On a night unlike any other, the stars seem to fall, and reveal something amazing: Ponykind is not alone in the universe. And the neighbors have just come calling.
Space. Long has ponykind marveled at it from the ground, and from the air. But never has anypony ever traveled there. However, on a night, unlike any other, a sequence of events will start that will lead to one of the most fundemental questions ponykind has ever asked being answered.
Are we alone? Does Equus hold the only life in the universe?
"For decades, Kerbalkind has fought amongst itself. 150 years ago, we chose to stand united, all of Kerbalkind under one banner. Now, we have found evidence that our world is not alone in it’s ability to support life as we know it!” President Yeltsovich’s voice bellowed, as images of a Kerbin like planet appeared on the screen behind him.
“Now, we stand at the cusp of a new golden age! A new Renaissance! I have ordered the development and construction of a new form of starship, one which will carry explorers farther than ever before. Simultaneously, I have introduced a bill into Congress which will quintuple the KSEA’s research and development budget, with encouragement to develop technologies that will allow us to set up a base on any world, and adapt to any situation as it happens! New communications technologies that will allow our explorers to remain in contact, even over more than 40 light years distance! And a means of faster than light travel fast enough to make the journey in our lifetimes!” He shouted triumphantly.
“Now, we prepare to send explorers to boldly go where no Kerbal has gone before!” The speech ended, and the cheering of the crowd began.
Jeb smiled as he listened to the recording of the speech. He sat in his ready room, reminiscing about that day. He had been in the crowd, carried on his father’s shoulders. It had been almost 30 years since that fateful day. The day that had inspired him to join the Kerbin Space Exploration Agency’s astronaut corps when he grew up. There had been some troubles along the way, but that day had remained the best day of his life from his childhood to the present.
It was the year 2306. Jeb was the commander of the first mission to the planet known commonly as Geos. His twin brothers were part of the missions command staff. Life was good, even in space.
On the ground, it was the closest thing Kerbalkind had ever achieved to a true utopia. Crime was at an all-time low. Theft had become a near thing of the past, with the introduction of RFID chips that could be implanted in your hand to replace your driver’s license, credit and debit cards, your house keys, and just about anything else that required an individual ID. Murder was a rare occurrence that always attracted the attention of the media, if only because it was so rare. Jeb could count the murders in the past year on one hand, and all of the cases that spawned from them had been solved.
His ready room was a nice bonus, serving as a mix of Captain’s Quarters, auxiliary conference room, and personal lounge. Although, part of the reason he had agreed to this assignment was the fact that the Endeavour, as the ship was called, had proper artificial gravity. The boffins at KSEA’s Brighton Jet Propulsion Laboratory had realized that even with their revolutionary warp drive, capable of travel at 20c, the trip alone would still take just over two years. And the two planets wouldn’t be that close for another 8 years, which was the planned mission duration. Add in another two year trip home, and you were looking at 12 long years that the crew would be spending weightless with the exception of when they were on the ground.
As such, the habitation module of Endeavour was actually a giant, multi-level centrifuge. It had a functional radius of 600 meters from it’s outermost wall to it’s rotational center, 1.2 kilometers from the front of the useful space to the back of it, and separated into 4 decks, each 3 meters tall. The floors were half a meter thick, and the walls a full meter, crammed to bursting with data cables, power cables, water pipes, and ventilation ducts. Every 30 meters there was a 0.75 meter by 0.75 meter hole in the ceiling/floor housing a ladder for going from one deck to the next.
Deck 1, the innermost deck, was what the crew of 80 had taken to referring to as the Green Deck, due to the greenhouses which would provide the crew with vegetables, and help convert the carbon dioxide created by the crew back into oxygen, along with partially purifying the water output from various other areas.
Deck 2 was sleeping quarters and some of the recreation systems. The recreations systems were part of the mission planners’ concessions to the limits of Kerbal psychology. The systems contained everything from single server variants of various multiplayer competitive and cooperative games, to various first person shooters, to over six hundred other games, along with hundreds of different movies and television shows. The idea was to give the Kerbals on the mission a way to take out their frustrations without harming anyone or anything in the real world.
Deck 3 housed the rest of the recreation systems, the laboratories for the scientists, the kitchen, and most of the exercise facilities. There was an actual elevator system for carrying prepared trays of food down to the mess hall on Deck 4.
Deck 4 was also known as the Command Deck. It housed the Endeavour’s mission command module, where the command staff would coordinate crew activities and the automated components of the mission, along with the mess hall and the final part of the exercise facilities, the jogging track.
All of this was wrapped in a layer of aluminum and titanium, with an outer shell of hydrogenated polystyrene over a half a meter thick layer of tungsten extended 1.5 meters from the hull to serve as a Whipple shield. The Endeavour’s life support systems were contained in the inner portion of the ring, shielded from micro-meteorites and radiation by the outer portion, and by the modules in front of and behind the habitation section.
To the front of the habitation section were the docking rings. The non-rotating rings housed service docking ports for up to 48 Class 7 spacecraft. These could be anything from a Maelstrom class mining rig to a Voyager class inflatable habitat module, each weighing upwards of 100 metric tons each and requiring heavy duty power, fuel, and data hookups. It also had 12 Class 7B crew transfer docking ports. These could allow anything up to a Draco class Heavy Crew and Cargo Transfer Shuttle to dock, whilst still providing power, fuel, data, and life support hookups.
To the aft of the habitation section was what the crew had taken to referring to as the counterweight section. It rotated in the opposite direction from the habitation section, and weighed exactly the same despite it’s smaller size. It housed the secondary batteries, primary communications equipment, and the technological marvel that let them have such a small crew on such a massive vessel.
“B9, what’s the status on our fuelling and supplies loading? Estimated time of departure?” Jeb asked, remembering he needed to make a status check every hour.
