Origin

Chapters

Dream Watcher
Rude Awakening
Eye of the storm.

Dream Watcher

My dearest sister, Tia;

I still cannot believe it has been four years that we have been on this flying piece of metal. This “Star Swirl”, or at least that is what you and your protégé, Ms. Twilight Sparkle, have decided to call this ‘Space Ship’, which we fly on.

The others are lucky; they have been fast asleep in cryo stasis for these four long years, the only exceptions being when Spike and Vinyl have to be awakened every six months so that Spike can send you my reports, and so Vinyl can do perform maintenance tests. Confound these machines; all I do is keep away from the magic powered engines and let ponies that understand them, like Vinyl, operate on them. I hate that I have to go in there to refill them with my energy every few weeks just so we can travel at constant this constant light-speed towards this “Keplar 22-B”.

It has also been four years since Twilight Sparkle has discovered this planet during the Gala with our telescope, while using her magic to improve it. She saw the planet, I have seen it many times, and didn’t think much of it. But you know her; she began to read every single book that she could about the planet, called Keplar 22-B. She and our head astronomer, Star Gazer, discovered how habitable it truly is. (I have also noticed how close those two have grown since then) and how the Great Star Swirl the Bearded discovered it and had the theory that it housed alien life. Twilight told you about this planet, and you took this as an opportunity to test this hunk of metal.

I am still shocked that the head miner Steve (What an strange name.) found so much iron so quickly. I still don’t know why we couldn’t teleport to this planet. I guess four light years is a long way to teleport, and that would require a great deal of energy, but even then it would still have taken us years to get to this planet.

For four years I have been virtually alone, something that I hoped I had gotten used to with me being on the moon for a thousand years. Alone. That is why I volunteered to stay awake with the ship. At first all I did was look out the windows in the control room, to the unbounded space ahead, but now I manage to keep myself busy.

I digress, for my solitude is almost over. We are but three days away from this “Keplar 22-B”. It truly is a beautiful planet, and unlike our own, it has a light cyan color in its atmosphere. But… I do not know dear sister - I don’t have good feeling about this place. I do not think we should be here, however, on the other hoof, my curiosity tells me we must find out if this planet has any secrets to unlock. Perhaps we can even discover how our kind came to be. Overall, I am anxious to see what this planet holds. Now I go to wake up the rest - to finally end my loneliness once more.

Your sister -

Luna

I sighed when I read through the letter. My sister and I have never been close. Even though we’ve been closer since my nightmare moon incident ended, we were not as close as most of the siblings in Equestria. I snap back to reality when I hear the small plop of my tear hitting the scroll. I roll the scroll up and put in my saddlebag to give to the baby dragon, Spike.

As I walk through the ship, I pass the control room, the mini hospital, and potions room, which was for Zecora. I pass my quarters, which also doubled as a housing for the escape pods. I hope we never have to use those. I thought to myself as I walk down the hallways. I hear my hooves clop against the thick metal floors for four solid minutes before I reach the cryo bay. I put my hoof up to the scanner on the door and a tri-tone beep alerts me that the door is about to open. There were twelve cryo beds in the room: six on one side, six on the other. Only eleven of them were closed and in use. I walked over to the cryo beds, noticing that they were each filled with the yellow gas that keeps the ponies’ bodies frozen in time, keeping it exactly the same as when they laid down inside.

I trotted over to Twilight’s cryo bed. I was about to deactivate it when I decided to read her dreams. I had gained the ability to read ponies dreams many years ago while I was Nightmare Moon, luckily I could still do it after Twilight and her friends returned my troubled mind to normalcy. I have always felt bad about doing this, but my curiosity was, once again, far too great to ignore. I placed my hoof on the pod and close my eyes in focus as my vision shifts into focus on her dreams.

I see Twilight, Shining Armor, and Cadenza in the Canterlot castle gardens right next to the roses and my bed of night lock flowers. I only ever went in that garden to care for my night lock.

“Twily! Why does the princess want you to go to that place!?” Her brother, Shining Armor, says.

“Because Star Gazer and I have discovered what it could hold and we would be the best ponies to understand such secrets. I don’t want to leave you, Cadence, or Ponyville, but what we may discover could benefit all of pony kind!” Twilight says with tears dripping down her face.

