Chapters Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
The time has come, well, at least the time has come for me to wake up from stasis after years in it. I put it on so that I would wake up when I was at Jool, not sure exactly why but hey, I had to see what it was like. I got out of the craft and into the main ship. Everything looked the same, but with no ponies of course. The others were in their cryogenic chambers, frozen until we reach Alpha Centauri.
I went back into the Galaxy Scouter and being the pony I am, I undocked it, turning off the magnets temporarily, and I flew it, or made it coast into space. The area around the Diver seemed ok, void of any asteroids which could hit. I saw a moon approaching. The moon was quite small but it didn't mean I wouldn't be exploring it. The Scouter had enough delta-V to do so and that it could always refuel via the big ship.
I started up the burn that would get me to the moon, putting the periapsis to have a low pass. The moon was supposedly called Bop, which had a pretty weak gravitational pull, and looked like the bigger brother of Gilly. There was no way to actually say that was the case but it could well be the case.
I tuned into some music when I was coasting along space to land on the moon, yes, I was going to land on it. The landing would mean I had to catch up on the Diver even more than if I was to do a flyby, but it would be well worth the extra burns and catching up. After exactly a few hours of coasting, I was near my periapsis, which meant I had to start doing my capture burn.
I started up the ion engines, and slowly, but eventually, got me into a stable orbit around Bop. From where I was, Bop looked like a huge asteroid, but the scatters on its surface wasn't as dense as Gilly's, and the gravity was much stronger. I started my retrograde burn to land, and after coasting along, I started a suicide burn to get me on the ground.
I finally landed after zero landing failures, doing a suicide burn that made me slide a little when I touched the ground. I didn't bother planting a flag but did bother going on an EVA. There was a very strange thing that was on my right, something greenish-yellow. The thing seemed very unnatural, so I went there to investigate it.
What I saw was absolutely shocking. The thing was a very strange thing indeed. It looked like a green giant squid, a lot like the fabled Kraken. The Kraken was some legendary sea creature that was later deemed fake, but on Bop, it didn't seem fake. I took a few photos and named it the Deep Space Kraken.
I then jetpacked over to my ship, ready to take off again as if I don't, it would be too late for me to catch up with the Diver. I started up the engines, ultimately accelerating to over 5000m/s to catch up with it in about 2 hours, not too shabby to say the least. I did some calculations for no absolute reason, trying to calculate the delta-V in the craft I was in. I turned the small screen in the cockpit, or service bay had and opened up the calculator. The little Scouter had a great little computer in it, but it wasn't touchscreen. The thing wasn't the best, but it was easy to use and easy to do things with.
I did some quick calculations, ok, it was only one calculation. Well, after I did the calculation, the delta-V total read more than 1 million, plenty for any journey, actually, excessive for even a full-on grand tour of the solar system, with landings that is. The immense amount of delta-V should be from the ion engines, at least that was what I thought it was from. The engines were extremely optimised, using low amounts of electricity and minimal amounts of xenon while providing 32kN of thrust. This wasn't very impressive, as the Scouter doesn't have a warp drive in it, which the Diver had.
The time taken to get to the Diver wasn't very long, but the deceleration took a while. I then realised something, the Diver wasn't going to leave the Joolian system until a few days, so that gave me some time to get to some other places. I transferred some liquid fuel manually via a fuel duct into the Scouter and headed off to somewhere that I found to be pretty sexy.
The place was supposedly called Laythe, an ocean world with oxygen, a bit like Equestria, but extremely cold compared to home. I undocked the Scouter again and fired up the engines to get to Laythe. The transfer would take a while, one day to be exact, but I was good with waiting, being the lazy one I was, I just went to sleep, not into stasis, my eyes barely able to open because of how tired I was.
After the long nap, which was definitely more like actually sleeping, I was still not at Laythe. I still needed about 3 hours to go, and I felt like tuning into some entertainment. The Scouter had an extremely powerful antenna, having a rating of over 1T, the Diver had one that was over 15T. The ground stations on Equestria had even more powerful ones but that would be upgraded sometimes. I watched some videos and played some games on another screen on the Scouter, which was basically a computer, nothing to do with control or anything.
I was finally at Laythe after a while of drifting in space. I entered its atmosphere after a bit of coasting, but when I reached it, I started to spin the craft like crazy, firstly to dissipate the heat and avoid getting burnt. The spinning made a huge difference, even though pretty much the whole craft was very heat resistant, also coated in a very heat resistant ablative material for reentry.
The Scouter reached the surface of Laythe after a long time of gliding in the upper atmosphere because of its very good glide ratio. The landing didn't go great, but it definitely was pretty good, not lying. I deployed a drogue chute to slow it down, and after a little, it came to a complete stop, but I did have to change the friction control on the wheels to keep it from moving down the dune I landed on.
I stepped out of the craft, looking out the ocean front view. I planted a flag and relaxed a bit, enjoying the view and also taking a few pictures and swimming. I landed pretty close to the water, so it was only like a 2-minute walk. I got back into the craft, ready to take off again. The takeoff process was like every other I did, and I got back to the Diver, docked with it, and then went into stasis to go to Alpha Centauri.
Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
We were landing in a grassy area that didn't have too many trees or sudden height gains, the perfect place even though it isn't a runway, but it was the best we could find. The place wasn't great or anything like that, but it was good enough for a landing, even if it would be a crash landing as we could escape with relative ease.
The Diver slowly but eventually completed one orbit around the place, and then Lyra started to do the deorbit burn. Lyra was a great spaceplane pilot, really, she is. I crawled into the little Scouter for some testing and whatnot in somewhere that wasn't Equestria. The thing somehow worked, even after 2 trillion years of being stuck to the Diver by magnets.
