//------------------------------// // Chapter 17. Coutdown to Spinout // Story: The Epsilon Pegasus // by Sparky Brony //------------------------------// Dubuque, Iowa — The Trans-Equestrian Portal Complex Twenty-five years ago, when the world was shocked by the discovery of the first-ever inter-dimensional portal baked into a horse statue, Dubuque was a small, depressed town with not much to do. Since then, the portal has brought commerce, industry, and especially diplomatic concerns into the area, transforming it into a major hub with its own airport. The best part is, all of the construction is new, and usually shows off the best mix of magical and technological innovation from both sides of the portal. What does that mean? Robot airport! It has never been easier to land, park, and refuel my Widgeon than at the Dubuque International Airport. The shuttle ride was painless, as well, though somewhat more mundane. Nopony drives into Dubuque on portal business, so the portal complex is easy to access via public transit. I stop for a moment to look around—pegasi have obviously been at work, along with earth ponies and unicorn artificers. The grass is perfectly grown, the bushes around the structure are shaped to compliment the crystalline design of the building, and a variety of crystal pylons are floating in the air alongside the path in, apparently acting as street lamps. Kendra and I are looking at the building in a bit of awe today. The sun is catching the crystals and… are those rainbows? Somepony put a lot of work into making this place look magical. Shaking off the daze that I find myself in, I take a step forward and nudge her in the knee with my flank. “You coming?” Taking her cue, she falls into step beside me. “Last time we were here, I was a little worried you’d dive through the portal after Dust.” She rests her hand on my head. “Are we actually going to Equestria this time?” I stop and look at her with a grin. “Well, technically the whole complex is Equestrian soil, but no… we’re not going through the portal today. I’m keeping you in suspense for that!” She stops, too, and bops me lightly on the head. “What are you talking about? What are we doing here, then?” I smile and gesture for her to follow, trotting happily up the path that leads to the welcome center. We quickly pass through the parlor and security, heading back out into the open-air courtyard that stands between the various buildings that make up the complex. Off on its own, a large building with tall, glass doors houses our destination. The doors open on their own as we walk up, and I gesture inside with my hoof. “Welcome to the inter-dimensional shop.” Kendra stops dead as she enters. “Amazing.” I turn and look at the large, well-lit space. It’s arranged somewhat like a large department store, having been built during the days of their final decline. There are sections for clothing, manufactured goods, and even foods and natural goods imported from Equestria. Like the department stores before it, the accessibility of online shopping and same-day delivery of goods has taken its toll here, though. I lean over to Kendra, “This was a lot bigger when the portal was only open for three days every two and a half years, but ponies have been selling stuff to humans pretty much since the portal was reactivated after Discord. They also have smaller stores like this in every pony settlement. New Beginnings has one… you’ve probably seen it? It’s a couple doors down from Cookie’s shop.” Kendra’s eyes are gleaming as she takes in the selection of goods for sale, both exotic and mundane. “Wow,” she says as she picks up a bottle of Sweet Apple Acres cider. She looks around and her hands glow as a shopping basket floats over to us. She picks up a six pack and puts it in the basket. “I’ve been told this is the best there is.” I nod as I start walking up and down the aisles, casting an eye over the other clientele here. Two minotaurs are walking around with baskets, along with some pegasi, a unicorn, several earth ponies, and two deer. A griffon is at the register, arguing good naturedly with the unicorn and the human checking her out. Several humans are also here, going through the shelves. Two of the humans, a man and a woman, are wearing pants with cutie marks embroidered on the hips. I guess ponies are in fashion! Kendra breaks me out of my reverie with a poke on the wing. “What are we going to get? I bet they have some great Wonderbolts memorabilia!” I shake my head. “I’m not here for that… besides, you can get all that stuff online if you want it. You see the deer?” I say, flicking an ear in their direction. She nods. “Yeah.” “Well, their magic is based on nature. They make potions to do their magic. I was trained in that as a foal in the Everfree, and Moon Shadow was able to unlock lots of my memories from that time, and it turns out that I was actually pretty good with deer potions.” I grin at her. She looks over at the natural goods section of the shop. “So… we’re here for potion stuff? What are we getting? I didn’t know you knew alchemy!” “Stuff that’s only available in Equestria. I won’t rule out a trip there, if I have to, but much of what I need is probably available here. There’s a small population of Equestrian deer in the United States, mostly around the native