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// Chapter 3: Approaching Danger 
// Story: A Stone's Throw Away 
// by Emperor123456 
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 Alarms blared, the hull groaned and yet the colts couldn’t so much as muster a single peep. Slowly, but surely, the planet took up more and more of their sight. As it grew the features, the very fine details of it came into view: the white peaks, basins, and the single massive raging snowstorm decorating the eastern part of the planet.

“Warning: critical atmospheric entry in 2.5 hours. Warning: several critical systems have been damaged. Warning: critical atmospheric entry in 2.5 hours.”

They were standing so close that Shining Seed could feel High Flier shake and feel his ragged breathing even reach his own fur. Shining Seed had long since stopped crying, but his tears still stained his sweaty fur. His legs were shaking too, he wanted to sit, he wanted to give in and lose control of them, but High Flier was still standing, and if he could stand then so would he. 

Then, as if out of nowhere, while still staring at the planet, High Flier started falling. Slowly at first, but he quickly lost all pretense of control and collided loudly against a metal desk. Shining felt himself seize up for a second, that fall looked bad, yet High Flier himself showed no reaction.

Shining Seed breathed out, and sat down on the closest chair, he idly noted that it was surprisingly comfortable but it hardly mattered now. He looked back at the planet, and then to Shining Seed. He went over the scene playing out in front of him yet it just didn’t register with him. Everything felt wrong, why was he drifting towards his death, why was he here in the first place, and finally, why wasn’t he doing anything? He looked over the streams of data appearing on the nearby screen, despondently looking through them but all of it just flew through him, none of the data meant anything to him.

He eventually gave up, looking down at the desk as his breathing seemed to stop. 

For a second he turned his head towards the planet, and when turning back he saw High Flier. Shining Seed once again saw the weird, meek outsider that he had always seen, rather than the detached yet determined colt he had talked to just a few hours, or maybe minutes earlier. Yet the deep red light reflecting off his vacant eyes, the same light that colored his once orange coat a few shades darker, seemed to highlight something else as well. His body was still shaking, his mouth slightly open and fixated on the giant in front of them. And then it hit Shining Seed, he looked down on his own shaking hooves and then looked to the planet, his vision was tainted red too. He choked out a quiet laugh.

He thought back to the academy, it had happened just a few hours ago and yet it felt a lifetime away. Shining Seed didn’t want to admit it, but he knew that if he had just shut up that one time he...no, they, wouldn't be in this situation. His father had always told him that a captain was responsible for his ship, and although this one wasn’t his, he had helped sink it nonetheless. He had done so much, worked hard every single day so that his father’s legacy would endure, but in the end, he had acted like a fool and ruined everything. He had failed.

“High Flier...” The other pony slowly turned his head and stared into Shining Seeds' eyes. Shining Seed fell silent.

Without so much as saying a word High Flier went back to staring at the planet, and Shining Seed did the same. He stared and stared and stared and stared.

It was oddly peaceful in a grim way, the clouds moving across the icy wastelands as their features grew more and more defined. It reminded Shining Seed of the clouds above his home, of when his father took him out on one of his airships. First on those small and old gondolas barely fit to be called vessels, and each time after those first few years on steadily bigger and nicer ones. Now, long since he had last flown with his father he was returning to the clouds. 

Shining Seed jerked from the sudden noise. Turning around he saw High Flier on his hooves, shaking and looking down onto the ground. Shining Seed wanted to say something, yet each word stuck to his throat as if glued to his flesh. High Flier tried pushing on forward but something stopped him, freezing him in place. Then, with a jerk of his head, he stared straight ahead and walked forward. Just as his weird movements had come, so too did they cease, since when High Flier walked over to the pilot's seat he walked normally, in an almost relaxed fashion.

High Flier looked at the different buttons, staring at some before huffing in frustration while leaving others in disappointment without so much as a glance. High Flier even fiddled with the joystick next to the seat, but the ship didn’t respond. High Flier left the pilot's area much more irritated and at a faster pace than when he’d arrived. He soon obscured his body behind the screen with the map of the ship.

The sound of a keyboard emerged from behind the screen, refusing to be drowned out by the alarm, before a cry of frustration followed. High Flier ran to the windows on the left side of the cockpit and stomped the ground in frustration. Coming back he was physically crestfallen and slumped back against the ground without so much as a word. Shining Seed stared at him for the longest time before finally being able to ask his question.

“What is it?” 


High Flier responded by staring at Shining Seed, he kept it up for a second before letting his head sink down. 

“We’re doomed.” 

Shining Seed had to take a moment to process what the colt had said. Somehow hearing the other foal saying it was miles worse than the obvious reality approaching them outside.

“What?”

“I said that we’re doomed! Do I really need to repeat myself?” 

