Chapter 6: Missions 4 and 5: Pieces Found Rattling About
“I’m bored,” Chrysalis grumbled.
Construction of the new changeling space center near Horseton rushed ahead, with a mixture of skilled workers (mostly ponies from Manehattan) and unskilled and apprentice labor (changelings, mostly but not entirely in disguise)(60) working round the clock at overtime pay to get the most vital facilities built- the launch pad, the vehicle assembly building, the astronaut center, and the tracking station. Mission Control and the administration building, for the moment, were prefab buildings on skids, shipped whole from Baltimare. The end of the old farm road leading to the site had been widened and flattened just enough that Cherry Berry’s aeroplane could take off and land(61), and the hangar was nothing more than a staked-off area of land marked for eventual construction.
Unfortunately, it had rushed ahead for three weeks, and the VAB- basically a giant metal barn with immense doors and a large adjacent storage area and workshop- wouldn’t be even minimally operational for another five weeks(62). The launch pad was ready- it was nothing more than a heavily compacted and smoothed gravel mound, really, capable of withstanding (according to the engineers) up to eighteen tons of total weight before subsidence became an issue.(63) Everything else was, well, skeletal.
As a consequence, while Occupant had departed the hive to begin rerouting all official space program correspondence to the new site(64), the rest of the Changeling Space Program was split between the hive and Appleoosa, working on various tasks. Chrysalis had taken the opportunity to catch up on hive administration, including maintaining the network of infiltrators which were still the main source of concentrated love to feed the hive.
That, plus the ongoing astronaut training, had kept her fully occupied for about a week. After that, the queen had time on her hooves, most of which she used to annoy (65) Cherry Berry. Cherry, being CEO of the “Cherry’s Rocket Parts” false-front company in Appleoosa, chief of the space program, and overall supervisor of the space center construction program, didn’t have enough hours in the day(66). In fact, she was beginning to learn what it had been like for Chrysalis dealing with Double Face’s attempts at conversation for months and months.
“We need a mission,” Chrysalis said, while Cherry Berry was busy looking over paperwork. “Twilight Sparkle has had a mission. She’s catching up to us.”
This was true. The launch of the Equestrian Space Agency’s first flight had only made Chrysalis even more annoying. Rainbow Dash had flown a rocket built almost entirely from CSP components, with the addition of a small version of Twilight Sparkle’s experimental magic rocket thruster. The ship had only exceeded the altitude and speed records set by Cherry Berry’s flight by small amounts… but that had been enough to give the princess and her friends bragging rights while also giving Chrysalis a major flea in her tail.
“We’ll jump ahead when the new space center comes online,” Cherry Berry muttered. “Until then there’s no point wasting resources on useless flights.”
“It won’t be a useless flight,” Chrysalis insisted. “We need more contracts. We’re running short on money.”
That wasn’t strictly true, since a substantial sum now resided in various banks in the names of the Changeling Space Program and Cherry’s Rocket Parts and Odd Jobs.(67) But the giant pile of bits which had taken up a large portion of the hive’s throne room had shrunk to a small, scattered pool, only rarely supplemented by the results of a returning infiltrator’s petty theft. The changelings, who normally spent little or nothing, were now spending money like water.
“We’ll have enough of a reserve to resume launches once we can use all the new components Goddard and von Brawn are building now,” Cherry said, for the eighth time that week. “But those all require the VAB to put together. And there’s no point making any more little Flea jumps. That’s why we’re selling the surplus Flea motors to any other space program that wants them, like Twilight Sparkle.”
And they were beginning to buy. Princess Cadance of the Crystal Empire had taken her own Flea flight, as had Leonid the yak, Gordo the griffon, and Fireball(68) the dragon. Only Cadance had taken as smooth a flight as Chrysalis’s nail-biter, but all were preparing for a second go… and all continued work on their own ship designs, even if they were buying internal components from the Appleoosa workshop.
“There must still be ways to use the Flea,” Chrysalis said. “We can launch those without the big barn, right? And the new launchpad is fully usable. Why do we have to limit ourselves to one engine? Can’t we use two?”
“No, we can’t,” Cherry Berry grumbled. “Because we’d have to mount the lower engine right on the bell of the upper engine, because we’ve got no other way to do it just now. And if we do that, the whole rocket weighs more than our parachute system can accommodate, which means no matter how well it flies it can’t land safely.”
“Well, add another parachute,” Chrysalis said.
“We can’t. The parachute has to go on top of the rocket. And a rocket only has one top.”
“Really?” One of the more important work invoices levitated out of Cherry Berry’s reach. Chrysalis took it, plus a quill pen and inkwell, and began sketching out a rocket design. “From where I sit,” she said smugly, “this rocket can have three tops.”
Cherry Berry, grumbling to herself, left the rest of her paperwork and walked over to Chrysalis’s throne. Swiping the invoice out of the air, she looked at the design.
“Three engines,” Cherry Berry said. “Two new engines strapped onto the original. And parachute pods on the capsule and on each outboard engine.”
“Yet another example of the same flawless genius that lets me continue ruling this hive,” Chrysalis remarked smugly.
Cherry Berry looked again at the disturbing squared-off tops of the Flea’s cylindrical casings, at how the parachute pods sketched on each were far, far larger than the one on the capsule. “This looks dangerous as Tartarus,” she said.
“Have von Brawn put those thrust limiters on all the engines,” Chrysalis said. “And this time make sure noling takes them off.”
Cherry Berry looked at Chrysalis. “If we do this,” she said at last, “I test this design first. And you only get a flight in it with my approval. Clear?”
“That is our standard agreement,” Chrysalis nodded.
Cherry Berry sighed. “Right. If it’ll shut you up. I’ll talk with von Brawn and make sure it can be done without blowing up on the pad. Then I’ll ask Occupant for whatever contracts he thinks we can complete with the new design. If I’m lucky I’ll be back here in two days for a week of mission sims with you as my backup.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Chrysalis purred.