A calm, accented voice issued from the speakers on his desk. “Fuelling will be complete in approximately 1 hour, 3 minutes, and 45 seconds, Supplies are loaded with the exception of the perishable goods that require cryogenic storage, which are waiting for fuel loading. Deuterium and Tritium are on standby for loading once the reactor’s coolant has been fully loaded, estimated time to completion, 2 hours, 8 minutes, 23 seconds and counting. Heat pipe radiators are operating at maximum efficiency, all systems are nominal. Projected time of departure, T-minus 8 hours, 52 minutes, 44 seconds and counting.”
“Status on the shuttles and modules being loaded?”
“The three Draco class heavy shuttles have been loaded, along with the 6 Mirage class recon SSTOs, the Explorer class mobile assembly building is giving the spacedock crew some difficulty, and the other 23 modules are loaded and locked for departure.”
Jeb frowned. The Explorer was the first of it’s kind, a deployable nano-assembly structure. If it was damaged, the mission would fail miserably. “Tell Bob and his team to suit up, get out there, and help them get that settled. Any damage to the Explorer is a functional mission kill before we’ve even left spacedock.”
“Acknowledged, sir.”
Jeb reclined back into his seat, a smile on his face. Soon, he would be literally boldly going where no Kerbal had gone before. “B9, would you please start playing the opening theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation, sans vocals?”
“Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Endeavour...”
Crystal Palace, Crystal Empire 8:26 PM Crystal Mean Time, 12:26 AM Trottingham Mean Time
Nyx walked over to one of the windows in the Crystal Palace, and looked up. She was starting to get a little sleepy, but that wasn’t too much of a problem. She was still running partially on sugar from the cake that Pinkie and the royal bakers had made to celebrate Spike and Bright Eyes’ victory.
She smiled. She had been expecting this to just be a visit with family, but it had been one heck of an adventure instead.
She wondered what her next adventure would be. And as her mind wandered, a shooting star streaked unnoticed across the sky.
B9k was not normally a pushy sort of individual. Just that was amazing, if one considered the fact that he was an AI. However, he was always referred to as a member of the crew.
Presently, however, urgency was driving him to ...
“ATTENTION! Vessel approaching warp exit point, all hands to warp transfer stations!” B9k started an exceedingly obnoxious klaxon to awaken any crewmembers that persisted in their slumber. “I repeat, all hands to warp transfer stations!”
Once this message rang out through the newly active intercom, the crew set to work preparing to drop out of FTL travel. All inessential personnel strapped in for any potential jolt that might be experienced, while the essential personnel scrambled and floated over to their consoles. Once there, they to strapped in and awaited orders from their commanding officers.
“This is Commander Jebediah, requesting confirmation from all sections. Are you in position?” Jebediah spoke into the intercom.
“Reactor Control, confirmed!”
“Capcom, confirmed!”
“Navcom, confirmed!”
“Roccom, confirmed!”
“Scicom, confirmed!”
“All sections green, Commander!” Bill started powering up the systems that had been left off for the voyage. “All readouts optimal!”
“Alright. All hands, brace for warp drive power-off!” Jebediah followed his own advice, just as Bill switched off the drive. A sudden blur was seen outside windows that had just moments ago been black. Stars, planets, asteroids, comets all came back into visibility as the ship slowed to what its velocity relative to the planet they were traveling to had been.
Which was still 20 kilometers per second. Way too fast for the planned aerocapture maneuver.
The flight plan from here on out was as follows. First, they fired the engines in a direction that was a combination of retrograde and radial out, to use the navigation terms, using almost 7,000 m/s of Delta-V to do a combination of decelarating the spacecraft to approximately 14 km/s, and lowering the periapsis into the atmosphere at an altitude of 70.5 kilometers above the ground.
They would then deploy the forward aerobraking shields while they retracted the twin “Balka-XL” solar panels attached to the flanks of the ship. The fore shields, when deployed, where 45 meters in diameter. The solar panels when deployed, however, were 2.5 km(1) in length across the ship. As such, the panels are retracted prior to the aerocapture maneuver. Once this was completed, they would re-extend the solar panels, and wait to come back around for one more pass before circularizing at an apoapsis of approximately 850 km. Once there, they would begin Phase 2 of the exploration of the planet.
“Beginning rotation towards maneuver node. Warming up MPD thrusters… Activating Reaction Control thrusters,” Bob said, never once taking his eyes off the controls. “Bi-propellant drain levels nominal.”
“Alright. Execute maneuver in T-minus 10,” Jeb began counting down the time until they would fire the engines for the maneuver. “10,”
“9,”
“8,”
“7,”
“6,”
“5,”
“4,”
“3,”
“2, engine warm-up complete,”
“1,”
“0! All engines firing!” Jeb’s entire body was gently shoved back into his seat as the 1,250 kilonewtons of force from the extremely power hungry engines at the bow. Only about two or three minutes later, the acceleration stopped.
“Maneuver complete, commander,” the voice of B9k rang out.
“Alright. Let’s get oriented towards prograde. Start extending the heat shields. Begin solar panel retraction,” Jeb ordered.
“Yes sir,” Bill and Bob said simultaneously.
“B9k, start a timer for aerocapture initiation. Make sure to make any course or heading corrections prior to the aerocapture. We wouldn’t want a repeat of what happened to the Atlas, now would we?”
“Of course not sir. Timer set,” B9k responded. “Heading locked into Universal Mechatronics Flight Computer.”
“Good,” Jeb said, his voice losing the commanding tone that had made him infamous in the Astronaut Complex. “Attention all hands, this is Commander Jebediah speaking. You may return to your previous activities.”
At this, the crew began to go back to what it was they were doing before the klaxon had rung out. Some returned to the crew relaxation area to play video games, watch the latest episodes of whatever TV show they happened to like, and maybe have lunch considering that it was 11:56 am, going by Kerbin Time(2). The rest went back to their quarters, to do whatever they really felt like doing. Lunch proper would be served at 12:00 pm, with Kirlak Verici(3) having been chosen to cook this week based on how well he had done on Saturday’s lunch.
“Hey, Jeb! What are you going to go do? I’m thinking of playing some games in the game hall,” Bill said, his voice going from its “on duty, doing my job” tone to a more jovial, social tone. “I also heard that they received the newest episode of Doctor Who(4), if you want to watch that.”
