As the Sun Rises, So Do We

by totallynotabrony

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Human, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Other, Original Character
Length: 18762

Ponies in space

Rainbow has worked hard to become an astronaut, and is shocked to learn that her friends have turned her first trip to space into a mere publicity stunt. When things go wrong, she must put her objections aside if any of them hope to make it home alive.

Published 2012-03-19 05:14:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-06-02 13:50:11 UTC

Chapter 1

Want to know how Rainbow became a pilot? Check out Wings of Gold.
How did the ponies get to Earth? The backstory is told in Battleships are Magic and Connection.
None of these are required before reading this story.

As the Sun Rises, So Do We

Houston, Texas was no place for anypony who had grown up with pegasi-controlled weather. The temperature and humidity made things miserable all summer long.

The sterile air conditioning of the Johnson Space Center office building offered some respite from the heat. Despite the cool air, the hallways felt unwelcoming and barren. The glory days of the United States' Space Program were waning, and the building was left over from decades past.

The pony passing through didn’t plan on sticking around the place very long, though. Her hooves clicked on the tile as she made her way to the personnel department.

Commander Rainbow Dash was currently on leave from the United States Navy to serve astronaut duty for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. She’d achieved everything that she could in the military, and now she was on her way to outer space.

NASA was fond of hiring military members, especially pilots. Rainbow had begun her career in aircraft carrier operations, and had flown fighter jets for many years. She had the right combination of skill and showmareship to have been chosen to fly with the Blue Angels. After she had achieved her longtime goal of being accepted to the team, Rainbow needed something new strive for. Why not space?

With her qualifications, NASA wanted her. She'd accomplished so much despite not having fingers. Rainbow had been the first pony to become a Naval Officer, and it looked like she was going to be the first pony in space. She had a drive to succeed that was unmatched.

It was that drive that led her to leave Equestria looking for new opportunities when the doorways between worlds had first opened. Nearly twenty years had passed since Rainbow had first set hoof on Earth, and she’d made the most of it. She may have been getting close to middle-age, but she was as tough and skilled as she had ever been.

Rainbow stepped into the office. She'd recieved notice that something important was happening. The secretary directed her to the door of the Director of personnel, who was a man named Harrison Franks.

“Come in," he called.

Rainbow was not prepared for what awaited her when she opened the door. Her friends Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie were there with the Director.

“Hey everyone! What are you all doing here?”

Franks spoke. “Dash, you’ve been training to be an astronaut for a while now. I know you’ve got what it takes to get the job done. How does leading an all-pony crew sound?”

“Wha…are you serious? Is this a good idea? None of you have any training.” It wasn’t that she didn’t want her friends to come along. She was worried about their safety and mission effectiveness.

“That’s true,” said Twilight. She usually spoke for the whole group, even after all the years since they’d gone their separate ways from Ponyville. “I’ll admit that this is kind of a media event.” She sounded slightly embarrassed. “But Equestria’s newly created Space Center and NASA both stand to benefit from the attention.”

Rainbow had heard that Princess Celestia created a new government body to administer to outer space. She had no idea that her friends had joined.

“Surprise!” said Pinkie as if on cue.

“Well, okay,” said Rainbow. “I guess all six of us are well known.” The human media, especially from the United States, was always hounding Rainbow for interviews. She had the right blend of achievements and personality to make her popular. She enjoyed the attention, but sometimes it got to be too much. Of course, the six of them were celebrities in Equestria as the Elements of Harmony.

“I still don’t like this,” she added.

“The ESC has been working closely with NASA to coordinate everything,” said Franks. “All of you will be receiving specialized training. It won’t be a very intensive trip, just to be sure.”

“Great,” sulked Rainbow. “My first trip to space is going to be a publicity stunt.”

“We’re not going to be completely useless,” Twilight assured her. “All of us have something to contribute. I’m going to be working with the scientists. Rarity is helping with the uniforms. The medical staff is coordinating with Fluttershy. Pinkie is in charge of recreation and morale. Applejack is trying to figure out how to freeze-dry home cooked goodness.”

“And I guess I’m still the pilot,” said Rainbow.

“I’ve heard you’re the best.”

“Heck, you’ve seen me. I remember when you came to a Blues show a couple of years ago.”

“Just don’t try to do stunts with the ship.”

Rainbow shrugged. “Well, with the Shuttle decommissioned, I probably won’t get my hooves on the controls anyway. ‘Pilot’ is mostly a decorative title.”

Franks nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. You’ll all be working with the Russians on their new Rus. It’s a big promotional deal for them, too.”

The Rus spacecraft had replaced the venerable Soyuz in Russian service. It had passed initial flight testing only recently, and was now operational. Since NASA’s Space Shuttle had been taken out of service, it was the only way to get to the International Space Station.

Rainbow said goodbye to the man, and the ponies left the office.

“I still can’t believe that NASA is just letting you walk in like this,” said Rainbow.

“They did stretch some rules,” admitted Twilight. “We’re just passengers, so we won’t be needing flight training, specialized job training, or a few other things. The total time for an astronaut to get qualified is a couple of years, right? Well, we have three months.”

Rainbow winced. “This is going to be difficult.”

It seemed only right for Rainbow to invite her friends over for dinner that night. She hadn't seen any of them in more than a year, and hadn't seen all of them together in...well, she wasn't really sure how long.

She called her husband Raincloud to let him know that they would be having company. Until voice recognition had been invented, cell phones were mostly useless to ponies.

The apartment she shared with her husband was rather small and simply furnished, but clean. Every few years, Rainbow was traveling to somewhere else for her job and there was no point in making a big to-do about their living quarters.

Despite the short notice, Raincloud was able to come up with an acceptable dinner for five guests. He had met a few of them before, but never had never hosted all of them at once.

Before being recruited to the ESC for the historic space flight, her friends had held a variety of jobs. Twilight, a natural leader, had risen through the ranks of Equestrian government. Rarity had displayed a good mind for business, and her fashion company had gotten so large that the managers could keep things running while she was gone. Applejack, skilled at separating truth from lies, worked with law enforcement, and had been cleared to take a few months off. Pinkie was well known as a pastry chef and entertainer, and had worked with quite a few big names, both pony and human. Fluttershy, never a pony for glory, had lived a quiet, happy life in Ponyville tending to animals.

The friends talked and laughed. It was actually the most memorable thing that Rainbow had experienced in a long time. It was good to see them all again, and for a while she allowed herself to forget the mission that they would be undertaking.

Later that night, Rainbow showed them out. The ponies had all taken up temporary residences in the area while they trained at NASA. She bid them all goodnight. Shutting the door, she went to help ‘Cloud with the dishes.

“It was good to see them.”

“I suppose so," she replied.

Detecting something in her voice, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

Rainbow sighed. “I feel like I’ve worked for nothing.” She told him how her friends had been sent from the ESC to essentially become instant astronauts.

“You couldn’t have known that this opportunity would come along. You may have followed a different path, but you still ended up at the same place. I think it’s great that you get to share this experience with your friends.”

Over the years, she and Raincloud had not had the best relationship. They argued more often than was really healty, but he always managed to garner her forgiveness, largely due to his skill with words. He may not have been a perfect stallion, but he always knew what to say.

“Thanks, I feel better.” And she did. The issue still hovered in the back of her mind, but it was less pronounced than before.

Johnson Space Center, in Houston, was the primary astronaut training area. At the facility, trainees would experience mechanics, electronics, navigation, computers, simulated spacewalks, and many types of physical and mental preparation. Rainbow had been through the program and knew it all, but the rest of the ponies were on an accelerated schedule and wouldn't be learning everthing that she had.

The centrifuge testing was entertaining to watch, at least from Rainbow’s point of view. A rider was loaded into a capsule and swung around in circles at high speed, generating high g-forces. Rainbow had experienced up to nine times the force of gravity while flying jets, so nothing NASA did scared her. The other ponies didn’t fare quite so well.

Applejack didn’t complain, but didn’t appear to enjoy the experience, either. Pinkie attempted to justify high gravity as a new way to party, but was unsuccessful. The rest, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Twilight, came out of the centrifuge looking ill.

At the other end of the spectrum was low gravity testing. NASA operated a C-9B Skytrain II passenger jet for the purpose. The inside of the airplane’s cabin had been cleared out and the walls were padded to prevent injury.

By following a parabolic flight path, weightlessness inside the airplane could be simulated for short periods of time. As the plane dove on the downward arc, everything fell at the same speed, essentially becoming weightless.

The pegasi had it easier, as the sensation of floating in midair was nothing new. With a few lazy flaps of her wings, Rainbow could cruise around inside the airplane with virtually no effort.

The earth ponies and unicorns were not so lucky, and it was only a quick calming spell by Twilight that saved a few of them from being sick, as their bodies were unused to microgravity. There was a reason the airplane was known as the “Vomit Comet.”

On top of the variable gravity education, there was still plenty to do. A few mockups of the Rus had been brought in so astronauts would not need to spend extended periods in Russia for training. Some of the models were located inside a pool that held six million gallons of water and was used for spacesuit testing. It was here that spacewalks (also known as EVA - extra vehicular activity) were practiced.

The pressure suits the ponies would be using had been developed with technology from NASA’s new Constellation suit. They were not outfits to be worn continuously in the vacuum of space, but would protect the wearer during flight and emergency depressurization.

Rarity put many hours in with the designers getting the suits ready for the ponies’ completely different body shape and measurements. She was rather irked that they had ignored most of her ideas to improve the appearance of the suits. NASA insisted that they should remain high-visibility orange.

Just as every human astronaut gets an individually fitted spacesuit, so would the ponies. Unicorns would require a different shape of helmet. Pegasi were able to fold their wings enough to fit inside an unmodified suit.

The unique medical aspect of putting ponies in space was another challenge. Fluttershy worked with NASA’s medical group to determine how pony physiology would react to space. This, unfortunately, meant more gravity training for her. She didn’t like it, but agreed that it served a higher purpose. She almost quit when asked to breathe different mixtures of oxygen and other gasses to simulate various environmental situations, but reassurances from the rest carried her though.

Every morning, the astronauts in space were woken by a song played by mission control. The days’ selections were made in advance. Pinkie introduced them to pony music, and a few samples were cycled though the morale department to gauge reactions. She also helped plan entertainment and special-event food. While it was generally agreed that astronauts should not party on the job, it was important to keep them happy.

Speaking of food, NASA had vegetarian options available for astronauts who preferred that menu. Still, pony digestive systems required different kinds of nutrition. Applejack saw to it that healthy, tasty food would be available.

In order to conserve as much as possible, astronaut fare was generally freeze-dried to save water, preserve the food, and to compact it. By cooling and adjusting pressure, most of the water could be removed. Such a process could have disastrous effects on taste if not handled correctly.

There was so much to learn from putting ponies in space. While there were no immediate plans to make ponykind regular astronauts, it was certainly possible in the future. In the days and weeks leading up to the mission, Twilight worked hard on the scientific aspects, and saw to it that all the data from various projects was handled correctly. There were a few small microgravity experiments that the Equestrian agency wanted to carry out. She also handled major communications between NASA and ESC.

Through all of this, Rainbow felt left out. She’d already completed her preparation and was only waiting for her friends to get through their abbreviated training. She lent a hoof wherever possible.

Since the Russians would be handling the transportation, Rainbow would basically just be a passenger like the rest. She had received some vague flight-control instruction on the Rus, but it was basically just a formality. The situation irritated her.

