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Into the Endless Frontier

Jet Stream sat at his dining table, with just a glass of water, having finished his dinner an hour ago. He had gotten his appetite back after departing Delta's junkyard a week ago, and he believed he had given himself enough time to collect his thoughts, and properly explain himself to his only daughter.

He took a deep breath, then grabbed the pen next to his glass, and pressed it to the parchment on the table in front of him.

My dearest Apogee,

I hope this letter finds you well, and that you are soaring to new heights in your career.

I'm not entirely sure you want to hear from me, but I wanted you to know that I saw your shuttle launch, and that I visited your mom's gravesite. It is absolutely beautiful what you've done to the place. It made me realize some very harsh and painful truths about the things that I've done.

You are my greatest creation, Apogee, but it will never change the undeniable fact that what I did to your mother was desperate, selfish, and utterly cruel. That it took me 25 years to realize that will haunt me for the rest of my days. Even though I've been the best father to you that I thought I could be, it's no recompense for how I took the future she wanted away from her. By some miracle, your heart, joy, and imagination helped you weather the storm of our destructive relationship.

If you'll allow me, I would like to donate whatever time or materials that are needed to preserve and maintain her grave and the surrounding property.

I love you more than anything, Apogee. I hope you know that, and that I am very proud of you, and everything that you've accomplished.

Love always,
Dad

With the assembly and installation of six large solar panels onto the Equestrian Space Station's second truss, the primary mission objective of Apogee and her crew was complete. It had taken three months of slow, methodical work, but now the ESS had its first reliable source of renewable energy. They were actually taking energy from sunlight and turning it into electricity.

With the first half of their mission complete, the secondary mission objective for the following three months would be ensuring that the solar panels would last, and continually provide stable power to the station, and fixing any complications that arose. But the next three days were going to be alternating free days for two crew members at a time, and Apogee was selected as one of the first pair. Knowing exactly what she wanted to do, she was approved for an unscheduled spacewalk, and had spent the next 12 hours in the decompression chamber to prepare. In order to avoid the work-hampering and life-threatening dangers of depressurization sickness, you had to slowly acclimate yourself to those conditions over half a day or more, and become accustomed to breathing the pure oxygen that the EVA suit delivered. She had killed the time with a good book and a few drinkable meals, and now, she was nearly ready, as she finished putting the EVA suit on. It required her tail to be braided and tucked down into the left pant leg, and she wouldn't have the use of her wings, which were strapped down under the suit for safety reasons, but that was one of the oddities about working in space. Even if they solved the problem of complete freedom of movement one day, flapping your wings in the vacuum of space would do absolutely nothing. It was all done with microthrusters and tethers.

With the suit sealed and ready, she looked over at the briefcase that had sat next to her in the chamber for the last half day. She knelt down as best as the EVA suit would allow, and using both of her front hooves, she opened the case, revealing a small, hoof-sized steel canister, and a hoof-held launcher, specifically customized for said canister. It resembled grenade launchers that you would see in various military outfits down on Equus, except it fired farther and faster; fast enough to hopefully achieve the result she desired. She picked the launcher up, turned it end over end to make sure it was in good working order, and cracked open the barrel, where desired projectiles were loaded. Seemingly satisfied, she turned her attention to the canister still safely secured in the foam confines of the case.

A symbol and letter had been engraved onto the side.

▲V

Using both EVA-protected hooves, she lifted the canister containing a small portion of her mom's cremated remains that weren't buried under her junkyard, and carefully slid it into the firing chamber of the launcher, and after triple-checking that the safety was on, closed the barrel, and strapped the launcher to her side before turning to the waiting airlock. She activated the headset inside her helmet.

"ESS Control, this is Apogee at Decompression 1 for radio check." She said.

"Apogee, this is ESS Control, we are reading you five by five." Commander Comma Cloud replied from the central module of the station a few rooms back.

"Copy that, Control. EVA suit is sealed and operational, oxygen supply is reading 8 hours, I am go for the spacewalk."

"Acknowledged, proceed into Airlock 1 and seal the internal bulkhead door."

"Copy, proceeding to Airlock 1."

Apogee stepped forward, hearing nothing but the soft reports of her hoof steps and the spinning fans and water moving through the tubes of her EVA suit. She twisted the central locking mechanism of the bulkhead door open and stepped inside, closing it behind her and sealing the door.

"Control, this is Apogee, I am in Airlock 1, internal bulkhead door is sealed. Repeat, internal bulkhead is sealed."

"Acknowledged, Apogee. Internal bulkhead door seal confirmed. Standby for depressurization."

Apogee heard a series of metallic clicks, and felt the air slowly escape the room for ten seconds, followed by silence, except for the mechanics of her suit.

"This is Control, depressurization complete. You are go for external spacewalk. Secure your crew tether, and open the external bulkhead when ready. Enjoy yourself out there, Apogee."

Apogee took a breath, then stepped forward, fastening the suit's 50-foot tether to the titanium ring in the ceiling in front of the door, then twisted the lock of the external bulkhead, and slowly pushed the door open, revealing the endless expanse of space.

No doubt the flight surgeon down in Hoofston noticed her heart rate spike momentarily. She had seen the star field from the Harmony's cockpit window after they exited the atmosphere. She had seen it time and again over the past three months as they installed solar panels. But she never, ever got used to the amazing beauty of space.

She leaned forward slightly, leaning her head out of the airlock, and looked down at the curvature of Equus looming below her. The speed at which the continents, islands, and oceans passed under them was the only indication of the station's speed of more than 17,000 miles per hour.

As the sun dipped behind the horizon and the ESS passed into the dark side of Equus, even more stars became visible, and would be there for the next 90 minutes, until the sun rose on the opposite side.

She placed her front hooves on both sides of the open airlock, and ever so gently pulled forward, and she slowly floated out of the airlock into the surrounding vacuum. She spread her front and back hooves out and let herself float outwards. With Equus directly behind her orientation, it was just billions of stars in front of her. Her lips widened in a smile, and tears beaded down her cheeks.

Sixty seconds later, she felt tension for the first time since leaving the airlock as the tether pulled taut. She slightly turned a dial on her chestpiece, opening her rear microjets to 10% thrust, keeping her at the tether's max length. The tether could withstand tension hundreds of times stronger, so she was in no danger of breaking it; the light forward thrust was mainly to slowly negate the recoil from the launcher and keep her from bumping back into the station once she fired it off.

Moving slowly to keep her jets oriented, she took hold of the launcher strapped to her side, and made sure it was physically connected to her suit's utility belt. She brought it up, and took aim, slowly bringing her right hoof to the firing lever. She gently pulled it, and as much as she expected a 'thwump!' sound, there was none, as this was the vacuum of space. Instead, a ring of smoke expanded from the tip of the barrel, and the canister shot off into the beyond.

One of two things would happen; either the planet's gravity field would catch it, and it would spend an inordinate amount of time orbiting Equus somewhere between the station and the moon... Or it would escape, completely break orbit, and a part of Delta Vee would head out into the endless expanse of the galaxy.

She had long decided that either outcome was appropriate.

With a tearful smile, she gave a slow wave to the canister.

"Bye, mom."

Author's Note:

"There are so many things that magic can't explain, where science and mathematics are the real magic!"
-Dr. Hooves

Thank you very much for reading this short pony tale of mine, and I hope you were able to tolerate my laughably novice understanding of aerodynamics and astronautics. It was very fun putting myself into Shino's alternate version of Equestria these past few days. I'd like to give a special thanks to him for granting me permission in advance to write this, and I personally cannot wait to see where he takes these captivating characters himself.

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