“How?” Shining Seed asked, but got no response. “Please, High Flier, I’m sorry for how I talked to you, I was, I was just teasing you, just tell me what’s going on! Please!” The words made High Flier stare daggers at him, and he flinched. High Flier shook his head, and his words took on a tone of hysteria. 

“When I… when the gathering rune was interrupted the ship probably couldn’t tolerate such a fast deacceleration, I think. Because of this the ship’s hull, its body, imploded in several places. In other words, the ship is more or less crushed and split wide open.” High Flier took a moment to get his breathing under control. “When it broke down it seems to have been on a course towards this planet, and since the ship is broken we can’t alter the course.” The two foals didn’t say a word as the blaring alarm took over the room once more.

“But aren’t we on a ship? Can’t we just use our engines to correct our course? Or were those broken.”

“The map of the ship…” High Flier pointed a shaking hoof towards the screen by the pilot’s chair. “the live version, that’s supposed to show the condition of each room is cut off from the main engines, as are the controls by the pilot's chair.”

“But if there’s a chance they’re intact why can’t we just go there and check it out? Most of the engines on airships have a way to manually control them if the need calls for it, after all, I’m sure that...”

“I know that you moron! Are you even listening to me, I said that the ship was split open, what THAT means is that many rooms are currently filled with the cold vacuum of space which in turn means that we would die going there, so unless you have a magic spell to breathe and keep yourself safe from the temperature out there you can keep your mouth shut! And even if there was a possibility, just the faintest chance that we could reach them they would already have leaked out too much fuel for us to use them. I checked.” Shining Seed shrunk back as the other foal assaulted him, his crimson bathed form imposing on him in ways few had dared before. He looked back at the sun, the planet, the pieces of debris outside and opened his mouth in a grimace teetering on the edge of tears. 

He needed to see them, the engines, his family was one of airship pilots after all! The kings of the skies and of all things that flew, if there was anyone that would know about engines here it would be him. The heir of the skies and the seed family.

He walked over to the nearby window, the eyes of High Flier still boring into his back. What he saw made him cringe. The entirety of the ship had been bent at a 45-degree angle, giving him a good view of the busted exterior of the ship as well as the insides of many rooms, which were slowly emptying their contents as the ship drifted along to its doom. The engine on this side of the ship, surprisingly, had gotten off easy, only having been punctured in a few places, which were now only barely leaking a sparkling orange fluid.

The longer he stared at the corpse that could barely be called a ship anymore the more he was filled with despair.

He jumped in shock as High Flier put his hooves around him, turning him to face him. He had once again returned to his meek disposition: his face was down, his body shook and he stuttered something under his breath. Then, with a surge of energy, he lifted his face and looked deep into Shining's eyes, his own on the verge of crying.

“Look, please just tell me that you’ve got an idea, something, anything! I don’t want to die. I’ve checked everything, but maybe you know something, something that I forgot to check! Anything!”

“Come on Seed, keep a cool head, and think!” He heard a voice from his past tell him.

He gathered his resolve and brought himself back, no, he would not cry now, his first ship would NOT be sinking. High Flier seemed to notice the change within Shining Seed as well, and calmed down, his lips beginning to form the outlines of a hopeful smile even as his eyes were still shaking.


He thought back to what High Flier had told him, going through the information and immediately discarding the easy plans that were already out of the question. But in the end, everything came back to the leaking engines, they would need them to live.

“Do you happen to know approximately how long we were out?” Shining Seed asked High Flier as he went back to scrutinizing the engines with a fervent glare.

“I didn’t feel that much head pain when waking up so I’d say a whil… oh...” High Flier didn’t even finish his sentence before joining Shining Seed beside the window. 

“I told you, I checked. And with how little fuel is escaping from the tank I’d say that most of what we had has already left the fuel tanks, and is being obscured by the ship’s rotating body. ” the dejected look came upon his face again. 

“So, how much fuel do we have? How much have we lost!” 

“The fuel chamber should be pressurized and since it’s barely leaking anything, not much could be left in there. I can’t tell you the exact number since the main engines are disconnected.” High Flier said, annoyance worming its way back into his voice.

High Flier slammed his hoof down on the edge of the window, cursing his situation. But looking back at the fuel stirred a forgotten memory.

“Wait could that be?” He took another glance at the liquid drifting out in unstable bubbles. The shape, the form, the amber-like coloring, it had to be. “Isn’t that ex-fuel?”

“What is that?”

“Ex-fuel, I heard my dad mention some griffon investors were looking for ships using this sort of fuel, apparently it’s so strong that the main problem is preventing it from releasing too much energy and due to the danger it’s also banned in Equestria, but since we have so little maybe that won’t be a problem!”

“Which means that...” High Flier started

“We might have enough fuel to escape! And it makes sense for your dad to use this because my dad said that while it is dangerous, it is also extremely efficient and takes a long time to use up. Yes! That is definitely ex-fuel.”

High Flier let his smile fully form.

“It’s worth a shot.”