Five kerbals go on an interstellar mission and run into a planet of colorful ponies.
Kerbalkind has long reached for the stars. Since they were but a young species, they dreamed of going to the stars. Thirty years ago, Jebediah Kerman was the first kerbal in space. Now, Kerbalkind has set foot on every planet in their home system, including the gas giant Jool(that mission didn't turn out too well). So, they've decided to go further. Horizon is the first interstellar spacecraft Kerbalkind has ever built, capable of housing five crew for up to six and a half years. Its mission: to orbit the third planet of the star Skolo-138. The first possibly capable planet for sustaining life discovered other than Kerbin and Laythe, it was considered imperative that a mission be sent to examine it and make contact with any life that might be there. The five crew chosen by the Kerbal Space Program's Astronaut Complex were the most experienced Kerbalnaughts in the corps: Jebediah Kerman, first Kerbal in space and first Kerbal to land on every single planet; Bob Kerman, his long-time friend and copilot; Bill Kerman, that one guy who stayed in the orbiter and was more or less forgotten; Hanald, a professional pilot and long-time test flier for the Space Program; and Alsted, a radio operator who had helped at Mission Control since before Jebediah's historic first flight.
Now back, and bettermaybe betterhopefully the same as ever!
The Horizon was truly a marvel of its time. Constructed out of top-secret military alloys, it housed seven crew; it had twelve main rooms, including a personal bedroom for each crew member; it had a gravity ring, providing constant one-gee feeling; but, perhaps the most impressive part was the propulsion. Up until that point, all Kerbal spacecraft designed to go anywhere other than Kerbin's moons were equipped with LV-N nuclear engines. While they were reasonably efficient, they were extremely heavy, expensive, and low-thrust. Then, a crazy scientist came up with an idea that could propel a spacecraft to multiple times the speed of light. This was called the Space-Time Dilaton Drive, or STDD.
The Horizon was the first ship ever to be made using this new technology. It was also the first to need it. Unlike any other Kerbal spacecraft, Horizon wasn't just headed to any old planet in the Kerbol system. Instead, it was headed to a nearby star, Skolo-138. This was the only planet to be proven to have an atmosphere and composition of the crust capable of sustaining life. In hopes of finding the first extra-solar candidate for colonization, the Kerbal Space Program scrambled to construct a new vessel capable of reaching this spacecraft. And thus came the Horizon.
Her crew consisted of seven brave astronauts: Jebediah Kerman, famous for conducting the first manned landings on the Mun, Duna, Eve, Moho, Tylo, Laythe, and Eeloo; Bill Kerman, famous for flying with Jebediah and staying in the command module on all those missions; Bob Kerman, a renowned scientist who has an innate fear of flying but is still one of the most experienced members of the space program; Hanald Kerman, an ex-military fighter aircraft pilot hired to fly the ship's spaceplane; and Alsted Kerman, a radio operator and scientist whose job it was to keep contact with the Kerbal Space Center(KSC) and to control communications traffic between the ship, the lander, and the spaceplane.
This is their story.
“All systems check out, she's ready to fly,” Jebediah proudly stated as the last systems check on Horizon was completed.
“Make sure you're comfortable, because this ship's going to be our home for the next six years,” Bob said, making sure the snack closet was securely strapped down.”
“STD at thirty percent,” Bill said, watching slowly as the supply of exotic matter slowly increased.”
“Reactor at full power,” Hanald reported.
“Warp jump in thirty minutes,” Bill warned. “If you have any last-minute messages to send before we leave, now's the time to do it.”
“Oh yeah,” said Jebediah, “I almost forgot.” As he said this, he drifted towards the comms terminal before quickly typing out, “By the way, Gene, you now owe me twenty bucks.”
“What was that about?” Alsted asked, rather timidly.
“It was an old bet we made,” Jebediah said, “when the space program was just starting. He bet me twenty bucks I'd never make it to another star. I can just imagine the look on his face when they announced the crew roster with me on it.”
“Just checking up on you. Just going to let you know, you're live on national television and half of Kerbin is watching to see you leave right now,” Mission control said, “so no more talking about your bets.”
Jebediah sighed. Mission Control was always like this, from the start; they wouldn't let him bet he could flip the lander on the surface of the Mun thirty years ago, and they wouldn't let him collect on his bets now.
Suddenly, the flight computer cut in. “One hundred twenty seconds to jump.”
“Alright, everyone, flight positions!” Jebediah shouted over the intercom. He was known for being rather lax in low-stress situations where nothing much was going on, but when something had to be done, he was certainly going to make it happen.
“Sixty seconds to jump,” the computer said as he and the other four crewmembers strapped themselves into their seats.
“All systems nominal, exotic matter storage full,” Hanald relayed from the screen.
“Thirty seconds.”
“Life support nominal,” said Jebediah.
“G-Ring retracted,” Bill said as a whirring filled the cabin, followed by a resounding clang.
“STD extended,” Bob said rather nervously.
“All connections secure, ship is primed and ready for jump,” Alsted said.
“Fifteen seconds.”
“Please fasten your seatbelts, make sure your seats are in the upright position, and put your tray tables up for takeoff,” Jebediah said.”
“Five. Four. Three. Two. One.” said the computer.
Almost instantly, the spacecraft disappeared from low Kerbin orbit in a pale rainbow left behind by the compression of space-time around the spacecraft. Within thirty minutes, it was out of the system and on its way to Skolo.
(Nine and a Half Months Later)
Jebediah watched the pulsating blue of the warp bubble, stuck deep in thought. He knew that within the hour they would be out of warp seven hundred thousand kilometers from the target planet, and so this was his last not-busy time to think about what was actually happening. They'd been out of contact with Mission Control since the drive was activated; the only way to communicate in warp with an object behind you is to use the STD to create a micro warp bubble for the radio waves to pass through, and that couldn't be done if the drive was in use. So, he sat and thought. What kind of planet were they dealing with? Would it be like Kerbin, or wildly different? Would there be pink-skinned space babes? Would there even be life? They knew it was a planet there, but besides its composition that was about it. All these questions and many more ran thorough his head as he stared into the hyperspace. Suddenly, the ship's AI started speaking.
“Captain Jebediah, your presence is requested in the control room.”
“Alright, I'm coming,” sighed Jebediah, slightly annoyed at having his trancelike state broken.
The ship's control room – it was originally going to be called the bridge, but considering it was about the size of an average bedroom it could barely even be called a control room – was a small room, with walls covered in various graphs, pictures, and computers, many of which nobody knew what they were even there for, considering the ship had a dedicated computer room. The captain's chair was in the middle of the room, with a few windows facing out to the sides of the ship; having any windows on the front would be pointless, as they'd be blocked by the heat-shield. It had a small indent into the wall for the radio operator to sit, and three chairs with more screens than could possible be necessary in front of them on the opposite wall for the other three crewmen to monitor the state of the ship.
Jebediah took his seat in the captain's seat as Bob sat at one of the screen chairs. “We're about ten minutes from stopping the jump, Jeb,” Bob said.
“Did you notify the rest of the crew?” Jebediah asked.
“Yep, and they're all busy making sure everything's secure.”
“Perfect. I guess all that's left to do is sit and wait.”
Sitting and waiting is a skill that one develops rather quickly when put into interplanetary spacecraft that can take anywhere from one to seven years to reach their destinations and return. Jebediah had been on plenty of that type of spacecraft, and so was used to sitting and waiting. When the ship announced warp was stopping in five minutes, the rest of the crew rushed in only to find Jebediah taking a nap. He was stirred awake by the sound of the G-ring retracting as the ship said, “Thirty seconds till drop out of warp.”
He quickly said, “Computer, what's our status?”
“Heat-shield ablative material at 99.9%. G-Ring rotational capacity at 100%. Ship structural integrity at 99.763%. Speed 10c. Time to de-warp seven seconds. Relative velocity –“
The computer was interrupted by a resounding boom through the spaceship as it decelerated from 10 times the speed of light to seven kilometers per second within a fraction of a meter. A general sigh of relief escaped from the crew as the ship turned to expose the planet, much larger than they were accustomed to seeing at this distance, in its full glory. “Computer, run scan of planet,” Jebediah asked.
“Computing...” the computer replied. “Equatorial radius: 6413 km. Orbital Velocity: 29,800 meters per second. Natural satellites detected: 1. Planetary mass: 5.97219x10^24 kg. Rotational period: 24 hours.”
Jebediah Kerman stared in disbelief. “This planet... it's ten times the size of Kerbin but it has the same mass!”
Bob replied, “You know, we've discovered a lot of planets like this. In fact, our planet's probably the one that's unusual, considering it's the densest one we know of so far.”
That didn't stop Jebediah from staring in disbelief. What did was the spacecraft announcing, “Aerobraking in three hours. Please prepare for aerobraking.”
Three hours passed as the spacecraft dropped from deep space towards the alien planet below. During those three hours, the crew of the Horizon checked, double-checked, and triple-checked each system and fastening before preparing the G-tank. This aerobraking was predicted to have a maximum gee amount of about seventeen gees – while still under the vehicle's survivability limit, it required the use of the tank specifically designed to dampen the forces.
Meanwhile, on the planet's surface, a purple alicorn princess watched the night sky. With her telescope, she took intricately detailed notes of the location of the stars before noticing one that moved rather quickly. As she watched, it slowly grew brighter until it started to look like a meteor. As the firey object moved swiftly overhead, creating a resounding boom as it entered the atmosphere, Twilight stared in awe. “Spike, bring me a scroll and pen,” she said, still focusing on the meteor. It seemed to be unlike any meteor she'd seen before; instead of being spherical or rounded, this one seemed to be rather flat and wide at the front, then quickly taper off to a rather narrow cylinder. She took the scroll and pen that Spike had brought and started writing.
“April 18 ,1891. 11:02 P.M. A strange meteor went through the atmosphere; it seemed to be about twenty meters wide, but I couldn't even somewhat accurately guess its length. It's mostly shaped like a cylinder, which is about seven meters in diameter, but it has an extremely wide front end that is rather flat.”
The situation on Horizon wasn't very intense even though they were streaking through the atmosphere faster than mach forty. The heat-shield on the front did a rather good job of keeping the fiery plasma from scorching the rest of the ship, and the G-tank prevented the crew from becoming paste on the back wall as they decelerated extremely quickly. As the ship rose back out of the atmosphere, the G-tank opened and the crew spilled out.
“Well, that thing is actually a lot better than I thought it was,” Jebediah remarked, “considering we barely even felt one gee.”
They proceeded to get to their stations for the orbital insertion burn and waited. All of a sudden, Horizon said, “Aerobraking complete. Remaining ablative material: 73.152%. Apoapsis: 1031 kilometers. Time to apoapsis: 1:14:39.” Jebediah went to the cupola on the side of the ship to observe the planet below. He stared at the planet's dark night side, and was just looking at the horizon when dawn broke. The sun slowly crept over the side of the planet as they rose, tinting the top of the atmosphere slightly orange. As it continued to rise, the Horizon broke his trance-like state once again with a status update: “Captain to the bridge, your presence is necessary for the orbital insertion.” Jebediah navigated through the ship's corridors to the command room, took his seat, and requested some information.
“How long till the burn?” he asked.
“Three minutes, four seconds. Burn length four minutes. Maximum acceleration during burn ½ gee.” the computer replied.
Jebediah waited one minute before throttling up the ship's engines and executing the burn, watching as the ship slowly gained velocity until it entered a roughly circular orbit of about 1031 by 986 kilometers. He instantly left the chair and went to draw straws for the landing party.
Meanwhile, back on the surface, Twilight was watching. She noticed that about every ninety minutes, the star would reappear over the horizon and cross the sky to the other horizon. She took note of this, and put it in her log. She was going to watch it some more until Spike belched up a scroll from Celestia. “My faithful student,” it read, “as you probably know, a strange object passed by us earlier this night. Because of this, I am calling a meeting of all the princesses. You must come to this meeting at seven this morning, because there are important matters to discuss.”
Twilight nodded her head at the scroll's message, signaled to Spike to pack her saddlebags, and prepared to leave.
There was an air of tension on board Horizon. Whoever was the first to go down would be the first ones to make contact with whatever life was on the planet, for better or for worse. The ship's storage did include an old hunting rifle for self-defense, but nobody knew if that would be enough if something was indeed hostile down there. As Jebediah began to prepare the sticks for the selection, Bob secretly hoped that he would be selected. All the scientific progress that could be made simply by meeting one extraterrestrial species of life would benefit Kerbalkind greatly in the long run. Meanwhile, in the room next to him, Bob pondered what would be down there. Would it be just another oxygenated planet with no life, like Laythe? Or would it be another Kerbin? In the room next to him, Hanald was wondering how fast they'd have to resort to the weapon to defend themselves from the monstrous creatures that were surely down there while Alsted was sitting in a corner, convincing himself he wouldn't be picked as the first to go. “Surely they can't pick me, I'm their only communications officer. If I died, they wouldn't be able to talk to Kerbin at all!” he frantically said to himself.
Suddenly, Jebediah called all of them into the command room for a meeting. “As you all know,” he said, “the lander holds three of us, and needs three of us to operate it. We have five crew members; that means that two must stay on the ship. Each of you come here and pick a straw; the two who get the shortest get to stay on board, while the other three get to land. Hanald, you take first pick, followed by Alsted, Bob, and Bill.” Hanald floated up to Jebediah and grabbed a stick, looking at it carefully and trying to judge its length against the others. Alsted timidly went up, grabbed a stick, and then disappeared into his communications terminal. Bob picked up a surprisingly long stick, and Bill got one of decent length. When the time came to compare the sticks, it was found that Jebediah, Bill, and Bob were to be the ones to go down; Alsted had picked the shortest, followed by Hanald. Jebediah shouted “Awwwh, yeah!” while Bill and Bob looked somewhat scared.
The lander had already been prepared for the landing before the stick-drawing, so all its crew had to do was to enter it, undock, and land. They severed the docking connection between the ship and the lander, used the thrusters to back away slightly, then put themselves into a deorbit trajectory not thirty kilometers from where they had originally passed over during their aerobrake. By this time, it would be in the daylight side of the planet, so they wouldn't even need to worry about using the spacecraft's lights.
Down on the surface, important deliberations were going on. “What even was that?” asked Cadence. Twilight responded, saying “Nobody knows, but I have a good idea of what it looked like. It was extremely wide on the front, and quickly tapered off into a cylinder.” Celestia had a ponderous look on her face. “I think it may be connected to the disturbance I felt yesterday,” she said. “I felt as if something with enormous power was close, and getting closer. I thought it was coming from the Moon, but I fear that my suspicions may be wrong. I know that this star you've been tracking has come recently, and I believe it's not a star.” Luna interjected, “If you knew of this, why didn't you tell anypony?” “I did not want to cause fear in the masses,” Celestia admitted. “It would be better to let them think that nothing had happened than to cause a mass panic.” Suddenly, a guard outside said, “Your highnesses, it's happening again!”
All four of the princesses ran out to see what he meant. Just as before, a strange meteor-like object was coming down like a giant fireball. Unlike before, this one seemed it was going to touch down.
“Altitude twelve thousand meters, velocity five hundred meters per second.” Jebediah said.
“Heat shield at sixty percent.” the computer chipped in.
“We're slow enough that we don't have to worry about burning up, so I'm retracting the heatshield.” Bob said.
There was a whirring and a clunk as the large heatshield folded up and entered its compartment.
“Chutes deployed!” Bill said as he pressed a button. There was a big jerk as the orange chutes came out of their holders and started slowing the ship down.
“Altitude five thousand meters!” Jebediah said. “Are the engines ready?”
“Engines at 100% readiness.” the ship replied.
“Altitude three thousand meters above ground! Velocity sixty meters per second!”
“Get ready for chute deployment!”
There was another big jerk as the chutes opened completely, slowing the ship down from sixty to six in a fraction of a second.
“Altitude five hundred meters!” Jebediah shouted.
“Engines to ten percent!” said Bob.
“Speed four meters per second!” Bill replied.
“That's good, we can land at that speed.” Jebediah said.
The ship touched down in a large clearing in the Everfree forest with a thud. “Structural integrity of lander 98.76%.” the ship said. “Atmospheric scan: Density 100,000 pascals. Composition: 21% Oxygen, 70% Nitrogen, 9% other. Temperature: 20° centigrade.”
Bob stared at the screen. “The atmosphere here's breathable!” he said in surprise.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Jebediah said.
Jeb depressurized the airlock, took off his helmet, and stepped outside. The spaceman stared into the forest, looking for any sign of civilization. He picked up a blade of grass, took off his glove, and ran it through his fingers. “Are you sure we're not just back at Kerbin?” he asked. Without waiting for a response, he entered the lander, changed into his jeans, shirt, and leather jacket, and sat on one of the lander's legs, tossing a stone up and down into the air. Bob and Bill followed his example, got their civilian clothes on, and went out exploring. About fifteen minutes later, Bill returned with an apple-looking fruit. “There's a few of these in the forest, but I don't know if they're edible,” he said. They sat down, waiting for Bob, when suddenly they heard him running back through the woods. “Guys, I think I found a road!” he shouted, without waiting for anyone to ask what was going on.
“A road?” Jebediah asked.”
“Well, it's at least a dirt path. I think if we follow it, we might be able to find some sort of civilization!.”
Bill looked obviously nervous. “I... think I'll stay here and guard the lander,” he said.