Eventually, the ponies finished up at Johnson and boarded a plane for Moscow. It was important to get them familiar with the Rus and the Russian Federal Space Agency in general. They had two more weeks of training.

The Russian spacecraft was of the classic "capsule" shape, somewhat like a cone. It ordinarily held six people and 500 kilograms, or about 1100 pounds, of cargo. For this mission, it had been modified to support two humans. six ponies, and a slightly lower payload. The cargo delivery of food and supplies was important to keep the Space Station running.

The Rus was still a relatively new design, and only a handful of flights had been made previously. This would be the seventh that had been launched, and the mission was accordingly designated Rus-7.

The ponies were introduced to the vehicle crew, Arkady Denisov and Lev Zimin. Both were professional but friendly, and spoke English. They were test pilots that had come from the Russian Air Force.

All of the crew members were encouraged to get along. This was an international goodwill mission, after all. The two human cosmonauts showed the six pony astronauts around Moscow. It was not particularly better or worse than the United States, but definitely different.

Previously, the six of them had really only been exposed to American society, as that was where the doorways between worlds had first opened. Rainbow had done a lot of traveling with the military, and had more experience than the rest with meeting different cultures. She was not as awestruck by encountering new kinds of people.

Twilight, of course, was the first one to stick her nose in a Russian phrase book. By the time the crew of Rus-7 met the Russian media, she was able to introduce herself and say a few lines. Rainbow had learned a smattering of Russian during her time in the Navy, and felt somewhat upstaged.

The ponies were moved to the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which was located in Kazakhstan on land leased to Russia. The final mission preparations would be made there.

In the days before launch, everypony got into their gear a couple of times and ran simulations that were so realistic that they did everything except actually fire the rocket. Drills were run until they were all familiar with the launch procedure and the controls of the Rus capsule. Practice made perfect.

Two days before the mission started, a schedule began that every pony and man who was about to launch had to follow. Over several decades, researchers had figured out what worked and what didn’t in preparing for space flight, and the schedule was in place to make sure everything would come together on time. It dictated when they should sleep, how long, what they should eat, when, and every other detail of their day.

The schedule ran all the way up to the launch. The morning of, the eight of them got up and ate a breakfast that had been laid out according to plan. One last confirmation was run on the rocket and the Rus vehicle. Everything checked out, so the plan continued.

The crew was briefed on final details. There were no problems anticipated. The maintenence workers had really outdone themselves. When the brief was over, the crew got dressed in their pressure suits and headed for the launch pad.

For safety reasons, the launch area was far away from the rest of the complex. Rocket explosions were sadly not unheard of. The crew rode to the launch pad in a small bus.

The tall rocket with the capsule on top seemed more imposing than it had been on the previous days. The phrase this is not a drill ran though Rainbow’s mind. She put on a brave face and walked with the rest from the bus to the launch platform.

An elevator carried them up to the bridge that reached out to the Rus, at the top of the rocket. A technician was waiting, holding the hatch to the Rus open.

“Spasiba,” Rainbow thanked him.

Denisov and Zimin, the cosmonauts, went first to help secure the ponies in their seats. In the bulky pressure suits, it was not an easy task. A few members of the ground crew helped out.

Once all the members of the mission were settled, the hatches were closed and final checks were performed. The suits were pressurized and tested. The time to liftoff was counting down.

Rainbow looked around one last time. The Russians used a slightly different pressure suit than the orange NASA-spec ones the ponies wore. Each wore a patch of their respective country’s flag on the shoulder. On the chest, however, they all wore the exact same mission patch.

It was octagonal and spelled out their names, one per side. A small representation of a spacecraft marked with Rus-7 hovered near the International Space Station as the sun rose behind the Earth.

There was not room for the full mission statement, which had been dreamed up between the Equestrian, American, and Russian press teams. While poetic, it was rather long, and only the last line had been stitched onto the patch.

Our intention is international peace.

The blackness of the unknown lies ahead, but we are not afraid.

Trust in friendship carries us though.

We succeed as surely as the new morning comes.

As the sun rises, so do we.

Author note:
In case you're wondering, the story is set in the present, or perhaps the near future.

I'd like to thank a couple of prereaders for making this as good as it can be. They are, in no particular order:

Ponydora Prancypants - ty500600 - Scully - Fleetwood_Brougham

I'd also like to give a special thank you to Altoid for naming the story, and johnnosk for way-cool information.

The cover art is based on the STS-91 patch. The high-res version is here.

T-minus one chapter to liftoff.

Chapter 2

The launch procedures continued as planned. The rocket had been fueled and was waiting for liftoff. Launch control would be handled from Moscow.

Rainbow wriggled, getting used to her seatbelts. She was excited, but did her best to look calm like a professional should. She was ready.

Final tests were run and all the equipment checked out. The launch controller began counting off the last seconds until launch. His voice carried through the radio.

“Desyat...”

“Devyat...”

Applejack hadn’t even opened the Russian phrasebook that NASA had given her, but she recognized a countdown when she heard one. She set her jaw and prepared for whatever came next.

“Vosem...”

“Sem...”

The final seconds were so dramatic, Rarity thought. She smiled to herself, feeling glad to be a part of it. Hopefully even the launch would be even more spectacular.

“Shest..”

“Pyat...”

Twilight reassured herself that everything was going according to plan. She was a little edgy, but looking forward to the trip. There were so many new and interesting experiences waiting for her.

“Chetyri...”

“Tree...”
The sound of rocket engines igniting carried through the capsule. The entire vehicle shuddered as the flames that would propel it were lit.
Glancing around nervously, Fluttershy felt like she might be making a mistake. Twilight gave her a reassuring smile.

“Dva...”

“Adeen...”

“Poehali!” the launch controller called. It translated roughly to “Let’s go!” and had been used for Russian space launches for decades.

“Wheeeeee!” cried Pinkie. The latches that held the rocket to the pad released and it began to move towards the heavens.

The main engines were powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen. They thrust the rocket skyward on a column of fire, putting the passengers under a force equal to three times gravity. While space rockets were capable of more, they were usually restricted to that for the comfort of the crew.

The speed increased rapidly. Rainbow was pretty fast herself, and even faster when strapped into a jet, but this was like nothing she had ever experienced before. Such velocity was necessary, though.

The higher the orbit, the faster the orbiting object had to move. To reach the International Space Station, the Rus needed to be travelling more than seventeen thousand miles per hour, or twenty-eight thousand kilometres per hour.

The data readout in the capsule showed both metric and U.S. units. Rainbow watched carefully as the altitude increased. The view out the windows was slowly going dark as the blue sky dropped away.

The FAI, who regulated aeronautics and astronautics, said that “outer space” started at 100 kilometres, or 62 miles. The Americans used a different definition, 50 miles. It was a controversial figure.

As Rainbow saw the magic number come and go, she smiled to herself. She was now officially an astronaut and could wear a different flight pin on her uniform when she returned to Earth.

There was a thump as the main engines exhausted their fuel and dropped away. The second stage lit up, propelling the rocket even faster. These engines were powered by supercooled liquid hydrogen and oxygen, and produced a different sound.

The rocket was now nearly parallel to the surface of the Earth and still accelerating. The trajectory was perfectly aligned to meet up with the ISS.

While Rainbow could feel herself being pushed back into the seat by the force of the engines, the force of gravity felt like it had disappeared. It was actually being negated by the orbit, which was basically like being in a continuous freefall. Rainbow shook her head. She used to just be a weather pony. She couldn’t believe she actually understood this stuff now.

Several minutes later, the second stage burned out. The force of acceleration dropped off, and finally the feeling of weightlessness appeared.

The launch had been automatic, but the approach to the Station would be manual. Denisov, the cosmonaut pilot, put his hands on the controls.

“There it is,” breathed Zimin in wonder. Sitting in the front, he had a good view.

Rainbow strained against her seatbelts to get a look. The International Space Station glittered in the distance, the solar panels and bright white paint shone in the sun.

The sunlight was inescapable unless the Earth got in the way. Since they were still on the light side, Rainbow lowered the tinted visor of her helmet.

Aboard the Station, the crew waited for communication from the incoming Rus. They didn’t get visitors more than once every few months.

A man named Ethan Taylor sat near the radio. He was a veteran of the Royal Australian Air Force. The other man nearby was Dr. Raymond Flack, a Physicist from the United Kingdom.

The two of them got along well together, or at least better than they did with the third astronaut, a female researcher from France named Sylvie Fournier.

To pass the time while waiting on the Rus, Taylor was telling a story. “So there’s this U.S. Navy SEAL who decides to be an astronaut.”

“Sounds like an overachiever,” remarked Flack.

“Right? Anyway, NASA has a question on their astronaut entrance exam. It goes, ‘What is one thing that you do better than anyone else in the world?’ He answers, ‘Kill people with a knife’.”

They both laughed. The radio crackled to life. “Space Station, this is Rus-7.”

Taylor picked up the microphone. “We hear you. Approach the Harmony module for docking.”

The station was built out of interlocking pieces, many of them with names. Harmony was the “front door.”

Taylor looked at the other man. “Ray, could you grab them?”

The doctor nodded and drifted over to the controls for the Canadarm 2, a Canadian-built robotic manipulator mounted to the Station that was useful for many things, including docking spacecraft. It was an upgraded version of the original, which had been mounted on the Space Shuttle.

Working carefully, Flack reached out with the arm and grabbed onto the capsule as it approached. He guided it in. The robotics allowed more precise control than using the craft’s thrusters.

It was difficult to see the airlock where the Rus would be connected, but Flack got everything lined up with help from the Russian pilot. Latches secured the capsule so it wouldn’t go anywhere.

Fournier drifted into the module and began getting the airlock set up. The technology had improved considerably over the years. The old Russian space station Mir could take more than an hour to pressurize before it could be opened. The Harmony module was able to do the job in just a few minutes.

Fournier pressed the button for the intercom. “Station shows equal pressure.”

“Rus agrees,” came the reply. The airlock hatch unlocked and began to swing open. The electronic sensors prevented it from unlatching unless the pressure was the same on both sides.

The French astronaut had observed several dockings before, but it was always exciting to see the airlock open to reveal friendly faces on the other side.

She reached forward, hand outstretched. One of the cosmonauts was there to return the handshake.

“Dobro pozalovat,” she welcomed him in Russian.

He smiled. “Merci beaucoup,” he thanked her in French. Most astronauts knew at least two languages and basic phrases in a handful of others. It was an international effort, after all.

The other Russian and the ponies began coming through the airlock. Taylor and Flack welcomed them. The ponies seemed to prefer a simple hoof-bump to handshakes.

The visitors stripped their pressure suits off. Underneath, they wore blue jumpsuits similar to the station crew. The decision had been made to get the goodwill videos shot soon after arrival, and it looked nice for them to all be wearing the same uniform.

Patches were a big part of the jumpsuits. The visitors wore their mission patch. The station crew had one of their own. All of them wore country flags. Rainbow noticed that the two Russians and the Australian wore flight wings just like she did.

There wasn’t room for the eleven of them to crowd in front of the camera. Enough space to accommodate the ponies and just one person was found.

Taylor had written the script. The video clips were meant as a message of international cooperation. He made sure to note what a feat building the space station had been with cooperation from more than a dozen nations. It weighed nearly a million pounds and hovered more than two hundred miles above the Earth. NASA had gotten him to change the figures for an American audience. The original draft said 450,000 kilograms and 350 kilometers.