“I’m probably going to try and improve my high score in Ace Combat Zero(5), actually. I want to show the others why my nickname during college was Mobius,” Jeb replied, then shrugged. “Who knows, there may actually be a member of this crew who is better at Ace Combat then me.”
“Not likely, Jeb, but whatever floats your boat,” Bob spoke up. He was the quietest of the three brothers, and the least remarkable. While Jeb had been the teenage prodigy pilot (he had beaten the top ace of the Kerbin Defense Force’s Air Corps in a simulator at the age of 20), and Bill the genius scientist with PHDs in most fields, Bob had all but fought his way through engineering school, trying to get his way into the Space Exploration Corps on an engineering recruitment. He succeeded, and Jeb requested him as his second in command.
While Jeb was relatively personable when not on the job or off active duty during a mission, and stoic and determined while on duty, and Bill was slightly neurotic, prone to becoming absorbed in his work as a scientist, Bob was the balanced, personable engineer. As such, when planning maneuvers, they bounced ideas off of each other, resulting in them having a reputation of being utterly brilliant at operating spacecraft.
“Reconvene when the timer goes off?”
“Sure.”
“See you then.”
“Well, let’s see what we can see with the new telescope,” Twilight Sparkle thought to herself as she stood on the balcony of her library home. “I’m really happy I managed to get one of those new telescopes that are normally only available in the Crystal Empire!”
Twilight had recently purchased a special kind of reflecting telescope, which recorded what it saw to an enchanted crystal. The crystal could later be used to play back footage captured during observation. The drawback, however, was the sheer cost of the telescopes, as the crystals used were rare and precious, and the telescopes had to be hoof-made to the buyer’s specifications. Thankfully, Princess Celestia had given her the bits necessary to purchase a telescope from the business that sold them. She had gone for a telescope optimized for stargazing and astronomy.
However, getting it set up and turned on was another challenge altogether.
“Let’s see, so I push this to turn on the recording crystals, and push that to turn them off, but not that because you aren’t supposed to remove the playback crystal while it’s being recorded to. Okay, let’s test that it works as claimed.” Twilight turned the recording function on for about 4 seconds, then turned it off again. She knew what the section of sky she had pointed the telescope at had looked like, so it was a good test of whether it could actually record the sky or not. She pointed it at the projection screen as directed in the user’s manual, and activated the crystal. She also let out a squee of delight as the screen lit up with the night sky she had pointed the telescope at. “YES! It works!”
She quickly went back to the telescope, re-inserted the playback crystal, and started recording. The manual said you could safely record over old footage, and she would take them at their word for it. She looked up, looking for something interesting to look at when she saw something that just should not have been happening.
She saw an unscheduled shooting star. Normally, Princess Luna would give a heads up to most Equestrians when a shooting star was due, about where in the sky it would be, and when it would be visible.
“Actually, that looks more like a meteorite. It’s too big and too bright to be anything else. DEFINITELY worth a look,” she thought as she slewed the telescope to track the, U.F.O(6), as it would come to be called in common terminology. “Wait.... that doesn’t look right. It’s too flat-ish at the front, and definitely too uniform in shape. What the buck IS that?!” Her befuddlement was thoroughly justified, as she had seen meteorites, comets, and shooting stars through her other telescopes, and they were always irregular, rocky objects – simple debris. But this was not irregular in any sense of the word. If anything, it appeared artificial in its uniformity.
“I need to report this to the Princesses.”
“Spike! Need you to dictate a letter!” Twilight turned to walk into the library, turning off the recording and removing the playback crystal. Spike needed to see this as well, and showing it to the Princesses would ensure that they believed her.
“Well, Twilight, this is most certainly an interesting, and slightly worrying, observation.” Princess Celestia calmly set down her teacup. “But I fail to see why you felt it necessary to bring this to both myself and my sister’s attention.”
She was right to be slightly confused. Twilight had sent them both letters explaining that she had just observed something in her telescope that should be impossible. A quick scrying spell had shown that Twilight had been slightly stressed out, and very worried, when she had written. Also, Twilight had requested that the two of them show up, as opposed to merely sending the letter to Princess Luna.
“That’s why I want to show you this,” Twilight said, removing the recording crystal from the case you were supposed to store it in when not recording or playing back a recording. “You remember that telescope I really wanted? This is the recording crystal from the one you bought me.”
“I take it you recorded the event?” Princess Luna spoke up. She had been silent up until now, mostly do to being utterly baffled as to how she could have missed an object that was as large as Twilight had described.
“Yes; take a look.” Twilight pointed the crystal at the projection screen, dimmed the lights enough to make the projection more visible, and began playback.
Both princesses looked at the object, and immediately noticed something wasn’t right. “That doesn’t look like any meteorite I’ve ever seen,” Celestia said. Her sister agreed. “Strewth. I hath seen many a meteorite, but none with such a consistent pattern to their form.”
“Keep watching. There’s something that could be even more surprising to you,” Twilight said cryptically. The puzzled princesses did indeed keep watching.
However, Luna noted something that seemed off about the footage. “Are the flames at the front growing weaker?” She asked, puzzled by this.
“Yes. This is part of why I wanted to talk to you two. My best guess is that it was moving so fast that was able to climb back out into space,” Twilight said. “However, that’s not the only thing that caused me to bring this to your attention.”
At this point, Celestia noticed what had caused Twilight to be so startled by what she had seen. “What in the name of the Maker?” She said, stunned.
She could see that the object was not only unnatural for its uniformity, but also for its shape. It was long and slender, with only a few protrusions from its sides. There was a larger section at the back that was lit from within, with several of what looked to be portholes akin to those on an airship.
Once the flames died down completely, the object began to change in shape. The shield like object at front began to fold, with an inner section folding to make way for the outer section. Two large, wing like objects began to expand from the sides of the object, while four of the cylinders at the back of the ship seemed to begin to slide away from it. The object was a marvel to behold.
It also was most certainly not made by ponies, or griffins, or any living thing on the planet.