I let the Scouter go, and it slowly drifted away from the mothership, but it would definitely still go into the atmosphere. The Diver was the first one to enter the atmosphere, but mine entered a bit later. Thank goodness for cameras mounted on my ship so I could see what was outside, or I would basically hate myself for choosing this little ingenious craft.
The Diver had pretty good thermal performance, and so it was able to just glide down the atmosphere with no problem, but mine was a little different. It had great maneuverability, but it had average thermal performance. Since the maneuverability was great, I used it to my advantage, spinning it around at about 60rpm, dissipating the heat evenly around my craft.
I pitched the nose down 90 degrees, going into a vertical dive, while Lyra did a different approach, gliding along the upper atmosphere. The vertical dive was ok, that was all I could say, falling down at a very fast speed. When I was near the ground, I pitched up extremely fast, also having to endure a harsh 30g spike, feeling like it was crushing me. I then got into a landing approach, minimising my vertical speed and deploying the landing gear. After touchdown, I deployed the drogue chute and kept my craft as low to the ground as possible by setting a deploy limit for the landing gear to avoid spinning out.
The Scouter officially landed on Pandora, but the Diver didn't. I put on my helmet, first needing to do an atmospheric scan, but that could wait. I looked up, and the Diver was heading my way, then later pitching up. It didn't have great gliding abilities, but it could be considered ok as it could glide with no problems with relative ease. It had a vertical speed of about 20m/s, or at least that's what it looked like.
The Diver then deployed its parachutes before touchdown, but its vertical speed was too high, and two of its back landing gear got overstressed, the other two were fine. Since two of the 4 back landing gear was broken, the other two landing gear got overstressed, never overestimate landing gear, just don't.
One of the two landing gear then got overstressed and snapped, making the back topple down, falling on its wing. The wing collided into the ground, basically snapping it off the craft. I watched in despair, crying. I didn't know if the others were fine. If they weren't, then I would have nopony to be with, and I'll be lonely.
Every explosion made me sadder and sadder, crippling my emotions. When all the explosions were done, and the ground considered safe for me, I flew over as fast as I could. I opened up the emergency exit hatch from the outside and went in. What I saw really cheered me up, Derpy was all fine. I asked her worriedly, 'Where are the others, are they fine?'
'I don't know,' she replied.
I dashed over to the other parts of the cabins, also going into the cockpit, not seeing anyone there. I then cried, tears flowing down my cheeks, depressed that the others could have died. I then flew out the emergency exit, looking out. What I saw was absolutely shocking, the others were there, outside, heading towards my craft. I couldn't believe it, they were alive, but there were only Starry, Flamerider and Lyra.
I dashed over to them, all of them in spacesuits and wearing helmets, as no one knows what Pandora was like. The landscape looked like Equestria's, only with big trees. I stopped right in front of them, immediately hugging and crying. 'I can't believe you're alive,' I sobbed.
They cheered me up, but they also had some bad news. 'Some of the other ponies are dead, they got squashed or something, we have no idea,' Lyra sadly told me, also hugging me.
'No.'
A shrivel went down my spine, my heart stopped, tears started to pour down my cheeks. I couldn't describe how it felt, I then started crying, and wearing a helmet, had a bit of a problem with the tears. I then asked them, 'How did you guys survive?'
'We were at the front of the spaceplane, the others were at the back end of it. Anyways, the plane spun out and then it kept stalling, that was how it crashed,' Starry replied.
I listened and took in what she said, but now it was something else, to find the others. We all looked everywhere, but we could not find anything, even after excavating the whole plane. The interior of the plane was all intact, but the back was all crushed, some of the engines on top of it.
We all sat there, looking at the debris, they were dead, there was no sign of them anywhere. They were our friends, more importantly, my friends. I lost them due to the crash, sadness just went through my body, my heart stopping again. We sat there for a long time, remembering the past and everything about it. The light was fading away, and night was bound to fall, so we had to find shelter.
Finding shelter wasn't hard for us at all, there was one already, the debris of the SSTO, and also the Galaxy Scouter. Everypony worked together to get the Galaxy Scouter to the Diver's debris, taking a while, then putting it inside it for keeping it safe just in case, also pretty good for an extra shelter. The Diver's front cabins were all intact, plus the cargo bay and the cockpit all were. We would claim that as our home for now, and we would settle in it for the time being.
The front cabins weren't very comfortable compared to the back ones, and the cockpit wasn't very good either. The cargo bay was a good place to create a living room and the Scouter could be an emergency shelter. I knew how to engineer a spacecraft, also modifying it, so I could make something out of the Scouter, which on second thought would be a pretty suitable exploration craft.
Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
We basically furnished the entire Diver, also blocking off the back of the cargo bay, making it so that the cargo bay was entirely airtight. The top part of the Diver was fully functional, the controls on the cockpit all working such as deploying lights and wheels, only without being able to fire up engines.
All of us were tired after furnishing the spacecraft ruins, so we decided to sleep until the next day for some expeditions, as the night could be dangerous for us, or some other things, who knows. We all didn't sleep very well, the memories of the other creatures haunting us during it, and Princess Luna can't help us, we were too far away from Equestria. Speaking of Equestria, what could have happened to it in the 2 trillion years.
I woke up a bit tired for some reason, maybe I didn't have much muscle mass, but that can't be the case, maybe I had problems with sleeping, which would be the most suitable answer. The others were all sleeping, and being the prankster I am sometimes, I thought of doing something funny, but mostly just mean.
I cupped my hooves around the necklace I had, which I kept on because Silverstream died, and wished to be a unicorn for some pranks. There was only one real unicorn, and that was Lyra, now I would be a unicorn, just for pranking, I'd much rather fly then have magic unless I could self-levitate or I was an alicorn. Being a unicorn for me was weird, I had to learn magic or I would be an earth pony that has a horn, something that would be useless. There was only one thing for me to do, learn magic.
