

"And you want to question our selfless pilot who's going up tomorrow to save Lightning Dust?"

"Yes, Princess."

"She needs to sleep in."

"We may need to arrest her."

"Don't."

"Then we won't. But we need to question her so we can take appropriate actions when she returns. A pony almost died."

"And another will die if she doesn't go." 

"It's always hard decisions." 




Twilight Sparkle, twitching nervously, couldn't help herself and visited Derpy hours later, after the questioning was complete.

Derpy was at her dining room table, crying.

It was midnight.

Twilight Sparkle let herself in and said, "It's me, Derpy,"

Derpy looked up. Then she stood up. "Princess--"

"At ease, friend," Twilight motioned for her to sit.

"You're going to say I can't go?"

"Did you sabotage--"

"No!" she shouted. Then, she whispered, "no."

"I didn't think so. But we had to ask.... Where's Doctor Hooves?"

"He's at the office, triple-checking equipment."

"Why do you want to do this, Derpy?"

"Because nopony else can."

"That's a good reason," Twilight Sparkle nodded. "But you have your daughter. If something happens..."

"I was on my own younger than her. And she has someone to take care of her. I trust him.... the project's going to be canceled if somepony dies."

"Maybe it will go slower..." Twilight Sparkle commented.

Derpy swallowed. "You want to be the First. To beat those griffons."

"And to find friends!"

"Doctor Hooves doesn't consider it likely that ponies live beneath Marred."

"Elsewhere in space, though!"

"Maybe!"

"Will he be able to keep working on it?"

"If something happens to you? It's a dangerous project. We need to protect ponies."

"So you will stop it."

Twilight didn't say anything.

"That will ruin him."

"He has a lot of plans--"

"And this one had a chance of success."

"He already had a big success. A non-alicorn made it to space!"

Derpy smiled a tight smile and remembered:




Doctor Hooves was fuming. "We will work on the temporal machine. The gamma wave generator. The philosopher's stone!" 

"Please, don't quit just because of me," Derpy said. "They removed me from the Project for my own safety."

"You are completely safe! You survived countless rapid unexpected dissassemblies.... I should quit."

"Don't."

"I want to support you."

"I don't want to cause your hopes, your dreams, to disappear. Somepony else will take over and they'll take your laurels."

Doctor Hooves bit his lower lip. "But we should share our laurels."

"Goodness and kindness is good enough to share. If we help others, we'll help ourselves. I think," Derpy smiled.




"You're right, though," Derpy said. "I shouldn't do this. I don't want Dinky to be alone. But if I don't, who will?"

"...We may have to let space take its course--" Twilight Sparkle said.

"What about the other creatures with rockets--the griffons."

"We don't have a lot of positive interaction with them."

"You could make contact."

"They tried to kill you!" Twilight said, recalling the piranhas and sandwiches.

"But you could still make contact? Aren't we strong believers in the power of friendship?"

"You may be right," Twilight said.

"I feel like I've killed her, if I don't try," Derpy sighed.

They heard hooves clattering against the floor and a teenage unicorn soon appeared in the doorway.

"Mom. If you can save her, do it. If there's a chance you can make it back. Isn't there a chance?"

Twilight Sparkle nodded. "We have a relay system planned for resupply."

"You taught me to care for others. But if you don't feel fit, let it go, Mom. You can only do what you have capacity for."

Derpy sighed. "I think I was meant to do this."

"You don't have a spacefaring cutie-mark," Twilight Sparkle nervously laughed.

"Maybe I do?" Derpy looked back at her bubbles.

"Aren't they registered as meaning 'hope'?"

"They are."

"But you think they're something else?"

"I acquired them when I was descending from the edge of space. I could always breathe really well at high altitudes. It's why I'm able to go without the oxygen Device. It's why I can bring one for Lightning Dust and still reach her in time. This makes sense."

"Maybe you're just interpreting this way because of the stress..." Twilight Sparkle looked at Derpy's still somewhat-swollen belly.

Derpy stared at Twilight.

"I am sure you will do fine," Twilight said, and quickly left.

"I wish I wasn't the pony best suited to do this," Derpy hugged her daughter. "No pony's making me. But I think I should."

"Mom. No one's going to look down on you or make you feel small if you don't do this."

"No. But when they make me feel small about other things... I might not have enough hope to feel good about myself."

"Mom!"

"If my cutie mark isn't for hope... and I've lost hope a lot of times... then, we'll know. I've always felt so different."

"Mom. You've done so much for me. I don't care what your cutie mark might be for--you're my mother! And you're an amazing mailmare. And a ponynaut! You're great." 

"Thank you, Dear. I suppose it doesn't really matter much. But if it really is for hope, then that's why I'm doing this. I hope I can make a difference."
> Ponynaut Dossier: Lightning Dust
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applicant Dossier #005: Lightning Dust



Lightning Dust was the last to interview with Mrs. Harshwinny. Lightning Dust was also twenty minutes late for her appointment, a fact duly noted on a hoofnote affixed to the front of her file, atop her officially submitted photograph and adjacent to another photograph that showed her drinking from a long tube filled with a brown frothy liquid connected to a keg.

"Crushed sugar treats." Lightning Dust threw herself into her seat. "I'm late because the city guard are a bunch of jerks with too much time on their hooves."

"They thought I was smuggling drugs again."

"No, I've never done it. They've just thought I've done it because I'm not snooty about who I'm friends with. It doesn't matter if a pony's clean or dirty, if a pony's a good person, I'm there for them. I've been subject to enough unfair ostracism that I wouldn't want anypony else to go through the same excrement."

