//------------------------------//
// chapter 12: Summer Sun Celebration 
// Story: Friendship Drive Charging... 
// by Connie Spaceplone 
//------------------------------//

I tried to think of how to respond to Shrugging Matter's argument. I couldn't come up with a good answer. So I settled on trying to change the subject, "We are ready to engage the Friendship Drive. Where in the Orimsari system do you get off?"
Shrugging Matter replied, "Just drop me off at the Equinenox Station.”
"Did they really name it that? The pun is physically painful."
I loaded the data from my stellar cartography database.
"Sweet Celestia, they even went through the trouble of setting the orbit of the port so that it circles its parent planet exactly twice a year."

"Friendship Drive charging." I announced to everypony.
I turned on the FSD, and it began its dance to open the aperture into hyperspace. My thrusters fired, pushing us into the fine membrane that separated normal space from hyperspace.
With the magical light show concluded, I searched the area for a miasma current towards our destination.
I found one, and started to follow it. I could feel the shipself's body start to vibrate as we entered the magic currents. The feeling of acceleration increased, and the stars started to move past my window.
It was only a short hop to the Orimsari system. I altered course early towards the planet, and we started to slow down. The Equinenox station had a very high orbit around the planet. As we approached it, its parent planet seemed so small in the distance that it seemed as if the station was lonely in deep space. 
At a distance of about 11 kilometers from the port, I collapsed my hyperspace bubble to bring us back into normal space. We were contacted by ATC almost immediately. 
"Neighkon TY-198, welcome to our station, please send a standard docking request before entering."

"Equinenox station, Neighkon TY-198, to dock."

"Request cleared, proceed to pad 09."
I entered the interior of the station and settled down on the pad. I signalled port control to lower us into the hangar so Shrugging Matter could disembark.
I lowered my head and opened my mouth. Shrugging Matter walked out and was greeted by a group of ponies who seemed to have been expecting him. 
The group departed the hangar area into an elevator. 
With no further business in this port, Pinwheel and I simply sold some exploration data and decided to launch again.
I turned towards the Blossom Valley agricultural station, which was located in the System "Harmonious Patch" and charged the Friendship Drive. It took a few hours to reach the target star. Our miasma current crossed the path of a large convoy. Many Type-9, Anacondas, a few Cutters, and the occasional Python, Cobra, and Keelback types of ships were travelling together and were heading for the same place. "What are they all up to?" Pinwheel wondered out loud. Based on their heading and current hyperspace weather patterns, I predicted that they were going somewhere in the core systems of Alliance space, and I told Pinwheel so. 

"Intercept them. I am curious what this is all about." he commanded. I altered course towards a ship at the front. But flying together in such a large group gave the convoy such a large speed boost that most of the ships sped past me with no chance for me to catch up. Eventually, I was able to get into formation with a Type-9 freighter near the end of the convoy. Pinwheel opened a commms channel to the other ship. The other spaceplone waved happily and said "Hi, what's up? You here to join the Community Goal?"
"What Community Goal?" Pinwheel asked. 

"Don't you read the news?" The other ship replied.

"Accessing Galnet." I said. 
I immediately found a relevant article and read out loud, 

"Summer Sun Celebration to be held at the Capital of the Alliance 
*Pilots Federation alert*
The Alliance of Independent Systems has announced its intention to host a Summer Sun Celebration on Turner’s World in the Alioth system. This event is to celebrate the historical  return of the sun to the skies of Equestria, as well as the unity of the alicorn diarchy.

The Alliance prime minister, Edmund Marehon, commented:
‘This is a wonderful opportunity to show our appreciation to the ponies of Equestria, and to demonstrate the strength of the Alliance. Even though we are not governed by Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, we are still bound by the principles of friendship and cooperation. We take pride in our shared history and are inviting everyone from the Equestrian Federation, the Empire, and independent systems to join us in this celebration.’
The Alliance Assembly is looking for commodities to be delivered to the planet of Turner’s World, which is the capital of the Alliance.
As has been tradition for the last centuries, the date is not Equus’ summer solstice, but around the summer solstice of the respective host word. The event is scheduled for 3305-09-28. Independent pilots wishing to support the initiative are asked to deliver pastries, streamers, and songbirds to Garden City on Turner’s World in the Alioth system."

Pinwheel looked at my avatarself, "We should join! This seems like a worthwhile and potentially profitable cause." 

I agreed, but reminded him that we still had our cargo hold full of farming machinery that we needed to sell. Pinwheel nodded in agreement and said "Let us proceed quickly to Blossom Valley, sell our stuff, then come back to join the festivities."
"Agreed!" I said. 