Taylor, Fournier, and Denisov each took a turn in front of the camera, speaking in their respective native tongues. The clips would be sent to various news outlets around the world.

Twilight didn’t speak French, but she added a few comments to the other two videos. Hey, who’s in charge here? thought Rainbow. Shouldn’t Rainbow’s title of Mission Commander mean something? She smiled and said nothing.

The camera shut off, and all of the astronauts relaxed. “Is anyone hungry?” asked Flack. “It’s been several hours since breakfast, right?” He led the way towards the kitchen area.

Rainbow’s jumpsuit had slits in the back for her wings. She found that it was easy to move along with just a few gentle flaps.

There was no table or any place to sit in the kitchen. In fact, without the microwave, water dispenser, and refrigerator, it would be indistinguishable from any other part of the Space Station.

The Rus hadn’t been unloaded yet, but the ponies’ food had been stored in the cabin of the craft. There was enough for the few days that they planned to spend at the Station. Applejack, who had carried the package to the kitchen, began distributing the meal.

“Ah’m sorry about the pie,” said the farm pony. “It don’t take kindly to bein’ freeze-dried.”

Despite her apology, the desert actually turned about pretty good, and so did the rest of the food. With a little heat and water, it tasted fine.

Rainbow looked around at her friends. Twilight was discussing something high-tech and nerdy with the British scientist. Fluttershy and Rarity were talking with the researcher from France, and Rainbow heard the phrase haute couture come up in their conversation.

“Think fast, Applejack!” Pinkie squirted some flavored water at her friend. The stream broke apart, the drops forming spherical bubbles in midair.

Applejack laughed and opened her mouth to catch the droplets of the fruity drink. It was colored orange. NASA called it Tang.

Rainbow dug into a package of daisy-accented pasta. It was a little sticky, but not bad. A few of the noodles floated free, and she chomped them out of the air.

The pegasus searched for something to start a conversation with the man next to her. “So you’re a pilot?” she asked

Taylor nodded. “I flew Hornets for a few years.”

“Really? So did I.” The U.S. Navy was the primary user of the aircraft, but the Australians also had some. They talked about jets and flying. While it was no formal banquet, Rainbow thought the meal was a great way to get to know her fellow astronauts.

Later, Rainbow decided to explore the Station. She had some time to burn before she was scheduled to go to bed. All of them aboard the station agreed that it would be easier to unload the Rus in the morning after a good night’s sleep.

Of course, terms like “morning” and “night” were relative. The ISS orbited the Earth about once every ninety minutes. With sixteen sunrises and sunsets every twenty-four hours, it was hard to keep track. Instead, they just used the same time as the control center in Houston.

Drifting along, Rainbow came to the Tranquility module. NASA had attempted to name it by online ballot, and voters had picked Colbert, after the comedian. Ignoring the results of the poll, the module had instead been named after the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing.

As a consolation, a treadmill aboard the ISS was called C.O.L.B.E.R.T. Rainbow had met him once on a USO tour.

Attached to Tranquility was an observation cupola. It contained seven windows, the largest of which was 31 inches—80 centimeters—in diameter. Rainbow found Twilight there, gazing out at the Earth.

She joined the unicorn in looking out. For a moment neither of them said anything. The view was spectacular. The ground was over two hundred miles away, the distance from New York City to Boston, yet the landscape still looked vast.

“It’s hard to believe we’re actually here,” said Twilight.

“I guess.”

Twilight looked at Rainbow with some concern. “Is everything all right?”

“Well… Nevermind, I don’t want to talk about it.” Rainbow could sometimes be rather blunt, but hesitated to hurt her friends’ feelings.

“Come on.”

Rainbow shook her head.

“You can tell me,” Twilight persisted.

“Fine.” Rainbow sighed. “I feel a little left out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m supposed to be in charge here, but you’re doing everything.” Rainbow said it a little more forcefully than she intended.

Twilight was taken aback. “You don’t have to be mad about it. I’m only doing what I’m good at.”

“What, everything?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Just forget it,” said Rainbow. She left, heading for the sleeping area. Twilight didn’t call her back.

Beds would take too much room, and the astronauts would have to be held down to keep from drifting away. Instead, there were sleeping bags held to the wall with velcro. Rainbow scooted down into hers, still somewhat angry about Twilight forcing a confession out of her. Rainbow hadn’t wanted to say anything, but once her mouth was open it was hard to stop.

She closed her eyes. Tomorrow was a new day. She would figure out how to regain control.

The animosity between friends drew the attention of something nearby. It was a shapeless mass, invisible to the eye. Its intention was evil.

It drifted closer, sensing an opportunity. With a little influence, a simple argument could be made worse, much worse. With a little help, things could be persuaded to go terribly wrong. The malicious being very much wanted to see a show of suffering, destruction, and death.

It was called the Nightmare.

Author note:

The SEAL/astronaut is supposedly William Shepherd. I don’t know if he actually said that or not, but you should check him out anyway. He’s pretty badass.

Are you from the UK, Russia, France, Australia, or Equestria? Please contact me! I’d like to make sure the dialogue/mannerisms of the characters in this story are as accurate as possible.

Also, searching “Colbert” on FIMFiction returns zero results. What the heck, guys? We need this crossover!

Chapter 3

Houston piped in a rousing brass band number for the morning wakeup call. It sounded familiar, Rainbow thought. Maybe it was the Canterlot Orchestra, although it had been many years since she’d heard them play.

Sleeping in microgravity was a new experience. While it was easier to breathe and none of the astronauts seemed to snore, it was difficult to get comfortable while floating around in the sleeping bag. Rainbow almost wished that she’d asked for something to help her sleep.

Breakfast was much the same fare as the meal the day before, complete with more Tang. The water aboard the ISS was all recycled, and while it had been filtered to be non-toxic, it did not taste great by itself.

Rainbow and Twilight stayed at opposite ends of the module while they ate. Both of them knew that it was only a matter of time until their friends noticed something wrong.

Sure enough, Applejack pulled Rainbow aside after breakfast.

The farm pony floated close, keeping her voice low. “Is there somethin’ wrong?”

Dash shook her head, avoiding Applejack’s scrutinizing gaze. “No, I’m fine.”

“Fluttershy’s been talkin’ to Twilight and she told me what Twi said. There’s somethin’ happenin' between you two,” Applejack said, her voice rising slightly in annoyance.

Rainbow Dash waved a hoof dismissively. “It’s just a little argument. Don’t worry.”

“We’re all still friends, Rainbow,” Applejack pointed out, still as doggedly persistent as Dash remembered. “You wouldn’t be stewin’ like this about a ‘little argument’ back in the day.”

Rainbow snorted. With few exceptions, her friends ‘back in the day’ hadn’t ever undercut something that she was working hard for.

“Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, a lot of time has passed since then. We’ve all changed,” said Rainbow.

“Not the way you think,” answered Applejack. “Sure, we’ve all moved away from Ponyville and gotten lives of our own, but you’re still good ‘ol loyal Rainbow Dash. Who you are hasn’t changed. Who Twilight is hasn’t changed, either. You’re friends, and friends don’t go sulk like little schoolfillies when they’ve had an argument. They make up.”

Rainbow Dash bit her lip. Her friend had a point. Whether she was happy about the current situation or not, letting animosity stew between herself and Twilight was wrong, and she needed to make things better.

Feeling humbled, Rainbow nodded. “You’re right. I’ll talk to her.”

Zimin and Twilight were inside the Rus getting things ready to transfer cargo. Some of the packages had been stowed securely in the cabin of the spacecraft, but most were in a separate compartment that was not accessible from inside. It would be detached from the capsule and the Canadarm would bring it over to another airlock to be unloaded.

Procedure dictated that while inside the Rus, pressure suits had to be worn. It seemed like a silly thing to Rainbow, especially since the craft was docked to the ISS, but that was the rule.

It was not too inconvenient. Unlike the old Space Shuttle, the Rus wasn’t designed to spend a long time in orbit by itself. The pressure suits would not have to be worn more than a few hours at a time while it traveled to and from the ISS.

The man and the pony who were transferring cargo had slipped into their suits temporarily for the job. Rather than get into her own pressure suit to go in and talk to Twilight, Rainbow decided to wait until she came out. They would have plenty of time then.

In the meantime, Rainbow helped the other ponies and astronauts with distributing the cargo once it came through the airlock. Ponies without magic often used “claws,” so named because that’s what they looked like. They were usually metal or plastic bands with attached hooks that fit over a pony’s hooves to provide a little better dexterity. Rainbow slipped a pair on and helped move the packages of food and supplies passed to her by either Zimin or Twilight.

After the locks from inside the Rus were released, the robotic arm slowly eased the storage compartment away from the main capsule. The cargo from inside the spacecraft had nearly been cleared out at this point. Zimin drifted back through the hatch. Twilight pulled the last package from its resting place with her hooves and pushed it towards the airlock. Everything was so easy to lift in space that it was almost easier not to use magic to move things around.

Rainbow made room for the Russian to come out of the airlock. She glanced over at Dr. Flack, who was at the controls of the robotic manipulator carefully guiding the storage unit towards an auxiliary airlock. There was a small bzzzt noise.

As Rainbow watched, a small wisp of smoke puffed out of the electronics. At first it was hard to tell what it was, as it merely formed into a ball in the absence of gravity.

Flack saw it, and realized something had happened. He reached for the power shut-off switch. A bright blue spark of electricity arced to his hand.

“Ow!” The doctor jerked his arm back. At the same time, the robot arm began swinging the wrong way. The whole module shuddered as the storage container collided with the Rus and the outside of the Station. The lights flickered.

Everything was silent for a moment…well, almost silent. The gathered astronauts noticed the hiss of escaping air.

The airlock door sensed the change in pressure and automatically swung closed, shutting Twilight inside the capsule. The sound of leaking air stopped.

“Somepony get her on the intercom!” said Rainbow. Fournier, who was standing closest, pressed the button.

Twilight’s voice crackled out of the speaker. “What happened? There’s a pressure leak around the airlock seal. You’ve got to get me out of here!”

“Twilight, can’t you teleport past the hatch?” asked Rarity.

Twilight was unused to not having the answer. “Well…no, I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m in unfamiliar territory, I can’t actually see where I’ll be moving to, and the narrow passageways of the station make the allowable error very small. Add the orbital velocity to that, and I don’t think I can do it.”

“You have to try!” urged Applejack.

“I can’t do it! Look, I can still breathe, okay? You guys can come up with a solution to get me out of here.” Twilight sounded hopeful, but fear was rising in her voice.

Taylor moved over to the intercom. He examined the pressure readout from the airlock, which was dropping rapidly. “Twilight, I need you to do something. Seal up your pressure suit. It will stop you from communicating with us, but you’ll be better protected. We’ll work something out quickly.”

“Well, all right. Work fast, please.” There was a click as the unicorn locked her helmet closed.

Taylor turned off the intercom and glanced around at the assembled crew. “She has just minutes,” he said quietly.

While the pressure suit would stop Twilight from being exposed to the vacuum of space, the mare had no way to get more oxygen. The air hoses in the Rus wouldn’t work. None of the designers had figured that there would be a pressure loss while the capsule was connected to the Station. Once Twilight breathed everything that was already inside the suit that would be it.

“What are we going to do?” shrieked Fluttershy.

“We have to find a way to plug the leak,” said Flack. “Perhaps if there was some way to compress the seal.”

