Celestia was worried about Twilight, ever since twilight got herself into space rather than having this phase behind her she was still pushing even further, with meant that twilight had less and less time to do anything else, she skipped the galloping gala even after celestias personal invitation, but there was one thing that made Celestia know that there was a problem, she would every month check what twilight have read in the royal library or from any other place, she didn't want Twilight to read anything that could end badly for her, like it did for sunset, but last month when she asked the libraryan what was twilight reading the answere made her jaw drop, twilight didn't read anything, it was one of the few times that celestia was shocked in her long life.
The day after Celestia saw her student sleeping on her desk in front of stacks of papers. What she saw stunned her, just on that desk was more technological progress that in last few hundred years, she didn't know was she proud of her student or was she scared what Twilight could do. then she saw that Twilight was cuddling one of the papers, it was rolled up but she could see that it was a complicated schematic, Celestia couldn't wrap her head around what it was depicting but she could see the name
-"Stella Discipulus"?- Celestia said out loud just before picking up with her magic a blanket from the sofa in the corner of the room and placing it on twilight
- I hope you know what you are doing... - she said before leaving the room.
Twilight just woke up her eyes were beery able to open, she tried to stand up from her seat with half-opened eyes she looked again at her desk
- that was a night- she said when she saw her papers on collecting magic with machines and on creating a magic “funnel”
- yes, it was a good night - her eyes opened fully as she accidentally dropped the paper she was sleeping with, it was rolled up so it started quickly falling, Twilight's eyes widened, she instantly throw herself so she could catch it, as she dropped to the ground the scroll fell into her hoves. After few seconds of laying like this, she picked the paper up with her magic and she headed to her original destination, the kitchen.
she was walking to the nearest kitchen, the castle was much emptier ever since starlight left the castle to live with sunburst in the crystal empire, Twilight could understand that sunburst needed to be there so he could continue teaching flurry heart, and Starlight wasn't going to not be with him just because of that, so she left her.
twilight sighed at the thought, Spike wasn't beater, he would sometimes help her but still, he would most of the time be with rarity ever since a few years ago his relationship with her wasn't just a young drake's fantasy and twilight was sure she saw a blush on rarity whenever they talked about Spike, and after what she found a year ago in his drawer, when she wanted to find something, she knew, they were together.
she finally reached the kitchen as she made a sandwich and headed back to work.
It was 6 in the morning, Twilight finally finished her night long star observation through her new orbital telescope, which used the magical collectors she invented a year ago, but still, she wasn't happy that she couldn't get to it, thanks that an actual working long-term orbital station would be ready to lunch in a few days from there only about a month or two and her project on artificial gravity would be finished, as she thought about that she fell from her seat falling asleep after few nights without it.
Spike just finished making sure that the little half-dragon in his claws would fall asleep, but as he put her delicately into her cot he heard a thump from twilight room, with gratefully didn't wake up the baby,
after wiping the sweat from his forehead made from the fear of making her sleep again he made his way to Twilight so he could put her in her bed.
Twilight was looking through the window, she could see a rocket docking to her space station, as she saw the paint job on it, she was sure that it was a crystal empire's tourist transport spacecraft which docked to refill its fuel after few flights.
It was already five years since the space program started and everything was ready for her final project, just a few days ago she gave the shipyard the schematics for her first interstellar ship, to call it a big ship would be an understatement. Twilight made sure that no matter what would happen she would have a response, which to her slight disappointment included putting heavy weaponry on her shipyard-carrier.
she looked back down at her copy of the schematic, her eyes looked at every placement of her twenty 100m long canons each able to shoot 500mm steal rounds at the speed up to 10% of the speed of light, then she checked each of the ten hangars, each able to hold a "magician" class corvette, she looked over every subsystem until her eyes laid on the FTL drive, she fell that she would explode from anticipation as she realized that this beautiful ship will be hers in a year.
Twilight left her room and turned to one of the tens of hangars on the station, she couldn't wait until the ship was ready but she knew that she would miss her friends so she was going to spend her remaining days in Equestria with them.
She quickly reached the hangar and then she put on her space flight suit
"flight control, Twilight sparkle here I'm going down, requesting a landing space in ponivile" after few seconds one of the ponies that twilight appointed as the space-land flight control responded
"landing site nr6 is ready and has no scheduled landings" Twilight grimed as the engines on the wings of the armour, which were just her wings in armour, turned on, she jumped up as the hover engines took over with a will to move forward she quickly started to accelerate out of the station.
As she flew out of the station information how to breach atmosphere wagly close to the ponivile's space center apered on the botthon of the visor, rather than going starate for the place, she started doing a barrer roll but she stoped mid manuwer facing the station, twilight started flying all around the station for the amuzment of the few filies and their parents, what they didn't know was that next to Twilight's personal enjoyment this flyith had another reason, Twilight wanted to be sure that this suit would do well n combat as she was going to put about 100 of them on the carrier in the role of fighters.
