The ship creaked and moaned as it pushed through the artificial atmosphere of Mars. The deafening noise of the engines rang in my ears as I lazily sat in my tall chair. I was the only man on this mission. The rest of my team had been transferred to a different station, leaving just me, the stupid droid in the back, and my wit to keep me company. This was my seventy-second mission to fix some dysfunctional equipment on some remote space station or some moon satellite's solar panels. This time, it was to fix the computer on an evacuated station orbiting Tau Ceti E, a planet in one of the nearby systems. Apparently, a small meteor had ripped a hole through the west wing, and I had to go patch it up.
It was a relatively new station that only went up about forty-five years ago. I know, it’s only twenty-three years older than me, but still. It’s crazy that humans landed on the Moon just a hundred and twelve years ago. Now we have a ship on its way to the Andromeda galaxy, and it’ll be there in just twenty years.
I read that kids who lived between 1970 and 2020 all had aspirations to be astronauts, but now that it’s just a simple way to travel to your job and back, it really kinda sucks. I hate space. I’ll be the first to tell you. I’ve always hated it. It is literally the worst way to die for me. Now that I run these missions alone, I’m afraid of being left alone. Just imagine, being stranded in space, choking on your own CO2. Slowly feeling sleepy, knowing that you will never get home to be buried in native soil. That’s a luxury that most space travelers don’t have.
The only reason I have this job is because my father forced me into it, then he left with everyone else in my family to move onto some deep-space “Cruise Ship” that’s making its way to Andromeda. I’m alone now in every shape and form. I don’t have time to make friends because I’m constantly on the move. Something is always there for me to repair. My ultimate dream though is to live on the Earth. They say it should be safe to live on in the next five years, and the plants will grow back in about ten. I’ve never had a chance to walk on Earth, but it’s been my dream to go there since I was small.
At least I have my very own Cruiser, right? I named her The Escape from Mars. Fitting, since I absolutely hated Mars. Sure, if I went outside, sometimes I would see a red rock or two or three. There was never anything to do except attend illegal fighting rings. It was fun I guess. I got pretty good at fighting, until I almost got arrested. I knocked out a cop, and luckily they never figured out who I was. I read books about how life was on Earth before the accidents. You could have a job, own land, have a family and anything you could dream of. The different continents seemed divided, but each was as welcoming as the other with their different cultures and whatnot. Except for Antarctica. That place is a literal frozen wasteland most of the time, but anyways, I would have loved to lived there on Earth. A place where I could actually feel like I was home.
But now, seventy-six percent of the Earth’s surface is either polluted with dangerous radiation released after all the major nuclear plants in Europe had meltdowns twenty-seven years ago, and on top of that, major climate change killed off fishes and melted a lot of the polar ice caps. Many cities on the shores around the world were destroyed. Everyone was either forced to live in space or die. Sounds almost like a movie.
Humans love to cheat death, so we left. A billion people were still able to inhabit the earth in massive shelters, but the rest were shipped off in “ARKs,” massive ships that could hold hundreds of millions of people each. Now, I had the opportunity to see the place where humans had lived for so long. It was my chance to finally take control of my own ship and be who I was born to be… But that was all for when it was habitable again.
The annoying droid pulled up the comms system and spoke to me. I didn’t hear him the first time over the engines, so I pressed the button on the side of my helmet and asked, “Can you repeat that, Tin Can? Over.”
“Captain Weaver, we will be entering orbit in thirty seconds. Over.”
“Tin Can, what did I tell you about calling me that? Over.”
“Soren, you're the only guy ever who doesn't like being called captain. Wierdo. We will enter orbit in seven seconds. Over.”
“I know you do it just to make me angry. Over.” I counted the remaining seconds in my head before I heard the boosters shut off.
“We are now in orbit. Over.”
“Hah! We didn’t die!” I joked. I let a big smile take over my face. This was the only part of space that I enjoyed: the beautiful silence and the view. I can never get tired of seeing what’s out there.
“Smiling at the stars again?” asked Tin Can.
His real name is TIMM, but I call him Tin Can sometimes. He spoke, but not over the intercom. He had entered the cockpit without my noticing. TIMM was a robot that looked almost like a four-legged spider. He had a top half, with extremely well-calibrated retractable arms and other fancy science stuff, and his four powerful legs. They could jump six feet high in places with twice Earth’s gravity. He’d been my only friend since I joined this crew at nineteen. No matter how much I insult him, or call him annoying, he’ll always be my partner.
“Yeah. I have that feeling on the back of my neck again, TIMM,” I said, pushing my face against the window.
“It’s time to sleep, Soren,” he said calmly. I sighed and pressed my gloved hand on the window.
“I know, TIMM, it’s just that… This will be the longest time that I’ve ever slept in cryosleep. It’ll take me twelve years to get there.”
“Yes, I know, but on the bright side, Earth should be repopulating by the time you get back home.”
“I know.”
“Just remember, I’ll always be here for you.”