“I can certainly see why thou contacted us about this, Twilight,” Luna said, stunned.
“Commander Jebediah. I believe I may have a solution to how we deal with the fact that the heat shield will not survive another pass like it was planned to,” the voice of B9k said. “It will, however, require a great deal of Delta-V.”
No plan survives first encounter with the enemy was an old saying, but one that certainly still applied. During an EVA inspection of the ship shortly after aerocapture, one of the crew members had spotted that the ship’s heat shields had degraded around 90% of their ablative tiling, far more than had been predicted. This meant that the shield would fail if they attempted another pass. This was a problem as the flight plan they had so far relied on a second pass to bring down their apoapsis to around 850 km above the ground.
“Let me hear it, B9,” Jeb said. “It’ll probably be better than what we’ve got now.”
“My plan involves raising the periapsis to 150 km, then using the engines, assisted by the Oberth effect, to lower the apoapsis to 400 km. The orbit is lower, but that increases the benefit from the Oberth effect when we go for a circularization burn. The Delta-V requirements, however, require that we dip into the 2,000 m/s Delta-V reserve fuel,” B9k finished.
“How much Delta-V would the two maneuvers cost in total?” Jeb asked.
“Minimum requirements will be around 4,800 m/s of Delta-V. I predict that there is around a 52% chance that the actual required Delta-V will be higher. We have 4,678 m/s of Delta-V using only what Xenon is left in the main fuel tanks, but we have far more than enough Xenon to make up the difference in the reserve fuel tanks.” B9k paused. “Before you ask, yes, I did run this through the D-Wave Four(1). It couldn’t come up with a smaller number than what I gave you for the required maneuvers.”
“Well, that’s the best we’ve got. Spread the word, B9,” Jeb said. “Authorization to access auxiliary fuel tanks granted.”
“Understood, sir. Transposing fuel,” B9k said as he opened valves between the two fuel tanks, using the base pressure from the auxiliary tanks to force Xenon into the main tanks. “Transposition complete. Attention crew, this is B9k speaking. In a matter of minutes, we will be executing a maneuver to raise the periapsis of our orbit to 150km. Be ready to strap into your seats on our mark.”
“Also, B9, how are the preparations for the deployment of the scanning satellites going?” Jeb asked, hoping to be able to get the process of building the infrastructure for landing on the planet that they had been sent here to explore over with.
“They are coming along brilliantly sir. Once we are in a circular orbit, should I begin deployment of the GPMS(2) constellation?” B9k asked.
Jeb’s response was a shrug, followed by, “I suppose so.”
“Also, sir, I believe there is something you should see,” B9k spoke, his voice tinged with worry.
“What is it?” Jeb asked, curious what could have caused his stoic AI companion to become even slightly worried.
“On screen now, sir.”
“Oh.” Jeb stared at the screen. On it was an image of the night side of the planet. One that was focused on several lights which could only be large cities, several of which were relatively close together. “Well that throws a spanner into the works.”
Within the command module of the Falling Star, saying the mood was tense would have been like saying that the ocean was wet. The discovery that the planet was inhabited had caused excessive amounts of consternation, as they had been attempting to avoid disturbing any wildlife. The fact that said wildlife was almost certainly fully intelligent and sapient on top of having also most certainly seen their aerobraking made this a thousand times more difficult. They were still hashing out a new plan long after they normally would have gone to bed.
Their original flight plan would have gone something like this: First, they would have pulled into a stable parking orbit around Geos. Then, after deploying mapping satellites and figuring out where the ore and kethane(1) deposits were, they would land a small habitation and command module at a site with both ore and kethane, along with mining equipment and processing equipment. They would then use that equipment to build a SSTO spaceplane, powered by RAPIER engines burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, to be used as an ascent module, and for shuttling the next crew down. They would also use it to transport materials to and from the base on the ground, things like food, rocket components, and other materials. At this point, they would concentrate on completing all of their scientific objectives, and would leave once these were completed, leaving behind all of the equipment for use by potential future missions. Although most of this was still viable, the first landing was made much more difficult by the fact that there was intelligent life on the planet below. All aboard, along with Mission Control back home, were in agreement that there would likely be no problem with leaving the equipment behind, because it could be rendered inoperable either remotely or with precision orbital weapons(2) deployments to destroy the site.
“Commander, I may have a solution,” B9k began. “If we have a winged, atmospheric engine equipped hab module that flies down to a landing instead of a powered, drogue-chute assisted habitation module as was initially planned, and performed the landing during the night, we could, in theory, prevent the noise from the engines from carrying too far; minimizing the chance of being spotted by the native lifeforms.”
“That’s going to be one hell of a maneuver to pull off, B9k, are you sure it can be done?” Jeb asked. “I may be a good pilot, but I am not a miracle worker.”
“Sir, you managed to achieve 100% score on the training mission that you were presented with when you applied to join the KDF. A test that, I might add, you were intended to fail(3),” B9k said. “Discounting the time you bested the only 5 times ACE of the KDF’s Air Corps in a training simulation - While he was flying an FA-172 Damocles. Your aircraft? An A-101 Thunderstrike(4). Your flight record is almost perfect.”
“Thanks for throwing me under the bus,” Jeb muttered under his breath. He was not looking forward to this. “Get Bill on the line. I want to talk to him.”
“Certainly, Commander. Opening communications link,” B9k recited. “Communications link established.”
At B9k’s affirmation, Bill appeared on the screen in front of Jeb.
“Hello Bill. How is setup going at Serenity Base?” Jeb asked, leaning back into his chair, his hands steepled in front of him.
“Fairly well. I see that you’re upset about something?” Bill responded, taking note of Jeb’s expression. “I will admit that this is probably going to be the most historically significant thing I’ve ever done, but I’m more nervous than excited.”
“B9k has come up with a ‘solution’ to how we are supposed to stealthily land the base,” Jeb said discontentedly.
“What did he come up with?” inquired Bill, somewhat glumly. “Wait, don’t tell me. He suggested a glide-in/powered landing, didn’t he...?”