Shining Armor looks down at the grass to try to hide his face. “How long will you be gone?”

Now Twilight looks down, saying softly, “Nine years.” Her brother is starting to get teary eyed. Cadence, who was watching silently with tears in her eyes, says, “I’ll miss you, Twilight.”

“I’ll miss you too. Both of you” I see them all embrace each other in a group hug before my magic wears off and my sight goes blurry.

I pull my hoof away and blink away the tears in the corners of my eyes. I never like to watch their dreams, I always feel guilty afterwards. My curiosity always gets the best of me. I walk over to the orange one, Applejack’s, cryo bed. I place my hoof against the thick glass of the cryo bed and I think twice whether or not I should watch her dreams.

I see Applejack on her farm with what I assumed to be her family. I had never met her family except for the little one, Apple Bloom, I think. There was a big red stallion, which I assumed was her brother, and a little old mare, obviously her grandmother.

“Applejack, d’ya really have to go?” Sobs Apple Bloom.

“I’m afraid so, lil’ sis. The princess thinks that if every bearer of the Elements of Harmony contributes their efforts, it’ll be lots better. Goodbye, Apple Bloom.” She turns to the big red one, “Goodbye, Big Mac.” Big Mac is openly crying, he hugs her and sobs into her shoulder.

“Nope. You ain’t goin’.”

Applejack is crying, through her tears she says, “Yes, Big Mac. I’m sorry, but I can’t just ignore the princess‘s request.” Applejack turns to the old gray one with the walker. “Goodbye Granny.” She looks confused about what was happening, but still hugs the orange mare. “I’ll miss all of you.”

I pulled my hoof away when I feel tears streaming down my face. I rarely cried. I wanted to stop watching these ponies’ dreams, it just didn’t feel right, but I couldn’t help myself. I went over to Rarity’s cryo bed, and once again, I put my hoof on the cryo bed and close my eyes.

I see the inside of her shop, which doubled as a house; I don’t remember what it was she called it. Rarity was in the kitchen making breakfast, when her sister, Sweetie Belle walks in with mail poking out of her saddlebag. “RARITY, MAIL!” She yells.

Rarity responds, saying, “Bring them over here, darling.” Sweetie Belle walks into the kitchen and set the mail down on the table. Rarity sat down on one of the chairs. Among the mail she sees a scroll with the infamous crimson colored Canterlot stamp on it.

“Well, this is probably another order from Fancy Pants.” She opens it up and reads it to herself. I already know what it said: I was the one who wrote it, after all. It was a notification for this Keplar 22-B mission. When she’s done, she drops the scroll on the floor; she looks to be on the verge of tears when she cries, “Of all the things in the world this is. The. Worst. Possible. THING!”

She uses her magic to conjure up a red sofa over to her and she lays down on it, sobbing. Sweetie Belle runs into the room, “What’s wrong Rarity?” she asks.

Rarity looked up at her and asked. “Are mother and father back to town?”

Sweetie Belle responds, confused, “Yeah. Why? What’s wrong?” The alabaster filly looks terrified by now.

Rarity gets up and says, “Come on Sweetie Belle, we must leave to go talk with them.”

I pulled my hoof away from the next pod, which housed the cyan speedster, Rainbow Dash. ”I must stop; I’m getting far too distracted from what I must do - to awake them from their long slumber.” I walked away and proceeded to the monitor at the center of the room. I put my hoof up to the scanner. Beep… Beep… BEEP. I pulled down the lever to the off position and hear the pods hiss as the gas is filtered out. The computer says in a strange voice devoid of emotion:

“Cryo pods deactivated.”

Rude Awakening

The pods slide open, as the gas ran into the heavily air filtered room. I cough as the gas reaches the center of the room and I began to feel sleepy. It took all my willpower not to fall asleep right there on the hard metal floor. I had to make sure we didn’t have vomit all over the place.

Spike and Vinyl were the first ones up, and Vinyl woke up without vomiting. “But I do have a major hangover, it feels like.” She said in a moan while leaning forward and gripping her head in between her alabaster white hooves. Since she was a nightclub DJ, I’m fairly certain that she knew about hangovers all too well. I’ve always loved nightclubs; however there are none at home in Canterlot. They’re one of the only places where ponies dance and celebrate in my night. Of course, seeing your princess in a club is rather peculiar, so with my magic, I create a disguise and go as somepony I’ve made up in my head.

