I tested the movement in the chassis, and found it quite good. The first part of Stellar's engineering requirements had been new chassis for everyPONI going to Equus. His emphasis had been on mobility, power storage, and ruggedness. In short (or rather the opposite), all our chassis had become approximately fifty percent larger.

While we prepared ourselves for the trip, Oxygen Gas had been refitted into a brand-new starship that featured a dual-reactor system that should ensure no downtime due to any needed repairs.

Shimmering Star had been given further upgrades, mostly increasing the size of her personal storage.

Seeing all the changes pushing us toward departure, and what our foals had accomplished, made me a very proud father. "Is everyPONI prepared for this?" I looked around at the "small-chassis" PONI and got a visual nod and an interrupt of acceptance from each.

Upper, of course, had further. "This is a big step, Jet. We don't even know who will be there, or even if ponies will be there at all." Upper Crust was still larger than me. I would have liked to prod Stellar Hope about having designed her chassis bigger, but I remember the specs, and they didn't even have the metal wings that had just appeared on Upper's new form.

She was beautiful. I stepped closer to Upper Crust and pressed my snout against the side of her neck; her chassis might be hardened alloy, but she was my wife. "You're gorgeous. Did you know that?" I laid it on thick, kisses, love, the works.

"How old are you, Jet Set?" I knew Upper was going to get creative by her use of my full name.

I pressed the bridge of my nose under her jaw and rubbed her throat a few times. "Since we don't have a completely accurate measure of time due to going way too fast, around three-hundred and eighty, give or take." I didn't hold back on smug tones.

"And you still turn on the charm at your age? I'm going to have to watch you when we get to Equestria." I would have groaned if I could, instead I took her condescending kiss on the nose with as much aplomb as I could still maintain. "The compliment is welcome, even if it was meant as a distraction." The interrupts had been personally targeted, but her next hit the comms channel for our expedition. "Okay, everyPONI, if we're all ready, let's go."

We were all clamped into our respective stations within Oxygen Gas. Her latest chassis was custom-built for atmospheric insertion, as well as being powerful enough to break out of a planetary gravity well—she was pretty amazing.

"Is everyPONI ready?" Bright Hope's interrupts felt weightier than anypony else. She might just be the older of the two of us by seconds, but she was certainly the larger. The comms channel lit up with acknowledgments from everyPONI aboard, as well as Oxygen.

Bright had been practicing: we all had the reports. Starships had been sent hundreds of lightyears further than before, the process of bringing back hydrogen gas giants could continue exponentially without loss of efficiency.

And now we were going to get sent too.

There was no air in the starship, and despite our orbit of Sun-0 beside Bright Hope's sphere, there was very little gravity aboard. By all rights, there shouldn't have been a sound, but when Bright Hope interrupted with, "Sending," I could swear my audio pickups registered POMF.

No timescale we could measure would accurately show how long the teleportation took. One moment we were rotating slowly beside the massive bulk of Bright Hope's chassis, the next we were outside the heliopause of a star system.

Sensors registered a panic until they were reset, and judging by how quickly they all stopped screaming, Oxygen Gas was very used to this. "Sending complete. We are safely outside what should be Equus' system. Activating thrust to bring us in." Her tone was precise, but under the uniform tone, was a hint of excitement.

I wasn't the only PONI to bring up the long-range sensors, to gaze into the gravity well and count the planets until we reached the fourth: Equus. Mom and Dad had given us all the most information they had on the world itself, and Aggie had given us more technical details than anyPONI could hope for. We knew the physical makeup of Equus from its core all the way to the outer reaches of its atmosphere.

"This is really exciting!" Shimmering Star was the first of Oxy's passengers to break the silence. I didn't hold it against her, not with the bright tones of her interrupt. Her age might have played a part, too. "There is more magical knowledge on this planet than anywhere else in the known universe!"

"Knowledge, yes. Information, no. Bright Hope has been refitted with not only greater power storage in the form of hundreds of PONI, but she has more information storage space than any sphere I know the specs of. And she is working to fill it." I had to correct her, or clarify her as the case may be, I couldn't let it slide.

