//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: The First Equestrian Starliner // by computerneek //------------------------------// Twilight performs final assembly on the street in front of her castle.  She left a radio on the living room table, tuned to the same setting as the one in her contraption. She smiles to herself, flying in the door and locking it behind her.  Of course she hadn’t been idle these last few years; she had found a way to create a more controlled version of lightning- she calls it electricity- without magic.  She’d then found a few ways it could be used- among them being this radio. It’s quite a clunky device, but it works for long-range communication- so long as a line-of-sight is maintained.  If something happens, she need only close the circuit and yell to reach Spike, still asleep on the couch. She takes her seat.  It’s only after she’s already started the ignition process that she realizes she should have involved Doctor Hooves- his experience had made her radio possible.  He probably would have thought of something she hadn’t, with the design of her contraption. Ignition finally occurs.  With a roar like a dragon, her contraption soars for the heavens- with her inside, pressed firmly into her seat.  Drat, with this much force, she won’t be able to escape if something goes wrong! Her horn lights up, making certain it stays upright.  She gazes upwards, through the glass spear serving as its top, and points it at the moving star- at the object she’d spotted. It doesn’t seem to get closer. “What is she doing?” Several ponies stare up the rising column of smoke- from a safe distance, that is.  Any within a couple streets’ distance were choked out. They watch as the self-proclaimed fastest flier in all of Equestria races the rising object…  and, before she can catch up, loses. It simply won’t stop accelerating. “Wait a second,” Applejack squints.  “Is she trying to reach that there star?” Rarity, the original speaker, also squints into the distance in front of the smoke.  “Maybe,” she states- and pauses. Something seems off about that star.  It’s quite a bright star.  As she watches, though, her squint terminates as her eyes widen.  “It’s moving!” “Well duh,” Pinkie states.  “It’s riding a column of smoke.  Why wouldn’t it be-!” Rarity stuffs a hoof in the pink pony’s mouth.  “No, the star! It’s moving!” Pinkie steps back from the hoof, twisting to look.  “What? A shooting star! … slowly shooting star. I thought they were supposed to be fast!” “So…  How’s Twilight going to survive the landing?” “Huh?” Applejack asks, turning to identify the speaker- Time Turner.  “Oh, um, she can fly?” He lets out a sigh.  “Probably her reasoning too.  Only problem is, pegusi can’t fly that high- and if she gets going fast enough, she’ll die before she can even try to fly.  She didn’t think to bring a heat shield, did she?” Fluttershy pitches in with a little squeak.  “We could catch her…” Turner shakes his head.  “No, no you couldn’t. The same forces that would spell her doom would instantly kill any that tried to catch.” Applejack looks up at the sky once again.  “We could get Celestia?” She’s still accelerating hard, being crushed into her seat.  She’s listening to the hiss of escaping air over the noise of the engines.  It’s a good thing she brought bottles- and scuba gear. She levitates that over- quite difficult, against the force applied by her contraption- and puts the mask on. It doesn’t stay on.  She has to hold it. She’s pretty sure she hears her radio squawking at her- but she can’t hear what it’s saying.  Is Spike trying to ask why she didn’t take him? …  In all honesty, she doesn’t know. No matter how hard she holds it to her face, she’s having difficulty keeping the air inside her mask.  Her bottled air won’t last very long like this. She scans the sky above her contraption once again. Her quarry is closer- and, had she thought to bring her telescope, she might actually have a good view of it by now.  She’s close enough she can see it with the naked eye about as well as she ever could with a telescope. She keeps her contraption pointed. The glass cracks.  She presses her mask even harder onto her face, swapping the empty bottle out for a fresh one. She watches as her target comes closer.  Grows larger, more like- it’s still so far away. As she watches, she switches out the second empty air tank for a fresh one.  Her last fresh one. Are those windows she sees?  And doors? If they’re anything close to pony-sized, this thing is enormous. Her last bottle runs out of air.  She allows the now useless scuba gear to fall away from her face- and almost instantly begins choking on the air in her contraption…  right on time for it to run out of fuel. She stomps on the key for the radio. “Spike!” she chokes out. “Get the Princesses! I need help up here!” Down in the castle, the radio squawks again- but Spike is still sound asleep.  Even the noise of the contraption hadn’t been enough to wake him. Fortunately, that isn’t the only radio listening. A strange voice comes back over the radio, far clearer than in any of her tests- and with a striking similarity to what she’d thought she’d heard before.  “Unknown craft, confirm: Do you require assistance?” She stares at it for a second, then stomps for the key again.  It takes her two tries to reach it. “Yes!” she barks out. “I req- gasp- require- gasp- assis…” She passes out. The radio speaks up again, even though she doesn’t hear it.  “Request confirmed; initiating pickup procedure. Brace for acceleration in Three.  Two. One.” On schedule, her contraption starts accelerating again- and this time, it’s not under its own power.  Unfortunately, it was never designed to be pulled on, so several bolts, buckles, and other linkages tear free as it leaves its engines behind. Engines that fall back towards Equestria, vanishing in a great big plume of fire right as Princess Celestia finds them.