“We can follow it to the edge of the forest, but we have to stay hidden. We don't want any natives seeing us and thinking we're a threat.” Jebediah said, rather smartly. So the two of them disappeared into the forest in the direction Bob had come from while Bill went into the lander and opened up the communications with Horizon.
“Hey, Bill, how's it going down there?” said Alsted.
“Well, Bob found a road of some sort about half a kilometer from the landing site, so he and Jeb are going to check out where it leads.” replied Bob.
“Well, tell them to make sure to follow it west. If they go east, they're just going to go deeper into the forest, according to the scans we've done,” Alsted warned.” That forest you landed in is only about three kilometers deep to the west, but over seven hundred kilometers deep to the east.”
Bill picked up one of the handheld radios that they had each been issued and called Jebediah.
“What's up, Bill?” Jeb said through the radio.
“Not much, just wanted to let you know that you should follow the road west, not east,” Bob replied.
“Why not go east?” Jebediah asked.
“Well, I guess you can if you want to go through seven hundred kilometers of forest. It's only three kilometers deep to the west, though,” Bill said.
“Point taken.” Jebediah replied.
The two of them walked through the forest for about ten minutes before they found the path. Jebediah took out his compass, and noticed that he road did in fact run east-west. Without hesitation, he went down the westward path as Bob followed.
They walked down the unkempt-looking dirt road for half an hour before they heard some sort of noise. Instinctively, both Bob and Jebediah jumped into a bush, with Jebediah having his camera ready. The noise turned out to be some sort of humming that changed pitch and tune as it went along its path. In fact, it almost sounded like some sort of melody. Suddenly, a pastel yellow something that seemed to have pink hair running from the top of its head to the top of the tail, as well as a tail with the same color, came down the road. Jebediah instantly snapped a picture, but forgot to turn off the camera's sound effects. A large click escaped from the camera's speaker as Jebediah fumbled with it to turn its sound off. The creature jumped rather high and then ran off in the direction from which it came. As it ran, Bob noticed two folded wing-like structures on its sides, as well as a strange mark on the side of the area where its rear leg met its body. Jebediah quietly said, “Well... that was something,” before being interrupted by Bob.
“I think that we might have stumbled upon this planet's dominant species,” he said.
Jebediah looked at him with a look that said, “Are you serious?” before actually saying, “Probably just one of the indigenous species.”
Bob replied, “Do animals hum like that?”
“Perhaps it was a mating call?”
Bob sighed as he said, “Just be more careful next time.”
Meanwhile, Bill sat inside the lander. He was busy running some scans on the surrounding area when the creature appeared. It looked to have a kind of equine structure, but had large wings protruding from either side. It was also strangely colored, at a bright cyan. It almost blended with the sky of the planet, but not quite. Even more strange was the rainbow color that was protruding from its back. Suddenly, the creature descended towards the lander but stopped about at window level. Bill ducked into one of the storage containers as the creature slowly circled the lander, maintaining altitude. After giving the lander a few curious knocks, it suddenly sped away at speeds that Bill, peeking out of his container, could only estimate to be in excess of sixty meters per second, and possibly closer to 120. He quickly began a radio call to Horizon.
“This is Bill, calling the spacecraft Horizon with an urgent message!”
“What's the problem, Bill?” asked Hanald.
“First, where's Alsted?”
“He's maneuvering the satellites for the new communications array into position. This way, we won't have almost any blackout periods.”
“Makes sense. Second, I think I've just had an encounter with one of the natives.”
“You? What about Bob and Jeb?” Hanald asked, sounding almost worried.
“They haven't reported back yet, but I'm quite sure they're fine,” Bill replied.
“Well, what were the natives like?” Alsted suddenly popped in on the radio frequency.
“The one I saw was an equine-like creature, it seemed about a meter tall. It tapped on the capsule a few times before flying off in speeds likely in excess of sixty meters per second,” Bill said from memory.
Suddenly, a call from Bob came in on the radio frequency.
“Bill, we've encountered some sort of native animal species!” he said excitedly.
“Bob, I have too. One just left the lander,” Bill said, rather surprised.
“Well, we saw a yellow equine-like creature with folded wings on its side. It appeared to have pink 'hair' running down its neck as well as a tail of the same color. Jeb has a picture, he's uploading it now.” Bob reported.
“Well, make sure you come back to the lander. We don't want to have any more encounters with any natives. Also, it might be helpful to have the rover next time you two go out,” Bill suggested.
Bob hung up the radio, and turned to Jebediah. “I told you it was the dominant species, why else would one want to investigate our lander?”
Jebediah thought for a second, then said, “How do you know it's the same species? As Bill said, they're completely different colors.”
Bob replied, in a rather abnormal fashion for him, “Only one way to find out. But first, back to the lander.”
The walk back was rather uneventful. The two kerbals followed the path back east until they found the point where they had hit the path, then continued walking back towards the lander. When they came to it, they saw Bob eagerly looking out the window at them.
“Do you have that picture?” he asked.
“Right here,” Jebediah said.
Bill reviewed the picture, comparing it to the mental image he had in its head. The basic body shape seemed to be the same, as well as the wing structure. However, the colors and “hairstyles” were completely different between the two. “Maybe one's undergone transformative surgery?” he thought before scanning the picture with the computer and uploading it into the mainframe.
As night fell inPonyville, Twilight waited for Rainbow Dash to return from the Forest. She saw the blue pegasus on the horizon, slowly getting larger as she got closer. She also saw Fluttershy run out of the forest towards her. Rainbow arrived first.
“I saw that thing you told me to find,” she said.
“And what was that thing?” asked Twilight.
“It looked like a giant cylinder with a bell at the bottom and a cone on the top. The cone had some windows, so I peeked inside, but all I saw was three chairs, some sort of machine, and lots of equipment and closets.”
“Did you see anything else? Was there anything alive in there?” asked Twilight, hoping for a confirmation to her theory.
“I think I saw something duck into a closet when I peeked into a window, but I'm not sure .”
Suddenly, Fluttershy burst into the library, panting hard. Before anyone could ask what was going on, she said, “There's something near the forest! I heard it make a clicking sound!” before promptly hiding behind a pile of books. Twilight seemed curious and, without a word, prepared to walk to the edge of the forest.
Bill, Jebediah, and Bob were having a barbecue next to the lander. “I still wonder how you managed to hit that rabbit in one shot, Jeb,” said Bill. “I thought you were opposed to guns.”
“Just because I think something should be banned doesn't mean it doesn't come in handy at times,” Jebediah replied. “By the way, why did we shoot that rabbit when we have a stockpile of snacks in the lander, and can request Hanald to drop some snacks with the spaceplane?”
“Well, fresh meat is sometimes better than chocolate bars, no?”
“True. Anyway, back to that story of how I managed to...”
Twilight heard their talking and laughter from over a kilometer away, and saw the smoke of their fire from even further. She slowly stalked towards the source of the sound, taking care to be as silent as possible, when she reached the clearing. Using her magic and the pen and clipboard she had brought, she sketched the image. She was rather intrigued when she saw one of the three strange creatures pull out a small back rectangular object with what looked like a wire coming out of its top, and talked into it. Surprisingly, she could understand what he said. It sounded like he said, “Horizon, how long until sunrise?” She was surprised that a seemingly intelligent creature would have to ask this, but then she realized that his was their first day on the surface. Suddenly, she was surprised by one of them shouting, “Hey, what's that over there?”
Jebediah stared at the thing he had seen hiding in the shadows. He watched closely as it slowly approached, but said nothing about it to his crewmates. Instead, he continued talking with his fellow crewmen while it slowly drew nearer. When it got close to the clearing's edge, he radioed up to Horizon for the time until sunrise. Then, he proceeded to shout “Hey, what's that over there?”. This instantly drew the attention of all four Kerbals who heard him. Instantly, Bill and Bob saw what he was talking about. “You,” said Jebediah, “come out over here.” The creature exited the shadows with a look of defeat on its face, and Jebediah noticed that, unlike the other specimens that had been reported to be seen, it had both wings and a horn. In fact, it almost looked like the Unikorn of aincient mythology.
Interpreting that it could understand him from how it followed his command, he spoke up again. “What's your name, and what are you doing here?”
The purple Unikorn said, rather quietly, “I am Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, and am one of the rulers of this land. I have come here tonight to observe you.”
Jeb gestured to his comrades. “Well, this is interesting. We're the first to make contact with an alien species, and we don't even get to do the whole 'Take me to your leader!' thing!”
The Unikorn Twilight rolled her eyes and said, “Well, if you're just going to poke fun at my position, I guess I'm just going to leave.”
Bob piped up before Jeb could say another word, “Wait! Don't go; there is much we could learn from one another. First off, how many species of your kinda re there? We saw two of your subjects, or at least they looked like you, earlier today.” As Bob said this, Twilight remembered both Rainbow and Fluttershy's reports. “But, that can wait. First off, we'd like to introduce ourselves.”
Jeb took the reins on the conversation as Bill and Bob were both about to speak. “I'm Jebediah Kerman, historic Kerbal and credited with the achievements of first Kerb in space, first Kerb on the Mun, and first Kerb almost everywhere else.”
Surprised that such a seemingly important figure would be sent to the moon, Twilight asked, “What did you do to get sent there? Surely, going to your moon must require an extremely bad deed, and I just frankly don't see it in you.”
Jebediah looked surprised and offended. “Going to the Mun requires a bad deed? I don't know what kind of crazy system you have set up here, but the Mun is one of the most beautiful places in the star system! Bob can attest to that; he was there with me in the lander.”
Twilight realized that the Mun of the Kerbals must have had a completely different meaning. She was about to ask about it when Jebediah asked, “What's wrong with this place, anyway? What kind of trip to any Mun is a punishment?”
Twilight sighed and said, “You obviously don't know about how things work here. When a pony does something wrong –“
Jebediah nodded and said quietly, “So that's what they call themselves...”
“ – they are sent to the moon as a punishment. The length of time can vary; for something like stealing a piece of bread, it can be only a few hours; but for revolting against the Princesses, it can be up to a thousand years.”
Jebediah just stared with his jaw halfway to the floor. “You send your subjects to the MUN whenever they do something wrong? Don't you know the Mun has no atmosphere? They'd suffocate within a minute and be dead long before their sentence was up. Also, ONE THOUSAND YEARS? That's longer than most of Kerbal history!”
Bob calmed Jebediah down as Bill finally spoke up. “That's interesting. But why not just use a more conventional system, such as prisons or other forms of detention?”
“Simple. Unicorns could use their magic to break out, Pegasi could ram their way through the doors, and Earth ponies could easily buck down a brick wall.”
Bob asked, genuinely curious: “So there's three types of you, then?”
Twilight grinned, “Well, technically four. There's also alicorns, which are like me: both Unicorn and Pegasus. I'm one of the only four currently in existence!”
Bob suddenly asked, “Why are there so few?”
Twilight responded, “Well, becoming an alicorn signifies you as becoming a ruler of Equestria. It's an honor that only the most faithful students of the Princesses have, and anypony who does get this honor should consider themselves lucky.”
Bob pushed the question further, “Well, what did you do to earn this honor?”
Twilight, again with a grin on her face, said, “Well, I saved Equestria from an ancient evil counter-personality of one of our Princesses, saved Equestria from an ancient evil god, saved Equestria from an invasion of bugponies, saved Equestria from being cast into darkness by an ancient evil --”
Jebediah said, “Well, it's been nice talking to you about how you saved the world from ancient evils, but as kerbalnauts,we have things we need to do. So, if you could just buzz off for the night, that would be greatly appreciated.”
Both Bill and Bob shot him rather angry stares as Twilight slowly walked away, looking almost dejected at being refused so suddenly. Jebediah sat down on one of the lander's legs and sighed, saying, “I hate government officials, rambling on about their 'achievements' in front of everyone who just doesn't care...”
Bill said, “You're in a particularly good mood tonight . . . ,Well, anyway, I'm going to go into the lander for the night. If you want, you can start setting up the structure so we can have more room to sleep, or can come in with me and use one of the lander's beds.”
Bob followed him in while Jeb sat out, looking at the mostly familiar star patterns. He stared somewhat longingly at Kerbol in the sky, much fainter and farther away even than when he had accidentally been slingshotted to thrice the orbital distance of Jool. As he stared into the night sky, he noticed a shape pass overhead. Thinking it was nothing, he continued to stare into the night.
Luna flew over the landing site, ready to make her appearance known at a moment's notice should need be. However, as it did not seem the need would arise anytime soon, she idly circled overhead, waiting for that last Jebediah Kerman to finally fall asleep. Unlike many times when she did something like this, this was not a royal mission or an intervention to help somepony; instead, tonight she just wanted to see what dreams ran through the heads of these little Kerbals. After circling for a few hours, she noticed that Jebediah Kerman had finally fallen asleep, outside next to his “lander.” She came to a rest on the ground about ten meters from the lander, and slowly walked up to Jebediah and touched her horn to his head.
(Eight Years Ago)
“Icarus, this is Jebediah Kerman. The sunshield's been repaired; you can realign the ship now and disengage the secondary shield.”
“Roger that Jeb,” said an unknown voice unlike any of the three kerbals she had observed tonight. “Rotation restored and secondary sunshield retracted.”
“Orbital insertion around Moho in seventeen minutes,” said another, feminine sounding voice.
“Roger that, Kassandra. Entering the airlock now.”
“Damn!” swore Jebediah Kerman. “There must have been a fault with the replacement panel. Status report!”
“Temperature on panel is 80 degrees higher than it should be.
“That's survivable, right?”
“Yes, but not for long. At this rate, we'll barely be able to get behind Moho before it melts.”
“So one of us has to go out and fix it.”
“But the secondary sunshield won't hold long enough for one of us to go out and come back!”
“So one of us isn't coming back.”
“Captain!”
“Either one of us burns, or we all burn! There's no other choice!”
“I'll go.” said the voice Luna had heard called Kassandra.
“Kassandra, wait! You don't have to do this!”
“If I don't do this, we're all dead. You said it yourself. Let me go, Jebediah. It's our only chance for survival.”
Luna saw the usually stoic expression that always was on Jeb's face start to melt. “I accept your decision. Just... be careful out there. We'll all remember you.” he said, turning away to hide the tears that started to pour down his face.
Luna saw the door on the side of the vessel open, and a single spacesuited figure come out. She saw it maneuver into the front of the shield. She heard the robotic voice saying steadily increasing numbers. She realized what was going on.
“This is Kassandra, the panel appears to be cracked. Beginning panel replacement procedure.”
“Suit temperature fifty degrees centigrade, and rising.”
“It's getting a bit warm in here, but I've got the temporary cover on and the panel removed. Replacement panel 20% deployed.”
“Suit temperature sixty degrees. Lamp system sustaining heat damage.”
“Panel 30% deployed.”
“Temperature 70 degrees. Irreversable damage to lamp in thirty seconds, life support sustaining minor damage.”
“Panel 50% deployed, but stuck.”
“Get under the cover!”
Luna saw Kassandra deftly maneuver into the tight space between the temporary cover and the shield.
“Temperature 67 degrees.”
“Panel unstuck, but the cover's getting a bit too warm. I'm going to try use the back of my suit as a cover to keep it from getting too hot.”
“Kassandra, that's going to irreversably damage the life support system on the suit!”
“It's not like I'm going to use it again, anyway,” she said with a sliht hint of bitterness and sadness.
“Panel 70% deployed, suit temperature 90 degrees. Cooling system incapable of handling temperature; inner temperature thirty-five degrees.”
“Kassandra! The panel's fixed enough, get behind the shield.”
“I can't until the job's finished. I can't risk the lives of seven others to save my own.”
“Bill, go out and help her!”
“I'm sorry sir, but in this current state she can't reach the edge of the shield before the life support system fails and she dies of overheating.”
“Panel ninety percent deployed, suit temperature one hundred ten degrees. Communications equi....nt su....ing dama.....supp.....sably da.....o hope of su....”
“Kassandra?”
“I....rry Je....didn't ha.....like th....wanted to let y....that.....”
Jebediah collapsed onto his knees in the artifical gravity of the control room. “Kassandra... no...”
Luna exited the dream, suddenly feeling extremely sorry for the poor kerbal. “At least this explains his commanding feeling and his desire to protect his crew; he doesn't want to have to go through this again...”
Wondering if anything had changed, she tapped his head again.
(TWELVE YEARS AGO)
Jebediah was on a massively different ship, about twice the size of the last one, heading out to a green planet she supposed to be Jool. “Approach nominal, predicted aerobraking velocity maximum 7 gees,” she heard a computer voice say.
“Computer, give flight diagnostics,” she heard him say.
“MET: 198:4:23:15. Radiation: 20 msv/s. Velocity:7.4 km/s. Time to encounter: 3 minutes.”
She saw Jebediah focus on a control panel, and mutter to himself, “Something's not right. It's probably nothing, but something just feels wrong. Well, back to work.” he said as he drifted into a corridor. Four days passed within a blink of an eye as the dream cut to the next major event.
“Time to aerobraking: 30 seconds. Time to periapsis: 70 seconds.”
She saw Jebediah sit at the captain's chair, oriented in a reentry position. She went through the central tunnel of the ship and saw an inflatable room with three of the other five crew members.
“Sidley, how about you try beat him next time?”
“Nah, Mildorf, you know that nobody can beat Rongun.”
Suddenly, a large clang reverberated through the ship. “What was that?” the three of them said at the same time.