"Yeah, I got shut out of the Wonderbolts because the Princess' best friend said my flying was too dangerous. Know what--she got lots of chances when she messed up, because she's the Princess's best friend. I got one chance. Things didn't work out and I was gone. No job. No dream."

"This is my new dream. I'm not going to take foolish risks. All my risks are calculated."

"My shows are dangerous. That's what my Washouts do--dangerously exciting shows. But we practice the Tartarus out of them. We have safety precautions. I've spent less time lounging in hospitals than the Princess's best friend."

"For the record--that pony's Rainbow Dash. Youse never met a more conceited pony. Can't stop talking about herself. Always has to be number one."

"And to answer again--no, I don't do illicit substances. I barely drink licit ones anymore."

"That beer funnel photograph--old news from the Washouts' early days. We don't do that anymore. 'least I don't do that any more. And when I did it--it was after a show, not before or during. Drinking and flying's an easy way to end up dead."

"I'm from Manehatten. Didn't youse guess from the accent?"

"No, I'm not familar with Soarin' outside of a few meetings when I was a Wonderbolt candidate. He's a pretty famous bachelor. I think he modeled for Playmare. Talented too."

"Hay! He lived in Manehatten for a while? Wish I'd known him before he hit it big."

"No, I wouldn't have used him for a job. But I'd have hit that hot flank, most def'."

"No relatives."

"Lovers? Yeah." She listed a long catalogue, appended to the interview materials as an appendix. "But nothing permanent. And yep, no creatures other than ponies."

"Mostly pegasi. Some unicorns. Earth ponies aren't really my type, with due apologies."

"Don't have a lot of friends with other species, except a mailgriffon--Gabby. She's almost like that inane Element of Happiness, but she knows when to stop, youse know?"

"Fears?"

"Not being remembered."

"No, that's not arrogant. And it's not like Rainbow Dash. I don't care how I'm remembered, just that I am. I don't have to be the best. I just have to be memorable."

"Sure, Rainbow Dash will probably be known for reinventing the sonic rainboom. I'm going to be first in space."

"Sure, we'll go in the order selected by the Princess. There are a lot of firsts to be had. No one pony can do them all. I'll wait my turn."




Lightning Dust's emotional and mental state wasn't the best. But she tested well. Physically, she was talented. Notes in her file indicated that her contact, Gabby the mailgriffon, was under supervision by Twilight's spy organization, SMILE, and had been cleared of any potential collusion with the rival space program from Griffonstone's former colony.

Lightning Dust was the best stunt flyer of her generation, outperforming most younger performers. So, despite Mrs. Harshwinny's reservations, she was:

Cleared for project Marred Mare.




All these ponies, despite their flaws, were cleared. But Derpy Hooves wasn't. She didn't have their professional experience. 

But friendship was supposed to power magic, Derpy thought. She'd read the Princess' textbook from Dinky's school and wondered why it was so hard to follow its precepts.

Reviewing the dossiers again, searching for a way to rescue Lightning Dust from her own foolishness and the vicissitudes of new technology, Princess Twilight Sparkle came to the same conclusion as Derpy--even though she worried the outcome might end with both ponies dying.
> Chapter 12: Derpy Departs
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Derpy felt the other ponies place the necessary equipment on her. Her suit, bleached white and pressure-controlled. Her helmet, clear and polished to see through, and crash resistant. Perfecting its tempering had taken a while, but during testing she smashed more than a few prototypes until Doctor Hooves settled on the best material-forging process. She also had her belt and the new radio control: a two-way Hoarse code transmitter/receiver. She'd be able to communicate with Mission Control when Equestria was pointing the right way, although there would be a delay.

Then, her daughter was hugging her, and her husband was doing the same. And a crowd of support staff was cheering, and she was smiling. Only for a moment did one of her hooves move to her belly, but she closed her eyes and put that thought out of her mind. 

She felt the rocket being strapped to her back, and she felt the oxygen-conversion tank being secured--not for her but for her rescuee, whose tank must certainly be breaking down. The added provisions were strapped to her back like many heavy sacks of mail. Water in a container for her and water in a container for Lightning Dust. Energy snacks in squeezable sealed containers--Doctor Hooves had perfected them seeking to eliminate the weight of the tins that Lightning Dust had carried.

Then she was alone, and the other ponies were taking shelter. 

Then the countdown started.

Then, she was launched into the sky, through atmospheric layers. 

Then she was in space. Farther than she'd ever traveled. Far in the distance were Marred and Lightning Dust--who had drifted beyond the point of no return. She would reach Lightning Dust and hopefully adjust her trajectory to turn around. It would work if she decelerated enough and if Lightning Dust was conscious to execute the maneouver. There was, indeed, a chance she was already dead. Derpy felt her belly. Maybe she never had a chance. But Derpy still needed to try.

And, she rotated in space and wondered: why.

Lightning Dust hadn't been kind to her.

Derpy didn't want to leave her daughter and husband alone. Doctor Hooves was kind. But he wasn't always attentive. Dinky was old enough to be on her own. But she shouldn't have to be.

Derpy rotated more and more. In the bleakness of space, among the darkness, punctuated by a visible distant planet here, and a star or a nebula over there, she blinked and took in everything. And she took a deep breath through her Device. Then she removed it and her helmet and took a test breath in space. Even after twenty breaths, she wasn't winded.

She bit her lower lip and checked her orientation. She was on target, assuming Lightning Dust didn't drift too much, she'd reach her in a few days. She closed her eyes and reflected.




She didn't have much except hope once her parents fell ill.

Hope that her parents would get well.

Hope that she'd be adopted by a loving relative.