The doctor turned to Rarity. “Can you use your magic to pull the capsule towards the Station? Maybe it will squish the leak closed.”

Rarity thought for a moment. “Well, I suppose I could, but I can’t see what needs to be done. I might be able to move something that I can picture in my mind, but I have no idea what to do here! There’s no window close to where the damage is.”

Rainbow began putting her pressure suit on. “I’m going out.”

“Are you crazy?” said Applejack. “You don’t have any better protection than Twilight. What are you gonna do?”

“I’ve got a plan,” said Rainbow, more confidentially than she felt. “Rarity, you said you have to see it, right?”

The unicorn nodded.

“Well, look at this.” Rainbow got the collar of her pressure suit attached and pushed off towards a small restroom nearby. She grabbed the mirror, which was actually just a piece of chrome-plated metal, and wrenched it off the wall. “I’ll take this out and hold it for you.”

“That’s brilliant!” said Flack. He began setting up the smaller airlock that was used for spacewalks. Rainbow stepped inside, waiting until the last moment to lock her helmet onto the collar. She was going to need all the air she could get.

Shortly, the exterior door of the airlock opened. Holding the mirror tucked between her hind legs, Rainbow carefully maneuvered herself outside.

In perfect silence broken only by Rainbow’s slow and steady breathing, the majesty of space stretched out before her. The metal claws fixed to the outside of the pegasus’ pressure suit clinked soundlessly against the delicate latticework of trusses that ran along the length of the International Space Station like the bare white backbone of some forgotten leviathan. Below—or perhaps above—Rainbow hung the massive bulk of Earth, a great blue and brown marble dusted with the shining white of clouds. Beyond that hung only the black, star-speckled void.

Rainbow was not thinking about the view, however. She knew that if any time in her life called for perfection, this was it. If she slipped, she could drift off into space with no way to get back. If she didn’t get the mirror set up soon, Twilight would die. ...and if she didn’t make it back to the airlock in time, so would she. Gritting her teeth, the pegasus moved as fast as she dared, fighting against deteriorating mobility as her suit swelled slightly in the absence of external pressure.

Rarity’s worried face appeared at a small porthole. Curling her back legs around the truss to steady herself, Rainbow lifted the mirror between her hooves and looked expectantly at the white unicorn.

Rarity shook her head. The angle wasn’t right.

Looking at the distance between the porthole and the damaged spacecraft, Rainbow saw that she would have to position the mirror in a different place. It was further out than she could reach. Unless… Struggling to keep her breathing slow and regular to maximize what little air she had, the pegasus gritted her teeth and prayed to Celestia that her desperate plan would work. She slowly relaxed her legs and drifted away from the truss, heading across the gap towards the rear of the Rus.

Rarity’s eyes tracked the mirror as Rainbow slowly drifted past. When the floating pegasus crossed the critical point where the joint of the airlock was reflected back towards the porthole, the unicorn’s horn lit up. A blue glow surrounded the spacecraft, shoving it gently and closing the crack that had been leaking.

Rainbow realized that her trajectory would intersect with the Rus on the smooth sides of the spacecraft. There would be nothing for her to grab onto and arrest her slow fall into the void. Working quickly, the mare pushed the mirror away, sacrificing it to change her vector. The difference in momentum was slight, but it would have to be enough.

Grunting as she bounced into the side of the craft, Rainbow scrambled with her prosthetic claws to get a hold on something, anything. Finally, one of the hooks caught a thin edge of metal around the window joint. It couldn’t have been more than a quarter of an inch wide.

Rainbow gasped with relief. Moving carefully, she pushed off, heading back towards the secure truss of the Station and working her way towards the air lock. It was getting difficult to breathe inside the suit, and she was feeling lightheaded.

Flack must have been paying close attention, because the exterior door started to close almost before the wheezing pegasus was back inside. The hiss of air was a welcome sound, and Rainbow worked loose the seals on her helmet. She didn’t remember the thin recycled air of the Station tasting quite so good as it did then.

Rainbow came back into the station breathing hard, but steadily. “The pressure is coming up,” announced Fournier. Rarity stood at the porthole with her eyes closed, concentrating on what she’d seen in the mirror. Her magic did not waver.

In another few minutes, Taylor jimmied the cover off the circuit breaker box and temporarily deactivated the pressure sensor. It was not a by-the-book idea, but time was critical. Working together, a few of them managed to pry the hatch open. There was a small whoosh of air.

Twilight was curled into a fetal position, quite wisely resting to save oxygen. She raised her head as she felt the air move.

Zimin reached out and grabbed the shoulder of her pressure suit, pulling her through the hatch. Fournier made sure that it was closed and locked once she was inside.

Twilight popped her helmet off, gulping air. “Oh Celestia, I never want to do that again.”

“I’ll contact ground control,” said Taylor. “We’ve got to file an incident report.”

“Woooweee,” said Applejack. “Ah think mah heart is goin’ two hundred beats a minute. I’m glad you’re okay, Twilight.”

“Oh my gosh,” said Pinkie. “I don’t even know how to celebrate something like this! I’m going to have to invent it on the fly.” She moved away with swimming motions, heading for the kitchen facility.

Fournier touched Rarity on the shoulder. “You can stop now. For the moment, we aren’t going to waste air by trying to keep the capsule pressurized.”

Rarity relaxed. “I don’t know if I’ve ever done something so difficult. Moving large, heavy objects isn’t really my thing.”

Rainbow was left in close proximity to Twilight. Forgetting what she had intended to say to her before the incident had occurred, Rainbow speared Twilight with an unkind look.

“This is why I was against this trip. You aren’t right for this. You could have been killed.”

“It wasn’t my fault, Rainbow.” Twilight knew that Rainbow cared for her safety, but the pegasus’ words stung.

“Maybe not, but you’re still not fully qualified. This isn’t an easy job like in Ponyville. This is serious. We nearly lost you.” Rainbow’s voice was rising. It had a visible effect on the unicorn, who shrank back.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight whispered. She turned away and moved towards the other end of the Station.

Rainbow watched her go. Twilight hadn’t even thanked her for that daring rescue. Some friend.

Invisible in the black expanse of space, the Nightmare watched. The incorporeal monster floated patiently in the darkness, unseen and undetected as it observed the station and its oblivious occupants.

It had been a minor setback to its plans that most of the ponies were in a good mood after recuing their friend. However, the Nightmare was nothing if not patient. It could wait for something nasty to develop. The two ponies arguing was something it relished.

After the Elements of Harmony had banished it from its control over Princess Luna, the Nightmare had left the planet, a shadow of its former self. The ponies could not get to it in space, and it was able to recover. When a doorway to a new world opened in Equestria, the Nightmare observed, biding its time. The new place seemed to harbor more evil.

Summoning what power it could, it had made the transition. In the years since, it had waited and watched, slowly drawing its power from the wars, the genocide, and the hate. The Nightmare wanted to participate. It desperately wanted to kill, it wanted to enslave. It was only a matter of time until its power was great enough.

Its old enemies were near now. How appealing if the Nightmare could get them to turn on each other. Perhaps it could even find a willing body to share. At the very least, their deaths would be pleasureable. They’d foolishly exposed themselves, and it wouldn’t take much effort for the Nightmare to exploit the weaknesses of the human-constructed place where they resided.

The Nightmare drifted closer, inspecting its work. The harm caused by the errant storage container pleased it. It examined the area, looking for any way to increase the damage.

A thick wire ran over the outside of the Station. It had been bent slightly by the storage container’s impact, cracking the rigid insulation. The Nightmare did not completely understand electricity, but knew how to break things. It could feel the hum of energy in the wire. Cutting off the flow could have serious consequences. Good. All it needed was something to insert into the crack. Low Earth orbit was full of small, drifting pieces of junk metal.

Taylor waited patiently for the airlock to open. He’d dressed up in the full space suit. What Rainbow had done had been brave and necessary under the circumstances, but also incredibly dangerous. He wasn’t about to leave the Station without an air supply.

The astronaut drifted out of the airlock, attaching a hook to part of the Station’s truss. It was connected to a short piece of rope that held him securely. It was low-tech, but it worked.

Nobody on the ground knew the full extent of the problem yet. Truthfully, neither did anyone on the ISS. Rainbow Dash hadn’t had time to inspect the damage. Taylor worked his way over to the Rus.

The robot arm had been locked into position so it couldn’t cause any more trouble. The storage container looked battered, but intact. There were a few scrapes on the outside of the Station, but nothing major. The docked spacecraft had taken the brunt of the impact.

When the Rus had been hit, the craft had twisted slightly, cracking the seal on the airlock and leading to the pressure leak. Taylor inspected it, thinking that it could be repaired. He spoke into the microphone in his helmet.

“The Station’s integrity hasn’t been compromised. The cargo unit should survive. The airlock even looks like it could be fixed.”

“Copy that,” came Flack’s voice.

Taylor clipped the rope to another piece of the structure and tested it. He was uncomfortable with drifting away from the station for any reason, and wanted to make absolutely sure the anchor would hold. Slowly, he pushed himself away, floating towards the Rus.

There were a few scratches and dents. Taylor swung around to look at the other side. His eyes widened. The capsule’s heat shield had been damaged. There was no way it would survive reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

The astronaut shivered slightly for reasons that had nothing to do with the cold water circulating inside his suit to protect him from the sun’s unforgiving heat. It almost felt like he was being watched.

No, that’s silly, Taylor thought. He turned to go back, but couldn’t resist glancing around.

After passing back through the airlock, Taylor broke the bad news to the assembled humans and ponies. The Rus was ruined.

The eleven of them were silent for a moment as they considered their options. There was a Soyuz vehicle docked to the station to function as an escape capsule, however it only seated three.

“We can get a rescue,” suggested Denisov. When one rocket blasted into space, there was always another standing by in case of a problem. That was standard procedure. All of them knew that, but it was comforting to hear the cosmonaut mention it.

Rainbow nodded. “It’ll take a day or two, but they should be able to get here. What I’m worried about is that the backup capsule wasn’t modified. It still seats just six, two of which will be for the pilots.”

“They can bring more supplies,” pointed out Taylor. “So you can stay as long as necessary.”

Stuck up here with her? thought Rainbow, glancing in Twilight’s direction. Their eyes met, and she knew that the unicorn was thinking the same thing.

“Well, we should probably get that damage report made,” said Flack. Abruptly, the lights inside the station flickered.

“What’s happening?” asked Fluttershy worriedly.

“Did you see any damage to the electronics?” Fournier asked Taylor.

“One of the main transfer cables from the starboard solar array got bumped,” he answered. “I didn’t think it looked very bad.”

As if mocking him, the power went out.

The blackness of the station was filled with gasps of alarm and quickly-stifled cries of fear. Rainbow winced. Losing the lights was bad enough, but what else might have shut off? The communications gear? The oxygen scrubbers?

Luminescent green strips glowed in the darkness like beacons, indicating the limits of the corridors and locations of important panels. Without the electric lights, the crew had to use the emergency strips to navigate. Zimin grabbed a flashlight from where it was held to a metal cabinet with a magnet.

Fournier took it from him and navigated to an electrical box. With a couple of switches thrown, the lights came back.

“What happened?” several voices asked in near-unison.

A few minutes of methodical searching found the problem. Apparently, one of the power cables had failed. The result was the loss of electricity from half their solar panels, all of them on one side of the station.

