//------------------------------// // Crash Landing // Story: STAR-BOUND: REBORN. // by QueenMegumin //------------------------------// Everypony was watching the skies. Looking as the meteors shot across the sky. Celestia was still looking at the slighty bigger "Thing" that Marshmallow talked about. It was moving slower then the rest of the meteors but as fast as a Pegasus. "Serve, Defend, Protect. Ranger." She replied. "I will." I said, I was currently standing on the planet known as Pandora. A place where slums and other troublemakers go to. "Earth will be doomed without the signal. Send it as quickly as you can. You have one month in Pandora time." A month for Pandorians was 1-2 weeks. "Now, go!" She said, rushing me. 5 Minutes before Touchdown We were currently in the EQG3 Solar system, named by the famous explorer Edward Quest Garrison the 3rd, one of the first humans to go interstellar. The system was right next to Alpha Centauri A, the closest star to Earth and Sol. "Sky, I am detecting a unknown heat signature nearby to Jool" Jool was a gas giant, sometimes random heat waves appear from it, but most ships don't detect them. "Just ignore it, its just a heat wave from Jool." I said, eating my lunch "This heat signature seems too cold for a heat wave. Im detecting it to also be higher then any heat wave recorded on Jool." "Like I said-" "The signal is heading towards the ship." "Aps! Its alright. Charge the pulse drive." "Preparing to jump.." Suddenly the ship shook. I checked the Pulse drive and we were over 4000% "APS THATS TOO M-" We jumped, and the amount of force caused me to blackout. I woke up with alarms flashing all over the ship, APS seemed to be shutdown, prehaps to power loss. I had no clue where we were and what was currently going on, I opened my eyes to see one of the wings on fire, with the ship entering a unknown planet. For a second there I thought we were on Earth. But we would of jumped too far to be in Sol "Aps?" I said, looking around for the AI switch. "All systems are offline, We are currently entering into some sort of planet. I'll explain details when we touchdown" "Can you fly?" "I currently have no control over any systems on the ship." I flipped a switch and turned the ship into manual. I pulled on the trigger as hard as I could, trying to take us into a controlled entry. I looked to my left and saw the wing rip into shreds, all the parts headed towards different parts of the land I was heading towards, I heard another crack to see the other wing rip and fall off the ship. The canopy was starting to melt from the extreme heat and the system's power was starting to shutdown due to the massive amount of heat the core was dealing with. We passed through a cloud to see a mountain right in front of us. We scraped it and started sliding down from it, the Canopy shattered and send shards falling into the interior, the front of the ship was dented and torn and was taking in most of the force. We came to a stop in a small clearing in a forest. "Holy shit." I said panting. I pulled out my small flip knife and cut the seat belt and crawled out of the ship. We left a massive hole in the ground where we stopped, tons of trees where hit and taken down and the ship was dented through the middle. Wires were split and sparks well all over the ship, the engine was exposed and plasma was leaking from the shields. "Aps?" "I tried to eject the probe. Its currently stuck." Aps said from the speaker inside the Aphelion. "Currently we have more problems to deal with. Do a thermal scan for Titanium and plastasteel." I said, grabbing my Multi tool from the cargo "Titanium has been found underneath us. Plastic Steel is 800 meters to the north." Aps said from the speaker "Ive detected drinkable water nearby. Is it possible for you to place the Aphelion in the water to cool the core." Aps said from the broken speaker. "Alright." I started to pull on the ship towards the area that the lake was nearby. Princess Luna was watching Celestia, she looked distressed and annoyed. Everypony from Ponyville was shaken from the comet crashing into the Everfree forest, it nearly hit Canterlot Luna thought. "Everypony, please calm down." Celestia shouted. She looked towards her sister. "ALRIGHT!" Luna shouted. Everypony calmed down and started to listen to Celestia. "This is a big deal. Never before has this happened." Celestia paused. "I just want to inform you that this isn't a comet." Everypony looked shocked. Celestia trotted over to Luna and whispered something into her ear. "Go get the Engineer and the one with that cupcake sense thing." "Got it!" Luna said flying off. After letting the engine and core cool down, I pulled it out of the lake and and started pulling parts of the back of the ship. The parts were soaking wet, once I got into the core I pulled it out, shutting down APS, and started having a look at it. Wires and coolant were leaking from it, showing that it was destroyed completely. "Dammit!" I said, reconnecting it to the Aphelion. Lights flickered as power surged into the ship. "APS, how much power do we have?" I asked. "22 Percent, dropping 5 Percent every hour." Aps replied. "Open out the solar panels, i'll attach some batteries to them when its day." I grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment and turned it on, I was using the ship's light to navigate in this darkness. "For a night, its quite bright." I said. "Deploying distress beacon." APS said, a small pole came out from the side of the ship and started flashing, it was sending a signal out towards space. "Aps, deploy the surface drill, once we get some titanium ill get out the refinery." I said. This is going to be one hell of a jigsaw puzzle. I thought, turning the beacon more towards the moon.