“Ah shut up, Tin Can. Alright, go turn on artificial gravity while I get something to eat,” I said. I opened my heavy-duty belt and floated past the cockpit and into the portside wing of my ship. I wore the standard engineer space suit, but when I was off ship, I usually wore the same thing every day. Black skinny jeans, a solid blue T-shirt, a blue trenchcoat thing I had got from the company, and some nice black boots that cut off below my knee. The intercom blared.
“Artificial gravity activated in five seconds. Five, four, three, two--” I braced myself with a pole as TIMM completed the countdown. I felt the gradual pull back to the floor as the ship began its spin. “Gravity at 9.807 meters squared. Earth’s gravity achieved.”
“Good. Nice work, TIMM,” I said.
“Thank you.”
“If you’d be so kind, would you set the timer for my cryosleep? I want to have something in my system before I go.”
“Sure.”
“Timer set for twelve years and twenty-six days, four hours and fifty-two minutes,” TIMM said as the cryochamber emerged from the wall of the ship. The steam hissed out of pressure release mechanisms as the front of the chamber opened. TIMM then pulled it out flat like a bed and told me to lie down. I quickly put on my water suit which was made specifically for cryosleep and lay on the thin squishy mattress. For a few minutes, we checked my blood pressure, stuck some needles into my skin and then finally got me ready to sleep.
“See ya in twelve years, ya Tin Can.”
“See you later, Soren. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the ship for you.”
“If you hit it against an asteroid or something, I’ll crawl out of here and kick your big metal ass,” I joked.
“Yes, yes, of course.”
The procedure continued until he finally put me to sleep. The chamber then recognized that I was unconscious and pulled up its walls. Warm saline water poured into the chamber, and after it had filled, the top shut and clamped down. TIMM pressed a button on the wall, and the chamber slowly lifted itself back into the wall.
“Good night, Soren.”
I took my first breath in twelve years. The light pierced my eyelids as the chamber opened and began to drain the water. My muscles felt extremely weak, so I couldn’t move. I just gasped for air, coughed and gasped again. My hair had grown, but not as much as I thought it would’ve. It was maybe a little lower than shoulder length, but I expected much longer.
“Good morning, Soren. Or afternoon. Or night. Whichever you prefer.”
“TIMM? TIMM! It’s been twelve years!” I yelled. My throat ached with pain after not using it for years. Every breath I took hurt, but it was a good pain.
“I missed you, Soren. I counted every second that you were gone.”
“TIMM. Ugh, I- I’ve been asleep for twelve years?”
“Yes.” After hearing him say that, my eyes watered and I choked back a sob. I had spent twelve years sleeping.
“I’m thirty-four, but I’m still twenty-two!” I cried, shaking my arms helplessly at my side.
“Calm down, Soren. It’s just a side effect. You have a job to do, remember? Don’t worry. I’ll go get the mechanical walkers.” TIMM left me on the wet bed as I had a mini mid-life crisis. Technically, I was still twenty-two, but I wasn’t at the same time. It took me a bit to calm down, but I was still a little uncomfortable. It was always the same after a long sleep. TIMM reappeared with a metal exoskeleton designed for people to use after cryosleep while they go through physical therapy. After the wearer regained some muscle, it was removed and put back into storage.
“Be careful, TIMM. I don’t want you to break my back,” I said as he slowly lifted me off the bed and dried me carefully with a towel. He removed my wet suit and dried the rest of my body. When I was finally dry, he helped me put on my clothing and then my suit over it. Then he lowered me into the metal exo-suit and strapped me in. He calibrated the back panel and then told me to try to lift an arm.
I tried to move my forearms, but all I heard was a whirring and clicking sound coming from the arm. TIMM then recalibrated and told me to try again. This time, along with the whirring, my arm slowly lifted off the ground.
“Try to get up.” I moved and flipped onto my stomach slowly. Then, with all my might, I mushed against the floor to push my body up. It took a few minutes, but I managed to get on all fours. A few tries later, I was on my feet again for the first time in years. My face had filled with blood and my veins had popped, but I had done it.
“I did it!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, you’re doing just fine. Try taking some steps.” I focused with all my might and moved a single foot forward. I had to regain my breath before trying again. After the second step, I couldn’t take anymore.
“It’s- It’s t-too hard,” I gasped.
“Hmm, let me see,” TIMM said as looked over the configuration once again. “Ahh, there’s the problem.”
“W-what?”
“I didn’t set it to the ‘wuss’ setting.” He pressed another button, and then suddenly I felt lighter. I took another step with ease. I could move my arms and legs like before, with no difficulty whatsoever.
“Ah, that’s much better,” I sighed.
“Well, I guess you’re the wuss on this ship,” TIMM said to me as he sucked up the spilled water on the floor. “Go get something to eat. You look like crap.”
“Wow. thanks, ya jerk,” I said as I turned and slowly walked into the food storage area.
I worked hard through physical therapy like normal. It took a little longer than usual, though. I suppose it was just because the amount of time that I had spent asleep. It had been nearly four months since I woke up, and now we were nearing Tau Ceti E. TIMM’s estimated time of arrival was something close to two weeks and two days. Just enough time to get some work done.