“We are running on what is left plus the batteries,” said Fournier. “The life support equipment has to work harder for all of us. It might not be an issue if there were only three crew members aboard. All nonessential processes will have to be shut down.”

Taylor picked up the radio microphone. The controllers on the ground were continually monitoring data from the Station and had been paying extra attention since they’d been informed of the incident. It was time to tell them just how bad it had been.

“So is there a problem, ISS?” The ground controller sounded as if he was praying that there wasn’t.

Knowing that the radio conversation was probably being recorded, Taylor refrained from some particularly choice words. “No, not just a problem, Houston. We have an emergency.”

Author note:
This is the first chapter I've written that has ever received a bona fide editing. I'd like to give Fernin a huge thank you for that. You should click that link and read his stuff. It's pretty awesome.

I'm also going to be bumping this up to Teen. It's getting darker, and we aren't done yet.

In other news, I've really been drinking a lot of Tang lately. I think five quarts in three days? Not to worry, the sugar free variety has only eighty calories per gallon.

Chapter 5

Sylvie Fournier watched the readouts of the electrical controls, her lips pursed in a tense, worried line. Taylor, Denisov, and Zimin's work on the exterior of the Station was proceeding slowly but surely. As far as the French astronaut could tell, everything would soon be fine… but the wait still felt interminable.

Fournier glanced at her watch. By her estimation, getting the damaged section of wire replaced would take a few more hours. With nothing else to do, she checked the Station’s battery status again. The green number glowing on the readout was reassuringly high. Though feeling momentarily relieved, the researcher pressed the “equipment test” button anyway.

The system reset itself, searching for errors that could affect the data collection. The circuits clicked their way through the self-check, eating up a few more seconds of Sylvie’s time as she waited for the results. Finally the readouts blinked and the figures readjusted themselves—to much, much lower numbers than before.

That was impossible! The system had just been reading the batteries as nearly full! Fournier pressed the reset button again, practically poking her finger through the panel in her urgency. Again, the system indicated that the batteries would be dead far too soon.

The woman took a moment to consider her options. She activated the intercom. “Commander Dash, I need you in the system control center, please.”

That done, Fournier switched to the radio channel linked to the astronauts’ spacesuits. She kept her voice calm as she spoke into the microphone. No reason to add more stress than necessary to men hanging in the black void by the thinnest of threads.

“Gentlemen, we have less battery power remaining than we thought.”

“What the hell’s that mean?” demanded Taylor with his distinctive accent.

“If there is a way to accomplish the job of replacing the wire faster, please do it.” Fournier hated to say it like that. A mistake could easily get them all killed, but in this case working too slowly could easily have the same result.

There were a few moments of silence. One of the Russians outside spoke up. “We could replace the entire cable instead of just a piece.”

“That could work,” replied the Australian. The three astronauts outside began to discuss how they would proceed.

Gliding into the control center, Rainbow looked apprehensively at the French astronaut who had called her. There was going to be bad news; the pony could feel it. She asked anyway.

“Is something wrong?”

“The trouble is worse than I thought,” said the woman. “The batteries are failing faster than expected.”

Rainbow nodded slowly. “How long do we have?”

It was not a question that Fournier could answer precisely. The math was simple enough on paper, but here in the stricken ISS, the consequences of the merciless numbers were very real. Doing a quick estimation in her head, the French astronaut carefully avoided thinking about the fact that she was calculating her own time of death here in the airless void of space.

Fournier sighed. “I estimate we will have power for no less than two days, but no more than three. We must get the solar panels working again.”

“What can we do?” Rainbow asked hesitantly. She needed to know, but at the same time she didn’t want to. A strange, ice-cold feeling was flowing into the pegasus’ chest. It had been so long since she’d felt real fear that she didn’t recognize it at first. A slow death is always more terrifying than a quick one.

“We will have to cut back on consumption even more until electricity is restored,” said Fournier, keeping her voice remarkably calm. Rainbow was not a very good poker player, but could clearly see that the woman was as anxious as she.

“What if we close off other modules of the Station and gather everyone closer together?” the pony suggested. “That way we won’t have as much energy spent on heating.”

“That would help, although not as much as cutting the computer systems.” Fournier bowed her head for a moment, rubbing her forehead in an attempt to stave off a growing headache.

“Aren’t those what keep the life support running?” questioned Rainbow.

“Yes. We really don’t have many options, and we can’t cut anything else without the approval of ground control.” Fournier went back to checking the electrical panel to make sure she didn’t get any more unpleasant surprises.

“I’m sure we’ll be okay,” said Rainbow. She hoped she would be proven right.

“All right, go ahead,” said Taylor. Zimin gripped the truss and pulled himself towards the other end of the station, hauling the coil of wire with him.

With the limited mobility of the astronauts’ suits, securing gear often became a group effort. If Taylor fastened the wire to the back of Zimin’s suit, it would leave the Russian’s hands free to hang on to the Station.

The astronauts’ repair strategy was relatively simple, even if working outside the station made everything more difficult. Taylor and the Russians had left the place where the power transfer cable was ruined and were making their way towards the solar panel circuit box.

The electricity produced by the panels was routed through the box and into the cable. The thick wire ran across the outside of the ISS and into an electrical transformer where the electricity was converted to a different voltage before being distributed to the rest of the Station.

Rather than splicing out the small damaged section of wire, the astronauts could simply run a new power cable between the circuit box and transformer. The method used more wire, but saved time.

And if Fournier is right, thought Taylor, Time is in short supply.

The three astronauts made it over to the circuit box and gathered around. Inside was the end of the wire, fastened securely to the electrical bus bar that gathered all the power from the solar panels.

It was not too much trouble to remove the cover to access the inside of the box. Denisov used a small magnet to hold the panel to the ISS’s truss to make sure it wouldn’t drift away. Inside the box, the end of the cable had been stripped bare of its protective insulation. The copper strands gleamed, bright and shiny as the day they had been installed. There was no air to oxidize them and dull the color.

After testing with a multimeter to make sure the power was off, Taylor carefully unbolted the clamp that held the wire to the bus bar. A rubber seal held the wire in place, so he slipped it off.

After that, the end of the old wire came out of the box easily. Since the astronauts were planning to just leave it in place for the moment and run the new wire alongside, there was no need to remove the broken cable. Denisov twisted the end of the wire out of the way.

The work was achingly slow and meticulous, but any mistakes now could prove fatal. Moving carefully, Taylor backed out of the way as Zimin moved forward with the coil of new wire. The other cosmonaut helped strip the insulation off the end of the cable to expose the bare metal.

A flexible tube on the back of Zimin’s spacesuit popped loose from its connection. A blast of vapor shot Taylor in the face, clouding his helmet.

While it wasn’t much force, the broken fitting pushed Zimin forward. He let go of the coil of wire, flailing his arms in an attempt to grab something to hang on to. He hit the end of his restraining rope and twisted crazily. Denisov caught at his arms in an attempt to halt his movement.

Taylor raised a glove and wiped his plastic face shield. He moved forward along the Space Station’s truss, reaching for the stricken cosmonaut.

“This is a critical failure!” Denisov shouted on the radio as he stared in horror at the gauges on Zimin’s suit. “We have to move back to the airlock!”

Reaching behind Zimin, Taylor got the leaking tube kinked off. He gave the man a push back towards the hatch they had come out of.

Taylor glanced up, remembering the coil of wire. He saw it drifting placidly away, out of reach and undoubtedly gone for good.

Like everyone at NASA, personnel director Harrison Franks had been following the situation aboard the ISS. Like some people, he knew that the problems were quickly compounding into a full-scale disaster. Like very few, he had gotten a phone call from The Boss about it.

The Administrator of NASA was the leader of the space agency, and served as an advisor to the President. Franks was more than a little surprised to find himself in a conversation with the man, as it wasn’t every day that the The Boss wanted to talk to a lowly personnel director like him.

“Are you aware of the failed attempt to get the solar array back online?” The Administrator’s voice sounded rough. Franks could sympathize. A life-threatening crisis in space was stressful to any member of NASA.

“Yes, sir. I know that they won’t be able to get the electricity they need.” That information had come in only minutes before. Franks was proud to say that he kept up on the news.

The Boss seemed unimpressed. “The Russians only have one Rus ready to go. It’s going to be about a week before they can scramble another one to launch. Now I want you to listen to me very carefully. The Station doesn’t have that kind of time. They’ve got three days, max.”

“I understand,” said Franks. It sounded like the Administrator was leading up to something, but what?

“The first Rus can be there tomorrow. The problem is, it only has seats to bring four passengers back to Earth. The Soyuz escape capsule seats three. That leaves four astronauts aboard. The life support doesn’t have enough power to last until they can be rescued.”

“You called me for a reason. What do you want me to do?” asked Franks. “Are you asking for a miracle?”

The Administrator sighed heavily. “For lack of a better word, yes. Gather engineers, pilots, survival experts, or anyone else you can think of who can help. We need to start working on this right now with the best minds, and a whole lot of them.”

“Sir, I don’t know if I can do that,” said Franks. “By the time we get everyone together and working, it might be too late.”

“Goddamn it! If we could improvise-on-the-fly in 1970 with Apollo 13, we can do it now! I’m writing you a blank check to get whatever you need to do this. Your whole life comes down to this, Franks. Make it happen.” The Administrator terminated the call.

Franks sat numbly at his desk, listening to the buzz of the dial tone for a moment. His hand moved slowly as he set down the phone receiver. Only a few months before, the six ponies had come through his office. He’d met them only briefly, but he knew that they certainly didn’t deserve to die. While he’d never been introduced to any of the other astronauts currently in space, they didn’t deserve to meet their end, either.

He grabbed a pencil and sketched out on a sheet of paper the parameters of what he needed to accomplish. Assuming the rescue craft arrived as planned, and the Soyuz capsule worked, there would still be four lives left aboard. They would need a week of life support in order to survive.

Franks sighed. It looked like an impossible task. Where would they manage to come up with the resources to do this? The ISS orbited at two hundred miles above the Earth. While it didn’t sound that far, only a few hours’ drive in a car, it was still a huge obstacle.

He picked up the phone again. If this plan was going to work, he had to get started now.

“You didn’t get it fixed?” asked Twilight. The entire cadre of astronauts was crowded into Station’s systems control center. All of them were tense and feeling the stress of the situation.

Fournier shook her head. “There was a spacesuit failure, and the spare wire was lost.”

“Just great,” said Rainbow.

Fluttershy whimpered something incomprehensible.

“How does bad stuff keep happenin’?” said Applejack. “Ah don’t know much about space, but this can’t be normal.”

“Let’s see,” said Taylor. He counted on his fingers. “There was the arm failure that caused the leak. The power transfer cable failed and put us in blackout mode. The battery sensor malfunctioned, giving us bad readings. On top of all that, one of the spacesuits blew a gasket and we lost the only wire we can replace the power cable with.”

“Oh my gosh,” said Pinkie. “What else could go wrong?”

“Don’t ask,” murmured Rarity.

“It’s very strange,” said Denisov. “A series of failures like this is an amazing coincidence.”

Twilight shook her head. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“What else could it be?” asked Rainbow. She looked hard at Twilight. “Are you suggesting that somepony caused all this?”

“All these unrelated failures…” Taylor couldn’t believe that anyone aboard the station would deliberately damage the equipment. And yet… it was still easier to swallow than the fact that so many problems had occurred in such a short period with no explanation.

“Why would that happen?” asked Zimin. “Why would all this suddenly begin after we came aboard?”