Footnotes:
(60) Which fooled none of the Manehattanites. They knew, of course, that every green worker nopony knew was a changeling, and that you were only really safe with the ponies you knew personally. Which amused the changeling known as Gandy Dancer, who had taken the identity of a railroad worker turned high-iron pony who, tragically, had managed to overestimate his balancing skills. That had been several years before, and thanks to a bit of luck, fudging with hospital records, and feigning amnesia to the late pony’s friends and family, nopony had caught on that there might be a reason the earth pony who had taken one fall had no fear of a second fall- well, a reason beside Gandy’s joke, “Might be because I don’t remember the first one.”
(61) And, according to Cherry Berry, only barely. Anything heavier or faster than her biplane, she said, hadn’t a prayer. She’d been sorely tempted to declare it fit only for her helicopter, but the helicopter didn’t have enough airspeed for her commuting needs.
(62) The actual work could have been done in three weeks with clear weather, but the regional weather manager declared that her schedule would go forward, spaceships or no spaceships, or else they could enjoy a nice little hurricane from all the backed-up rain and wind a few weeks down the road. The engineers said the buildings could withstand any hurricane… but they didn’t say that to Eye Wall, for fear she would take it as a challenge.
(63) On the other hand, they were very keen to point out that this was still land in a swamp on the ocean shore they were dealing with, and that they were absolutely unwilling to guarantee eighteen tons plus one milligram.
(64) Leaving Chrysalis to order Double Face to fetch the hive’s mail. At least the unwanted horse guest could be useful for something, small as it was.
(65) Not to say “bug”.
(66) And, too frequently, not enough magic charge in her aeroplane’s engine. Getting a changeling or unicorn to refill the mana batteries was a chore that often left her stranded someplace a day or more, leaving all the more to catch up with when she got to her next stop on the Hive-Appleoosa-Horseton circuit.
(67) The “odd jobs” part of the front company’s name brought in more bits than expected. Appleoosa, being a frontier town on the grow, had a chronic labor shortage. The Appleoosan ponies still disliked the changelings, but they were willing to hire them for day labor… and the changelings, for their general deficiency of independent thought, were among the most dedicated workers in all Equestria. As a result Goddard the Griffon now complained about his own labor shortage, with so many workers out on day-jobs for their growing repeat-customer base.
(68) Alas, all too aptly named, since he had nosed over straight off the pad, plowed Mission XL-1 into a sheer rock face, and detonated the rocket booster in a spectacular ball of fire and smoke. Being a dragon, he survived. Being a small, young dragon, he did not survive uninjured. Being a dragon of any size who’d just failed at something, he survived very, very unhappy.
The command pod had one minor new addition; the telepresence illusion now carried sound, and sound could be transmitted along the magic link in the other direction. The link couldn’t send recordings or take them, though, so the radio system being adapted from Yakyakistan’s boffin Alexander Popoff’s designs would eventually be necessary.
But for now Chrysalis could sit in the portable building which was the Horseton Space Center’s mission control room, wear a minotaur-made headset and microphone, and be the one pony in the room allowed to speak directly with the spacecraft(69). “Final systems check in progress,” she said. “Stand by for go/no go on launch.”
“CSP Mission Four standing by,” Cherry Berry said, voice flat, calm and professional.
Chrysalis suppressed the urge to hiss. The pony is doing the right thing, she thought to herself. You want servants who stay calm and professional in difficult situations. Stop being so angry.
The problem was, Chrysalis was only partly angry at Cherry Berry. Mostly she was jealous of the pony and angry at herself.
On her first flight, Cherry Berry had remained cool and confident, smiling most of the short flight (except for the brutal acceleration at the start). Which was good and proper.
Chrysalis… had not.
She knew she had not.
And although she also knew no changeling would ever talk about it to her face, she also knew every single changeling in the hive knew she’d been afraid, frantic, even at one point panicked.
Oh, she’d pulled it together. She’d finished the mission, achieving all tasks on the list. But she’d showed weakness.
The day you show weakness to your subjects, her mother had said, is the day the end of your rule begins. Just as when I show weakness, you will begin your plans to overthrow me, my daughter. That is the way it is, and the way it should be, for the good of the hive.
And it had been true, every bit of it. And although Chrysalis had no royal daughter among her hive at present, the moment of weakness crippled her.
She had to redeem herself. She had to get back in that ship and show everyone, changeling, pony, minotaur, griffon, whatever, that she had the right stuff to be a pilot, just like the stupid, optimistic pink earth pony.
She’d heard one of von Brawn’s fellow minotaur scientists refer to Cherry Berry as “the steel-eyed missile mare.” Chrysalis wanted, needed, to prove that she also was a steel-eyed missile mare. Otherwise she’d always be remembered as the cowardly queen stupid enough to almost jump out of a perfectly good capsule.
Meanwhile Occupant, rushing around the cramped little room from desk to desk, checked with his staff and von Brawn to make sure everything was ready to fly.
“Engines?”
von Brawn. “Go, Flight Manager.”
“Tracking?”
George Bull. “Go, Flight Manager.”
“Recovery?”
Lucky Cricket. “Go, Flight Manager.”
“Weather?”
Crawley, the changeling liaison with the Hayseed Swamp regional pegasus weather office. “Go, Flight Manager.”
“Parachutes?”
Dragonfly. “Go, Flight Manager.”
“Capsule communications… Your Majesty?”
“Go, already,” Chrysalis grumbled.
“Final review of mission tasks.”
“Mission Four, this is Horseton,” Chrysalis said, forcing her voice to a calm, matter-of-fact, not-totally-impatient-to-get-this-over-with tone. “Verify checklist of flight tasks.”
“Test stability and performance of new rocket design,” Cherry Berry repeated. “Visual inspection and reports on Nerd’s Reef just offshore and open sea coordinates JJ1-512. Check Mystery Goo containers in-flight and after splashdown.”
“Roger, Mission Four, checklist verified,” Chrysalis said. “Verify switchover to internal capsule power and control.”
Another of Occupant’s assistants flicked a switch at his desk.