An alarm started blaring, and on all the screens in the ship it said, “Structural failure on inflatable hab modules 3 through 7! Closing ports and disconnecting in three seconds. All crew please leave the afflicted modules.”
Sidley was the first one out of the module, followed by Mildorf. Just as Rongun was about to pass through, the doors instantly slammed shut, and the module was ditched to the inferno of atmospheric entry. To make matters worse, two of the afflicted modules held about half of the ship's life support; without it, they had nowhere near enough supplies to get everyone back to Kerbin. This was only realized after the ship inserted itself into high orbit over Jool; they had to cut the funeral ceremony for Rongun short because of this. They knew that something terrible was on the horizon, and, according to their calculations, they knew that they had only enough supplies for four kerbals to return to Kerbin. This meant that, of the five of them, one wouldn't be coming home. Jebediah was the first to volunteer; after all, his life was nowhere near as valuable as the lives of his four crewmates. However, Mildorf stopped him. “It's my fault that Rongun died,” he said. “I blocked his path while trying to squeeze through the door. I'm a murderer anyway; who cares if I die in the cold abyss of space or rotting in a prison cell back on Kerbin?”
Before anyone could stop him, Mildorf deftly maneuvered to the ship's airlock. He locked the door, removed the manual override circuit, and depressurized.
Luna was stunned at just how difficult and deadly Kerbal spaceflight could be. She though that, in the jovial nature of the crew, barely anything bad had happened in either of their pasts. Thinking that she had had enough, she removed her horn from Jebediah's head and entered the lander capsule.
She tried to see if anything similar was going through the minds of the other two, but all Bill had going on was sheep flying biplanes around in circles, while Bob's dream was of a deconstruction of the planet; he was drooling as he touched each layer and studied its composition intensely.
With her newfound revelation into the history of Captain Jebediah, she sent a subconscious message of consolation and flew off towards Canterlot Castle to lower the moon to allow the sun to rise.
Jebediah woke up by the side of the lander with a killer headache. He felt as if something had probed his mind while he was sleeping, and had jiggled his brain around for a few hours. That may have been what happened, but he felt he would probably have noticed. He went in the lander, took a few pain pills, then had an idea. He wrote a short note to Bill and Bob and took a walk into the forest.
The cold, brisk air of the early morning forest almost let him forget that he was on an alien planet. He followed the dirt road down towards the west, stopping every few minutes to take a look at some interesting animal or plant. Eventually, he heard some footsteps and someone – or something – talking. Instead of ducking into the bushes like last time he heard this, he just kept walking. “...but Ah'm sure she wouldn't do that. Twilight's a nice gal; she wouldn't keep something this important from –“
The orange “pony”, as Jebediah remembered Twilight calling them in last night's talk, stopped dead in its tracks. It appeared rather surprised, and instantly moved to protect whatever was behind it. “Don't. Move.” it said. “Ah'll make sure this creature of the Everfree don't cause you no harm!” she said before staring rather angrily at Jebediah.
“Well then … Hello, I'm Jebediah Kerman. Nice to meet you too...” said Jebediah, rather confused by her actions. The orange “pony” reacted quite differently from how Twilight did; instead of calmly accepting and continuing to converse, it just stared quite surprisedly. “You... you can talk?!” it said.
“Well, of course I can! What do I look like to you, some sort of animal?”
“Well... yeah!”
Jebediah suddenly remembered that none of the creatures on this planet besides Twilight had actually seen a Kerbal before, and judging from how the “pony” reacted, Jebediah made the reasonable assumption that bad things must happen in this forest from time to time. “Well, I'm sorry for not properly introducing myself. I'm Captain Jebediah Kerman of the starship Horizon. I'm here on an exploratory and scientific mission to discover the secrets of this planet. I am the leader of a crew of five Kerbals; myself, my long-time friends and co-workers Bill and Bob, a very nice Kerbal named Alsted, and an expert pilot name Hanald. What is your name, Miss?”
Jebediah was rather surprised that he could actually tell its gender, but looking back at its motherly instinct, he saw how he came to the conclusion.
“... Ah'm Applejack, Element of Harmony and owner of Sweet Apple Acres.”
“What's that?”
“It's just an orchard me and my family run on the edge of town,” Applejack said.
Jebediah pondered over the extremely strange names of the “ponies” that he had met so far, but shrugged it off as just a side effect of a completely different culture. Suddenly, he asked, “Do you happen to know Alicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle, Repeated Savior of Equestria?”
Applejack looked slightly annoyed and confused at all the unnecessary titles, but getting the basic message, she said, “Twilight? She's one of my best friends. Why? Have y’all met her?”
Jebediah said, “Somewhat. She came to our lander last night. I need to talk to her for a bit.”
Applejack sighed and said, “I'll get her to come here for ya, but you'd best not let anything happen to her.”
As she said this, Applejack walked off the way she came, while a much smaller-looking “pony” that was a paler yellow walked off with her. “Who's that?” Jebediah wondered; but, feeling a sudden urge to get back to the lander, he decided not to persue the question.
Bill and Bob woke up to the sound of the lander's alarm. “WARNING: LOW BATTERY.” read every single screen in the compartment. Half-asleep, Bill remembered that he had forgotten to extend the solar panels. He rolled over and pressed the button, and almost instantly the alarm stopped. As he was awake anyway, he decided to take a short walk around the clearing. He opened the door of the lander and stepped down the ladder, and saw a little paper stuck in one of the exhaust grills.
“If I'm not back by the time you're awake, I'm just out on a hike.” the note read, in Jebediah's handwriting.
“I guess something must have happened while he slept outside,” said Bill.
“Hey, I got an unauthorized entry alert overnight for the lander!” Bob suddenly shouted.
Bob went through the report, scrutinizing every detail. “It appears something about one meter tall, and a meter and a half long, entered the lander slightly after midnight. It appears to have moved to the sleeping compartment for a few minutes before leaving. Unfortunately, all the other sensors were disabled due to the depleting battery, so we don't have any information.”
“Well, how about we set up that perimeter system that we brought with us?” said Bill as he opened a compartment. “There's twelve poles for setting it up here, and it appears something else is also inside,” he said as he reached in. Pulling it out, he saw that it was a year and a half's supply of pancake mix. On it was a little tag that read, “This is coming out of your paycheck, Jeb.”
“Well, at least we know what's for breakfast!” said Bob.
The two Kerbals got to work digging the poles into the ground as Jebediah walked back towards the lander. He stopped by the side of the path for a few minutes to investigate a strange sound; it was almost like some sort of creature was hiding in the bushes to the side. He peeked inside, and seeing nothing, continued on his way. However, he kept having the sensation that he was being followed, so he suddenly turned around and saw the same yellow “pony” he had seen on his first day. It appeared to be watching him, tracking his movements, as if he were some sort of strange animal specimen. Not wanting to break the illusion for the second time in as many hours, he decided to continue walking as if nothing happened. He still heard the footsteps of the “pony” behind him, and suddenly ducked into the forest to the side of the path to try lose her. Instead, this probably intrigued her even more. He ran back out to the path, and decided to run down the path fast enough so that she couldn't catch up. He broke into a full-on sprint, running through the trees. He looked behind him and saw the yellow “pony” gradually start slowing, before coming to a halt with a surprised look on her face. Realizing he had been looking backwards for the past twenty minutes or so, he looked forwards and saw the lander. “Well... crap.” he said to himself as he slowly walked towards it.
“Hey Jeb, where have you been lately?” Bob asked as he looked up from drilling the metal pole into the dirt.
Jebediah made an effort to block the view of the “pony” before replying, “I was just taking a hike down the path when I was chased by a something. I think I lost it, though.”
Bob peeked around him and saw the yellow “pony” hiding meekly in the brush. “Well, looks like the 'something' that chased you followed you here.”
The yellow “pony” blushed at having been called out before slowly backing away. “Hey, you! Over here!” shouted Bill as he saw her for the first time.
She slowly and timidly walked out into the clearing, obviously fearful of the strange talking creatures that she had discovered. “What's your name?” asked Bob.
The yellow “pony” replied with something that was too quiet for anyone to hear. “What? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.” She tried saying it again, slightly louder but still too quiet for anyone to hear. “What's that?” he said again.
“I... I said my name... is Fluttershy.” she said in a soft, scared voice.
“Well, what're you doing here?” asked Jeb as he took a seat next to the lander.
“I... saw you walking down the Everfree path... and thought you might be lost...” she said.
Bill said, “Well, now that you know we're where we belong, are you a bit less afraid?”
She once again said something quiet before backing away into the forest.
“Well, she seemed nice enough,” said Jeb as he walked towards one of the metal poles he had planted.
For a few days, nothing much happened. A few small animals and such occasionally found their way into the clearing, but a short wave of a stick or the smell of the campfire was usually enough to scare them away. The one time when there may have been some serious danger came when a strange lion-like creature decided that he wanted Kerbal for lunch. One round from the rifle later, the Kerbals had another buff to their food storage. For weeks after that, they would be eating some lion-flavored steak and jerky with their freeze-dried meals.
About five days after the encounter with the yellow pony, a message appeared outside the lander, Curious, Jeb picked it up and started to read it.
“Dear Jebediah Kerman and company,” it began, “as you probably know, you are no longer a secret in Equestria. Many ponies have been trying to get at the Everfree in order to meet with you. With conditions like these and in the interest of national security and the safety of the people, we would like to cordially invite you to take up residence in the castle of Canterlot. All meals will be provided of the highest quality of anything you order, almost any information will be available upon request, and you may take as much as we like with you. However, in order to avoid causing a stir, we would like you to provide your own transport. Whatever methond you use is fine as long as you don't turn too many heads. Your Generous Co-Leader, Princess Celestia.”
“Well guys,” said Jeb, “looks like we just got a free royal suite.”
“What do you mean?” asked Bob.
“What I mean is that the princess 'asked' – although it was pretty clear that if we refused we would be forced into it – for us to take up residence in the 'castle of Canterlot.' She also included a bunch of neat stuff in the deal. So, boys, pack up your stuff; we're leaving tomorrow.”
“Wait, what about the lander?” asked Bill.
“Well, it only needs three people to do the deorbit burn and the landing procedure. To fly it across the surface a few kilometers will only take one person; I can handle it myself.” said Jeb.
“Well, where are you going to land it?” asked Bob.
“On the roof, naturally!” replied Jeb. “Now get packing, because we don't got much time.”
Alsted sat in the Horizon's cupola, looking at the world down below. “I wonder what's happening down there,” he thought to himself. “They haven't sent any transmissions besides that one...”
“It's probably nothing,” said Hanald, who had drifted behind him. “They're probably just busy doing something.”
Alsted hoped that was what was happening; the things that had been seen on that blue sphere were certainly not the most comforting. Especially the weird lion thing, which he had found, from searching the ship's databanks, to look like a mythological Mantikore, made him fear for the lives of his friends and crewmates.
Meanwhile at Mission Control on Kerbin, the reports of what had happened were flooding in. “Well,” said Gene Kerman, head of Mission Control for Horizon, “this is odd.”
“Ya think?” said one of his assistants. “This is the first time Kerbalkind has made contact with an alien species, and it went like THAT?!”
“Well, hopefully it didn't make them hate us.”
“You do realize that we have to release these images – and the video – to the public, right?”
“Not if we can deny the video even exists. The images, however, are likely impossible to cover up. How long can we keep them under wraps for?”
“We can't.”
Outside of Mission Control, hundreds of reporters swarmed. The guards and police were doing a good job of keeping them away from the building, but when Gene Kerman left the building, he dismissed the guards and police and was almost instantly swarmed by random people.
“Gene, sir, what happened?” said one.
“What were the pictures you received?” asked another.
“Can you tell the public about the mission?” said one that looked like a reporter.
“We heard some rumors about extraterrestrial life, can you confirm or deny them?”
Gene turned to face the crowd, gesturing them to get back. “Ladies and gentlekerbs,” he began, “as some of you know, we have received our first surface images from Horizon.” Cheers and applause thundered out from the crowd. “However, we can neither confirm or deny their subjects. What we know is there is a high possibility – within the greater than forty percent range – that there is life on the surface of planet Skolo 138c.”
Questions again arose. “What about our Kerbalnauts? Are they safe?”
“What kind of life?”
“Can it be turned into rocket fuel?”
“Did they find the land of infinite snacks?!”
Gene finished his short speech with, “While we do not have all the necessary information to determine the type of life, or if it even is life, we cannot deny the possibility. If it is sentient, we will attempt to communicate. If it is not sentient,or it is not life at all, we will try to return a sample immediately. Major mission plan changes may be necessary; indeed, it may even become a diplomatic mission, not a scientific one. However, we at the Kerbal Space Program are certain that our brave Kerbalnauts will be safe, and have full confidence to complete their mission, whatever it may become.”
Gene retreated into the building, and the reporters from the major news networks followed. On the control center's social notification panels, there suddenly appeared a swarm of messages from random Kerbals. Then, something happened.
On the large communications screen, Alsted's face appeared, with Hanald next to him. He was somewhat surprised at all the reporters who had come. He quickly regained his composure, and started stating the current mission logs.
“On mission day 276, Commander Jebediah Kerman flew down to the surface with copilot and navigator Bill and scientist Bob. On day 277, they made first contact with what appear to be sentient native life. On day 279, another meeting occurred. These meetings continued every two until earlier today, on day 290, a form of letter was received. It has been scanned, and is currently being uploaded. In about three seconds...two...one... there we go, file transfer complete. Open it up on one of the secondary screens.”
Gene hit a button on his desk, and the image opened up on a side screen. “What...” was all he could say. It was written in rather neat handwriting, in standard Kerbish no less. It even had a signature in the corner, but there was some sort of stain.
“So... we were prevented valuable information about who sent this letter because of a COFFEE STAIN?!” said one of the reporters.
“Do you have any clue who the letter came from?”
“In his report, Jebediah stated that the letter was sent by something that calls itself 'Princess Celestia.' Other than the meetings every other day, however, there is no clear indication that this thing even exists.”
“Well, what in the meeting makes you think it might?”
“The native who we meet with seems to think highly of this creature.”
The reporters all stood in the room, talking with one another. One of them said, “Can you provide pictures of either of these creatures?”
Alsted went over to a compartment and pulled out a folder. Inside were some low-resolution pictures taken by the lander's navigation camera. “There are more high-definition pictures, but they're being uploaded to the ship's database right now. We'll get them to you eventually.”
The reporters stared in awe at the photographs. This creature, whatever it was, was definitely not Kerbal. It was anything but. This would certainly make headlines, so they all ran off to their respective stations to put out a story first.
Soon, the transmission ended and the screen went dark. Alsted drifted away from the communications console and was just about to leave the room when he heard, coming through the console's speaker, in a voice that he did not recognize as Kerbal, “Horizon? Come in, Horizon.”
Alsted jumped in shock as the voice continued to come out of the console. “Horizon? Horizon, come in.”
The voice sounded somewhat feminine, but definitely not Kerbal. In fact, it sounded more insectoid. “Erm, who's calling?” said Alsted.
The console's incoming feed light blinked on. Alsted opened the feed and saw Jeb standing there. “Hey, Alsted. It's me, Jeb!”
“You sound different.”
“Must be something I ate down here.”
Alsted sighed before saying, “Well, whaddya need?”
“I just need you to bring the spaceplane down near the city on that mountain.” Jeb rotated the camera towards a large-looking mountain with a gleaming marble city on the side.
“Hmmm. I'll tell Hanald,” Alsted said before shutting off the feed. He felt some sort of suspicion, but ignored it.
Alsted drifted through the ship's corridors until he found Hanald's bunk. He peeked inside and saw Hanald trying to fix some sort of toaster. “Hanald, get the plane ready,” Alsted said before leaving the room. Hanald shrugged and went to the plane's docking port.
The plane was located directly across from the lander, near the midsection of the ship. It was a relatively small one, with slightly more fuel than was needed for seven landings and ascents on Kerbin. Alsted had run the calculations beforehand; on this planet, it could only do one. As Hanald went towards the midsection, he noticed that something was wrong. It felt like someone was trying to get into the ship. Thinking nothing of it, he went through the port and into the plane.
“Fuel levels?” asked Alsted, in proper mission control fashion.
“Full.” Hanald replied.
“ECLSS?”
“Online.”
“Landing autopilot?”
“Ready.”
“Comms equipment?”
“Active.”
“RCS systems?”
“Nominal.”
“Control surfaces?”
“Ready.”
“Heatshield?”
“Perfect.”
“Instruments?”
“Nominal.”
“Abort system?”
“Primed.”
“Go for launch in T-10... 9...”
Hanald breathed heavily as Alsted counted down the seconds. He knew that, even if all the systems were functioning nominally now, they could break down at any moment. He could also miss the landing and pancake into a wall, run out of fuel during ascent and burn up on reentry, accidentally go in too shallow or too steep and burn up or get crushed in his seat, and any number of other problems. However, the plane gracefully glided off the ship's structure and oriented itself for reentry.
“3... 2... 1... Ignition!”
“Damn, this thing packs a punch,” he said after the retrorockets had fired. The plane was now on course for landing. “Midcourse correction in thirty seconds. Wait, I'm getting a datapacket...”
The plane's autopilot system suddenly became unresponsive and the plane oriented itself northward. It expended all the remaining deorbit fuel inclining the orbit, moving the landing site from the mountaintops more than a thousand kilometers north to the frozen wastes. Hanald tried to fight the system but was unable to revert back to manual control, and the plane continued on its new trajectory.
