Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2

All the astronauts are in orbit around Equestria, that is including me, great right? The only problem is now we have to eject from Equestria's SOI and get to Eve, which is going to take a while. The ejection burn would take a long time, actually, 3 long burns at periapsis because of the Galaxy Diver's shit TWR, but it has great efficiency.

The first burn started, and it took a long long time, the SSTO only had a TWR of about 0.1, that is including the nukes. The ion engines really didn't produce much thrust, but it was efficient, very efficient, more efficient than the nukes, way more efficient. The burn took about 10 minutes, and during that time, I thought of something fun to do. I asked Silverstream over to the cargo bay to talk about the necklace she gave me.

The cargo bay had an airlock, which meant that there could be air in there, meaning that we wouldn't need a helmet to play around in there, that is only if the doors were closed. I asked her something, 'What can this do, what can this transform me into?'

She replied to me, excited because of my curiosity, 'It can do anything really, but not things that are ridiculous because of its small size. The pearl, if still in one piece, could turn you into anything, even ridiculous stuff because of its extreme magical abilities.'

I was shocked to hear that, I could be anything, it was just great, ok, maybe not everything but eh, good enough. The first thing I thought about being was an earth pony. I didn't know why but I just wanted to see what an earth pony's life would seem like. I cupped my hooves on the shard and wished to be an earth pony. There was also another flash of light that engulfed me, and then, I was an earth pony.

I then wanted some alone time in the cargo bay, so I told Silverstream to go to the others for a while when I was in the cargo bay, experimenting with the necklace. I tried to get to somewhere using only my hooves, and it was extremely hard, as in EXTREMELY hard. I had no idea how earth ponies were able to do all these things, maybe it was just getting used to it or something. I already knew unicorns could do self-levitation, but earth ponies, I just don't know how they live life to their fullest.

I turned back into myself, not into a unicorn. I had no understanding of how to use magic, so there was basically no point in doing so, it was just like being an earth pony, only with a horn which my helmet was not made in mind. Maybe I would just have to learn magic if I was to be a unicorn or alicorn. Talking about alicorns, I realised that could be also an option, so I tried it. It worked, but there was no point for me to do so, so I turned back into a pegasus.

I got back into the luxury of the Galaxy Diver, not telling anypony or creature about it. Gallus, Ocellus, and Smoulder were flying around, doing barrel rolls and whatnot while Sandbar was cheering at them with Silverstream. Flamerider, Dr. Whooves, and Bon Bon were playing darts and Derpy was snacking. I joined with Gallus, Ocellus, and Smoulder, flying around in the ship.

Flying around in zero-G was strange, but it wasn't to me as I've done that numerous times. The microgravity acting upon everypony meant even earth ponies would be able to fly, but winged creatures could control it better, as the wings would be like a control surface. Unicorns could do self-levitation easily in zero-G, meaning they would have the best control over flying in space.

The Galaxy Diver was going to do its second burn in about a minute, and so we braced for it, even if it accelerated extremely slowly. I then realised that nopony else had their flight suits on, and I was the only one that had it on. I had a custom one so it felt very comfortable, and it had places to put my wings in. The others maybe wanted to use their wings, and their flight suits blocked them from using them, so they took them off. The Galaxy Diver didn't have any decompression problems, so flight suits weren't necessary anyway.

The second burn started after that minute, and it accelerated all the way to near Equestria's SOI, meaning one more burn and we would be at Eve. Lyra and Starry Night came into the crew compartments of the ship, and not piloting the spaceplane. Starry explained, 'I realised that there was an autopilot option somewhere, so we just used that instead of manual piloting.'

That didn't surprise anyone, but it definitely was great, as we would have 2 more ponies to enjoy the time with. The next burn wasn't very special, the same to Eve, meaning that it would get us all the way there with no problem. In the meantime, we did some tricks showing off our talents or some of our other stuff. We also explored every nook and cranny in the spaceplane, also looking in the cargo bay, which the Galaxy Scouter wasn't docked to. The Galaxy Scouter didn't have any docking ports, so it was magnetically attached to the Diver via extremely powerful neodymium magnets.

The Galaxy Diver did have lots of surprises, mainly the high tech lounge and toilets. The kitchen wasn't very special, it didn't really have one, but the toilet was extremely high tech. It had so many options, ranging from ass washing on the spot to reading stories to you. Also, the lounge room had options for the lounges to be raised and neon lighting, which took a bit of time to know all the buttons on the couches.

The third burn commenced automatically, pushing our apogee all the way out of Equestria's SOI and the perihelion to Eve level. The burn took not as long as the other two but did take a while. Now we just wait, or maybe go into stasis, I'm not entirely sure.

The others agreed to have a meal first and then go into stasis. The stasis chambers were very high tech, unlike the old ones which had a small chance of failing. This time, they could run basically ever and had a very very low failure rate. They also included one for the small craft, which was very great for one pony scouting missions that take a long time. The Galaxy Diver's Stasis chambers were all filled up, so I had to go into the Scouter's Stasis chamber, which wasn't the comfiest, but I wasn't claustrophobic, so no problems. Also, didn't I mention there weren't more tweaking orbits as the craft was on a perfect trajectory to Jool.