A Journey Across

Book 3 - Burning Hope

Chapter 6 - Rising Phoenix

32700 meters above Equestria

Rainbow Dash was dizzy. The had been flying for about half an hour. The MOST BORING THING EVER. The takeoff was kind off awesome and the short scene where they had to out-fly those missiles was pretty cool.

Jeb told her that it is normal that the ship almost explodes when he did... whatever he did. He said, normally he isn't allowed to do it so close to the ground. To much air or something.

For a brief second the pegasus closed her eyes. The same instance she was fully awake. The pilot seat was empty. Jeb gone. No pilot. She waited for everything to go haywire and explode.

The plane continued to fly vertically. Nothing exploded. Rainbow Dash unbuckled her seat belts and slowly trotted to the pilot seat.

It was like the seat invited her. She made herself comfortable as possible.

And then she felt it. The plane was alive. It breathed slowly and calmly. It had a pulse slowly pumping through the craft, distributing energy. The breathing was heavy. With each breath the pegasus could feel how big it was. It was majestic.

She slowly reached for the joystick that controlled the craft and touched it with one hoof. It was vibrating slightly. She grabbed it fully. The vibrations became stronger.

The ship liked her and she liked the ship. She wanted to love the ship. She was at total peace.

Jeb looked back at the pegasus that was buckled in the copilot seat. His giggles were muffled by the glass of his helmet.

Rainbow Dash had drooled in her fur. Her eyes, half closed, looked at something far away and her limbs twitched randomly every few seconds. She was high. Judging from the moaning that escaped her mouth now and then she had pretty okay hallucinations. If she had any sort of a horror trip, Jeb would have stopped immediately.

"Time for business," he mumbled and reached for the control panel. The astronaut moved the slider responsible for the oxygen levels in the craft back up to normal. It would take about 15 minutes until the pegasus would gain consciousness. He unbuckled and moved in the back of the craft.

A few components of the radio equipment were still not repaired, the most important were the long range commmunication and remote control radio. He grabbed the necessary tools from the storage boxes and began the repairs. He trusted the autopilot to alert him in time for landing.

The reentry had damaged this equipment badly. Unlike most other parts of the craft they weren't as good protected against the reentry-shock. Normally this doesn't matter as the Titan can only manage shallow flights.

He reconnected some cables that had been ripped out. The lights on the long-range-coms flickered. The four control lamps on the front remained black for a second.

The first one came to a greenish life. "PWR"

The second lamp blinked five times before it stayed lit. "SELF TEST OK"

Just before Jeb wanted to turn his head away the third lamp lit up. His face wasn't sure if it should be surprised or fearful. The little label above the red lamp read "RCVIR". Short for "Remote Controllable Vessel in Range".

He jumped up and sat in the pilot seat within a second. Jeb reached for the radio and switched to LRC audio input. The speaker remained silent before emitting a short beep. Every two seconds. The astronaut knew this pattern. Every kerbal did. He confirmed the signature using the computer before he was totally sure.

"Not possible," he muttered.

A kerbal probe was nearby. A "Voyager" probe. Maybe home wasn't that far away...

Everywhen

"Some would think the first thing one does after crashing, is to repair communications," interjected Entropy, "On the other hand, Kerbals are very different from any other species. I think this was about the time we decided to stop him?"

"Certainly," answered Order, "We needed him outside the ship."

32500 meters above Equestria

"Wha... what happened?" mumbled Rainbow Dash. She felt as if she had waken up to soon. Every part of her body was aching and felt heavy as if made of steel. The pegasus reached for her head, mostly because it felt like someone had used her head as punching bag.

The astronaut, who now was in his pilot seat with an open helmet, looked back, "Welcome back to the real world, RD. You had a good trip?"

"W-What?" stuttered the pegasus.

"You were high. I reduced the oxygen in the air..." - Jeb paused at the confused reaction of the pony - "I reduced the air you have to breath which normally leads to hallucinations."

Rainbow Dash's face went from confused to angry, "YOU DRUGGED ME?"

"Relax, it's mostly harmless. Although I have to admit, for you I had to drop the oxygen levels a lot more than usual," explained the astronaut, "AJ took it more humorous than you. As I've been told, you are the prankster under these ponies besides Ms. Pie. Don't like the receiving end, eh?"

The pegasus continued to glare at the kerbal.

"We'll land in 30 minutes," he said, unsure what else to say.