Land of Giant Ponies

by Hereward

Collision Course Crisis

Anshar Station, Earth Orbit
4th May 2099ce

They had all come; every volunteer for the SS Horus' maiden flight managed to reach the space station. Crew and passengers had all volunteered for this was an experimental spaceship, which was intended to cut interplanetary journey times from a minimum of weeks to a matter of hours. The propulsion was simple enough, utilising the 100% energy conversion of a matter-antimatter reaction but, due to concerns about the time distortion at high speed, this was redesigned so the reaction would be split over multiple points around the ship through complex and precise computer calculations. This was, in fact, the very first warp drive, though it was currently only designed for fractions of the speed of light; its fastest designed speed was 0.03 light speed.

The station commander looked over the profiles for the crew and passengers. The passenger profiles weren't very promising but this maiden voyage was somewhat risky so they actually had to pay them for the privilege; as for those with a criminal record they were given this as a chance to make a new start.

Still, there was no turning back. They were all checked through, their baggage set in the cargo hold. Then departure procedures began.

"All systems checked at normal." Capt Hewlett announced. "Request clearance for launch."

"Roger, Horus." The station's docking control room reported. "You're cleared for departure, course 116-234 solar."

"Roger, ready to taxi, over." The magnetic clamps were released and the Horus activated its stabilising thrusters, lining up with the bay doors. When they opened the ion drive fired and it began to steadily move out into open space. Station crew and residents watched through airtight bulletproof windows as this brand new ship began its voyage to Mars, which was currently 500 million miles away from Earth. The aim was to prove that the antimatter warp drive was an effective solution to the problem of planetary alignment.

The onboard computer was thoroughly programmed to deliver the appropriate matter-antimatter bursts in the right locations to create a wave in spacetime that the Horus could surf, however computers have been known to crash. A small error in the programming was going to have dire consequences.

---

The Horus' ion drive carried it in an elliptical orbit around the Earth resulting in a gravational slingshot to send it out of the local planetary control zone. As they passed the Lunar orbit Capt. Hewlett made a momentous decision.

"Ms. Pugh, lay in course for orbital insertion around Mars." Upon receiving his order she punched in the coordinates for the computer to follow. "Mr. Knowles, engage the warp drive." The first officer reached hesitantly for the safety catch on the warp control, disengaging it and pulling the release lever for the drive to activate. High energy was immediately detected towards the front and back of the ship as the pre-programmed system began to operate; for a while things seemed to be going well as their speed crept up, accelerating constantly. Jubilation began to fill the entire vessel as it became clear that they were going faster than ever. But then, something went spectacularly wrong.

As the Horus approached 0.007 the speed of light a burst of energy occured only seven feet off the mark in front of the ship, but this tied in with an accurate burst occurring where it was supposed to only six inches further off from this point. The result caused a rip in spacetime, which the Horus was thrown right through. To an outside observer not much else happened as the rip re-sealed with only a slight gravitational twitch that could easily be mistaken for an asteroid due to the lack of a concentrated area of matter in the vicinity, but all fourteen people on board the Horus were now totally cut-off from their universe. The dimension they entered was so different to their own that it could boggle their minds as everything they knew about physics became obsolete.

"Status report!" Capt. Hewlett announced.

"Warp drive has gone offline." Knowles reported. "External sensors read high ablation conditions."

"What?!?"

"We're in an atmosphere." Pugh reported. "At our current speed the outer hull will be breached in three minutes."

"We decelerated substantially." Knowles added. "And are still decelerating. Recommend we activate emergency braking thrusters and reduce our angle of descent to 1.4°.

"Make it so!" Capt. Hewlett announced. "Knowles, you have flight control." Acknowledging this Knowles took hold of his flight controls and engaged the braking thrusters.

"We'll be out of the ablation zone in twelve minutes." Pugh informed them. "Reduction in speed and angle indicate hull breach likely to occur in seven." This was of major concern for the crew.

"Place escape pods on standby." Capt. Hewlett informed them.

"Captain," Knowles reported, "Only two pods reported at green. Four have their entry hatches jammed and the remaining two have faulty flight control."