Almost immediately after the plane entered the upper atmosphere, control was handed back to Hanald. However, there was not enough jet fuel to fly to the original zone, or to almost anywhere for that matter, so he resigned himself to simply trying to land.
The reentry heat quickly subsided as the plane glided down towards the snow. Small bits of ice began to form on the wings as it went lower, going under three kilometers. The ping of the radar altimiter started to get louder and faster as the plane approached the surface, becoming a solid beep when the plane touched down.
It slid for a few hundred meters before coming to a complete stop in the snow. Popping the cockpit's hatch, Hanald got out and looked around. The first thing he noticed was that it was cold; extremely cold. His suit was noisily using up its energy supply to run the heater. The next thing he noticed was that it was quite bleak. The only noticeable object besides snowy plains and slight hills was a tall tower off in the distance that looked like it could be made of crystal. Hanald contemplated trying to walk to it to explore it, but decided he would probably run out of energy before he made it back to the plane and freeze to death. So, he went into the plane, deployed the solar array, and started the distress beacon.
Alsted was watching the map, trying to find out where Hanald had landed. Suddenly, a flashing red dot appeared on a northern section, right where the ship's computer had computed the plane would land with the revised course. Alsted immediately went to the radio room and called Jeb.
“What?”
“Yep. The AI just completely ditched the plan and decided to go north.”
“You know we don't have the fuel yet to get him.”
“Thankfully all his systems are intact, but he might run out of life support supplies soon.”
Jeb checked, rechecked, and triple-checked each system of the lander. Any failures during this flight would probably be fatal, so he wanted to make sure nothing out of the ordinary happened. Bill and Bob testing the rover, spinning the wheels and making sure no tires were damaged. Satisfied, they started unloading the lander and shoving the supplies onto the rover. Jeb hit a button to open a door on the side of the lander, and Bill started removing boxes, which he passed to Bob, who put them on the back of the rover. With the rover stacked four meters high with various boxes, the lander emptied, and all the systems checked, they began their short journey.
The roads in the Everfree were not very well paved. Every few meters, Bill and Bob would hit a large bump, almost sending them and the boxes flying off the chassis. They drove down the dirt path at almost sixty miles an hour, slowing down only for the curves. The rover's electric motors whined as they were pushed to their limits, moving much faster with a much heavier load than they were designed to do. They continued driving, however, until they came out of the forest. And there, only about two hundred meters ahead, was a town.
With no other road to take, and unable to drive onto the grass due to the low traction, high load, and uneven terrain, they just had to drive through looking as inconspicuous as possible. Of course, this plan was slightly flawed.
Twilight heard the motors' whining halfway across town. Walking to her window, she looked in the general direction it was coming from and saw a strange whitish blob. She went downstairs and left the treehouse to walk to the source.
There was already a small crowd of ponies around. They were slowly moving down the street as the rover inched forward. Its batteries were already running down, and it needed to get to an open space to deploy the solar array and recharge. This was definitely not an open space. Both Bill and Bob realized the trouble they were in, and knew there was only one way to get out. Bill revved the motors, and ponies jumped out of the way as the car sped down the road.
“That was close,” said Bob as he swerved to avoid the ponies, stalls, and fountains on the road.
Slowly, the sound of the motors died down until it stopped. Bill tried to restart the motors, but to no avail. The batteries were dead. The rover slowly lost speed until it came to a stop at a street corner. With no way to get the rover where it needed to go, all Bob could say was, “Well, crap.”
The ponies started to get back towards the rover, slowly approaching it from all sides. Bob hit the rover in frustration; the motors gave a satisfying purr for a few seconds before dying down. The crowd was getting closer, so, with nothing else to do, Bob tried to extend a solar panel.
The blue blade gently and slowly whirred out of its casing and expanded to one side. The ponies in its path moved aside and let it go out. Unfortunately, the solar panel had deployed directly into the shadow of a building, so that plan was to no avail.
Bob sighed as he left the seat, motioning Bill to do the same. They got behind the rover and began to push, again to no avail, when a voice called out to them.
“Need any help over there?” said a vaguely familiar voice.
“Who... Oh, it's you.” said Bill, looking in the direction the voice came from.
The ponies in the way moved aside as Twilight walked down the street, heading straight for the rover. “What is this thing?” she asked as she thoroughly examined it and its components. She looked at the seats, cargo straps, motors, batteries, and wheels, but she still couldn't tell what it did.
“This is our rover; don't touch anything or else you might break it.”
“But what's it for? It looks like a cart, but there's no way to pull it.”
“It moves itself, but it ran out of power.”
Twilight looked somewhat confused until she noticed something lodged in between the seats. She picked it up and looked at it; it was a booklet, with “ROVER MK4 INSTRUCTION MANUAL” printed on the top in big, bold letters.
“This might come in handy,” she said as she opened it.
Meanwhile, Jebediah was still doing the preflight checks on the lander, using Horizon as a sort of mission control center to make sure he wasn't missing anything.
“Turbopumps?” asked Alsted.
“Pumping.” replied Jeb.
“Exhaust valves?”
“Exhausting.”
“Life support?”
“Supporting.”
“Well, that's everything on the list. She should be ready to fly.”
“Starting launch now.”
A deep rumbling filled the spacecraft as the three engines slowly roared to life. The brush and leaves underneath the nozzles were instantly set afire and vaporized as the engines gained strength. Eventually, the lander lifted up in a column of smoke and fire. “Flight nominal, beginning pitch maneuver,” Jebediah relayed to Horizon. The lander's nose slowly dropped lower towards the horizon until the lander was pitched relatively low. The lander accelerated, going ten, twenty, thirty meters per second before reaching a stable speed of about seventy. Jebediah kept the engines on rather low thrust as he sat back and watched the landscape below him. Some farms, an oddly placed tree in the middle of a town, and a few hills passed by under him until the ping of the proximity radar interrupted his observation. “One contact. Relative heading:227.4 degrees. Distance 347m and closing.” Looking to the left and slightly behind, Jeb saw the same blue pony that had observed Bill before. Not wanting to let it get away this time, he kept the lander going steady. As he predicted, it was approaching the lander. It made contact with the top and tried to steady itself. Then, Jeb activated the external camera.
Rainbow Dash saw the little thing poke out of the side of the metal bottle-shaped thing. She approached it and, seeing it as her only option, poked it. It didn't respond, so she poked it again. This time, it moved its head-like tip upwards towards her face. She gave it a quizzical stare before continuing forwards across the thing. The camera continued to track her as she passed, and she noticed that it appeared to be staring at her flank. In fact, it looked like it was... studying her cutie mark. She passed it off as some sort of strange little bug and continued on her way forwards.
When she reached the front, she saw what looked like windows and a door. She pressed on the door, and it opened. She went inside and saw a green... thing sitting in a chair. The thing looked at her with a grin on her face before hitting a button. The door closed, and there was a hissing as some sort of gas filled the room. “It's just air, don't worry,” she though she heard it say. Great, only a few seconds in here and I'm already insane, she thought to herself. However, she realized that it might actually be real when he asked, “Are you okay? You seem rather uncomfortable.”
“Are you real?” she asked, a look of disbelief on her face.
It sighed for a bit, then replied, “As real as the stars are bright.”
She looked around the room. It seemed rather spacious; there were even three beds in the back. Suddenly the creature piped up again. “Would you mind moving? You're sitting on a very important button.” She obliged, and as soon as she was clear he hit the big red button. Suddenly, the sound of guitar, drums, and something shouting filled the room as the creature put on what looked like a pair of sunglasses. She felt rather uncomfortable, as if this was something that was completely strange. “So, um... You from around here?” she asked nervously.
“Me? Nah, I come from somewhere up there,” he said, pointing up. “I only arrived here about two weeks ago, and apparently you haven't heard of me from anyone.”
Rainbow Dash nodded uncomfortably. She still didn't know if this was a good or bad thing; usually, being abducted by creatures that fly out of the Everfree Forest in metal cans that shoot fire out of the back would be frowned upon. “Anyway,” he said, “my name is Jebediah. Pleasure to meet you, miss...?”
“Rainbow Dash. You can call me Rainbow Dash,” she said.
“Pleasure to meet you,” he replied.
The two sat in relative silence for the rest of the flight. Jebediah monitored the flight systems for any anomalies while Rainbow Dash stared out of a window. She felt somewhat uncomfortable, but surprised herself by not wanting even the slightest bit to leave.. Eventually, the white marble towers and houses of Canterlot became visible in the main view window. The lander flew over the city, looking for a suitable spot to land, until suddenly Rainbow felt herself being thrown against a wall as the lander pitched back up to vertical.
In the Canterlot Royal Guard headquarters' top floor, a general was busy filling out paperwork when he heard the rumbling. Looking out the window, he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, except for a thin trail of smoke. Thinking nothing of it, he returned to his work, but the incessant rumbling wouldn't stop. Suddenly, there was a large thud, and small particles of dust and stone rained from the ceiling. There was a creaking noise, and then the sounds of supports cracking. The rumbling fired up again, and the general barely had time to get under his desk as the roof caved in.
Leaving the once-pointy roof behind, Jeb searched for a new location to land. Eventually, he found a relatively flat spot on the roof of the largest building in town. He set the lander down, and this time no roofs were destroyed. However, there was a sound of surprise from the room below.
Luna was busy napping when the large thud reverberated through the castle. It felt like something had hit just on top of the roof, and she shrieked in surprise. Slightly groggy, she opened a window and flew up onto the ceiling. She saw the large, grey metal cylinder and thought to herself, “That moonshine that guy gave me last night must still be affecting me.” Suddenly, a hatch on the side of the top opened. First, she saw Rainbow Dash peeking her head out. As soon as she saw Luna, she ducked back inside. Then, a ladder lowered from under the open hole. Assuming it was meant for her, Luna started walking towards it. Suddenly, she saw a creature clad in white poke its head out. The head was large, abnormally so, and had two red striped as well as what looked like lights. The rest of the body appeared bipedal in nature, like a shorter, stumpier, less chaotic-looking Discord. She then realized who this was. As she approached, it removed its helmet, turned its head towards her, and said, “Hello, Princess.”
Jeb decided that making his entrance as dramatic as possible was a good idea. Jeb decided wrong. Within the hour, he found himself being grilled by Celestia. One of her first questions was why Rainbow Dash had been found sitting on a bunk inside the lander. “Well, she looked like she wanted to come in, so I let her in and closed the door like a gentleman. Also, I had to repressurize the cabin.”
Unsatisfied with this explanation, Celestia sought out Rainbow Dash to find out what had really happened. Much to her surprise, Jeb's explanation appeared to be true. Celestia returned to the throne room and asked another question to which Jeb had no answer; where were the other two?
Twilight stood in the middle of the street. The shock from the strange cart with the strange creatures riding it had subsided rather quickly, only taking about three hours to appear normal. She had re-read the manual fifteen times straight, and had a fairly good grasp of how the vehicle worked. She knew what was wrong with the rover, and had an idea on how to fix it.
Twilight already knew some spells to create lightning. She had known for a while that lightning may be able to power things, and she was pleased to find out that the electricity that drove the rover was essentially continuous lightning. She had been given warnings by the Kerbs that if she used too much power and put in too much electricity, she would probably fry the rover. So, she read and found the maximum amperage that the rover could sustain was only about four amps. So, she prepared some four-amp bursts of lightning. She focused her brain and slowly, a spark of electricity went from her horn to the test circuit. The lightbulb lit up while her magic was flowing, but stopped as soon as she stopped the flow of charge. She then proceeded to try the same thing on the lander.
One of the first things she noticed is that recharging is slow. In about thirty minutes of charging, the batteries were only charged about ten percent. And, of course, after those thirty minutes a royal guard appeared with a message from Celestia. “She wants to know what I'm doing, and where the 'Kerbals' are?” she asked herself. “Very well then, I'll prepare a response at once.” she said, abandoning the rover project. Bill and Bob shrugged and, knowing that the power could carry them for the seventy meters needed to reach the edge of town, hopped onboard and drove away.
They wasted almost the rest of the entire day just charging the batteries on the road outside Ponyville. With the solar arrays deployed, all they had to do was sit and wait. Of course, the rover wasn't made to have its batteries fully charged, discharged, and recharged in one day, so it took almost six hours to charge the batteries enough to make it the next sixty kilometers. Bill silently prayed to all the Kerbal deities that somewhere they would find an EV charging station, however unlikely and useless that would be in this nation. The batteries eventually charged, however, and they went on their merry way.
Jeb sat in a rather large room on one of the castle spires. He had been given free roam of this section of the castle, known as the Commons Section, but he decided to stay in here for a bit to recuperate his thoughts as well as find out where the hell Bill and Bob were. Unfortunately, he couldn't go looking, for the Princes had taken his lander of f the roof and put it in the courtyard, and everyone knew that launching a rocket in a castle courtyard was a bad idea. As he wondered about Bill and Bob, he remembered something else; Hanald was still stuck thousands of kilometers to the north. He wondered what was going on in his mind.
Today I tried making ice cream out of dried cream, dried redberries, and snow. Did not work too well; going to try different recipe tomorrow. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Shining Armor stood in front of a pile of paperwork and a line of concerned crystal ponies. Cadence was, unfortunately, out on vacation in Manehatten, so he was left with all the busy work of managing the Crystal Empire. The line of ponies stretched from around a street corner, down the main plaza, and into the throne room, a full five hundred meters of ponies waiting to have their concerns answered. Almost all of them had the same question, and got the same answer.
“What was that fireball that came down nearby?”
“We don't know, but we're dispatching guards to find out.”
Of course, none of the guards volunteered to go. That is, until it was mentioned that Princess Twilight may possibly have a connection to this. Suddenly, about four ponies raised their hooves; three who were known to have secret crushes on the princess, and a fourth called Flash Sentry who everyone also thought was part of the group. Sighing at the fact that these were the only ponies who would volunteer for the mission, he gave them a basic plan of what to do.
The group of guards trekked through the snowy wilderness for hours before stopping to make camp. They lit a large bonfire and set up tents before raising the flag of Equestria.
Alsted was sitting in the plane's crew cabin, listening to some music that he had downloaded from the Horizon database, when he saw the camp off in the distance. Civilization! Finally! he thought to himself as he prepared his flare gun. He loaded a standard red flare, opened the plane's hatch, and fired.
The one guard who was assigned sentry duty immediately sounded the alarm. “Wake up, everypony! Whatever is there isn't done making fireballs yet!” The four guards instantly rose up out of bed and donned their uniforms before sprinting to the source of the arcing light.
The cold wind bit at their faces as they ran across the frozen wastes. By now, the flare had died down, but they continued to run in the direction it came from. There was a hill in their path, and as they crested it, they saw lights in the snow. It appeared that whatever had made the fireball had started here, for their were some patches of melted snow. There was also some sort of metal behemoth. As large as at least ten ponies or more front-to-back, it somehow supported itself on three spindly-looking legs. However, when one of the guards kicked it, they found it was made of solid steel. There were also three interesting features on the back; some sort of bell, and two volcano-looking things. They noticed a glass window near what could only be presumed as the front; inside, there was light. However, they decided that it was time to make camp for the night, so they followed procedure set earlier. Soon, the camp was set up and the tents prepared, and the group prepared for their rest. The last thing they heard before dropping off to sleep was something that sounded vaguely similar to a war horn.
The sound of a weapon being brandished took Flash Sentry's attention as he perked up awake. The camp was relatively peaceful, except for the footsteps that seemed to be falling all around. He poked his head out of the tent flap and looked around, but quickly turned back as he was unable to see anything in the darkness. Suddenly, something sliced open a hole in the side of the tent. Flash quickly donned his armor and, looking around, flew up into the air.
He looked down on the camp, trying to see what was going on. The campfire had been relit, and ponies in dark cloaks surrounded the camp. They had taken his comrades prisoner, and he knew that they didn't have very good chances of survival. So, he did the only rational thing someone could do in his situation. He ran.
The dawn slowly began to break as he flew at his fastest speed towards the spire of the Crystal Empire. He arrived as the sun slowly crested the mountains, and landed at the guard outpost. Shining Armor was waiting, expecting him to have returned with the target. “Sir,” he stated breathlessly, “we were attacked.” Shining Armor's did his best to hide his concern at this development. “How?” he asked, eyeing the soldier in front of him.
“There was a group of black-clad ponies. They advanced on us at night, and overpowered the watch easily. There were at least ten of them. I –“
He was interrupted by a flash of red coming from the general direction of the expected catch. It slowly climbed higher into the sky before exploding, signaling its location to any and all ponies who may be around. “That can't be good,” stated Shining Armor flatly.
Hanald closed the hatch as his finger instinctively went for the engine activation button. The strange natives who he had only heard of before were surrounding the spaceplane, and some had started trying to attack it. He was glad that the plane had micrometeorite armor, else it may have had been quite seriously damaged. The whining of the engines slowly faded in from nothing and grew in pitch as they spooled up. He watched the thrust counter on them slowly climb until the plane lurched ahead, leaving behind the ponies in a cloud of snow. “Easy does it,” he said to the plane as he gingerly pulled the stick back to pitch the plane up. Its nose gently lifted up and almost immediately the plane flew into the sky. He thought he had lost the attackers until something hit one of the wings.