TIMM helped me remove my exo-suit while I punched some numbers and studied the job file. You wouldn’t believe how good it felt when you finally got to take it off. Once you were healthy enough to move on your own, the exosuit just restricted your movement. It couldn’t do EVERYTHING that a human can.
“The station’s northwest corner was hit by a small asteroid about the size of a fist. Surprising that it actually made it through the hull. It must’ve been going extremely fast. It ripped through some electrical stuff and tore through the other side.” I paused and looked at TIMM, who just stared blankly back at me. “Huh, not too bad. Just two small hull repairs and some wiring. I slept twelve years for this? Well, I suppose I’m just a step closer to living our dream, eh, TIMM?” He didn’t say anything, so I called him a stupid robot, earning me a hard slap on the back of my head.
“Looks like this job can be completed in less than one hundred twenty hours,” he said to me as he pulled the last piece of the suit off of my back. I rubbed the back of my head where he had hit me when my arm was finally free.
“Yeah, looks that way. Any sign of missing parts, jagged stuff? Hazards? Pretty girl robots?” I teased.
“You know that robots cannot fornicate. Why do you hurt my feelings like this, Soren?”
“Shut up and go get me something to eat.”
“Get it yourself. I have pretty girl robots to dream about.”
“Ah, finally done with repairs,” I said as I pulled my EVA suit off bit by bit. “I’m hungry. get me something to eat, TIMM. I’d like a good meal before I go to bed for another two years.”
“It seems a bit redundant to sleep for years and take months to get back in shape just for a few days. I don’t get to experience sleep, so I play chess on my lonesome for hours.”
“You played chess for twelve years straight?”
“... I played checkers occasionally. Sometimes solitaire.”
“You lonely bastard...”
“... Shut up.”
“Don’t worry though, TIMM. This is the last time I’ll be asleep for a while. Just think. The both of us owning a little home next to a nice big forest! Maybe even a lake or a river! I have enough to buy a pretty good plot of land. We can even build our own house! Most people don’t want to go back, so that just means cheaper land! How much do I have currently saved?”
“Hmm… you have one-point-two million dollars saved from the last thirty-two missions. Without interest. With interest, you have roughly one-point-five million dollars.”
“That’s not enough. I guess my big mission this time should cover it, right? When we get home, I’m bound to get a shit-ton of money.”
“Yes, exactly two point two million dollars. Let’s get you suited up for sleep now,” TIMM said, pushing me into the cryochamber room. I dressed out like normal and set the coordinates for Earth.
“Aight, we’re set!”
“Hey Soren, do you think we can circle around Tau Ceti once before we head back? I want to take a few pictures.”
“Sure, bud. You can do it when I’m asleep. I’m already dressed for bed.”
“Thanks, Soren.”
“Yeah, no problem. Just come over here and tuck me in, won’t you?”
The next hour was spent preparing to put me to bed again. As the lid was shutting, I told TIMM something.
“TIMM, guys like us, guys like you and me, we’re the loneliest in the universe. You and me, we’re a crew. We have a plan unlike the others. We’re gonna make something of ourselves.”
“Tsk Tsk, Soren. Quoting Of Mice and Men shamelessly? You’re not gonna shoot me, are you?”
“If you keep that attitude, maybe.”
“Good night, Soren.”
“Night, TIMM.”
Soren had been asleep for about six years now. TIMM had made sure to keep his sleep chamber as spic and span as possible. He was his best friend, so he didn’t want anything to happen to him. It gets really quiet when he’s not around. Nothing left except the beeping of the controls, the nav system and whenever TImm decide to listen to Soren’s ridiculous collection of music. He had almost a thousand exabytes of classical music from the 1900’s and up to the mid 2100’s. After that, he complained about how people stopped appreciating music as an art. He particularly like the “rock” genre. He was never sure why they called it that. It has no affiliation with geology.
TIMM blasted some band called Radiohead while he made sure the sleep chamber was getting a steady stream of oxygen. There’s only one organism on board who needs it, so there’s enough to last many many years. To make sure he isn’t malnourished, he is fed through a special tube that allows his skin to absorb whatever nutrients he needs. It’s old technology, but it’s what we could afford at the time. Honestly, many think it’s even more reliable than the new stuff.
As soon as he finished maintenance on Soren’s cell, the lights went dim. Strange. TIMM had fixed those a year ago. They shouldn’t be doing that. At the same time, the emergency lights cut on and a sickly sound of shredded metal resonated throughout the ship. This couldn’t be good.
He moved as fast as his legs could move. The doors had to be manually pried open to the cockpit because the power had been redirected to make sure life support still worked. He could hear the warning sirens now. A star had gone supernova about twenty-six light years away.
“How could I have been so dumb? Why didn’t I check this first? I could have redirected our path to make sure we missed the whole star explosion thing.” TIMM said out loud to himself Anything within eighty light years of a star going supernova is basically guaranteed to be exposed to Gamma Ray bursts.
