Sol 464
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 473
ARES III SOL 464
Two ponies and a changeling galloped through the valley of Mawrth Vallis, hearts sinking as they drew close to the next obstacle.
“Please, please don’t be what you look like,” Cherry Berry moaned as she approached a sudden rise in the valley floor. The meter-high scarp was bad, but not insurmountable by itself, had it been even and level across the valley. It wasn’t. The water of ancient floods had scoured a trench through the center of the rock layer that made up the scarp, leaving a trench that grew deeper as it rose up the valley. Although it technically grew narrower the farther back it went, the sides also grew higher and steeper. The total effect was a wheel-breaking, rover-dumping obstacle that had to be bypassed.
The previous two days had been full of this sort of thing, which is why the ponies had gone a full two kilometers ahead of the Whinnybago. Large boulders had to be moved or shattered to make room for the rover. The most level, most gradual slope had to be picked out. Three times so far the rover had actually had to backtrack, reversing Fireball’s and Mark’s roles in steering the contraption out of a cul-de-sac. They’d maintained their seventy kilometers per day, but at the cost of falling farther behind in battery recharge.
But this was the worst obstacle yet. A large plateau, twenty-five kilometers long according to reports from Hermes, split the valley in two. They’d been about to take the eastern channel (the valley running almost due north-south at this point) because Hermes reported the western one as narrower, unlevel, and clogged with boulders, some as big as the Whinnybago itself.
And now, well after noon, blocked by impassable terrain, Cherry had had enough. “Buck!” she shouted, and then added in English, “Friendship Actual to rover. All stop, all stop, all stop. And set out the solar panels. We’ve hit a really tough obstacle. We’re not going any farther today.”
“Cherry, we’ve only made forty-two kilometers-“
“And we’re not going to make any more without careful planning, Mark!” Cherry snapped. “It’s after noon already, and we’re on our fifth hour of EVA.” She held her tongue as she looked at Dragonfly, who drooped in her orange space suit. Changelings didn’t have the endurance of ponies even without developing life-threatening levels of magic withdrawal. “We’re going to use the rest of our EVA time to look over our options. In the meantime, stop before you get under the shadow of that mountain.” She took a deep breath and added, “Starlight, report our situation to Hermes.”
“Details, Cherry,” Starlight called back from the old Amicitas bridge.
“Meter-tall rock shelf, almost sheer. The rock shelf is split down the middle by an eroded trench of some kind. The trench walls build up high and steep really quick as you go up the valley, leaving not a lot of safe room to either side without risking a fatal slide into the trench. We’re scouting around to examine our options.”
“Got it. I’ll pass it along.”
“I stopped the rover as soon as you gave the first order,” Mark said. “We’re parked. The plateau is square in the right window. Suiting up now.”
“Good.” Cherry looked over at Spitfire, her white suit badly soiled by several days of long-distance galloping. “Spitfire, go around the north end of the mountain. I want to know more about those boulders. Come back to the rover at 1330 hours.”
“On it, commander,” Spitfire said, saluting and then galloping back down the valley.
Cherry Berry looked at Dragonfly, who had stopped hiding her exhaustion at rest stops the day before. She motioned at Dragonfly’s comms controls before switching her own to the private channel. Once Dragonfly had followed suit, she asked, “Are you up for a bit more scouting, or do you need to go back to the rover?”
“I can go on, so long as I don’t need to gallop,” Dragonfly said quietly.
“Okay. We could probably get the rover up over this shelf, but there’s no point if there’s not a safe path up. I’ll take the eastern side of the branch, towards the valley walls. You take the side next to the mountain. We need a clear, mostly level path at least three times the width of the rover. Anything that puts wheels on the downslope leading into the valley is probably game over. Right?”
“Yeah,” Dragonfly said, saving her breath.
“How’s your suit battery?”
“Nineteen percent.”
“At nine percent you go back to the rover, no matter what,” Cherry said. “I don’t want to risk you getting lost.”