“Yes, he did,” Jeb answered. “He also brought up my piloting skills. He’s basically appointed me the pilot for the landing.”
“Hey, cheer up. At least you will be the first kerbal to walk on Geos(5),” Bill said.
“Still no way I can talk you into doing it?” Jeb asked, his voice becoming a bit less tense. He had hoped that this would be the mission were Bill got to make history, not him or Bob; Although the fact that the crew had voted for him to do it made having Bill do it much harder.
“Not a chance,” Bill said, a touch testily. “Anyway, Serenity Base is coming along nicely. We’ve got all but the spaceplane assembly structure built. Should be done in about 4 or 5 days.”
“Well, when it’s finished, you know how to contact me,” Jeb said.
“Yeah. Talk to ya later, Jeb,” Bill said, and waved good bye to Jeb.
“See ya, Bill.”
Things had become somewhat hectic around Ponyville after Twilight Sparkle’s discovery. The princesses had commissioned a new observatory to be built upon a nearby mountain, which, combined with the project to remodel the Castle of the Night, as Princess Luna’s castle was officially known, caused Ponyville to begin to become something of a small city, rather than a town.
Currently, a small, indigo alicorn filly was making her home from the recently remodeled Ponyville schoolhouse, along with some of her best friends....
“Seriously, y’all, Ah really have no clue why they chose the mountain near Ponyville to build that, observa-whatchamacallit,” said Apple Bloom.
“Observatory,” Nyx corrected, with well-learned immediacy. “Mom says it has something to do with that weird shooting star that was spotted last week.”
“Isn’t it weird that Princess Luna didn’t spot it before it showed up?” said Pipsqueak. The little piebald colt had been utterly shocked when he had heard that Princess Luna hadn’t spotted it.
“Yeah, that was one of the reasons that they’re building the observatory. Something about the princesses wanting astronomers there to be able to observe shooting stars and such easier,” Nyx said. “Hey Scoots, what do you think about it?”
Scootaloo shrugged. “Meh. It’s sorta cool, I guess. I thought that shooting star thing was really cool, though! What if that was an alien spaceship or something?!”
“That doesn’t seem plausible, Scootaloo. This isn’t a comic book, you know,” Sweetie Bell asserted confidently. Her confidence and self-esteem had taken a massive upturn with the unveiling of her cutie mark. In fact, the three original Cutie Mark Crusaders had all become much more self-confident.
The fact that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon could no longer bother them about their lack of cutie marks had had something to do with it.
“Yeah, but - ” Scootaloo started, but paused. “Hey, I just had an idea; how cool would it be if we really were in a comic book?!”
“I guess that would be cool,” began Dinky, setting off a large discussion of the pros and cons of living in the world of various comic books and movies, which continued until they reached an intersection at which their paths home diverged.
“Well, I’ll see you guys tomorrow at the club house. Are any of you as glad that school’s finally out for winter break as I am?” Nyx inquired pleasantly.
The group shared a chuckle, and slowly dispersed out to their various homes. Nyx herself went to the Golden Oaks library, where she lived along with her mother Twilight Sparkle, her brother Spike, and their pet owl, Owlowiscious.
“Hey Mom, I’m home!” Nyx shouted as she entered.
“Hey, Nyx! How was your last day of school for the next two weeks?” Twilight asked, poking her head out from the trap door down into the basement, where her lab/research area was. “Just going over some things down here, I’ll be upstairs in just a moment.”
“It went pretty well," Nyx replied. “I’m going to go and listen to music in my room.” With this, she headed upstairs to listen to her favorite albums by Sapphire Shores, with Peewee close behind.
Once Nyx was upstairs, Twilight went back down into her lab. Scattered about were various star charts, maps and charts, alongside images of the object she had seen. Images of various other objects it had released and sent off over the week littered any flat surface.
“Commander, you are clear for undocking from the Falling Star.” The voice of Second Lieutenant Kirlak Verici crackled over the intercom. “Good luck.”
“Thanks, Kirlak. I’ll make sure update you when we’re on the ground,” Jeb replied. He undocked the modified shuttlecraft that housed the habitation and resource processing module from the Falling Star’s habitation module, and slowly began to back the shuttle away using its numerous hydrazine thrusters. The distance between the two spacecraft slowly began to increase. Jeb adjusted the controls to cause the aircraft to yaw around, its nose beginning to rotate towards retro-grade. Once the craft was clear of the Falling Star and pointed retro-grade, the OMS engine in the tail fired, pushing the craft into a descent trajectory.
“Trajectory confirmed. Beginning re-orientation for atmospheric entry,” Jeb called out as he spun the spacecraft back towards pro-grade, angling the nose of the craft up 35 degrees and activating its bi-propellant rotational thrusters. “Now, we wait,” he said, locking the heading into B9k’s flight computer.
More specifically, wait for over half an hour until they reached the lower atmosphere. Until then, he was stuck with little to do. His eyes repeatedly roved over the various indicators before him, checking the LEDs for affirmations he had already reciprocated. ‘Good lord, this is almost as boring as re-entry during Apollo 11,’(1) Jeb thought to himself.
Busying himself with watching stars, he decided that there was nothing better to do than sleep. He’d had a square meal before he was called upon to begin the operation, and when it was time to initiate entry it would not do to be wanting for sleep. Even with his experience, spaceflight was dangerous, as was entry into foreign atmospheres. Deciding he’d rather not tempt fate, he reclined in his seat, absently setting an alarm on the multi-function display in front of him. Confident that everything was in place, he let himself drift off to sleep before entry.
25 minutes later....
There was an obnoxiously abrasive beeping noise as Jeb’s alarm went off. Jeb quickly awoke, taking stock of the situation. He could see the beginnings of what, to the uneducated, would have been described as flame snaking about, licking off the nose of the craft. He checked the instruments, finding that the shuttle was still on a trajectory to reach the landing site by the time they reached the point where they could open the intakes on the twin F200 low-bypass turbofan engines mounted to the top side of the trailing edge of the wing, fire them up, and use them to fine tune the approach. He still was unhappy about having to land the module this way, for several different reasons.