For a living organism like Soren, that’s not a good thing. Seems like the hull of the ship managed to take the first wave of burst, but the ship was in shambles. That sound of metal shredding and tearing was apparently the tail of of the ship. The weaker part simply melted off and was then tossed into the deep vacuum of space.
Panic mode wasn’t activated yet, but it was getting there. TIMM had to figure out how to save Soren and the ship. The ship’s hyperdrive was still functioning, but he wasn’t sure how well he could steer it without the tail. Wait a second… This was space. He didn’t need the tail to steer. In that case, he needed to check the ship’s monopropellant supply.
The ship only had two still functional computers. The others had been fried in the first Gamma Ray burst. It took two tries to force-reboot the computer, but it seemed to have minimal sustained damage. Good. According to the computer, the monopropellant reserves are at around eighty-two percent. Enough to get away from here.
At that very moment, another wave hit, frying the computer in front of TIMM. The final computer was a goddamn stallion. To keep it a bit hands free, he turned on the voice command.
“Voice activated. Ready for command,” the computer’s female voice droned.
“Acting Captain TIMM, reporting,” TIMM said, moving over to the monitor.
“Yes, Captain, what can I do for you?”
“Pull up Captain Weaver’s Life Support systems on screen one and pull up system functions on screen two.”
“Yes, Captain.” The computer complied and pulled up Soren’s life support system. He was stable, but a few more Gamma Ray bursts like that could be devastating to him.
“Computer, note the time until the next Gamma burst.” Since it was an older computer, it took about five minutes for it to calculate.
“Around twenty minutes. Your chance of escaping the burst in time is around seven percent.”
“Okay, better than I originally thought it’d be. Charge up the Hyperdrive and head towards Earth with emergency warp.”
“Warning. This spacecraft will not be able to handle warp in this state. The maximum it can achieve is around sixty-four percent of full Hyperdrive.”
“Can it do seventy?”
“With a small chance of failure, yes.”
“Good, Hyperdrive at 70 percent towards Earth.”
“Yes Captain. Charging Hyperdrive. Eighteen minutes and twelve second to fully charge Hyperdrive.”
“Eighteen minutes? Can you expedite that?”
“Unfortunately, no, Captain. We will have roughly seventeen seconds to launch the hyperdrive before the next Gamma burst. Chances of escape have fallen to three percent.”
“We have to try. We are not going to be sitting ducks here.”
“Yes Captain.” With that, I headed back into the room where Soren was asleep. His vitals were normal and he was healthy. To his delight, even though he spent years in there, he only lost about a month of his actual life span. So, technically he was still twenty-two in body and mind. He was afraid that if he kept sleeping like this, he was going to miss everything, but TIMM had told him differently.
“Six minutes to Hyperdrive!”
“I’ll get us out of here, Soren. Don’t you worry. We are going to get ourselves a little spot of land, you hear? You and I are gonna build a little house with a nice fireplace, but you gotta stick with me through this, okay?” I sat in silence, looking out at the stars, just like Soren liked to do. Huh. It was pretty breathtaking, if I could breathe, that is.
“Two minutes to Hyperdrive!”
TIMM looked back at Soren’s sleep chamber.
“I gotta go, okay; stay with me, alright? Stay with me!” he headed back into the cockpit and took manual control of the ship.
“40 seconds until Hyperdrive is fully charged, Captain.”
“How long until the Gamma burst?”
“90 seconds.”
“Okay, Turning forty degrees starboard towards Earth.” TIMM moved the control stick as accurately as possible and could see the burst of monopropellant out of the front windshield slowly turn the ship in Earth’s direction.
“Hyperdrive fully charged! Forty-two seconds until Gamma burst.”
TIMM basically slammed the button down. The ship lurched forward. If he was a human, he would have surely passed out from the G-force. The inside of the ship moaned louder than ever as it was pushed to the absolute limit.
“GAMMA RAY WILL HIT IN 5”
“4”
“3”
“2”
For a good five minutes, TIMM was not sure what happened. The computer malfunctioned, and I was flying totally blind. The burst hit us in mid-Hyperdrive flight. Seconds felt like years. He looked out the window, and something wasn’t right. It almost seemed as space itself was warping around us. Wait… He could see the space station orbiting the Earth! Wait… No.
It wasn’t orbiting. It was falling. He watched it fall into the atmosphere and burn to a crisp. Wait, he could see more than that, too. He could literally see the continents of Earth move around. It was spinning at a ridiculous speed, but then it suddenly stopped.
The ship still had monopropellant and some actual rocket fuel they stored before the mission for emergencies like this. Modern ships used ion cores to power the ship, but Soren’s was a bit old-fashioned. Lucky too.
TIMM had to force the ship into orbit around the Earth. It took a little bit to calculate, but he managed to find it. For the first time ever, the escape from Mars was in Earth’s orbit. It was a very far orbit, so Earth was only barely visible from the window. TIMM was efficient enough to have just enough to escape orbit.
TIMM looked back and wondered if Soren was okay...
“Soren, wake up. Wake up.”
