A Journey Across

Book 1 - A Journey Across

Chapter 4 - Arrival of the beast

The Engines were running up. They humming on base levels went to a screaming as if the devil himself was brutaly tortured. Then automatic failsafe kicked it back to humming levels. Back at base level. Humming up. Screaming. Running out. Repeat.

Jeb awoke lying face down in the dirt. His helmet laid a few meters beside. He stood up, put on the helmet and looked around. A forest. Behind him layed the ship. A quick flash of memory, the ship spinning, a bang and then darkness. The autopilot must have landed the ship after he blacked out.

A shiver ran down his spine. The experiment. The engine failure. He ran back to the ship, opened the cabin door and got in the cockpit. The glass plate on the top was busted out from the emergency escape system that threw him out.

First thing he noticed when he got in the cockpit was the blarping of the master alarm. Several warning lamps were on. They read "Fuel Pressure Low", "Ignition Failure" and "MBA Undervolt". Each one would have meant the end of the ship, but like some miracle, the Rapiers and the EX-Zero did not explode. He quit the Master Alarm. A quick check again.

"Fuel Pressure Low" was still on. The other two kept quiet. He decided to switch off fuel supply. The humming faded slowly. He checked the fuel gauges. He had 20 liters for the Rapiers. The Exo was exhausted. He wondered how that ever could happen. There was over half a ton of antimatter in the engine. As the engines spun their last round "Fuel Pressure Low" went dark. The only sounds remaining was the breathing of the Life Support, the clicks from switching relays and a slow beeping.

He was stranded, this was not Kerbin and 20 liters of fuel won't get you far nor home. He started the computer up. No reaction. He checked the Power Supply Unit. No dice. But the ship still had power and a blinking lamp indicated why. The autopilot had enabled the emergency battery when the APU's in the back failed. In 5 minutes it would be empty. Only life support and other emergency systems ran. No navigation. No attitude control. No reaction control. No stabilizer.

"This is getting worse and worse," Jeb thought. From outside he heard a voice, "Is there anypony?"

He quickly switched of all remaining systems. The soft clicking of the relays vanished. The last lamp burning was labelled "Emergency Power Enabled" accompanied by slow beeping.

"Either they are friendly or not..." he thought to himself, "Doesn't matter now." After he waited for about half a minute he could hear footsteps from outside. "There are atleast 2 pairs of legs out there. I hope they are friendly pairs," he though and then he yelled, "I'm friendly. Please don't eat my face!"

"Why should I do that? What happened here?" someone answered.

"Well, it seems I crashed and I'm not exactly a local, you never know where

you are in the food chain on another planet," he answered.

"Another planet? You are okay in there, aren't you? Who are you?" asked the voice.

He quickly reassured everything was off, "I'm Jeb from the planet Kerbin, I'm friendly and yes, I'm okay, for now."

"I'm Rainbow Dash and I am from here. You need any help? Your thingy was making noises."

Yeah, I'm on the planet of geniuses, Jeb thought and the answered, "No. I switched everything off in here. Nothing should explode. Just the emergency power system is on. Nothing to worry about."

He took a quick look outside, "Where are you?"

A small horse in front of him answered, "Here. Are you blind or something?" It had hair in rainbow colors and a fur in light blue shade. Strange choice of color from mother nature.

"Whoah. You are a horse?", asked Jeb after he opened his helmet.

"Noo, I'm a pony," it responded, "a pegasus to be more exact, don't you see the wings here? And what are you?"

Now he took of his helmet completely. Better not take off the suit, I have the wrong shorts for this, he thought, "I'm a Kerbal from Kerbin. Name is Jebediah Kerman. You can call me Jeb though."

"Jeb. Hmmm. I'm Rainbow Dash. Best Flyer of Equestria and most awesome pony ever.", the little pony said.

Jeb stepped outside the cockpit. The first time after he woke up, he looked around him. The ship landed inside a forest, although the trees looked a little bit weird, "Where are we and what is Equestria?"

The little equine gave him a puzzled look, "We are in Equestria. Kingdom of the Two Sisters. That is the name of the land here. To be more exact, this is the Everfree Forest."

As Jeb walked away from his ship, he saw where the ship first touched down. Like a giant lawn mower the craft had ripped apart a huge part of the forest. A trail of smoke and fire laid behind, thankfully disguising most damage done. While looking more closely he noticed some animals that were in the way, or to be precise, a few parts of them, "Did you see the crash?"

Rainbow flew up a few meters and looked at what Jeb had seen, "We'll no. But I think I would prefer not to have seen it, if I had. Fluttershy will be upset about the trees. She likes trees," and she chuckled but she immediately stopped as she remembered what happened here, "You really need no help?"

Jeb walked around the craft for a few minutes, inspecting all parts. It was worse than he expected. One wing was almost ripped out, hinging on the remainders of a fuel pump. The left engine had burned out, judging by the black metal corpse nailed on the hull. The outer frame looked like a mutilated body, thousands of wounds, some bleeding out hydraulics or other fluids. The double winged ship had seen worse days. He went back to this Dash-pony thingy, "Well, you have some tape? And I need some fuel. Best would be HydrOxy. But Kerosine is okay too. Ohhh, and if you have ANY antimatter, that would be great!"

Rainbow Dash stopped listening after he heard "tape". No story. The rest was a bunch of unrecognizable words. As she noticed that a answer was requested, she did what she always did in such a situation, and gave her default answer for any circumstances, "Yep, no problem."

"Cool. Okay, don't be shocked but I wanted to say this since I was a child," he answered putting a huge smile on his face, "BRING ME TO YO' LEADA!"