Fournier looked at the group of ponies. “Could it be… magic?”

“I can’t believe you would say that!” shouted Twilight. “Any anyway, why would we sabotage things? We’re in just as much danger as you!”

“How could we have done any of that stuff?” interjected Applejack. “If anything, I’d say you humans are the more likely culprits! You’re the ones that actually understand all this fancy equipment.”

Once the eleven-way argument was started, it very nearly devolved into a shouting match. A voice on the radio from ground control demanded that they calm down before they used up all their oxygen.

“Just wait one more day,” begged the ground controller in a calmer voice. “We’ll get someone up there to rescue you.”

Outside the Station, a few stars were obscured by an evil presence. The black cloud of the Nightmare drew closer, drawn by the siren call of anger and distrust.

Thanks once again to Fernin for editing. Seriously, this guy's like an awesome-wizard or something.

Chapter 6

Princess Celestia took a deep breath, preparing once again to stare into the cold, electronic eyes of the new communications suite that was the newest addition to the palatial grounds. She shuffled the latest briefs and laid them out in front of her, rearranging them for what must have been the fifth time. Each brief had been typed by various advisors, each striving to present the most up to date information based on his or her expertise. The alicorn shifted her papers again and finally folded her hooves in front of her and kept her magic still. Enough was enough. The stress of the current situation was bad enough without ponies seeing one of their rulers dissolving into a stressed, fidgeting mess.

The princess glanced up again at the array of cameras and screens. Celestia prided herself in keeping up on the latest technology, but everything she saw before her was mind-bogglingly advanced. There were even upgrades to the previous upgrades—a new telecommunications center had just been built in Canterlot near the palace so that she and her sister could communicate all around the two worlds after the original Canterlot Castle had proved too difficult to retrofit with advanced electronics. How far Equestria had come in such a short time. Shifting slightly under the winking electronic gaze of various unnamed gadgets, Celestia found it helped to think of all this as just a very esoteric and complicated form of scrying spell. Finally one of her assistants coughed, jerking the millennia-old ruler out of her reverie.

“Everything is ready to go, your Highness,” said Spark. The technician pony was young, just a colt really, but he knew human devices like the back of his hoof. Celestia smiled, taking a quick glance at the unicorn’s flank and the telephone emblazoned on it. It was interesting how opening the dimensional doorways had quickly produced a wave of never-before-seen cutie marks.

Celestia nodded to the young pony and resisted the urge to reshuffle her notes once again. “Thank you, Spark. Please connect me.”

The flat screen in front of her came to life, displaying the face of the NASA Administrator Wallace. The man blinked and rubbed his hand over a face obviously only recently cleared of stubble. After a moment to compose himself, Wallace took a long pull from the coffee mug at his side and peered blearily out of the screen. Celestia could sympathize with the exhausted human. She’d probably gotten about as much sleep as he had in the past few days—and that wasn’t much.

“Princess, it’s good to see you, although I wish it could be under better circumstances,” said the man.

“As do I.” Celestia nodded gravely, trying to convey both polite concern and her obvious sense of urgency. Every second she spent talking with the Administrator was a second neither could really use to solve the problems that plagued them both.

“Are there any new developments?”

“I haven’t heard anything since the last package of information was sent to the ESC,” said Wallace. “I have to say, I expected their director to be contacting me, not you.”

“I have my reasons for that,” the Princess said tersely. “I need to speak with somepony on the ISS as quickly as possible.”

“I’ll get started on that right way,” promised the Administrator. “Is there anything else before we try to patch you through?”

“No. Thank you, Mr. Wallace. Just let me talk to my little ponies as soon as you can.” Princess Celestia watched the NASA Administrator carefully as he nodded to one of his own technicians on the human planet. Wallace said goodbye and the screen cut to a plain blue.

Celestia sighed, releasing pent up tension as she shifted her position. Her wings fluttered slightly with the nervous energy she’d suppressed during the short teleconference. The alicorn looked down at the papers in front of her. Obviously it might take some time to establish communication with the stricken Space Station, but she was sure NASA would do their best to meet her request. When a sovereign known for being as conciliatory and indirect as the sun princess made straightforward demands, the results were generally noticeable. That didn’t mean she had to enjoy the wait, though.

“Can I get you anything?” asked Spark.

The Princess opened her mouth, hesitated, and forced herself to relax. The situation wasn’t hopeless yet, and everypony was looking to her as usual to be the rock of stability in an uncertain situation. The alicorn shook her head. “No, Spark. But thank you for asking.”

Before the technician could say anything further, the image on the video screen changed again. The new picture was shadowed, with the glow of the screen on the other end of the conference providing the only light.

Twilight Sparkle was barely visible, bathed in the meager illumination of the video monitor. She was wrapped in the lightweight, sparkling shroud of a foil space blanket to preserve body heat.

“Princess! It’s good to see you!” exclaimed the unicorn, her voice sounding more cheerful than she looked. Traces of desperation and fear vanished from her face as she smiled.

“I’m glad you’re well, Twilight,” said Celestia, in as calm a voice as she could muster.

“Just a moment, Princess.” Twilight leaned forward and reached out towards the video equipment. Abruptly, the screen in front of Celestia went black.

“Sorry about that,” came Twilight’s voice. “We just can’t justify the extra electrical use with video.”

Celestia nodded, forgetting for the moment that Twilight couldn’t see her. She leaned forward, quickly getting down to business. “Twilight, I’ve been reading the reports from NASA as well as some of our own. Do you recall what I told you about the Nightmare after it was banished?”

“I remember the conversation,” said Twilight. She paused. “Are you saying that the Nightmare has come back?”

“We always knew that was a possibility,” confirmed Celestia.

“The thought that it was the Nightmare causing all this trouble did occur to me, but I didn’t want to believe it.” Twilight’s voice sounded strained. “Those of us aboard the Station haven’t talked about it, but I wouldn’t doubt that the girls probably had the same thought. It may have been a while since the six of us fought it, but you don’t forget something that evil.”

No, thought Celestia. You don’t forget something like that in a thousand years.

“Twilight,” said the Princess, “I trust you to do what is necessary to preserve the safety of every member of the crew. I’m sure you’ll manage to figure something out.”

“I’ll do my best, Princess,” replied Twilight.

Celestia signed off, and NASA broke the connection to the ISS.

“Put me in contact with the ESC,” Celestia told the technician. “I want the Elements of Harmony aboard the next launch.”

“Did I hear that right?” asked Rainbow, floating closer to Twilight.

“Yes, the Princess thinks our problems might be caused by the Nightmare.” Twilight sighed. “I was afraid of this.”

Deep in thought, the blue pegasus did not respond. Blaming the Nightmare would certainly be easy. It sounded more reasonable than thinking all those failures had been mere coincidence.

“Anyway, I should probably go tell the rest of the crew,” said Twilight.

“I can do it,” said Rainbow quickly, sensing an opportunity to regain control over the situation.

“Rainbow, I think I know a little more about the situation.” Twilight chose her words carefully, attempting to avoid another confrontation.

“I fought the Nightmare just like you did,” Rainbow pointed out. “I may not be the Element of Magic or Celestia’s pen pal, but I can give a brief just as well as you can.”

“Would you rather do this together?” Twilight asked carefully.

Rainbow sighed. “Fine.”

The two ponies drifted away from the communications equipment and headed for the rest of the crew in the kitchen area. With the hot water depleted and the microwave off limits to save power, the kitchen was hardly as inviting as it might once have been—but at least with the other four Equestrians and the five humans huddled inside, it was warmer than the rest of the dark compartments and corridors of the dying space station.

Everyone—and everypony—did their best to stay busy while using the minimum amount of energy. Rarity sipped thin applesauce from a bag. With Taylor watching, Applejack and Pinkie played checkers with a magnetic board that kept the game pieces from drifting away. Fluttershy, Fournier, and the Russians appeared to be asleep.

Rainbow and Twilight quietly briefed those who were awake on the information the Princess had provided.

“The Nightmare might be out there?” said Applejack. She shook her head. “This is bad.”

“I heard about the Nightmare once,” said Taylor. “What is it, really? At the time, it sounded to me like some kind of magical terrorist.”

”It’s not a terrorist,” said Rainbow. “It has no political or religious goals. All it cares about is the destruction of everything.”

“Just what are we supposed to do?” asked the Australian. He looked rather sobered.

“The Nightmare feeds on negativity: things like wickedness, violence and arguments,” explained Twilight. She shot a meaningful look at Rainbow.

“I hate to say it, but this is not exactly the best place to be joyful and singing Kumbaya,” said Taylor. He shrugged. “Anyway, the rescue team should be up here soon. I hope nothing else goes wrong.”

“Oh my gosh!” exclaimed Pinkie. “I have to plan the ‘Welcome Rescue Team’ party!”

Harrison Franks sat nervously at his desk in NASA’s Houston control center. The computer in front of him displayed a live internet video feed from the Russian Republic’s Baikonur Cosmodrome. On the launch pad, the tall white rocket was being prepared for liftoff. The steam billowing out of the pre-launch cooling systems gave the rocket the appearance of a living, breathing thing.

The video showed technicians scurrying everywhere, running checklists in preparation for the launch. Every last thing had to work perfectly or the mission would fail. Franks didn’t want to think about the consequences of that.

The phone rang. Franks grabbed it, fearful that there might have been a complication in the launch plan.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Franks, this is Richards at Baikonur. The ponies just delivered something and they want it put aboard the Rus.” The voice on the phone was somewhat scratchy due to being transmitted all the way from Kazakhstan.

“What is it?” asked Franks.

“I don’t know yet,” replied Richards. “I can have the shipping manifest here in a few minutes.”

“How long will it take to load the package?” The last thing Franks wanted was for the launch to be delayed.

“They’ve already sealed the auxiliary cargo compartment,” Richards reported. “We could get it in the capsule, but it would take a little while.”

Franks thought for a moment. “How much does the package weigh?”

”I don’t have the manifest yet,” Richards reminded him.

It was time to make a tough decision. Franks said, “Well, we’ve got everything aboard for life support. Whatever this is, it probably isn’t necessary to keep all of them alive.”

“Are you saying don’t load it?” asked the man.

Franks hesitated, clenching the receiver in his hand. “That’s right. If the launch is delayed for any reason, then go ahead and load it. Otherwise, don’t bother. Oh, and when you do get the shipping paperwork, call back and tell me what’s inside the package.”

Franks set the phone down and continued watching the launch proceedings. The mission the rescue crew was about to undertake would be dangerous. Nothing like it had ever been attempted before. That was why even a small addition to the cargo could require changes to the launch. Besides, if it was important, wouldn’t the ponies have told them?

“I don’t like this one bit,” said Taylor. “If the Nightmare is as bad as you’re telling me, has Celestia already notified world leaders that we have this problem?”

“I’m sure the Princess is working on it,” Twilight assured the Australian. ”In the meantime, we need to make absolutely sure that we know what we’re dealing with.”

”I thought we’d already decided it’s the Nightmare,” said Rainbow.

Twilight looked at the pegasus in annoyance. “Well, yes, that is the most likely source of all this trouble.”

“Look Twilight, I know you’re really logic-based. You like to have facts.” The pegasus drifted closer to the other pony. “When lives are on the line, though, you can’t afford to wait for more information. If it’s the Nightmare, we need to accept that and start working on a solution.”