I quickly levitated over a steel box for young Spike. Since he’s a dragon, his vomit is like acid; it will eat right through a flimsy paper bag. “Mommy, is it time for breakfast already?” He said, still half-asleep. “Oh, hi, Luna. Uh-Oh I think I’m gonna -“ He quickly grabbed the steel box and vomited foul smelling green acid into it. I nearly threw up myself; dragon vomit is not a pleasant smell.

“Greetings Spike, greetings Vinyl. Spike, are you okay?” I asked, noticing that the steel box was almost entirely full of his acid-vomit.

He said meekly, “Ya, I’m fine. When will the others wake up?”

I responded by saying, “Hopefully in a few minutes, you two have been through the process of awaking cryo-stasis seven other times. Your bodies are used to the side effects.”

“How can we help them get up”? Vinyl asked.

I thought for a second before saying, “Vinyl, make sure the cryo beds survived these four years of use with no technological errors. Spike, get paper bags; lots and lots of paper bags.”

Vinyl tried to wipe her face of sweat, and noticed something was wrong. “Where are my sunglasses!” She asked, panicking.

“Um, you do know we are in space. The closest star is millions of miles away.”

“What’s your point?” She retorted.

I rolled my eyes and said, “Ugh, fine. They should be in one of the cabinets over by the sink, get you tool kit too. Star Gazers cryo bed is making an odd noise, and Spitfire’s Cryo bed door is jammed.”

I heard a groan from behind me. I turned around and was face to face with the cyan pegasus, Rainbow Dash. She was sitting up on the side of the cryo bed. “Good morning, Rainbow Dash." She was obviously experencing one of the side effects, Being 'high' as the teenage ponies say it.

“Where am I? Oh, hiya Luna what are you doing here? Man, I had the weirdest dream. Okay, It was me in some ice cream truck in Cloudsdale, and Scoots and Celestia were doing things in the back seat, so I was all like -”

“Rainbow Dash! Be quiet and let me talk for a moment, please. You are in the space ship, which we’ve named “Star Swirl”. You have just woken up from being in cryo statist for the past four years. You will feel very noxious in a few seconds and, how do you kids say it, high from the gasses used to keep your body preserved. Your memory will return shortly, I assure you.”

“Um, okay princess, don’t you want to hear the rest of my dream?”

“No, sorry but I am very busy and can not spare the time. Perhaps another time.”

“Whatever you say, Princess. Oh… whoa, I don’t feel so good.”

Spike quickly ran over to her with two paper bags, and said, “Hold on Rainbow! Take this.” Spike held the bag up to Rainbows mouth, since it would be hard for her to hold it while she vomits. She throws up for a whole two minutes - a relatively short amount of time compared to the normal ten minutes of sickness.

Three down, eight to go, I thought as I sighed. Zecora was the next to wake up. “I must admit, I do feel like shit.”

I levitated a paper bag over to her. “Oh? So you’ve retained your memory?” I asked, surprised.

“I say without a doubt, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Never mind. By the way, why do you always talk in rhymes?” I’ve been meaning to ask Zecora for a while. I’ve never met somepony who speaks in rhymes so constantly.

“It is the ancient dialect of my tribe, this is but one of the many other practices we had which I cannot fully describe.”

“Makes perfect sense.” I said, sarcastically.

Zecora gave me a glare while she gagged and puked. Spike put a clothespin on his nose while he took Zecora and Rainbow’s vomit filled bags down the garbage chute, which brought it down to the bottom of the ship to be crushed and burned safely. Spike grumbled as he tossed the smelly bags in to the shoot. “Why do I always get the shit jobs?”

“Oh, Spike? That reminds me, could you send this message to Equestria for me?”

“Of course, that’s what I’m here for, I guess. It’s going to take six months to get there though.” I sighed at that statement. Some Magic did travel faster than light, but his didn’t go nearly fast enough as I wished. Such a feat would require a great deal of energy to do. Spike held the scroll in his claws, took a deep breath, and engulfed the scroll in his green fire, sending it through a hole in the wall that brought the scroll to the air lock and sending it to never ending space towards home. Equestria.

