//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: In Transit 
// Story: A Stone's Throw Away 
// by Emperor123456 
//------------------------------//

While the foals had been searching for a way off the ship, the ship itself was preparing. It began hovering in mid-air, slowly rising from its rocky bed and throwing off the sheet of scaffolding, kicking off clouds of rubble and stone wherever it hit. As the ship’s turbines began to rev up the ship aligned with a riveted metal gate on the same wall that had the entrance to the cave. Slowly, and with an ear-piercing screech, the sheets of metal slid apart, opening the way into a pitch-black tunnel. The ship ran its last-minute calculations. 

“Relocating.” the ship's announcement system said, and the ship lurched forward. The ship’s body whistled as it quickly accelerated down the tunnel, squashing any insect unfortunate enough to have been in the tunnel at the time of launch. The roar of the engines joined the whistle of the ship and filled the tunnels and the cave behind them with a deafening cacophony.

The tunnel led to a hidden alcove etched into the sides of the great canter mountain, far below Canterlot, the exit another locked gate. As the ship approached the alcove rubble and dirt shook and a few fragile deposits of sediment even collapsed.

The second metal gate barely managed to open before the ship flew screeching past it, scattering the dirt that had been piled up on the gate across the alcove. The ship flew into the Equestrian skies, Canterlot turning into a mere white speck, and almost hitting Cloudsdale as it did so. The bright blue sky became darker and darker, and eventually, the ship became coated in flames for a few seconds before the sky turned pitch black just moments later. It continued to climb higher until Equestria was swallowed by the sight of the gargantuan planet upon which it rested. 

A white field of distortion grew around the ship, hugging it like a second skin. Slowly it expanded until it formed an egg-shaped shield around it. The shield flickered and then, without so much as pausing to take a final look at the vast oceans, lush forests, and rocky mountains of the great planet behind it, the ship disappeared, leaving for parts unknown.

x

High Flier was holding onto the floor for dear life. Even though the ship wasn’t accelerating anymore, the sight of Shining Seed being slammed against the back wall when the ship first lurched was enough to dissuade High Flier from trying anything. The unicorn was now hunched against the wall, muttering something to himself.

The same hum that had permeated the reactor room was now everywhere, in the walls, in the floor, and beyond the hull of the ship. 

The hum showed no signs of stopping and slowly but surely High Fliers iron grip on the floor loosened and he allowed his hoofs to slip out from under him. Now that he could finally form a coherent thought he could be sure that no longer did the acceleration of the ship threaten to smother him against the wall. Besides the pit in his stomach, everything seemed normal. He stood up, taking a deep breath of the stuffy air and took stock of his surroundings. 

The lockers had remained rooted to the floor, but some of the loose panels in the corridor and the teal unicorn now lay haphazardly along the back wall. High Flier hesitated for a moment but decided to check if everything was ok with the bully.

“Hey, are you alive?” High Flier said, poking the unicorn, who in turn groaned and slowly opened his eyes, ceasing his muttering. For a moment his eyes stared into nothingness before the situation came rushing back to him, the foal's eyes narrowed and he began to breathe rapidly. High Flier kept staring at Shining Seed, unsure of what to do. 

“Oh Celestia, what happened?” Shining Seed asked, staring pleadingly at High Flier, who in turn was taken aback by the sudden change in temperament. They continued to stare at each other until Shining Seed stood up. “Please tell me you know what happened! Where are we now, what does relocating mean? What does this thing do?” High Flier could see the edges of the Unicorn's eyes begin to water, and the longer he spent staring at those eyes, the same eyes that had once looked down upon him yet now begged him, the more he felt himself stiffen and frown. He sneered and turned away from the Unicorn.

“Why are you walking away! Your father's stupid machine has done Celestia knows what, now I’m trapped here, and my family is probably worried sick about me! How dare you walk away.” High Flier heard steps rapidly approaching behind him, and just as they were about to reach him he turned around, stopping Shining Seed in his tracks. He took a single step forward, pressing himself into the slightly taller unicorn, forcing him back.

“My father’s machine? You were the one to press the button Shining, you were the one who wanted to see it in the first place if it’s anypony's fault it’s yours!” High Flier said, punctuating each point with a hoof to Shining Seed’s chest. He kept a restrained tone, although some of his irritation seeped through. The unicorn shrunk under High Fliers gaze.