There were no books to learn magic with, and what would the others say about me if I went up to them having a horn instead of wings? There was only one way to learn magic, and that was to teach myself about it without any help or books. I taught myself a lot of things before, some with help and books while others not. Learning magic surely wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world, right?
I started off with a levitation spell, not hard, or hard, I don't know, I'm not a unicorn, usually, not now. Starting off, I started to concentrate on a little piece of paper I found on the floor, trying to levitate it. Despite not ever doing any of this before, I did it on my second try, realising that being calm and relaxed was better to learn things than to try extremely hard at it.
I levitated feathers to Flamerider, which on second thought, wasn't the best idea. The feather was from my pillow, yes, we still had pillows. I thought it would be funny to just make her sneeze, which is what I definitely did. She sneezed, waking everypony up, and I had to change back into a pegasus right away, and so I did.
Thank goodness nopony saw me, anyways, we were ready for today's expedition out to the Pandoran forest. I first did an atmospheric analysis and saw that the gases in the atmosphere were not very dangerous, except for one though. For the sake of safety, everypony put on their helmets instead of going without helmets to avoid getting poisoned because of the atmosphere.
The outside was not very bright, Polyphemus was blocking the star's rays a bit, but it was bright enough to see everything clearly. We all headed east, into the forest, but it was more like flying above the forest. I carried Lyra when I was flying, the others were all pegasi so that was no problem at all. Derpy stayed at our home for guarding, the Galaxy Diver's debris.
We looked down on the Pandoran forest, the view was gorgeous, mist covering the top of the forest, huge trees right in front of us. 'Is that a tree?' Lyra asked me, curious to see what that gigantic tree was.
'Yeah, looks like a tree, has to be a tree,' I replied, the others still flying. The tree was relatively far away, taking about 5 minutes to fly to, but we got there eventually. The tree from far away didn't seem as large as when you're close to it. The tree seemed enormous, about a hundred times larger than the other ones, to me, it seemed like it was impossible to have one that big unless it was made using magic, which I highly think wouldn't be the case.
We decided exploring it would be a great idea, even though a bit risky. We had no idea what would rest down there, there was life on the moon, so animals should exist right? We carefully descended down, being careful of our moves. It was strange how there were no other living things that were flying, it just doesn't make sense. Descending took a while, especially when safety was the number one priority.
Just in the middle of descending, we saw an arrow fire up from where the tree roots were, heading for Starry Night. Then, more arrows started to shoot us, all of us trying to dodge them, and I then went down, starting to investigate what was down there.
Going down was a bit risky, even though the arrows stopped. I went down the tree layer, not the large tree area, the normal tree layer. Underneath it, I saw strange things, one of them looking at me strangely, also me looking at it strangely. I sair to it, scared, 'Please don't hurt me.'
It replied to me, 'I won't, what are you anyways.'
'Phew, what about the arrows before?'
'The others are a bit aggressive, anyway, my name is Neytiri, the princess of this tribe.'
I bowed to her, just like I would with Princess Celestia and Luna, still a little nervous. She looked blue, strangely having tattoos and she was very tall, I looked very small compared to her. I didn't know exactly how to describe how she looked, but she had good looking hair.
'So,' I asked her. 'What is this place?'
She replied to me, 'I'm from the Omaticaya clan, this is our hometree, where we live.'
'Hmm, that's great, I'll tell the other ponies, hold on a while.'
I flew up, above the tree canopy layer, up into the sky. The other ponies were perching on the top of the trees, Lyra trying to balance herself. I told them, 'Come down, there are some new creatures down there, I want you guys to meet them.'
'You think it's safe?' Flamerider asked.
'If she says its safe, then it is,' Starry Night replied. 'Let's go.'
We all flew down, meeting Neytiri. We all greeted each other, some other creatures also greeting us. The others went with some of the other creatures to explore the place. Neytiri and I talked about things, such as what her life was like and mine. I later learned that they were called the Na'vi, one of the most intelligent life on Pandora, also speaks the same language as us.
The visit was done, we spent the whole day with them, all of them being very polite and welcoming to us. For the night, we stayed with them, going to a part of the tree that was for guests. The night was very, very beautiful, the life being bioluminescent. I thought about something, are we able to live on Pandora with our helmets off.
Author's Note
From here, you can definitely see why there is that alternate universe tag.
Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
All I can say about the Na'vi are that they were very nice to us, even helping us, well the Omaticaya clan at least. Little was known about the other clans, but hey, one clan was good enough, right? Neytiri told me about how she learned the language that us ponies speak, and for some reason, it was called English. She also told me that there were other living things on Pandora.
The place was great, not as good as Equestria or anything like that, but it was good. The only thing was that I didn't want to have my helmet on and that some of the atmospheric gas was poisonous, maybe, as some weren't even discovered on Equestria. There was only one thing to do if I didn't want to wear a helmet, and that was to actually try breathing the air. I took off my helmet just for some testing, I could always put it back on if I got dizzy or something like that.
After taking off my helmet, I breathed in the air around me. I was in my own part of the guest branch of the tree, the others exploring the tree even more, even looking around it. The air felt so much fresher than the oxygenated air in my helmet. The air did seem like it was a bit, uh, smelly. To my knowledge, it could be the trace amounts of hydrogen sulfate, which to my knowledge, smells bad.
I didn't feel dizzy or even got unconscious, it seemed like the Pandoran air was breathable by ponies. I had to tell the others, which were just flying around, Lyra hanging around with some other Na'vi. I flew down from my place, approaching Lyra slowly. I touched down slowly, she looking at me strangely, maybe wondering about me not wearing a helmet. I told her, 'Lyra, you don't need a helmet here, you should be fine without one.'
She trusted me and took her's off, sniffing the air. 'Why does this place smell so bad, and how can you live like this?'
'Uh, resist the urge to vomit?'