Spike was obviously very tired after that. “ I think I need... need to… take a little… nap” He sucked in desperate gasps of air with each breath.

I turned around and lifted my hoof towards the door. “The rooms are down the hall if you remember. I can take you too if you so -” I was cut off by the sound of snoring. Spike and already fell asleep on the hard sold metal floor.

Spitfire woke up before Vinyl could fix the door jam. It was only open a few inches, not nearly enough to slip out through. Spitfire was beginning to lose it. “GET ME OUT! GET ME OUT NOW!” Spitfire yelled.

“Calm down! I need to repair the circuit then replace the tumbler. It will take a minute.” Vinyl snapped back.

Spitfire was pushing desperately on the thick glass door. “Tight. Spaces. Cant. Handle. It. Is it getting hot in here? Is it just me or IS IT GETTING REALLY HOT IN HERE OR WHAT!” She was banging her head against the glass lid of the cryo bed. I was getting worried she would hurt herself. Rainbow dash couldn’t stop laughing at the spastic flame haired Pegasus.

I put her back to sleep with a spell. She was safer that way. “Man I’ve never seen her like that.” Rainbow dash observed.

“I didn’t know she was so claustrophobic, thought I guess it makes sense for a pony who is all about aerial freedom.” Rainbow Dash nodded.

Vinyl fixed the door jam in a matter of minutes. Star Gazer was the next one up. The poor colts white fur was tinted yellow from the gasses. His yellow mane was lighter than I remembered it being. His cutie mark was a yellow eight-pointed star with a telescope. He sat up at began talking; it was obvious that he was high.

“Hey, you’re not Twilight… Oh, hey Rainbow, Wassup, buddy? We’re not in Fillydelphia anymore, right? Last thing I remember was that me and Twilight were - oh wait you’re not gonna fool me, I’m not telling ya what we did.” I have observed enough of his dreams to know what he 'did' with Twilight. I am surprised at how flexible she is… Star Gazer looked to his left to see Twilight, who was still sleeping. “Hey, Twilight! Why are you sleeping? C’mon we’ve got, Luna, Rainbow, Vinyl and –Oh, hey! Spike! Come on! Get up, Twilight! It’s like a party!”

“DID SOMEPONY SAY PARTY?” I quickly turned around, only to be startled to see that the pink mare, Pinkie Pie, had awoken. She said excitedly “Oh, we have got to throw the biggest party, a ‘Waking up after four years’ party. Hey, has anypony seen my party cannon?”

“It’s in the weapons bay. Do you feel alright, Pinkie?” I asked.

“Of course I feel fine, 4 years gave me the greatest energy boost! I feel like galloping all over the place!”

“Just stay still for a while, I don’t think you should move around for a little bit.”

“Okey, dokey, loki. Hi, Zecora, Hi, Star Gazer, Hi, Rainbow dash.”

“Hey, I know you! You’re the pink one, the one whose all party! OH-YA!” Star Gazer replied, obviously still a little bit messed up.

“Hello child, I can still see you are still very wild.” Zecora said.

“Of course I am!” Pinkie said, grinning.

Rarity woke up next. She was obviously experiencing the side effects of cryo stasis. “Spike, would you be a dear and fetch me that bag before I - oh my, Hurry please!” Spike sprinted towards Rarity like lightning, quickly holding a paper bag up to her mouth. I looked away; it was only a matter of time when one of these ponies got me sick. After she was done she levitated a mirror to her face, I quickly covered my ears, and so did Spike after he put her bag down the shoot.

“AAAAAHHHHHHHH, my hair! It’s all yellow. Of all the things this is. The. Worst. Possible. THING.” Her horn started to glow when she said, “Oh, wait, there are no sofas in this ship, are there?” I shook my head.

“Well that’s just great. Now I have to take a shower, dye my hair, and -”

I cut her off before she got melodramatic on us all. “Rarity, don’t worry about your hair! We are in space, and about to land on some unknown alien planet that could be dangerous. So get your priorities straight!” The whole room went quiet. I usually didn’t get this agitated, but these ponies were getting on my nerves. Rarity’s shriek and my elevated shouting were enough to wake up Spitfire from the spell, as well as Applejack, and Fluttershy.

