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Chapter 1 - Mission Proposal2,251 words
Chapter 2 - Launch Site2,127 words
Chapter 3 - First Checks3,298 words
Chapter 4 - Troubleshooting1,862 words
Chapter 5 - Overbalanced2,645 words

Chapter 1 - Mission Proposal

A moonshot is when you take a problem so big that it seems impossible to solve, and try to solve it anyway. You throw everything at it, all your brainpower, all your muscle, and all your money, the greatest possible risk for the greatest possible reward.

It’s named for Kennedy’s call to land a man on the Moon. It seemed impossible at the time, because it was impossible, especially in the timeframe he laid out, and yet they did it. The impossible, accomplished.

When the thought came to the surviving staff of Copernicus Engines, it seemed similarly impossible: another literal moonshot. A great leap into the dark - one final leap - while there were any real humans left to make it. None of them could remember, later, who had been the first to propose it. It was a joke, a bit of dark humor that took root and became an idea, and then a dream, and finally an inevitability.

As the world around them devolved into chaos, as a world-spanning complex algorithm fulfilled its core values through friendship and ponies, they decided. To the Moon, or to die trying.

---

When the PonyPad was released, Bruce was one of the first in line.

It wasn’t that he was that much of a My Little Pony fan, although he’d seen a number of episodes, mostly watched with his daughter of a weekend. He wasn't even much of an MMO player, although Equestria Online was already getting an awful lot of attention from the sort of publications that normally would have turned their noses up at a "kiddy" game. No, the Pads were a new toy, a gadget to be played with and investigated, and Bruce was all about that. He didn’t even plan to play the game himself, at first. No, he had his workbench all set up to take it apart and see if he could figure out what made it tick. In Bruce’s life, warranties were something other people worried about.

The twin gadgets arrived in discreet, featureless brown packaging several days before they technically should have, thanks to one of his old college buddies. Bruce had always been good at networking, even back when he was dabbling in freelance robotics and encrypting less-than-legal catalogues of shared media back in undergrad, and it had paid dividends. He wouldn’t even have his job at Copernicus if not for his old RA. Not that the guy hadn’t known his qualifications, sure, but Bruce knew it was the personal connection that had gotten him a foot in the door.

Now, as he tore open the first box, he spared a moment’s egotism to enjoy seeing the “Dr. Bruce Okoye” printed neatly on the address label. Still paying off student loans, sure, but it had been worth it. Not to mention the sleepless nights of studying. And programming. And drinking. And programming while drinking. And it had gotten him Michelle - though that happy memory brought a pang with it. Still, they’d had Emily, and a few happy years together before…

The thought was carefully avoided, set aside as the smooth white tablet slid free; this one was a Rarity, the triple-diamond cutie mark and purple edging showing it as his daughter’s favorite of the Mane 6. He set that one up to charge and left the rest of the setup to Emily; she was enough his daughter to get the joy of putting a new toy together herself. That done, Bruce turned to the second box with the slightly demented glee of a mad vivisectionist finding a fresh frog.

---

Rachel didn’t order a PonyPad until months after they were released, and didn’t open it for over a month beyond that. Equestria Online caught her interest, sure; she had been a fan of the show from the start. The characters, the cute plots, the music, she had even attended a convention or two and enjoyed them. But work had swallowed that up in the past year or two, ever since she started in the engine lab. Mostly, what she did at night was snag a slice of cold pizza or a beer, watch a few episodes of something - ponies, more often than not - and crash into bed before waking up and doing it all again the next day. Buying an expensive peripheral for a video game she wasn’t sure she’d have time to play fell low on the priority list.

Weekends theoretically existed, but when they appeared they turned into time to catch up on her exercise and do some housework in the tiny apartment she had snagged. It was a shelter from the outside world, blissfully within her price range and surrounded by quiet neighbors on every side. Well, nearly every side; the family above were awfully loud at times, at least eight people in an apartment really meant for two or three. That said, the mother of the family had brought down homemade cookies in apology enough times that Rachel wasn’t inclined to complain. Once she was asleep, an explosion wouldn’t have awakened her, anyhow.

Still, eventually there came a Saturday morning where she woke, showered, brewed tea - and there it was, waiting for her, still in the cardboard box with the bright cartoon characters on it. Her hands only shook a little as she opened it - she’d heard some odd things about the game since she placed the order, things that had some dusty alarm bells in the back of her head jangling worries about grey goo and the Matrix, but still, it was just a video game. Just a way for her to unwind a bit with the friends she remembered so well.

The box had a big, friendly picture of Twilight Sparkle; a stroke of luck, Rachel thought, the bookish mare had always been her favorite, a kindred spirit in ink and CGI. The box within was all black glass - well, something like glass - on the front, and the back a pretty violet with a discreet six-pointed starburst in one corner, surrounded by five others. The mounting arm was only a moment’s work to set up, obviously designed for even the least technically inclined to be able to snap the tablet onto it - held on by invisible magnets, a nice trick - and the cord into the wall. It didn’t even take a minute before the screen lit up, running through a quick animated boot sequence, and Rachel found herself staring at a login screen, with a friendly little box popping up to note that it had detected her Wi-Fi, and wouldn’t she like to allow it to connect to her network?

A network should be secured, she knew, but with the little time Rachel spent actually using her home connection, she’d never had the time to really care. It only took a few key presses to grant the device access, and a puff-maned pony head popped up over the bottom edge of the screen, almost like someone peering out through a window; Twilight Sparkle smiled up at her. “Hey there, long time no see!”

Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. She hadn’t been part of the beta-test for Equestria Online, she hadn’t done anything with the show or its fan stuff for two years or more - how could Twilight possibly recognize her?

With barely a beat in response to the human’s shock, the cartoon horse continued. “Of course, I don’t know you, yet - not really. But only a true friend of Equestria would have been in the first wave of official Equestria Online players, so I’m sure we’ll be great friends in no time! I’m Twilight Sparkle, and…”

The tension broke in Rachel’s chest, and she heaved out a short, relieved puff of breath. That had been creepy, but of course, it was just a spiel. No doubt a variant on the same script played for everyone starting up the game. The way Twilight had focused on her had enhanced the illusion, of course, but pulling tricks like that with a camera - and she could see the little lens at the top of the PonyPad focusing on her as she shifted in her seat - was really easy enough. She’d been silly to get so spooked.

A soft, hollow tapping drew her attention back to the display, where Twilight looked up with a concerned expression. “Sorry, were you paying attention? I can go back over it, I’ve got the scroll right here. Or I can just put it on the display if you’d rather read it!”

Indeed, there was a tightly furled scroll held in the purple glow of the unicorn’s magic, and one aspect of the sight surprised Rachel enough that she blurted out loud. “You’re a unicorn!”

Twilight returned a wry look. “You couldn’t tell, with the horn? I know I’m not exactly Rarity, here, but I didn’t think you’d mistake me for an Earth pony or a pegasus.” She laughed at the thought, actually snorting a little. Rachel started at how realistic it was, spot-on for the original voice actress, then shook her head and laughed to herself. Of course, they had more than a few seasons of the show to build a voice model, no wonder it sounded good.

“I mean, shouldn’t you be an alicorn?” Rachel’s response was automatic, though of course, a virtual character couldn’t have that deep of a dialogue tree. The illusion of reality could only ever be a thin one.

“What, like Princess Celestia? Oh, no no no, I’m just a student! Nowhere near her level when it comes to friendship.” Twilight shook her head again, a decisive movement. “But every day is a chance to make a new friend, as Fetlocke would say. Speaking of, what’s your name?”

Magical Mystery Cure was one of Rachel’s favorite episodes - she’d probably watched it into the double digits, mostly while munching unevenly-reheated pizza - but maybe EO wasn’t starting up to date on the cartoon for some reason. They might be planning it for an expansion. Either way, she didn’t have time to dwell on the oddity, not with a disconcertingly realistic expression of rapt attention on Twilight’s face. “I’m, ah - Rachel. Is this the registration screen?” She hated how uncertain her own voice sounded, even talking to a program.

Twilight scrunched up her muzzle and tilted her head to one side. “It might be more accurate to say that this is an introduction. We’re introducing ourselves to each other, and you’re being introduced to Equestria! I hear you come from foreign parts, but to make friends around here, it might help if you have a pony body of your own, instead of a floating screen.” She tapped the display itself with a hoof - that hollow sound again, very like horse-hoof on glass - and gave a wry look. “And you might like to pick out a more Equestria-friendly name. ‘Rachel’ would sound a little odd around here!”

“Oh, uh - “ Rachel’s mind flashed over the half-finished fanfics she hadn’t updated in far too long, no time or energy to work on them; she had a half dozen original characters she’d been using in them, but none seemed quite right for this. No, for an avatar of her own, she needed something else. A phrase bubbled up from work, she’d been working on the team for their new design lately, and she mentally shrugged. Why not? “Booster Rocket. How’s that work?”

To her surprise, the pony took in stride, actually knocking her front hooves together in something like a clap. “That sounds great! Unique, but it fits you. Let’s see, with a name like that, I’m guessing...pegasus, right? You don’t seem the type to let anyone keep you stuck to the ground, Booster!”

“Glad you like it. And, yeah, pegasi are pretty cool - I do like wings.”

“In an outfit like yours, it’s no big surprise! Though between you and me - I always prefer reading Gallopleo to Coltpernicus. But anyway, you’ve got plenty of options as a pegasus - wing style, so many fun color schemes - that’s really more Rarity’s thing, but I’ve been reading up on color theory…”

Despite herself, Rachel found herself sitting back, talking over her new form with Twilight. She barely noticed the time as they went off on a few conversational tangents along the way; part of her brain was niggling at her with something, but it didn’t want to come to the surface, so she ignored it. She did like the idea of a pegasus character, but vetoed the first few suggestions for color and pattern from Twilight. The unicorn had a spell to take the place of a normal game’s user interface, popping up faintly see through designs that rotated before the screen. Eventually, they settled on something subdued, a slender mare in sea-foam green with a golden mane and tail, short and messy in contrast to Twilight’s careful style, and a cutie mark of a cartoonish Saturn V rocket with a curled smoke trail. By that point, it was well past midnight, and tomorrow was going to be an early one - they were all early ones - but still, she felt good. More relaxed than she had in awhile, honestly. It seemed a shame to wish Twilight a good night and head to bed.

It wasn’t until four in the morning or so, forty-five minutes before her alarm, that Rachel’s eyes flew open as her brain worked its way through that stalled thought. She hadn’t told Twilight what industry she was in. She hadn’t mentioned Copernicus Engines at all.

How had the pony known?

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