Far from the least of those being the skids that he would have to land the module on. Due to the fact that there were no runways already on the planet that they could land at, they were being forced to land the module on rough terrain, and the sites that they had managed to find that would allow for the completion of their objectives with minimal travel had open landing areas no larger than a kilometer in length before they ran into obstacles that would be nigh impossible to land upon safely, if they didn’t tear the craft apart(2).
Jeb watched as the ionized plasma that was barely visible outside the forward windscreen began to die down, around 12 minutes after entry. Once the sensors confirmed it was safe, Jeb activated the autopilot program that would perform the S-turns needed. Here, Jeb switched his seat from its more passive launch mode to active control mode, moving the seat forward and leaning the seat more upright to assist with control. He gripped the control stick and throttle levers, taking comfort in that familiarity he had with the controls. He liked the Draco Mk. IV SSTO spacecraft that had been used as a base template. Although the more recent Mk. V promised state-of-the-art features, such as a neurological interface and a highly advanced suite of flight computers, he preferred the good old fashioned MK. IV for its borderline ridiculous number of redundant systems, with triple redundancy in most systems, and double redundancy in the systems that weren’t triple redundant.
Jeb checked the cameras that were keeping an eye on the landing site.
“What the flippin’ heck?!” Jeb all but shouted when he saw the site. Unlike what the radar altimetry systems on the satellites had led them to believe, the site was not flat grassland surrounded within a kilometer by a circle of hills. It was a lake, extensively covered by seaweed - which he could not land upon for fear of sinking the craft(3). He checked the list of sites, and found that the only other site near enough to be used as a backup was one that was fairly far away from a native settlement, appeared derelict, with plenty of cover from the nearby hamlet. However, it was a flat clearing with about 650 meters of usable landing space, assuming he got the landing path right, ringed by trees on all sides. If he screwed up, they were dead.
With a very large number of family unfriendly words muttered under his breath(4), Jeb opened the intakes.....
*PA-CLUNK* A very loud alarm came on, informing Jeb of a critical system fault in the recently installed turbofan engines. A display to his right diagrammed the problem. One of the intake covers had failed to open correctly, and had broken off, shredding the engine behind it(5). Jeb shut down the alarm, only for another alarm to come on, indicating that the aircraft was leaking fuel and had shut down the ability to activate any of the engines other than the monopropellant maneuvering thrusters, and had activated all aerodynamic control surfaces.
“Oh of all the things that could go wrong, it just had to be those, didn’t it?” Jeb all but snarled, turning towards the only possible site that he could get to by gliding, turning on the sensors that he had requested be installed to allow for more accurate control during unpowered flight. He slowly began gliding from thermal to thermal, secretly glad that the landing was taking place shortly after nightfall, allowing the thermals that formed during the day to still linger. He knew that it was going to be hard to make it the site, due to the fact that the shuttlecraft’s delta wing was designed for relatively high-speed flight, not the slow speeds that gliding mandated. He also knew it was going to be slow going, taking well over an hour to get to within a practical approach distance of the first site, which had been put out of consideration for the site of the base by its proximity to a native settlement. He hated this kind of flying, but he supposed that in this particular situation there wasn’t much he could do.
Jeb looked out the window in front of him, seeing the small forested area surrounding the landing site. The site itself was almost perfectly flat, and just over a kilometer wide. It sat atop an aquifer, and had all the signs of having the minerals beneath it to support their operations for nearly a decade. The only major disadvantage was the proximity to the town, and frankly, at this point Jeb would have been willing to land in the town square if it had a better chance of being a safe landing site. His spacecraft’s hydrazine levels were so close to depletion that a low APU fuel alarm had come on, and couldn’t be turned off. There was no fuel for the jets, and the bi-propellant thrusters couldn’t be fired to accelerate or increase lift. To make it all worse, they had lost contact with the Falling Star when it had gone over the horizon relative to the shuttlecraft, also shutting down the ability to receive support from B9k due to the incompatibility of the shuttlecraft’s hardware with B9k’s software add ons.
“At least Bill isn’t up here, panicking because of all the anomalies,” Jeb said to himself, determined to make an attempt at looking on the bright side. To be honest, he was just glad he had thought to practice flying gliders and other aircraft before the mission left Kerbin. It had been recommended to him by the Chief Mission Control Officer, Jeb forgot his name, shortly after Jeb had been chosen for the mission. His thoughts wandered back to the others, who had elected to take sleep medications that would ensure that they stayed soundly asleep during landing. Jeb wished that had been an option for him at this point.
Jeb pulled the controls around into a gentle right turn. Once the aircraft was lined up, he eased the controls into a gentle, straight glide path towards the site, and extended the landing skids. Due to their not being a useable runway, they were forced to use the solution most bush pilots used... only for them to discover that the shuttle’s gear system was incapable of being adapted sufficiently for them to mount the large rubbery wheels resulting in the mounting of skids as the only viable alternative as landing gear. Jeb had made several notes to shout at the engineers when he got back to Kerbin.
The aircraft glided serenely towards the landing site, its grace belying its remaining longevity, or lack thereof. Seconds before touchdown, one final error message flashed across the leftmost MFD:
APU FS DPL(6). This was the message that indicated that the hydrazine fuel for the Auxiliary Power Unit had been depleted, and the aircraft was now switching to battery power. The second the aircraft came to a halt, Jeb activated the solar panel array that was mounted to the side of the shuttlecraft, causing it to deploy in preparation for tracking the sun when it came up tomorrow. For now, Jeb leaned back in his seat, and slowly began drifting off to sleep.
Rainbow Dash wandered aimlessly, losing herself in her flight as she contemplated why she felt so conflicted about something that had been brought up at one of Pinkie’s parties last night.