Hope that she'd make friends at the orphanage. She'd had a few. Doctor Hooves was one. A cool stallion a few years older. He always made her feel valued. And he had such interesting ideas--wondering how ladybugs flew, how narwhals sang and why they weren't magical like unicorns and if they were related.

But late at night, even though she thought her bubbles were about hope--everypony kept saying they were--she cried a lot. She especially cried when she was being insulted or left out because ponies thought she couldn't fly right. She could, but she sometimes had problems with depth and focus--but so did other ponies when the sun got in their eyes. She just needed to take things a little slower. And that allowed her to see dangers they couldn't view.




Lightning Dust continued drifting. And her stomach churned. The last food she had put in was a quarter of a rations bar. She had three left and had no idea how long she needed to make them last. She could take them all, then starve all at once. Or, she could drag out rations and die by pieces. 

She'd checked her distance and was beyond the no-go point. She could activate a maneouver with her little remaining fuel and try a loop-de-loop to slow herself and hopefully send herself back to Equestria. But without an object with sufficient gravitational force around which to maneouver, even if she managed to use her thrusters to turn, she might end up pointing the wrong way and drifting even more distant from any rescuers. 

The procedure for being stranded was to cut the engine, preserve fuel, and continue floating in the same direction, then, when a rescuer could reach the target, to use the fuel's propulsion to turn around.

But was anypony coming? She was past the no-go point. She wasn't sure anypony could save her. Only Spitfire was able-bodied. Even though she was old, she'd raced in the Ponyditarod--Dust figured was still the toughest of the Wonderbolts. But shoot. She didn't want to be saved by a Wonderbolt--they'd kept her out of their little club and she'd made her own stunt empire that put on shows that were more technically impressive than the best the 'bolts could manage. And now she was going to be dependent on a Wonderbolt for everything.

Hallucinating in the cold of the void, Lightning Dust shut her eyes and tried to imagine herself anywhere other than space.

And her life flashed before her.

She was on the ground, at the training grounds in a classroom. Derpy Hooves, the Program's test pilot was trying to provide advice and feedback to ponynaut candidates. And Lightning Dust was laughing at her.

"Before trying these rockets, you were launched in a trebuchet."

"Yes!"

"We use one in our show."

"Great!"

"Yeah, and nopony would ever think one of those would get anywhere close to space. Like, how high did you get?"

"A few hundred fetlocks."

"Didn't Doctor Hooves do the math?"

"He wanted to double-check the angles experientially. He wasn't so sure about some supposed mathematical constants."

"I think he just wanted to see you slammed against the ground. Or some tree."

"I hear ponies pay good money to see that happen to your group of rockheads," Spitfire said to Lightning Dust.

"No, no," Derpy shook her head. "Doctor Hooves isn't like that. He wants to confirm all the possibilities before determining the proper route to take. He needed to check the math--to determine how certain adjustments could affect height. He was learning about how applied science related to theoretical. I think."

"I hope he was paying you well."

"No payment!"

Lightning Dust snorted, "Guess it was a lover's payment."

Derpy blushed. Rainbow Dash hooted and Soarin laughed.

"Somepony's got to be pretty dumb to get herself into something like this for free."

"I'm... I'm not dumb."

"What a little fan of Doctor Hooves. Fangirl. Ha!"

"I'm not little--"

"A big fan, then."

The whole class was hooting.

"But it worked out--they got married!" Soarin noted.

"You two definitely had something going on before you washed out, though, right?" Spitfire asked.

"I'm. I--I was focused on Dinky. My daughter. And- I-"

"So *that's* what you were thinking about when you were saddling him?"

"I--ah--"

They laughed and somepony threw a paper rocket around the room.

"That's all for today. Sorry." Tearfully, she trotted out of the room.

"Not cool," Rainbow Dash glared at Lightning Dust.

"You joined in too," Lightning Dust said.

"We've done worse in the barracks," Spitfire noted, "but that one's a civilian. I'll apologize tomorrow."

They said their apologies. And Derpy accepted them. But that hadn't been the only time Lightning Dust teased her.




Before that teasing session, Lightning Dust had criticized Derpy's lazy eye. At the time, she'd just thought the Doctor was finding a make-work job for his wife--wasting their time.

Later that night, during a bull session with the other ponynauts sitting around and playing cards, she discovered she'd been wrong.

"You feeling better, Soarin?" Rainbow Dash handed him a glass of water. 

"Sure," he wheezed. "I never thought breathing at high altitudes would be so tough."

"Yeah, well, Doctor Hooves said he's working on a device to help with that. It's going to cost us weight, though, he says, so it might take longer to reach Marred. So, we might be grounded until the rockets get more powerful."

"How do you know?" Spitfire folded her cards.

Rainbow Dash smiled, "Princess connections." She pumped her left wing up, then her right wing. Then, she repeated the jaunty procedure.

"Fine!" Lightning Dust flared up her wings and jumped into the air. Rainbow Dash circled her cautiously. Then Lightning Dust pounced, darted around, and slapped Dash's rump. Dash twisted her head and shot out with a foreleg and grabbed Lightning Dust's left front foreleg and dragged her down. Lightning Dust nipped at Rainbow Dash's neck and they tumbled into the dust.

"Enough!" Spitfire pulled Rainbow Dash away. Soarin tugged at Lightning Dust.

Lightning Dust chuckled, "You may have Princess connections but those connections added a bit of cake to your rump, slowpoke," she whinnied.

"You mother-bucking nightmare!" Rainbow Dash hissed.