“Confirmed on battery power,” Cherry Berry said. “All systems green.”
“Roger, Mission Four, stand by.” Chrysalis muted her microphone and said, “All go for flight.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Occupant said.
There was a long, frozen silence.
“Occupant,” Chrysalis hissed, “in this room you are the one in charge. Not me. You have to give the final order for launch.”
“Oh!” Occupant gasped, stumbling on his hooves. “Um… okay! Er… how do I do that?”
Chrysalis sighed. “’Capsule communicator, signal go for launch.’”
“Yeah. Do that. Um, please, Your Majesty.”
Chrysalis shook her head, took a moment to make sure her voice was steady, and said, “Mission Four, you are go for launch. Activate first stage when ready.”
“Mission Four confirms go for launch,” Cherry Berry said. She reached up and pushed the switch to ignite the three solid rocket engines.
Chrysalis watched with envy as, at a slower rate than prior launches, the rocket lifted off the pad. Although these engines had been modified to burn slower and longer by von Brawn’s boffins, the acceleration meter on the navigation ball still indicated four times normal gravity. Despite that, Cherry Berry’s face barely changed, still wearing that confident, happy smile(70).
“Ship is somewhat resistant to reaction wheel guidance,” Cherry Berry said carefully. A light came on over her head. “Telemetry shows entering airspace above first target zone.” She hit another switch. “Nerd’s Reef appears to be a large mudbank,” she said quickly, “vaguely shaped like a unicorn reading a book. I see a couple of schools of fish swarming here and there in the shallow water. Resources appear negligible. I’m going to leave the recorder on for the next site. Coming up on engine cutoff.”
Chrysalis looked at the fuel readout on the telepresence illusion; sure enough, the bars were shrinking to nothing.
“Gravity pressure seems to be easing,” Cherry Berry said. “I wonder if the engines are losing thrust as- OOF!”
For a couple of seconds Cherry Berry’s expression changed to surprise and pain. Chrysalis noted that the acceleration meter, which had drifted down to two times gravity, jumped up to a whopping eight gravities for about three seconds and then, slowly, drifted back down below five.
“Ow… I’m all right,” Cherry Berry said over the illusion. “As soon as thrust ceased, the ship decelerated hard. Really hard. Like I plowed through a brick wall. I’m not going to make it to the second zone. Airspeed is dropping like a brick, and I will be too in just a moment. I’m going to pop the first mystery goo can now. I’ll hold off activating the parachutes as long as possible, in case I’m wrong about falling short of the final target zone.”
Chrysalis forced herself to stop grinding her fangs together. The pony had just had a very rude surprise, probably a fright, and her voice was level except for the slight grunt as she forced the air in and out of her lungs to speak.
“Beginning descent,” Cherry Berry continued, breathing easier. “Airspeed below one hundred meters per second. It’s almost like I already popped the chutes. The drag on this design must be immense from those flat-topped boosters. Airspeed’s back over one hundred again. Dropping below two thousand meters. Retrograde marker’s almost on top of the nav ball. Popping chutes now. Sorry, Flight, but no joy on the second survey.”
Chrysalis forced herself to reply, “Mission control confirms negative on target zone. Recovery team en route.”
A minute later the rocket splashed down peacefully in the ocean.
“Performance is actually poorer across the board than with a single engine,” von Brawn rumbled from his desk. “Longer burn time and greater power were more than offset by air resistance. This deserves more study.”
“How long until my turn in it?” Chrysalis asked.
von Brawn looked at the changeling queen. “Your turn?” he asked incredulously.
MISSION 4 REPORT
Mission summary: Test flight dynamics of multiple-Flea configuration; fly over and observe underwater formations near new launch site; collect scientific data
Pilot: Cherry Berry
Flight duration: 2 minutes 49 seconds
Maximum speed achieved: 409 m/s
Maximum altitude achieved: 4018 m
Distance downrange at landing: 7.6 km
Contracts fulfilled: 1
Milestones: none
Conclusions from flight: Who is this paying us so much to do things a pegasus with a camera could do better? Anyway, we didn’t fly far enough to get both contracts. This design has flight characteristics slightly worse than the average brick. Until we either figure out how to streamline the boosters or get rid of them completely, this ship configuration is a lost cause.
MISSION ASSESSMENT: MINIMALLY SUCCESSFUL
Footnotes:
(69) Cherry Berry had insisted on this as standard procedure the day von Brawn had revealed the upgrade. She’d had one too many leadership meetings within the space program, and one too many shouting matches, not to insist on clear, simple communications between mission control and the ship. That meant one voice each way, and only one voice each way. Whatever Mission Control had to say, it would be said by the backup pilot for whoever was on the pad. Occupant had backed her up on it, mostly to make sure it wouldn’t be him on the mike instead.
(70) Considerably stretched out by acceleration forces, but still recognizable.
“No,” Cherry Berry said.
“This is a violation of our agreement,” Chrysalis insisted. “You fly it, then I fly it. That was the deal.”
“No,” Cherry Berry said, a little more firmly. She was working her way out of her spacesuit. Outside, the recovery team was carefully levitating the still-dripping spaceship back to earth next to the under-construction VAB, where the capsule would be reconditioned and all other reusable parts dismantled and put into storage until needed.
“We still have to fulfill that loose contract,” Chrysalis continued. “It looks bad if we don’t finish what we start.”
“Absolutely no!” Cherry Berry snapped, eyes wide, teeth bared in a pose that would do a changeling warrior proud(71). “Eight gees, Chrysalis! When you have a sudden deceleration that powerful without the aid of parachutes it means that something is horribly wrong, do you understand? I didn’t successfully fly that ship. I got away with it. Next time I might not be so lucky. I’m not approving any more flights for that deathtrap design until we understand why it’s doing that. No. More. Flea. Flights. Period.”
“But-“
“And because I want you to continue breathing, with all your legs unbroken(72), I will not change my mind on this. The. Answer. Is. No.”