“Just shut up, Just shut up! Why did you have to bring us here?” The unicorn stared down and slumped against the wall, his head resting against an exposed pipe.

High Flier sneered, before huffing and staring down into the corridor at nothing in particular. Despite the storm of emotions raging within him, most of them aimed at the unicorn, he had to admit that he shared Shining Seed’s questions. He didn’t like being left in the dark, and he needed to know what exactly had happened to them and how to fix it. Luckily, unlike the unicorn, he did know a few pieces of info about their current situation.

He knew that the thing that Shining Seed called a “machine” was in actuality a spaceship. High Flier had known about his father’s secret project for quite some time. After all his father loved to gloat to whoever would listen without ridiculing him. Thus, he knew they were in fact probably traveling somewhere, but he didn’t know where. He grew irritated with his father again, if only he had shared something with his son for once. Then he would be able to fix this mess. High Flier felt irritation rising at the Unicorn, his Father but mostly himself. He chastised himself on giving way to the bully that had turned out to be such a wreck. He stared at the wall for a moment, wishing for once that he was back in his home.

He tried recalling any additional piece of information from his father, hoping it would shed some more light on his current predicament, but all his thoughts returned to the lingering feeling of irritation as it slowly boiled over into anger. Then High Flier remembered a particular detail about this ship, something that should have been obvious from the get-go to High Flier. 

‘Father planned to assemble an expedition!’ Yes, if his father had intended for others to travel with him then he surely would have made his own study. A place where he could safely lock whatever he pleased away from prying eyes. Unfortunately, he didn’t know where it was. High Flier had resisted exploring the ship before besides sneaking in through the hatch to catch a glimpse of it once, the punishment he received had quickly discouraged any further expeditions. But now he had free reign of the ship, free reign of his father’s greatest project and free reign to comb through his father’s study once he found it. 

At the realization all his fears and anxieties melted away, leaving only childish giddiness. He galloped off. He was grinning, excited at the prospect of finally having access to his father's secrets.

As he galloped away from the hatch, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Shining Seed stopped sulking and began following him. He was about to tell the unicorn to leave him alone but quickly forgot about it when his mind once again drifted back to the study.

High Flier wanted to start his search from the reactor, but he couldn’t remember the way for the life of him. He heard Shining Seed ask something behind him, but he tuned the Unicorn out, fixated on checking the walls for any signs like the ones that led them to the exit. He heard Shining Seed shout something angrily at him, but he ignored that too.

High Flier was so caught up that he didn’t notice that he entered a new room, connected to the corridors by a large doorless arch. High Flier snapped back to reality when he collided with a metal desk. Finally, after shaking off the collision, he noticed where he had ended up. As he looked across the room the study drifted out of his mind, this new room taking its place. 

The room was circular, with several desks spread symmetrically across the room and cushioned chairs standing in front of each one. On every desk was a screen framed with metal displaying information in green and black, similar to the ones in the reactor. The walls had curved riveted sheets of metal covering the middle, contrasting the otherwise smooth walls. At the front of the room was a raised platform, upon it sat a sturdy looking chair and in front of it was a joystick. The desks that almost surrounded the chair were either covered in small switches or had rectangular outlines on them. Leading to the platform was a path outlined by ribbed yellow squares which were raised slightly above floor level. Above it all several oval lamps lit up the room in a pleasant glow. Unlike the corridors, this room looked complete.

High Flier's attention was caught by a couple of screens to the right of him, as they displayed the same data that the ones in the reactor did. Glancing at them High Flier was relieved by the absence of any red or any warnings. Another desk's screens were for keeping log of the individual components of the ship, and it seemed that despite the ship looking unfinished the screen stated that the vital components were present. But still, the percentage of completion displayed on one of the screens surprised High Flier, he knew the ship was unfinished, but how could it be only 30% finished when the vital components were present and the hull more or less finished?

“So, uh, High Flier, is everything okay with the machine?” Shining Seed asked, still reluctant to enter the room. High Flier wanted to make some snarky remark at first but found that his previous irritation had all but faded away. 

“The ship has all of its components, so as long as we don’t crash into something then we could be able to make it back.” High Flier said. Shining Seed mulled over the words and High Flier went over to the raised section at the front of the room. He sat down in the chair and noticed that the wall in front of him was entirely covered by the metal sheets as opposed to only the middle. 