“What in tarnation is all the yelling about, Granny Smith? The chickens aren’t supposed to do their cock-a-doodle-doo thing for another hour, so stop yelling at them!” Applejack was obviously high off the gasses, so I ignored her mindless babbling.

“Why are you yelling? Can I help? I mean, if that’s okay. If not I can just wait over there.”

“Greetings. Fluttershy. Are you feeling okay?”

“Oh yes, wonderful, as a matter of fact. I just have slight headache. I hope I didn’t interrupt you, Luna, or you Rarity.”

“Oh that’s quite alright, just some of you woke up on the wrong side of the cryo bed.”

I was grateful that when Spitfire got up, she didn’t have another nervous breakdown. “Hello, Princess. I had the scariest dream that I was buried alive, and I was breathing in some kind of poisonous gas!”

I replied trying not laugh, “You have no idea, and please, call me Luna.”

“Is everyone up?” She asked.

“Everyone but Twilight.” Star Gazer said.

“Are we almost there?” This from Spike.

“We will arrive in three days” I replied instantaneously.

I heard a groan from behind me and turned to see Twilight trying to sit up.

“Well, good morning, Twilight.”

My vision was blurry and I had an incredibly painful headache pulsing in my temples and horn as I tried to sit up in the gel-like bed. I groaned as I swept my hind-legs over the side of the bed and bent forward in exhaustion.

I heard a voice come from my right. “Well, good morning, Twilight.” It sounded like Princess Luna. “Are you okay, Twilight?”

“Yes, I think so.” I said weakly.

“Well if everyone is ready, then lets get going to the cockpit so you can all see what the hell were getting ourselves into.” Luna said.

I heard Pinkie Pie giggle, “He-he, you said cockpit!”

“Pinkie, stop being so immature!” I said in an exasperated tone.

“Okey dokey loki.” She said while bounding away, as she always did.

As we were all walking out of the cryo lab, and through the long halls of the ship, Star Gazer trotted up next to me and said, “How was your nap?”

“Better than I expected after reading up on the side effects before getting on here.”

“You’re such a bookworm, but that’s what I love about you.” He smiled and I blushed.

Rainbow turned around, and said, “Oh, brother, get a room, you two.”

“That’d be nice.” Star Gazer whispered to me. I blushed till my face was as red as one of the apples from Sweet Apple Acres.

'Home' I thought. I almost cried at the thought that I wouldn’t see Shining Armor or Cadence for another four years. Their filly should already be born and three years old. My parents passed away a year before I left. Their death was another reason why I agreed to go on this mission – I wanted… no,needed to run away. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, or accept the fact that I would never see my parents again.

We trotted through the halls for a while before we reached the front of the ship, which was the control room. The blast shields were folded out over the thick windows. “Spitfire, fold back the blast shields” Luna requested.

“Sure.” Stated Spitfire

Spitfire walked past the 3D magic map project towards the pilot’s chair and sat down. She pressed a few of the large, blinking buttons and placed her hoof on one of the many scanners on the ship. The blast shield folded back from the widows, revealing a gigantic blue sphere laden with white clouds, or something else in the atmosphere. Everypony gasped at the giant planet while Luna announced,

“There it is. Keplar 22-B.”

Eye of the storm.

Hey everypony, sorry for the late update, i recently had a family emergency in which i was away from my laptop,ALOT. so heres chapter 3 and due to me being a lazy ass,expect REALLY slow updates. Sorry im just that way. But time = Qaulity.

Enough about my mundane problems. Here is chapter 3

I tapped Spitfire on the shoulder and asked, “When will we be landing?”

Spitfire took a second think before replying. “About two days, give take a few hours.”

“How about where?”

“Quadrant 4, Sector 6, 67 clicks south of Charlie zone.” She recited, clearly from memory.

I gave her a blank and confused stare. She sighed and said, “You see that cloud the looks like a balloon?”

“Yes.”

“Just south of there.”

I caught myself staring at Keplar 22-B for a while, I don’t know how long – it was both fascinating and breath taking. The planet was simply beautiful, the white clouds, the cyan atmosphere, the light glow the ozone layer gave off. I sighed at its alien beauty before a familiar, high-pitched voice made me jump.