Chrysalis fell silent. This was not going how she had expected. For one thing, the expendable lackey of an absolute monarch had just said No, expecting she could make it stick…
… well, except the pony was not so much expendable as irreplaceable, and she almost certainly could make it stick. But even that was awful enough.
“As soon as I can get away,” Cherry Berry continued, kicking her last hind leg out of her suit, “I’m going north to Cape Friendship. Twilight needs to know the danger of the design. She might even have a way of finding out what makes it do that.”
“Oh-“ Chrysalis practically had to bite her lip. Oh reeeeally? was a thing you said when you wanted your enemy to know you didn’t believe them, or that you were up to something. “Fine,” she completed flatly, very carefully slumping forward in a royal sulk(73).
“Look,” Cherry said in exasperation, “why don’t you go visit Goddard? I know he’s finally got the new engines and fuel tanks in production. He won’t show them to me because we can’t use them yet, but you sign his paycheck. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”
“Maybe I will.” Careful, just the right amount of whine, Slump back on your haunches like you’re punishing the world with your butt. Bad world, how dare you disappoint me. Is she buying it? Oh yes. Swallowed hook, line and sinker.
I’m going to fly, pony. I can’t afford to get rid of you, but you certainly can’t afford to get rid of me.
And if I can’t get permission, even in my own space program, then I’ll settle for forgiveness.
Footnotes:
(71) And which, once, had scared six changelings gooless, although to be fair half of that fear came from the berserker battle cry, “IT’S A CARDBOARD BOX!”
(72) This phrase, coincidentally, was one of the sweetest endearments in changeling culture, right up there with “I probably won’t throw you to the mob if we’re discovered,” or, “I’d hate to chuck you in a pod just to get the promotion- I’d still do it, but I’d feel terrible afterwards.” The simple “I love you” never caught on in changeling circles, mainly because although changelings can sense each others’ love, they can’t eat it.
(73) A pose taught her by her mother, many years before. It had been a hard lesson; Chrysalis as a larva had been a cheerful and optimistic child, and it had taken a lot of years ruling the hive herself to learn the disappointment needed for a truly regal bout of self-pity.
“Occupant! How’s my favorite underling in the whole wide world?”(74) Chrysalis strolled into the converted closet Occupant used for a private office in the mission control shack. “You know, this really will not do,” she continued, trying to find some way to bring her hindquarters into the room so she could shut the door. Unfortunately Occupant’s desk, mostly buried under snow drifts of paperwork, blocked her way. “You need a proper office. You need a proper mission control, really. And all this,” she said, gesturing to the paperwork. “Don’t we have changelings in the administration building to take care of this now?”
“Er, um, I still have to look it all over myself,” Occupant said. “Remember, my first task is still deciding what you do or don’t need to see. As you ordered, my queen.”
“Well, we really must do better for you, my dear,” Chrysalis purred. “I never dreamed you would be this good at these tasks, back when you were a mere door guard.”
“Er, I kind of still am a door guard,” Occupant said. “If someone wants to get to you, at least when it comes to the space program, they have to get past me.”
“And I appreciate that, really I do,” Chrysalis said. “I appreciate it so much that I really want to speed up construction of your permanent administration and mission control buildings.” She sighed dramatically. “It’s such a pity we haven’t the ready cash.”
“Er, well, yes,” Occupant said. “In fact we might have to give back the advance plus a penalty on the survey contract if we have any delays on VAB construction.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, my queen. I shouldn’t have accepted that contract in the first place, except I thought we could get a rocket that far.”
“I think we still can,” Chrysalis said. “It’s just a matter of tweaking what we have. Cherry was so close on this last flight…”
“Hm… not very,” Occupant said uncertainly.(75)
“Oh yes, quite close,” Chrysalis added. “And I think I can come up- hello?” In her efforts to squeeze into the room, Chrysalis’s forehoof had come to rest on Occupant's desk, triggering a minor avalanche of documents. One such had the big red and green logo for Cherry’s Rocket Parts… and a format that looked like… a contract. “What’s this?”
One look at Occupant’s face, especially the discomfited twist to his buck fangs, told Chrysalis all she wanted to know. This was one of the documents Occupant had decided she needed to not see.
She read it. It made for interesting, if brief, reading, particularly the substantial amount of bits being offered for what looked like a trivial task.
“Cherry Berry is actually paying us for something?” she asked Occupant.
“Er… you see…” Each word came out of Occupant’s voice like they were being winched out of deep mud. “We set up the front company so we could have a workshop in Appleoosa and sell surplus parts, yes? Well, Miss Berry decided this was a way to transfer funds back into the space program directly… if we really needed it, that is.” He gestured to the form. “Dr. Goddard found the form and wrote out the contract. We were busy with Mission Four at the time, so Miss Berry hasn’t seen it yet.”
“But,” Chrysalis pointed out, “Goddard’s in charge of the workshop budget, isn’t he? He can sign off on things like this. In fact, he did.”
“Er… I expect Cherry Berry would want to un-sign-off on it,” he said. “But Dr. Goddard really wants to know what happens to the engine in a water landing.” His wings twitched uncomfortably. “I was holding it until she had time to look at it.”
“Well, as it happens,” Chrysalis said, “she’s just left for a conference with our rival space agencies. Which leaves me, as the queen, back in charge, yes?”
“Er… um…” Fealty and responsibility were at war within the little bucktoothed changeling.
“And look on the bright side,” Chrysalis added, “this, plus the money from that survey contract, will be enough to hire more workers to get started on the new mission control.”
“But,” Occupant’s conscience said, in a final appeal to authority, “I’m pretty sure Cherry Berry needs to sign off on this!”
Chrysalis saw the quill and inkwell rising out of the papers like a tree through a heavy snowdrift. “She’s not here now, is she?” she asked. “I am. And I’m still the queen, yes?”
“Yes, my queen,” Occupant sighed, defeated.
“Then let’s do it,” Chrysalis said, signing the contract. “Today if possible.”