I got a direct interrupt of a raspberry from Shimmering. "How long until we reach Equus?" Her question, however, went to the comms channel.

At that moment I had the very real sense that there was very few PONI nearby. On the sphere, working with Dad and PONs, I always had a sense of community—massive community. But the interrupt system here was almost silent; most of the interrupt traffic was sensor data, and there was only five of us actually communicating.

"Approximately six-hundred and eighty-one thousand, six-hundred and eighteen seconds. About a week." Oxy's tone was full of pride. I quickly ran the numbers and realized she was going to push us to nearly ten percent of lightspeed. There would be no cruising distance on this trip, Oxy was going to burn her engines all the way in.

I turned my attention to all of my equipment. Fabrication units for constructing everything up to the size of a PONI's brain-casing. Design packages to allow me to quickly make almost anything we would need. A week was enough time, I realized, to inventory and check them hundreds of times—I started a counter.

"We're here."

I knew my daughter, Oxy, was as excited as the rest of us, despite her not being able to even leave her chassis on Equus. Not for the first time was I proud of my foals. "Upper, dear, would you do the honors?"

"Technically it would be Oxygen Gas doing the honors, Jet. Oh what the hay: Oxy, sweetie, could you take us down? The coordinates we planned on would be best." I could feel the pride slipping off Upper's interrupt, but there was something she was doing a great job at hiding: worry. Our foals wouldn't have picked it up, it wasn't even in the tonal-metadata, but I knew it was there.

"You're a princess. You have every right to be down there and talking to whoever you wish. You are Upper Crust, mother to billions, and you are my wife." I kept my interrupt private, and even turned my head to look at Upper. She returned the look, and I caught a smile interrupted back to me. "Look."

I sent her sensor data around where the target coordinates were. Much as we would have loved to land in the middle of Canterlot, our ship would have destroyed a small section of it. We had decided on Ponyville, and in particular the same side of the town as Princess Twilight's castle had been.

Relief flooded me as I saw the castle there, but it seemed larger, and I realized the quaint little town of Ponyville had grown with the castle. It sprawled, the city of Ponyville now surrounded by a wall that matched the same material of the castle.

Princess Twilight Sparkle's castle was huge. It would rival Canterlot Castle for size—and now that I thought to look, I realized Canterlot Castle still stood. "Dear, it's all still there."

"And there are ponies." Upper Crust shoved coordinates at me, and I saw a purple alicorn, her amazing, floating mane blowing in a breeze that probably didn't exist, look up toward us. "Of course she would be here."

"Darling, it has been over three-hundred years; you're a princess yourself. Let it slide, so we can talk to the ponies and ask for our daughter to learn magic." I was too caught up in the moment to realize what I had just interrupted. Interrupted, but not said. "Stellar! We need some way of speaking. Making sounds."

"What frequency?" Stellar's reply was less than reassuring. I sent him what Aggie's notes had recorded our voices as making. "Got it, Dad. I'll start making them as soon as we land."

"That won't be soon enough, Jet." Upper's interrupt came just as Oxy jolted under us.

We were back in Equestria.

I fumbled to remember words, Equish words. "Upper, please tell me you remember how to speak Equish?"

"Drat. Just think of that?" Upper continued once she got a quick acknowledgement from me. "We'll have to play it by ear, then. Come on, Jet."

I sent the disconnect signal for my coupling, and felt the locking system disengage from my torso. It was a tight shimmy to the side, and then a walk to get to the hatch.

"Dad, there are a lot of organics out there. Those are ponies?" Oxygen sounded in awe. I acknowledged her question, and peeked through the sensors she was using. "There're six ponies waiting. Purple. Blue. Yellow. White. Pink. Orange. Only two of them have horns!"

"Princess Twilight Sparkle is the purple one. Rarity is the white one. Rainbow Dash is blue, and Fluttershy is yellow; they are pegasi. Pinkie Pie is obvious, and Applejack is orange; they are earth ponies." I disengaged the hatch and watched it pull back. Oxy had aired up the inside to negate any pressure difference, so I faced no pressure as I walked forward.