reservations. Apparently a couple of deer got stranded during the thirty-month cycle of the portal a few thousand years ago.” I look at the deer again. “They didn’t know that the portal would re-open, and let’s just say… their offspring, their blood, is deep within the natives here.” Kendra frowns. “Like Maria, right? How do you know all of this?” “Dust taught me about it. She met Running Thorn right after the curse was lifted, and they became close friends over the years. She learned their history, and after she got her wings back, we ended up spending quite a few evenings talking about it. Remember when Sunset and Moon Shadow were teaching you? Dust took that time to tutor me on Equestrian and human relations, too. She told me a lot of things that aren’t really widely known.” I look up at Kendra. “Including who actually originally built the portal.” Kendra rolls her eyes at me. “You don’t need to pretend to be so mysterious, Loopy. Everyone who read the comics back then knew that. It was Starswirl.” I nod. “But the comics don’t give the whole story. Hannah Shaw is as close to an expert as there is on the portals, and she’s told Dust a lot about them. If you like, we could grab a cup of coffee at the coffee shop in the welcome center on our way out, and I’ll tell you about it? There was a griffon behind the counter… I bet they make some amazing drinks!” I suck in air to stop the line of drool threatening to slip from my mouth. “… I’m kind of hungry.” Kendra shakes her head at me with a chuckle and bumps me back into motion. “Sounds good,” she says as I trot over toward the deer, spotting what I’m looking for. I pick up a small barrel that has a strap connected to it. Kendra looks bewildered. “It’s a barrel, Loopy.” I look at her and shake my head. “It’s a neck flask. Many of the deer carry them.” I reach over and pick up a package of some bark, dropping it into Kendra’s basket. “This is darkwood bark. It is used to stabilize potions. It’s pretty helpful in a lot of different brews.” Trotting past, the next aisle over reveals a motherlode of goodies. I smile hugely as I pick up a large glass bottle of clearwater and a small pack of heart’s desire, adding those to the basket, as well. Kendra blinks. “Is this some of the stuff Zecora used in the show? That sounds familiar.” I nod and snout around in a big pile of random herbs and flowers in small pouches, finding nothing of interest. “From what I’ve learned, zebra magic and deer magic are very similar. The heart’s desire can be dangerous on its own, like what happened to Apple Bloom in the show, but it’s a very strong ingredient for potions when used right.” Looking at the remaining items on the shelf, I can’t find the last thing I need, and take off to trot down the next aisle. Kendra doesn’t seem to be paying too much attention to my alchemical scavenger hunt, but that’s okay. She’s lagging behind me, staring across the shop floor into the clothes section. “Loopy, look at this!” She takes off over to a rack under a sign bearing a certain, unmistakable three-diamond cutie mark. “There’s clothing from Rarity’s shop! It has her cutie mark on the label!” She starts flipping through the rack. “Some of these gemmed skirts are absolutely beautiful!” She picks a dress off the next rack over and just about squeals. “This is shaped for a human! When did she start making human fashions?” She’s practically vibrating with excitement, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “And did you see they have a kiosk where you can get a cutie mark embroidered onto anything you want? Since when is that a thing?” I shake my head and smile at her. “Kendra, you’re rambling… it’s okay!” I rub my wing over the fabric of the dress she’s pulled out, admiring its softness. “Do they have it in your size?” She blushes a bit and looks at the various hangers, finally pulling one out. “Yeah. But…” I cut her off, bumping her leg with my snout. “Go ahead and try it on. I’ll grab the basket.” She looks at me, then at the price tag with a small shudder, then back at me. “I couldn’t.” I scrunch my snout and use a wing to push her towards the dressing room. “Kendra, if it fits you, I’ll buy it for you. It’s very pretty, and would look great on you.” She sighs, but relents, finally giggling at the look on my face. I nudge her on her way, then trot back over to the small section with the Sweet Apple Acres sign, thinking that they might have the last thing I need. They are! I jump forward as soon as I spot it, picking up the small packet of seeds. “Zap apple seeds! Perfect!” I drop the packet in the basket, then pick it back up in my mouth and trot back over to the changing rooms to wait for Kendra, stopping to grab a few other things on my way. As I get there, the door opens and Kendra steps out. That stops me dead in my tracks as I drop the basket onto the floor. I find myself giving a low whistle. Kendra smiles shyly and giggles. The dress is absolutely stunning. The bodice is a deep purple and the skirt is dark blue, with small diamonds—or some other type of gem—sewn all along the hem. Stars and moons adorn the edging of the dress, shaped out of tiny, glimmering gemstones. The whole dress clings to her body yet moves with her perfectly. I’ve never seen anything like it. “Yeah, get it.” A new voice speaks