Lightning Dust chuckled some more and waved off Soarin who, despite a worried expression, let her go. Lightning Dust proffered a hoof to Rainbow Dash. "Just wanted to let loose some tension. We're all teammates. We want everypony to succeed. None of us are going to sabotage anypony, right?"

Rainbow Dash's eyes narrowed, but she accepted Lightning Dust's proffered foreleg and shook. "You do realize, friend, that you've opened yourself to pranks?"

Lightning Dust licked her lips. "Bring it on." The two of them sat back down.

Soarin changed the topic. "Let's talk about something less controversial. Something that can bring us together. Like politics."

"What about 'em?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"There's growing interest from the Griffonian Socialist Creatures Republic in a space program. Newspapers report they've hired kirin to power their rockets. Somehow the kirin are using their nirik energy--Griffons have been storing the power. It might be more powerful than the fuel we're using."

"Propaganda!" Spitfire shouted.

"Yeah! They just want us to go too fast and have a rocket blow up," Rainbow Dash said.

"Why kirin? Why not griffons?"

"The Socialist-whatever griffons' country is surprisingly multicultural! Not as much as Equestria, of course, but as a colony, it saw a lot of immigration in its hayday. Apparently, a group of kirin were living beneath them for millennia, separated from society until quite recently."

"Seems to be a trend for kirin..." Spitfire commented, referencing how the other known group of kirin spent several hundred years isolated from Equestria.

"So, they've got kirin powering their rockets, diamond dogs supplying materials, and minotaurs hammering it all into place."

"Cool," Lightning Dust nodded. "And we've got the best flyers in the world!"

"With equipment validated by the best tester in the world." Soarin said.

"What?"

"The best tester. You've seen her. She was talking with Doctor Hooves."

"The blonde one?"

"That's her."

"What equipment did she test?"

"Our rockets. When she reached the same level of the atmosphere I did, but she didn't have any breathing problems. Apparently, she's a high-altitude specialist."

Lightning Dust chuckled. "You're telling me that shrinking violet mare, the quiet one with the weird eye, strapped hundreds of pounds of highly flammable rocket fuel to herself and shot into the air with barely-tested equipment?"

"You deaf?" Soarin chuckled. "Derpy Hooves tested everything. The Doctor says she'll be providing us lectures and Q&As soon."

Lightning Dust blew a low note out from between her teeth. "I'll be a horse's niece. It wasn't just my stunts that have been getting overlooked. Even ponies with weird googly eyes are tougher than the Wonderbolts!"

"Hay. Hay! The Doctor didn't ask a Wonderbolt to test the equipment. We'd have done even better than... you know who, and the program would be even farther along--we would have figured out the need for the breathing device sooner, and we'd be well on our way to Marred!" Rainbow Dash said.

"Hard to say," Lightning Dust spread her cards, being contrary to Rainbow Dash's position out of spite. "Just like it's hard to say if you can beat a full house."

Rainbow Dash angrily tossed in her cards and Soarin folded his without comment.

Lightning Dust chuckled as she raked in bits from her professional rivals. "I'll be the one first in space in the end, just you see. This Derpy and I, we're the ones you got to watch out for. Never see us coming."




No pony was going to remember Lightning Dust because she'd bucked up--exhausted her fuel. If not for the loop-de-loop, she would have been able to make the trip despite the unexpected drift from her flight plan--which she'd fixed at the cost of her fuel reserves.

Every pony was going to remember Lightning Dust. She was the first pony to perform a loop-de-loop around their moon and she was the first pony to get stuck in space. First dead pony to orbit Marred. She smiled a rictus smile. That made her decision. She wasn't going to try to manoeuver back to Equestria. She'd follow the official plan. Even if she died, she'd become a historic satellite.
> Chapter 13: Derpy Saves
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Derpy Hooves had made the journey. She hadn't used the Device's supplemental oxygen conversion, preserving its contents for her rescuee. But, even though she was a high-altitude breather, she was hallucinating and barely able to keep herself straight on target. 

Given her neurological affliction, flying straight wasn't always easy. And, she wasn't a military or stunt professional with extensive muscle-memory experience to rely on. But, she was a professional mailmare and, with a lot of hard work, she always got where she wanted, so she made adjustments, sent to her from Mission Control. And she kept her spirits up by responding, sending hope, and receiving it. She even communicated directly with Dinky, who Doctor Hooves had brought into Mission Control.

Derpy was only a day away from Lightning Dust. She badly feared she needed a whiff from the Device, but Lightning Dust might badly need the breath, too. 

Derpy picked up the Hoarse code transmitter and looked at her reflection in her helmet, a hide no longer gray, but twinged blue. Her heart beat faster and she thought how funny that was. Her hide, turning dark, like space. Her helmet fogged up as she sweated, so she removed it, exulting in space's cool vacuum. And she keyed her question: "Do I need oxygen?"




Mission control debated.

"There's only enough for Lightning Dust," Mrs. Harshwhinny said.

"She's right," Roseluck said.

"If Derpy is asking, then she needs it," Doctor Hooves asserted.

"She's supposed to be a high-altitude breather," Moondancer said.

"Is there a Doctor?" Dinky asked.

"I'm a Doctor, Dear," Doctor Hooves bent down to comfort his stepdaughter.

"A medical doctor."

"Good idea!" Doctor Hooves blinked. "I cannot believe we did not conceive of that need before!"

"Send for one.... In the mean time, ask why she's asking," Princess Twilight Sparkle, ever the bureaucrat, said.




Eighteen minutes later: "So hrad," the Hoarse code typoed.




"Use it. Until you reach target," the response instructed. 

Derpy Hooves, head lolling, reached for the device and switched it on. She sucked in some air, then she slumbered.