“Getting lost?” Dragonfly waved a hoof at the big flood-scarred wall of rock practically next to them. “Boss, we’re in a valley. A darn big valley, yeah, but still a valley.”
This was true. Mawrth Vallis was bigger than Ghastly Gorge, than practically any canyon or valley outside the Badlands that Cherry Berry could think of. It lay almost fifteen kilometers wide in places, so wide that the actual canyon walls, despite being as much as a kilometer high, just barely peeked over the horizon. Mark had told her there were a couple of canyons on Earth larger- the Grand Canyon was twice as deep and wide, if only about half as long- but that Mars had canyons much bigger than Mawrth- “Valles Marineris is so big that, if Mawrth flowed into it, it wouldn’t even have its own name.”
But it was still a valley. And the mountain next to them, according to Mark, would lead anyone near it back to the Whinnybago.
“Okay. Just be careful. Back to public channel, and get moving.”
Dragonfly didn’t gallop, but she made a decent walking speed up the slope to the right of the wash. Cherry jumped up the shelf- almost as tall as she was- and took off up the left side, gauging the slope, the maneuvering room, everything. Oddly enough, there weren’t a lot of rocks here; the floods which carved out the canyon, and the rock scour they were trying to avoid in particular, must have flushed them farther down the valley to bedevil poor innocent shipwreck victims.
After half an hour Dragonfly said, “Returning to ship as per orders. There’s a path on this side, but it’s pretty narrow. And getting the rover up that first step will be a pain.”
“Roger,” Cherry said. “The way is a lot more open and clear on this side, and the channel slopes merge smoothly with the upper levels of the valley. I’m going to backtrack and see if there’s a path up the sides of the main channel that the rover can climb.”
“Spitfire here. The west channel is no go. Tight, deep channel crammed with rocks. We might make a kilometer per day trying to get through on this side. I’m coming back.”
“Roger,” Cherry repeated. “See you in about an hour.”
She stopped, looking around the slopes near her. The ground here looked different than most of the rest of Mars she’d seen so far. The colors were different- for example, there was the orange not of Martian dust, but good old common clay like she might see on some of the farm roads around Ponyville. That particular shade hadn’t been in the planet’s color palette anywhere near the Hab.
For a moment she felt like she could follow the streak of orange and, in a few moments, be walking past Golden Harvest’s farm, next to Sweet Apple Acres…
… and that moment of thinking of home, instead of a task at hand, opened a crack in her mind.
A wave of panic slammed through her as, for the first time in months, the full weight of responsibility and danger struck her. She’d been fine as long as there was a task, but now that she’d paused, that she’d thought of being in Ponyville again, now that she was off alone by herself, she reverted to a typical Ponyville pony, right down to the hair-trigger panic button. Every fiber of her being shouted at once, I’m not supposed to be doing this! I don’t know what I’m doing! Princess, save us!! I don’t care which princess! I’ll even take Flurry Heart! Just don’t leave this up to me!!
She flopped onto her side, the fabric of her spacesuit scraping the loose dust of the valley floor as she curled into a ball and let the panic attack wash over her. It had been a while, but she knew the symptoms by now- the racing heart, the uncontrollable tears, the waves of fear and shame. Give it a few minutes, a part of her separate from the storm thought. Let it run its course, and she’d be able to control herself again. Trying to push through immediately, without something to focus on, would just make it last longer.
The suit comms didn’t give her that time. “Cherry, this is Starlight. Johanssen apologizes for the bad info. The colors of the valley here make telling surface features difficult, and a meter escarpment is pushing the limits of what they can make out from orbit. They figured you’d just go around the wash on the left side.”
With her insides still storming with fear and anxiety, Cherry found room for surprise at just how calm her own voice could sound. “Looks like that’s what we’re doing, all right,” she said. “If we can get up above the wash, there’s a broad level area that goes for kilometers with almost no rocks. But getting up is going to be the problem.”
“No hurry,” Starlight said. “NASA sent Mark on an extended EVA. They want all the pictures he can get of the rock layers of the plateau. Something about clays and… phyllosilicates, I think Johanssen said.”