up from beside me, “Oh, that’s a Rarity Special!” getting both of us to turn. The human that was at the register is standing there, smiling. “She makes the most beautiful and functional dresses. That one is perfect for you!” Kendra twirls, looking down at how the skirt moves around her. “It… it is very pretty.” Her hands glow softly and a mirror floats from a table over to her. The woman gasps. “You’re a weaver! That’s amazing! I miss my magic on this side of the portal!” Kendra nods as the mirror floats around her, “Yeah.” Then she stops, looking at the woman. “Wait, you’re a pony?” The woman nods, turning to the side and showing off the cutie mark of two needles with a blue thread dangling between them. “Yep! I work on this side of the portal, but live in Equestria. I never quite got used to being a pony full time… but I do miss my horn when I’m here!” Kendra smiles. “That’s great! Are you a seamstress?” She looks at herself for a long time, then looks at the two of us. “I really like it. It’s so much, though!” The woman smiles. “It looks really incredible on you, and I am! You just caught me on my break… I work over where we do the embroidering for cutie marks.” She nods toward the kiosk we spotted earlier. “Speaking of which, I should get back!” She waves and takes off. I nudge Kendra’s leg with my wing. “We should get it. The dress, I mean. You look amazing. Can I buy it for you?” She blushes heavily, looking down at me. “Are you sure, Loopy? It’s really expensive.” I think for a moment, running a few numbers in my head. “Kendra, I got the rest of the settlement, and I’ve now got a pretty big salary with this thing for Dust. I’ve got it.” She giggles. “And here I am, unemployed.” I stop for a moment and blink. “You’re right! I’ll have to get you a job! You’re going to be helping me with these missions, so it makes sense that you should make a living doing it, right?” She frowns. “Are you sure, Loopy? You’re my friend.” I take to the air and hug her, being careful of the dress. “Oh, yes, Kendra! I need your help with this stuff. Dust told me to gather a team, and that’s what I’m going to do. You need to have money for IHOP, after all.” She laughs softly and hugs me back. “Okay. I’ll figure out where to study everything that Moon Shadow and Sunset Shimmer gave me to do.” I nod. “You’ll figure it out. We can’t always be busy with missions… right? She smiles as she heads back into the dressing room. “You are wonderful, Loopy.” *** The changeling sits in her first class seat, her seat is leaned back as far as it will go. Atlanta to New York is a relatively short flight, and she’s looking forward to the clientele that she’s gotten in the Big Apple. Her current form is of a human female—she likes looking like a human, especially this look, since it attracts the eye of every human around her. She doesn’t really understand what it is about this form that they find so appealing, but she enjoys the attention and she certainly likes to feed on the lust that permeates the area when she’s in this form. She had even decided to understate the look today, to great effect. Apparently dressed in skin tight yoga pants with a sports bra, she is exposing a lot of skin. She’s learned that humans like that, and her look is also accentuating the curves of this body, which is also popular. She’s spent countless hours studying the human form, looking at what is considered sexy by human standards. The culmination of all her research is two forms, both of which she has paid quite a bit of cash to acquire fake identities for. It’s not usually difficult for her to blend into groups—it is always hard for humans to tell if a changeling is in their midst—but that is only a small comfort, as the consequences of being found are high. Usually, when one of her kind is discovered, Princess Celestia is contacted and the unfortunate changeling is sent to Equestria without delay or any opportunity to defend themselves. She sighs. At least she’s been able to keep her existence in this world a secret, for the most part. The one or two clients who have seen her true form have kept their mouths shut. She looks out the window at the setting sun. She’s been up since before the sun rose, and exhaustion is well past set in after her busy day. She breathes deeply and sighs, thankful that it won’t be long until she can get out of this damned metal tube. Leaning back in her seat with her tiny, awful airline pillow, she finds her eyes closing. “Experimental subject…” She can understand them, but all she feels is pain. *shift* She pushes hard. It’s time. She needs to leave the dark. She pushes her horn against the hard wall of shell. She can feel it getting weaker. She hears muffled noises through it. She’s at the edge of her endurance. She pushes harder. She pushes as hard as she can. It gives. Light banishes the dark. She pushes a hoof through the small hole. The cool air invades. She hears cracking. She’s free. She’s gasping her first breaths. She opens her eyes. She tries to comprehend her surroundings. A figure reaches towards her. Two hands lift her away from the shell. She is picked up and carried. She has no comprehension of what is happening to her. *shift* Learning to speak the words of the humans was difficult, as the English language is a confusing and disharmonious