“Fine, Rainbow.” There was an edge to Twilight’s voice. “Let’s agree that the Nightmare is out there. What’s our next move?”

“We have to fight it,” answered the other pony.

“How? What are we supposed to do when we’re in outer space?” Twilight demanded.

”You’re the egghead,” said Rainbow, her voice rising. “Didn’t you say that you know more about it than me?”

“Hang on, now,” said Applejack, putting herself between her two arguing friends. “We ain’t goin’ to get anywhere by insultin’ each other.”

“Applejack’s correct,” said Rarity. “What’s wrong with you two?”

“I’m sorry, Rainbow,” said Twilight. “Arguing with you was wrong.”

Rainbow sighed. “You’re right. We shouldn’t be shouting at each other.”

“Let’s wake the rest of them up,” suggested Taylor. “We’re going to need to put our heads together on this.”

“Hello Mr. Ambassador,” said the security man as he recognized the well-groomed pony approaching him.

Fancypants cut a striking figure. His blue suit was immaculately tailored, and the coat of hair beneath it was white as snow.

“It’s good to good to see you again. James, was it?” The unicorn nodded to the man and smiled warmly. His speech was as polished as the spotless monocle and sparkling gold pocket watch that he wore.

“You remembered me, Mr. Ambassador?” The man sounded pleasantly surprised.

The Equestrian Ambassador to the U.S. simply smiled wider than before. The President of the United States himself had once told Fancypants that the pony was the most polite, charismatic diplomat the United States had ever hosted. There was a reason the Princess had him working directly for her.

“I trust that Mr. Offenhouser is ready for me?” asked Fancypants.

“Right this way.” The man swung the door to the conference room open. Offenhouser, the foreign affairs contact for the U.S. State department, was waiting.

“Good afternoon,” said Fancypants. He glanced around, seeing no other people. “Will Ambassador Cherkesov be joining us?”

“You’d better believe the Russians are sending him. They want to know about this.” The American diplomat seemed more tense than usual. Fancypants could guess why.

“I regret the unusual nature of this meeting,” said the pony. “I’m sure things have been stressful for all of us.”

A few seconds later, the door opened again and the third diplomat came in. While Fancypants had never met him before, he knew the Russian spoke flawless English. The Equestrian Ambassador prided himself on being well-informed about his peers. After exchanging greetings, the three of them sat down at the conference table.

“Why are the Elements of Harmony aboard our rocket?” asked Cherkesov without preamble.

Straight to it, then, thought Fancypants.

He cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, we believe that the evil being known as the Nightmare may be the source of the crisis aboard the ISS.”

“Why didn’t we know about this?” asked Offenhouser, a note of annoyance in his voice.

“I’m telling you about it right now,” said Fancypants. “Equestria has been keeping this information close to the vest with the intention of avoiding a panic. This was not the best decision we could have made. On behalf of the Princesses and the entire nation, I’d like to apologize to the both of you.”

While Fancypants believed in Celestia’s leadership, he also knew the importance of concession. It was harder for the other diplomats to be irritated with a pony who fully admitted his mistakes.

“Well, I guess the cards are on the table now,” said Offenhouser. “What do we do?”

“It was only by luck that the Elements made it aboard the rocket,” said Cherkesov. “If it weren’t for that delay when one of the cosmonauts got sick, they would still be sitting in a box in Kazakhstan.”

Fancypants shrugged. “Even in the midst of a crisis, good fortune is not entirely lost.”

“Did you have a backup plan in case the Elements didn’t make it aboard the rocket?” asked Offenhouser.

“We were working on something,” said the pony. Before either of the men could ask what, he added, “Fortunately, that won’t be needed now.”

“You’re confident that everything will function as planned?” asked the Russian.

“I am. I believe everything will work if we all do our best.”

Fancypants gestured to Cherkesov. “The Russian Federal Space Agency is taking care of transportation and vehicles.”

To Offenhouser, the pony said, “NASA is handling mission control.”

He folded his hooves in front of him. “And Equestria will be dealing with the Nightmare.”

“You’re saying we should do what we’re good at?” asked Offenhouser.

“That’s a fine way of putting it,” said Fancypants.

“Humans as a whole are good at destroying things,” commented Cherkesov. “What if some country gets the idea to strike at the Nightmare themselves?”

Fancypants knew he had to be careful with his reply. The fact that the Russian was even saying it meant that the thought of attacking the Nightmare had crossed his mind. Offenhouser looked interested, too.

“I’m sure that fighting an incorporeal being that is currently residing in outer space would be very difficult” said the pony. “A small weapon like a missile wouldn’t hurt it and something more powerful like a nuclear device would cause more problems than it would solve.”

That did it. Mentioning nukes was usually enough to get humans to stop and reconsider the situation.

Offenhouser sighed. “Very well. I’ll leave the Nightmare to you. Do you agree, Mr. Cherkesov?”

The Russian nodded. “It’s a job for Equestria. Please see that our people in orbit are protected.”

“And ours too,” said the American.

“I’ll make sure of it,” Fancypants promised. The pony bid the humans goodbye and walked out of the room. Nodding to the security man, he continued towards the exit.

While Fancypants hadn’t said anything to the two diplomats, he would bet that the cosmonaut’s sudden illness was not random chance. A lot of ponies worked for Celestia, and some of them had very special talents indeed.

The Equestrian Ambassador frowned to himself. The Elements of Harmony were now on their way to space, but the problem was not yet solved. He could only wonder what the mares aboard that wretched Space Station were going through.

Fancypants wished the six of them luck.

Author note:
I honestly can not say when I'll get off my lazy duff and write the next chapter, so for now this story will remain on hiatus. I want to thank Fernin for talking me out of my original idea for this chapter: the Americans and Russians on the verge of nuking the ISS. While the drama would have been interesting to write about, I'd rather not have to describe the political fallout. (not to mention the atomic fallout)

Chapter 7

Rainbow looked out one of the portholes. From inside the darkened International Space Station, the stars of the cosmos seemed to shine more brightly than usual. She looked down to see the dark side of the Earth. A glow on the horizon signaled the coming sunrise, only minutes away.

“Whatcha lookin’ for?” asked Applejack, gliding over. Her tone was light as she attempted to make conversation that wasn’t depressing. There had been too much of that in the past few days.

“I’m just waiting on the rescue capsule,” said Rainbow. “It’s not due for a little while, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping.”

Applejack nodded. “Listen sugarcube, we really need to talk about what’s goin’ on between you and Twilight.”

Rainbow looked at her friend. “What is there to discuss?”

“Tarnation, Rainbow!” the earth pony hissed. “Why are you bein’ so hardheaded about this?”

“I don’t know why Twilight wants to fight me,” answered the pegasus.

“Use your head!” Applejack told her. “You’ve got that fancy U.S. Navy rank and you think it means somethin’ to the rest of us. We ain’t just part of your team, Rainbow. We’re your friends.”

Rainbow opened her mouth and closed it again. She’d been made Mission Commander for a reason, and felt qualified for the job. But what if she wasn’t?

AJ watched the pegasus's face shift through a series of emotions; mouth tightening and ears moving distractedly as Rainbow wrestled with her emotions.

“The capsule gets here in ten minutes!” shouted Taylor, his voice bouncing off the bulkheads and echoing its way through the dark space station. Twilight drifted near the Australian astronaut, doing whatever she could to help. With the more experienced astronauts around, that wasn’t much. The nervous unicorn hovered nervously in the compartment, waiting and watching.

“Are there any problems with the rescue capsule?” Twilight asked Zimin, who floated nearby.

The cosmonaut shook his head. “No. It will be here soon. Once it arrives, we can begin the process of capturing the satellite.”

Twilight knew the Russians had donated an old weather satellite. With the electricity its core could produce and some supplies being delivered by the Rus rescue capsule, the station’s systems would be able to keep running long enough for a more permanent solution to be found.

The unicorn began putting on her pressure suit. She would be part of the capture team. Taylor was nearby and helped her with some of the suit’s fasteners. Twilight glanced at him. “This plan is, quite frankly, ridiculous.”

The Australian shrugged. “We’re just going to have to trust the support team. They say catching a satellite and bringing it over here is the fastest way to restore electricity to the station. As soon as we get the power back and get rid of this Nightmare thing, we can work on a more permanent solution.”

Dr. Flack drifted by and laughed darkly. “I think we can all agree that no matter what happens, this situation will be over soon.”

Twilight heard a small noise from Fluttershy. The timid pegasus had been constantly on the verge of tears for the past several days. Twilight wished she could say something to reassure the yellow pony, but Flack’s words rang true. They would learn their fates, happy or tragic, very soon. There was not enough oxygen and electricity left for a second rescue attempt.

Pinkie’s mane seemed straighter than usual, but her signature smile still clung tenaciously to her face. She took Fluttershy by the hoof and pulled her towards the kitchen area. “Come on, let’s get some ice cream! That’s one advantage of an emergency situation; nopony cares how many sweets you eat!”

“Regardless of how this turns out, I’m never going so long without a shower ever again,” moaned Rarity. Twilight gave her a look, but decided to say nothing. There was no point in antagonizing any more of her friends.

The Canadarm hung useless after the incident that had stranded the visiting astronauts on the station. Dr. Flack carefully maneuvered a backup robot arm into position to help the rescue capsule join with the airlock. This time the docking went smoothly.

The hatch swung open to reveal the rescue crew. The two cosmonauts looked worried about the condition of the station, but they knew their job and quickly began unloading the capsule.

Twilight and Rarity got into position to receive the cargo from the Rus. The two unicorns quickly and efficiently took the cargo from the capsule and brought it inside the station. Rarity muttered, “I’m so glad we rehearsed this.”

The other pony nodded. Once the ground crew had decided how the procedure of saving the station should be done, the astronauts had gone painstakingly over every detail. Unfortunately, that also meant that Twilight knew what would happen next.

Rainbow appeared, her pressure suit already on. The purple pony ignored her, pulling the last few pieces of cargo out of the capsule. Twilight was dreading locking herself into the capsule with the pegasus. The ground crew wanted the two of them together, and the unicorn should have said something while the planning was going on, but now it was too late.

There was no more time to delay. Once the cargo was transferred, the two ponies moved through the airlock to join the Russian crew. The four of them strapped in.

“Good luck!” called Pinkie. The other people and ponies echoed similar sentiments as the airlock swung closed.

Rainbow bumped Twilight’s shoulder and pointed to the intercom control. The unicorn set her own dial to the same channel.

“We need to talk,” said the pegasus.

Twilight glanced forward, but the cosmonauts gave no indication that they were listening in on the private channel. She turned as far as her helmet would allow to look at the other pony. “Talk about what?”

“You know what,” the pegasus shot back.

“We don’t have time for this, Rainbow!” Twilight took a deep breath. In a slightly calmer voice, she said, “This is too important to let our personal feelings get in the way.”

“We have a few minutes,” the other pony insisted.

Twilight‘s suited hoof pressed against the viewport of her helmet in frustration. “I don’t believe this. You’re acting like a little filly.”

“Only because you’re treating me like one!” shouted Rainbow.

“I am? Tell me, how am I doing that?” demanded Twilight.

“It’s like you only see me as old Rainbow Dash from Ponyville. You ignore everything else that I am. I’ve matured, Twilight. Have you?”

Twilight was stunned. “What do you mean?”