Strange. I guess sleeping had really taken its toll on me. I didn’t feel right. I opened my eyes and let them adjust to the light. The emergency light of my sleep chamber was lit and blinking. What? They didn’t do that unless they’d worn down or something. Took years and years. I guess TIMM just forgot to reset them last time and it thought it’d been in use ever since we installed it. My body felt weaker than normal. Damn. I’d need to wear that stupid exosuit again.
“Soren, are you alive?”
What? Had TIMM gone insane from loneliness? Of course I was alive, stupid robot.
“Injecting emergency adrenaline now.”
I felt a jarring pain in my chest, and my eyes opened all the way.
“... WWWhwhwa!”
Huh? It felt like I hadn’t used my voice in forever. All I could do was yell, or “croak”.
“Don’t worry, Soren, I’ll get you fixed up in no time.”
Fixed up? What was going on?
“I’ll have to slap the exosuit on you. Sorry, Soren.”
Damn it.
TIMM told me about the Gamma Ray bursts, and I congratulated him for saving me and the ship... for the most part. I spent the next three months using the exo-suit on its weakest setting. Even so, I could barely move around, but I pushed through with the help of TIMM. I worked my way to being able to walk normally with the exo-suit again. I had to get a rigorous shower with TIMM’s help. It was like my top layer of skin was just dead. My hair had been emergency trimmed at some point in sleep, so it only came down to my hips now. TIMM told me there was an issue with the chamber I was in. It seemed like a reasonable answer, so I bought it. It took a while for my voice to come back, though. I ended up having to communicate with pen and paper for a while.
The day before my official “awake” twenty-third birthday, we finally got to take my suit off, and I was able to walk with some difficulty again. The one working computer read that we were approaching Earth after... No, there was no way that was correct. I’d have to get TIMM to fix it up.
Even the Tin Can had been acting uncomfortable around me. He tried to talk to me without saying much, so I knew he was hiding something. I couldn’t find any issues, though, so I assumed he was nervous cause he messed the computer up or something. Oh well, we land our ship on the Company base to pick up our paycheck and then go off to buy ourselves some good ol’ land on Earth. Actually, screw that plan.
“TIMM, set a direct course for Earth. Find any spot of land that you can. I’ve waited way too long for this. We can pick up our pay later.”
“Are you sure?”
“Don’t question me, TIMM.” He sighed and and set a course for Earth. “That’s a good robot.”
“Estimated time of arrival, six days and fourteen hours.”
“I can wait a week, not that big of a deal, but it’d be good if we saw this baby hit her max one last time before we put her down.”
“What do you mean, Soren?”
“Punch it. Hit the throttle.”
“Alright, one last time?”
“One last time.”
“With Hyperdrive, our ETA is about twelve hours.”
“Go for it!”
“Hitting Hyperdrive in… Three… Two… One.
Twilight Sparkle stepped onto her balcony of the Golden Oak Library. A cup of tea sat on top of an intricate saucer levitating in her magical grip. The sun sat low in the sky as it fell for the night. She sipped slowly at her tea while peacefully reading a book. This was the ideal way to spend her time on a warm summer evening. Some good tea, an even better book, and a comfy chair to sit in. Twilight often fell asleep on her balcony on days like this. Her young dragon assistant, Spike, usually brought her a thin blanket and a pillow and covered her up.
This time, Twilight wouldn’t be able to sleep. There was a strange sound today. It’s been bothering her for the past few minutes. She put it off until her curiosity got the better of her.
“Spike!” she called. “Is that you?” Spike entered the balcony seconds later.
“Is what me, Twilight?” he asked innocently
“That sound. Do you hear that? What is it? It’s driving me crazy!” she asked while looking around the balcony for the unwelcome noise.
“Woah, Twilight! Look! Shooting stars! Er- Shooting star!” Spike pointed at a fast object in the sky that was falling closer and closer as every second passed.
“That’s strange,” Twilight said as she inspected it through her telescope. “A meteor shouldn’t be able to move like that,” she observed. “It might just be Rainbow Dash trying some crazy new trick. You know how she is.”
“Twilight, that’s not Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash is inside reading Daring Do. She can’t be in two places at once.”
“Then… what is that!?”
Suddenly the mysterious object turned mid-air and aimed directly for the small, peaceful town of Ponyville.
“There! TIMM! I see some sort of village or something! Land near there! I’ll get changed real quick. These uncomfortable space clothes have got to go for good.”
“Alright, you got it, Cap,” TIMM said as he lowered the altitude of the ship even more. “Descending to twelve hundred meters.” I felt the ship jerk slightly as I attempted to throw on my padded skinnies. I threw my belt on it, tossed on my blue shirt, my boots. People around Home Base thought I was strange for wearing those clothes rather than the plain white garbage that they wear. People back in the day used to wear these kinda clothes all the time, so why not?
“What’s our ETA? Over,” I asked over the intercom.
“Eight point seven minutes. Over.”
“Aight. I’m ready for this. Over.”
“I know you are. Over.”
Suddenly a warning siren blared. Engine 2 was damaged somehow. Seems like some debris got jammed inside.
