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// Celestia, we have a Problem 
// Story: Hello? 
// by Prince Polaris 
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The Equestrian space program was immensely successful.  Not even the destruction that wreaked havoc across Equestria could deter the massive ships from lifting off, again and again, into the stars.  Every town in equestria was assigned a ship to take.  Small towns ended up with older ships, sometimes even prototypes like "Apogee's Sky", which became home to Our Town.  Equestria only had a few SuperFreighter class ships, massive, city sized beasts that required the magic of a princess to even get off of the ground.   There were four of them.   Each one named after a princess.  There was the SS Celestia, which held Canterlot.   The SS Cadence, which held the crystal empire, the SS Luna, which held baltimare and manehattan, and lastly the SS Twilight.  

The SS Twilight was special.  Before the death of her friends, Twilight had built the ship as Equestria's very first superfreighter, and she had actually designed it to operate without the magic of a princess, unlike the other ships.   Using spells that she had designed herself, she had built a magical battery.  It was tiny- the size of a car battery- however it could theoretically power the SS Twilight forever.  However, it became part of her insane plans when her friends began to pass away, and the battery was lost to time.   Rumor says that she took it away to use its powers in attempts to revive her friends, but it could've also just been taken away for testing and never brought back.   

The SS Twilight was the biggest ship Equestria ever built.   It was so gigantic that it couldn't physically rest on the planet unless it was in a body of water, so it rests in the cool waters of the ocean, where it stubbornly resists any of what the curses throw its way.  Every ship that Equestria had ever built were needed for the great Exodus, and the SS Twilight was the one that got slated with the job of holding everyone from the Underworld.  However, the ship was incapable of lifting off without the battery Twilight had designed!  And even if it did somehow get into space, it would be stuck in a perpetual 'low power mode'.


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"We have a problem...." stammered the nervous Engineer.  "And what would that be?" Celestia asked quietly, the muscles in her face shifting just enough to express the anger bubbling up inside of her.   The Engineer nervously pointed to the monitor he was looking at, and he said, "I...   okay, so, the uh, the SS Twilight can't actually lift off without..  some sort of device that goes down here!" He said, pointing to a model of the ship that was focused on one of its deepest chambers, where Twilight's battery was meant to go.  Celestia breathed in, then closed her eyes as she slowly sighed all of the air out of her lungs.   The firey anger in her eyes had to fight for its life as a newcomer approached- a turbulent mix of sadness and worry.   "So, it can't get off the ground?" She asked.   

"I um, no, it can't, it can sail and most of everything works, for now, but the um, thrusters all rely on that battery...." He said.   "And in space, it would be really risky, because it would have to rely on solar power!"  "Get me Northern Sheild, now" Growled the princess, as a nearby radiomare nodded and said, "Right away!" before she began to type on her own keyboard.   Celestia walked past the stallions to the dirty window glass of the control room.   In front of her stretched the ocean, bordered by the beach on one side and the docks on another.   And floating in its waters was the target of her worries, the last creation of her greatest student.   She'd done such a great job...  it looked beautiful, it looked strong, it was larger than anything else they had ever built, but it was stuck.  "You don't deserve this..." Whispered the mare, though she didn't know what You was.  

The poor Engineer was pretty sure he saw tears in Celestia's eyes when she finally turned around to leave, but he wouldn't dare ask.  He walked out to the window himself, looking down at the specks on the ground.   A considerable amount of Underworlders were already boarding the ship, helping with the efforts to build rooms for everypony to live in.   It took a lot of work to make a superfreighter into a superponyholder, after all!  But the stallion frowned with worry as he watched the tiny little ponies make their way into the immense hulk....   what was going to happen to all of them?  There were rumors that their enemies were going to try attacking any ponies left behind on earth once most of them were gone, and it made him worry.  Didn't help that Celestia, the mare who always had a plan, had left with little more than a request to contact the Underworld King.  

Also, was that an old van among the ponies slowly heading onto the ship?


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In the ThreeTown garrison, Northern Sheild was just finishing a shower- he was sweaty after doing work on helping ponies move things for most of the day, and he sat down just in time for his computer to start ringing.