Phillydelpha, 279 years after Luna’s return.
The morning had been filled with unpleasant news. For the fourth time this week, the mail had not come. Maybe it was a little early for the mail mares to arrive, but it was afternoon too, so it might have been to late. But she was expecting something important. something that she couldn’t really afford to not get on time. A letter letting her know if she made it into the Royal Canterlot Officers Academy.
The Academy trained eligible ponies to become leaders in the most important space exploration program that has ever come out of canterlot.
The program had only existed for about 70 years, but they have already produced about 15 flagships and about 45 smaller ships. The most famous of these was the R.C.S. Celestial Wings, a large "dreadnaught" type vessel made for deep space exploration. Allthough, the definition of deep space wasn’t exactly clear.
Every year, a ship made it father out into the black, but the limit so far has not exceeded the five closest star systems, and the only colonies are local ones on two other planets in our local solar system.
Minerva patently waited by the window, watching all the other ponies go about their lives. She wondered if the mail mares were out there, doing their jobs or not, or maybe the academy decided not to even give her the benefit of a reply.
She decided to trot outside, onto the porch of her modest little house. She sat back down and pulled out her Tablet to check the latest news. The headlines were filled with political battles that seemed to never end. The political system was only one hundred years old, formed only after Celestia and Luna's Raising of the moon and sun were debunked after our first steps in space, but it almost proved worthless.
The only good thing to happen was that Luna was free to head up the NAVY's Space program, witch gave birth to the Exploration branches of the Royal Equestrian Navy.
As she sat there, reading news on her tablet, she heard someone approaching via the footpath leading to her house. It was a Captain of the R.E.N., with an envelope. She instinctively snapped into attention and saluted the Captain.
"Minerva Heartway, I am Captain Silverhoof, of the Royal Equestrian Officers Academy." he spoke with command to his voice. Minerva didn't falter as she stood at attention, but she was almost barley able to contain her excitement. "You've been accepted into our Academy." He said. "At ease, Cadet."
At that, Minerva smiled and lit up. "Captain, it's an honor. truly, it is. You don't know what this means to me."
"Oh, i have an idea" The captain said, "I've read your essay. Parents in the Seas, grandparents that were Canterlot Guards; you have a lot of duty in your blood. As well as your good marks in Basic training. But I would have you improve one thing, Heartway."
"And what is that" Heartway asked.
"You need to improve your magic skills if you're going to do well as a officer."
"But i thought I passed all the Magic tests in training? They weren't exactly complicated"
"Don't talk back to me, Cadet." The Captain shot. "No excuses. Improve your Magical ability by the time you ship out."
"Which is?" she asked, forgetting her previous question and attempting to not sound like she was talking about again.
"Exactly two months from now."
//end prologue.
Put me in the center chair
The academy years went by fast for Minerva. She was paired up with a crew that would hopefully be the crew she would set sail with. She aced all her classes and the academy praised it's engineers for creating realistic simulators witch they used for training purposes.
this was the last test before graduation. it was a week long ordeal in the simulator and there was a cliffhanger ending yesterday.
“Late the class again?” The commander snapped at the sophmore cadet. Minerva approached the 1st officers chair on the simulated bridge and slid her keycard though the chair’s console for authentication.
“Cold water in the shower sir, but it won't be an issue. I suggest we get maintenance on that environmental problem, commander.”
Her classmate shrugged at the commander and his late first officer and learned into his center chair. He wasn’t the most pleasant of ponies, and his grades were just enough to pass. His pink fur didn't really fit sometimes.
“Is that sass in your voice, Cadet heartway?” He motioned at the environment "You’re not on a ship yet.”
“Sorry sir, I’m here now. We should continue with the simulation, yes?” Minerva stood at stand by near her console.
The commander sighed and stepped off the bridge. “Yes.”
“Were we left of last time. You had the survivors of the Tartarus all rescued.”
After a few moments, The lights when down and the simulator’s consoles lit up. they were all famiiar, consles filed with buttons for every single command. It looked just like the real thing now. the sensors came up with the situation all simulated. it acted brilliantly.
“Simulation Started.” the disembodied computer voice said. The cadet captain snapped into command mode and got out of his chair. He pointed at the science officer.
“I want to know if the Tartarus is going to explode and how far away we need to be if it does.” He pointed to the Operations officer “Make sure that medical has everything they need to tend to the wounded.” he pointed to the helmsmen. “We don’t need to be that close to the ship. brings us three hundred KM away.” He must have thought about this last night before he went to bed. And I, like normal, decided to react to his orders on the dot. And then he pointed to Minerva.
