Group Precipitation

by FanOfMostEverything

As Without, So Within, by Gym Quirk (and Kris Overstreet)

The ship belly-flopped at high speed onto the alien soil, skidding along on a rising wave of loose dust and small rocks. Boulders clipped the stubby fin-wings, sending the ship rotating first one way and then the other as it skidded on, but somehow or other none rose directly in its path.

A low slope rose underneath the ship, and the nose began to dig into the dirt, braking the vessel until at last, with a final tortured scream of metal, it shuddered to a halt, having left a scar several kilometers long behind it.

“I’m mildly amazed that nothing exploded,” remarked Sunset, watching the monitor over Twilight’s shoulder. “Isn’t that the usual result of a Bad Day in Kerbin Space Effort?”

“Well that was a bit of a mess,” declared the voice on the Spasm stream. “And we’re about out of time for this session of ‘Mission to Duna’. Believe it or not, I think I can still salvage something from this fiasco. I’m Cherry Berry. See you next week, and fly safe.”

“Cherry’s running some beta mods for ‘enhanced realism’,” said Twilight. “They’re supposed to limit the booms to just components that can actually go boom. In this case, there's no fuel tanks, and the batteries are clearly drained, so no energy to be released there.”

Sunset shrugged. “She’s one of the game devs, so I guess she can mod to her heart’s delight..." She blinked as Twilight moved to different tabs. "What are you…? Are you tapping into the EquestriSat live feed to watch the SpaceZ launch?” A pair of new windows opened on the monitor. One showed a ground-level view of a rocket launch pad. The second appeared to show a real-time satellite image centered on Horseshoe Bay.

“Still have about an hour before launch,” said Twilight as she closed the Spasm window and shrunk the two showing the impending launch before opening up yet another window displaying an intricate pattern resembling a circuit diagram superimposed on a multi-layered heptagram.

Sunset was about to leave her to it and work on the script for the next Magical Mayhem vlog when she felt it.

Something had intruded into this universe.

It was a fair distance up and to the southeast.

Twilight had noticed her girlfriend’s shudder. “What is it?” she asked.

“Expand that satellite view please?”

Near the southern edge of the window, a cylindrical object made its way across the frame from west to east. It was also rotating slowly.

“That wasn’t in orbit ten seconds ago,” said Sunset with a slight frown. Her expression went distant for a moment.

The new satellite ceased its rotation, then with seeming deliberation, reoriented itself to point one end toward the planet below.

Five seconds later, it vanished in a barely-visible flash of magenta energy.

Twilight turned to look at Sunset.

“Wasn’t me. It did that all by itself. At least I got a good look at it…”

---

“...managed to track it to its next destination,” said Ditzy. “I’d guess it was the object's universe of origin. Heliocentric Equestria with an active, though still rudimentary space program.”

Agent Heartstrings nodded. “That fits with the fragments I’ve picked up. If the League and Census have it right, that Equestria lost their main research ship to a freak trans-dimensional teleport several months back. They’ve been sending dimension-hopping probes at random to nearby universes once every two to three weeks trying to find it.”

She gestured at the holographic image Sunset was projecting over her desk. “I can’t read the markings on the hull there.”

“I can,” said Sunset. “Same Equish alphabet as I'm used to: ‘CSP-ESA Angel 13’.” The image shifted to a wireframe representation of the object’s internal structure. “Based on the large number of mana collectors and storage batteries,” she said, indicating the array of cubical objects filling nearly half of the probe’s volume, “I’d guess they’re expecting to find their lost ship in a low-mana universe, which this one definitely isn’t.” She smirked at Twilight, who was scrutinizing the image.

“Low-mana… well, that narrows it down to a few thousand in this neck of the woods,” said Ditzy. "Though given how the probe was bouncing around, it may be a wholly different one."

---

“...An email from who?” Sunset asked Ruby a few days later.

“Max Payload,” repeated the Pope of the Church of the Divine Bacon Horse. “He’s deputy head of NEIGHSA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance.”

“And apparently a Shimmerist.”

Ruby nodded. “He wanted me to give you a head’s up about a joint inquiry being set up between NEIGHSA and the Air Force Space Command about the likelihood of objects popping into orbit from nowhere. He’s expecting an official letter for you by the end of the month. Or a live statement if you can fit it into your schedule, o Wellspring of Sanity.”

Sunset sighed. “Great. I already have an email from Ebon Musk on the same subject. He’s almost as peeved as Twilight is about today’s announced moratorium on launches.”

“Do you have an answer?”

“I may be nearly omnipotent in this universe, but I can’t do anything about what happens elsewhere.”

Ruby grimaced. “That’s a mildly disturbing thought…”

Author's Note:

Kris gets some author credit by virtue of those first two paragraphs coming straight from The Maretian.

Comments

[FortunateKitsune]

Pfft, guess what story I was reading when this was published!

[Bugsydor]

I’m Cherry Berry. See you next week, and fly safe.”

Was that a Scott Manley reference? He's one of my favorite sources of space news.