The Type-9, who was still on comms with us said "Remember you can sign up for the Community Goal from any terminal. That includes the one at your destination."
I thanked the other ship and disconnected the comms channel.
I altered course again to get back on track towards Blossom Valley.
It took just over an hour to reach the agricultural station. Following a normal docking request, I landed on pad 09. In no time, Pinwheel and I sold all of the farming equipment. 
We made a good profit from the sale. Quickly, we signed up for the Community Goal and saw that we now had a contribution counter, currently at 0 tons. We also had a display showing the total contribution from all participants, currently at several hundred thousand tons.
Pinwheel suggested we look at the market information to find suitable sellers for the commodities required by the Community Goal. 

We found stations cheaply exporting pastries and streamers nearby. Just 30 light years from Alioth. We journeyed to one of them and filled my hold with pastries and streamers, and set a course for the Alioth system. The delivery target, Turner's world, was a moon orbiting the fifth planet of the system, a dark blue gas giant that seemed to be covered in clouds. 
We spent the rest of the day just flying back and forth between the stations and Garden City, delivering full load after full load of pastries and streamers. I found it exciting to contribute to such a large scale project, observing the numbers grow. While Pinwheel shared the enthusiasm for this project with me, he did seem very bored from going back and forth between the same two locations over and over again. Not even the challenge of navigating the slowly changing hyperspace weather provided enough stimulation for him. By the time we completed our 20th run, he was lounging in his pilot chair in a position that was both unsafe in the event of a collision, and would cause him back problems if he kept it up for too long. 
I decided to take pity on Pinwheel, and said "Want to do something else? I have downloaded the Mission Boards of this region, and there is a mission to deliver 285 tons of songbirds as part of the community goal. It even has a clause for transporting a handler for these birds. But it requires a first class passenger cabin, which we don't have. The mission originates from the Bullen Horticultural Holdings in the GD 140 system, 45 light years from here. Bullen Horticultural Holdings is a base owned by the Foalyama Neighvingo Startourism faction. They are allied to the Empire."
Pinwheel perked up at this news. He said, "This seems interesting. Let’s go and see what we can learn about the mission."
My pegasus commander looked at the mission description that I had conveniently displayed on one of the cockpit screens.
It required a first class passenger cabin, 285 tons of cargo space, and to transport all of it to Turner's World. 
"We have the cargo space," the grey pegasus said, "but we only have an economy class cabin. What's the nearest port that sells first class cabins?"

I checked the map. Alioth was also home to a large corporate holding of Neighkon Spaceways, my manufacturer. They should have the cabins available in their outfitting department. We accepted the mission, confident that we would be able to add the cabin to my loadout, but not confident that the mission would still be available if we waited until we actually had the cabin installed.
We headed for the surface port, and found a small settlement selling first class cabins. 
We were able to buy a first class cabin, which cost us over a hundred thousand bits. With our new cabin set up, we took off and made the fastest route to the GD 140 system. 

Taking the faster path was making the journey through the hyperspace miasma much more turbulent than usual. I could feel my shipself shaking and vibrating in response to the turbulence, and Pinwheel was holding on to his chair, struggling to adjust the sail trim that he insisted to take over on my behalf. He was much more entertained by the ride, and was laughing and cheering at the most unexpected moments. I tried to keep a straight face, but couldn't help smiling myself. 
We arrived in the GD 140 system. My commander adjusted course towards the second star of the system, which was parent to the rocky planet where Bullen was located. We entered the atmosphere and started to descend to the landing pad. 
The flight to Bullen took just under an hour. When we landed, the ground crew greeted us and already brought dozens of bird cages that they hurriedly loaded into our hold. 
As the amount of bird in my cargo hold increased, so did the cacophony of their chirping, screeching, and twittering.
"I really hope our bird handler arrives soon, I’m getting tired of this noise!" I said to Pinwheel 

"What? I can't hear you, the birds are very loud!" He responded, giggling.

As if on cue, a pony approached our ship just then and walked up my rear cargo ramp. She was a pegasus with a pure white coat and a bright, blue flowing mane.
I recognized her cutie mark of a broken statue immediately, and judging by Pinwheel's increased nervousness, so did he. 
He approached her and stammered, "Princess Aisling Duval. It is an honor to-" But she interrupted him,

"Please, none of that. My entire life I try to get ponies to stop groveling in front of me. You can call me Aisling. And if the next thing you do is to bow, I will step off this vessel immediately."

I was 86.3% sure this was an idle threat.
Still, it made an impression on Pinwheel, who straightened up more than he had to, which inadvertently gave him the appearance of a royal guard standing in attention and said "I am Pinwheel, and this is Connie. We have a first class cabin for your stay during the transport."