"If she had fallen asleep, she could have died." Mission Control's newest face, the Flight Surgeon, said. 

"How can you conclude that from so little information?" Harshwhinny demanded.

"Her response was disoriented. Consistent with symptoms of asphyxiation."

"Thank you, Doctor Ivermectin," Twilight said.

The doctor nodded.




Derpy woke up and she struggled. The Device twisted on her face and she blinked. She ripped it off her mouth. And she frowned. She had speculated she'd be able to breathe without trouble. Her cutie mark showed bubbles, like the clear helmet she wore. But it hadn't been enough. Maybe she'd killed herself.

She lowered her eyes and figured that was just how it was going to have to be. A deliverymare always got through--despite obstacles. Rescuing Lightning Dust by delivering her the fuel, water, food... it was just another delivery. And a good pony made her deliveries.




Lightning Dust glimpsed Derpy through squinted eyes. She couldn't say anything with her parched throat, and it wouldn't be audible in space's vacuum anyway. But, she did what she could, which was grunt. Derpy smiled and joined hooves. They rotated and Derpy jerked Lightning Dust even farther away from Equestria. Derpy's speed was too great. They were both hurtling toward Marred.

Lightning Dust squeaked a warning that nopony could hear. Lightning Dust closed her eyes. Then she opened them and mouthed, even though Derpy probably couldn't see her mouth even if she could lip-read. 'They sent you. Not a Wonderbolt. Not Spitfire or Blaze or Vapor Trail, or whoever. You. Weren't you pregnant? You endangered somepony else for me? I can't turn you around.' Lightning Dust relaxed her grip on Derpy's hooves. Derpy frowned, and gripped tighter.

'Let me go..."

In a fugue, Lightning Dust remembered her dwindled fuel reserves. She moved to turn them on. She could reorient toward Equestria and then... But she frowned, realizing that even if she was properly oriented, she wouldn't return before she died of dehydration.

Derpy released one hoof and reached for her belt. She removed something and proffered it to Lightning Dust--a water canister. Lightning Dust fumbled, detached her own empty container and attached the refreshed one. Derpy accepted the trade, undid her helmet, and clipped it to her belt. They rotated more, dancing a desperate dance, staring into each other's eyes.

"Sorry," Lightning Dust mouthed, a feeling she rarely expressed.

"Sorry," Derpy mouthed back. "Wish I was sooner." She passed her Device to Lightning Dust.

"Yeah, you can breathe here," Lightning Dust sighed. 

Finally, Derpy hoofed-off her backup fuel to Lightning Dust, who shrugged off her tank, then pushed it and its dregs to Derpy, who accepted it.

The last things Derpy provided were a few energy bars and a guileless smile.

Lightning Dust was set up. Derpy mimed to her whether Derpy could propel her forward. Lightning Dust nodded and Derpy arranged herself for the loop-around manoeuver she had explained to the ponynaut candidates. The manoeuver had been developed by her and Doctor Hooves, but never practiced, she'd admitted to her class. Lightning Dust had snippily put her down. Lightning Dust subsequently practiced the motion with Spitfire in the lower atmosphere, so she knew what she was doing. Yet here she was, trusting her hooves in the hooves of a non-professional pony.

They executed the manoeuver flawlessly. Lightning Dust orbited Derpy, who accelerated toward Marred.

Lightning Dust, now aligned to return to Equestria, wondered how Derpy was going to return. The procedure had been developed to be executed before the no-go point, when a sufficiently-equipped pony might use thrusters to adjust a trajectory to swing back around. Derpy had a half-full fuel tank. And she probably could manoeuver if she was confident. But she was continuing toward Marred, possibly planning to use its gravity for an assist back to Equestria. That wouldn't be absurd. It could even be more economical than trying to reposition herself by firing thrust and re-orienting. And if a pony wasn't a professional, there would be less room for error by continuing to Marred instead of careening into the void.

But even though she could reach Marred and turn around, and even though Derpy could breathe a lot better than Lightning Dust, she was going to start struggling eventually--her water reserves were finite.




On Equestria, Doctor Hooves was feverishly developing the backup rocket, and a couple of spares. He was also supervising the manufacture of additional supplemental oxygen canisters, but the minotaurs weren't shipping them and he had to rely on pony labor and contracts with the Princess' imprimatur--inferior manufacturers enriched by Equestria's need. 

Once the griffons started their space program, it had become extremely difficult to acquire manufactured goods from the minotaurs, even with the backing of the Equestrian crown. So, Equestria only had one spare supplemental container, and several poorly-fashioned untested prototypes fabricated with inferior methods and materials.

Moondancer reported, "The mathematics doesn't add up. We cannot add enough fuel to meet halfway and successfully reposition. We'd strand another pony. And we need at least two oxygen canisters."

"You're saying we sacrifice her?"

"I'm saying whoever we send will be a new sacrifice."

"I should go," Twilight sighed.

"You're the Princess of Equestria--if you die--"

"I would live," Twilight said. "It just would take me a while to return."

"But the sun and the moon--"

Twilight sighed.

"You'd risk the lives of hundreds--perhaps thousands to save one pony!"

"I already risked lives to save my reputation. This whole program is vanity--marred by my need to outdo other creatures. Am I vain, Moondancer?"

"Of course not, Princess."

"Only a vain pony would ask that question to an employee," Twilight sighed. "I see you as a friend, though."

"I see myself as a well-credentialed expert."

"I see myself as a plothole," Twilight sighed. "Sorry, Moondancer."

"Eh," Moondancer shrugged. "It's not the first time you treated me like a nobody."

"I was thinking too philosophically. I should have called the rest of the Elements of Harmony for help. But they're so busy."