“I need a damage report” he said, standing up slowly towards minerva..
Minerva checked her console and read some of the status messages ”Seems as though the FTL port engine is suffering from a 45% loss of power, seems the gravaton wings are down. engineering is on that...”
The cadet science offer perked up. “The Taruras is going to destruct in about five minutes sir, reports say we need to be one thousand KM away.” Minerva always saw him as a 'Fluttershy' type person. they always shared the pink and yellow hues.
the helmsmen added “Manuvering one thousand five hundred KM away from the Tartarus.”
“Sir,” 'Flutterwhat' as she is nicknamed reports him his sensors “Teams are also reporting a strange reading emanating about thirty thousand KM of our port bow.” she fixed her glasses.
“Oh” The cadet captain said. After a brief pause he continued with a meager, “really?”.
“What else can you tell us about it?” Minerva said, trying to pick up the pace that the cadet captain had just slowed down. She too has studied how to anticipate his reaction and react.
“It’s…I don’t know? It’s omitting a lot of strange readings according to my Science team, neither of them can make heads or tails of it. They’re going to try .” she looked at minerva and fixed his glasses.
“Boost power to the Magic amplifiers, let’s see if we can’t give them a clearer signal.” she gave the science pony a nod. “Helmsmen Featherlight?”
“Yes sir?” he said
“Can we get a visual at all?”
“Let me try, sir.” he started to let his wings move around, as small sensors react as inputs for the meager electric screen.
“First officer, what are you doing?” The faux captain sounded flummoxed
“Getting things done, ‘Captain’.”
“Step down, I’m the one in command here” Spouted the Cadet Captain angrily, as he sat back down in his center chair. “Helmsmen, can you get the readings on screen?”
“Too far away, but auxiliary feathers are picking up graivimetic distortions, we’re being pulled towards it at a 6.7 WP and climbing .4 every minute…attempting to compensate.” the ship surged a little bit. well, simulated surge.
“ah! so it’s got it’s own gravity well!” Minerva said excitedly. After all, this kind of thing was what the Royal Equestrian Navy is all about; Discovery.
“I think we need clearer readings on it before-” The captain started, right before Minerva cut him off.
“We can narrow down our choices as to what it might be with what we have. Science Cadet Flutterwhat, Does it have a wight exceeding that of a collapsed star, by any chance?”
She science pony entered the request in his console to the simulated science team. “Yes,” she said “Deffintely greater then 10 times the wight of a dying star.”
“And chance clairvoyant magic could get us a rough description of it’s color?” Minerva asked the Science pony once more. The Cadet captain just sit there, flummoxed and bewildered, as the science pony made the request.
“We’re just waiting a moment for the result, sir.” Berry bloom replied.
The helmsmen reported that the feather-sensors were detecting a greater gravitational pull.
“Color results are back, It seems to be…it seems to be pitch black Cadet Commander.”
“But isn’t that the color of space anyway?” The cadet captain chimed in. Minerva turned to him and scoffed.
“It’s also the color of a black hole, my faux captain.” she said. “keep up"
“Yeah...”
“We’re being sucked into a black hole, I don’t think now is the time.” She said. She moved quickly over the helmsman Featherlight. “Don’t you remember what the procedure is to escape it? It was in class, and you’re pretty good in class.”
The pegasus looked excited as she grabbed the com and the manual controls. “This one’s going to be tricky.”
"Engineer teams, flappers, come in" He winged pony said over the comm channel. A voice replied instantly, representing a friendship team that most likely doesn't exist yet.
"Flappers here, We're ready for anything." The voice said. The bridge started to shake... as realistic as it could have been.
"We need to pull a shotgun showdown." The helms pony said with a smile. that was a maneuver in witch the ship accelerates towards the black hole and uses it's intense gravity to slingshot away from it.
considering this was the final test before graduation.
"No problem. Wait for the light." And with that the comm channel was cut. The helman fiddled with his console and waited for the conformation that the magic the friendship team needed to prepare was ready for use.
The captain nudged Minerva aside. "I have to give the order to execute that command."
"No objections here." the cadet commander said.
the simulated black hole caused lights to flicker and the entire platform to being moving in a jerky fashion. The entire crew held on, realizing this manuver was actually hard to pull off. one wrong on-the-fly calculation by the helmsman and the entire ship would get sucked into the black hole. thank goodness there were no such treats in actual space.