staccato of sounds that should be much more smooth than it is because there are others somewhat like her here and though they lack the extra stripe of color around the middle and are much smaller than she is, she feels that they probably understand that words and thoughts and feelings should flow so much more freely than the plucking, pricking tones of the human speech but she has to try so she turns and looks at the front of the room where the large screen is displaying letters and words that she has to try to say and she dutifully speaks, “A is for apple. B is for ball. *shift* “Now, Rainbow Dash.” Comes over the loudspeaker. She forms a mental picture and breathes as violet flames wash over her form, turning her into a cyan pegasus with a shocking, rainbow mane and cerise eyes. She looks at the other changelings. She feels like she could almost see herself through their eyes, but something is… missing. “H074, you have the mane colors wrong,” comes the voice over the speaker. She jerks to look at him, and the speaker was right. The bright blue and green colors of the mane and tail of the Rainbow Dash beside her are transposed. The other changeling cringes—he knows what is coming. A small click is audible as the implant activates, and the changeling is bathed in green fire as he falls on his side, shrieking in pain. She shudders, watching another of her kind in pain. *shift* It’s a rare day; they are out in the sun. They can exercise their wings and they can actually see humans up close, rather than just hearing them over a speaker. She runs around with her other clutchmates, though they are all smaller than her. It’s nice to have others to play with, and the humans seem to be nice when she approaches them. Suddenly, she’s flattened by a loud boom. She looks around, dazed, at the ponies coming through the wall of the compound. The mare leading the charge is pure white with a bright silver metallic mane. The beautiful white pony flashes forward, knocking down a couple of humans. The other changelings are all crying, not understanding. She gathers herself… she just watched a magenta unicorn teleport to the top of the wall, turning the guns of the humans into wet noodles, but she doesn’t stop to consider how impossible all of that is. She knows the shield around the place that prevents teleportation is down. She knows it’s time to go. Closing her eyes, she gathers what magic she can. Her horn shimmers with violet light and she’s suddenly far away, tumbling as if falling. Righting herself, she takes a moment to look around and clear her head—she can hear the crashing booms from the compound, but she’s in the jungle now. Smoke is rising from the building she had lived her whole life in as the ponies and humans make war on one another. She turns to leave and stops. There is a human woman there with very long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and porcelain skin with freckles everywhere. The human steps forward, but the changeling chirps, vanishing in another teleport before the woman can say a word. *shift* The city is a wonderful place for changelings to live. The press of other creatures around her, the dark apartment she lives in… it’s perfect. Her landlord thinks she’s an equestrian native, an earth pony, but that’s on the outside. Inside, she can relax as her black-shelled self. Today, she is idly turning the pages of a magazine and looking at the photo shoots inside. “So, this is what human men want?” she murmurs as she looks at a woman, her bared breasts and other private parts quite visibly displayed. She flips the page; the woman is being penetrated by a pegasus. “Hmmm, ponies like those women, too,” she murmurs softly. She concentrates on the face of the woman in the picture, then lets her eyes rove along the entire form in the photograph. In moments, she closes her eyes tightly as violet flames envelop her body. Now, instead of a changeling, a woman is laying on the floor with bright brown eyes and shoulder-length dark hair. She inspects her new hands. “I wonder what I can do with these,” she ponders, looking over into the mirror. Instead of her new form, the same woman is there, looking at her. She steps out of the mirror. She wakes up with a loud scream, flailing her limbs. “What the fuck?” comes a male voice. The changeling looks down, noting her black, hard leg, then flutters her wings. “Oh, damn,” she whines as she looks around frantically. She feels the plane slowly pulling up to the gate—she missed the landing in her slumber. Thinking fast, she lights her horn and teleports. As she materializes in the terminal, she staggers a bit and hundreds of voices rise in alarm. She starts to gallop, trying to compose herself. After a few moments, she changes into the human female she was in her dream and frantically teleports into the bathroom. She sits in the stall for a long moment to calm herself, and finally the panic fades. She composes her face and assumes the right clothing, looking older and less attractive. All the crowd will see is a random older woman grabbing her bags from the carousel. She opens the door and straightens her clothing, muttering to herself, “Some master of disguise I am.” A few airport police head towards the gate her plane was at, but she turns the other way and walks innocently