“Wait, a ship? So you know what this thing is?” Shining Seed asked. High Flier swiveled his chair to the right, careful not to touch the joystick or any of the switches, and looked at the console. Below each of the levers there was an abbreviation etched into the metal and painted yellow. 

‘This has to be the cockpit.’ High Flier thought, giving the room another once over, but this time with even more awe. For a second he imagined the desks staffed by all kinds of ponies and him sitting there as the pilot of the vessel. However, he came back from his fantasy when he noticed that Shining Seed was looking at him expectantly. 

“Yes, my father wanted to use it to go somewhere.” High Flier said dismissively. 

“That’s all?” 

High Flier noticed that each screen had another functional side to it, and from the pilot's chair one caught his eye in particular. The screen displayed a plan of the entire ship. The ship was split into five sections, each being labeled and having each room within labeled as well. The first one was called “Main Deck”, and considering that it had a room at the front named “Command Center” that had a shape identical to the room he was in High Flier guessed that this was his current floor. Surprisingly it didn’t take him long to find the reactor and the hatch they had used to enter, but no sign of the study. But just then in the corner of his eye, he saw it, off on the opposite side of the main deck was a room labeled “workshop”.

‘Yes, that’s probably it.’ High Flier said and glanced at the plans of the other decks. Two were significantly smaller than the main deck, being labeled “Hangar Deck” and “Quarters” while the fourth section, named “Food and Water”, was roughly the size of the main deck. Additionally, next to the decks a veritable labyrinth of multicolored hallways was shown, which was called “Maintenance”. 

High Flier was impressed, If his suspicions were correct then his father had managed to create a self-sustaining ship, which only made High Flier more excited to get into that workshop and lay his hoofs on the secrets within. He took a moment to commit the path there to memory and ran off, smiling and barely managing to contain an excited laugh as he did so. 

He weaved through the metallic corridors, noticing that the closer he got to the workshop the more complete everything seemed: the wiring and plumbing weren’t exposed, the lights shined brighter and at one point the floor got a path of a blue material slightly reminiscent of plastic. The corridor also lost its cold and unfinished look and became almost arch-like with grey-beige walls. High Flier shuddered and then noticed the soft hum of an air conditioner. Shining Seed, who was following close behind High Flier seemed unsure but remained silent. 

The hallway led them to a solid metal door, with a sign attached to the wall next to it.

Workshop

‘Finally, I’m here!’ High Flier let out a laugh, flying over to the door and pushing the familiar green button. The large room on the other side would have made him drool had he not had restraint. Shelves stood in rows, lined with tightly affixed reagents. His father had installed a personal library into the other side of the room, which was brimming with books. Blueprints and sketches were affixed to the walls, accompanying several almost completely filled out blackboards. In the middle of the room sat an empty table. 

High Flier galloped into the room, taking note that tools and pieces of paper were strewn about close to the far wall. High Flier went over to the bookshelves, as he approached he noticed that the shelves had a long wooden panel that when attached to the sides of the bookshelf would cover a third of the books' height and keep them firmly in place on the bookshelf. 

High Flier undid the flimsy lock with his wing and barely waited for the panel to slam against the shelf before diving for the books, grabbing more than he could carry and using the momentum of himself falling to glide over to the table and to drop them on it.

‘Yes, yes, alchemy, runes, wards, and enchantments! Seems my father wanted to be able to reference all of his books on his little trip.’ He opened the book about alchemy, which like the other books had a dozen bookmarks sticking out of it. Questions that he had had for several years now but denied to him were laid bare before him and he couldn’t stop himself from grinning. Then a hoof shook him, startling him out of his trance-like state.

“Wuh, uh” High Flier said, and saw that Shining Seed was staring back at him, angry.

“High Flier, why aren’t you getting us home! I have to get back to my family and you’re sitting here, enjoying yourself like this is some sort of vacation for you!” High Flier narrowed his eyes.

“Oh yeah, then mister heir, what am I supposed to do? If you haven’t noticed I’m not exactly an expert on spaceships.”

“Well, I expect you to not ignore me and to get your father's ship back to Canterlot. You were the one who was so intent on showing me this and you’re the only one who can fix it.”

“Oh really, now you need my help? Maybe it’s you who’s the failure.” at those words Shining Seed screamed and slammed the book shut, startling High Flier.

“You’ve just told me that we’re on a spaceship that’s flying who knows where, we’re miles away from our families and all you care about is to make fun of me?!” High Flier sneered at the unicorn's words.