"There's only room for four in each pod." Hewlett remarked. "Doctor, you'll have to supervise the loading." Dr. Rabett got up from his duty position and struggled against the force of intertia as he made his way to the cabin.

Unfortunately, by the time he got there it was too late. Panic had set in and one of the two functioning escape pods had been launched. The doorway to the other was being fought over by two passengers as Tabitha Marsh stood nearby, looking frantic as she held her daughter close while holding her son by the hand so he wouldn't get involved. He made his way towards them but, before long, both Laura Pollard and James Benson pushed by each other into the pod and set it to launch, automatically shutting the remaining six passengers off from any escape.

"Okay, everyone!" Dr. Rabett announced. "Please return to your seats and adopt standard crash positions." This time they complied. A head count showed that it was Harry Brann and Angela Shane who had taken the first escape pod. With this made clear he made his way back to the cockpit.

"Two minutes to hull breach." Pugh reported. "Three and a half minutes before we drop below plasmasonic speed."

"I'm opening the flaps." Capt. Hewlett announced. "With any luck it will increase our deceleration." Just as soon as he did this there was a sudden metallic *clang* and a major jolt. In a matter of seconds the ablation ended.

"You did it, sir!" Knowles cried out.

"It may have worked a bit too well." He answered. "Even with the flaps it should've taken us at least another minute."

"Indeed so, sir." Pugh confirmed. "According to these readings we should still be in the plasmasonic zone." It was bewildering to them all that they were still travelling at a speed higher than the standard high altitude cruising speed when the ablation had finished.

"Well," Hewlett remarked, "Since reentry appears to be complete let us commence a study of this planet." He and Pugh did the systems checks and made sensor sweeps while Knowles continued with his well-practiced landing procedure and Dr. Rabett went back to the cabin to check on the remaining passengers.

"This doesn't add up." Pugh commented. "According to this we've still got five miles to go before we reach the surface when the atmospheric pressure reads that it should be two miles."

"This is incredible!" Hewlett declared. "It's so much like Earth but is clearly not Earth. None of the landmasses equilbrate to those of Earth even if we look at possible time travel and continental drift."

It took another seven minutes while they were pondering over readouts that seemed to conflict with one another before they were two miles from the surface, travelling at Mach 1.2 by this stage.

"Good gracious!" Knowles almost shouted as he made some wild maneuvers. "Either the trees are impossibly tall or there are some pretty drastic changes in the topography."

"Check coordinates 45, 6, 89." Pugh reported. "The apature radar indicates soft landing conditions. Can you get us there?"

"I'll do what I can." Knowles answered as they dropped to subsonic speeds. It took just two and a half minutes; at 220mph the ship's emergency buffers were deployed and it hit soft bare soil once it had decelerated to 140mph. The shock of impact was reduced to a deceleration rate of 25mph/s before it came to a stop. The cockpit was lodged under some mud, the remaining pods were scattered on impact and the cargo hold had been breached, sending some of the luggage all over the place. Worse still, the matter-antimatter reactor had somehow been drained and the only power systems available were solar batteries and the ship just wasn't built to take off from a planet's surface without an effective supply of hydrogen at least.

Everyone was marooned.

Comments

First chapter is kind of too long and too short at the same time, I'm not sure if their was much point uploading this before they got to pony land, but I look forward to reading more, if your still writing

[Hereward]

11194 I am indeed, but I do struggle in places as I attempt to find a good narrative link between two places that are well-formed in my head.

[Rainbow Dash the Awesome]

My brain hurts. I'm not a physics person and a lot of the stuff you talk about in the first chapter was really confusing to me. I guess you can say *removes sunglasses* it's all geek to me.

[Nammi-namm]

Space travel, and you're using miles per hour? What's next, we'll measure nitro glicerin using table spoons?

Besides the fact that Meters per Second are the de-facto measuring standard for speed, especially when you're dealing with space travel, it just seems odd. But I shall continue reading regardless, this should be good.

[Paladin Redflare]

I predict that this will be an amazing journey in... THE LAND OF GIANT PONIES! By the Nine divines, Celestia shall be titanic!

[Wiz Ahmad]

such a star trek intro