"That's why you have your monthly meetups--and the rest of us to assist."

"What if I was humble?" Twilight mused.




Doctor Hooves worked as hard as he could. Long hours. No sleep. Then, he ate a sandwich. And he became violently ill.

He was admitted to the hospital. His stomach was pumped. He was frothing at the mouth.

Twilight had already left on a quest. She didn't know about his struggles. A flame-sent message reached her later.




Twilight Sparkle flew to the land of the Griffonian Socialist Creatures Republic, and she landed in front of their governing council who were preparing to launch their own mission.

"Griffons of the Socialist Creatures Republic, and all others allied," she started. "It is I, Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria!"

They booed. Spears raised and arrows were nocked.

"I come in peace to parley and to request a favor. Is it true you plan to have a rocket orbit our Moon and return?"

Silence greeted her.

"A pony of ours is going to die--without help."

"The one orbiting Marred?" a griffon spoke.

"Yes."

"You care little about your little ponies."

"I care a lot."

"You shot for a dangerous goal."

"I was wrong."

"How so?"

"We know you have extra air canisters."

"You're not getting any more from our suppliers."

"I'm proposing a trade. Our rockets can travel farther. You can have our schematics--"

The griffons laughed. "There's no glory in using pony technology."

"There is glory in saving a life!"

"The old and weak die."

"This stranded pony is very strong. She rescued another pony. She's brave and knew she could die. But she went anyway."

"She sacrificed," the speaker shrugged. "A big fool hero."

"We know you've been interested in pony technology," Twilight said.

"Our technology is much better. We could recover your pony easily. But we won't."

"How?"

"We will not tell you our secrets."

"Is there anything you want? Anything at all?"

The griffon council communicated in a cone of silence, obscured gray to also prevent lip-reading.

They opened the cone and told Twilight their demands, which were extensive. Ponies would let them enter unopposed to copy with their claws and cameras. Nothing would be given--they would take. Not just from the space program, but also from the Royal Canterlot Libraries.

And in return--the griffons would integrate treasures and rescue the pony. No details were given as to how. Twilight would need to trust them.
> Chapter 14: Derpy Saved
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Derpy floated for many days. She reached Marred, orbited, then fired her propulsive thrusters, boosting away from the apparently barren planet and back to Equestria, exhausting her fuel except for a bare minimum for emergencies. Her water reserves drew low, her body stopped generating sufficient heat--the only thing preventing a freeze became her suit's warming capabilities, and it became increasingly more difficult for her to naturally process oxygen. She drifted out of consciousness.




"I have to care for Dinky tonight," she told the stallion who would become her spouse. 

He smiled, "Certainly! We can wait."

"You could find another tester."

"You're perfect!"

Derpy beamed.

"Is it too much pressure?"

"No. I don't want to delay you."

"Nonsense! Executing these tasks with you is delightful. It is absolutely-terrifically special to have you accompany me on this endeavor!"




"A griffon poisoned Doctor Hooves!" Twilight Sparkle exclaimed. "They've betrayed us!"

"Yes and no," her agent replied, bowing her head.

"Explain! Please!"

"Remember the safety precautions implemented after we discovered the poisoned sandwiches?"

"Which?"

"The tracking curse."

"Making hooves glow purple?"

"Precisely."

"The spell was never tested on claws."

"We caught the perpetrator purple-clawed while you were negotiating. We released him after your agreement with the griffons... and after Moondancer and Sunburst confirmed their theory.

"Apparently, the purple tracking liquid, made of chlorine and sulfur, combined with essential sweat and oils in griffon-claw-glands, releasing a toxic chemical mix that percolated on Doctor Hooves' desk. He set a sandwich onto it and shut himself in his office, ultimately succumbing to emanant fumes and ingested poison--a terrible tragedy."




Derpy fell off the rocket during testing that would have made her the first mare to orbit Equestria.

Sheepishly, she returned to Doctor Hooves. Together, they tracked the rocket as far as they could, eyeballing it, then with a telescope. The rocket ascended up, up, up.

"Escape velocity is being achieved! It is going to orbit."

"Good!" Derpy nodded.

"It should make a circuit of Equestria in about 90 minutes."

"I'm real sorry I let it get away."

"No worries, Dear. We should include some more points of contact. Detachable in an emergency, of course."

"Still, I'm sorry. I'll make muffins. Then, may I tuck Dinky in bed?"

"Of course! No need to stick around to see its return."

Doctor Hooves told her later that the rocket exploded on re-entry.

"Good thing I wasn't on it!" Derpy commented.

"Indeed," Doctor Hooves mulled over how to improve rockets' integrity.




And now, Doctor Hooves was in the hospital, fighting for his life. 

"We shouldn't mention this to the ponynaut. She'll lose hope," Mrs. Harshwhinny said.

"I understand," Twilight agreed.

Dinky, present because it was the usual time to send a message, spoke up. "She should know. She may want to send him a message."

"It's too sad for her to know what's happened. She needs hope," Twilight Sparkle bent down to look into the daughter's pained eyes.

"Mom's good on hope. Maybe it's her talent. At least, she has experience."

"We can't tell her. It could break her."

Roseluck spoke up. "Dinky may be on to something, with due regard--Princess."

"You do know both of them quite well?" Twilight asked.

"Affirmative."

Twilight sighed, "Fine. Make the contact.... But, try to lighten it a bit. Tell her help is on the way."




Rainbow Dash was the first mare to orbit Equestria... and she passed out from oxygen demands on the round trip and almost didn't make it down before hurtling around again in a degraded--and hot--descending trajectory. And that was the last time a mare went up without the Device. Lightning Dust followed her, then Soarin.