“HI TWILIGHT!” Pinkie shrieked. I felt my coat stand up in fear for a split second until the message from my ears hit my brain – it was Pinkie.

I sighed again as my fur flattened out. “Oh, Pinkie… it’s just you.”

“Of course it is, silly. It’s not like I’m an alien or something!” She stood on her hind hooves and put her front hooves out walking awkwardly towards me “Brains! Brains!”

I stared at her blankly and replied, “Pinkie, that’s more of a zombie pony imitation.” I then heard Spike scream.

“AHH, zombie ponies!? See, I told you they were real, Twilight!”

“Spike, relax – there are no zombie ponies.”

“Oh, well, uh, back to my nap then.”

I rolled my eyes and said to Pinkie, “What did you want?”

“Oh, I just wanted to tell you I’m gearing up the party cannon! It’s Hearths Warming Eve back home!”

“How do you even know what day it is?”

“Luna kept a calendar up to date since we left.”

“That reminds me, I have to go talk to her. Do you know where she is?”

Pinkie shrugged. “Probably in her room.“

“Thanks Pinkie, and, uh, have fun with your party cannon.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve still got a waking up party to plan, I’ve gotta’ tell everypony to be in the meeting room in an hour. Bye!”

I gave a light and somewhat forced smile that quickly faded once Pinkie trotted out of sight. Why should we celebrate this, of all things, I thought to myself - then I remembered that Pinkie celebrated everything. I trotted through the control r

room where Rainbow, Spitfire and Star Gazer were observing the 3D map display and reading the data of the surface of Keplar from the probes they sent there earlier to see if the L.Z was safe. We were scheduled to land the next day on a fifty-mile long, ten-mile wide valley. The ship was only a half a mile wide and three-fourths of a mile long, (Yes, it’s a gigantic ship) so it should be safe to land.

Unfortunately, the valley is the only data we had received on the surface, the probes crashed into the opposite wall of the valley on a three-mile high mountain. I trotted past the enthralled trio of ponies through the metal doors, which were designed to automatically open when somepony walks towards it, and down the corridor towards Luna’s quarters. The doors on her room only opened with a code, which I didn’t know, so I knocked.

“Luna, are you in there?”

“Yes, come in.”

“But I don’t know the - ” I was cut off by the doors opening. Her room was a lot bigger than the rest of ours, since everyone used only there’s for a year, and she used for hers for nine. On the left side of the room was a kitchen; one that most restaurants would be jealous of. There was also a bathroom that was like its own spa – the whole living quarters was like an expensive five-star hotel. She deserved every bit of it for what she put up with for four long years, which was nothing - literally. Loneliness can be hell for somepony for such a long time, but for Luna I suppose it was simply unpleasant to say the most.

Luna was sitting on a black sofa that was facing a large window, which peered out at the endless space ahead. “Hello, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Hello, Princess.”

“Please Twilight, please call me Luna. I do not wish to be treated different simply for what I was born to.”

“Hello Luna,” I corrected myself. “I need to speak with you about something.”

“What is it you wish to speak with me about?”

I trotted over to her sofa and asked If I could have a seat, Luna nodded and I sat down next to her and said, “I just wanted to see if you’re okay.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you have been alone for around four years Luna. Not many ponies can do that without suffering at least some side effects, no offense.”

“Oh, that is quite alright Twilight. I can’t say I’m well, but I am fine – thanks for your concern. I am just... concerned about this place.” She waves a hoof towards the window at Keplar-22B.

“I think know what you mean, Luna.”

A moment of silence passed before Luna said, “Twilight, may I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Could you - could you lead the search squad when we land? I… I can’t quite put my hoof on it, but I don’t feel like I can step hoof on this place. Not yet.”

I didn’t know what to say, the question really surprised me. I thought about it for a minute, I didn’t want to say, I didn’t think I could lead a mission this important, but the princess looked desperate for my help. It was rather peculiar that she said ‘search’ squad. Searching for what, exactly? I kept my thoughts to myself and didn’t ask.

“I… I – Yes, of course, Princess.”