“Soren, we lost Engine 2. Get up here. Over,” TIMM said in an uneasy voice. I instantly jumped into the pilot seat and tried to carry the weight of the ship manually, but she was a heavy one. It was never designed to land on Earth. Hell, it rarely left space. It usually sat in a space hangar.
SHHHHHHBLAAM
That didn’t sound good.
“Soren! Engine 2 is GONE.”
“Old news, TIMM. I’m working on it!” The ship started to spin uncontrollably, throwing me against the windshield.
“NO! It’s GONE!”
“...Shit” was all I could say when I looked out the window to see a whole lot of nothing where Engine 2 should have been. With the lack of balance, the ship would be basically impossible to land normally. Wait… I had an idea.
“Soren! We’re losing altitude! We’re at eight thousand meters!”
“TIMM! I have an idea! How much monopropellant do we have left?
“Absolutely none, Soren. I used it to get out of orbit.”
“Crap. Come on, what else do we have?”
“We have half a tank of rocket fuel,” he said as he yanked the control stick as hard as he could in the opposite direction of the spinning to try to even out the spin a bit.
“Okay, perfect. Can we blast rocket fuel out of the monopropellant ports?” I asked as I was thrown right back in my seat.
“We can, but the only oxidation we have is the oxygen in the cabin since we can’t flow our oxidizer through with the fuel.”
“Shit, okay. What if we get low enough to equalize pressure, and then blow cabin pressure to cancel the spin the best we can?” It took TIMM a second to calculate.
“That… that could work… FOUR THOUSAND METERS!”
“And then once we stop spinning, we blast our landing thrusters to slow down the best we can.” I said as I strapped into my chair. The G-forces were starting to get to me, but I trained for this.
“Ready, Soren?” TIMM asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s do this shit.”
“3”
“2”
“1”
Twilight and Spike watched in horror as the strange object grew closer and closer, and then suddenly a blast of fire slowed it down greatly down a few miles out from Ponyville.Then it fell out of sight under the treeline. Seconds later, it crashed through the trees with the sound of a massive metallic crunch and left a trail of thrown-up sod behind it. It made a monstrous roar as the smoke continued to pour out. Part of the object was on fire. The strange object was silent for a little, but then released a loud hiss of steam from multiple places.
“Spike, go get Rainbow Dash and tell her to get the rest of the girls. Now.”
“On it!” he said. He flung open the balcony door, yelling, “Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash!” It didn’t take too long for Rainbow Dash to get up on the balcony with Spike gripping her leg.
“Huh? What is it, Twi-i-W-WHAT IS THAT?” she exclaimed, pointing at the strange metallic monster.
“I don’t know, but it looks like trouble. Get the rest of the girls here as fast as possible. I’m going to write the princess about this and try to come up with some sort of plan.” She opened the door to go find some paper and a quill.
“What kind of plan?” Rainbow asked.
“I don’t know. Just go get the girls. Come on, Spike.” Spike followed Twilight back into the library and shut the door, leaving Rainbow Dash on the balcony.
“This is fishy. I’ve never seen Twilight so scared before. Could it be that she didn’t know how to handle this situation?” Rainbow laughed that off. “What am I saying? It’s Twilight. She’ll figure something out.” Rainbow spread her wings to take off. She hopped up onto the railing and looked back at the door. “I hope.”
“Landing somewhat successful, Soren.”
“WE’RE ALIVE! HELL YEAH!”
TIMM chuckled.“Never change, Soren. Please.”
I needed a few minutes to recover. That landing took everything out of me. The ship was totally destroyed and basically guaranteed to never fly again. It’d had a good life. Lots of fantastic memories made on here. We sat in silence for a few minutes before I needed to get the hell out.
“Woo baby, I’m getting all excited,” I sang as I ripped off my safety belt. “I’m ready to get offa this dump. I haven’t had a cigarette in a while. TIMM, can you go get me a pack or two from storage?” We weren’t allowed to have cigarettes while on duty or on ship for obvious reasons. We had inspections every once in awhile, but I’d never gotten caught with them.
“Here ya go, Soren. You know it’s unhealthy for you, right?”
“Yeah, but every time I sleep, I get healed up. It’s amazing how the human body works.”
“Your death wish.”
“Shaddap.”
TIMM and I had built this ship from scratch and from pulling parts off of destroyed and discarded ships in junkyards and stuff. It was mostly TIMM who put it together, but I made the plans for it. Multiple times. The first three times, it wouldn’t lift any more than ten feet of of the ground. The next couple made it spin uncontrollably. The eighth had hull integrity issues, but here we were with my beloved MARK X. I’ll admit, the hull integrity issues were just me trying to add hidden cigarette compartments.
I’d finally managed to get MARK IX working with my design, but then the engine had exploded. Luckily, MARK X had no issues, and I’d used it for many, many years without issues.
“What’s the oxygen content outside right now, TIMM?” I asked as I looked around for an oxygen mask.
“Twenty-two percent.”
“Alright, so I don’t need any mask. Any dangerous gasses?”
“None traceable.”
“Pollution?”
“Next to nothing.”
“Huh, they did a pretty good job of cleaning this place up, eh?”
