Chapters Next
Close
Part of the Plan2,204 words
Liftoff3,014 words
Sins of the Father1,280 words
Into the Endless Frontier1,546 words

Part of the Plan

"I'm sorry, can you say that again?" Jet Stream asked, pausing in his sip from his tumbler as he set the glass back down on the dining table.

"I accepted EQSA's job offer. I start in two weeks." Apogee repeated, taking another bite of hay fries from her plate.

"I just don't understand why you don't want to come work with me, for EquestriAero" Jet said, leaning back in his chair.

EquestriAero was Jet Stream's aerospace and transportation company. He had founded it right out of college, and had several moderately successful ventures with it.

"Because it's not what I want to do. EQSA says with my training, I could be one of the first pilots for their new orbiter shuttles. Maybe even work on the ESS."

"The orbiters still depend on rockets to get into orbit. I've been designing completely reusable spacecraft. To break out of our atmosphere and explore the stars."

"That might be farther away than you want to admit, dad. You don't even have a working prototype yet."

Jet Stream looked across the table at his 24-year old daughter, the skyline of Las Pegasus lighting up the night in the windows behind her. Her mane style had barely changed from her teenage years.

"I just thought that I sent you to the best aerospace school in Equestria so I could pass my company, everything I've built, down to you."

"But that's not what I want. You know that, I've told you that. Dad, nearly all of your company's revenue comes from EQSA contracts and delivering supplies to the ESS. We're a lot farther away from exploring beyond High Equus Orbit than you think. Your spacecraft research and development slowed considerably when mom left. I don't want to wait." Apogee said, a hint of frustration coming into her voice.

"Do you think we can leave her out of this?" Jet replied, unable to hide his irritation.

"Why? You don't want to think about what she contributed to EquestriAero?"

"Can we not do this? Look, I think if we just sit down, and you tell me what they're offering you, I can give you a counter—"

"Stop! You're not going to do to me what you did to her!" She yelled, slamming her hooves down on the table, rattling the plates, glasses, and dinnerware on the table.

Jet Stream's eyes widened, shocked at his daughter's outburst.

"What...?" He asked, just above a whisper.

"For years, a very small part of me was wishing that maybe I misheard something, or maybe I misunderstood what she told me." Apogee said, looking down at her plate, shaking her head softly.

"What are you talking about?"

"I know I wasn't an accident." Apogee said, almost forcibly dragging the words from her vocal chords. "She told me what you did to her."

Jet Stream adjusted his sitting position, running a hoof back over his mane, as it went from red, to orange, to yellow as it went down his neck, and cleared his throat.

"Sweetheart, you're trotting on some pretty thin ice here."

"Deny it."

Eight years ago...

"Do you need anything else?" Apogee asked her mother, Delta Vee.

"No."

The pale blue, middle-aged pegasus mare sat in front of an open compartment of an old rocket engine, an empty amber bottle of Buck Lite beer on the edge of the contraption, with the 16-year old filly four feet from her, with a blowtorch, and welder goggles on the shop floor between the pair.

"Maybe another tool?" The teenage pegasus added.

No response, as her mother continued tinkering inside the compartment.

"Some water?" She offered, no doubt working out in the desert got a pony parched fast.

No answer.

"...A hug?"

This last question brought a pause to the sounds of tinkering as Delta finally looked over at her daughter.

"Alright, drop the act kid. I can tell you're up to something." Delta asked, irritated at the interruption in her work.

"What?" Apogee asked, wondering what she was being accused of.

"You and your dad are trying really hard to get back in my life. What for?"

"I... W-We just want to help."

"Help with what?"

"Y'know, life and stuff."

"Of course," Delta spat, scoffing. "He wants to be a hero and dig me out of the hole he put me in. He's over sixteen years too late for that. I'm good without him."

"...Sixteen?" Apogee asked, starting to connect the dots.

"Yes, and why? Does he need me again?"

"No, I need you."

"With all that money your dad makes, I doubt it. I bet that lawyer mare could be your mom too." Delta mused, returning to her work.

"Why are you this way?" Apogee asked.

"Because your dad—"

"This is not all about dad, mom. Why do you hate me?"

Again, the sounds of tinkering halted, and the shop fell silent, as Delta looked down at her daughter, eyes widening at the rather direct question.

"Uh, I... I don't hate you... But, your... dad..."

Whatever words Delta was looking for didn't come as her eyes averted from her daughter's gaze.

"For Luna's sake, Apogee." She said, dropping her wrench and getting up, walking past her daughter towards the open door.

"Where are you going?"

"Just give me some space, alright?"

Apogee watched silently as her mother walked across the lot towards the decrepit trailer, going inside and shutting the door, leaving the filly alone with the engine, tools, and empty bottle. She sat there for a moment as the wind moved through the piles of junk scattered across the lot. After another few seconds of thought, she followed her mom's footsteps back across the dusty lot to the trailer, and stepped inside, softly closing the door behind her, and turned to the bedroom door.

"Mom?" She announced herself, seeing Delta laying on the bed, turned away from her.

"Dad and I gave you space before, but you never got much better. What's wrong?" Apogee asked, slowly stepping towards the bed. Her mom shifted slightly but otherwise offered no reply.

"...You know we don't want to hurt you... Right? Have I done something to you? If so, I'm sorry."

