Author's Note

Galaxy Diver and Scouter are my own creations and named by my friend.

Galaxy Diver and Scouter

Well, another day and another mission to somewhere I have no idea of, as this time the administration told me, Flamerider and Starry Night to somewhere else that's not in the solar system. I had never seen anything from outside the solar system, other than maybe the stars. The ponies in charge said that this time it would be an SSTO that I would be flying, and so was the other two flying.

We all flew to the space center, later the other astronauts came, running to the space center like mad ponies. The administration told us that we would be flying 2 different SSTOs to the destination, one called the Galaxy Diver and the other called the Galaxy Scouter. The Galaxy Diver was a huge SSTO, capable of carrying more than 60 ponies, while the Galaxy Scouter was a tiny little SSTO, but had extreme range, and was capable of only holding one pony in a service bay, which wasn't that bad really.

For some dumb, but also a not-so-dumb reason, I chose the Galaxy Scouter, I wasn't sure why, but I just did it for the sake of it. The two spaceplanes were going to fly tomorrow, great, we were going to another star system tomorrow in SSTOs and not rockets, which I think is pretty weird.

Well, we are all prepared for the mission to the new planet, or moon, whatever it's called which is in another star system. I went into the spaceplane hanger, eager to see the planes. The first thing that struck me was the Galaxy Diver, which was absolutely huge, as in it looked like there was no way to actually fit it in the hanger. The next thing I saw was the Galaxy Scouter, which was tiny compared to the monstrous Galaxy Diver.

The next thing that happened was that the loudspeakers called out for the other ponies to report to the spaceplane hanger to board the Galaxy Diver, but for me, it would be the Scouter. Then Silverstream came up to me and handed me something. She handed a shard that she had, but it wasn't the one she had, it was another of its kind. It was a necklace, and she told me that she gave it to me for inspiring she and her friends to space travel.

I accepted it, having no idea of what it was, and if I was able to turn into something else like a seapony. I asked Silverstream, 'Silverstream, how are you supposed to use this thing?'

'Simple, just hold it with your hoof and think of something that you want to be, and you'll turn into that,' she replied. 'Oh yeah, it can transform you into lots of things, so be careful about what you think you want to be.'

'Ok, let me try something,' I answered. I held it in my hoof and wished to be something, which in this case was a seapony for some reason. There was a blinding light that popped around me, and I was a seapony. I then quickly turned back into myself, also creating a blinding light.

I felt that the thing was very cool, and then Silverstream told me one other thing, and that was to keep it on and not lose it, as it was one of the last ones in existence. After that, the other ponies came in, ready to board the Galaxy Diver. The pilots of the Galaxy Diver were Lyra and Starry Night. Starry would be the pilot, as she also showed great ability to fly planes. I boarded the tiny Galaxy Scouter, which looked seriously minute.

I didn't really know how to my ship's controls, but it took no time at all to find all the controls and get a feel for it. The chair wasn't the comfiest, but it certainly was better than some. I also forgot that the Scouter's cockpit was a service bay furnished with only a chair. The others had luxury first class seats while I got this, but at least the Scouter was much more technologically advanced.

The Diver was the first to be taxied out of the hanger, onto the runway, but it had a few problems doing so because of its huge size. My little spaceplane was extremely easy to do so, having a small footprint meant that it small landing gear, which had great steering.

The Diver was going to launch first, while I would do it after it launches. The Galaxy Diver was very slow to accelerate, but it got into the air, and it was coasting along ground level to gain speed, eventually pitching up and going to space, at least that was what I could see. I launched later, doing a different ascent profile. I had one RAPIER engine at the back of my craft, which provided a shit load of thrust.

My craft accelerated extremely fast, later turning on the ion engines to get into orbit. I set up my orbit so that it was as close as possible to the Karman line, about 70050m. The Galaxy Diver then got into orbit after a few minutes, waiting for me to rendezvous with it. The rendezvous wasn't very hard, easily getting an intersect with it. I then piloted the Scouter into the cargo bay, docking with it later.

I did an EVA and went into the Galaxy Diver. The Diver's interior was pure luxury, having real facilities and a huge storage for food and a large battery bank, using solar panels and RTGs to recharge it. I made my way to the other ponies and creatures. They were just playing games in zero G, which seemed very fun, so I joined in.

Lyra and Starry started to do the transfer burn to Eve, which would then get into a rendezvous to Equestria and put it on a resonance orbit to Equestria, basically the normal KEKKJ route. The KEKKJ route this time would make it so that it would get a gravity assist to a trajectory that would fling us all the way out of the solar system, but still in the sun's SOI. Once that was complete, the Galaxy Diver would use 2 more Jool assists to fling us all the way to Alpha Centauri, but not without some fine tuning.

'Well, we have a long way to go guys,' Lyra anncounced.