Beyond the Stars

The ponies were pinned to their seats as they were propelled high into the atmosphere. Everything seemed to be in order, and nothing was going wrong. Everypony was relieved that they did not C.A.T.O (Catastrophe At Take-Off). Twilight had warned them of this, and many other acronyms, like L.&.E.O (Launch and Early Orbit) and S.A.R (Search And Rescue). The ride felt like a roller coaster going full speed down a hill for a long time. Rainbow Dash was familiar with this feeling, and Pinkie Pie loved it, but Fluttershy and Rarity did not handle it well.

“All systems nominal!” Twilight stated, “How’s everypony doing back there?”  The ship began to slow down.

“That was AWESOME!” Pinkie Pie screamed.

“Meh.” Rainbow Dash was unamused.

“I’m fine, but I don’t know about Fluttershy and Rarity.” Applejack said.

Fluttershy was hyperventilating in her seat as she slowly reached for a barf bag. Rarity was panicking when she saw that her mane had gotten all ruffled up.

“You guys should be fine.” Twilight giggled. “You are free to get out of your seats and move around now.”

Fluttershy scrambled out of her seat and ran for the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. As the other ponies got up, they had trouble walking, but got the hang of it. Twilight had made an artificial gravity machine that wasn’t the same as they were used to, but did the trick.

“We are well on our way to the Moon.” Twilight stated, “We should be there in about an hour.”

“Um, Twilight?” Fluttershy asked as she trotted out of the bathroom.

“What is it Fluttershy?” Twilight asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine, but what is that flashing red light on your control panel?” She asked, remembering rule number four: “Report suspicious or unusual behavior.”

Twilight looked over her shoulder, and there was indeed a flashing red light in her field of vision. She took a closer look to see what was up.

“Power failure!?” She screamed, “One of the thrusters is offline!”

Twilight scrambled into her seat to take immediate action. She told everypony to get strapped in again, and she pulled the emergency switch. The room went dark, and was filled with red light. Alarms went off as Twilight began to press a bunch of buttons. The ship was being flipped around because of the unequal distribution of thruster power. A huge tsunami of guilt flowed into Applejack. It was her fault this was happening.

“Fuel low!” A computer voice warned.

“What! Fuel too?” Twilight panicked.

Rainbow Dash was sure it wasn’t her tiny crack in the tank that did this, but she was guilty as well.  The fuel that she drained was for the thruster.

The ship was jerking in every direction, whipping the ponies around in their seats. After a few minutes of flinging and panicking, there was silence. All of the ponies were unconscious. The ship was slowly drifting into space, away from the Moon, into nothingness.

……………………………………

Twilight woke up upside down, dangling in her seat by her seatbelt. She saw that the bridge was destroyed. She looked outside of the window and saw an unfamiliar landscape. “Where am I?” She thought. Her head ached, and blood was running down her face. She had hit it pretty hard, and was out for a long time. She unstrapped herself and fell to the celling (which was now the floor). She wailed a scream of pain as she landed. Her hind leg was broken. She looked up to see if her friends were alive, and saw them dangling by their seatbelts, too. Save for Rainbow Dash, who had fallen out of her seat completely. Twilight saw her breathing with everypony else. This relieved her, because her friends were not dead.

……………………………………

After Twilight got everypony down and woken up, she took note of all of their injuries. She herself had a minor concussion and a broken left hind leg, Fluttershy had a broken wing, Rarity also had a concussion, Pinkie Pie had a broken rib, and Rainbow Dash and Applejack were fine.

“Where are we?” Rainbow Dash asked, for the third time.

“…I don’t know.” Twilight replied, “We seem to have crash-landed on a planet when we were unconscious… let me see… the computer says we can make it back home in an escape pod, but it’s broken.”

“Can we fix it?” Applejack asked.

“Yes, but it will take a while,” Twilight replied, “Everypony needs to be strong, and we will be able to get through this. But first things first, we need to treat our injuries. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, you are both fine; can you guys go get the First-Aid crate? It’s in the Med-Bay.”

“I already tried; the door was sealed shut because the room was detached from the ship.” Rainbow Dash said.

“Well then you’ll have to go looking for it outside of the ship.” Twilight replied.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack knew they had to do their duty for the crew. They left to go get suited up in the airlock chamber. They had some trouble navigating the flipped ship, but found it eventually. The two ponies helped each other get their suits on, remembering to double check. They each grabbed a couple of oxygen tanks and prepared to open the airlock door. Applejack pressed the button to open the door and………*SWOOSH*………it opened. Not until it was half way open, it stopped, and made a loud screeching noise.

            “Something is stuck in the door.” Rainbow Dash observed.

            “Let’s worry about that later; we need to get these supplies fast.” Applejack stated.

            The two ponies trotted out onto the strange terrain. It looked like a desert with a couple of dead trees here and there. The ground was soft, causing them to trail hoof prints behind them. The ponies stayed silent as they searched for the supplies. They were both still going through a lot of guilt, and didn’t know how they would make it up to Twilight. As they walked further away from the ship, they didn’t realize that they were trespassing.