Finding Space

by dancing mop

Visitors

"Seriously, guys, I'm fine. I'll be out of here in a day. It was nothing."

Rainbow Dash's statement did little to convince her friends. As they stood in her room in the hospital, warm afternoon light spilling in through the window, with sounds of a busy building drifting in through the open door, it was evident that they were still very much concerned. This feeling may have been caused by the bandage wrapped around her head, hiding one ear, and obscuring her left eye.

"Are you kiddin'?" asked Applejack incredulously, "That was the hardest landing Ah think Ah ever saw. You came flyin' in faster than, well, you at the start o' cider season!"

"Yes, indeed." Rarity added, "If Twilight hadn't cast her shield spell, you would not even be alive, let alone able to recover from your injuries in just a day."

Fluttershy spoke up, "This is exactly the kind of thing I was afraid of.", She stated, voice beginning to waver, "You weren't prepared, and you went and got hurt."

Just then, Twilight strode into the room, free of any bandages, and declared, "No, we were prepared."

Fluttershy zipped over to her friend, wrapping her in a tight hug. "Twilight! You're okay!"

Laughing, Twilight disentangled herself from the pegasus's embrace. "Yes, I am. In fact, I've already been discharged." She cleared her throat, "But as I was saying, we were prepared for as much as we reasonably could be, so we were able to keep ourselves safe. If we'd really been unprepared, I don't think we'd be here right now." She continued, in a lighter tone, "By the way, Pinkie is up."

"Oh good." Said Rarity, "I assume she is feeling better?"

Twilight nodded. "Yes. But they want to keep her under observation for a while."

"Well," Said Applejack, moving to head for the door, "I'll bet she could use some company. We best go and see her."

Rainbow Dash chimed in, "That's a good idea, you guys. I'll be fine here." As they said their goodbyes and started heading for the exit, she called Twilight over. "Hey, Twilight, could I talk with you for a moment?"

Twilight stopped and assured the other three, "I'll be right along. She's already seen me anyway." She strode back into the room, and pulled up a chair next to Dash's bed. "I think I can guess what you wanted to talk about." She started.

"Yeah, you probably can." Rainbow frowned, "What was all that stuff about us being prepared?"

"We were prepared." Twilight blustered. "We had everything we needed to get back home safely."

"Yeah, but we didn't know that. If Pinkie Pie hadn't had her party cannons-"

Twilight cut her off. "I knew Pinkie had her party cannons. I also knew that they would definitely push us back to Earth, even if nothing else worked. I honestly thought we could just fly down."

Rainbow groaned and held her head in a hoof. "Okay, so what about the no gravity thing? You seemed pretty surprised by that."

"I was. I expected to feel a gradual decrease in gravitational pull, until it got so faint that we didn't even notice it." Twilight mused, "But I guess we were traveling so fast, it seemed like there was no gravity at all, when it had only slightly decreased."

Rainbow's head snapped up. "Wait, what?! There was still gravity?" She continued, angrily, "Twilight, I ripped off my air tanks to save you from floating away from Earth forever! That was for nothing?!" She shot Twilight a murderous glare, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because," Twilight replied indignantly, "I didn't know at the time! I only figured out what was happening once we got back down." When Rainbow didn't let up, she continued, "Look, I don't know everything there is to know about space. There's some things we'll just have to learn by going there and finding out."

Rainbow shook her head. "No way. That is way too dangerous. We'd be better off just staying down here."

Twilight smiled mischievously, "I thought danger was your middle name."

"Ehh, it's one of them." Rainbow said awkwardly, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Well, I'm definitely going back."

"What? Twilight, that's-"

"So," Twilight cut her off, "If you're not up to the challenge, I'll just go myself." She said with a smirk.

Rainbow paused, weighing the decision, "I...Aw, C'mon! That's fighting dirty!" She pouted, "Fine, I'm coming with." As her friend snickered to herself, she added, "But I want to know everything you know about space. I wanna know what I'm dealing with."

"Okay." Twilight nodded, "Oh, and we have to find a better way to get Pinkie up there."

"Yeah, she'd hate it if we left her behind."

* * *

Night had fallen, and all of Equestria slumbered under a peaceful dark sky. The lights had all gone out in the towns, and the countryside was cloaked in subdued tones given by the light of the moon, which hung in the sky overhead, watching like a silent sentinel. The stars twinkled gently all around it, except for one.

This particular star was growing brighter.

As the light grew, it became obvious that this was no star, but an object falling through the air, burning with the light of a sun. As it hurtled down through the atmosphere, pieces broke off, disintegrating in a shower of sparks. A trail of smoke billowed out behind it, clearly marking its path to any observers.

With a roaring whoosh, the object approached the ground, blazing with light that made an artificial day. As it impacted, a shockwave was thrown all around, accompanied by a searing flash of light that quickly faded to darkness. If any ponies in the area had not been awakened by its thunderous approach, then surely they were awake now. A wall of dirt had been thrown up from the impact site, devastating the hilltop it had plowed into. Trees were bent away from the crater for miles around, and dirt, dust, and smoke obscured the moon and hid the stars from view.

In the coming hours, hundreds of ponies would visit the impact crater, drawn by curiosity to this never-before-seen spectacle. What they found there would change the course of Equestrian history, as experts poured in during the following day to study it. A call was sent to the princesses, which was followed by a summons to three would-be astronauts. Soon, everything would change for Twilight Sparkle and her friends, and by extension, all of ponykind.

Comments

[blank check]

Aw fuck, here I was hoping for the Equine Air and Space Administration, and now we have full-blown First Contact!

[dancing mop]

4200121

Yeah, I got the lecture after last chapter.

Sigh, I'm sorry. I'm working on the science part. I'm just gonna have to work with what I already wrote, though.

[dancing mop]

4200373

Well, I figured that it would be better if Twilight and Rainbow had an actual reason to go up to space, rather than just starting the space race on a whim. This should make things more fun.

[BenRG]

Here's my bet - there aren't people (or ponies) in whatever landed there. It's a space probe of some kind that, after drifting through space for millennia, drifted into the Equis system and entered Equestria's gravity well. It's the indisputable proof, of course, that ponies are not alone in the universe. That, at least at one time, there was another species out there with intelligence, industry and maybe magic enough to send a mechanism into space to increase their knowledge and maybe, just maybe, look for signs that there's anypony else out there.

Good guys or bad guys, prudence demands that Celestia and Luna arrange things for ponies to meet them on a level playing field.

Just an additional thought. I'm thinking of the object having a gold phonograph disc on the side with the strangest set of pictures imaginable...

The Voyager Record - Greetings from Planet Earth
The Pioneer Plaque - The Apes From The Third World From The Sun