towards the baggage claim. *** Brightly colored spheres of ethereal presence bob and flow like motes in a river as Kendra walks the dark, starry night of the dream. Rarely, she finds herself in the company of another dreamer from Equestria, but experience has quickly shown her that no such ally will appear tonight—she is the only dreamer on Earth for now. Often on nights like these, she wanders the dreamways until coming across the tell-tale signs of a potential nightmare, but tonight is different. Tonight, she has a mission. Finding her target, she reaches out, cradles the undulating troubled dream in her hands, and closes her eyes. *** It’s always slightly jarring for Kendra when she manifests in a dream. As her feet come to rest on the ground and she fades into opacity, she breathes deeply and closes her eyes, shaking off the slight headache that has become her nightly routine. Muttering to herself, “Just got to remember, Moon Shadow said it’d get easier…” she casts a view around the vista she has entered, coming to realize that she’s standing on a mesa near Gallup, where Running Thorn lived. Off in the distance, Kendra hears a cry in Maria’s unmistakable voice of, “No, it’s not possible! I’m not a deer! I’m no shaman!” She sets off toward the source, willing herself into invisibility as she travels. She takes a moment to smile and congratulate herself… she knew it. She could see it when she first saw the girl; her power positively radiates through her aura. The blood of her deer heritage runs exceedingly strong through her. Invisibly approaching Maria, Kendra hears another voice amongst the trees. “That girl with the pony said so herself. You know you’ve had affinity for deer magic.” Maria absolutely explodes at the voice, the logic of dream world casting a light into the shadows and revealing a deer in front of her. “It’s NOT potion making!” She narrows her eyes at the white-tailed doe standing before her, her aura radiating off of her in waves of heat. “It’s science. It’s called Chemurgy. It’s the use of agricultural and herbilogical COMPONENTS to replace PETROCHEMICALS for agricultural uses!” Her shout is so loud that it’s echoing across the mesa on each accented word, but the deer seems unimpressed, snorting derisively at the girl’s fury. “It’s potions, just like every other deer of the Everfree.” The doe paws the ground. “You know your true name. Your mother told you. You are not Maria Castillo. You are Lilac Running Deer, so named by your great grandfather. The same great grandfather who saw the power inside you, and who knew your destiny before you were out of diapers. Your father…” the term was nearly spit by the deer, “Insisted that you be called Maria. Your mother tried to compromise with him and made your middle name, ‘Lilac.’” The deer huffs, blowing a snort of cool air out of her nose that instantly fogs in the heat pouring off of Maria, “But no changing names—no denying your identity—can erase the fact that you have my blood in you. You are of the Equestrian Deer. You cannot deny it any further.” Maria whirls away from the deer with a jerk and the scene shifts around her. She’s running, now, through the mesas and and across the baked earth. Panting, she looks over her shoulder with tears in her eyes to see the doe easily keeping up with her. “No…” Maria pants, “Keep away from me! I’m not a freak!” “Those that try the hardest to run from their destiny,” the deer calls, “are most likely to run into it on the paths they take to avoid it.” Kendra tenses. This is turning into a true nightmare, and she needs to intervene. Turning, Maria sees the large slab of marble in front of her. She tries to stop, but it’s too late—all she can do is put her arms up before she hits the marble and splashes into it, her form reshaping as she travels through the portal. Suddenly, the mirror is behind her and her hooves skid before she tumbles to the ground. Kendra concentrates, applying the mental pressure to materialize fully in the dreamscape. She blinks as she looks at Maria’s rich brown fur with white trim. The newly-transformed doe is terrified, as evidenced by her tail and ears sticking straight up. Maria gasps and gets to all fours. She unsteadily lopes towards the mirror, hurling herself through it, only to land back as a deer on the mesa. She whines loudly as she realizes that she’s still a deer, before once again rising unsteadily onto her hooves and throwing herself through the mirror. And again, and again… Kendra stands in the dream next to the doe, who doesn’t react to the dreamer next to her. Shaking her head sadly, Kendra rests a hand on Maria’s withers and says softly, “Maria, look at yourself in the mirror.” Maria shakes her head, the panic retreating a little bit, though her ears and tail still belie her anxiety. She staggers slowly to the mirror, sobbing as she sees her reflection. “That is me, that’s what I want to be.” She points at the human face in the glass as bitter tears run down her muzzle. “That is me. Not this.” “You may not have been born a deer like many of the ponies were originally born ponies, but you were cursed. You possess the blood of the deer, Lilac Running Deer.” Kendra says, getting both deer to finally look at her, realizing her presence. Kendra smiles at them. “As I told you today, I’m a