She laughed, "Oh yes, that. I actually had to haggle with my family, who insisted that a luxury class cabin should be a requirement for this mission. First class was as low as they would agree to go. It is a typical familiar indulgence. And a wasteful one, too, considering that I will spend most of the journey in the cargo hold tending to these birds.  A luxury class cabin would have meant I'd had to go with a passenger liner. And you know how chatty they are."
"Passenger liners are too chatty? You're travelling with birds! They'll talk all the way to Turner's World!" 
The princess walked further into my cargo hold, stood in the center of all the noise, looked around at the avian occupants and said in a voice so soft and faint, that I was sure no one would hear her, let alone understand her in the cacophony of chirping, screeching, and twittering  "Alright everybirdy, if you could please just settle down for a moment, that would be very nice."

Silence. Instant. Dead. Total. Silence. The birds all stopped what they were doing and looked at the imperial pegasus princess expectantly. The loudest noise was an air conditioning pump behind the walls of my cargo hold.

"How in Equestria did she do that?" Pinwheel whispered to me, awed by what we had seen and heard.
I shrugged, but said nothing.
Aisling smiled at us both in amusement, and continued speaking aloud. 

"It seems we are all ready to start the journey now. I hope you don't mind if I ride with the cargo, it makes things much easier for me. My job is to take care of the birds, and make sure that they are happy and healthy."

It seemed the expensive cabin we bought would see little use, but the expense would only cut slightly into the considerable mission payment. I raised my cargo ramp, got clearance, took off, and headed back once more to Garden City.
I was sure there was a political component to Aisling's presence, but her main concern seemed to be the birds. After dropping her and her cargo off at the festival preparation site, we collected our payment and spent the next few days until the festival doing several more cargo trips. Our final delivery occurred on the last day of the community goal, which was also the first day of the festival. Arriving in Alioth, I observed that the moon "Turner's World", where the Summer Sun Celebration was to be held, was not where it's supposed to be.

"What do you mean?" Pinwheel asked

"The inclination of its orbit around the planet is off by 11.2 degrees. Its axial tilt is off by 7.33 degrees. Its orbital phase is 4.6 degrees late."

"Well, it's the Summer Sun Celebration. I'm sure they adjusted the orbit for the event."
We made the cut to be the top 25% of largest cargo contributors to the event, and we would receive a special reward afterwards. We also got assigned viewing spots on a grassy hill above the main stage area. 

The festival area was massive. There were countless pre show events consisting of feasts, and shows, and spectacles.
Princess Celestia and Princess Luna of the Equestrian Federation, Princess Arissa LaWhinny-Duval of the Empire were guests of honor. Ponies were happy that the three superpowers were meeting together for thisl.

Everypony seemed to forget for the time being that the pony race was separated into three superpowers.

When it was time to start the main event, all eyes turned towards the horizon. It was still night. Not only was Garden City currently on the night side of Turner's World, but it would also soon dip below the shadow of the gas giant it orbited. The Alliance had set up a stage where many unicorns suddenly lit up their horns in unison, and the starry backdrop of the night sky started to rotate around us. My observation of the motion confirmed my earlier calculation. This part of the show would bring Turner's World perfectly back into the orbital position where it was supposed to be. And the dip below the parent star's shadow would be brief.

The pure white light of the Alioth star rose above the horizon.  A crescent of light grew over the gas giant's horizon, and as the light of the star seemed to spread to the left and right of it, it became obvious what imagery they intended: a white alicorn spreading her wings!

But not only that, the rotation of Turner's World was combined with its motion into Alioth 5's shadow, and the light of the star shone at us, being refracted by the atmosphere of the gas giant. More and more of Alioth 5's blue horizon was lit up. 

The motion of Turner's World continued, and with the deeper, helium-rich dark blue layers of Alioth 5 now being illuminated, it looked as if a smaller, dark blue light was now clinging to the bright light of the star. It followed the shimmering crescent dawn as it moved across the horizon, and the light show was more beautiful because of the added blue. We thought the initial white shimmer was pretty already, But this awe-inspiring display surpassed its lone beauty and made it obvious that the white light was woefully incomplete without its dark blue companion. 

The symbolism was not lost on the alicorn sisters. In their VIP booths, Celestia and Luna could be seen hugging each other tightly as they watched the show. The "raising of the sun" concluded with deafening cheering and applause from the crowd.
'Vox Galactica' would later publish an article about the show praising it as "one of the most spectacular shows ever to be held in the history of the festival".
After the event, an Alliance representative met with us to give us our reward for our contribution to the event. 13 million bits and a decorative cactus for my cockpit.
We spent the next few hours trying to find a spot on the dashboard where the cactus would look good but not obstruct the view of the pilot. I had to admit that the cactus was quite pretty, though it did not seem very useful. 
"What do you think? I mean, it's a nice decoration, but does it serve any purpose?" I asked Pinwheel.
"No idea. Maybe it is a souvenir of the event."
My Pegasus commander finally found a good spot for the cactus on the dashboard. He proudly declared, "I'm going to put it right here, and I will name it ‘Sprig’.” 
I smiled at him, and replied, "Good choice. That sounds like a lovely name for such a wonderful plant."