“Yep.”
“Temperature?”
“Seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit and twenty-two point two degrees Celsius.”
“Hmm. What’s the ship’s usual temperature?”
“Sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit and twenty degrees Celsius, but right now it’s on fire, sooo...”
“Perfect, eh?”
“If you consider being on fire is normal, yes.”
“Oh, you smartass.”
“You asked for it.”
“Enough talking. I’m getting the hell out of here.”
“Soren! Wait!”
The six ponies and dragon slowly approached the strange metal object. The hair on the back of all their necks stood up as they took step after step. The grass nearby was torn up; drier patches even had small fires going. The girls carefully avoided the flaming spots and got within a few meters
“Hello?” Twilight called out to the metal monster. When there was no response, she motioned for Fluttershy, the shy yellow pegasus, to try to talk to it.
“Um. Hello, Mister Monster, sir. I’d like to ask what you’re doing here,” she said behind her own long hair. Her question was greeted by a loud hissing sound as more hot steam was released from a different part of the ship. Fluttershy jumped back behind her friends as Rainbow Dash lifted up into the air.
“Okay, ya big metal jerk! Ya can’t scare MY friends like that,” Rainbow Dash yelled as she flew at it. She knocked herself out as soon as she hit it.
“…”
There was a sound of steam releasing and metal groaning, but nopony noticed.
“…”
“Rainbow Dash!”
CLUNK
“What the hell was that?”
“I dunno. Hail, maybe?”
“Whatever. I’m opening the hatch in three, two, ONE!” I smacked the button, and the door slowly opened, letting me feel sunshine again. I was hit with an enormous amount of information at once. I smelt fresh oxygen and took my first couple breaths on Earth. My eyes were shut because I wanted to take everything one step at a time.
Next it was my ears. I heard birds and natural wind. On Mars, they had wind generators. Fake wind to replicate the real thing as best as possible. This was so much better.
“Yrafan Pror!”
“What the hell?” I thought. It must’ve just been the broken computer, or some other species of bird that I never knew existed. Quite honestly, I couldn't give less of a shit. It was time to open my eyes now.
In front of me, I could see grass. Real grass. Real flowers, even! On Mars, the plants were kept in locked greenhouses to make sure they stayed as safe as possible, so no one really ever saw them other than whoever worked there and my mother. Before she left with my father, she gave me a flower that she had stolen from the greenhouse.
“To remember me by,” she said as she put it into my hands. It was purple with yellow outlines on the petals. I couldn’t say anything, so she just shed a tear and hugged me. Then I watched as she took her bag and boarded the massive ship that would take her to Andromeda.
I still kept it in a preservation chamber to this day. It’s technically in its own cryosleep right now… on the burning ship. Damn it. Oh well, I couldn’t worry about that right now.
I hungrily looked around. What else was there to see?
“What the hell?” I looked over to see a bunch of… I don’t even know. I’d never seen an animal like that before. They resembled a horse of some kind, but was much smaller. Some had a natural-ish color, and some sported unnatural colors of fur like purple, blue and pink. I felt a bit of a twinge in my gut. Something wasn’t sitting right with me, but I temporarily pushed these thoughts away and continued to look around. There seemed to be a town not too far away. Not too far of a walk. I decided to make my way over there, until I saw it.
They were talking to each other.
Not English. Definitely NOT English. It just sounded like gibberish to me. Upon closer examination, there were six of them and… two of them had horns. Unicorns. What? This was fairytale stuff. Probably just some rich kid’s toys or something. Something DEFINITELY feels wrong here.
I disregarded it and stepped out of the ship and onto the ground. I fell to my knees and put my hand on the floor. I felt the natural texture of the slightly moist dirt and the grass around it. The dirt slipped under my fingernails as I took a scoop of dirt in my hand. I took my time looking around like a kid in a candy shop. I laughed to myself before dropping the dirt back to the ground.
“Hey TIMM! Get out here!”
“Rainbow Dash!”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just knocked myself out for a second.” She rubbed her head before she saw it. The hatch on the side of the metal monster was open, and there was something in there.
“Twilight, l-look.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“There! Look! There’s something there!”
“Yeah, I know, Rainbow. That thing is the entire reason we came out here.”
“No, Look! It’s open!” she said, not bothering to hide the fear in her voice.
“Huh?” Twilight turned to look, and there it was. Her eyes opened fully when she saw the bright light coming from a rectangular hole in the creature. In the center of it, a figure. It was impossible to tell what it was, but it stood in the rectangular hole looking out towards them. It just looked like a shadow from the lighting, but it wasn’t.
“What in tarnation is that?” called Applejack from behind Rarity, who had taken her large hat and hidden her face behind it.
It looked around and then looked straight at Twilight. She was frozen in fear. Then it just shook its head, stepped out of the metal monster and fell to the ground. Nopony dared to move. Spike had lodged himself onto Twilight’s leg and wouldn’t let go.
They all watched it take the the dirt in its paw and pick a flower from the floor. They heard some sort of laugh from it, then it looked back into the hole and called in some strange language.
