Beyond the Stars

by Finn128

Rating: everyone
Tags: Tragedy, Dark, Sad
Length: 2337

Twilight had always wanted to go to space, and today her dream will come true. But, something goes wrong, and it was definitely somepony's fault.

Twilight had always wanted to go to space, and today her dream will come true. But, something goes wrong, and it was definitely somepony's fault.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-07-25 02:43:05 UTC

Liftoff

“Mom?”

“Yes, Twilight?”

“Can you read me a bedtime story? I’m not tired.”

“Of course, sweetie, what would you like me to read?”

“You know which one, mom!”

Twilight’s mom read this story to Twilight every night before she slept. It was a story about an astronaut and her crew. They would travel to the Moon and have lunch, then to Mars for dinner. Twilight had dreamed to go to space ever since those days. She wanted to be an astronaut; to lead a crew to distant lands and explore the universe. And today, that dream would come true.

Today was a beautiful day in Ponyville; perfect for a launch into space. Twilight had been working all her life to make this spaceship, and today was just as she imagined it. Twilight was meeting her friends for breakfast to discuss their trip into space (she didn’t want to leave out her friends).

Twilight walked into the café and saw her friends sitting around a round table. They were laughing and giggling, obviously excited for the day to come. They noticed Twilight, and offered her an empty seat.

“Hey Twilight, how’s it hanging?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“I’m doing great!” Twilight replied, “How about you guys?”

They all finished their greetings, and talked for a while.

“Everyone has to remember the rules and training that we have been through in the past couple of months,” Twilight explained, “Remember the five most important rules?”

“Number one: Never go alone,” Applejack said, “Always be with somepony to ensure safety.”

“Number two: Double-check your suit to make sure it is on correctly,” Rarity stated, “I made them for a reason.”  She giggled.

“Number three: Always lend a helping hoof,” Rainbow Dash said, “Make sure every problem gets solved.”

“Number four: Report any suspicious or unusual behavior,” Fluttershy stated, “If there is a problem, we can fix it before it gets out of hoof.”

“Number five: Explore, learn, and have FUN!” Pinkie Pie screamed.

“Good. Now does everypony remember our mission?” Twilight asked.

“To reach the moon by noon and have lunch.” Rainbow Dash answered.

“And to get to Mars before dinner to enjoy our furthest meal from home!” Applejack finished. “But you’ve gotta watch out for the scary aliens!” Rainbow Dash beckoned.

“Rainbow, there are no such things as aliens!” Twilight explained. “Look; you scared Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy was indeed frightened, and was trembling in her seat. All Rainbow could do was laugh as she saw that her scare was successful.

As they finished breakfast they all made their way to Twilight’s library. The spaceship was in a giant room accessed by a tunnel in her basement. Spike will work as mission control from the ground. Once they entered the room, Twilight told her friends that she had to make final preparations, and to get settled into their quarters.

As Applejack was done settling in, she decided to have a look around. She was fascinated by all of the fancy gizmos and flashy lights. She was surprised that Twilight was able to make this, and grateful to be on board, as she knew it was Twilight’s lifetime dream. Applejack was truly amazed of the power generator, though. As she stared at all of the different gears and turbines, she realized that something like this would truly help her on her family farm. She wanted to learn more about this machine, so she decided to take a closer look. As she flipped one of the floor panels covering the machinery, her curiosity went too far. She fell in.  She could hear many snaps as the weight of her body crushed some of the delicate machinery. She jumped out of the hole and tried to take in what had just happened. Should she tell Twilight and ruin her dream, or cover it up and act like it had never happened? She then heard Twilight over the loudspeaker calling everyone to the bridge. Applejack placed the panel back into its place, and ran for the bridge. Besides, it was just some little things, she thought, it won’t make a difference.

***

Pinkie Pie was hopping through the hallways after she had settled in. She loved all of the lights and buttons. It was just like a party, she thought. She explored the many rooms of the ship, and knew that she was not to touch anything, even though it was so very tempting. When she walked into the oxygen supply room, she recognized it very well, which was very weird since she had never been in there before. Then it struck her; the giant thing in the middle of the room looked like a helium tank that she used at parties to fill balloons. She was overly excited to see so much “helium” in one place. She found a gauge near the bottom of the tank, and suddenly took out an empty balloon to fill. After she was done filling the balloon, she realized that it wasn’t floating like it should have. She took another gander at the tank, and saw that it was not helium, but oxygen. Then she heard Twilight over the loudspeaker to meet on the bridge. Pinkie left the room without knowing that she had left the gauge open, and that oxygen was slowly, but surely, leaking out.

***

Rainbow Dash had wandered outside of the ship to see what it looked like. She wanted to stretch her wings and fly around it a bit, too. The ship was about a quarter the size of a city block, and it was pretty awesome. She was fascinated by the giant thrusters and the size of the wings, similar to hers. She then saw a little porthole into the ship. Curious as to what it was, she dove for it at full speed, challenging herself to make it through. As she dove into the ship, she didn’t think about what would be inside. BAM! She ran straight into the giant tank holding the fuel. As she got back to her hooves, she realized that she had made it! She turned around to see what she had run into. She noticed that there was a small crack in the side. She also noticed that it was dripping, but just shrugged it off, and made her way to the bridge.

***

It took rather long for Rarity to get settled in, as she had many cases of clothes and who-knows-what. When she was finally done, she decided to go check on the suits that she had made (Rarity had made the space suits, but Twilight engineered them and had supervised Rarity while she made them). The suits were stored in the airlock chamber where one would enter and leave the ship. The suits she made were white, with red stripes around the hooves and tail. They had patches that advertised that they were from Equestria and Ponyville. She had also made a flag to be put on the Moon. Rarity started fiddling with her suit to get the wrinkles out and the dust off. She then accidentally dropped a buckle that fastened a small case around the waist of the suit. She watched as it bounced along the floor until it fell into a slot where the airlock door shuts closed. There was no way of getting it back, but luckily she had spares to replace it. She assumed that it didn’t matter because it was so small, but she was wrong. After she listened to Twilight call everypony to the bridge, she left the chamber. When the door tried to shut, it malfunctioned and didn’t close correctly.

***

“Alright everypony! It is time to depart,” Twilight announced. “Does anyone have anything to say before we leave?”

The ponies struggled with themselves, but remained silent. They were sure that nothing would go wrong (they hoped).  Twilight began the launch sequence as everypony else sat down and strapped in. Twilight began the countdown.

“10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…Liftoff!”

Crash Landing

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.