1. Obligatory Long-Distance Preparations
“Captain’s log, second day of voyage. The month is August; the year is 1079 after Nightmare Moon’s banishment. Operation Independence was largely a success. Even though we were the last carrier of 15 to leave orbit, there had still been two more after us. Princess Celestia had bid us farewell as we began our voyage across the heavens, as she did to all the other departing Carriers. We knew she’d stay behind; her sister Luna stayed, too, as did Princess Twilight, the Element Bearers, and Princess Cadence.
“But they were alone among the masses who wanted to escape the curtain of destruction that had fallen upon us. Back then, it didn’t matter who stayed and who left. Even now, Equus is a lifeless ball of rock floating through space.
“We poured everything into the Carriers. The great cityscapes of countless metropolises were sacrificed to build them in the time we had. The freight industry ceded control to the government in order to ease materials transfers. The thousands of steam trains running the rails were decommissioned, their engines becoming the main source of power for our spacecraft-production facilities. No piece of junk was left untouched; as each city was evacuated, it would be torn down for useful material in building other Carriers, the rails dug up, and whatever remained was burned. By the time my own home was evacuated, vast swaths of Equestria were scorched.
“Pause recording.” I sat back in my black, noisily cushioned chair. Spinning around once, I took quick stock of my quarters. The room’s walls were a nice deep blue, quite suitable for an ocean-goer like me. A small green couch sat along the outer wall, just under the windows. Outside, the cold, hard vacuum of space constantly beat against the protective hull of Carrier 13, christened Stardust by her crew and passengers. Beyond those things, nothing of interest marked the room - except for my unemptied boxes of stuff, of course. I’ll get around it when I’m not making logs or running the ship.
I stood up and stretched. My watch beeped; my break was over. Walking through the corridor door, I closed it behind me and hurried to the command deck. These doors were open, but guarded by two of Celestia’s Royal Guards. They saluted me as I approached. I was unnerved by that, but gestured in response.
“Captain on deck!” the Officer of the Deck called out as I entered.
“As you were,” I replied. Everyone went back to what they were doing before I came. “May, give me an update.”
My Executive Officer, Mayflower, looked up from her position by the sensor controls. She had a leaf-green coat and a canvas-white mane that flowed to follow her every movement. “Everything nominal, sir. Fuel at 95 percent, as consistent with our after-burn calculations. Our stockpile of consumables is unchanged. However, I recommend we find some ice in case the engine room fails catastrophically and we lose hull pressure there, along with all water in the steam lines.
“Good idea. Anything of interest on sensors?”
“No, sir, unless you count Amore. Carrier 5 confirmed that the planet’s rings are made of ice.”
I nodded, sitting down in the Captain’s chair. “Set course for Amore. Let’s get ourselves some extra water.”
“Yes, sir,” Mayflower said with a smirk. After a few minutes of burning to change course, we reentered freefall and things returned to normal. Mayflower moved to stand next to me, a signal that she wanted to talk normally. I looked up at her.
“Copper, we need to get better technology. I’ve already assigned some ponies to the job and some to production. Others still, mainly the local farmers from home, are asking to turn the starboard wing - it was never filled, as you know - into a hydroponics bay. They essentially want to grow food on the ship, which would put a huge dent in our water supply. I need you decision on this: do we start hydroponics now, or wait until we absolutely need it?”
I gazed into her beautiful, pinkish eyes. “We can do it now,” I finally said. Anything else?”
“No, sir.” She turned to walk away.
“May?”
She stopped. “Yes, Captain?”
“I’d like to run things like I did on Hearth before we left. Which means you just need to tell me what’s going on. If you think we need something, make sure it gets done, but still tell me we’re doing it.”
“Yes, Captain,” she smiled. Right then, I knew that, despite oncebeing rival merchant captains, we were going to get along just fine.
The ice collection went smoother than we thought it would. With fuel creeping down to 90%, Stardust slowed into orbit around the gas giant Amore. Those engineer Unicorns really know their stuff. They get every calculation spot-on and oftentimes use their magic as fuel to extend the burn time of our fuel. I don’t really care what they do, as long as they do it without killing us all.
Amore was huge. I stared at its swirling blue and gold clouds, thousands of miles below. The impossibly enormous world was home to several dozen moons, captured asteroids, and an extensive ring system, all above that blue milkshake swirl of a planet.
Thank Celestia the rings were plentiful. After we gathered what we wanted, Stardust fired her engines once more and we began our journey into the void.
“Captain's log, day 15 of voyage. The month is August; the year is 1079 after Nightmare Moon’s banishment. Space is a lot colder than we thought. It might just be the air conditioning units malfunctioning again, like they did last week, but it’s definitely colder in here. I have to wear a robe over my coat, which looks ridiculous but is absolutely necessary to not freeze to death. Hopefully, nothing weird like a kill signal was sent through our antenna from home. I really don’t want to die…”
I slumped down on my chair, my head hitting the desk. Before I could do anything, I was asleep as my bronze coat was slowly covered in ice.
I felt thawed. Shaking my head free of birds, I felt cold blood - wait, COLD?