She frowned at me, putting on her helmet again. I still haven't got used to that bad smell, but it was getting better, as in getting less smelly. Lyra didn't like the smell and I guess she would prefer wearing a helmet than to breathe in some smelly stuff. A Na'vi sat next to us, telling us that we should have lunch, it was lunchtime for them right now.
Good thing for me I didn't have a helmet on, Lyra would need to take her's off, not the best but whatever, if she wants to do that, then she can. The other ponies came back, nice huh? 'Planetshine, why don't you have your helmet on?' Flamerider asked, a bit confused.
'Atmosphere isn't toxic,' I replied, 'But it smells bad.'
'Hold on.'
Flamerider took off her helmet, breathing in the air. From what I saw, she didn't care too much about the smell, keeping her helmet off. Starry then took off her helmet, sniffing the air. 'Uhh, that smell,' she complained, putting on her helmet back on again.
We realised one thing later, we left Derpy out at our home. We quickly hurried back, flying quickly to the Diver's debris, Flamerider carrying Lyra. Over there, Sandbar greeted us. He wasn't dead, it was a miracle. I dashed over, hugging him tightly. The others hugged with me, just later. I had an emotional breakdown, I was extremely glad and happy that he survived. Derpy then greeted us, accidentally tripping.
She was fine though, also huddling together with us. Lyra asked Sandbar, 'How did you survive, and where were you?'
'I smashed a window when the plane was about to land, and then I bailed out, the others didn't make it though, I did at least. I then rolled down the slope and into a forest. I then spent the night there, scavenging for my own food. Then I found the plane's debris, good story eigh?' he told us.
I gasped, there was no way that was true, right, maybe it was, more real than fake. The others believed him though, so I guess I would believe him, even if it was fake, which I don't think was. He didn't have a helmet on, like me and Flamerider, and he's a bit dirty, so I guess I should believe him.
Night was going to fall, great, daytime was over, all I can say here is that the day is much shorter than back home, and the nights are the same, a bit strange but it was a moon orbiting a planet, what can I say. There was no food in the debris, only cabins. Since there was no food, I guess somepony had to scavenge some. Sandbar and I would scavenge for today.
Great thing I knew what to eat, grass. I chopped off some grass, also analyzing it using a little science kit that I brought along. Sandbar got some berries from the nearby forest that he deemed safe to eat. He had eaten them before, or at least that was what he told me, which meant I could somewhat rely on him.
The grass on Pandora was safe to eat, that is according to the scientific analysis. The grass was the exact same as the ones in Equestria. I plucked a lot of grass, well, that was because we were in a clearing, basically a grassland. I took the grass into our home, telling the others that it was safe to eat. Sandbar came later, carrying a few berries and carrot like plants that were white.
I went on and started to prepare them, realising that there was a shortage of water. It was great that water was easily found on Pandora, there was a river near us, only a 1 minute walk away. I got the water, going back to making the food. There was no fire, so it was served cold, not pleasant at all, seriously. It took a long time for all of us to eat, 99% of it because of the bad taste and 1% on how it looks.
Then we went to sleep, waiting for the next day.
Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
I went back home, having the cloud in my hooves, but it was when I put the cloud down I realised something strange. My front left hoof was greenish and my front right hoof was purplish. I guess falling into a rainbow really did do something, guess I have to get rid of that now. I walked in, Starry staring at me strangely. 'Planetshine? Why are you all rainbowish and why is your right eye brown?' she said.
I first looked at my mane, and it was all rainbowish. I expected it after falling into a rainbow, and about the eye situation, I have no idea, maybe Starry was just kidding with me. I ran into my room, taking out a part of a mirror, which was a shattered piece that was pretty safe to handle. I looked into it, and my right eye was in fact definitely brown. I guess that is why nopony ever swims in rainbows.
I went up to the others, and they were all pretty shocked to see me, but after some explaining, they were just fine about it. It was strangely late now, the gas giant blocking a lot of light from us, also the planet spinning, great right? It was becoming dusk, and the yellowish haze hit us. Lyra thought of watching the sunset and asked everypony to join in.
We all went outside, watching the sunset. The sun wasn't actually setting, it was just getting blocked by the annoying gas giant, and night was about to fall. I guess the night was pretty nice looking, the whole place lighting up slowly. Didn't I mention Pandora's nights were all bioluminescent?
As the random pony I am, I thought that a good ol' bushwalk would be a good idea, in a bioluminescent environment, at night, which should be beautiful. We packed the gear that we needed, plus some food and water, and headed out. We headed to the forest obviously, as the place definitely uh, had some interesting things. We decided to not interrupt the Na'vi, they could be sleeping.
We walked in the forest, the trees around us emitting a very subtle glow around us, it looked like the Everfree Forest, but it glowed. The place was a little damp, definitely because of the rain in the day, but not wet. The plants on the ground glowed a bit stronger than the trees, enabling us to see in the dark. The place felt very tranquil, perfect for the evening walk, but only if it didn't have dangerous creatures.
Speaking of dangerous creatures, we encountered some monster that looked like an axe with very thick legs. Lyra shined her torch on it, randomly angering it. 'Fucking hell Lyra, why did you make that thing angry?' Flamerider yelled at her, angering the creature even more due to the loud sound.
The axe creature was about 6 times as tall as us, just makes us seem tiny, seriously. One thing that is great is that we can dodge its attacks, something that large would definitely have bad maneuverability. It put its head down, looking like it was ready to charge at us. When it started charging, we knew we had to leave, or get out of the way.
Thanks to the light produced by the plants, we were easily able to evade it. Flamerider and Starry carrying Lyra and Sandbar. I forgot to mention Derpy, who also escaped but needed some help from me. She wasn't very good at flying, sometimes flying a bit off and crashing, but she knew how to fly, and it's better to do something bad than to not be able to do it, like cooking.