Soarin saw something quite peculiar while he was enduring the rocket's gravitational forces. He didn't comment on it at the time, but since he had little else to do while laid-up in the hospital, he related it to Rainbow Dash. "You ever have a vision of fish?"

"Of what?"

"Fish."

"In dreams sometimes. Why?"

"When I was orbiting, I saw fish, flying in a school, with glinting teeth."

"Sure they weren't pelicans?"

"No. Gilled fish. They saw me. I heard a shriek and they fell."

"Fish don't scream. Never seen anything like that."




"Discord..." Fluttershy asked. "Are you sure all the piranhas made it? There seem to be less."

"Oh, Fluttershy," Discord said. "Where would a bunch of fish have been mislaid if, say, a draconequus, choosing the chaotic thing to do and transporting a school of fish by flying rather than teleportation or--yawn--buckets, was shocked to see a rocket-borne pony bearing down on the center of his schoolchildren?"

"I don't know. Where might those hypothetical fish have been mislaid?"

"Nowhere in particular," he said.

"I--suppose that's fine."




Derpy was awoken by the buzzing of the Hoarse code signal. She took another sip of her dwindling water reserves and responded. And she heard the news about her husband's illness. Far from ruining her though, it invigorated her. If he was to suffer, then Dinky would be alone. And that would be her fault, for leaving her daughter alone. She'd do anything to return.

She  tapped out a message to her husband, "Hang in. We'll bee 2ether sewn 1 way r nother. [multiple sics]"

Then she exhausted her water supplies.




"The message is a bit grim..." Twilight Sparkle frowned.

"We shouldn't give it to him," Roseluck said.

"I'll ask her daughter," Twilight Sparkle said.

Dinky passed on the message and stayed at her unconscious stepfather's side for many hours, telling him how Derpy was coming home.




Derpy had already taken the drastic life-saving step of bottling her waste in the empty oxygen container Lightning Dust abandoned. And, she disgustingly drained that. That hadn't been something mentioned in planning. It hadn't occurred to the egghead ponies. But she knew she could drink it and live because she'd been harassed in the orphanage for, among other false justifications, "looking at other kids funny." Ponies could be cruel.

Ponies, cruel or kind, could live for several days without water.

Somnambula, a great pegasus, once survived four days without water... in a humid cavernous environment. She gathered humidity in a bowl, and breathed in its fumes.

Derpy didn't know that, but she put on her helmet since it helped her sleep better. And the helmet held her breath, fogged up as usual, and she was able to eke out some life-giving liquid.




Derpy was being rescued by supplemental air, jammed roughly against her snout. She didn't remember much, but ponies later said she was buffeted by the rescuing griffon who slammed into her at high speed since he wasn't able to execute a proper deceleration.

They spiraled and the griffon tore at her equipment, eventually activating her fuel reserves and using her momentum to arrest his own and send them back toward Equestria after an amazing looping manoeuver with especially precise ignition of his backup thrusters.

As griffons do for their young, he regurgitated water and food, and Derpy's vitals stabilized. "Victory is near, pony. Elimination and relief will come, dummy," the griffon said, his words regurgitated later in national newspapers.

They threw the griffon a ticker-tape parade in New Griffonstone, honoring his success and the shame he cast upon Equestria by demonstrating the ponies' dependence on others for even basic needs.

Derpy was escorted home by Doctor Ivermectin and Doctor Doctor, who gave her a cure.

Twilight Sparkle proclaimed the day "National Friendship Day with the Griffonian Socialist Creatures Republic." Creatures in both countries celebrated the achievement.




Twilight had told Rainbow Dash about Lightning Dust's rescue, about Derpy's situation, and about a report she'd recently received that blood tests confirmed Soarin probably had used performance enhancing drugs and blood doping at the time of the accident. And that the accident hadn't been sabotage.

"Then, what was it?" Rainbow Dash demanded.

Twilight sighed, "We had procedures. And they were followed. But they weren't the right procedures."

"What?"

"Nuts and bolts are supposed to be tightened. So, a pony tightened them every few hours. Problem was, they were overtightened. We never thought to check what might happen if they were tightened too much. The framing cracked, snapped, interfered with the fuselage, and the rocket exploded. It was nothing either of you could have detected."

"Then what's this garbage about Soarin pumping drugs?"

"I figured you could ask him? If he doesn't confess, we'll scour his belongings to see if there's any residue."

"We can trust him."

"We can't treat him different from any other pony.... There are already questions about the contracts we handed out to ponies after deals with the minotaurs fell through--nepotism accusations."

Rainbow Dash grumbled. "He's done a great job for the 'bolts. Don't do this to him."

Twilight Sparkle dissolved the bubble of silence and left the room without saying goodbye to Soarin or even looking in his direction.

"Sooooo... Soarin," Rainbow Dash said.

"Yes, dear roommate?"

"A bit of a delicate question."

"From an indelicate pony?"

"Suck a horn."

"I will!"

Rainbow Dash chuckled. "I'm sorry about asking this, but Twilight said there'd been some sort of mixup with blood testing and you tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in your system. And blood doping."

Soarin was silent for a long time.

"Say it ain't so, Soarin!" Rainbow Dash urged.

"I was... blood doping. It's not allowed in athletics, but it would be helpful for going to space. Doctor Hooves offered it when I asked how I could improve."

"You what?"

"I wasn't good at breathing at altitude--even with the Device, I passed out and had the fish hallucination. I told him I'd do anything to improve. He recommended blood doping to increase my oxygen levels."