Footnotes:
(74) This was less of a lie than it used to be. Chrysalis honestly did appreciate Occupant’s absolute loyalty- which she was about to trade on shamelessly. More important, she approved of Occupant’s diligence, enthusiasm, and (a rare trait among her subjects) a vague recognition of the limits of his own competence. He had taken on responsibility surprisingly well, and Chrysalis was about to complement his performance by completely abusing it.
(75) That was another quality Chrysalis appreciated- that Occupant told her what she needed to hear rather than what she wanted to hear. Of course, she only appreciated it after the fact; at the time it usually made her furious.
“… and once I could breathe properly again I’d lost most of my forward momentum and began dropping back down,” Cherry Berry told Twilight Sparkle. “If our centrifuge can take it, I’m going to begin deceleration training to see if we can do some sort of exercise to prevent injury or blackouts the next time it happens.”
“I have to say,” Twilight Sparkle said, “I’m not a bit surprised. Didn’t you run this design through a wind tunnel?”
“Do I look like a pegasus?” Cherry Berry asked. “I know the Wonderbolts use them for training and examinations, but I’ve never seen one.”
“I built a mechanical one here for our project,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Your capsule tests out okay with your parachute pod on it, but a lot worse with it off. And your Flea booster by itself is horrible- it wants to turn on its side at high aerodynamic buffering.”
“I’d love to see it,” Cherry Berry remarked. “It sounds like an indispensable piece of equipment for our own program.”
“I’d be glad to show you!” Twilight replied. “After all, this is about saving pony lives!” After a very long hesitation, she added in a most uncertain tone of voice, “And… changeling lives too, I guess.”
As they walked, Cherry Berry gave a long look at Twilight’s magic rocket ship. The hull, at least, had been finished for engine tests.
Dr. Goddard would have mocked it contemptuously. Dr. von Brawn would have questioned its suitability in quiet but firm tones. Chrysalis would have laughed at pony weakness. But to a pony’s eyes, the big pink vehicle with the big pointy nose and three enormous curled fins was simply perfect, right down to the broad hatch in the side and the row of heart-shaped windows.
In the top of her head, Cherry Berry knew the design was impractical. The rest of her, though, loved it to bits and wanted a ride in it.
The thing would seat seven according to Twilight Sparkle, with three-quarters of the interior used for passenger and cargo space. So far, sadly, the closest it had come to flight was a test on scales, where the vertical take-off thrusters had only been enough to negate one-quarter of the ship’s weight.
Still, Cherry thought wistfully, I bet it does great in a wind tunnel.
We have got to get those new engines. Fast.
“This is the engine Goddard wants tested?” Chrysalis asked Warner von Brawn, who had lingered overnight at the new base before returning to Appleoosa by boat and then train.
Chrysalis had expected to find another big drum with a bell on bottom in the VAB’s storage room, like the Flea. This thing had the bell, but it had no drum- just a bunch of fancy plumbing and electric motors. Chrysalis had a vague idea what about half of the things were for, but since Goddard had been closed-beaked about his work until it was ready, she hadn’t seen the final product.
One thing for certain; her first plan of just hooking two Fleas on the sides of the “Swivel” liquid fuel motor had just tasted the rainbow(76).
“Sometimes I don’t know what my colleague is thinking,” von Brawn said. “At the least he could have provided one fuel tank and a little fuel. But no. He sent us just the motor and no way to actually fire it.”
“Can’t we just put a Flea on top of it?” Chrysalis asked.
“Fuel mismatch. The Flea motor would destroy the Swivel.”
Chrysalis shrugged. “Can you put a shell or something around it?” she asked. “Something we could hook four Fleas to.”
von Brawn shook his head. “You’re talking about a fairing,” he said. “In theory we could, but with the materials we have on hand, we’d need something to anchor the bottom seam of the fairing to. Otherwise the whole thing would crumple under the force of the engines.”
Chrysalis noticed the remaining on-hand stockpile of a dozen Flea motors(77). “Is the capsule reconditioned?” she asked.
“Yes,” von Brawn said. “We were actually going to put it in storage.”
Concentrating her magic, Chrysalis carefully lifted one Flea after another. Once five engines formed an X on the storage room floor, she pointed to it. “We secure those together,” she said, “put the Swivel on top of that, and the capsule on top of that. Parachutes on the capsule and the four outrigger engines.”
von Brawn looked contemplatively at the design. “Interesting theory,” he said.
“That was more an order than a theory, Doctor,” Chrysalis said.
von Brawn’s look grew much less contemplative and more appalled. “You’re not going to fly such a beast!” he gasped. “We saw the problems with only three Fleas! With five-“
“We won’t run all five at once,” Chrysalis said. “We run two first for a slow acceleration to altitude, then the remaining three once I’m up in thinner air. If we keep it slow enough, the ship should avoid the worst of the turbulence, right?”
“In… theory…” von Brawn’s voice drawled out in deep thought.
“And it’ll be fascinating to see how it works, won’t it?” Chrysalis asked.
“Yesssss,” von Brawn nodded. “Yes, it could be made to work, in theory.”
“Then let’s get it done,” Chrysalis said. “The sooner we get this test in, the sooner Goddard gets his results and the sooner we get to retire the Fleas.”
As von Brawn began giving orders to the changelings in the storeroom, Chrysalis rushed out to get into her pressure suit. The best thing about that, she thought, is I never had to use mind control once. von Brawn did it to himself.
Which is the best form of mind control.
Footnotes:
(76) A recent slang phrase among monsters, criminals, and in general those who might expect to be opposed by Equestria’s most famous heroes. It replaced the older “blown to Tartarus.”
(77) Despite aggressive salesmanship, over fifty more remained in a warehouse on the outskirts of Baltimare. If the citizens of Baltimare had known better what that warehouse held, they likely would have ordered the warehouse condemned.