That jerked me awake. Not only was I freezing, but the blood that was supposed to warm me up wasn’t doing its job. My face pulled up from my desk - oh, that’s colder than me! - and immediately went for the temperature control. It read “100 MARE” in bold letters.
The door banged once. I felt it shudder through the stale, icy air and shivered. My first attempt at reaching it ended quickly as my weak legs gave out and I faceplanted. That gave me time to look around while I picked myself up again. It was depressing: the room’s seemingly millennia-old blue paint had faded away, leaving a sky-like tint. My green couch was one giant, rotten, yellowish egg.
Everything that wasn’t wood had remained much the same, while anything organic - besides me, obviously - had rotted in however long my unplanned nap was.
I finally opened the door. Outside in the hall, Mayflower looked like an icicle. She was shivering and soaked to the bone. I grabbed my robe and rubbed her down, turning her into a green Fluffle Puff. The mare nodded her thanks and saluted, her freezing hoof shaking uncontrollably. I shook my head and she put it back down. Her keratin hooves audibly clattered against the metal floor.
“Reporting for duty, Captain.” Her teeth chattered louder than the engine. Speaking of which, I couldn’t hear its hum.
“Not now,” I managed. “This ship needs to warm up.”
May pointed out the window. Off in the distance, the circle of a distant star shone brighter than it should, meaning we were in a solar system. “We could get closer to the sun, Captain.”
“Go for it. If anypony else is awake, tell them to ignite the boilers. Celestia knows how long they’ve been cold. If anything, we’ll at least get hot water.”
“Hot water…” May said wistfully.
“I know. Just do it. Come on, let’s get to the command deck.” I was starting to feel warmer already. It must be the blood flowing through my veins, heating back up.
I half-dragged, half-was-dragged-by May through the white halls of Stardust. Once on the command deck, we saw Sensor Technician Moonstone pick herself up from her console. The light grey Unicorn’s crater-grey mane was stuck to the computer until she used a heating spell on the ice-covered hair.
“Moonstone, get the boilers running,” I ordered. “May and I will aim for that star off the starboard bow.”
“Sir, there’s a small terrestrial1 a few thousand miles to port. Skimming its atmosphere should heat us up faster than the star.”
“Provided there is an atmosphere.”
“There is, sir. Says it here: mostly methane, nearly cold enough to condense itself. But a few passes should warm the ship.”
May and I exchanged glances. The Earth pony mare nodded. “We should, Captain.”
Once again, a huge decision weighed down on my shoulders. First the ice collection around Amore, now this. “Do it. May, fire the boilers. Moonstone, find anyone awake and snuggle them with heat spells. I’ll stay here and fly.”
The two acknowledged the order and hurried to their respective tasks. In the meantime, I toured the command deck. Behind the engineering console, a Unicorn was frozen, inside as well as out. Her face, despite being blue, was clearly recognizable: she was one of the Sapling twins - Acacia, I thought. The other one, Juniper, was our chief supply officer.
“Tweeter? Snowflake? Tabby?” I asked. It came out as a terrified squeak. Here, in the dim emergency lights, I was more alone than ever.
“Anypony?”
The normal lights came to life - and two seconds later, fizzled out again. I sighed. When Stardust was running again, we’d have to go through every light bulb on the ship and replace it. I felt a pang of sympathy for whoever ended up doing it.
I was currently behind the pilot’s console, having moved the Pegasus Lightning Blaze from his usual seat. He was awake, albeit barely. I’d plopped him into my own chair because at least I installed a butt-warmer in it before we left Equus.
The terrestrial planet was getting farther away, but then I heard the engines start their fiery reaction, slowing us to a near-suborbital trajectory2. Oh, this was going to be fun. And hot. And horrifying. And fun.
“Coming up on atmospheric entry, Captain,” Lightning said. He’d thawed enough in the last few hours to resume his normal duties. Everypony else, however, remained ice cubes.
Not for long. I reached for the ship-wide communications circuit. “All hooves, listen up. We’ll be entering the atmosphere of a terrestrial planet in a few minutes. I need all loose items to be secured and for everypony to hold on. Thank you. Copper out.”
Stardust shuddered, orange flames licking the hull. She wasn’t built for atmospheric entry, I knew, but if we could just get enough friction to thaw, we’d be fine. I hoped our own trajectory wasn’t going to degenerate enough for us to crash. That would definitely make us have a bad day.
All around me, ice turned to water. Ponycilces came alive again. Some were violently jolted out of their icy prisons when they were bashed into the wall. The fire grew and grew, temperature rising every minute. With only one boiler lit, we wouldn’t have enough engine power to escape sudden death if May miscalculated our trajectory.
Then, the fire receded. The shuddering stopped. A black view littered with stars filled the window. We’d made it. I wanted to jump like a filly getting her cutie mark.
By Celestia. We’re alive!
Author's Note
1referring to an Earth-like planet, with a rocky crust one can walk on (ex: the inner planets of our solar system)
2the path a spacecraft takes when areobraking: essentially, the path isn't suborbital, meaning it will not hit the ground. It's also not quite orbital, either, because it skims relatively deep into the atmosphere in order to get friction from hitting the air molecules
