//------------------------------//
// 4. Propulsion 
// Story: Another Mare's Sky 
// by PeppyJoe 
//------------------------------//

Three weeks after discovery.
Tensile Strength wasn't drunk, honestly.  He would be the first to admit he was something of a lightweight, but on this particular day, the unicorn was well below his limit.  Still, as he sat at the bar counter with one of his coworkers, he felt much more open to discussing his recent project.

"I'm telling you, Phil, it's just not possible to travel twelve light-years without it taking vastly longer than twelve years, and we just don't have the funding or inclination for a generational ship.  This project was dead the moment the Council ordered it."

Phillips Head sighed, thinking.  "The limiting factor in the length of the mission is the speed you can reach, right?  And the limiting factor on that is the amount of fuel you have..."

"-And no matter how badly the Council wants us to reach Curiosity, they're not going to pay for us putting a city-sized fuel tank in orbit."

They sat quietly for a moment after that, before a mare wearing the bar's uniform trotted over.  "Can I get you two stallions anything else?"

Phillips remained silent, while Tensile's only response was a sullen shake of his head and a murmured "Thanks anyway."  The former idly balanced his glass on one edge of its rim under his hoof.  A thought crossed his mind and he suddenly sat up, withdrawing his hoof and letting the cup's base fall back to the counter and oscillate briefly.

"Hey, Phil," he said, looking intently at his drinking companion.

"Yeah?"

"What's the best way to accelerate a spacecraft without burning a lot of fuel?"

"A gravity assist, if you can manage one."

"Right, exactly.  You fly close to a planet and use its pull to speed you up as you slingshot past.  But...  Were you involved with the Blink project?"

"My team helped assemble the prototype chassis, but we weren't privy to most of the design specs or anything."

"It was basically meant to be a rapid consecutive-use personal teleportation matrix.  You strap in, you pull the harness a bit, and you blink forward a few meters.  We rigged the distance traveled to be proportional to the force applied to the bit, but we never had a chance to test it outside the lab."

"I'm not sure where you're going with this, Ten."

He paused, taking another sip of his drink.  "The science was sound.  Using magical energy stored in the gemstones, a unicorn operator could theoretically travel kilometers without pausing, limited only by how long it took to visually decide his next jump distance and direction.  But sitting here, I just thought, what if we rigged up a ship with that technology?"

"Can it even work on that sort of scale?"

"Buck if I know.  I'm just saying, that's the first thing I've considered—or heard anyone else considering, for that matter—that even sounds conceivable.  And even if it could function with something larger than a pony, there's no way we could bring enough energy to power rapid-succession teleports all the way to Curiosity, and if we stopped teleporting, we'd go shooting off in the wrong direction because our actual velocity would be maintained from when we left orbit."

"It sounds like you've already thought this through and decided it's a dead end."

"I had, a week ago.  There's no way we could teleport all the way there, rapidly or otherwise.  But I just realized...  What if we didn't?  What if our hypothetical crew just teleported into a trajectory that canceled out their orbit around Eris?"

"They'd go falling toward the planet... and then they could teleport back to a higher altitude!"

Speaking quickly, Tensile Strength exclaimed "Exactly!  They maintain velocity upon completing the teleport and go flying back toward the surface, building speed all the while.  Teleport, maintain velocity, build velocity by falling, repeat as necessary."  He sat back, taking a breath and grinning.  Phillips Head stared back, trying to fault the idea.

"What sort of speed could a vessel achieve, using that approach?"

"Relativistic, I imagine.  It would take a while to reach it, but the only limiting factors to the maximum velocity would be the number of teleports possible and the operator's response time.  If both were adequate, and you were willing to wait a while...  You could approach the speed of light."  He chuckled.  "This isn't a solution by any means, but it's something to tell Edge about.  If we really need to get to Curiosity stupid-fast, this is at least one avenue worthy of consideration."





Five weeks after discovery.
"Okay, ready?"

The pegasus strapped into the strange barding gave a nod, bit down on the mouthpiece, and pulled back slightly.  There was a flash of light, and he reappeared instantly a meter in front of his previous location.  "Woo!" he cheered, stomping a hoof.  "You were right!"

"Thank my team," the red pegasus in the lab-coat replied.  "They figured out what it was and decided it was safe."  He paused, looking in admiration at the device.  "Can you imagine the applications for technology like this if we can replicate it?  Those screw-heads really outdid themselves this time."

The unicorn mare who had been standing near the corner smiled.  Crystal Clear, still in a NP-Science uniform, stepped forward and leaned against the railing overlooking the test chamber.  "I can certainly imagine one application in particular."





Five weeks after discovery.
Crystal Clear knocked on the door of the office belonging to the stallion appointed to oversee the Lambda project.  He was a pegasus named Firestorm, but despite his name and the obvious intentions of his parents, he had decided to pursue a career in the academic world instead of the military.  He beckoned for her to enter and she stepped through.

"Sir," she began, seeing him sitting at his desk.  "We may have found a solution for the propulsion issue.  A piece of stolen unicorn tech that allows for teleportation powered by stored magic."

Firestorm blinked, surprised.  "No unicorns necessary?"

"None at all, after the matrix has been created and the gemstones are charged.  I've directed a few ponies to start coordinating with the team who reverse-engineered the thing, and hopefully they can determine whether the design is viable for integration into a spaceship."

"Solid work, Crystal.  What about Astronomy—any developments on that front?"

"No, sir.  I've been collecting regular updates, but they've not learned anything new in the past few weeks.  And...  I should be clear, this teleportation drive is something of a moonshot, sir.  It seems to have been designed for multiple rapid teleports, and I just don't see any way to power that."

"I understand, but you made the right call to get ponies started on it anyway.  I happen to know a few ponies have been working on something that might solve the power issue perfectly.  For now, just figure out how to best adapt your teleporter."  Crystal nodded, bowed, and left.  Firestorm turned back to the files laid out on his desk, each containing information on the most promising mission candidates.  He knew that a definite selection would be impossible until the ship design and crew capacity were finalized, but with so many ponies wanting a spot on the prestigious voyage, he needed to start narrowing the list immediately.

A slight grin crossed his face as he worked.  Modifying the unicorns' own technology to beat them in an interstellar race seemed absolutely brilliant, he reflected.  They would never come up with something like this.