The late afternoon sun shone on the laminated wings of Cherry Berry’s biplane as it approached the makeshift Horseton Space Center airstrip. The tour of Twilight’s scientific research facility, including and especially its wind tunnel, had been inspiring. There was so much the changeling program needed to be doing that they weren’t. She couldn’t wait to tell Dr. von Brawn and Dr. Goddard all about it… except she had to, because she had to finish up the wrap-up from Mission Four before she could return to Appleoosa.
She banked for final approach, leveled off… and noticed something to her left.
There was a thing on the launchpad.
She didn’t know which startled her more- the fact that there was anything at all on a lauchpad that should definitely have been empty, or the thing itself. It looked like somepony had tried to make a throwing dart out of Flea motors.
Oh Faust. Somepony DID do just that. And I know who. The changeling ground crew clearing the pad at maximum speed confirms it.
Despite her rapidly growing anxiety, Cherry Berry set down the aeroplane with her usual care, because some things you simply didn’t rush if you wanted to stay out of hospitals. The moment she bounced to a stop on the runway and had the brakes engaged and engine off, she bounded out of the cockpit and galloped for mission control.
Sure enough, there was Occupant going down the last go-no-go checklist with his assistants. She shot the ugliest look at him she could manage, then gave another one to von Brawn, who watched the illusion projector with interest. There was the thing on the pad; there was the nav-ball, the altimeter, the staging list, and there was Chrysalis, neutral-faced, calm, checking her controls in the most ostentatiously professional manner Cherry Berry’s red-tinted imagination could conjure.
Occupant cringed, but didn’t stop. “Capsule communications, final review of mission tasks.”
Cherry Berry glared at Dragonfly, who should have been monitoring consumables and parachutes. She reached up a hoof. Dragonfly sheepishly levitated the headset off her head. “She is our queen,” she said quietly.
“Not blaming you,” Cherry Berry said shortly, keying on the mike. “Mission… Five, Horseton. Verify checklist of flight tasks.” Calm. Professional. You did not shout during flight prep. You did nothing to unsettle the mental state of the pilot. Flying a machine was something you did with caution and respect. Anger, fear, panic- they killed as surely as a dead engine or a broken wing. And if you felt those things, you did not let it show, because those emotions multiplied in a group until they ran like a wildfire out of control.
Chrysalis was good, the professional, not-about-to-buck-a-changeling-upside-the-head part of Cherry Berry’s mind said to the rest of it. Not a flinch when she recognized my voice. “Mission tasks; test phased burn of multiple rockets; complete unfinished survey of offshore target zone; perform test on Swivel liquid fuel engine when submerged.”
A piece of paper hung in front of Cherry Berry’s eyes, held there by changeling magic- Dragonfly’s to be exact. “Er… roger, Mission Five. Checklist verified. Verify switchover to internal power.”
“Mission Five confirms switchover to internal power. All systems go. Standing by.” Calm, smooth, completely in control.
“Mission Five, Horseton…” Cherry Berry paused. The way we have this set up, she thought, I can’t actually order a mission scrub. The launch button is on Chrysalis’s end, not mine. And whatever I do now sets a precedent… so what do I do?
“Standing by, Horseton.” Not even a sliver of sneer or derision in that voice. Flat, professional… Cherry was beginning to hate those adjectives.
“I have to strongly recommend scrubbing mission on grounds of crew safety concerns,” Cherry Berry said. “Mission Five is a completely untested configuration with characteristics close to a discarded design. Wind tunnel tests done this afternoon at Cape Friendship-” there, that ought to get a rise out of her, Cherry thought- “-verify that at any speeds close to the sonic barrier air resistance renders a bare-topped Flea highly inefficient and almost uncontrollable. Please respond, over.”
“Horseton, Mission Five,” Chrysalis replied. “This flight was my decision and under my authority. The responsibility lies with me. It is my estimation that this flight can be conducted safely and successfully, and that your concerns have been accounted for.”
Cherry Berry shot a look at von Brawn, who shrugged. Big help, doctor.
So… decision time. I can confront Chrysalis now, force one or the other of us to back down. And that probably ends the space program. Or I can back down and probably let Chrysalis kill herself. Which would definitely end the space program and possibly the changeling race.
All eyes in the mission control now stared at the pink earth pony, aeroplane flight helmet still on her head, goggles down.
“Roger, Mission Five,” Cherry said. “You… you are all go for flight. Activate first stage when ready.”
“Mission Five copies go for launch,” Chrysalis remarked. “Stand by.”
And now, for just a moment, the beings in mission control could see Chrysalis’s control waver, as she took several deep breaths, slow, in and out, preparing herself for the launch.
“Thank you,” Occupant murmured to Cherry Berry. “But I thought you were going to scrub the launch the moment you came in the door.”
“I can’t stop her now,” Cherry said. “If I tried it’d wreck the program. We’re still such a long way away from our goal… and besides,” she added, “if it was her in this chair and me in that chair, I’d want to launch too, and forget the danger at this point.” She shook her head. "I hope I'd have more sense than-"
And then the engines fired- or, at least, two of them. The ugly thing rose off the pad on two plumes of smoke, rising at a much slower rate than previous launches. More weight, Cherry thought, and reduced thrust. Side effect; only a little over two gravities at launch.
The rocket nosed over to a forty-five degree angle of ascent, carefully trimming the flight for the target zone Mission Four had missed. Chrysalis’s handling of the ship was a bit awkward, and the ship tried to dip closer to the horizon, but the changeling queen fought it back to the desired angle…
… but not, Cherry noted, the desired trajectory.
“Prograde vector is too shallow,” von Brawn rumbled. “Reducing thrust to keep the flight subsonic-“
At sixteen hundred meters altitude the first two Flea motors burned out. With barely a pause Chrysalis triggered the remaining three engines, and the flying dart leaped forward…
… and down.
“Too much thrust,” von Brawn said. “She’s approaching the sonic barrier. She needs to pull up.”
The projected illusion also included readouts for amount of pitch, yaw and roll being used by the ship’s controls. Cherry looked and noticed, to her growing horror, that both pitch and yaw were maxed out. Chrysalis was holding down the controls as hard as she could, trying to get the rocket’s nose up… and failing. In fact, on the projection, Cherry could clearly see the nose creeping downwards.