We were all in the air, I let go of Derpy. She started flying, but not in a good way, swaying from side to side. We quickly got out of the forest, hearing the roars of that axe headed creature. We flew out of the forest, heading back to our home. Starry had a pretty good sense of direction, so we followed her.
When we were back at our home, we decided that going out at night wasn't the best idea, with the dangerous creatures. I then said, 'how do the creatures here survive the night?'
That rose up a discussion, a very interesting one actually. Everypony made up theories about how they survived, but the easy answer was that they just survived here full stop. I made a little fire, starting to cook for everyone. I took some of the grass outside and some berries. Great thing I knew advanced survival skills, making a fire was super easy.
I started to cook up the food, roasting all of it. I dried up the grass to make hay and made jam from heating up the berries and adding a bit of water into it. Great thing it tasted great, seriously, it tasted great, except for maybe the jam, that had a little bit of a bitter aftertaste.
As the night progressed, I looked out the window of the cockpit, maybe I should make that my cabin. The cockpit was quite small, that is for such a large plane. The cockpit was pretty useless now, as you have to climb up the stairs and it was inconvenient, but it did give a good view outside, like a cupola, just without a 360° view.
For that night, I spent it all in the cockpit, looking out of it, enjoying the view until it was morning, or when Polyphemus gets out the way of the light. In my opinion, the cockpit was great for some alone time or whatnot, as the environment in it is very tranquil, great for reading or something like that, also comes with a great view.
For that night, I saw some flying bird-like things which were more like dragons. They were not very bioluminescent, but they did emit a glow. It did spook me out a little, looking strange. At least they didn't attack our home, that would be bad.
Author's Note
Night time on Pandora is not good.
Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
I heard something, some buzzing noise, strange to say the least. The buzzing noise was coming from somewhere east or maybe northeast. I went to the other ponies, running down the stairs to the others. 'There's a buzzing noise outside, can you guys hear it?'
'Yeah, kind of,' Starry replied, 'not much though.'
'What Starry said,' Flamerider also replied.
I thought about looking outside, normal for me and whatnot, after all, I like doing random stuff that might suck or be life-threatening. I walked out, looking out east. What I saw shocked me a little, some helicopters flying around and hovering. That didn't make sense to me or anypony else, yes, the others were there too.
One of them landed near us, strange, and one of them stepped out. 'Humans, I knew they existed!' Lyra shout out.
'Shut the hell up you asshole,' Flamerider whispered into Lyra's ear.
The humans were talking to each other, and we could hear them, knowing exactly what they were saying. Lyra was intrigued, very intrigued, to the point that she just wanted to rush into them. One of them said to another, 'What are they? Too small to be horses and they are all coloured strange.'
The other one replied, 'Yeah, don't mention that rainbowish one, you forgot that shit.'
Lyra then stepped into the conversation, 'Hey, you guys humans?'
One of them replied, 'You know our language, that's strange, anyway, we are the humans.'
'YEEEESSSSS! HUMANS ARE REAL, MY THEORY WAS CORRECT!' Lyra yelled in excitement.
'Lyra, don't be like that, seriously,' I said, covering my ears using my wings.
'Are you horse-like things like, uh, got horns, and uh, wings?' Another human said to us pointing to us and the spaceplane debris. 'What is that?'
'Our home,' Flamerider said, stepping in the conversation. 'What are you guys doing here?'
The humans had breathing masks on, plus clothes on. I don't know why they had breathing masks on, just a little strange as the place was perfectly breathable by us. Maybe they couldn't breathe, or they could but the atmosphere was poisonous to them, I may never know, or we may never know.
I asked them, walking up to them, 'Who are you guys?'
The human on the left answered, 'My name is Richard, and the one beside me is called Alex, we are from Earth but we live here now.'
'Why?' I asked, curious to find out.
'We work for the RDA here, which is like a mining facility, also, we were scouting the area and found your place, and we sort of wanted to investigate it.'
'Hmm, ok, whatever, Lyra's into humans, and we live here, for now, that was a spaceplane.'
The humans seemed suspiciously friendly, but I guess that was the nature of them, but what I heard from Lyra, they also have a bad side. We talked to the humans for a while, and we then welcomed them into our home. While inside, Richard and Alex took off their breathing masks, which were actually called exopacks, dumb name really but I knew what they meant by that.
They liked our house, I mean spaceplane debris, pretty much, and asked to stay here for the night. We didn't know if they were just trying to do a reconnaissance mission or whatever, but we let them stay for the night. One thing I forgot to mention about the humans, they were twice as tall as us and they were a little, uh, strange. They used hands and whatnot to pick up things and they had great technology, better than the ones in Equestria.
The night spent with them was ok, pretty nice really, they were friendly to us and even showed us what to eat and what not to eat. It seemed like they knew more about the place than we do, either they came before us, or they just knew about it. The only thing that we don't exactly know is what they do, and where they lived, or really any information about them. They could be the bad guys or the good guys.
The night was normal, me sleeping in the cockpit instead of my cabin, random creatures in the forest roaring and whatnot. The next day was different, as they invited us to visit their place. We didn't know about it, maybe something strange was over there. We also had no idea what lies there, good stuff or bad stuff. Even though there could be a bad thing, we agreed to go, after all they seemed good.
We boarded that helicopter, the inside furnished pretty well, a few seats and a storage section. It took off, blowing wind onto the grass. The chopper ride took a while, but the place started to be visible, and it looked, interesting. We flew over some floating mountain like things, which looked physically impossible, and some big trees.
The human place seemed, uh, full of technology, and cars and stuff. The landing was quick, landing on a helipad. We all dismounted from the chopper, ready to explore the place. There was a person that looked at us, also pretty close to us too. He was on a wheelchair, carrying a backpack. It seemed interesting, and I wanted to interact with him.