Specifically, the notion that she should teach Nyx and Scootaloo how to fly. They could already hover, and fly low relatively quickly, but lacked the stamina and wingpower to achieve altitudes much higher than a few feet without being barely able to move forward without losing altitude. She was somewhat enthusiastic about the idea, after all she thought of Scootaloo the way Rarity and AJ thought of Sweetie Bell and Apple Bloom. But for some reason she couldn’t discern, the thought of Nyx participating in any flying lessons made her somewhat uncomfortable. She wasn’t pleased by this, for obvious reasons. After all, Nyx was Twilight’s daughter for crying out loud!
Rainbow was gliding over an abandoned, empty part of Sweet Apple Acres, when she spotted something that made her stop mid-air before intentionally folding her wings to her barrel and diving for all she was worth, stopping herself just above the ground. There was some kind of metal thing sitting in the middle of the field. It certainly seemed like something no Equestrian would have built, with strange, wing-like protrusions from it’s sides. She decided to start stealthily approaching it on the ground, reasoning that due to the mane that had become almost something of a trademark for her, she would have been far too easy to spot. As she approached, she noticed the strange, somewhat alien writing on it’s side. It was similar to Equestrian, yet also different. As she approached, she noticed that the machine had a set of dark blue panels sticking out one side, tracking the sun as it moved across the sky. She also noticed the twin drills embedded in the ground, making a low rumbling noise as they spun.
Curious as to what the unusual and vaguely ominous thing was, Rainbow continued to approach until she reached the edge of the clearing. Once she reached the edge of the clearing, it was clear that the machine was in fact some form of vehicle, at least originally intended for flight. The fact that it sat upon what looked like very wide skis indicated to her that the vehicle could no longer achieve flight. She sat observing the craft for a few moments, before stealthily retreating, and then taking to the air, flying back towards Ponyville.
“All hands, blue alert. Prepare for undocking of base modules one through forty-eight, and the launch of shuttles one through twelve.” The blaring of the alert klaxon echoed through the Endeavour. “Set condition 3 throughout the main habitation module.”
“Commander, all crew in transfer shuttles 2 through 12 report that they are in undocking configuration. Confirmed, all personnel in shuttles ready to deploy,” B9k announced. “Operations Phase 2 is ready to commence at your orders sir.”
“Well, no putting it off any longer I suppose. Make sure the Endeavour doesn’t blow up or something while we’re on the surface, okay B9?” Jeb replied.
“Acknowledged sir. Stationkeeping thrusters are on standby, just in case something happens during deployment. Undocking commands sent. Have a pleasant flight, sir.” A dull clunking sound echoed through the structure of the ship as the 48 modules and 12 shuttles of the initial base undocked and commenced their synchronized maneuvers to carry them to the chosen landing site.
Jeb smiled as he heard the sharp clunk that indicated their shuttle, shuttle number 1, had undocked. He recalled how the landing site had been chosen. Initially, the mission planners had planned for them to find a spot to set down near their orbital plane, leaving it to B9k to find an appropriately interesting spot.
Their discovery of native, intelligent life had changed that.
Now, the mission planners had them doing something far less boring than studying rocks and algae. They wanted them to set down just over 10 kilometers away from a native settlement, and land in a relatively loud manner. They would then set up an observation post on a nearby, relatively small mountain, and observe the settlement to see if there was a reaction to their landing.
If there was, Jeb, Bill and Bob were to peacefully intercept the investigative party and leave a package containing, of all things, a number of language neutral math problems, the idea being that they would let them convey the message that they wished to communicate with the natives, and were also intelligent, while also covertly determining the intelligence of the natives. Jeb was already predicting that the math problems would backfire in some manner.
Of course, these landings had only taken place after over a month of covert observation, both from orbit and on the ground, plus a few encounters both planned and unplanned to “test the waters” to use the terms used by mission control back on Kerbin.
“Confirmation, all modules guidance computers locked in, glidescopes and ballistic flight trajectories calculated. Maneuver timers set. First burn in t- minus 60 seconds and counting,” B9k announced. “All personnel, please ensure you are securely strapped in.”
“Hey B9, mind putting on some background music? The wait is killin’ me!” One of the other astronauts shouted.
You could almost hear the eye roll accompanying B9k’s reply. “Of course sir. One round of background music, coming right up.”
After this, a very familiar melody began to play over B9k’s comm channel to the shuttles. Cheers began to ring out amongst everyone who could hear it, being reminded of one of the most famous and popular science fiction shows of the late ‘10s.
“Commencing maneuvers,” B9k announced, as the astronauts were shoved back into their seats by the force of the orbital maneuvering engine in the tail of the shuttle. The roar of the engine wasn’t deafening, but it was loud, and it was consistent. Jeb smirked as he remembered how a few cadets who had been sent on the mission to “gain experience”, as it were, had complained about the noise. They had promptly been told to suck it up, because there wasn’t anything that could be done about it. Spaceflight is a noisy business, and anyone who didn’t like that should go home.
The roar cut out as the engines ceased firing around 30 seconds later. “Initial maneuver complete. Preparing for next maneuver,” B9k announced shortly afterwards, sending the commands to the shuttle’s maneuvering thrusters to have them flip the shuttle over 180 degrees to prepare for a deorbit burn. “T-minus 30 minutes, 58 seconds, mark.”
“Alright boys and girls, now that we have about half an hour to avoid being interrupted by engine noise, let’s go over the plan,” Bob spoke up, B9k dampening the sound of the music to background levels. “We’re in the first deployment wave, meaning we get all the hard work done before Bill and the rest of his boffins come down here and start doing science. Engineering teams, you’ve already been given your assignments, the second we land, get your helmet on and get to work. Security teams 1 through 3, you’re on force recon. Once we touch down, get your helmets on, activate your adaptive camo system and get us more solid intel on this forest we’re setting down near. Orbital sensors weren’t able to get a solid look through the canopy. Remember, we have no clue what’s in there, so make sure to bring at least one drone, preferably three, and all of your equipment. That includes your SR-09B. That gun will save your life if you take care of it.”
Bob didn’t normally harp on things like that, but Team 3, also known as Section Icebreaker, was composed of one experienced officer and 7 privates fresh out of boot camp. Bill knew what happened when rookies forgot to take care of their SR-09Bs, and it was never pretty. He shuddered. Considering the bad feeling he and just about everyone in orbit had about that forest, something told him those rookies were going to need all the help they could get. He continued.