“Thank you, Twilight. I’m must admit that I am very ashamed to ask this of -“

“Don’t be, I’ll be fine.” I lied.

“Very well, you’re a good friend, Twilight Sparkle.” She reached forward and gave me a hug.

“Promise me you’ll keep everypony safe.”

“I prom - ” I was cut off by a loud explosion from the other side of the ship, I left Luna’s embrace and we galloped through the ship’s corridors, past the control room where Spitfire and Star Gazer had already left to check on the explosion.

“Star, where is everypony?”

“They were all getting ready for the mission briefing in the conference room.”

“Then what could have...” We both looked at each other and sighed.

“Pinkie!” We said in unison.

We ran through the cryo chamber and past the weapons bay before we reached the living quarters to find Pinkie, party cannon in her hooves and a giant dent in the wall.

“Pinkie!” I yelled, “What happened!”

Applejack galloped into the room “What in tarnation happened here?”

“I’m sorry Twilight! I thought this was my party cannon!”

“Pinkie! That cannon is black, your party cannon is pink! How could you forget that?”

“I’m sorry.” was all she said before sinking her head in shame. Her ignorance truly is baffling sometimes, but I love her all the same regardless of how absent-minded she can be.

Star Gazer stepped between us and said, “It’s okay guys, and the wall doesn’t look that bad - just dented pretty good. Vinyl can weld them shut, no harm done.” I calmed down knowing that he was right.

I trotted over to Pinkie and rested my hoof on her shoulder. She looked up and I said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Pinkie.”

“It’s okay Twilight! You know, a dent in a wall really kills my mood to party, I’m going to bed.” She then bounced off to her room, energetic as ever. Everypony, myself included, had our mouths open agape. “Sweet Celestia, Pinkie not wanting to party? Four years of sleep really does change a pony!” Spitfire said. Luna excused herself, and said goodnight before trotting away towards her living quarters.

“Well everypony, I suggest we all get some shut-eye very soon. We’re going to be making history tomorrow. They all nodded like they’d expected that, it was rather obvious in hindsight. “What about the Princess?” Rarity pondered out loud.

“She has… other duties to attend too.” Every pony looked at each other skeptically, but shrugged and resumed their attention on me.

“So I want everypony to make sure you’re ready when you wake up in the morning. Also, somepony please make certain the oxygen suits are in working condition. It shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes.”

“On it.” Rainbow said before galloping away into the supply room.

“Other than that, everypony go get some Zs.”

They all silently nodded trotting off in different directions towards their rooms. I let my mind wander as I walked slowly down the hallways; I was still trying to get the new task sink in. I’ve led plenty of things before, but this planet, nay, this entire mission I knew very little about. I had almost no idea what to do. “Hey how hard could it be? We’re just gonna explore the landforms of the planet, starting with the valley, what could go wrong?” I mumbled to encourage myself. As I reached my room, I gladly collapsed on my comfortable bed. All of the rooms, except Luna’s, had just a small, twin-sized bed, a sizeable bathroom complete with a shower, a large window, and a small chair.

I had finally settled my mind and was just about to fall asleep when my door slowly creaked open; I sat up, yawned, and looked up to see Star Gazer’s silhouette. “Star, what do you want? It’s like, buck… what time it is?”

“I’m sorry for waking you Twi, I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Why? I’m fine.”

He trotted over and sat next to me on the bed “Well, Luna dropped a pretty heavy load on you today, and I wanted to make sure you can handle it.”

“Well, thank you, but I’m just nervous.”

“How hard could it be?”

“It could be very hard! We are billions of miles away from home, going to some unknown alien planet and we don’t have a bucking clue what’s on it!” I took a deep breath and said, “Sorry, I’m just… stressed out.”

“I completely understand.”

“No, you don’t! You don’t have anything back home to worry about, no family - nothing.”

“You’re wrong - I have you.”

“Sorry.”

“No, It’s… it’s okay.” He wrapped his hoof around me and lowered his head to mine, his eyes closed and lips puckered. His warm lips brought a shiver down my spine; I had to force myself not to accidentally jerk backwards and ruin the moment. I felt him slowly bring his lips away from mine and eagerly pulled him back into the kiss with my hooves pulling against the side and back of his head. I wanted this to last forever. His eyes opened for a second in shock and I felt the right corner of his lips curl up in a smirk.

