//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: The Doctor's Prescription 
// Story: Ad Astra Per Derpy Aspera 
// by SparklingTwilight 
//------------------------------//

"She is not going to die," Doctor Hooves shook his head. "Not anytime soon, at least. We have gone through the maths several times. She has the necessary thrust." He punctuated his words by tapping chalk against a looming massive board cluttered with calculations and, in one corner--a tiny cartoon of a pony being launched from a trebuchet.

"She exceeded her margin of error by performing that loop-the-loop."

Doctor Hooves sighed, "She has lost a certain percentage of her original thrust." He indicated an underlined number. "But she gained a gravitational boost. She should otherwise be able to complete the journey assuming she executes proper maneouvers to maintain proper orientation. Our observations confirm she has done this. Therefore, she will successfully arrive at Marred assuming there is nothing incorrect with the estimated rate of fuel burn and assuming she fails to perform another diversion from the mission plan."

"We have to bring her back."

"We knew her psychological profile included an--ahem--risk of "risk taking". Excuse the tautology. Or, is it a double-negative? Repetition? Probably yes."

"Doctor!"

"Apologies. The point is: because we foresaw this eventuality, we accounted for her performing at least one maneouver of this type."





Lightning Dust had seen the calculations. She'd been cautioned against showing off. But. She'd paged through every paragraph of the mission plan. The egghead ponies planned for margins of error. And there was just enough margin for her to perform one absolutely slam-dunk amazing show everypony could see... provided they had telescopes and were looking in her direction. But a ton of ponies certainly were doing that because she was first. 

Somepony else was going to do it first if she didn't seize the opportunity--probably it would be a government-backed Wonderbolt. She had this one chance. She was nopony as far as the corrupt Equestrian government was concerned, just a pony of whom nothing particularly great was expected. 

Because she wasn't a government-backed Wonderbolt, ponies tended to think she was an amateur even though her stunt shows were better than anything the Wonderbolts executed. Her expertise wasn't speedy or mass-coordinated ballet-like flying pieces, but her work was amazing in a technical and showmareship sense--her shows took serious skill. But all that was a big whoop as far as the Palace was concerned: almost all historically famous pegasi were Wonderbolts--except those who predated the organization like proto-Wonderbolt soldier Flash Magnus and clever-oh-so-clever Somnambula who might as well have been a unicorn at heart. Still, everypony who saw Lightning Dust's death-defying stunt show came to know that she was somepony special--even if they didn't want to admit it. 

And now everypony would know how great she was because of a most undeniable history-making reason. She'd be the first pony to loop around the moon.




"Shouldn't elliptically circling the moon have given her extra thrust? She'd use its gravity to increase her speed?"

"She diverted from the planned path. Gained some velocity, and will lose some readjusting to catch Marred's orbit. If she does not readjust her trajectory, she will be going very fast to nowhere."

"I don't want to announce her death. Her relatives..."

"She does not--doesn't--have any living relatives. Perhaps this is why she became a stunt pony? Nopony to dissuade her. Makes me think of myself," Doctor Hooves chuckled.

"As Princess," the purple pony before him frowned, "I have a duty to my little ponies to treat their lives as more valuable than anything, even scientific advancement. I cannot believe you recommended a pony with such a distressing psychological profile to take the mission. That was not a kind thing to do to her."

Doctor Hooves spread his eponymous pony hooves. "Yes, yes, yes, indubitably, but--and please follow me here." He led the Princess to a table, took a sheaf of papers from that table and sorted through them. "Yes, yes, yes. No. Ah. Here it is. Your signature." He showed her the approval selecting Lightning Dust.

"To be fair, Princess, I would have preferred my wife be selected, because she held more experience than any of these ponies. But that could not happen," Doctor Hooves frowned.

The Princess sighed, "I am so sorry, Doctor Hooves. I remember now why I signed off."

"You must have a lot on your mind, Princess."

"Rainbow Dash couldn't--"

Doctor Hooves opened his mouth, but Twilight Sparkle held up a hoof and continued. "And I don't blame you for the explosion that sent her to the hospital. We couldn't have expected diamond dog separatists to sabotage the rocket.

"We really shouldn't have made space achievements a race with the griffons. This waste is needless. Pointless. Discovery is admirable, but we should take our time to do it safely instead of making it a point of national chauvinism." The Princess frowned. "Will you keep running the numbers?"