I trotted over, only really taking a little while. 'Hey, my name's Planetshine, what's your's?' I asked.
He replied, thinking for a moment, 'Jake, Jake Sully.'
'Hey Jake, so, why are you here?'
'Long story short, my brother died some time ago, and then I took over his spot, and yeah, now I'm here.'
From what I head from him, he was a good dude. I felt pretty empathetic for his brother to die, and how he was on wheels. He later explained that he was reporting to the RDA, and all that. I trotted back, reuniting with the others. Then, Richard gave us authority cards so that we could explore the place with no limitations.
We all set off with exploring the place, but we had to first enter it.
Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
We entered a gate, door, whatever, it was sliding though, really nice, legit not lying. The inside was, uh, huge? Maybe not huge, looked huge, but ahh whatever, huge. There were signs are whatnot, blah blah, whatever. One led to I think the personal quarters, and Jake was around us. We all went to him, he looking strangely at us. We asked, 'Jake, what's this place?'
'Oh, just an RDA building, do you want a tour of this?' he replied.
We answered yes, and we had a full-on tour of the place. The place seemed great, or not, depending on where we were. The part I liked the most was the canteen and dining halls. They looked sweet, quite literally, as there were desserts on the counter, I so want to eat them, like so want to.
Great thing I snuck some, and also some food, which was definitely more like just asking them, and hey, the food was free, so I didn't steal. The food I stole was, good, only one problem, there was meat in it. As a pony, I wasn't supposed to eat meat, as us ponies eat vegan, or we are herbivores. When I realised it I was still eating it, but the meat tasted, uh, good. Good thing the others didn't see me eat it, they would think I'm crazy or something. Guess I might eat meat again, not sure.
We walked out, Jake going to his personal quarters. Looking around, I noticed something, another building, this time looking different. We trotted there to investigate, or look inside, that building. One thing, the building was smaller than I expected, but when we went inside, it was very, high tech is the word I would call it.
The inside had tanks and stuff and it also had Na'vi in it. They looked like they were mature, but they still had a cord attached to them, which made me think it was not a full grown one. Could the Na'vi be born like that, I mean, that would definitely hurt, right?
A human walked to us, right in front of us, looking down. She said, 'What are you small horse things, wait, where's my cigarette?'
'I don't know,' Flamerider said.
The human responded, 'I was talking to somebody else about the cigarette, also how the absolute fuck do you know English?'
'I don't know, since I learned it?' Flamerider replied, looking a bit nervous.
'Oh well, my name is Grace Augustine, I'm one of those xenobiologists, also part of the Avatar program, those things in the tanks.'
'Cool, what are they?' Sandbar asked.
'Na'vi, human hybrids, now you guys don't cause any trouble ok, I'll be going, bye.'
I looked at the first avatar. It looked exactly like the Na'vi, only with the cords. Other than that, they weren't very interesting, so we just walked out the building, a bit bored. Good thing for me I hid some snack packets in my mane. Yes, my mane was large enough to store 2 packets of chips or snacks or whatever. Flamerider, Lyra and Sandbar have also done the same, but only with one packet, I got 2, one for Starry.
Now that the exploration was over, it was time to head home. We kept the cards, just for future use and whatnot, and set off. Just before we left, I saw a few trucks pull in. And it was just huge, carrying some strange black material. We all aborted going home and went back into the RDA building to ask what it was.
Lyra went in first, looking around. We then went to one of those control rooms or whatever they were called and saw Grace. It was strange how we saw her in there, it was just by chance though. I asked her, 'Grace, so I saw some trucks outside, what were they carrying?'
She replied, 'Unobtanium, a type of material that is basically fuel, and why the absolute shit are you guys here?'
'Just asking, also, we're just exploring the place, can you tell us more, please,' I begged.
'Alright, alright, so the unobtanium is scattered around Pandora and there is a big deposit of one under a hometree of a Na'vi clan. So we are going to deploy an excavation mission on that tree in a while.'
'When?'
'In one week's time, and it's on the Omaticaya clan's tree.'
I gulped, they were going to send an attack or a mission on the tree, and the others seemed frightened. We went out, trying not to seem suspicious, and we started to go back to our home. I had no idea why the humans would do such bad things, we had to warn the Omaticaya clan right away.
Thank goodness we knew where they were, and where their hometree was, after all, they lived pretty close to us. We all flew down, with the exception of Sandbar and Lyra, Derpy was almost forgotten, still at home. I dropped Sandbar and Flamerider dropped Sandbar. I ran to one of the Na'vi, and warned them, 'The humans are going to launch an attack here. They are going to dig up your home tree.'
The Na'vi I was talking to then nodded his head and ran to the clan leader, or what I think he did. I decided not to follow, just so I don't get into any trouble or anything. Now that the clan would know about the attack, they should be fine, or not. We went back to our home, which was safe. There was another thing, keep our home safe. The tree was pretty close to our home, and a missile from the humans that headed our way would be devastating.
Derpy ran out, hugging us immediately. I don't know why, but she must've missed us, after all, she wasn't with us at all. That night, I had nightmares, what could the humans do to our neighbouring Na'vi, what woud happen to us, I guess we would never know until it comes.
Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
One week has passed, and I could see the helicopters arriving, bad things were going to happen. We didn't want to participate in it, but it seemed like we had to, but we chose not to. We didn't want anypony to die, but going into war would be the difference between the tree being uprooted or not. For now, we are I guess allies with the humans and the Na'vi, all of them being friendly to us. Maybe we could stop the war instead of participating in it.
From what the humans told me last week, there was an unobtanium deposit under the Omaticaya clan's hometree, which was definitely why the humans wanted to destroy it, selfish to say the least. I guess the only way to stop it was to do something about the selfishness of the humans and that tree.