The prograde marker had drifted almost to the blue-brown dividing line on the nav-ball.
“Mission Five, Horseton,” Cherry said, forcing herself to keep her voice level while speaking quickly. “Drag is pulling your nose down. Can you abort?”
“Negative, Horseton.” Chrysalis actually sounded a little bored. That had to be acting. “I am maintaining attitude. No need for abort.”
And, Cherry Berry belatedly thought, no way to abort in any case. The parachutes would be ripped apart if triggered too close to the speed of sound, and the engines couldn’t be shut off.
And then, mercifully, the engines did shut off, burning out at a bit over twenty-three hundred meters altitude. And, just like Cherry Berry’s flight, Chrysalis’s ugly dart hit the sonic wall and, without further thrust, got shoved back, losing half its speed in about two seconds.
In those two seconds the ship climbed about four more meters… and then nosed down even more, falling very quickly for the ocean below, capsule first.
“Five, Horseton,” Cherry Berry said, “parachutes show green, deploy parachutes.”
Chrysalis, staring intently at something on her own controls, did not respond.
“Sixteen hundred and falling,” von Brawn rumbled. “She has to open at one thousand or…”
The seconds ticked by, as Chrysalis’s hoof reached forward out of frame of the illusion, reaching for the parachute release, hesitating…
… and at nine hundred meters, finally pressing the switch.
Five parachutes released. Seconds stretched as the ship continued to fall, the parachutes slowly pulling the ship back upright, catching the breeze, and then finally, finally opening completely at two hundred seventy meters elevation. By two hundred forty the speed of descent, which had reached one hundred fifty meters per second, had dropped to a most leisurely five and a half.
“Horseton, Mission Five,” Chrysalis said calmly. “No joy on survey zone. Close but not close enough. Standing by for splashdown and Swivel test.”
Cherry Berry switched off her mike. “Will it float?” she asked.
“Five empty boosters? Of course it’ll float,” von Brawn said casually. “You know, this flight has given me all sorts of ideas for new systems…” He had a pencil in one mighty minotaur hand and paper in the other, scribbling notes at a fantastic pace.
On the illusion, the rocket splashed down, released all its parachutes, and promptly rolled onto its side in the water.
“You said it would float!” Cherry gasped.
“I never said it would stand up,” von Brawn replied, not looking up from his notes.
“Splashdown,” Chrysalis reported from the screen. “Executing test of the Swivel rocket system.” Even as the capsule end of the spacecraft began to dip below the surface of the water, sparks flew from the long casing that linked pod with engines. The sparks ceased as the spaceship completed its turn-turtle in the water.
On the projection, Chrysalis looked out with half-lidded eyes, apparently bored by her mane hanging towards the top of her helmet. “Test sequence completed,” Chrysalis reported. “Closing out Mission Five in stable condition, no leaks in pod, awaiting recovery.” And now, finally, a tiny bit of emotion crept into her voice; annoyance. “No rush.”
MISSION 5 REPORT
Mission summary: Fly over and observe underwater formations near new launch site (leftover from previous mission); observe characteristics of new “Swivel” liquid engine when submerged.
Pilot: Chrysalis
Flight duration: 1 min. 55 sec.
Maximum speed achieved: 319 m/s
Maximum altitude achieved: 2384 m
Distance downrange at landing: 10.5 km
Contracts fulfilled: 1
Milestones: New land distance record
Conclusions from flight: If anything has demonstrated the uselessness and danger of the Flea as a main propulsion system, this is it. We weren’t even close to our target drop zone. The only part of this flight that worked well, aside from the pilot not dying, was the Swivel engine function test. No more flights until we get better engines!
MISSION ASSESSMENT: FAILURE
The recovery team had had to call for reinforcements from the base, very nearly all the changelings on site. Eventually, with an effort that left them exhausted after the twenty-one kilometer round trip, the Thing sat on dry land beside the VAB’s storage wing, and Chrysalis stood next to it, helmet off, demonstrating her calmness and control for all to see.
Cherry Berry was doing her best as she came out of the mission control shack, but every changeling could feel the rage boiling off of her even if, outwardly, she schooled her face to mild annoyance, her walk to a slow, casual pace. She waited until she was close enough for polite conversation to speak. “Changelings and gentlemares,” she said, “might Queen Chrysalis and I have a moment of privacy?”
The changelings, tuned in like no other species on Equus to empathic senses, heard this as: Clear out or I will tear your heads off. They all complied without argument.
Once out of earshot of the others, Cherry said, “Fine. You got your way. You got your flight. You burned five Fleas we could have sold. And you almost killed yourself four times over,” Cherry Berry drew a line in the dirt. “Engine overheating could have caused an explosion, since your design left little room for the central engine to lose excess heat.”
A second line next to the first. “Your angle of flight left you dangerously low at final burnout, leaving you in danger of hitting the water while under power or before the parachutes could deploy.”
A third line joined the other two. “You waited too long to open the parachutes, risking their not opening in time to slow you for splashdown.”
A fourth line finished the group. “And finally, the parachute configuration could have entangled, collapsing the chutes, leaving you to fall to the water below.”
Cherry Berry, putting her hoof back down, glared up at Chrysalis. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I say,” Chrysalis said, unflappable in victory, “that I broke a new land distance record. The ten-kilometer benchmark means we can expect a check from the Royal Astronomical Society in the near future.” A tiny smile crept onto her face as she added, “And if I’d had ten seconds more thrust, I could have pulled that nose up.”
Having said her piece, she walked past Cherry Berry. “I’m going to the admin building to undress,” she said without looking back. “I’d prefer to be alone for that.”
Cherry Berry couldn’t hold in her anger. “RRRGH!” she growled. “Is this about proving you’re a pilot? Is that it? Well, you’re a pilot!” She stamped a hoof in impotent rage. “You’re a bucking pilot! Now quit trying to prove it!”