"I'm going to beat up that siren scientist--" Rainbow Dash growled. "Leading my best stallion astray!"

"It'd be out of my system by the time we returned to performing. It was just to help with this mission."

"You knew it was prohibited. He knew it too!"

"Maybe."

"I could kill him."

"You may be too late,"

"What?"

"He's next door. Under Royal Guard. Somepony tried to assassinate him--may have succeeded."

"How'd you know?"

"You nap a lot. I chat with our nurses."

"Crap," Rainbow Dash sighed and was silent for a while.

"What about the performance enhancing drugs? That's a lie, right?"

"...I took those before I talked to the Doctor."

"Why do such a stupid thing!"

"I wanted to outperform you... for once. You were badgering me so much about not living up to my full potential. I'd been pushing myself harder and harder, but you would not get off my back."

"This is MY fault?"

"No. It's mine. I should have asked you to knock it off. But that's why I thought I needed the juice to do better."

"You were number two in the Program."

"I thought it'd be funny if I could be number one. The first ponynaut Marred Mare--a stallion."

"Mare actually is used because the seas of Marred--" Rainbow Dash explained.

"And now you're an egghead," Soarin laughed.

"It played a role in the Austreaoddysey," Rainbow Dash mumbled, referring to the great Pegasus epic where a wandering Pegasus, after a great disaster headed East for years among strange lands, fulfilling a strange never-completed quest.

Rainbow Dash swallowed. "You know what this means, though, buddy." She started crying. "I'm gonna have to let you go from the team. I wanna hug you, but I'm--"

"It's all right," Soarin said. "I'm not sure if I'm ever going to fly again, anyway."

"You've been so chipper."

"I can't control my body any more--how it heals. I can't control my job--I figured you were going to find out once I ended up here. But I can control my attitude. And I'm sorry. Maybe I'm not going to fly. But you're Rainbow Sonic Rainboom Dash. You'll be back flying in no time. You're better than me."

"We're both good. I'm so sorry I made you feel awful."

"It's just joshin' and playing. An in-crowd thing."

"Did you feel excluded when us mares were horseplaying?"

"That's why I ran late-night solo practices."

"I didn't know."

Soarin shrugged. "Ponies overlook things. Doesn't matter how good they are."

"I guess ponies get overlooked. Never would have guessed Derpy Hooves would be saving Lightning Dust--the second worst pegasus ever."

"Even your Scootaloo used to be overlooked."

Rainbow sighed through her nose. "Do I really only have capacity to care about one pony?"

"You just got to do what you can. And you have to hope it works out."

"We'll recover," Rainbow Dash said. "We'll get there. Some day, you'll be back on your family farm, dusting the crops."

"That's a nice thought. I always thought that if I did good, things would work out.... If I hadn't been so good at being a ponynaut, it'd have been Spitfire or Lightning Dust testing with you."

"Darn," Rainbow Dash said. "Then you would have flown the rescue mission."

"Yeah. I'd have been the first Marred Mare. Instead, I'm marred in here." He tried to jiggle his shattered wings, but failed.

"You'll get better," Rainbow Dash encouraged Soarin, smiling wide, but Soarin couldn't quite see that with the angle of the beds. Still, Soarin smiled and peacefully closed his eyes.




Lightning Dust stood at the doorway. She didn't approach. Her voice, still raspy, growled. "Derpy Hooves, it's me. Lightning Dust. I'm not coming in. I don't think I should. Maybe I carry some disease. I don't want to take chances. I owe you my life."

Derpy couldn't say anything with all the tubes hooked to her.

"You should have had my spot. We should have spoken up. If not at first when we didn't know what was going on, then we should have after your talks. I wasn't thankful. I barely paid attention and I cheated. Yeah!" Lightning Dust looked down the hall. "I cheated on Hoarse Code. I had no bucking idea what Mission Control was sending. The receiver wasn't broken. Write that down. Lightning Dust cheated on Hoarse Code. And she bucking regrets it.

"I also--I shouldn't have teased you. You didn't need to save me. I could just forget what you did. But, you're better than the Wonderbolts. You gave me a second chance. I wasn't perfect and they kicked me out. I kicked you out, but you saved me.

"If, when you get better, you still want to find me, do it. I'll make things up to you--if I'm not in jail. I endangered the program. I embarrassed the Princess by having her ask those griffons for help. I put your life at risk. I'm a disaster. First pony beyond Equestria's orbit. First pony rescued from beyond Equestria's orbit. What's the more memorable achievement? First rescuer in space: Derpy Hooves. I owe you my life."




Derpy was successfully discharged after a few weeks.

Her husband was still connected to life support. Derpy and Dinky waited at his side as often as they could. Lightning Dust, head hung abashed, joined them on one pleasant afternoon marred only by Roseluck showing up and sneering.

"Don't crowd him. Don't crowd," she shooed them away. 

Derpy, shocked by the violence of Roseluck's gesture and annoyance in her tone, stumbled and accidentally disconnected the medical injection tube, jerking at her husband's IV. The system monitoring his heartbeat disconnected and it let out a warning flatline. Everypony stood in horror. And then her husband arose.

"I felt quite a shock," he said.

Derpy hugged him softly.

"Get back. Get back!" Roseluck screeched. "Hospital protocol says to not--"

Lightning Dust, street-smart pony that she was, roughly led Roseluck away. "Give the couple some space."

"I'm only thinking of what's best for him!" Roseluck said.

"Not your responsibility," Lightning Dust said.  "Let friendship work its healing magic."

And, although there had been difficulties in their struggles to attain the stars, and although the outcome, for Marred Mare and everypony, would have been different if friendship had not been victorious, everypony lived.