Rainbow’s glare was clear through her helmet. “There’s more to me than just ‘goes fast’ and ‘is loyal.’ Have you ever stopped to think what else I can do? I went to school for engineering and I’ve got more than a decade of leadership experience in the military. Don’t you think I might be best qualified to take charge when we’re fighting for our lives in space?”

“Defeating the Nightmare takes magic,” Twilight retorted. “And if I wasn’t a good leader, Princess Celestia wouldn’t have put me in charge of the entire army during the Zebrican War!”

“This is a completely different world,” Rainbow reminded her. “I know more about it than you do. Is it hard for you to accept that, Twilight? That I know something you don’t?”

“Wow,” said Pinkie’s voice. “Both of you really need to take a chill pill.”

Twilight looked around wildly, not seeing the pink pony inside the capsule. Rainbow pointed to a radio control that linked their intercom channel to the space station.

“What the hell were you both thinking?” demanded Taylor. “Your stupid argument could have killed us all!”

“It’s not—” Twilight began.

“Hush!” demanded Rarity. “Stop this right now. You both have work to do.”

“I’m glad I changed the channel to let you all listen to this,” said Rainbow, shooting Twilight a look.

“You ain’t off the hook, Rainbow!” shouted Applejack. “You shouldn’t have let this fester between the two of you.”

The multicolored pegasus’ eyes widened at the rebuke. She’d only planned to expose Twilight’s problem. She hadn’t realized that she had one, too.

“Please be nicer to each other,” said Fluttershy gently. “You are friends, after all.”

Rainbow reached out and turned off the radio link. Her eyes turned to the pony sitting beside her. Twilight opened her mouth, but the pegasus was already speaking.

“I’m sorry.” The Rus capsule had just about the best communication technology that money could buy and it delivered every nuance of Rainbow’s apology to Twilight’s headphones. Even if it hadn’t, the look on her face made it clear that the pegasus meant every single bit of her confession.

Twilight looked at the other pony. Surprise was etched on the unicorn’s face at the realization that she too had played a part in creating the rift between them.

“I should have realized how much you’ve changed,” said Twilight. “I…I didn’t think about how much you’ve done with your life. You’re not just the weather pony anymore, and I can’t treat you that way.”

“I’m a hypocrite,” Rainbow admitted. “I accused you of trying to take over, but really I was afraid of losing control.”

One of the Russians came in over the capsule-wide channel. “We are approaching the target.”

“That’s your cue,” said Rainbow. She switched off the private channel. Twilight nodded and looked out the porthole as the Rus came alongside the satellite. Grabbing it with her magic, Twilight pulled it closer.

“Left a little…there. Okay, up some…no, too far. Good.” Rainbow’s voice came over the intercom in brief snippets as she peered carefully out the viewport at the satellite. Under the pegasus’ guidance, Twilight adjusted the satellite’s position until it floated gently alongside the Rus, safely away from the spacecraft’s rocket exhaust as the ship made the trip back to the station.

Several minutes later, the capsule was locked down to the ISS once more. Working with the robot controls, Dr. Flack took the satellite from Twilight’s grasp. Applejack looked up from her observation window as Twilight and Rainbow floated through the station airlock. “Ah don’t mean to alarm y’all, but Ah can’t see the stars anymore.”

Fournier drifted to another viewing port. “The Earth is hidden!”

“The Nightmare must be completely surrounding the station,” said Twilight. As if to punctuate her statement, the lights flickered.

Rainbow nodded. “I guess it’s time we finally started working together to finally solve this problem.

The purple unicorn smiled at her. “I’m so glad to have good friends who can make me happy in the most dire situations.”

The other ponies crowded around the pair. Denisov pushed a box towards the six of them. Twilight opened it, revealing the Elements of Harmony.

“Let’s do this!” cheered Pinkie.

Outside the station, the Nightmare shivered. Something was wrong, it thought. Something was very—

There was no time for thought as a brilliant wave of energy burned through the dark cloud, glowing with all the colors of the rainbow. The Nightmare writhed. It thrashed. And as the light died away, taking the creature of darkness into the oblivion of space, the Nightmare tried—and failed—to scream.

The reentry procedures went according to plan, and the capsule began its decent through the atmosphere. Rainbow closed her eyes for a moment. It felt like so long since she’d been able to relax. After putting things right with Twilight, she figured that she had earned it. Soundly defeating the Nightmare had been a great bonus.

The ride got rougher as the spacecraft dropped through the thickening air. The predawn darkness came rushing up to meet the capsule. From the window, Rainbow could see a rim of orange on the horizon, signifying the coming sunrise.

As the parachutes deployed, the craft stabilized and the decent slowed. The Russian tundra offered a wide, clear landing area. Airbags deployed and brought the vehicle to a stop solidly on the ground.

Rainbow climbed out with the others. Off in the distance, the sound of a helicopter could be heard, coming to pick them up. The pegasus turned to the east, feeling the dawn on her face. As the sun rose, so did her spirits. She had her friends, and that was all that mattered.

Author note:
Oh my God, I can't believe it's finally done. HUGE thanks to Fernin. Depending on how you score it, he contributed 30-50% of this story, so that makes him more of a coauthor than just an editor.

Thanks for reading.

Chapter 4

The thundering of hooves on stone preceded a pony galloping at full speed through the halls of Canterlot Castle. His name was Paper Pusher and he had some bad news to deliver.

Paper had joined up with the Equestrian Space Center when it was newly created. His skills at navigating bureaucracy had landed him in a comfortable job overseeing the flow of information within the agency.

Minutes before, a notice from NASA had come across his desk, and it was a doozy. The Princess had to know immediately.

The office intern had taken a day off, so it was up to Paper to deliver the message. His lungs and legs burned, but he kept running. He was too old and too out of shape to do exert himself like this very often. The message contained very important information.

Paper pulled up in front of the door to Celestia’s chamber. Between gasps for air, he managed to communicate his purpose to the guards stationed there. Deciding the aging civil servant was no threat, they let him in.

The Princesss looked up from her work in concern. It was not often that a sweaty middle-aged pony wanted to talk to her.

“What is it?” Celestia asked.

Paper bowed before her. “Princess, I regret to inform you that there’s been a terrible accident aboard the Space Station.” He paused to catch his breath.

Celestia’s eyes narrowed and the tone of her voice changed. “What’s the situation?”

“The ESC doesn’t have the full details yet,” answered Paper. “We do know that everypony is alive. There’s something wrong with the spacecraft, and a rescue mission is being planned.”

“Please keep me updated.” Celestia began writing a letter.

“Yes, your highness.” Paper left the room. The Princess’s relatively calm reaction surprised him a little, but he’d heard that she was famous for being cool under pressure. It was really a great thing that she was in charge. A pony couldn’t help but feel inspired by her leadership.

Most of the lights aboard the International Space Station had been dimmed. The water filtration system had been turned down, and nonessential computers were shut off.

Scientific research had been suspended for the moment. The astronauts were working frantically to reduce consumption and waste any way they could. The remaining solar panels couldn’t sustain them, and the batteries wouldn’t last forever.

The number one problem was electricity. Oxygen could be produced from chemical reactions, but everything else required power.

Rainbow shivered slightly. The power going to the climate control system had been reduced, and the Station was getting cold.

The astronauts had formed a duty rotation to make sure a few of them were ready to respond in case of more problems. Rainbow was not currently standing watch, so she scooted down a little deeper into her sleeping bag. She was unable to sleep, but the bag helped keep her warm.

The pegasus had helped plan a repair mission. Taylor and the Russians were going to try a spacewalk in an attempt to fix the damage. It would be difficult, as none of them knew yet how extensive the trauma had been.

Bored, Rainbow slid out of her berth and headed for the kitchen area. She found Fournier there reviewing electrical diagrams of the Station.

“Is there any hot water left?” Rainbow asked.

“Just a little,” replied the woman. “You should get it before someone else does.”

The hot water tank was well insulated, so there was still some warm liquid to be had. The heater had been turned off, though, so once it was gone there would be no more.

Rainbow picked out a package from the food storage locker. It was a plastic bag with some brown powder inside. With the addition of hot water, it turned into a beverage that somewhat resembled coffee.

The pony plugged the straw of the package into the water dispenser. When the bag was full, she pinched the straw between her teeth and shook the bag a little to make sure everything was mixed.

She took a sip. It was terrible coffee. No matter, the taste would stop Rainbow from drinking it too quickly.

She drifted back over to where Fournier was working. “Any new developments?” the pony asked.

The French astronaut shook her head, looking somewhat despondent. “No. Our best guess is that the main feed cable was somehow ruined. It runs through the area where the damage occurred.”

“How long will that take to fix?” Rainbow asked.

“It’s hard to know.” The woman shrugged. “We have spare wire, but getting the bad section replaced could be difficult.”

Rainbow was not an electrician, and didn’t think that she could splice a large power cable while hanging off the outside of the Station. She hoped that the men were better qualified.

It was a little difficult to get into a spacesuit when the lights were dim. Taylor struggled with the gloves, eventually giving up and letting Rarity help him.

The Russians seemed to be having similar problems with their borrowed suits. They didn’t fit the men perfectly, but would have to do. They had been picked to go with Taylor because both of them had more experience with spacewalks than Dr. Flack, and Fournier had to stay inside to monitor the electrical systems.

“Do be careful,” admonished the white unicorn as she helped the men suit up. “We don’t need any more excitement around here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Taylor. He and the cosmonauts squeezed into the airlock. Dr. Flack saw them off, operating the controls to let them out the hatch.

Outside, the familiar quiet of space enveloped the men. Taylor lowered his helmet’s sun shield. It was made of tough plastic and plated with a very thin layer of gold for thermal and reflective purposes. From inside, it gave everything that Taylor could see a sepia-like tint.

The three of them began working their way over to the accident site. Taylor brought up the rear, following Denisov and Zimin. Their number one priority was finding the damaged spot in the cable. It would be great if that turned out to be the problem. If not, well, it would be a long spacewalk.

It was somewhat strange to pick over the outside of the ISS without the exterior floodlights on. The sun lit up everything nicely, but that only made the shadowy areas worse. Taylor switched on the light mounted beside his helmet. At the moment, all it showed him was the back of Zimin’s suit as the man pulled himself along ahead of Taylor.

The Australian astronaut allowed himself to relax, but only a little. He couldn’t afford to let his attention waver, but he didn’t have to be uptight. The spacewalk could last one hour, or several. Concentrating hard for too long could be as tiring as any physical exercise.

“Here it is,” called Denisov through the radio. Taylor slipped up beside him and inspected the damage. The bare wire could be seen through a gash in the insulation.

The three of them carried splicing equipment. They’d brought a coil of the heavy electric wire, and all the tools that were necessary. Zimin took out a multimeter and poked at the wounded cable with the device’s probes.

The digital readout of the gadget showed that no electricity was flowing through the wire. Taylor verified the result with his own multimeter.

When working on the ISS, it was a rule that all jobs had to be checked by someone else. While the astronauts were in a rush to get the Station power restored, they knew that the time had to be taken to get things right on the first try. A do-over would take even longer.

Taylor called Fournier and she told him that the circuit box the cable was attached to was turned off. She could reactivate it when it was fixed.

“I think that three meters of new wire will do the trick,” said Denisov. Taylor and Zimin agreed. With cutting tools, they set to work removing the damaged section.

The Nightmare watched with interest.

Author note:
I apologize for the short, unedited chapter. Let’s just say that a funny thing happened on the way to the internet.

In other news, I have a new story. It’s a comedy, if you’re into that sort of thing.