“Silicates?” Cherry asked, focusing on the conversation as her lifeline back to sanity. “Like the cave? Didn’t Mark say something about the cave being made over millions of years from dissolved mineral deposits? Maybe this is where the minerals came from.”
“It’s not impossible,” Mark said, cutting into the conversation. “I don’t see any level routes up and out of the main channel on the left side that I’d like to try driving the Whinnybago up. How crumbly is that rock ledge?”
“Not very,” Cherry said. “But I could probably break it down enough for a ramp.” Yes. A thing I can do. Earth ponies are good at breaking rocks. Things I can do are good.
“Half a ramp would do. The rover was made to traverse obstacles half a meter high. Is there enough room on the left side of that gully to work up and around it?”
“Maybe. It’ll take careful driving. I’d rather bypass it altogether if we can.”
“Let me know if you see any good options as you come back. I’m going back in for lunch in half an hour. Dragonfly’s already back.”
She is? She must have galloped straight back. “I’ll be down in half an hour,” she said. “I want to give this side a good look before I give up on getting the rover up here.”
Hey, she was on her hooves again. She didn’t remember getting up. Her emotions were steadying again; when she told herself things, she could listen. Everypony is depending on me. I have to do my job. Our job. One day- one sol- at a time. Seventy kilometers at a time, except today. And we will get there.
And I bucking well deserve wings and a horn for what I’ve done on this planet.
Reflexively giving herself a shake that did nothing to dislodge the dust from her suit, Cherry Berry walked, then trotted, then galloped back down the slope of Mawrth Vallis, doubt and fear banished so that she could be the steel-eyed missile mare again.
Until the next time.
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The horror, the horror!
Honestly, I'd be surprised if she was over them.
Top notch chapter. Fingers crossed for a safe trip!
🤞
9134993 Be fair. There is a lot in Ponyville that genuinely merits panic. Much more so Mars.
9134999
Yes
When this is over that mare is gonna need a whole lotta serious therapy. Look at her eye twitching.
*probably messed that quote up*
On a more serious note, the fact she's hasn't cracked is utterly amazing. Same for the reset of them to a lesser degree. I suspect the Equestrian space race is going to be put on hold in the aftermath of this...
Serious reforms are coming to make sure this never happens again.
Bad trip that, glad she got through it.
Cherry Berry the Princess of Mars...
Has a nice ring to it
Somebody hug the pony.
Noice
9134999
oh yes, so many things, like a stampede of baby bunnies, or a single broken flower stem...
When Cherry gets back to Ponyville, she's probably going to spend an entire week out in a cherry orchard, night and day, doing nothing but eating cherries and holding her belly.
Clay suggests water, and they're in a valley, and that makes me nervous.
9135038 *sigh* I better add on to the author's note.
The clay is there because Mars Global Surveyor and other orbiters have detected it on the surface in their scans of Mawrth Vallis. It's the main reason why that site was like second runner-up for the Mars 2020 mission site- clay means water, and water for quite some time, not just a sudden, brief, catastrophic flood.
She'll tear her spacesuit the exact moment she was back in Equestria. Just because her suit didn't designed for horny and winged ponies.
9135038
I'd be more worried about Cherry Berry encountering a situation at/during the launch that'll force someone like Blaze to take helm when she freezes up in panic.
I love the expansive character development that's been occurring since we've left! Learning new angles about the same people whom we've come to love has been simply a delightful filler for what would be otherwise a monotonus journey of logs.
Ooh doing me a frighten
9135027
Twilight Sparkle should turn her into a pegasus first, with the spell she used in "It Ain't Easy Being Breezies". That way Cherry Berry can fly in circles around the trees and just gobble up the cherries straight from the boughs with her mouth. Not only would that come close to her fondest dream, it would also serve as a self-regulation mechanism: Once her belly becomes too full, she can't stay airborne anymore, and thus can't eat any more cherries.
For some reason that I find myself unable to explain, I am now reminded of the night where Dragonfly finally came out of her cocoon. Likely similar feelings of the entire team needing them, maybe for different reasons, but still a necessity.