Chrysalis paused in her walk. “Damn straight I am,” she said. And then she resumed her walk, calm, cool, collected, opening the admin building door with her magic, stepping into the portable building, and closing it behind her.
Only alone among the deserted desks, with the door locked, did she allow herself to slowly flop over onto her side.
A few seconds later she curled up into a fetal ball as the shakes began.
The doorknob rattled. A moment later a key slid into the knob, unlocked the door, and opened it. “Your Majesty,” Occupant said, “I brought you the after-mission report forms-“
Chrysalis raised her head from the floor and gave a savage hiss.
“Celestia- no, Luna- Faust- I mean I’ll come back later!” The door slammed shut, and the rapid hum of frantically beating changeling wings rapidly diminished to silence.
With a flicker of green magic Chrysalis locked the door again and returned to her long overdue attack of nerves.
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Footnotes at the end of a chapter are very annoying to read when you don't have an opportunity to click an anchor and then return. :(
Could I possibly interest you in a more advanced formatting technology?
EDIT: And the img tag isn't working.
Yet anouther hilarious installment of the up going space opera that is CSP.
Wasnt it the Destructive Staging idea being thrown that threw them off with the explosive pyrotechnic seperation until they came back t the idea, so you dont have to physically burn off the prior stage, just
pyro the straps or welds, and then next stage pressure blasts it away?
Its been so long since I watched The Right Stuff, and Historical Test and Launch film, but this is soooo memorable.
Pity the save screencap to file isnt based with a sequentially incrementing number variable or time stamp. Key reassign say camera to space bar so its snap, snap snap? Something for the KSP guys to consider, or they have and its somewhere in the RT
M? 
I can only hope that Chrysalis learned something from this. Physics does not care about pride, and like it or not, Cherry Berry is queen of the space program.
Of course, Chryssie is a changeling, even if she's the most intelligent and competent one. That lesson may need a few more repetitions before it sinks in.
7203079
I just open the story in two tabs and scroll down to the footnotes in one of them.
7203271
Much more difficult to do on mobile. :)
Well, that went well. I just hope Chryssie doesn't get ptsd.
I agree with sentiments here. The footnotes are bothersome in their current configuration.
I've seen this done before, and my suggestion that held there holds here: Don't footnote everything to the end of the chapter. Try and find scene changes and footnote everything to that point there. More frequent, less gap to forget.
I may also suggest being a little more verbose in the footnote so what it was referencing might be remembered.
It may also be useful to have a link for the footnote number to the footnote, and a link back. If possible. I can't recall if Fimfic's story format can do on-page bookmark-links.
Okay, the image links are fixed.
Do I take it that people like the footnotes as quotes better than in early chapters, when they were in the author notes? As soon as I get confirmation on that I'll edit all the chapters to bundle footnotes at the end of each section they're in. BBCode, alas, does not seem to allow for linking within the same document like HTML does.
7203549
It can't. I tried everything and there's no way to do it short of discovering a cross server scripting vulnerability. In the end, I rewrote the formatter so that it inserts all footnotes in a block after the paragraph they refer to, which isn't ideal in terms of presentation, but at least remains consistently readable.
You know what the changelings need? PR.
They're bound to be widely known once they get into the truly groundbreaking stuff, and I for one would love a wall poster with Chrysalis, Cherry Berry and Dragonfly in their suits, posing in front of the latest rocket.
Possible Solution: Automated Screenshots & Saves mod. Not mine, just remembered hearing about it.
7209736 The joke is ancient; it referred to automobiles in real life long before it was used in 40K.
Is that a Fireball XL5 reference I spotted there in the footnotes?
7220761 In the game Kerbal Space Program, science is a resource like money; just as you spend money to build rockets, you spend science points to unlock new technology. You get science from certain milestones, from crew capsule reports, and from EVAs. The first scientific instrument you get, before materials bays, thermometers, barometers, etc. is the Mystery Goo canister, which is, well, exactly that- a mysterious goo in a cylindrical canister with rounded ends.
Possible typo in the story synopsis
Fairly certain this should be "provided Chrysalis keeps"
Kerbal Space Program has a native screen capture hotkey: just press F1. The screenshots go into a "Screenshot" directory under the main KSP directory.
How do you spend water?
Sounds like a mare who'd try to sink the Titanic.
They have a 20-sided reef?
Booo!
This sounds adorable.
Are we talking 50's sci-fi rocket shape here?
Bwahahaha!
Wait, they picked it up? Couldn't they tow it closer with a boat first?
Really?
... Really?
I love how you always tie together your game experience into your narrative. Bravo, seamless execution!
Ah yes, nose down into the water. Officially called "Stable II" because it does leave the ship stable just the right way round. It's why Apollo had those inflated balls at the apex after landing, they were there to flip the CM back over into Stable I
*Occupant's
reusable parts
built
Chrysalis will not pull that stunt again...
Great chapter
Good chapter, though I think I prefer the way you where doing the footnotes thing originally
10475949 Originally all the footnotes were at the end. Then I broke them up into several sections throughout the chapter. What you saw in the first couple chapters is an edit in progress, begun recently.
built
the quote was "steely-eyed"
10476241
Does that mean I should go back and point out places where the footnote actually precedes its reference in the text? I think the first example is footnote 3.
10503516 #3 is formatted that way because, on my screen, there's not enough room for footnote #2 to complete before footnote #3's reference. #3 ends up appearing several paragraphs below its reference.
10502770 I went with steel here because Cherry's eye color isn't far from steel-gray.
Chrysalis walking towards the rocket ready to prove that she is the better pilot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE7wUrK0Pb0&t
Yeah, solids don't have thrust limiters, that entirely Changeling modifications. Pretty sure unlocking decouplers could have helped to get rid of unnecessary weight
10578763
Well, yes, but if you just decouple the booster it will hit the rocket. Pilots have this problem bailing out of high speed airplanes.
They will not solve this problem until later.
the drama!
That final bit with Chrysalis felt great. Good job word-smith.
This chapter is full of beauty.
Thank you!