After few minutes of this Twilight was satisfied with the resorts she made a quick turn as she started to deorbit, with a few cues from the helmet she quickly started to fall into the atmosphere.
Within few seconds she started felling temperature rise from the friction, she quickly adjusted armour's shields so she would not burn down while falling.
It took few minutes before her speed dropped enough so she could take over the fifth, with a thought armour on her wings contracted to leave her wing alone in keeping her in the air. Twilight made a quick turn towards ponivile and within few minutes she got to her target, with a simple answer she started slowly descending towards launchpad nr6
As she landed she quickly stripped her armour after a successful flight from there she made her way towards her room to make sure that she will make the most out of this year.
Everything was ready Twilight light made sure that everything was ready, she didn't remember when was the last time all seven of the met, she could, of course, understand that, everybody had them hobbies and lives and since there were more of their followers friendship problems they really didn't have time or reason to meet all at the same time and she wasn't beater with "Friendship stuff"
But today that would change Twilight made sure that everything was ready for their reunion.
And just as she looked at the clock to know how much time she still had, she heard knocking, Twilight run towards the door and as she opened it there was a bang.
Twilight jumped back as her light-hearted friend, Pinkie, introduced herself in her most favourite way
“Hello, Twilight I hope I didn't scare you!" she said with her normal joyful voice
"No, you didn't," Twilight said picking herself up from the floor "but could you NOT do something like this next time," She said when she stud fully up
"Okie-Dokie-lokie Twilight" she looked at her examining "wow Twilight sure you grow, have you been bathing in the sun too often?" she asked making as Twilight looked at her with a weird look
"No, I di-" she stopped as she realized that rather being about the same size as pink she was somewhere around a head taller "Oh......" she said as she realized how she didn't notice her body changing.
In just a few minutes after that everybody, and more were present.
They were sitting next to one of the many tables of the castle, next to Twilight sat Rarity with her daughter, Sparkling Dimond, on he lap, next to her sat, of course, Spike, father of the filly, as Twilight watched her not so young drake play with his child she delicately smiled as she looked to the other quests.
Next sat Rainbow Dash, AppleJack, and Pinkie Pie. They differ from Fluttershy and Rarity, as they didn't have any foals. Still saying that about Pinkie wasn’t really true as she would play with the kids from the orphanage and if Twilight wasn’t mistaken many of them make a mistake of calling Pinkie “mum”
The last one was Fluttershy, which sat next to Pinkie, she also had fillies on her own but they weren't here as they could get to all sorts of trouble so Fluttershy decided to leave theirs, little troublemakers to Discord.
When she finished looking around she finally realized that the group was dead silent, as the only sounds were the sounds of a half-dragon baby playing with her father.
With a little bit of sweat twilight said" so how were you doing in the last few years" and thanks to those words everybody started talking.
They talked like this for hours telling hundreds of different stories from the time they were mostly apart, to Twilight surprise everybody was actually interested in the specifications of her work.
“Wow, Twilight I knew you were doing a lot of nerdy stuff but I never expected it to be so awesome!..’ Rainbow said after listening to a story about the space flight armour Twilight was developing “...And you have to let me have a ride” Twilight smiled at her friends, which apparently liked the part.
As the talk continued Twilight could fell all of her worries leave her, But then an idea struck her “Hey girls I know you probably don’t have time today but if you would like it I could arrange us a Tripp to the space station, I would love to show you everything!” after a few seconds of awkward silence the attendants asked few questions about safety and when it could happen subsequent Twilight filled in all the details and everybody agreed on a date.
Flight toward the station was pretty uneventful, not counting a minor incident with turbulences and Apple Jack.
Right now twilight was showing them the hangars, which for her were one of the least interesting rooms, but apparently, everybody was intrigued about the tens of trading ships which would come and go transporting stock for the station or just simply refuelling.
Next were all the recreational buildings which included a spa, casino, few bars, and of course a hotel.
Then they reached the place Twilight wanted to show them The shipyards. They were the biggest price of the station easily taking half of it, such powerful docks were able to pump out tens of rockets daily or to build true behemoths, which included Twilight's ship. When they finally entered the one which was making the Stella Discipulus everybody stopped saying anything, the size in itself was staggering and as the main ornament, a gigantic plasma thrower was being put together. After few seconds Twilight said
"...And this, as you see, is a project of my life, the greatest ship those shipyards will ever see one and only " Harmony" class" everybody was looking back and forth between Twilight and the ship.
"Sugarcube could ya tell me why would you need something like this?" AppleJack asked while not being sure what to think of it
"As this ship will be ready I will assemble the best crew in question to go on the greatest expedition in the history of any race of equestrian!"