“Shit!” he proclaimed as he felt the thud reverberate through the plane. Status reports confirmed that something had impacted the wing, and had broken one of the RCS ports. “Well, that's not good,” he said to himself as he started pulling the plane into evasive maneuvers. It was a good thing that he'd been a Kerbal AF pilot, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to prevent another potentially fatal impact to the wings. He activated the external cameras and was surprised to see that some of the natives were using their own wings to catch up to him. Not wanting to be taken down, he pulled the plane into a 90 degree climb and shoved the engines to full throttle. They followed his craft, with surprisingly high speed and agility. Of course, once he got to about four hundred knots, they couldn't catch up. He leveled out the climb and started flying towards the south, even though he knew he didn't have the fuel to get there. White contrails flew from the wingtips as the plane was enveloped in flame and a reddish-orange light.
Jeb sat in a room in one of the many castle towers, watching the world below. It was a decently sized rectangle, and featured a bed, a small kitchen, and a window. The bed was somewhat small for a creature of Jeb's stature, obviously having been designed for the slightly shorter ponies, but still mostly fit him nonetheless. The kitchen was rather spartan, containing only a counter and oven; apparently, these ponies hadn't learned how to use refrigerators yet, so Jeb pilfered a replacement minifridge from the lander to keep his food from spoiling. Thankfully it ran off its own power supply; Jeb hadn't seen a single electrical outlet or device during the entire trip. The room had a red carpet covering its marble flooring as well as bearing the mark of one of the leaders. Speaking of which, the only one he'd actually been introduced to was the “Sun Goddess,” or as she called herself, Princess Celestia. He had met a few guards, too, but most of them seemed wary of his presence. One even dared to point his weapon at him. Jeb had dismissed him, but now realized that he probably wasn't the only one who would think that way. As he watched below, he observed the ponies go about their daily lives. “Oh look, that one stole that other one's lunch money,” he said, looking at one of the many school campuses spread throughout Canterlot. He stared for a while until a rapping at his room's door broke his concentration. He sighed and walked over to it. He opened the door, expecting a guard to ask him to come to the throne room for questioning, display, or some other purpose, and was instead greeted with a lavender wing-unicorn, or as he had heard them called by the guards, Alicorn. “So, Princess Twilight Sparkle,” he said.
Twilight nodded at him and took a seat in the room, magically closing the door. As she closed the door, she stated, “Welcome to Canterlot, Jebediah. I've been given permission by the other Princesses to ask you a few questions, as long as you're willing to answer them.”
“Certainly!” he almost shouted.
“Well, for one: What actually are you?”
“I'm a Kerbal, resident and dominant species of Kerbin.”
“Have you met any other sentient species in 'Kerbin'?”
“Other sentient species? We're the only ones there,” Jeb replied.
“Is it nice there? Is it like here?”
“From what I can tell,” he said carefully, trying to give away as little as possible, “it mostly is.”
“Now, for the final question of this session: Where is your ship?” she asked. “You must be from beyond the sea, because no Kerbin exists on this continent.”
“Well, not quite beyond the sea.”s
Twilight's face lit up in surprise at this statement. “Well, what do you mean? Where are you from?”
Iebediah realized he'd given too much away. “Well, I'm not sure my superiors would be okay with me answering that,” he somewhat lied. They probably would, but would also be angry because he didn't ask them first. “But, what harm can it do? I'm not from this world.”
Twilight's eyes shone with pure delight as she realized that this being was completely different from anything that existed in Equestria, or anywhere else she visited or may visit in the future. This 'Kerbal' was potentially a completely different, new branch of biology! The possibilities were endless! She could become the first to –
Her thought rant was interrupted by Jeb tapping her lightly on the shoulder. “Um, Princess Twilight? You alright?” She looked at him and said, “Got to go for now! See you later!” before she vanished in a flash of light.
Jeb sat dumbfounded at what had just happened. “Wha...? How?” he asked himself. He immediately decided that he had to go down to the main chamber of the castle and ask what the hell had just happened.
Twilight sat in her study in the Library. She was writing something in her personal log about the new creature she had discovered when Spike burst in. “Twilight! Come quick! Something's happened!” As soon as Spike said these words, Twilight sprinted out of the library as fast as she could.
A crowd of ponies was already developing around the scene. Trying to ge ta peek, she nudged her way through the crowd until she was in the front row. The... thing lying on the ground seemed to be made of metal and had all sorts of wires of various metals as well as some sort of glass window on it. On the strange little window, all anyone could see was, “Awaiting Input.” Twilight was the first to try decide what it meant. She walked up to it and poked at some of the buttons protruding from various sides. As she clicked one, a small boom resounded followed by the separation of the thing from its bottom part. The charred part hit the ground with a clang and cracked. The rest appeared to be okay, and the screen had changed to “Stage Sep Confirmed.” Another button changed the message again, seemingly to a list of instructions. However, she still had no clue how to operate it, so shoved it into her saddlebags and went back to the library.
Jebediah was walking down the huge flight of stairs when he ran into the guard. He was just walking on patrol when he saw the strange green creature clad in what appeared to be leather and cloth descending. He instantly raised his weapon and said, “Don't move. If you move, you're dead. If you try to run, you're dead. If you don't tell me what the hell you are, you're dead.”
“Move, man! I need to get to the princess.”
“Answer my question!”
Jeb replied by simply removing an ID card from one of his pockets. Looking over it, the guard could see it clearly wasn't a fake. It stated the name Jebediah Kerman, as well as some other physical features. “Alright, you can pass. But I've got my eyes on you,” he added as Jebediah brushed past.
Jebediah continued down the circular flight of stairs until he reached the throne room level. Inside, he could see something was going on. He opened the door just slightly to see what was going on without being noticed. Unfortunately, the door made a huge creaking sound, so every pony in the room instantly turned to face him. He walked out of the door with his hands up, looking at each pony in the room. “Ah, I see you've decided to join us,” said Celestia. “It is good to have you here. These ponies all have concerns regarding you and your nature.”
“I'm bound by contract to not disclose some of the info, but most of them I'm happy to answer.”
Celestia immediately went to introduce him to all who had gathered. “Fillies and gentlecolts, I would like to introduce you to our castle's newest guest. I would like to introduce to you, Commander Jebediah Kerman!”
Scattered applause quickly gave way to concern as they looked at him. Clad in black leather and blue jeans, he was strangely calm, as if he'd been through this kind of situation before. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to be here today. Your leader Princess Celestia was kind enough to offer me and my comrades housing in this castle, and for that we are thankful. You may have many questions that you want to ask me, but I request that you hold them until the end of this speech.
“About one year ago, four other Kerbals and I left our home planet of Kerbin to perform a scientific mission to yours. About two weeks ago, we first arrived in the system. We landed in a nearby forest and set up a small base of operations around our lander. Yesterday morning, your leader caught wind of our arrival and allowed us to take up a room in this castle.
“We do not want to cause any harm to your people, and will not unless they put our lives at risk. We also hope that we will not inconvenience you for the duration of your stay. In the meantime, if you have any concerns, you can –”
Jebediah's personal communicator buzzed. “Hold on for a second, I have to take this call.” He went into a side alley and pressed a button. “Talk to me, Alsted.”
“Hanald's plane just took off!”
“What? Where?”
“It's heading south, but fuel readings are too low for it to get to you without expending too much fuel to make it back to orbit.”
“Urgh, get on the radio channels with him!”
Bill and Bob were just sitting on a field, recharging the rover's batteries, when something reentered the atmosphere. “Hey guys, got a probe drop going on about three kilometers from your current position,” Hanald relayed. They watched as it cooled off and deployed its chute, and decided to go for it. The rover, while only half charged, had more than enough battery power to get there and back, as well as most of the remaining way to Canterlot, before recharging. They got in the seats and put the rover in gear, and started driving.
The rover's wheels whined under the massive speed they were managing. As they drove, the two Kerbs heard the familiar sound of a heatshield separation. “Well, looks like they found it,” said Bill to Bob. Bob simply nodded and floored the accelerator even harder. They soon pulled up to where the spacecraft had landed, but it was nowhere to be found. Bill relayed this to Alsted, and the three of them decided to drop off the rover out of sight of the town before trying to find where the craft went.
They hid the rover inside a red barn on what appeared to be an apple orchard before heading into the town. Many of the ponies gave them interested looks, while some had fear or hatred. Most simply ignored them. They eventually came to a treehouse structure, where they knocked on the door. It was quite some time before an answer came. “Sorry, but I'm not accepting visi– Oh, it's you.”
“Hello?”
The creature sighed before asking, “What do you want?”
“We're just here for the thing that fell from the sky.”
“I'm sorry, but I can't let you near it.”
“Why not? We own it, after all.”
“As a princess, I have the right to decide whether or not you get it, and I decide you don't.”
“Well then, I guess that since we can't take it, can we at least look at it for a second?”
“Fine, as long as you don't let it leave the library.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------BEGIN LOG PROBE 1A LOG II
SENSOR DATA:
ALTITUDE 134.3M ABOVE SL
TEMP 21C
FUEL 0.0%
ATM PRESS 1.012ATM
GRAV CST 9.81M/S^2
ACCL 1.00G
AWAITING COMMAND
>SEP HEATSHIELD
HEATSHIELD SEP CONFIRMED
>ACCS HD
LOADING FILES
.
.
FILES LOADED
>LOGI.txt
ACCESSING LOGI.txt
.
.
ACCESS DENIED
>LOGII.txt
.
.
RECORDING IN PROGRESS. ACCESS DENIED.
>CAMFEED
DISPLAYING FEED
FEED DISPLAY COMPLETE
>TRANSCRIBE AUDIO
TRANSCRIPTION COMMENCING
.
Unknown voices detected. Voice1(V1), Voice2(V2), and Voice3(V3) will be used as substitutes.
13:21:06 (V1) What... what is it?
13:21:07 (V2) I don't know!
13:21:08 (V3) Is it dangerous?
13:21:14 (V1) Don't touch it!
13:21:14 (V3) Why?
13:21:15 (V1) You don't know if it has dark magic!
13:21:17 New Voice Entry: Voice4(V4), Voice5(V5), Voice6(V6)
13:21:17(V4)Move aside, the Princess is coming through!
13:21:19(V5)Whatever it is, I'm sure that she can handle it!
13:21:20(V6)Ooooh, what is this?
13:21:41 INPUT DETECTED, HEATSHIELD SEP CONFIRMED
13:21:41 (V6) AHH! Oh, it's harmless.
13:21:59 INPUT DETECTED
13:22:01 (V6) Well, whatever it is, may as well take it with me
14:03:17 LOW BATTERY, RECORDING TERMINATED
LOG COMPLETE
SHUTTING DOWN ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Well.” said Bob.
“Yep.” said Bill.
“We have all the information we need, thank you for your time.” said Bob as he left the building.
“Did we actually get anything from that?” asked Bill.
“Nope.”
Hanald sat in the cockpit as the plane cruised through the atmosphere. The whine of the engines had died down as he slowed to a more efficient speed earlier to save fuel. He was already half out of fuel and was barely half way there. He would certainly be able to get to the target LZ; the problem was that he wouldn't have the fuel to get to orbit. Alsted's voice suddenly came through the radio, and he had a slight tone of distress. “Hanald! What are you doing?!”
“I'm just flying down to the LZ,” Hanald said innocently as he fought the controls against a cloud.
“You don't have the fuel!”
“Of course I do! Wait, something's on the radar.”
It appeared to be an extremely large thing, about two kilometers above the surface. Even more than a hundred kilometers away, it was still extremely visible on the spacecraft's screen. “It's... massive!” was all he could say. Suddenly, tens of contacts appeared on the screen. “What...?” was all he could say before he saw a cloud of ponies descended upon him. With no choice, he dove down and prepared to land.
He spotted a relatively long flat zone that he could only guess to be a road of sorts and aimed for it. The plane was in a steep dive, nearing mach 1, when he pulled up and leveled out. The plane's speed quickly dropped, and he aligned himself for the landing. Apparently the road wasn't as deserted as it looked from twenty kilometers up, because there were ponies running off the road for their lives as he approached. He hit the button to extend the landing gear, and was greeted by a familiar whirring. “Getting a bit low,” he said to himself as he lowered the flaps and opened the airbrakes. Suddenly, a familiar jolt reverberated through the plane. “Touchdown!” he stated as the plane rolled to a stop. He opened the hatch and stepped out, only to be greeted by a wall of weapons pointed at him. “You, thing, come with us,” said one of the guards pointing a spear at him. “Shit.” was all he could say as he was handcuffed and put into a cage.
Jeb sat in the hallway, pondering what to do. Hanald had left the cockpit radio on and he could hear all that was going on. “You are an enemy of the state,” said one voice. “We should put you down!” said another. “Wait, guys, I'm just a visitor!” Hanald's voice was loud and clear compared to the others. “Shut up, creature!” said the first voice. “Captain, what should we do with him?”
“Take him to the block.”
Jebediah instinctively went to where the lander would be to grab the rifle, but he realized that he had no clue where to go. Suddenly, the radio chirped again. “Hey, what's this? I hear someone inside here!”
“Hello?” said Jeb. “Where am I?” he said, trying to elicit some information to the guard.
“Little filly, I have no clue where in this... thing you are, but you've just landed on a road almost directly under Cloudsdale.”
Cloudsdale, then. He got up and walked over to the throne room. Once inside, he went straight towards Celestia. “Jebediah, what –“ she began to ask, only to be cut off by Jeb. “I need to get to a place called Cloudsdale, and I need to do it fast.”
Silence. That was all Hanald felt. The silence that preludes death. He saw the ponies before him brandishing their weapons. They all had looks of fear on their faces, but also of determination. They eyed him cautiously, not letting him escape. Not like he would; if these were anything like the ponies Jeb had mentioned in his captain's log, then he would be perfectly safe. However, the swords and axes visible to him weren't very comforting. In fact, they looked downright menacing. The spaceplane had already been surrounded by 'Pegasi' as he had heard them called, and they appeared to be trying to take it apart. He heard the sound of a sonic boom and stared in disbelief at the source of the sound.
What was visible was a rainbow trail emanating from behind the shock cone. “What in Kerbol's name is that?!” asked Hanald, before being cut off by a guard who yelled at him to shut up back there. The trail turned and pointed directly towards the spaceplane. “No!” he yelled. To his surprise, the trail stopped and something cyan hung in the air. It started coming towards him. “Wait, no! Don't hit the plane, but don't come here either!” he yelled futiley. The cyan thing landed in front of him, and he could see it was a pegasus. This one was different, however. It didn't have a weapon, or armor. In fact, it appeared to be a civilian.
“Rainbow Dash, what are you doing here?” asked one of the guards before getting a hoof in his face. She walked up to the cage and inspected it before speaking.
“Jebediah? I thought the princess said you were at the castle!”
“I'm not Jebed–Princess? Castle? What? Am I going insane? I thought I was crazy when these pony things came up to me, but now I'm convinced I'm absolutely loony.”
“Well... anyway, come with me. You there,” she pointed to a group of guards,” take that with us. And don't drop it; the Princess says it's important.”
Hanald had ridden a horse before, but never like this. The pony he'd heard named Rainbow Dash had gestured for him to get on his back, and he did, as well as assuming proper riding posture. However, this was rather uncomfortable in a suit. He removed the helmet, and was surprised how pure and clean the air was. He slowly felt the wind pick up in his face, and then they were airborne. This was a feeling that Hanald had never experienced in even the smallest, lightest planes. This was flying truly open-cockpit; actually, it was like flying no-cockpit. The ground shrank beneath the two as the pegasus climbed higher, finally levelling out at an altitude of about a kilometer. Looking behind him, he could see easily thirty pegasi struggling to keep the plane aloft, even banging its landing gear on the ground a bit. “That can't be good for it,” he thought aloud.
“What can't?”
“It's nothing, nevermind.”
The pegasus looked ahead and continued flying forward. The fields raced by below them, and Hanald swore he could see some sort of New Kerlington-style city off in the distance. In the opposite direction, a massive forest stretched beyond the horizon. He noticed a small village below, and swore for a second he could see what looked like the rover on the ground outside of a farm. Looking to his right, he could see a mountain range with what looked like a city jutting out of the side. He shifted his weight slightly and the pony slowly began to turn towards it. “Hey!” she shouted as she was forced to bank. “Don't do that!” Hanald scorned himself for letting his pilot instinct kick in, and returned his balance to normal.
The pegasus came to a surprisingly smooth landing on a balcony of the castle. She dropped him off, said something along the lines of “Not happening again”, and flew away. Hanald decided it would be a good idea to knock on the door to the room, so he did. Unfortunately, the cyan pegasus had managed to drop him off on the wrong floor, and so he knocked on the wrong room.
Luna was awoken from her sleep for the second time in two days. Grumbling, she walked towards the balcony door and asked, “Who's there?” As she opened the door, her look of tiredness turned into one of annoyance. “What are you doing here? Get out,” she stated.
“Erm, I was just dropped off on this floor by a cyan pegasus,” stated the slightly surprised kerbal.
“Well, get back to your room!” she said as Hanald was enveloped in a flash of light. Next thing he knew, he was lying on the floor of Jebediah's room while Jebediah paused mid-sip. Jeb put his beer down and walked over.
“Hanald, what the hell?”
“I don't even– wait, what's that?”
There was a buzzing sound outside. Jebediah opened the curtains and looked outside, and was greeted by a horrible freak of nature. It looked like an overgrown bug; it had scales of chitin covering its body, neck and head, it had buglike wings, and it had a horn full of holes. Speaking of holes, its legs also appeared to be full of holes. Hanald let out a small scream as Jeb wondered if they were bullet holes. Without saying a word, he went into the kitchen, opened a cabinet, and took out the rifle. He opened the windowpane and without saying a word, leveled the rifle and pulled the trigger.
“What was that?” asked Hanald. “You just murdered it!”
“It made me feel strange, like something was trying to get inside my head. Ah well, it's dead now, so it won't be causing anymore problems.” There was a knocking at the door as Jebediah hid the weapon under the rug and Hanald went over to the door.
“Sir!” said one of the guards as he saluted to Jeb. “We heard reports of a changeling circling the castle, and when we heard a bang coming from your room we thought it might have attacked you. Where is it, by the way? I'm assuming you saw it since the window and curtains are open.”
Jebediah solemnly walked over to the window and pointed down. One of the pegasus guards flew out and down towards the changeling. He returned a few seconds later, carrying the body in his body. It looked like something gone straight through its side. Before Jeb could verify if it was dead, one of the guards spoke up. “Celestia's sake, what did you do to it?” asked one of the guards, wide-eyed. “I'm calling the princess right away!” said another, scared for his life. The rest of the guards backed up and stared at him. One of them raised his weapon, but lowered it at another voice's command.
“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS INTERRUPTION?” boomed a voice. All the guardsponies bowed at the speaker, and not wanting to be disrespectful, Hanald and Jeb followed the example. They kneeled, and didn't even think to look who was the speaker. “You two,” said a feminine voice, “come with me. Guards, stay here and make sure that nopony and nothing can get in.” They looked up for the first time, and noticed who was speaking.
She was a deep blue, with a mane and tail that looked somewhat like the stars. She had a smaller horn than Princess Celestia, but sported the same horn and wing configuration. She had a tired but stern look in her eyes, and she looked somewhat angry. Jebediah and Hanald looked at each other for a second, shrugged, and followed the princess.
She trotted down the halls at a brisk pace, instinctively turning right and left as she walked towards the throne room. She stopped for a second to check a clock posted in a hallway, then continued on her way. She reached a staircase, but teleported herself and the two Kerbs to the bottom. She walked over into the throne room. “Luna? What are you doing up so early?” asked Celestia, obviously concerned.
Luna replied flatly,“These two spotted a changeling invader a few minutes ago.”
“Where is it now?”
“Most likely dead.”
All the ponies in the room adopted shocked looks attention slowly turned to Jeb. “Jeb,” said Hanald, “I think you have a minor problem.”
What happened next was rather confusing. A series of questions were asked, and were answered in ways that sprouted only more questions, and those questions sprouted more, but eventually Jebediah cut off the conversation. “It was trying to get into my head,” Jebediah stated. “I did only what I had been instructed to do in dangerous situations. I defended myself.” The looks of shock turned to looks of fear as the ponies thought that this creature would willingly kill anything.
“Commander Jebediah Kerman,” stated the two princesses at once, “you do know that Changelings are, like us ponies, sentient creatures. You do realize you just admitted to murder?”
“Is it murder to defend myself and my crewmember from something that is trying to get into our heads and possibly destroy our minds, or discover sensitive information about our homeworld?”
“He was only trying to feed on your emotions,” said a new voice.
“Fluttershy? What are you doing here?” asked Celestia, confused.
Twilight, who had just teleported into the room, tried to say something but was cut off.
“You should be very ashamed of yourself, mister. You nearly killed that innocent little changeling just because he did what was in his nature!”
Oh hell, Jeb thought to himself. As if there weren't enough animal rights activists on Kerbin, now I have to deal with them here, too.
The yellow pony continued its rant. “Mister, come and look at what you've done.” She led him into a room on the side of the throne room.
There sat the changeling. It wasn't quite dead yet. It looked as if it was trying to speak. He walked up to it, and saw the look of utter hopelessness and despair in its eyes, one of fear of the unknown.
He was familiar with that look. He had seen it once before.
***37 YEARS AGO***
Jeb was in a trench, at the Siege of Kerlington that would end the Unity War. “Hold the line!” he heard one soldier shout. As soon as that soldier peeked up to shoot, he lost the top half of his head and fell backwards to the ground. Jeb hid in the trench, clutching his rifle. Suddenly, his friend Billy-Bobford perked up and motioned for Jeb to do the same. He managed to level his rifle unnoticed and fired. Jeb was about to do the same when he saw the Rebel soldier charging. Jebediah raised his rifle and looked up.
He could see the fear in his eyes, the longing to just go home. He could see how he had been drafted into the war, how he was afraid that he wouldn't see his family again. Then, someone behind him shouted, and he pulled the trigger. He then proceeded to fall back into the trench, and had to be carried off the field by his comrades.
He hadn't gotten over that until a few years ago, and seeing this vivid replay reminded him of the horrible deed he'd done all those years ago. He watched himself be carried off the field, and saw the charge of the rebels, and how they were mowed down. He watched and reminded himself of the horrors of war.
Suddenly, the scene around him changed. He was back on board his first command, in orbit over Duna. He watched as the lander with one of his crewmen onboard pancaked into the surface of the planet. “No!” he yelled as he watched the lander and kerbal inside turn into a bit of dust on the surface of the alien planet.
Once again, it changed to the Eve Direct III spacecraft. His crewman had just returned to the ship with a punctured suit. He watched as the pulse monitor beeped steadily, slower and slower, until it flatlined.
This trip continued through all the past missions where he lost crew, through all the missions from the Kerbin Explorer to the Grand Tour. Each one, he watched the deaths that had happened – that he believed he had caused. His face took on a stoic expression, and his demeanor suddenly changed. He whipped around to face the stunned ponies and people in the room. They backed off as he stomped over to the table.
“Jeb? You okay?” Jeb heard Hanald ask distantly. He surprised himself with how he yelled.
“Hanald! Go to the lander and get the field surgery kit!” he shouted. “You there!” He pointed to a surprised stallion guard. “Get me a map of changeling anatomy. You!” he shouted at another guard. “Get me a roll of gauze. And you!” he said, pointing to Princess Celestia. “Get me your most experienced doctor or mage or whatever you have here!”
He walked over to the table and looked at the dying changeling. “You won't die. You can't die. Too many already have because of me.” he said to both it and himself.
Hanald walked through the castle to the courtyard. He was still somewhat stunned by Jebediah's episode; one minute he'd been freaking out over what had happened, next he was solemnly ordering people around. Hanald didn't dwell on this for too long, however; he found the door to the courtyard and walked through. He was surprised to see the crowd of ponies that had gathered; some seemed angry, many were confused, but most looked bored.
“Hey!” one shouted. “Where's the princess?”
Hanald ignored him and made his way through the crowd to the lander. He hit a button on the side and the cargo door swung open. He looked inside and found the medical kit. Unfortunately, it was buried beneath a pile of food boxes. He chucked the food out of the lander and retrieved the kit. He then carefully replaced the food before closing the door and turning towards the door.
The sea of ponies did not move for him this time. He wondered why so many of them looked scared of him, then he looked at the medical pack. It was a dull grey box, with a red cross on the front. It had spindly mechanical arms coming out of the side and looked almost like a spider, and it had a light that looked like an open mouth. It also had a keypad and screen, but those were hidden from view by a small metal flap. He hoisted the kit up and tried to approach the crowd to get back to the courtyard, but was pushed back. “Where's the princess?” said a gruff voice. Looking behind him, Hanald saw a gray stallion at least twice his weight. Hanald felt over himself, looking for his trusty knife. “Crap!” he said aloud. “I left it in the room!”
“I won't ask again, creature. Where's the princess?”
Hanald sighed and said, “She's in the castle, looking over a wounded guest. And yes, I need to get there or else it'll die, and no you can't come. Now let me through!”
Some of the ponies opened a narrow corridor, and he sprinted down it. Unfortunately, his explanation didn't appease the stallion. “After 'im!” said he. Hanald barely managed to get the door closed and locked before the crowd banged against it. He dashed down the halls to the operations room, where everyone else was waiting. Jebediah had bandaged some of the wounds, a purple unicorn was helping with the rest. “Who's this?” he asked.
Nobody paid any attention, so he shrugged and put down the medical kit. Jebediah immediately went over to it and opened the metal flap before starting to type.
>BOOT
Booting up...
Initiating file MEDICOMP.EXE
Getting Sensory Data...
No Data Detected
Please Plug In To Subject
Jebediah took some of the various plugs and tubes from the machine and put them at specific locations on the body that were highlighted by the purple unicorn.
>GET_DATA
Getting Sensory Data...
Heartbeat : 87BPM
Blood Pressure: 157/96
Blood Amount: 4.1L
Blood Type: Unknown
Int. Temp: 3C
Jebediah swore under his breath. He pressed a button on the machine and a three-dimensional diagram of the changeling appeared, along with a warning underneath.
“Body diagram and internal organ locations may not be 100% correct.”
Jebediah hit another button and the diagram turned into a hologram above the machine. All the ponies except the purple unicorn stared in surprise at the slowly rotating hologram. Jebediah took a pair of goggles out from the box and put them on his head, then plugged them in to the machine.
The inside of the body was dark. Blood leaked from the walls of the wound. “Twilight, block the blood flow inside the wound!” he said. The bleeding stopped, and he maneuvered through the wound. Apparently, the bullet had ricocheted off the internal walls a few times before coming to rest in a kidney. Jebediah deftly navigated the tunnel through the body as a warning popped up. “Warning: Blood level less than 3.5L. Blood Transfusion may be necessary.” Jebediah swore under his breath as the camera-tipped arm went down the third ricochet tunnel. There, at the end, was the metal slug. He navigated the arm to it and activated the magnetic tip. There was a slight ripping sound as the bullet was removed. “Twilight, what's going on? It's starting to bleed again!” he said.
“It's taking too much energy to sustain it!” he heard her say. “I can't keep the spell going much longer, so work quickly!”
Jebediah sighed and went to another arm. “I don't have the time to navigate the bullet through the body, so time to do the next best thing.” He put the arm next to the chitin behind which the other arm had come to rest and drilled. Soon, the bullet and arm were exposed. He dropped the bullet with the first arm and picked it up with the second, then dropped it into a glass of water. He then quickly and somewhat recklessly pulled the first arm out of the body and folded it back into the body for later cleaning. He went to another arm, this one with a roll of stem cells. He plastered the inside of the wound with them, and already it began to heal. He then put a small amount on the chitin and released control.
All he could say was, “Whew.” He stood for a few seconds before asking to the group, “Does anyone have some sterile changeling blood? He's below two and a half liters, and we need to get more into his system or else he'll asphyxiate.”
A yellow pegasus that identified herself as Fluttershy spoke up. “umm... mister, I think I have some in my house, if you don't mind using it...”
“Go get it now!” said Jeb.
“eep...”
Jebediah sighed. “Anyone willing to go get it? I need someone to do it as fast as possible!”
“I can do it for you, mister!” said a cyan pegasus that Hanald confirmed to be Rainbow Dash.
“Oh, it's you.” said Hanald.
“Shut up,” he turned and said to Hanald, and then added, “Go get it now!” at Rainbow Dash.
The cyan pegasus took off in a rainbow trail, leaving behind a shattered window.
The changeling lay unmoving in the operation bed as the group of kerbals and ponies stood around it. They all watched intently, to see if it would make it. The steady beeping of the heart monitor and the gentle rise and fall of its chest were the only things that still marked it as alive. Suddenly, an electric whirring was heard outside the door, and someone knocked.
“Who goes there?” shouted Luna.
The door opened slightly, and two kerbals slid in.
“What are you doing here?” asked Jeb.
“A 'friend' was helpful enough to take our rover for us, and we decided to walk here.”
“Who... oh.” was all Jeb could say as he saw Twilight grinning. “Thanks.”
“Now, what do we have here?” said Bill. “It looks like a bullet wound. Multiple fractures in three legs, a chipped horn, and holes in the wings. Low heartbeat. Dropping blood pressure. 2.1L blood. Entry wound, but no exit wound. Bloody robotic arms on medical kit. Bullet in water solution. I see that you performed a minor surgery,” he said to Jeb as he looked at the table and changeling. “Blood transplant required. If blood restored to full, estimated time to recovery four weeks. If blood only partly restored, four months. If no transfusion, death imminent. Someone get blood for this thing!”
Another window broke as Rainbow Dash returned carrying a rather large bottle of blood. “Got it! Now, who–” She was cut off as Bill grabbed the packet from her mouth and emptied it into a tank with a pipe leading to a syringe. He took the syringe and stuck it into a shoulder of the creature, then flipped a switch. Blood flowed through the tube and into the changeling, and its eyes slowly grew brighter and its coat more colorful. Eventually, the tank was emptied.
>GET_BLOOD_AMT
Blood 4.8L. Rising.
“Whew,” said Bill. “That was close.”
The princesses stared in awe at what the Kerbals had just done. They had taken a changeling that was almost certain to die and not only saved it, but returned it to its original health. A pink pony suddenly burst out of the ceiling. “Who...?” asked Jeb, but was cut off.
“Time to throw a 'You just shot and then saved a changeling' party!” she said before running off into the castle.
“Well. That happened.”
Outside the castle, under the protection of an invisibility spell, Queen Chrysalis had watched the operation. She saw the grey metal arms invade her subject and remove some sort of metal fragment after drilling through its skin. She watched as Rainbow Dash streaked by her with a bottle of blood, and as that blood was dumped into the tank and the needle stuck into the changeling. She watched as the tank slowly emptied and the changeling was refilled. She watched as her changeling was brought back from the dead. She decided it would be best to retrieve him, so she came in through the broken window. Unfortunately for her, the invisibility spell does not protect against electronic detection.
The camera on the box suddenly showed a new pony; this one tall and black, with a greenish saddle on it. In fact, it looked quite similar to the changeling. “Hey guys, look at this,” said Jeb. A small group of ponies gathered around the screen and saw the changeling queen. Twilight gasped, the Kerbals were confused, and Celestia and Luna both wore solemn glances. A bolt of energy shot out from Celestia's horn and took down the invisibility spell.
“Chysalis!” she shouted.
“Don't mind me, I'm just here for my subject.” replied the changeling queen.
“No. He stays here. I won't let you–”
“Stop.” said Jeb. “Let her take her subject and leave.” He turned to the queen. “I am truly sorry for what I did to your subject, and I hope that this does not create any lasting animosity between us.”
After the changeling queen magically levitated her subject and left, Jeb asked, “Who was that?”
“The queen of the Changelings. She and her people invaded our lands only a year ago.”
“...Oh. Well, we have other things to do. Have a nice day, Princess,” said Jeb as he gathered his companions and walked out.
In the castle's room, Jebediah removed the rifle from underneath the carpet. He inspected it, seeing its every detail. He looked down the barrel, inspected the bolt, and felt along the stock. Satisfied with the results, he put it into a locker. Then, he went over to the window to watch the sun set. Brilliant shades of red, yellow, and orange coated the sky. “You just don't get sunsets like this back on Kerbin, do you?” asked a voice. Jebediah, startled, turned and saw Twilight standing there. “It's beautiful, isn't it?”
Jebediah relaxed and sat down, and Twilight did the same. They sat together for a good ten minutes before Twilight had to go. “I'll see you tomorrow, then,” she said as she exited the room. Jebediah mulled over the thoughts in his head, mainly why she had come here. “She's right though. The sunsets here are beautiful.” He slowly drifted off to sleep as the last rays of daylight disappeared.
The morning was cold. Thick clouds covered the castle as cool winds blew in from the south. The wind howled through the dark skies outside the castle and small pellets of rain splattered against the window. The room was dark and silent as Jebediah slowly woke up in front of the window, and shuddered from the cold. He felt something warm and furry under his right arm, and turning to look he saw a purple mass. “Oh...” he silently said to himself. She had come to the room to watch the sunset with him every evening for the past week, but this was the first time she'd slept over. He carefully moved his arm, grabbed a flashlight, and silently stepped out of the room.
The hallway was dark and quiet. Jeb clicked his light on and made his way down to the courtyard. The thin, cold morning breeze was refreshing on his face and in his lungs as he took a deep breath and walked out to the lander. The tall gray behemoth stood next to a statue of some sort of abomination that looked like it was made out of a morbid child's fantasies. He arrived at the lander and pressed a button on the keypad. The door on the side swung open, revealing the internal hold. He put the flashlight inside and searched for a box. Eventually, he found it. It was lying under a pile of various food boxes, and was labeled “Misc. Items.” He opened it and verified that all the contents were still there before putting it on the ground next to the lander and closing the door. He then decided to take a small walk around the castle. This early, barely anybody was up, so he had the entire courtyard to himself. He said his hellos to the various guards he encountered patrolling as he made his way to the edge of the overhang.
At the rim of the castle, it's about a two kilometer drop. Jeb sat with his legs dangling over it, watching the sweeping landscape of forest, hills, and valleys below for the sunrise. Some colorful ponies flew around below over the forest. To his left, a small town appeared to be getting into gear for the morning. To his right, a landscape of rolling hills and valleys slowly gave way to vast swaths of farmland which slowly gave way to a snowy landscape. Straight ahead, the forest stretched on for miles before disappearing into a mountain range. He sat for a while, watching the world, before someone came up beside him. “Good morning, Jeb,” said a female voice.
“You're up early, Twilight,” he replied.
“I noticed when you'd left, so I stuck behind you. I saw you take that box out, but what's it for?”
“Today's a special day for us Kerbals; it's our three hundredth day since we left. Those are just some memories from the voyage out here and from home.”
The two of them sat there watching the sunrise. The air slowly warmed as the first rays of sunlight crested over the mountain, illuminating the white castle in all its glory. The landscape below also brightened, illuminating the trees, the valleys, the hills. Many shades of greens and browns covered the landscape, and the little village was also bright. “Well, it's been nice spending the night here, but I've gotta go,” said Twilight as she stood up. Jebediah just continued to stare at the beauty of the world below. Eventually, he also got up and started walking up to the lander. He walked through the courtyard and picked up the box before heading into the castle.
Inside the room, Bill was busy preparing some dehydrated pancakes as Hanald and Bob were busy waking up. “Morning, Jeb,” he said. Jeb put the box down on the table, and joined in the food preparation. After breakfast was prepared and everyone was awake, Jebediah went to the center of the room and gave a quick announcement.
“Gentlemen, it has now been three hundred days since we have departed our homeworld. Three hundred days since we first left our little sphere to go to the stars. Since our species' birth, we have reached for the stars. Now, they are finally within our grasp.
“We have endured many hardships, many trials, and many difficulties to get this far. But we are Kerbonauts. We were born for this. This is what we do; this is why we live. I know that each and every one of you would be willing to do almost anything to advance our cause, to put us closer to the stars. I can confidently say that we, as a group, have finally completed the first stage of that goal. We, together, are the first to touch the stars. We, together, have launched Kerbalkind into a new era. We, together, have become heroes of science and astronomy. We, together, are the kerbalnauts.”
Jeb slowly walked down towards the table and opened the box. Inside were pictures of friens and family, various items from home, and a special letter for each kerbal. The four of them sat down around the breakfast table, going through their items. The letters were the first; quite a few tears of both joy and sadness were shed upon their readings. Next came the photos. In true pilot fashion, the first thing Hanald did was put the pictures of his family on the dashboard of his spaceplane. Jebediah put them into his pack, while Bill and Bob both just stared at them. Finally were the gifts. Quite a few were baked goods and other things you would expect in a care package, carefully stored in a sterile environment as to not rot. There were also some childhood items, and Jebediah discovered his first pilot's license was inside. He remembered all the good times he had flying his first plane, a military surplus trainer. He remembered how he'd learned to fly it by ten and had mastered it by eleven.
Eventually, the box was empty. Jebediah picked it up and went to deposit it in the lander. On his way down, however, he accidentally dropped it. The empty metal container went down the spiral staircase like a bowling ball, not stopping for anything – or anyone – in its path. By the time Jeb caught up to it at the bottom, most of the stairs had been chipped, and quite a few expensive-looking ornaments dashed to pieces. Luckily, nobody had been in the stairs at the time, or it may have ended much worse. He quickly picked the box back up and hid it in the lander.
Celestia had been monitoring what her student and the kerbal had been doing together. It had started out as circumstance, what with her just talking about the sunset, but she could see all the signs. She wanted him. Celestia wasn't one to try break up potential relationships, no matter the circumstance, so she decided to make some preparations for movement of the Kerbs.
“Well, that's what the scroll says,” replied Spike.
The scroll bore the official royal logo, and Twilight knew that the princess wasn't lying. “But.. how? We need to get the library sorted, beds set up, everything!” Twilight frantically said. She calmed herself and started organizing the books into proper places as Spike dragged out the spare beds. The library quickly became neater, and the guest room was prepared for the new arrivals.
In the castle, Jebediah was busy frying some rehydrated eggs for lunch. Hanald was rereading his letter while Bill and Bob were talking about past experiences. There was a knock on the door, and Jeb went to answer it. He was surprised when he saw who was there. “Princess?” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“I have decided that it would be best to move your housing to the Golden Oak Library in Ponyville. You will be placed under the care of Twilight Sparkle until you have a place to move to and are ready to move.”
“But, what about all our things here?”
“Take as much as you can, and the guards will bring the rest,” she said as she walked out.
Jebediah immediately went to tell his fellow kerbals the news, and almost immediately the packing started. They took the few boxes they had and started putting stuff in. The first and most important piece was the refrigerator; without it, their food would spoil extremely quickly. The next was the heater; while nights were survivable without it, it was far more comfortable to have it. The rest of the box space was devoted to bringing along as much food and as many various necessary items as possible. When they were ready to go, Jebediah opened the door and led the crew to the courtyard. They waited for a few minutes until a golden chariot drawn by two pegasi descended to carry them. They put the boxes onto the back, entered the seats, and departed.
The ride was short and quiet. The kerbals were busy taking in the beautiful view below them to notice when they started descending towards the town. A sheen suddenly came over the carriage. Before Jeb could ask, one of the guards simply said, “Cloaking spell.” and that was that. The carriage set down in front of the library unnoticed; the four kerbals quickly slipped inside before it took off again. Inside, the library was warm. Shelves of books lined the wall, a horse-head statue stood perched in the center, and two staircases were all that was in view. One of the staircases seemed to lead down, while the other went up. Both ended in doors that they did not dare to open. After five minutes of waiting, Jebediah decided to go check whether anyone was even home. “Hello?” he called. When he received no response, he went up to the door leading up to the upper floor and knocked with his fist.
“Who's there?!” asked a voice that Jeb recognized.
“It's me, Jeb.”
“You're here already?”
“We've been hear for about five minutes already. Didn't you already notice us?” asked Jeb.
“Sorry,” replied Twilight, “but I've been studying. I probably wouldn't even notice of an explosion went off six feet outside.”
Jebediah saved that information for potential future use before continuing, “Well, anyway, do you have any place the four of us could hole up until we're ready to have our own place?”
Twilight thought for a moment. She had no available rooms, but the library couch could potentially work; however, if any early-morning guests were going to come in and see kerbals sleeping on the couch, they – Oh, who was she kidding; nopony ever came to the library earlier than noon. “Fine, you can use the couch downstairs.” she said. She heard the sound of footsteps going down the stairs before she opened the door.
Downstairs, the Kerbals were already unpacking their things. Jeb was carrying a large metal tube marked “RTG” towards the edge of the library while Bill and Bob were carrying a box-shaped thing with a grill on one side. Hanald was sitting at some sort of desk with a thin metal wire coming out of it, turning knobs and watching little dials move. He was also wearing some sort of clunky thing on his head, with a wire leading into the console. “Testing, testing, 1... 2... 3... Do you read, Horizon?” he said as he continued tuning the machine.
“Loud and clear, Hanald,” said a voice through the console. “Turning on vidfeed now.”
Suddenly, the face of a Kerbal appeared floating in midair. It took twilight a few moments to realize it was only a two-dimensional plane. On each side of it, a metal spire reached up about a meter, each emitting a faint blue glow. Those must have been what was allowing the projection to appear. The kerbal head looked at her, and she could see minor surprise in her eyes. “Is that one of the natives? It looks familiar from one of the vidfeeds...”
Jebediah walked over to the console and pointed at her. “This,” he said, “is Twilight Sparkle. She's probably familiar because she is the first pony to make contact with us.”
“Ahh, so that's what they call themselves? I think that the scientific name Equus will have to suffice for now. So, what's up?”
“Just some testing. I'm detecting you're going over the horizon, so I'm going to shut off comms now.” Hanald pressed a button and the head disappeared, replaced by a few lines of text that said only, CONNECTION TERMINATED. The screen then shut off and Hanald removed the headphones. Jebediah walked away from the console and got back to unpacking before looking up at Twilight, who had descended to the bottom of the stairs.
“Want something?” he asked as he lifted up a box of dehydrated taters. She simply watched as he carried the box over to the library's kitchen, dumping it onto the counter and looking back.
“No, not at all,” she replied. “Just curious as to what's going on here.” Jeb just pointed at what's going on and said one word.
“Unpacking.”
A few hours later, the boxes were unpacked and put in their proper positions. Jeb decided to take a short walk, so he got up from the couch and walked towards the door. “Wait!” he heard Twilight shout. “Are you sure you want to go out there? Ponies might not take too kindly to you walking around, no offense,” she said. He just shrugged and walked to the door, twisting the handle as he walked out. The door closed almost silently as Twilight internally freaked out at what might happen.
The town was empty; unusually so. The streets were completely deserted; not a single kerbal, pony, or animal was wandering around. Jeb walked down the desolate main street, noticing the closed curtains and locked doors. He walked up to one house and tapped on the glass. As soon as his finger made contact, he heard a feminine scream coming from inside. He retreated from the house and walked down towards the town center.
Hastily abandoned food carts formed a circle around the fountain. Jeb heard an eagle screech as he inspected each one. He pulled an old coin out of his pocket, but realizing that probably nobody accepted them here, he shoved it back in. He took to returning to the library when a voice shouted behind him.
“Stop, criminal scum!”
Jeb instantly turned around and saw a young pegasus pointing a fake spear at him. Jeb just turned back around and continued walking, oblivious to the fact that more ponies were appearing in the alleyways. Just as he was turning to walk back to the library, he heard someone say, “Now!” He was instantly surrounded by at least half a dozen various ponies of various ages, races, and genders, all pointing toy spears at him and closing in. “This is going to be a good catch for the traveling circus,” he said as he lifted a net. Jebediah knew instantly what was going on, so he ran. He brushed aside two unicorns as he made his way through the streets towards the library. Just as he began to knock on the door, something grabbed a hold of his leg and he was slowly being dragged back.
Twilight heard the desperate knocking on the door and instantly ran downstairs. She was greatly disappointed with the scene she saw unfolding outside. Five ponies were trying to subdue Jebediah as he thrashed around. He got a good hit on one before a unicorn one burnt a bit of his hair with a fire spell. “Oh, you little shit!” she heard Jeb say before he elbowed the unicorn in the chest. “This one's a fighter!” said one before he dove in to try help subdue the fight. Twilight went unnoticed as she stepped outside her door and shut it silently. She eventually reached the scene of the fight, and cleared her throat.
The five ponies looked at her, and instantly darted off. She went over to Jebediah, who was slightly bruised. He had a look in his eye that made her think this had happened to him before, but she shrugged it off. “You okay?” she asked. Jeb mumbled something that sounded like an I'm fine before getting up and continuing to walk to the library. She then heard him say something about kids these days as he opened the library door and stepped inside.
Man, it's been forever since I wrote one of these. I'm pretty sure that the last time I did was about three weeks after we went into warp. But anyway, since this is somehow supposed to help us stay sane, I might as well write a new one. And anyway, I very well may need this, with all the stuff I've seen since we left. Aerobraking and landing went as well as one could expect, with no errors literally at all. It was only after we touched down that things got weird. One of the first things we noticed was the resemblance to Kerbin, especially in terms of life. All the major types of life, things like trees, mammals, plants, etc. that we have observed on Kerbin exist, albeit slightly differently, here. Various creatures that we thought impossible also exist; for example, the Mantikore who attacked us on one of our first days here. Speaking of which, we need more Mantikore jerky; we're starting to run low. Anyway, things only got weirder. The natives here, well... they're something. I thought I'd seen some crazy stuff while I was doing the materials studies all over the system, but... this is insane. These are literally horses. Talking horses, some of whom can fly and some of whom can use magic. I know I sound crazy, but this is real. You can see for yourself; I'm going to snap a picture of the one who's sitting on her bed next to me, reading a book on some sort of “spellcraft”. She was nice enough to let me set up the computer in the upstairs room, where there's enough space for both it and the RTG. Speaking of which, we live in a library now. Yep. The natives literally have a library large enough to house all four of us comfortably. Anyway, picture is being taken.... Now. And now she's giving me a confused look. Ah well, anyway, back to the natives. They appear to be afraid of new creatures, given how almost the entire town hid in their houses when I took a walk down the street. They also appear to be rather gullible, judging form how easily they accepted Purple here's word that we're harmless. Which, by the way, we can not be if we want to. I inspected the rifle an hour ago, and she's still clean as always. Surprising that, after so long in zero-G, she still shoots straight. May not have been such a good thing yesterday, but at least that changeling probably lived. Anyway, Twilight (the purple one) is now watching what I type, so I'd better not say anything else stupid. But, she doesn't know how this works, so she can't do anything about – Okay, she just hit me with her hoof. Well, at least it probably won't happen again. Anyway, I'm closing this log before anything else happens. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------END OF LOG------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Alsted to MC, radiator panels check out,” said Alsted as he closely examined the heat radiators for the reactor. “Wiring is running at full capacity, heat radiation estimated at 2000C. Next up: external cameras.” Alsted drifted from handhold to handold on the side of Horizon, sparing his precious EVA fuel. He moved his hand in front of an external camera, and seeing that it didn't move, opened the camera control panel. “Cameras four and seven have disconnected wires, plugging them back in now,” he said on the radio as he plugged them back in. Instantly the camera pointed at him. “Cameras check out,” he said as he continued down. Next was the external check of the warp drive. “STD drive in perfect condition, negative energy and exotic matter levels nominal. We should be able to make an emergency jump out if necessary almost immediately.” The final item on the day's checklist was simple; the engines and fuel tanks. As Alsted approached the fuel tank, he noticed something strange. His suit's uplink showed excess life support usage in the crew cabin. “Must be a faulty circuit,” he said as he continued his rounds.
When he arrived at the engine bell, he noticed a small dent. “Goddamn micrometeorites; if we fired this engine now, it'd probably explode.” He took out a spare panel of metal, removed the damaged section of engine, and replaced it with a new sheet. He then looked over the fuel tanks and noticed various punctures in the outside. “This ship could really use some micrometeorite armor,” he thought to himself as he patched up the holes. “Maintenance rounds complete, returning to airlock,” he said to Mission Control.
“Roger, Alsted. Be advied; possible life support malfunction in crew deck, overuse has been detected. Make sure you wear your suit when you investigate it.”
“Will do,” said Alsted as he slipped into the airlock and waited for the room to pressurize.
Eventually, the inner door opened, and Alsted floated through. He went straight through the door labeled “Crew Bunk,” but found himself into the kitchen. The door that said “Airlock” was also in a different place than it had been when he had left. “Oh, hell.” he said to himself before he started searching through every room.
He soon found the Life Support Control room, but found to his surprise that everything checked out; something – or someone – was just in the crew quarters, using up the oxygen reserve. Alsted sighed and went to the emergency locker, noticing something scratched on the wall:
"DISCORD WUZ HERE"
Horizon's emergency locker was quite simple; it was a separately pressurized room with access to escape pods, rations, and medical supplies, as well as weaponry in case one of the crew members turned violent. The latter was what Alsted decided to take, choosing a taser and a knife. He crept out of the locker with his helmet lights on and turned off the ship's lighting. He peered into the kitchen, the control room, and the crew quarters and could find nothing. All of a sudden, an alarm started blaring. “WARNING: ANTIMATTER DEFICIENCY DETECTED. DEPLOYING SOLAR PANELS. SHUTTING DOWN TIER 1 NONESSENTIAL SYSTEMS.”
“Well, shit. No more TV.” said Alsted as he went over to the computer. "What?! There's thirty-five missing kilograms!” he shouted in surprise. He then went over to the comms console and tried to call Jebediah, instead settling for a short message; “Situation Critical; missing antimatter; respond ASAP.”
It was a beautiful day on the surface. Not a cloud was visible in the sky, and the town was peaceful and calm. The twitter of the birds in the trees and the sunrise over the golden meadow both only added to the natural beauty. Off in the distance, the city of Canterlot stood precariously over a ledge, seeming as if ready to totter off and come crashing down at any second. Directly opposite, one could see the vast expanse of the Everfree Forest as far as the eye could see. The sun slowly crested the mountains behind Canterlot and its rays illuminated the land, including directly on Jebediah's eyes. “Oh, goddamnit,” he said as he woke up. As he woke up, he heard the telltale beep that meant a message had arrived. “Probably Mission Control asking about mission objectives,” he said to himself as he groggily walked down the steps. “They'd better not – Oh...” he said as he saw the text of the message. “Well, shit.” He quickly typed a response to the message, and as he was about to hit send, something knocked on the door. “One sec!” he shouted as he pressed the key. He opened the door and started to say, “How may I help you, sir?” but stopped mid-sentence as he looked at what stood before him. It was an abomination that defied explanation; it appeared as if some child had maliciously taken parts from various animals and glued them together. “What in the name of all that is holy are you?” he asked.
The creature simply smiled in response. "I would tell you, but I'll be taking that," it said before taking the taser Jeb had instinctively drawn and turning it into an umbrella, leaving Jeb with a face of shock and awe.
"Well, anyway, do you happen to know anything about a fellow named Discord?"
The creature smiled again. "You mean me?"
"Wait, so you're the one who took the antimatter from the reactor? Get back here!" shouted Jeb.
"Toodles!" said Discord as he floated up into the air.
“What do you mean he's one of the 'good guys'?” Jeb asked Twilight over breakfast.
“He used to be malicious and intent on chaos, but we reformed him to make him good.”
“First off,” Jeb said, “that sounds like brainwashing. Second, how does stealing – and I mean stealing, without permission or anything – not count him as a bad guy? Especially when he's stole enough power to destroy Equestria.”
Twilight almost spat her food all over Jeb's face. “What? Enough power to destroy Equestria?”
“Yeah, I thought I said that when we began this discussion.”
“I thought you were just 'ranting' again.”
Jeb sighed before deciding on a plan. “I'll be on the communicator with someone; do not interrupt me, please, or this entire operation might be a bust.” He then proceeded to walk out of the room. Twilight just sat and wondered if he was going to get himself killed.
“All I'm asking for is access to an observation satellite, looking for any sort of suspicious evil lair. Anything that could point to this guy,” he said to the mission controller.
“Hmmm... Now that I think about it, we may have a place that somewhat fits the bill. There's a strange formation a few hundred kilometers west of you with what appear to be towers and various mechanisms. At first we though it was just a few oddly located stones, but now seems like a good time to investigate. However, unless you're up for a multi-week rover trip, the only to get there is to fly, and your crewman used up the fuel that was reserved for that.”
Jeb thought for a moment, and seeing no conclusion, closed the connection. He sat contemplating. If he were to use the plane anyway, there wouldn't be enough fuel to make orbit, and not only would the plane become unusable to them, the natives would get access to state of the art spacecraft technology. If he were to take a rover, the entire region might be incinerated before he even got close. And he couldn't just do a suborbital hop; fuel was far too precious. He sat for a while thinking until Twilight burst into the room.
“Hi; I couldn't help but overhear your plan, and while I think it's incredibly stupid, I have a friend who might be able to help you.” she said.
Jeb shrugged; what other option did he have? He followed Twilight as she led the way to her friend's house, and was somewhat surprised at who they ended up meeting. “You?” said Jeb, recognizing the cyan coat.
“Oh, hi Twilight! I see you brought a friend,” said Rainbow Dash as she descended off from the cloud. “I heard you might need a favor from me?” she said to Jeb.
“Well, yeah. I need you to fly me out all the way to...” Jebediah pulled out a map and pointed to a specific location. “...right here.”
Rainbow Dash looked at the map for a few seconds before sighing. “It's a bit far, but I can take you there. I can't make any guarantees about getting back, though...”
Jeb simply said, “When do we start?”
Jeb sifted through the items in the library, trying to find his items. He went into the crate he'd brought from the lander and found a combat knife he'd secretly snuck onto the ship. He also found a taser, and a box of rifle ammo. He went into the closet and took out the rifle as well as his GPS transponder. He took a red strip of cloth and tied it around his head. When he finally emerged, he was wearing a knife, taser, and rifle ammo on his belt, a rifle slung across his back, a dirty red bandana, a leather jacket with matching black shirt, a pair of jeans, and a transponder stuck to his shoe.
Rainbow Dash was waiting outside the library for him, and was obviously annoyed at how long it took him to get ready. “I've been waiting out here for half an hour!” she complained.
"Alright, we're basically over the target now, so let's land. Remember, don't leave the landing zone until I call for evac. Got it? We can't afford any sort of deviation from that rule," Jeb said into Rainbow Dash's ear. "Bill and Bob have Twilight ready to send a guard division in case we need some assistance, but until then STAY QUIET."
Rainbow Dash just rolled her eyes, saying "Fine, I'll be quiet..."
They broke through the cloud layer, revealing the white marble castle on the green forested hills. Red banners flew from the various towers on the few towers that dotted the walls, and a rather large group of what appeared to be soldiers were standing in the courtyard. "Alright, set down behind the thing, there's probably a back door somewhere." Jeb said. Rainbow Dash complied, setting down lightly on the ground behind the castle near a conspicuous wooden door. "Alright, go about five meters into the forest and DON'T MOVE." Jeb instructed as he made his way towards the door. It stuck out quite clearly from the stark white of the wall, and it was oddly unlocked. Jeb chalked it up to simple luck and continued opening it. It opened directly into a dark corridor, dimly lit by evenly-spaced torches. Jeb kept his radio earpiece on, watching down every indent and peering down every dark crack for any sort of indication that he'd been spotted. The door had closed, but Jeb assumed it was because of the wind. Eventually, there were no more torches and he had to turn on his flashlight. A few bats flew away when he shined the light towards them, but otherwise nothing happened. He eventually found a split, one side marked "Courtyard" and the other marked "Main Hall." Jeb decided to go towards the Main Hall first, in case there were still those ponies in the courtyard. He went down the corridor for what seemed like forever until he came to a door. Opening it slightly, he could hear the sound of voices and the clinking of glasses. He opened it further and looked out, and saw he was on a sort of second floor. It was a wooden balcony overlooking the center of the main hall, with quite ornate oak railings. There were a few guards stationed at each corner, watching the balconies for intruders. Luckily, none of them saw him. He also saw quite a few ponies gathered around a long, rectangular wooden table. It was covered in a silky-looking tablecloth, with all sorts of exotic-looking food on it. At least fifty ponies were gathered around it, mostly old stallions. He slowly opened the door some more until he could just sneak through. There were very heavy curtains less than three meters to his left, and all he had to do was get to the curtain. Taking a deep breath, he dashed out of the door towards the curtain...
... and was immediately called out by a guard. "Shit!" he said quite audibly, before throwing stealth to the wind and drawing his taser. He ran across the wooden floor towards a heavy-looking iron door, but was intercepted by a guard who threw him to the ground, making him drop the taser.
"Stop right there, criminal scum!" said the guard as he pinned him. But, Jeb wasn't going to be defeated so easily. He drew his combat knife and stabbed it into the guard. Silently thanking his combat training from the War, he turned to the next guard who had been approaching him. He raised his knife and slowly went for the taser. The guard suddenly snapped to attention, however, and raised his spear. "You're under arrest, sir!" he said. Jeb nonchalantly sheathed the knife and took out his rifle. "Sir, what is that?" asked the guard. "Sir, please put that down," he said as Jeb raised the rifle and cocked it. "Sir, --"
The guard was silenced with a crack as the rifle went off. "Good girl," said Jeb as he walked over to his taser, picked it up, and put his rifle back on his back. He then walked to the door as the guards stared in equal parts awe and horror at the ease with which he dispatched those two guards, before raising their crossbows. The ponies dining had also taken notice of what was happening, as the conversations had all but stopped and they watched intently to see what had happened next.
One of them flew up and turned to Jeb. "You're outnumbered, beast. Surrender or you'll probably die." Jeb realized that he probably wasn't in a very good position, so he raised his arms in surrender. He did, however, slowly walk backwards, almost imperceptibly. The guards were cautiously closing in on both sides, crossbows raised, as Jeb inched towards the door. Eventually he reached it, and just as the guards were about to get to him to arrest him, he threw it open, dived in, and closed it before any of them could fathom what happened.
Jeb relaxed once he was convinced he was relatively safe, but he also knew he must keep moving. This looked like a maintenance corridor, so it must have other enterances, which were probably being sealed off already. There was a sign that Jeb saw, however, that was marked with "ARTEFACTS AND EXOTIC ITEMS. Jeb decided to follow the corridor the sign pointed to. As he walked, he heard the sound of metal boot on stone some ways behind him. "Shit," he said quietly.
"This way!" a voice said. "He can't have gotten far."
"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap," said Jeb as he sprinted down the corridor. Without even caring to check where he was going, he shoved himself into a room and closed the door.
"Can I help you, sir?" said a voice. Jeb slowly turned to look, and saw a dark blue unicorn with grey hair. "My name's Dr. Freelance. I'm the head of the research division at this facility. Can me or my team help you?"
"Lock the doors, and any other exits. Some crazy ponies are trying to break in here, and they'll probably kill you all if they can." Jeb fibbed.
"Oh my. Dr. Starlight, please issue a Tier 1 lockdown order for this facility. Only me and anyone with me will be able to get in our out." said Freelance.
"Alright, sir." said Starlight.
The light-grey scientist flicked a lever, and suddenly the lights turned a dark red. Metal bars went down over each and every door, and the various items on display had some sort of metal casing put over them.
"Is there anything else you need from us, Mr..." Freelance asked, obviously inquiring for a name.
"Kerman. My name's Jebediah Kerman. Also, I'm looking for some antimatter..." asked Jeb.
"Antimatter?" asked Starlight.
"Oh right, you probably don't know that term. Umm, highly volatile, explodes if it touches literally anything?" said Jeb.
"Oh, that. Caused quite an incident in Sector 3. I can show it to you if you'd like." replied Freelance.
"Alright, take me to it." asked jeb.
"I'll come too, in order to make sure that anything bad doesn't happen." said Starligh
Freelance led Jeb to a door. As he approached, the metal bars raised and the door opened automatically. As Jeb walked away, the processes reversed. "This private research center has the forefront of Equestrian technology," explained the unicorn. "You'd be hard pressed to find anywhere anyone's ever heard of with superior tech."
"I can think of one rather easily," said Jeb under his breath.
"Hmm?" asked Starlight.
"Nothing, nothing..." said Jeb.
The rest of the walk was in relative silence. They passed various experiments, all in strange-looking vertical glass tubes. A strange purple liquid marked "Enhancement Potion." A small creature with various syringes sticking out of it and a look on its eyes that said, "Please kill me." A slab of metal inscribed, "Steel-Bronze Alloy Type A." Eventually, they reached the antimatter tank. Two tired-looking unicorns stood on either side, using their magic to levitate its contents. "This is the 'antimatter', or Exotic Explosive as the lab crew like to call it, that you were looking for, right?
A light blue crystal floated in the center of the tank, surrounded by the translucent bubble of magic. "So, this is where it went."
"What do you mean?" asked Freelance.
"Whoops, probably shouldn't have said that..." said Jeb.
"Well, what do you mean?" Starlight pressed.
Jeb sighed before explaining. "You see, I'm not exactly from this world..."
He gave the whole spiel about how he was one of five of his species on this planet, how they'd come from another planet for science, how he'd fought in the Unification War before, how he'd met with the ponies rather peacefully before, and ending with how the antimatter had been stolen from his spacecraft by a certain Discord.
"...Wow." was all that Freelance said, obviously impresssed.
"So, your crew was threatened by Discord?" said Starlight.
"Not threatened, just freaked the hell out and stolen from," said Jeb.
"That goes completely against the agreement he made after his reformation!" said Freelance. "I'll have to tell the authorities, and probably the owner of this establishment, about it."
Jeb saw his chance to escape with the antimatter. "When was the last time you've been to Canterlot?"
"Years ago, I haven't had the time or money since..." said Freelance.
"I've never been. Heard it's pretty good, but why do you ask?" said Starlight.
"Well, I just so happen to have some connections to the Princess. She'll probably take your complaints more seriously and have action taken more quickly. And," said Jeb, "just between the few of us, I have a thing in Canterlot. And that thing has quite a few things that you might like. So, if you want, we can go to get those things. All I need for you is a stealthy way out, and to get that antimatter. I have some connections that can take us to the city once we get out of here, but first we need to escape."
"Well, there's a few secret shafts for the scientists to use in case the guards turn on us again, and they all lead a few hundred meters outside." replied Freelance.
"Perfect, let's get going." Jeb was already getting ready to go.
"But don't we have projects to finish?" said Starlight.
"With the help of me and my crew, as well as our databases, you'll make daily advances you could only dream of making in a decade." bragged Jeb. "Also," he added, "you may have to put that piece of antimatter in this EM vacuum chamber." Jeb pulled out a quite bulky thing from his backpack. "Just open it up, hook it up to the glass tank, and put it into this."
Freelance went to go put the antimatter in the chamber as Jeb went towards the door. Suddenly, he hit an invisible wall. "Oh, fuck me." he said.
"Going somewhere?" an oddly familiar voice said. "I think you'd better have a little chat with me, first."
Suddenly, Jeb found himself in a glass room high above the planet.
"I decided we should go somewhere with a bit of privacy," said the speaker, who was still behind Jeb. "After the commotion you just caused, I simply couldn't resist being drawn to it." Suddenly, the speaker popped up in front of Jeb.
"Discord?" asked Jeb.
"Oh, so you actually know my name. Good on you. But you probably know I'm not here for idle chatter."
"What do you want, you... thing?"
"First, it's Draconequus. And second, I have a little... assignment for you. I know as well as you do that your people aren't very receptive to change."
"Oh Kerbol, what are you going to make me do...?"
"Nothing big, don't worry. All you need to do is to do something that shocks them. Do something stupid, kill something, get in some sort of weird inter-species relationship, I honestly don't care. Just do this and I'll leave you in peace... for now."
Jeb sighed. It wasn't as if he had a choice, anyway. "Fine."
"Perfect!" Discord snapped his fingers, and Jeb was right back where he was before, right when he was before. "Well, let's get going then," Freelance said as he removed the tube from the large glass container. It was now filled with the antimatter. Jeb and Starlight both nodded and the door opened, leading them to the outside.
"Mission Control to Horizon. Horizon, do you copy?"
Alsted jumped at the transmission, nearly hitting his head on part of the ship's hull. He quickly scrambled to put on his headset.
"Uhhh. Copy, Mission Control." he said once he'd finally put it in the right place. "What do you need?"
The radio went silent for a moment. "There've been some... major changes to the Space Program back here on Kerbin we've decided you should know about."
"Such as?"
"For one, the government finally put us on a budget. Now, we're going to have to have you send in mundane things like temperature readings or gravioli emissions or such from above Skolo-138."
"Why?"
"Because the companies are giving us money for the most mundane of things. They're paying us to fly over places that airliners pass daily."
"Any other changes?"
"Well, they've built a new building behind the main launch complex. 'Administration' or something like that. They're using it to give us these new 'strategies' that are apparently supposed to increase profitability and science gain or something of the sort."
"Do you need anything from me?"
"Yeah. Do you have that spectroscopic analysis of Equestrian DNA yet? The boys in the lab have been hungering for that all week."
"Well... not quite." Alsted sighed. "We aren't just going to go and pluck a hair off one of them. Or, at least i won't. You could probably get Jeb to do it if you gave him a wager."
"I'm NOT giving him any more bets to brag over." Gene's voice had an air of finality to it. Alsted sighed.
"That all?" he said.
"For now, yes. Keep the communications open, we don't know if we'll need to send you something."
"Aye aye." Alsted hit a button to end the call and, making sure the comms-bank was still running and ready to go blaring through the ship with flashing red lights and an annoying voice that was far too loud whenever there was an incoming communication, headed to another part of the ship through the main reactor room. He glanced at the storage tank as he floated past it, to gauge how much juice he had left for the antimatter reactor. If worst came to worst, there was always the solar panels and Tokamak reactor that could keep the ship powered, and even charge the warp drive over a period of a few years, but he much preferred to have the main energy system online. He floated by it indifferently, but quickly looked back at it when he realized it was much higher than it had been. In fact, it was almost like...
"There's no explosion, so I think it was a good teleport," Jeb said. "Might have been a good idea to warn Alsted first, though."
Celestia chuckled. "Do not worry. After all, thousands of years of practice makes one fairly accurate with their teleportation."
"Speaking of teleportation, we might need a lift back to Ponyville." Rainbow Dash hovered next to Jeb.
"Of course, my little pony." Celestia's horn lit up and the two were off. As soon as they'd disappeared, two stallions appeared. They both wore frazzled lab coats, and stood fairly tall. One was a faded red, the other a faded blue. They both bowed before their princess, before standing up.
"Princess Celestia. It is an honor to meet you. I am Head Researcher Freelance of the Equestrian Anomalous Material Foundation, and this is my associate, Dr. Starlight."
Starlight bowed again. "I am humbled by your presence."
"We have some rather... shocking news. Very recently - within twelve hours - our facility in the mountains was attacked, and many of our guards were slaughtered. Our research was only saved by the good graces of Mr. jebediah Kerman, the Kerbal you just sent to Ponyville. He came to our site in order to procure some 'Antimatter' that had been stolen from his... spaceship, I think he called it. Anyway, it was by his suggestion to lock down the doors that we were saved."
Celestia's eyebrow rose with interest. "But who would steal from an orbiting vessel?"
"Princess... we have reason to believe that this criminal is Discord."
Celestia's face turned from surprise to rage to acceptance within the span of a second. "Very well. I shall have him brought here and interrogated. You are free to go."
The two scientists looked at each other, before bowing to the Princess and making an escape.
"I'm back!" Jeb shouted as he materialized into the center room of the library. "And better than ever!" Bob, Hanald, and Bill, who'd been sitting on the couch watching old movies on the communicator's screen, all jumped back at the sudden light. Hanald was the first to recover, looking to Jeb.
"How'd it go?"
"Went well, I'd say," Jeb replied as he took a seat on the already-crowded couch. "Got the antimatter, saved some scientists, and had the Princess warp it back into containment."
The other three kerbals balked at that. "Why would you have her do that, instead of just bringing it up in the lander?"
Jeb went quiet for a second. "Rainbow Dash bet me that Celestia couldn't put it in without the ship exploding."
A round of groans came up from the kerbals. "Well, at least the ship's still there." Bill said.
"I mean, it's still a mission success, even if it could have gone horribly wrong."
"And you did it without wasting fuel, to boot."
The four Kerbals went quiet after that, sitting on the couch and watching their movies, only talking in small, sporadic bursts. It was a stereotypical movie about the early space program, consisting mainly of launch failure after launch failure after launch failure with Gene growing more and more annoyed after each one, until on the tenth launch attempt of the first Mun landing, he didn't even show up at Mission Control - only for it to go perfectly. He'd never live that one down, and he knew it.
Soon, though, the door opened and Twilight walked in carrying some bags of groceries. "Oh, Jeb. You're back." she said somewhat enthusiastically. "So, how'd it go?"
"He almost blew up the ship," Hanald said before Jeb could get a word in."
"I did not!" Jeb said. "Celestia did."
Twilight sighed. "Well, I'll be upstairs. Jeb, come see me in about twenty minutes. There's something I need to tell you."
Twilight dumped the groceries in the kitchen and made her way up. Meanwhile, Jeb just looked to his comrades and shrugged.