The drop to the ground was within specifications for my new chassis. I just stepped off the side of Oxygen and dropped down. The flaw in my plan was obvious the moment I sank to my chassis' belly in the dirt. "Well now this is embarrassing."

"Jet Set, tell me you didn't do something silly?" Upper, somehow, floated down with her metal wings spread. I don't know how she managed it, or what magic was at work, but it just happened. "Get up, Jet."

Upper Crust's magic caught me and lifted me out of the dirt. My sensors showed a good deal of the dirt clung to my chassis. "It's so much cleaner in space."

"Who are you, and what do you want?" The words were clear, but they didn't come from my interrupt handler. I looked at where my sensors told me the sound came from, for it was sound I had heard—words. Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, stood before her friends, her wings spread in what would be considered the pinnacle of pony perfection. At least to ponies.

"Stellar, how long on those audio modulators?" Our communications were so swift that Twilight hadn't even finished closing her mouth.

"They look like robots from the moon!" Rainbow Dash, from what I remember, wasn't the smartest of their group. That she would confuse us for drones was a little disheartening. "We should beat them up and stop the evil plans of—"

"Whoa there, sugarcube." Saving the day, or at least the encounter, Applejack had grabbed hold of Rainbow Dash's tail and jerked her from her aborted attack.

I had been so focused on listening to the ponies I had missed Stellar's reply. A quick check revealed it to have been a value near half a day. "Upper, what are we going to do?" My sensors showed Upper to be moving her foreleg in long, repeated motions. I peeked through one of Oxy's sensors, and realized what she was doing. "You are a very clever mare."

"Thank you, Jet-dear." Upper Crust stepped back from the words she had carved into the dirt.

Friends

Rarity gestured at Upper's writing. "What is that one doing to the lawn? Oh dear, she's destroyed— It's writing!" Moving swifter than she had any right to, Rarity jumped passed Twilight and turned to the side. Magic washed off her, strange magic that our sensors couldn't define. "It says, 'Friends'!"

"Well duh." Pinkie Pie was next. She bounced up to us and squinted. Tilting her head to the side, Pinkie Pie looked between Upper and myself, then giggled. "They're just ponies in big pony suits." And, having apparently said her bit, Pinkie Pie practically disappeared.

Oxygen sent us data showing the actual direction, along with confusion. "That speed should not be attainable outside of vacuum. She should have a plasma shield clearing the way at least!"

"That's Pinkie Pie, Oxy. I would avoid making any assumptions of behavior for any of these six. The most strange thing is how these five are still alive." I looked between the remaining ponies.

Applejack looked no bigger than I remember, although patches of bark growing over the edges of her hooves, and an apple in her mane were something new.

Rainbow Dash's unique rainbow pattern had spread from her mane to her feathers. Her wings looked larger, although the mare herself seemed no bigger. Looking into her eyes revealed an odd sight: gray mist.

Fluttershy, the only pony not to have said a word so far, no longer looked terrified of everything. I remembered her so, but not like this. Two large horns grew from Fluttershy's head, like a deer, and were adorned with little flowers. Her mane was no longer pure pink, instead carrying browns and grays.

Rarity was more Rarity than ever. I remember the first time I met her, in Canterlot, and that young mare bore no resemblance to the tall unicorn beside my wife. The magic radiating from her seemed warm, but defied my ability to recognize still.

Twilight Sparkle looked very similar to Princess Luna after her return, size-wise. She stood on her hooves with all the assuredness of a distressed squirrel. She watched Rarity with worry in her eyes.

"Friends? Do they want to be friends?" Twilight looked between us. Upper and I both nodded. The change in Twilight's expression, posture, and smile was immediate. She realized we could understand her, and we had just admitted to the Princess of Friendship that we wanted to be friends.

"I think we have gotten past the hard bit, Jet." I had to agree with Upper Crust on this point, if nothing else.

Author's Note

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