“Security teams 4, 5, and 6, your job is making sure the engineers are covered. Take 12 of the AGL-80 attachments, if something goes horribly wrong you might need the firepower while we wait for evac. Our entry was timed to coincide with a local meteor shower, so we should be able to land without giving our position away too badly, but for all we know now we could be dropping in on a fancy party that got set-up during entry.”
Here, Jeb took over briefly. “Remember, if everything goes to hell in a handbasket, the plan is to drop everything and run like hell. The self-destruct charges and field overload systems will take care of making sure our tech stays out of the wrong hands, or hooves if you want to use what the natives likely use. Thus, your job is to make sure you stay alive and get the hell out of range of anything they can do. In the event that we have to utilize these contingency plans, B9 will be using the asteroid deflection system to provide orbital fire support. Hopefully, things don’t come to that.”
Bob resumed from where he had left off, right as B9k switched to a different piece of background music. “Right. Security teams 7 and 8, you will be accompanying me, Commander Jeb, and Specialist Ramirez to Site Beta, where we will be assisting Ramirez in setting up the observation outpost that is intended to go there. Feel free to take only your basic SR-09B, we shouldn’t be running into any major altercations with the wildlife.”
Bob started checking his gear, while he delivered the closing to their little speech. “Teams 9 through 12, you remain on stand-by. And by stand-by, I mean helping the engineers with anything they ask you to help out with. Any questions?”
“SIR NO SIR!”
“Good! Now then, B9, please give us an update on time till -” Bob was cut off by the roaring sound of the engine making a return. “Never mind then! B9, if you’d put on Ride of the Valkyries, followed by the 1812 Overture I think those would be good tracks to finish on!” Bob shouted.
“Acknowledged sir. Starting now." B9k’s comm link began to belt out the orchestral beauty of Wagner’s masterpiece as the shuttles initiated their descent, followed closely by the modules that had been silently trailing them in their voyage across the black. As the massive, 50 meter wide wedge shaped objects that were the shuttles decelerated, followed by the equally massive, albeit in a different manner, modules, each weighing over 85 metric tons, the formation descended, slowly. Following the formation was a cluster of space debris, detritus left over from the planet’s formation. It was following a slightly steeper course into the planet’s atmosphere. This, combined with the smaller and weaker nature of the debris, meant that while the Kerbals and their magnificent flying machines would make it to the surface, the debris would not.
And as they descended, they had no idea that they were flying straight over a very rapidly destabilizing situation......
Gryfinholm, Gryphon Empire 11:32 PM Gryfinholm Mean Time
“What is the meaning of this?!” snarled Emperor Eagle-Cobra, ruler of the Gryphon Empire. Currently, however, he wasn’t really ruler of anything, seeing as he was on the wrong side of the dungeon cell’s bars.
“Simple. Bit of a coup d’état going on. I’m just solidifying my rule over yours, you old fool,” replied the new, very smug Emperor Iron Talon, who had formerly been known as General Iron Talon. His coup had been unexpected. However, seeing as he was on the outside of the cell, wearing all the regalia his new position afforded him, he had clearly gone public with it. The fact that none of his successors had deposed Iron Talon shortly after his attack made it clear that they were either dead or captured.
Eagle growled. Iron Talon’s forces had stormed his throne room, executed his court, and hit him with something that knocked him unconscious. “How do you expect to fool the Council of Stewards into believing that they don’t need to intervene?” Cobra asked, analytical as always.
“Simple, I have a specialist who should be arriving shortly.” The look on Iron Talon’s face could only be described as sadistic glee.
“Here I am boss. You zaid you needed my expertise vor somezing?” a strange, heavily accented voice made it’s presence clear from the doorway.
“Ah, there you are Doctor Trotsky. I believe now would be good time to start the procedure on the former emperor, wouldn’t you agree?” If the grin on Talon’s face got any wider, it would decapitate him.
“Ah, yes. Mental shock does decrease ze efficiency of ze procedure, und Eagle-Cobra should haff gotten over most of ze shock of beink removed from power.” As the speaker moved into the light, Eagle and Cobra got their first look at them.
What they saw infuriated them.
Eagle snarled. “Equestrian coward! Of course you weaklings would be behind this!”
All the mysterious “Dr. Trotsky” did in response was laugh, in a manner most would consider insane. “Bwahahah! Oh, so you zink Eqvestria vas behind zis? Ahahah, zat is ze funniest zing I haff heard all veek!” His laughter died down. “For your information, dekadentskoy durak, I do not associate mit Eqvestria’s scientific community. Zey complained about my experiments, somezink about zem beink, “immoral”, I zink.” He shrugged. “I merely do not let zese zings normal ponies call “morals” interfere mit my progress.”
Cobra looked more worried when he spoke up. “Who are you?”
“I am Doctor Victor Trotsky, visionary bio-engineerink specialist. Specialisink in ze manipulation of bodily chemistry und genetics.” Now the unicorn was fully visible, his white lab coat obscuring most of his body. All that could be seen was that he had a blood red coat, a dark brownish-red mane, almost appearing to be the color of dried blood. His green eyes shined malevolently.
And he was grinning in a way that would have unsettled even Discord.
“I also specialize in ze manufacture und maintenance of high-energy containment spells.” The insane unicorn chuckled darkly. “Self-powerink, high-energy containment spells.” His horn lit, glowing a terrifying dark crimson, so dark it was nearly black.
As his horn glowed, it almost seemed as though the room started to grow darker, from Eagle-Cobra’s view behind the bars. Then, he felt something that made his heart truly know fear.
He felt his magic draining.
“What?! NO!” He charged the bars, hoping to break through them with his superior strength, only for him to be blown backwards by a bolt of energy lancing through him the second he touched them.
Then he collapsed, his strength ebbing as his magic left him.
The last thing he heard was Iron Talon and Dr. Trotsky laughing like madmen.