“Oh so now it’s suddenly wrong to ridicule other ponies Shining?” Shining Seed broke, he grabbed High Flier with his hooves.

“You get me back to my family, right this instant! Or else I’ll, or else I’ll beat you up with my spells!” Shining Seed shouted, growing more confident by the second. High Flier stared at the unicorn, a growl escaping him, but he resigned himself. He told himself that he did not want to have to fight the unicorn because it could damage the books, however subconsciously he was also slightly afraid of what the unicorn might do to him.

High Flier started reaching for the books but Shining Seed cut him off, grabbing his hoof.

“How am I supposed to fix this and get you home if I can’t read my father's notes?” Shining Seed realized his mistake and let go, coughing awkwardly. The unicorn went to stand at the threshold of the door, keeping an eye on High Flier.

High Flier simply picked up the book about runes, surprisingly one of the bookmarks was titled “Relocation”. Opening the section revealed a multitude of drawings along with scattered notes explaining them, however, the notes were abrupt and often incomplete, only fully understandable to the pony that had written them. Despite the poor explanations High Flier began to get a picture of what had happened. 

This “Relocation” was one of the main features of the ship and according to the notes allowed the ship to bend space around itself to travel across vast distances, distances so vast in fact, that High Flier could only stare at the numbers, unable to truly comprehend them. The book, however, didn’t go into the nitty-gritty detail of how relocation worked, rather it laid out different possible designs for runes that could be used to enhance it, and even there it was light on the technical details. 

Several features ranging from keeping the reactor cooler during relocation to more ambitious concepts such as having relocation power itself without a reactor were suggested, accepted by a small v to the side or rejected, and crossed over by a large x. However, in this sea of notes, High Flier found something familiar. He had seen this rune before when inspecting the desk without the panel in the reactor. Reading what it did made his eyes widen. 

“I got it!” High Flier shouted, and galloped out of the room, soon followed by Shining Seed. The satisfaction of having solved the puzzle propelled him forward at a breakneck pace through the slowly worsening corridors. High Flier stopped by the cockpit to look at the map. High Flier quickly found the reactor room again and went towards it as Shining Seed lingered for a second, taken aback by the map of the ship. But it didn’t take long for Shining Seed to notice that High Flier was disappearing. Unwilling to get left behind he ran after him again.

x

High Flier recognized the hallway, it was brighter than before but the hum was unmistakable and much louder than in the rest of the ship. He opened the door and stepped into the room, the nervous gaze of Shining Seed on him. As he entered the room he was bathed in the blue light of the reactor, the lights in the room having broken down. He strutted confidently up to the desks, searching for the exposed section.

He found the rune and put his hoof to it, but before he could start properly examining it he was interrupted by Shining Seed. 

“Are you really sure you should mess with that? All of this was because… because of that orb thing.” High Flier stared at Shining Seed for a moment, before turning back and inspecting the rune closer.

“First off, it’s not an “orb thing” it’s a reactor and it’s what’s generating the energy for this ship” He tried tracing the etched lines of the rune with his hooves, only to be shocked and having to quickly jerk back his hoof. Shining Seed looked on in silence as High Flier rubbed his hoof and muttered something under his breath.

“Are you sure you know...”

“Yes, I’m sure!” High Flier cut the unicorn off, looking back at the rune and trying to find a point of entry.

“So what’s your plan?” High Flier gave up on the task, for now. Turning around to see that Shining Seed was standing uncomfortably close to him. He turned back to the rune, feeling irritation starting to rise within him.

“Relocation is basically a really powerful engine, and currently it is taking us far away from Equestria.”

“How, how far?”

“Far enough that we could spend thousands of years traveling and still not reach it.” If the unicorns gasp was anything to go by he had probably turned pale.

“So how are you going to fix it?”

“See this rune? It is something called a reversal rune, it stores all of the information the ship used to plot a course right here.” High Flier said, pointing to the glowing blue circle in the middle. “If this power is released then the ship would travel to its starting point by reversing the data stored within the mana.” 

“But what about the planet's rotation?” Shining Seed asked. “If we went back to the place we had started from wouldn’t we be met by just end up in space?”

“Now see that’s the beautiful part of this rune” High Flier answered, looking back at the rune in question. “It’s based on the relative gravity of the location, so unless there is a location that has the same amount of planets with the same amount of mass and an exact copy of our sun within our galaxy then everything should go well.”