dreamer. Your dreams were troubled, so I came to help.” Maria looks at Kendra, then leaps at her, wrapping her hooves around the human. “Oh, please, banish this horrible nightmare! Banish her from my dreams!” She sobs, pointing at the other doe. Kendra wraps her arms around Maria. “I’m sorry, but I can’t banish what’s inside you, and neither can you. This,” she runs her hands down the doe’s back, “is a part of you, screaming to get out. You can run away all you want, but you are bringing her along as you run.” She reaches and puts a hand on each of Maria’s cheeks, forcing her brown eyes to meet blue for a long moment. “Maria… Lilac… you went through the mirror. Yes, I know it was in the dream, but there is a lot of truth in dreams, and this?” She smiles. “The mirror doesn’t lie. It doesn’t choose your form, it recognizes it. The form you have here, this body… this is you.” She points into the mirror, showing her holding Maria’s human face the same way. “Both parts, they are both you. You are a very special girl.” Maria looks at herself in the mirror, then at Kendra as she is released. “I don’t understand.” Kendra smiles back at her, and hugs her gently. “In time, you will.” *** Steven blinks the sweat out of his eyes. He’s not in the best of positions for doing this. He reaches forward. “A little tighter.” Lightning Storm moans as she pushes hard. “It’s not easy.” He murmurs back. “No, it’s not. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing. Now pull! Harder!” He grabs ahold and yanks hard, getting a yelp from the pegasus. “Not that hard! You’ll break it!” “So, which is it? Harder? Or not?” She giggles as she pushes the disk into place. “Just enough there, love.” They both relax and lean back. “So, the compressor disk assembly is done.” He looks at her. “Can this be automated for future manufacturing?” He picks up the assembly they’ve been fighting to get the last of the disks into and sets it in its housing, then takes a moment to flip down the clamps and tighten them. She cocks her head to the side, her ears flicking. “I think so, but then think, we’d have to design an entire manufacturing facility. These engines are going to truly open up the solar system to ponies and humans alike.” “What about…” he looks around, “Your other ideas?” She giggles excitedly. “Oh, I’ve been working on that. Let me show you.” She hops up and shakes herself, then trots to her office. Steven grabs a towel and wipes his face as he follows. She sits down in her chair, and gestures for him to sit in a more human-friendly chair as she fires up her workstation. The graphical system lights and the traditional screens darken as the 3D virtualization system mounted around her desk comes online. The lights in the room extinguish as wire frame designs appear in mid-air. The frames fill as the computer crunches the numbers and generates a fully three-dimensional image. She hops off of her chair, flapping her wings and flying towards the model. A hoof gesture causes the model to expand, focusing on the engine room and the engines themselves. A flick of the hoof makes everything else disappear, and she expands the engines themselves. “So, you remember how the ships of that show, Star Trek, got their power?” He nods as he stands up, looking at the reactor in the middle of the engine bay. “A matter and anti-matter reaction.” “Well, we haven’t been able to produce enough anti-matter to try anything like that, but we have been working on controlling pegasus-created ion storms.” He nods and reaches out, manipulating the reactor and expanding it. “Yeah, you’ve been able to find a way to start that reaction without a pegasus doing it. That was your biggest contribution to make the new engines.” She giggles and presses together her hooves, causing the core and engine bay to compress back to normal size, then she flicks a hoof and focuses on the engines. “While we can get quite a bit of power from that system, we need to do more of the pushing on space bit, rather than relying directly on Newton’s laws of motion.” He looks nonplussed. “So, like they do in the TV show?” She nods. “Yeah, there were some really smart people involved in making the show. NASA did some good work in the mid 2000’s and 2010’s, but they weren’t really able to get anywhere with actually manipulating space itself.” He tilts his head as the implication sinks in. “But you have?” She chuckles. “They hadn’t figured out how to make gravity at that point, but now I can use that technology. And look at this.” She reaches over to the physical keyboard and does some inputs, changing the model a bit. “Electromagnetic energy, along with gravitational energy. We can do it. We just have to ramp up the power by a lot.” He sits back in his chair, looking at her. “How much power are we talking about?” She shakes her head, “In excess of a gigawatt to start. And to fully realize what this new design can do? We might be talking terawatts.” He almost chokes. “Well, the planet only uses about thirty terawatt-hours of power a year. Let’s just get all the world’s power plants to send power to Southern Florida.” She gives him a sour look. “We can generate it, I think, but it’s going to take a lot of work. We can do it, love. The math says it all. We can go faster than the ultimate speed limit of the universe.”