Space Oddity

by Closer-To-The-Sun

Chapter 7: Free Fallin'

Chapter 7: Free Fallin’

“Equestria coming into view, Captain,” Scootaloo stated from her position at the helm of the ship.

“There it is, girls….home,” Spike said, hopping down from his chair to get a better view of the planet that sat in front of the ship.

Sweetie Belle smiled, “It’s good to be back.”

Applebloom tapped away on her console, “Uh….Captain? I think we might have a problem….”

“Hm? What is it Lieutenant Commander Applebloom?” Spike turned to the yellow filly.

“The console says that we’re goin’ too fast right now.”

The rest of the crew on bridge looked at her in a confused manner. The dragon asked, “Too fast?”

“Yeah, it says that our speed is too high, in fact the readings are off the scale,” Applebloom read the screen before her, “If we don’t slow down, we’re gonna have ourselves a real problem.”

“She’s right,” Scootaloo chimed in as she frantically moved her hooves around her console, “but our problem has already begun….”

“What’s going on, Scootaloo?” the white unicorn asked worriedly.

The pegasus tried her best to keep a calm tone, “We’ve already entered the outermost part of Equestria’s atmosphere, but our speed isn’t decreasing. The brakes aren’t working at all.”

Spike’s eyes widened in panic. However, he kept his composed demeanor, “Applebloom, cut all power to the engines, now.”

The earth pony was quick to responding, “Engine power is off.”

“It’s not working, our speed isn’t going down!” the orange pony shouted, “And we’re still free falling!” In the front window, the planet below was beginning to grow and the ship itself was beginning to rumble and shake.

“Sweetie Belle, reroute all power to the brakes!” the dragon ordered.

“Aye, sir!” the white filly confirmed, quickly tapping her hooves upon the screen, “Power rerouted!”

Scootaloo nodded at her friend’s word, moving her hoof over to a lever. With all the strength stored within her body, she pulled it as hard as possible. Unfortunately, it seemed to have no affect.

Spike gritted his teeth. “Curses, we have a serious problem here.”

“What do we do, Spike?” Applebloom asked what was on all of the fillies’ minds.

Scootaloo shouted again, “Entering the lower half of Equestria’s atmosphere! Looks as if we’ll crash right into Ponyville!”

Quiet, the captain of the ship was deep in thought. The rumbling of the spaceship became louder and more violent. Finally, he answered, “Alright, here’s the solution. You girls will evacuate the ship via the escape pods. They should be safe enough for you all to return back down to Equestria without a problem.”

“But what about you?” Sweetie Belle inquired, holding on to her console as the shaking became worse.

The dragon’s eyes were closed as he answered, “A captain goes down with his ship,” opening his eyes back up, Spike pointed towards the door, “Now get your helmets on and get to the escape pods, crew. That’s an order.”

“With all due respect sir, there is no way we’re leaving you high and dry,” the pegasus stated with a smirk, putting her helmet over her head.

“Yeah, there ain’t no way we’re leavin’ both our captain an’ our friend!” Applebloom put her helmet on as well.

Following suit with the rest of her crewmates, Sweetie Belle agreed, “We’ll never leave you, Spike! Never give up, never surrender!”

With a small smile, Spike put his helmet on over his head, “Heh, I couldn’t ask for a better crew then the three of you. Ya know, all of this started out as a mild curiosity in a junkyard and now it's turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure.”

The shaking of the ship became more aggressive. Hanging on tightly to what they could, the crew tried their best to not be thrown around with ship’s movement.

“This is it….we’re going down….we have less than a minute until impact!” Scootaloo warned, keeping herself fastened to her seat.

Spike spoke, “Everyone around gather around Scootaloo. If we’re going to go on to our next life, we’ll do it together not just as a crew, but as friends.”

Applebloom and Sweetie Belle agreed, carefully moving up with Spike to stand around Scootaloo’s station. Each of them grabbed on something to hold on to as to keep their balance. The movement of the ship grew rougher as they fell closer and closer to the ground.

“Well, this is it….our final descent,” the dragon meekly stated, taking a deep breath.

Sweetie Belle spoke up, “Friends, I know this might be weird, but since this is our last moments, I want to say it’s been a real privilege to have served with you all.”

Applebloom nodded, trying to hold in a few tears, “It has been be quite a ride, huh? At least ah’m going out with the most important dragon and ponies in mah life.”

“Heh,” Scootaloo smirked as he eyes began to start misting up, “And same back to you all. And if this will be the last thing I’ll say, then to quote Major Dun, ‘Give my family my love, I’m coming home!’”

Finally, Spike wrapped it up, “Guys….I just want to say thank you to all of you. And that I have been and always shall be your friend.”

With Spike’s last words spoken, the crew wrapped their limbs around one another, holding each other close in a hope to survive the crash. With a collective scream of horror and fear, the four youngsters braced themselves as their ship fell closer to the surface. Their suspense, however, was cut short by a voice and a light.

“What in Celestia’s name are you four doing in this box? Everypony has been looking for you!”

With the bright sunlight pouring in, the four youngsters shielded their eyes to make out a mare’s head. As their eyes adjusted, it became apparent that the pony was Twilight Sparkle.

Each one in the box mumbled at the brightness of the sunlight.

The expression on the purple pony’s face was a serious one, “We’ve all been looking for you all day, it’s almost dinner time and each one of you need to go back home now.”

“Yes, Miss Twilight,” the Cutie Mark Crusaders said in unison before pulling themselves out of the large cardboard box.

Both Twilight and Spike watched each of the fillies run off back towards Ponyville. The unicorn then turned her attention to her assistant, “As for you Spike, I’ve been waiting for that wagon of books all day! Come on, let’s go back home.”

Spike climbed out of the box as well. Hurrying to the wagon full of books, the dragon started to pull it while walking with Twilight Sparkle.

“By the way, what were you and those three fillies doing in that box?” Twilight asked as she trotted along the dirt path.

“Me and the Cutie Mark Crusaders made a spaceship, and then we launched it into space. And then we were flying all around in space, and we decided to fly to a star, but since it was taking so long, there was a fight. But in the middle of the fight, a big rock hit one of the rocket’s wings, and I had to go out and fix it. But when I finished fixing it, the doors wouldn’t open and let me back in, so I had to open the doors myself, but I almost didn’t make it back in. So we all decided to come back home, but there was a problem with the engines and the brakes and we couldn’t slow down, and the ship was burning up in the atmosphere, and heading straight down to crash into the ground!” Spike was out of breath as he finished his long statement, panting quite a bit.

Twilight raised an eyebrow as she looked over to Spike, “My, you and the Cutie Mark Crusaders sure do have some active imaginations.”

END

Comments

[kyle131996]

"This is ground control to Major Tom"

[Closer-To-The-Sun]

2799087 "Take your protein pills and put your helmet on."

[DestinyDecade]

Best story ever. I love it!

[Papillon Rose]

So much cute. So much freaking cute. X3

[wes512]

I like this group, they always have the best adventures. Good story!!

[Cosmalone]

so many quotes... it herts ma brain

[Closer-To-The-Sun]

2888985 It hurt to write, as well! But it was amazingly fun at the same time.

[The_Laundry]

Wow. this story has been sitting at the bottom of my read later list for a while now, and I deeply regret that. This is an amazing story. gotta love the absurd (in a good way!) amount of sci-fi refrences. 10/10 mustaches: