1 - One Small Step
Chapter 1: One small step
So in the interest of establishing further diplomatic relations with the intention and attitude of openness, good-will and faith, we have decided to commit a portion of our leading scientists, engineers and specialists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to Equestria. In turn we will receive leading experts, magi and accomplished spell casters…
Mike had seen that little speech on the television. It was a nice one, filled with rhetoric and charisma. The President sure knew how to speak to the people and he was a level-headed one at that. He made First Contact with the mysterious planetary-hopping Equestrians very smooth indeed. I bet the other countries were jealous, he had thought at the time. I bet they’re raring to meet these new and strange creatures.
Contrary to the majority of his colleagues and subordinates, Mike was not very interested in meeting the new species that had wanted to make contact. Sure, he would want to keep up to date with it, perhaps read an online article or two, but he didn’t actually want to meet one. Kind of like hearing the news about the discovery of a new type of whale. Interesting, but it’s not like he would dive into the ocean and say hi to one.
Mike liked his job. He always wanted to explore the distant reaches of the galaxy. He knew that as the lead engineer for construction and maintenance of the launch facilities and propulsion systems he would always be grounded. He would never be given the chance to reach for the stars, like his astronautical compatriots would. He had a sense of pride though, he had a sense of accomplishment and wonder that struck him each time he saw a spacecraft launch. Whenever a perfectly executed sequence resulted in another outstretched hand of humanity to the heavens above.
Mike also liked Earth. His one wish, if he could ever go out into space, would be to view the majesty of the cradle of humanity. To see the planet in all her sapphire and emerald glory. Earth was amazing, and Mike always wanted to be a part of it, for as long as he lived.
Fate though, had other plans for him.
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“Doctor Michael Turner!” the gruff figure from behind the desk warmly greeted him. “It’s been a while hasn’t it?” As Mike stepped into the room, the dusty smell of books and paper filled his lungs. His superior had always loved the old traditions of books and paper. Mike was fond of the legal pad, but he did prefer to keep his library of books on his tablet, it was a convenience thing.
“Just Mike, Dr. Tessaro,” Mike replied, closing the door behind him.
“Mike, then. Sit! Sit,” Dr. Tessaro offered, gesturing to one of two leather chairs opposite to his table. Mike took the one on the left, closer to the desk. He sat awkwardly, with the chair sinking a few centimeters. Mike never really liked these chairs, too soft, too giving.
Dr. Tessaro cleared his throat, as if suddenly uncomfortable. Before he could say anything, Mike jumped the gun. “This isn’t about the next sat. launch, is it.” It came out as more of a statement rather than a question.
The grizzled doctor clapped his meaty hands together, making Mike jump in his seat. Mike liked the guy, but he couldn’t stand that one tic of his. Dr. Tessaro had a lot of eccentric mannerisms but he was friendly, if a bit rough around the edges. He says it’s from his immigrant family upbringing, his father was a friendly Italian, and he claimed the personality was infectious.
“Right you are, Mike!”
Mike’s brow drew down.
“I’m not going to like this, am I?”
The heavyset Italian gave him a weak smile, but persisted in the face of adversity.
“Right again!”
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Turns out Mike’s service to NASA had been too exemplary. He had been assigned to cross worlds and provide assistance where he could on the the American-Equestrian Science and Thought program. Some of the kiddies back at the cooler dubbed it the Science for Magic exchange. Mike couldn’t care less. He was less than enthusiastic about the prospect. Why couldn’t they find another liaison? Maybe if he got drunk and then got pulled over by a cop he might not have to go through with this. He sighed. Nah, he was too straight laced for that. The last time he got pulled over was for a random breath test.
It was all very hush, hush still. Even though public relations with Equestria was just beginning to become public knowledge, the government still kept the ‘portals’ that linked the two worlds a guarded secret. As a result, Mike walked through a boring concrete bunker filled with a lot of ID badges and not-so-concealed weaponry.
So it came as a bit of surprise that he came out onto a beautiful green field, face to face with two ponies that greeted him warmly.
“Dr. Turner, a pleasure to meet you. My name is Twilight Sparkle, over here is Princess Luna.”
The purple unicorn with wings… Mike’s eyebrows knitted together as he tried to remember something in the various documents and files they handed him to read from. Half the trip had been signing confidentiality agreements and legal government mumbo-jumbo. His hand had a cramp. Hang on, he thought. The dossier mentioned something about the unicorns with wings. Right, they were called alicorns…
The deep blue one on the right looked at Twilight and raised an eyebrow. The midnight-coated alicorn turned cyan eyes on him and gave me an apologetic smile. “Dr. Turner, you must excuse Princess Twilight. She has recently risen to her title and mayhap she is having trouble introducing herself as such.”
Princess Twilight’s cheeks flushed a bright red, which was interesting to note since Mike couldn’t see how that could happen over a coat of hair. Speaking of which, the colours of the ponies really reminded him of poisonous South American frogs for some reason. He mentally shrugged and pinned it to biological differences.
“That’s alright,” Mike replied casually. “Just call me Mike, I’m not much for titles and whatnot.”
Twilight seemed to echo that sentiment enthusiastically. She clapped her hooves together and bounded forward, catching Mike by surprise.
“Oh, this is so exciting!” she squealed. “I’m talking to a scientist from another world! Amazing!” A pad and quill burst into existence at her side, startling Mike even further.
“Princess Twilight…” Mike heard Luna mutter, but Twilight didn’t seem to hear the warning. She stepped up to Mike and shot off a barrage of questions.
“So what’s it like to be part of the interplanetary expedition? What’s your scientific methodology like? What is your degree in? How does your education work? Are you selected by a regent? Of course not you’re from a republic, silly me. How does your spacecraft work? Is it true that you’ve been to the moon? What sort of calculations urk–”
“That’s quite enough, Princess Twilight.” Mike watched as the purple unicorn flailed in some sort of blue-tinged field. The purple alicorn was lifted clear off the ground a few metres and deposited slightly behind Luna. “We must observe decorum.”
Twilight had the presence to look abashed at her lapse in manners. Luna turned to Mike, her mouth open, with the apology half-formed when she was interrupted by hearty laughter.
“Ha! I haven’t had someone that interested in science since the high school student tours.” He waved a hand in Twilight’s direction. “Princess Twilight has certainly got the makings of a NASA scientist if she keeps going in that direction.” He gave a broad grin. Maybe this arrangement wouldn’t be so bad after all…
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Then again, maybe he spoke too soon.
“Then you need the solid fuel boosters to detach, transferring the decreased mass into increased velocity as momentum is retained and the force of the thrust remaining relatively constant.”
“Okay I see that. This force is measured on your world in ‘Newtons’, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Well I think we have a different measure for that.”
“That’s perfectly fine, all we have to do is compare universal constants and share equations. That can be worked out later.”
“Right, let’s move on.”
“At each stage of detachment there is inherent risk associated with the sudden increase in acceleration. Too many Gs and the astronaut will black out.”
“Hmm, I’m afraid I don’t have an equivalency for ‘G’s.”
“Oh right, one ‘G’ for us is roughly the acceleration due to gravity experienced by someone on the surface of the Earth.” Mike jumped a couple of times. “It seems that here, gravity is a little weaker than Earth. One G on Earth is roughly 1.1 times the gravity here.” He jumped again. “Maybe 1.2?”
“So how many Gs does it take for astronauts to black out?”
“At about nine Gs astronauts will have trouble getting enough blood to the brain. We say maximum four Gs for safety reasons.”
“Okay then, I don’t think that will be a problem.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Some of our top pegasi can fly extremely fast, with the aid of magic I believe they can achieve acceleration exceeding ten Gs.”
Mike gaped at the alicorn.
“No,” he said. “That’s not possible.”
Twilight just smiled at the scientist. “Well that’s why we have magic.”
Mike tapped a finger to his chin. “Do you have a primer on magic?”
Twilight gave him a teasing grin. “Do you have a primer on science?”
Mike waved his tablet. “Oh I think I can do one better.”
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Luna inspected the plating and welding that was going on. She had passed a delighted Twilight clasping a rather shiny looking flat mirror, only the mirror seemed to be black. The Princess seemed ecstatic to discover more from the so-called ‘tablet’ that she had barely stopped to say more a hooful of words. A bemused Luna decided to see what Mike had been up to and it seemed he was immensely busy.
“What is this, if I may ask this of you?”
Mike rose from his crouched position, hastily dusting himself off and winding down the welder. He snapped back the protective googles he had on.
“It’s a prototype. Basically a proof of concept. We’re big on those in engineering.”
He pointed to the littered legal pad pages scattered around. Luna looked at each of papers with some level of interest. In amongst the calculations, notes and writing, there were detailed sketches, diagrams and various other drawings.