“And all of this was written in that book?” Shining Seed asked.

“However, this rune is, yes it was. As I was saying, it’s completely blocked while we’re traveling.”

“Are you sure?”

“I didn’t realize you were an expert on runes Shining Seed.”

“Well, are you sure? And what will happen if there is such a place?” High Flier seemed to mull it over for a second.

“I don’t know, but knowing my father it’d probably just not work, he was always one for backup plans.”

“Are you sure? Because I don’t want to be torn in two because you thought everything would be fine.”

“Will you continue questioning my skills or will I be able to work on bringing us home? Or did you suddenly stop caring about your family?”

“Just shut up and fix this!”

“I’m trying!”

High Flier traced the impossibly difficult rune, then in a stroke of brilliance, he instead checked the other runes that surrounded it. Sure enough, each of them was connected to the reversal rune. He picked one of the surrounding runes at random, flooding it with the meager amount of mana that he had and directing it to the point where it connected to the reversal rune.

“Hey, what are you doing!” His mana fell apart and dissipated into the system from the sudden interruption. He looked at Shining Seed, irritation bleeding through his posture and eyes.

“I told you that as long as we’re traveling we can’t use this rune, and if I block one of the pathways to an essential system for relocation it should put us out of it and allow us to release the stored energy.”

“This can’t be the only way, you’re rushing this!”

“You have been nothing but unhelpful since we got here. You’ve done nothing but whine and complain while not trusting me to do what you threatened me to do!”

“You’re rushing this, what if the ship is not supposed to stop now and you’re just making everything worse?”

“Because, this ship's relocation system might run on liquid fuel for all I know and then it might, just might, be the case that my father chose not to keep an unfinished ship fully loaded with possibly flammable liquid. If that happens then we would be stranded millions of years away from Equestria.” Shining Seed fired back.

“Oh, so you looked at a book for ten minutes and now you think you suddenly know everything about this ship?” Both of the foals stared at each other for a moment.

Then High Flier snapped.

“Don’t question me!” He shouted, pouring mana relentlessly into the points of connection. Shining Seed stumbled back, and saw the reactor turn back to its original color. This only lasted for a single second, however, as the reactors shell next to the exposed runes shattered and an explosion erupted from within, blasting High Flier with the liquid and knocking Shining Seed off his hooves. 

High Flier felt a wave of nausea hit him and his skin tingle, but he didn’t have the time necessary to react to it as the sound of the hull tearing apart could be heard for a second before all air started getting sucked out of the room through the open door. This also only lasted for a fraction of a second as doors quickly slammed against metal in the distance, stopping the flow of air, but the tearing of metal continued. The foals were thrown around the room like pebbles as the ship vibrated and turned erratically. Shining Seed collided with the pipes leading out of the reactor horn first, breaking them and causing a gas to be blown into the room. The foals choked on the thick gas, before colliding against each other and finally losing consciousness.

x

The foals walked beside each other, none daring to go ahead of the other, afraid of what might await them. There was no trace of the dark liquid on High Fliers coat, neither did Shining Seeds horn hurt and both foals looked fine, as if they hadn’t just been repeatedly slammed against metal.

Alarms had been blaring the same message over and over again since they awoke but they had long since tuned it out. Both their heads were buzzing and an uncomfortable weight had settled inside of them. Their hostility towards one another was forgotten, and when they entered the room that they had been dreading they could barely form a coherent thought.

In front of them, the cockpit was lit up by flickering lights, the metal sheets covering the middle had either retracted up into the wall or were floating off broken into space, revealing a long line of thick and clear windows. But what bothered them most wasn’t the beat-up exterior of the ship, no, it was what lay beyond it. A vast icy giant stretched out in front of them, storms visibly raging on the surface. To the sides, far in the distance lay a massive asteroid belt and a couple of moons. A red star lit up the surface of the frozen rock. The foals slumped against the floor, staring pleadingly at the planet. However, horror emerged on their faces as they saw the planet grow bigger in front of them, their fears validated.

The blaring alarms came back to the forefront of their minds along with the robotic voice which accompanied them.

“Warning: critical atmospheric entry in 3 hours. Warning: several critical systems have been damaged. Warning: critical atmospheric entry in 3 hours.”

Shining Seed started to cry, and honestly, High Flier was just about ready to do the same thing.