I walked out the door, the others still in the spaceplane debris. I then flew off, flying away to one of those helicopters. The heli stopped, and a person in it pointed a gun at me. Ok, so I was going to be dead unless I give a good reason. I said to the person, 'Don't shoot, please, I'm passive, ok.'
The human put down his gun, looking at me, the helicopter hovering by my side. 'Why are you going to war with the Na'vi, and why would you excavate the tree?' I asked, also a bit nervous that the person would shoot at me.
'Because of the Unobtanium, we need it for keeping Earth alive.'
'Earth? What happened to it?'
'Earth's natural resources have been depleted, and we have to replenish them, and this is the only way.'
'But going into war isn't right, you should choose another way, something better.'
'No, we will fight, now back off.'
I backed off, dashing away as fast as I could, back home. The war has begun, bombs were dropped and the arrows were shooting up. We could clearly see what was going on, and it was bad. There were arrows breaking helicopters, making them fall down to the ground. 'We need to help the Na'vi,' I told the others.
We busted out of our plane debris, and went in the battle, defending the Na'vi from the human invasion that was going on. It was at that point I remembered something, avatars. They could be undercover and whatnot, killing the Na'vi as they were controlled by the humans. We landed on the tree, and looking up we saw a shower of arrows. One was heading right for me, but thank goodness I dodged it in time.
There was a Na'vi that walked up the back of me, and said, 'Hey, I'm Jake, don't freak, I'm in an avatar's body.'
'Jake, don't creep up on me like that, please,' I complained.
He and I had a conversation, Jake telling me all about the situation and what led up to it, and how he was on the Na'vi's side. He told us most of the tactics the humans used, and how his real body was in a mountain base, resting while he controlled his avatar.
The strategy was simple for us, break all the helicopters' reinforced blades, with one thing, their own weapons. Already having a bit of trust, and also knew the strategy, Starry and Flamerider went up to the helicopters, asking for weapons. One thing was for her to dodge the arrows, which was a breeze for her, she was cool, like me, and had a good reaction time. When they got the weapons, which was as simple as pie, or was it pi, I don't know, I used that necklace to turn myself into a unicorn. I would never forget about Silverstream.
The others were a bit jealous, but whatever, they had things I didn't have, uh, wings, only for now though, I didn't want to be an alicorn. Being a unicorn was just for the levitation, nothing else, I didn't know any other magic, only levitation, that's it. I levitated up a rocket launcher, which did require a bit of focusing, but it was easy, not.
Lyra also levitated a weapon, a minigun. We fired them in the direction of the helicopters, but my aim wasn't the best, so I thought about going flying, but that would make my aim even worse as flying meant the rocket launcher would be shaking, plus I didn't have wings. I hit 2 helicopters while Lyra hit 3 with her minigun, maybe I should use that, the rocket launcher wasn't my type.
Now the humans are going to hate us, we literally betrayed them, even though we weren't even on their side, we were on the Na'vi's side. Jake was the one that betrayed the humans, or his own team, he also shot down 2 helicopters. Now that most of the helicopters were gone and the arrow shower is gone, we high fived. The other Na'vi gathered around us, cheering, but the war wasn't over yet.
The helicopters retreated, great, but there was something else that came, wheeled vehicles. They were going to dig up the tree, they were going to destroy it, for unobtanium, for the humans. There was no way we were going to win, they were too big. Jake then suddenly blacked out, the avatar, his real body must've been removed from that remote control thing.
The trucks and bulldozers came closer and closer, some of the Na'vi carrying Jake's avatar's body, some of them shooting at the trucks and bulldozers. I had a brilliant plan, use another rocket. There was only one left, and it had to count. I aimed carefully and shot it right at the windscreen of a bulldozer.
The window cracked, the people inside suffocating because of the atmosphere, it worked. That only gave us a few more seconds to spare, and it wasn't much. The humans didn't have exopacks, or whatever they were called, and they slowly collapsed, dying from the atmosphere, getting unconscious in about 20 seconds.
The arrow shower started again, but nothing was done to the vehicles the humans were using, it was just too strong. I turned back into a pegasus, just for easier escape. The bulldozers edged even closer, and defeat seemed like it was inevitable, and it was. The Na'vi then fleed from the tree, and so did we, flying up into the sky. We lost, the tree was going to be gone, the Na'vi homeless, all because of the humans' selfishness.
Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
The war has ended, the Na'vi lost, the humans have won. The Na'vi all ran away, to somewhere else, we went back to our home, sad that we lost to the humans, also the Na'vi lost their homes. We watched as the humans excavate the tree, the tree then eventually falling down, hitting the ground with lots of force.
Now that the tree was gone, all we knew was that there was nothing else to do, the humans hated us and we had no idea where the Na'vi were. There was nothing to do, nothing to do with this situation, this was the reality that we didn't hope for, what was this.
1 week later: I looked out the window, there were humans again, this time on a huge gunship thing. I was always on watch, the others usually about at home or outside doing stuff. The gunship was large, very large, about 50m across, maybe more. It looked like a helicopter, but it had 4 huge blades to lift it, and it looked like it was heading to another tree. This time at a different spot.
What could they do? What would they do? I had no idea, there was only one way to find out, and that was to find it out. There was still the Galaxy Scouter in tip-top condition, only a little bit of rust but that wouldn't impact its performance. I was the pilot of that, and I knew how to fly it. The only problem was how the place didn't have much oxygen and all that. The Diver still had plenty of fuel left, and that ISRU and drill still worked, still producing fuel.
I could definitely use that aircraft, but the oxygen, and how it would impact the performance. One good thing was the Pandora had lots of xenon in its atmosphere, which meant that the ion engines could refill, that is if it had an air compressor and a filter.