“You are also an artist?” she asked in surprise.
Mike shrugged. “Not really, Your Highness. I just like drawing. It helps keep the designs in perspective.” He waved a crumpled page at her, then held it out, offering the yellow paper to the princess. Luna took it in her telekinetic grip, studying it curiously.
She was suddenly hit by a realisation. “Oh! It looks most like the miniature sculpture you are constructing. Intriguing.”
Mike chuckled. “It’s not exactly a sculpture… well, you’ll see.” Mike gestured to the scattered plating and materials around the clearing. “Actually, I’m basically done. I’ve thought long and hard at how to introduce Equestria to our science, and I thought my little side-project would be an excellent opportunity. Just got to rig up the wiring. You’re welcome to watch, but it will be pretty boring just watching me fiddle around with some wires for a few hours.”
To her credit, the ‘Princess of the Night’ and among other impressive titles, lay placidly on the grass as she studied Mike’s curious little movements around and about the small little model. At times he was drilling, welding and hammering, others he was simply sitting cross-legged as he gazed up into the sky, as if looking at something far away. For a while Luna puzzled over why that look seemed familiar.
What was so recognisable about that look?
She mulled over the thought as the human clambered around the small patch of metal. With the heavy equipment that was brought through the portal every now and again, the field was starting to look less like a clearing in the hills on the outskirts of Canterlot and more like a field laboratory.
Wordlessly, the Princess had got up and helped the humans carry the heavy loads that were carefully placed around the field. The surprised humans, having never seen the Princess before, gladly accepted her help. After a small amount of setup, they waved her a cheerful farewell, going back into the portal. Luna waved shyly back. Privately, Mike smiled to himself. Eventually, he gave the model a once over, detaching the fuel nozzle from the fuel-intake. He took a deep breath. It was done.
“I’m ready, Princess.” The human flooded the now curved pad of metal beneath the prototype with water. “Do you wish to watch the launch?”
Luna nodded, getting to her hooves. She gazed at the metallic cone-tipped cylinder, examining the fins and the latter additions that Mike had added in the meantime that Luna had not been paying attention to. It looked simple, but startlingly beautiful, its chromatic sheen glistening in the gathering sunset.
Mike seemed to sense a change in the atmosphere. He felt the need for there to be something more. With a sudden impulse he brought forth a stoic expression. He cleared his throat and showed Luna a strange box with a dial. The writing scribbled on it read, ‘Off’, ‘Prime’ and ‘Ignition’. Mike gently pointed the dial to ‘Prime’. In a clear voice, he spoke in the soft silence of twilight.
“In the beginning of our long and proud history of scientific endeavours, we, the children of Earth, have often sought to reach further and farther than any of predecessors ever could.” At this he paused and passed the box to Luna. She gently held the device in her telekinetic grip. “We pass the torch onto you. Light the flame for future generations to come.” With that, Mike gestured at Luna to continue, stepping back a few steps and fixing his gaze on the prototype.
Luna smiled gratefully and gently nudged the switch, feeling the tactile click of the ignition device closing the circuit and reacting faster than thought, an instantaneous impulse along the wires to a new inception.
With a small flare the pre-ignition sequence started. Sparks flew as the fuel ignited, releasing a deafening blast of sound. With a barely audible ‘clack’ the catch released and the model sped off, shocking a princess into a gaping wide ‘o’ and bringing a heady grin from the human engineer.
The rocket-propelled model flew up, gathering speed, become a bright speck among the shy lights that graced the skies that night. Eventually, the prick became small, lost among the blackness of the backdrop of the night.
As she peered into the dark, searching for the pinprick of light, Luna suddenly had a recollection of a distant memory. A small filly that reached out to the night sky, desiring to be among that which was out of reach for all terrestrial creatures. The little filly that had flapped her wings and strained to the skies, but no matter how hard she tried, could never get closer to those tiny sparks of gently glowing silver light…
“Are you alright, Princess?”
Luna snapped out of her daze and blinked at the human standing in front of her. She vaguely marvelled at how utterly pony his expression seemed to be. His face was etched with worry and concern.
“Everything is fine,” she finally replied, giving a beatific smile. “Is something the matter?”
Mike knelt down in front of Luna and touched her cheek, his hand came away with glistening moisture.
“You’re crying,” he stated in shock. “Why are you crying?”
“I had a dream,” she said softly. “And it’s starting to come true.”