We all went out of stasis after a long long time, only a year of being in stasis. I could barely see Eve, the planet only being a purple fleck. We were in the gravity well of Eve, which was bigger than Equestria's, with gravity scans from above showing its gravity. The gravity of Eve was about 1.7 times of Equestria's.

The nuclear engines then fired up when the rocket, or transfer stage, was near the periapsis of 100000m. Atmospheric scans from the rocket showed that the Karman line for Eve was 90000m, 20000m above Equestria's. The burn took a while, but we were in a circular orbit instead of an elliptical one.

The next thing was to survey for landing spots and log down the geographical features of the planet. I had no idea to do it but Silverstream knew exactly what to do. Sandbar also knew what to do but he wasn't as good as Silverstream at it. After a whole day of orbiting around Eve, as in 24 hours, we were all done with the surveying,

The surveys told us that there was a few mountains, one that's very close to the equator that has an elevation of about 8000m from what we could see from the scans. Silverstream and I boarded the lander, which used 4 Vector engines in an asparagus setup to ascend, with 4 Spark engines to get into orbit.

After boarding, I undocked the lander from the mothership, which in this case was the transfer stage. I then fired up the Vectors just for a quick deorbit to land at the mountain. I had to make it so that the patched conics show that the lander would overshoot the mountain by a lot.

It took a while to get into the atmosphere, but when the lander went below the Karman line, I deployed the massive 10m inflatable heat shield. The heat shield did a great job of slowing the lander down, and it definitely protected me and Silverstream from the immense reentry heat that was produced by the atmospheric pressure.

Waiting for a while and enduring lots of extreme deceleration, we finally were able to see the surface. The surface was very purple, very purple, even the oceans. The lander was going to overshoot the mountains I was trying to get too, so I deployed the drogue chutes early, trying to lose speed.

The drogue chutes were kind of risky to deploy in such a thick atmosphere at 200m/s, but it worked, and it slowed us down to 150m/s, just enough to not overshoot the mountain. After what felt like an eternity to fall down to Eve's surface, I deployed the parachutes which definitely slowed the lander to unimaginable speeds.

The lander continued to descend at a snail's pace, making us wait for 5 minutes at least to be able to get all the way to the ground, which in this case was the mountain summit. When the 5 minutes were up, and we landed, I quickly put on my spacesuit, as my flight suit, even though able to withstand the pressure, couldn't resist the heat.

Silverstream was doing some experiments and scans while I was putting on my spacesuit. The scans picked up showed that the temperature on the surface was at an average of 130 degrees Celcius outside, but the spacesuits were rated to over 300 degrees, so no problems with an EVA. My flight suit was rated to 150 degrees though, so I might test it if it would keep me from boiling.

I had to get on and off with the ladders, as wearing a spacesuit meant that she couldn't use my wings, which obviously wasn't something that was good. The 1.7 times gravity meant that my legs weren't used to it, which meant it was a little hard for me to stand, the gravity feeling like it was crushing me. The immediate next thing I did was to do the planting of the flag, which was obvious that I had to do because it was a tradition with astronauts already.

The flag planting this time was a lot easier than the ones on Minmus, the moon, or Duna. The ground felt softer than the other celestial bodies, easily being penetrated by the flagpole. Since at that time was also nearly sunset, I decided to stay outside to look at the sunset on a mountain. When the sunsetted, it was super pretty, the green atmospheric haze contrasting the purple on Eve.

I went into the lander after a bit of climbing up, which wasn't the easiest thing to do, flying was definitely easier than that. 'Silverstream, go out, the sun is setting,' I told her when I got in, taking off my spacesuit so I could try Eve with my flight suit instead.

When I took off my spacesuit, I opened the airlock, and there it was, I was outside on Eve with my flight suit. It definitely felt a bit hotter without my spacesuit but it still didn't feel very hot. The flight suit was keeping me alive, even in extreme conditions, that is with a helmet on, and an oxygen tank and a thermal control unit. Silverstream was the next one out, with her spacesuit on.

We watched the sunset together, and took some photos at the same time, transmitting them to the space center at the same time. The next thing was to get back on the lander, as we would have to go in a few minutes. The optimal time for a rendezvous with the transfer stage would be in about 5 minutes, so we had to get going.

Silverstream and I got into the lander and quickly started up the 4 vector engines. I throttled them, and the lander quickly shot off Eve's surface with more than 3 TWR. The first fuel tanks were quickly depleted, so I decoupled them quickly, still pointing the now rocket straight up instead of tilting because of the toxic atmosphere and the higher gravity.

I then decoupled the other 2 vector engines when we were a good way up its atmosphere. The next thing was to fire up the 4 Spark engines that would get us all into orbit. The command pod that we were in was below a 2.5m fairing, which contained some of the fuel that the engines used, the others were below the command pod.

When we were finally out of the atmosphere and were in a stable orbit, I started to plan the rendezvous with the transfer stage while Silverstream was just snacking. I then saw a little button called rendezvous autopilot, which was definitely very useful, somehow working and having a rendezvous with the transfer stage in a matter of minutes.

When the now not so much of a lander intercepted the transfer stage, I manually docked it instead of using the autopilot, doing it in a matter of seconds as I was also an expert in orbital rendezvous and docking. The thing now was to transfer back to Equestria and not to mention waiting for a transfer window, which was shit.

I instead of waiting like everyone else, went into stasis, making an alarm for when the transfer stage enters Equestria's SOI. After a long time, we were finally entering Equestria's SOI. I woke up, feeling extremely cold, and saw the others waiting for me in the command pod. 'How long has it been?' I asked, feeling a little dizzy.

'5 years, and before you ask, it was because of the autopilot accidentally failing. Sandbar had to manually control it and without a transfer window, had to wait 5 years,' Starry Night told me.

I went up to the command pod, and upon seeing the others, I had a shock. They looked older than before, unlike me, I didn't age. 'Why do you guys look old?'

'Well, its a long story, but in short terms, the other stasis chambers also stopped working, the one that you were in was working so you were all fine and all that,' Sandbar said. 'We had to wait 5 years without passing the time, also, do you like my beard?'

'Oh, that's nice, uhh, let me check something.'

I looked into a small mirror mounted on the wall. 'Yep, still look the same and sound the same from 5 years ago,' I thought.

The next thing I did was wait, and also burn radial in so that we would be in a collision course with Equestria. I started it a bit later, putting the ship on a collision course. I waited a long long time for it to get below the Karman line. After a day of waiting, I decoupled the transfer stage and the hibernation module from the command pod.

The command pod glided through the atmosphere, the heat shield glowing white hot, re-entering at 4000m/s. The ablative material on the heat shield had no problems withstanding the shock heating, and we landed with 2 parachutes somewhere near the space center. The landing was all luck, not even tuning the orbit so that we would get there.

Author's Note

Forgot to say, the command pod had 4 seats.