"Of course, Princess." Doctor Hooves bobbed his head.

"Keep me posted, please." The Princess inclined her head slightly to him, then she trotted from the room.

Doctor Hooves tapped a hoof on the table, then he packed up and went home. 




In his house, surrounded by gears and half-built machines and the smell of grease and muffins and bacon, Doctor Hooves smiled and placed a foreleg around his wife's amble rump, giving her stomach a light squeeze as he did. "Hello, Dear."

"Hello, my Love," she smiled back at him, her lazy eye darting around. "How is the... project going?"

"It is going, my Dear, it's going... well... with spit and vim and vigor and all that jazz and the like. One knows."

His wife bit her lower lip, shied away from him, and dropped her oven mitts. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing outside mission expectations--"

"But outside parameters."

"Slightly outside parameters. A tea-leaf over."

"For want of a tea leaf, a Kingdom was lost."

"It's a ponyshoe, Dear," he referred to the classic tale.

"No," his wife shook her head. "Rather, yes, but I'm not wrong."

"Yes, yes, yes, analogies and all that jazz and like what, one knows."

"Was it sabotage?"

"No, no, no. Not this time. Self-sabotage--likely--but not diamond dogs or griffons. No evidence. Thankfully. Some had been talking of war. Reprisals. Tit-for-tat. All that bric-a-brac. Not deadly unless something else goes terribly wrong. Actually, somewhat wrong. A smidgen wrong."

"A tea leaf wrong?"

"Precisely!"

"What happened?"

He sighed, "You will likely read it in the paper tomorrow, so I suppose I can say."

His wife arched an eyebrow.

"Not that I have kept much at all away from you that--"

She sighed.

Doctor Hooves continued, "The ponynaut. She performed a loop-de-loop around Moon."

"Oh no,"

"But we suspected she might perform some sort of stunt. We accounted for this eventuality. We meaning me. The rest of the team didn't want to account for it. Especially the Palace advisors. Said that redundancy could lead to extra problems. Since it required more fuel mass. Still, water under the bridge and all that. She should still have enough to get to Marred and back. If nothing else goes wrong."

"But something always goes wrong!"

"She will, of course, be fine. She is, perhaps, according to her file--the best stunt flyer Equestria has. You need not worry." He reached out for her and she let him approach. He patted her belly. "Please don't worry. Just focus on living here." He patted her belly yet again. "Did I feel him move?"

She chewed on her lower lip. "She's not going to die?"

"No, no. Not at all. It could not... will not happen."

"But she could be stranded. If she isn't rescued fast enough, she would die."

"The team is manufacturing backup rockets."

"But almost no pony knows how to fly with rocket assistance. Safely, that is. Controlled."

"You needn't worry, Dear. The Program did not clear you once the State took over and they certainly will not clear you now that you have a passenger of your own."

His wife shuddered and she blinked. "Can you finish up the muffins, Love? I'm--I feel a bit nauseous." She rushed to the bathroom, clutching her belly.

Doctor Hooves busied himself taking muffins out of the oven, humming a showtune and tapping one hindhoof.

No matter what, Doctor Hooves, head of Equestria's space program, probably wouldn't die (anytime soon at least). Unless there was an assassination.




Thousands of kilometers away, Lightning Dust ate a meal-ready-to-eat packaged in a tin, full of protein and power to keep her ready to perform. She chewed on the sardines and hay and nuts for far longer than she would have were she merely flying a normal flight. She savored each bite, running protein chunks around her hard palate, soft palate, and the floor of her mouth. With nothing much to do for the next few days, savoring these not-quite-tasty meals was one of her few real pleasures. 

She belched, and she passed gas, focusing on the flow like she did when screwing around with the rest of her stunt team. She wasn't quite as good with control of that portion of her anatomy as Rolling Thunder but she'd probably be able to beat RT after some tight focus over the next few weeks of flying boringly straight in space.

The problem was, she pushed herself slightly off course with every release. She was pointed in the right direction and she had great control--she had been awarded her premier position because of her preternaturally good sense of direction. But she hadn't accounted for minuscule mispositioning caused by each occasion of her flatulence. This would become a disastrous mistake.

And because of this mistake, Lightning Dust was going to die.