Delta Vee remained silent.

"I just want to be with you... That's all."

Apogee put one hoof up on the bed, then two, then climbed up next to her mother.

"I'll be here if you need someone to talk to... Or if you don't, that's okay too."

Delta took a deep breath, then let it out in a sigh.

"You weren't part of the plan." She said, not moving or turning to the pony snuggled behind her.

"What?" Apogee asked, lifting her head off of the sheets.

"I get the feeling you're not going to stop picking, prodding, and digging. But you never know what your shovel is going to hit, so whether or not you think you're ready to hear it, so be it. You weren't part of the plan. My plan." Delta stated flatly.

"What do you mean?"

"I started dating your father in college. We always dreamed of exploring the stars, designing ships and engines that could break out of Equus' orbit and see things that the royals couldn't or wouldn't explain. We got the design down pretty good, but the execution was going to need a lot of work, not to mention years of development. Not even a month after your dad got his startup company up and running, I got a job offer from EQSA. I had the interview scheduled and everything... But your dad didn't want to let me go."

Apogee laid their silently, listening to her mother's story.

"Your father was always the smoothest talker. Convinced me to go out and celebrate everything we had accomplished together. Ever the easily-charmed featherbrain I was, I accepted. I got so fucking wasted and hungover that I slept right through the interview. I desperately tried rescheduling, but they wouldn't have it. Nine months later, out you came."

The filly offered no comment.

"I barely remember anything from that night, so I believed him when he said it was an accident. I moved in with him and decided to make the best of things. I don't know why his smidgen of conscience made him come clean four years later, but that's when the truth came out. He admitted that he got me drunk and knocked me up to keep me around. That's when I left."

Of the slivers of foalhood memories Apogee had, that night, that fight, was her worst one. She didn't remember words, but the yelling, screaming... That was burned in.

Delta scooted back and slid off the foot of the bed, getting up and walking out of the room, talking as she went.

"I wasn't ready to be a mom. I wasn't ready for you. I didn't want you. I had other plans. Career plans. Plans to do great things with my life. Your father didn't give a damn."

She opened the fridge, grabbed an ice cold bottle of Buck Lite, and took the tip of the bottle in her teeth, twisted the cap off, and spit it out onto the trailer floor.

"I can't be the mom you want, kid. We can't be the family you want us to be. Every time I look at you, the first thing that comes to my mind is what that bastard did to me. I look at you... And I see the future he stole from me."

Apogee simply stared at her mother from the bedroom as she took her first swig from the open bottle, the filly's eyes burning and wet, and her throat tightening.

"You can paint whatever picture you want of your dad. My picture of him was finished years ago."

With that, Delta Vee took her bottle of beer and pushed the trailer door open, returning to the shop and her LR79 rocket engine.

Apogee tried to get off the bed, but when her hooves hit the floor, her weak, shaking legs gave out, and with the lump in her throat threatening to cut off her air, she swallowed it, and a torrent of tears spilled down her cheeks as she sat on the floor against the bed.

"I had always wondered why you did that 180° with Diamond Gavel when you came back from that trip, why you didn't want to go back after that. When were you going to tell me that she told you all this?" Jet Stream asked his daughter.

"I decided I didn't want to intrude on her space if she honestly didn't want me there. If she wanted to get to know me, she knew where to find me. And I didn't say anything to you because for the longest time, I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to believe you did something like that to her." Apogee answered, eight-year old tears threatening her eyes again.

"Fine. Yes, I know what I did. I saw my opportunity for a family, and I took it before it slipped away."

"Some family it turned out to be."

"You say that like I forced her out the apartment door, that I forced all that booze and coke and shit into her body." Her father shot back, his irritation finally seeping to the surface.

"No, but she wasn't your 'opportunity', dad. She was a pony with plans and dreams and-and aspirations of her own!"

"She had every chance to do amazing and groundbreaking things with me, with EquestriAero. I wanted to take care of both of you!"

"What if she didn't want to be taken care of? What if she wanted to earn her way? Make her way? Carve her own path?"

"Are you doing this just to fulfill your mom's broken dream? Or are you doing it to spite me because of what she put in your head?"

Apogee scoffed disappointingly.

"Maybe that's part of the problem. If somepony goes against your 'plan', it must be to deliberately spite you, right?"

"Now you're putting words into my mouth." Jet claimed defensively.

Apogee got up from her dinner and began to head over to the coat rack next to the front door. She had heard enough.

"Apogee, if I didn't make the choice that I did, you wouldn't be here. Did you ever think of that?" Jet asked, turning on his chair to face his daughter.

"You're absolutely right, dad. You are absolutely right." She said, grabbing her leather university letter jacket, beginning to put it on. "But that doesn't change the plain and simple fact that what you did to her was wrong."

Jet Stream raised his front legs in surrender as he returned to his dinner.

"We all have choices to make, and I made mine."

"Speaking of words in your mouth, did you ever apologize? Ever?" Apogee asked, adjusting her jacket, with all manner of award and certification patches going down both sleeves.

"She never gave me the opportunity."

"Again with 'opportunity'." The pale yellow pegasus mused as she turned the doorknob with her right wing and opened the front door to her father's penthouse. "Well, if you ever take the opportunity to stallion up and apologize, you know where she is."

1,062 views

Chapters Next