“Rath Ha! Webb Oeu Yee!”
“It’s o-obviously intelligent,” Twilight said, still frozen in place.
“What do we do?” Rainbow whispered.
“I-I don’t know. I guess it’d be best to wait for Princess Celestia to reply to my letter. Let’s all just go back to the library and try to figure something out.”
Twilight moved quickly, but quietly. She led the rest of the group back towards the library as fast as she could.
The library door slammed shut as soon as every pony and dragon were inside. Twilight’s mind raced, so she didn’t process the fifteen or so questions thrown her way.
“So, it seemed intelligent...” she said into the air to nopony in particular. She stood pondering for a moment before she realized she had never written the latter to the Princess.
“Okay, Spike, take a letter,” she said, taking a seat on the floor. This was so much to process. Seemingly out of nowhere, intelligent life had landed in the same town as her. Wait… what if they had malicious intent? She had just left it in the middle of the woods!
“Okay, Twilight. I’m ready,” Spike chimed.
“Just say that something incredibly important has come up and she needs to come down to Ponyville as soon as possible. I have to go and make sure that the situation doesn’t spread and get worse.”
“Um okay?” Spike quickly scribbled down exactly what Twilight had said because he had no idea how to elaborate on that. As soon as he finished writing, he rolled it up and blew on it, causing the paper to vanish.
I guess I spooked them when I yelled out for TIMM, because they instantly turned tail and ran away. Fantastic hospitality, I’d say, but right now, I just want to take in all of this. I took a deep breath again and really tried my hardest to smell the smells. There was a tinge of lilac all around. It was barely noticeable, but it was there along with some other smells. Of course I had only ever smelled artificial flowers, but it seemed fairly close.
TIMM emerged from the ship carrying a few crates that had survived the landing. I looked over and counted them in my head. There were about thirteen yellow ration boxes and nine orange emergency supply boxes. Ah! All three of my personal boxes survived! That’s like almost sixty cases of pure martian cigarettes each. Nice!
“Hey Soren,” TIMM called. “Looks like we have almost two months worth of supplies if we really stretch it out and ration the food.”
“How do you know? You didn’t even open the cases?” I asked.
“I took inventory before we left from the station. I knew that you’d forget to.”
“Ouch, taking shots are we?”
“Yep, but seriously. You need to be a little bit more responsible since we’re on our own now.”
“Does that mean I can claim land here?” I asked, getting a little excited.
“...Yes, you can claim land.”
“YES BABY!” I yelled. TIMM chuckled at me. I shape my hands in a binocular form like a kid would and scoped out the area. “I choose that spot right there to be MINE!” I said as I pointed to a cozy looking spot past the thick trees and out into the open grass field.
“Alright, alright. Settle down, Magellan. Let’s get a shelter set up and look for outside resources. We don’t want to start digging a big hole in our emergency rations just yet.”
“Um, okay. I’m assuming that we have tools in one of the supply boxes, so let’s go ahead and search the Archive on how to build a shelter.
If I ever wanted to look anything up, I could use TIMM’s internal database that I called “The Archive”, which was basically something like the Library of Babel, but in a more understandable format. Another way to explain it is that it’s like the golden age of the internet before it started to get regulated heavily by local governments. It’s a pool of all the information I could ever need. Of course, this “internet encyclopedia” is really lonely because it was officially cut from public use and was basically frozen in time about three decades before I was born. Any users of a website or questions asked in a forum have been that way for years.
That wasn’t the big issue though. I had all the information I need to build something, but would I have the proper resources? I’m fairly fit, so I can do the work, but Would I have everything that I need?
“Oh and Soren, I heard weird noises earlier. Was that you?” TIMM inquired as he arranged the supplies in the most efficient way possible.
“Actually, it was some other type of animal.” I said, helping TIMM pull out the tools from the supply box.
“Other animal? What do you mean? I haven’t heard of any sounds like the ones from a few minutes ago.”
“It was some type of horse, I think. There were what? Like eight of them? Or was it seven? I don’t know. They were all really bizarre colors like pink and blue and purple.”
“Interesting… And they were the ones who made these noises?”
“Yes! It seemed like they were communicating with each other through speech.”
“Like some sort of intelligent being?”
“I don’t want to believe that, but I suppose.”
“This might get complicated. If they are in fact intelligent, that would mean the probability of hostility might be fairly high.”
“Why do you assume that?” I asked.
“Because the most intelligent creatures that you and I know are Human Beings.”
“Eh… Good point. Even if we’re wrong, we might as well be on the safe side.”
“Come on, let’s get this shelter built before it gets dark. We would exposed to anything that this place has to offer. Especially those “intelligent” horses you mentioned earlier.” TIMM said a bit quieter, even though there was seemingly nothing else but trees around.
“Alright, whatever you say. OH! By the way, I’m calling this land “Damery Pass””
“Why that specific name?”
“It sounds pretty cool, and it reminds me of when I used to pretend to be a knight in shining armor with my friends in primary school.”
“Never change, Soren.”
“Stop saying that!” I said as we started dragging the supply crates towards my newly claimed land.