When I finally decided to let go of him, he comically and exaggeratedly gasped for air before asking me, “You don’t mind if I sleep here with you, right?”

“Of course.”

I brought him into a quick embrace, wrapping my hooves around his broad shoulders and resting my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat rise slowly. A few silent minutes passed before we laid down on the bed in a spooning position. We tacitly decided to leave the covers on the floor – our body heat was more than enough to keep each other warm. Star whispered to me, “Good night, Twilight. I love you.”

Those three words kind of hit me, but in a good way. He had always said stuff like ‘That’s what I love about you’ or ‘Love ya’, but he had never outright said ‘I love you’. About time, I thought as I felt my lips form a smile and a tear well up in the corner of my eye. I felt his hooves around me tighten as I gleefully replied, “I love you too, Star.” We drifted to off to sleep under the comforting sound of each other’s breathing.

“Twilight Sparkle! Star Gazer! Wake up, now!” The familiar, albeit terrified voice of Princess Luna shouted at is.

Star and I both sat upright and jumped off the bed. “What’s wrong?” Star asked.

“No time for questions. We need to get to the control room. Now! What are you doing?! Let’s go!” Luna made a gesture with her hoof before galloping down the hallway.

We both looked at each other before galloping out of the room and down the hallway to catch up with Luna. When we got to the control room, everypony was sitting in their chairs with their restraints fastened. Our seats were closest to Spitfire and Rainbow’s. We sat down and locked our belts. Tight.

“What the hell is going on?”

“That.” Spitfire pointed out the windshield. We were entering Keplar’s atmosphere and in the valley there was a large rotating circle of clouds that had a hole in the middle. I recognized the shape and forced myself not to shriek.

“A hurricane?! Are you bucking kidding me? Where in Equestria did that come from?”

“That!” Star said pointing towards a giant ocean to the right of the valley, our L.Z. Now when I say giant, I mean ‘HOLY BUCK THAT’S HUGE’ sized. I swear that thing could’ve probably fit 50,000 Ponyvilles on it.

“How did we not notice that before?” I asked.

“We just entered the atmosphere a few minutes ago, so we couldn’t see anything on the surface ‘till now.”

“Can’t you try to turn to avoid it? Do something!”

“No, if I do then the combination of the gravity and atmospheric pressure will make the ship unstable and gyrate enough uncontrollable momentum and we WILL crash. At least now there is a chance of Rainbow and I being able to do something about it once we enter the atmosphere completely.”

“What are we gonna do now? I did not spend four bucking years in cryo sleep to die in a crash this far from home!”

“Me neither!”

The storm was going south and based on our speed and landing zone, we would hit the storm right south of the eye of the storm. The ship could not land in that much wind speed. Unless… “Spitfire, can you slow the ship down?”

“Maybe, I can turn on the reverse thrusters and it would slow us down a bit, but I don’t know if the engines can take that much strain.”

“Do you think you can land in the eye?”

“No.”

“Can you try?”

She looked at Rainbow and they nodded. Spitfire grinned before saying, “Everypony, the flights about to get seriously bumpy. I suggest you all find something to hold onto!”

As she activated the reverse thrusters, the entire ship stopped and we all lunged forward violently. If it weren’t for the seat belts, we all would’ve broken through the windshield and... The ship was still heading towards the ground very fast, but much slower than before. The ship was rocking and was unstable until the eye was right below us. Spitfire looked to rainbow and yelled, “NOW!”

Rainbow pulled the lever for the accelerator and the ship went into a nosedive towards the hurricane. I was trying scream, but I couldn’t. When we were about a mile above the hurricane, Spitfire angled the wheel up until the ship turned upwards ninety degrees and faced the horizon. The ship very slowly went down towards the surface, the north wall of the eye about a half-mile away. The ship landed with a thud as we hit the reddish ground.

Everypony relaxed in their chairs while breathing heavy with relief. Most of us were on the verge of puking, myself included. Spitfire stared at the planet beneath us, then turned to face us with a smile and proudly announced:

"Attention Mares and Gentlecolt's. The Star Swirl has landed.”

“