9134999
Bunnies, for example.
9135100
Pretty simple, really. Cherry had an emotional break down. With no real way to tell time, she was lost wallowing in her own thoughts until she got the next call. I don't have PTSD but I have my own mental issues and when things get bad you can lose days, with only basic necessity to mark any kind of passage of time at all.
Wow, she lasted so long before this (relatively) minor break. We're impressed.
9135173
Oh good, it's just a debilitating mental illness and not an actual emergency.
I'm relieved.
9134993
That would be Tuesday in Ponyville.
I've heard that Ponyville Schedules it's panic attacks in advance.
9135167 Mars bunnies? They're probably green and six foot tall, with acid blood and silicon biology, grazing on the abundant perchlorates for food.
9135270
i can see it like "Hey can you go get milk and eggs the next time you go shopping?" the mare next to her say "no i can't sadly its my turn to panic tommor"
Yes Cherry, yes you do. Twilight just finished a spell, you made friends with aliens.
'Put that another way: the entirety of human civilization, from the oldest known writing to today, runs eight thousand years... and that's NOT geologically significant.'
Oldest temples 12,000 years ago.
Oldest proto-writing 9-10,000 years ago
Recorded history 5,000 years ago
All above dates give or take a century or two.
Support the adoption of the Holocene calendar!
Cherry Berry, Princess of Exploration. Not perfect, but it's a good start!
9135288
I hear it's the mice you have to worry about, actually.
9135247
Don't worry. SNAFU is in full effect, here.
A great 🍒-focused chapter today!
9135384 Yes, I hear they're rather rough around the edges.
Hug the bug and pony.
Pony terror stress disorder?
Yes, yes she does.
The Insite Lander is going to Elysium Planitia.
Expected landing: 26th of November, 2018.
It doesn't matter and this is just a me thing, but further/farther... I always confuse these!
Lol
I once spent a minute explaining to myself what each one related to, only to take out a dictionary. Still not sure I got it right.
I like how Cherry had a full on pony meltdown but kept it to herself. She's really worth a statue when she gets home. In Canterlot and Baltimare.
I feel you, Cherry. Her calm despite the panic attack sounds a lot like how I am in public during the school year. I'll feel like I'm having a heart attack, but outside I'll appear stoic and relaxed.
No kidding.
Here's hoping Ponyville Syndrome doesn't kick in during the launch. For now,they just need to take it one day at a time.
9135562
"Ponyville Syndrome"? You mean "Things happening randomly for the sake of Drama (tm) " ?
9135619
No, screaming and hollering while you wait for the main characters to fix everything. (22 minutes or your pizza's free!)
The Alicorn of SPAAAAAACE
9135654
reminds me of a scene in that crazy collab "MLP time loops" where Rainbow Dash turned into an Alicorn and managed to fly at Warp Speed...leading to a Star Trek crossover...
And then they find fossil Martians!
9135777
Don't forget about the poptart!
9135004
The ESP has been a "seat of the pants" kind of ride for awhile now. If they're smart, and they are, they'll copy a few pages from NASA's training manual (if not borrow the whole thing; yes, looking at you Twilight). If nothing else, the science discovered along this deadly trip will make future space flights safer, faster, and cheaper. (Following NASA's example in safety protocols, heavy lifting crystals for the launch, and less rocket used to move a ship through space)
9135562
Starlight also deserves Wings for what she was put through on that planet.
9136369
oh, yeah, if i remember, that was actually a later scene...
i might as well explain the whole setup:
Rainbow Dash was trying to fly to another star system, and Pinkie convinced her to carry a giant Pop-tart along...
Someone in the Ten-Forward just happened to be playing the appropriate music...
Guinan cracked up...
and Jean-Luc deleted the log file using the "Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot Protocol"!
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/117679-nyan-cat
9136369
And the World tree and the Libary and Pinkies circus tent of doom as well as Angel bunny as Ryoko's ship
9132523
...what? What were you trying to accomplish with the reply "chain"?