I boarded it, then turning on the RAPIER engine. The atmosphere was suitable for jet flight, and since the RAPIER engines were turboramjets or whatnot, it could fly at hypersonic speeds without any problem really, and the shock cone intake on the front is very heat resistant. I then started to throttle up the engine, the turbojet firing up first. The turbojet started up, not turning on the afterburner.
When I was in the air after a while of being on the ground, I waited for the RAPIER engine to accelerate me to mach 1, and then I turned on the afterburner. That was just for efficiency's sake, as efficiency was key in this, as I have to get back home. After turning on the afterburner, I waited till mach 2, which took a little bit of time, and then I turned on the ramjet mode. I whizzed past the gunship, also taking a few good pictures of it.
I then started to scout the area for where the humans were going to attack, using the turbojet without afterburner to do that, as I didn't really need the afterburner or ramjet. I found a tree that they might attack, but there could be more they would want to excavate. I turned around, this time using the ramjet to get a close pass with supersonic speeds. The bad thing was that the humans were targeting me, guns and missiles were targeting me.
The thing I had here was I could go fast, and that could make all the difference, or the human's missiles are faster. I whizzed around the gunship at supersonic speeds. That piece of shit was easy to evade, what were the humans even thinking, dumb crap?
I then started to find potential targets, and I found one, in particular, they might strike. It was a tree that looked nice, literally, and it had Na'vi. The tree was a bit better looking than the hometrees, a bit white I could say, and it was in a drop, that's all I can say, at least from the avionics and the photos.
I started to climb up in altitude just so the gunship would have a hard time targeting me, and I could see it. I mean, the gunship must've taken photos of me, right? I was about 10000m above the surface, looking down and taking reconnaissance photos. The gunship was indeed heading that way.
That was great, a better-looking tree was going to be dead. I could just get into a dogfight, but with no weapons and only speed and maneuverability to my advantage, it was hard to win, but I had to try. Plus that the photos of the tree showed that there were Na'vi there.
My heart started to race, I was going to do a dogfight with the gunship. I might be dead if I'm not careful. I turned around and started up the afterburner. The Isp of the engine halves but whatever, I had lots of fuel remaining. The gunship then shot a few missiles at me, homing missiles. I'm dead.
Well, I wasn't exactly dead, that was just a saying, everyone knows. The missiles were large, large as in about the size of my beautiful little galaxy scouter. The thing was just catching up to me, and I passed the gunship lots of time, the humans looking at me and cheering on the missile. How do I know that? Photos.
It seemed like I couldn't evade one, but there was one thing, speed. I did a quick u-turn, and the missiles did a slow one, they weren't that maneuverable. I then started up the ramjets when I got to mach 2, and the missile followed me. I was heading right for the gunship, collision in 5 seconds. I seemed like I was dead, but I was traveling at mach 4 already, and I could turn quite easily at that speed.
I waited for the best time to pitch up, clenching my hooves, concentrating on the screen. I pitched up, and passing the gunship, I pitched down a tiny little bit. The missiles then collided with the gunship, I won the dogfight. I saved a tree, or the Na'vi, or whatever I saved, and got intelligence from the humans.
I headed back home, landing the Galaxy Scouter perfectly. That was over, but maybe not another war.
Author's Note
I didn't forget about the Kerbal stuff, so yeah, also I'm writing this as I go, with no planning, so what I write is what I think off at the time.
Plus the timeline is different because ponies altered it, and its an alt universe.
Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
Author's Note
I'm doing pony art now, well, base edits and pointy pony stuff. My friend is also starting a fanfic, and I'm part of it, well, book 3 is merging with his first ever fanfic. (exiting)
I'm just going to rush book 2, I'm not bothered too much about this. And yes, there is a chance I might rewrite this, only time will tell.
War Part 2
Funny thing number one: Humans have the worst tech and I have piloting skills, blah blah, yeah, everyone gets the point. I guess war was inevitable again, but the Galaxy Scouter was useful, not just for reconnaissance but for even dogfights, only if it got weapons, which it obviously doesn't have.
The humans were starting to get their troops and military to the tree. It should be the tree I was thinking about, that required another recon mission. This time Sandbar squashed in with me in the Scouter, perfect, the Scouter wasn't designed for 2 ponies, only 1. Good thing that there was something called foldable seats, those things were useful.
The plane with two ponies in it wasn't very squishy after all, I mean, we could fit in there, just needing to be squished in a ball, though I guess being a unicorn would be the most logical thing. I obviously turned into a unicorn, but since I was touching Sandbar, he turned into one as well. I guess that's how magic works, right?
We flew along the place, the ramjet firing up after a while, completing the recon mission after a while of flying and a few missiles flying our way. We concluded that the humans were going to go to that white tree. Plus we also destroyed some large SSTO like craft too, with their own weapons, great if you ask me.
I guess the Na'vi would be good, but for us, we weren't exactly good at being a military force, they had a real army, just like the humans. We did want to participate in it, and we did want to help, so we went on. We all flew over instead of taking the Scouter for another spin, that was just something for another time.
I can definitely say flying there takes a long time, longer than what I would consider long, about 5 times longer than using that scouter, which was fast. We stopped, realising how large the gunship and the helicopters were. Too bad we can't shoot them down anymore, we 'betrayed' the humans and all that, and they hated us.
There might be other ways though, but I don't have a good idea about some of them, but if we wanted to help the Na'vi, we had to do it. The plan was to kill the humans when they were in their helicopters and stuff. Just grab a gun or something like that, get into the helicopters, go berserk, take over the helicopter, shoot the others down. That was the plan, the only plan.
The first thing that we did was to find a way to get into the helicopters or steal a gun or something like that. I don't know what the others were going to do, but I was going for the full-on assault. I smashed in the helicopter. There were two people in there, and they were definitely larger than me. I was about 1m 20 centimeters while they looked like they were like 1.8m.
I quickly flew up, and in just a few moments, thrust myself in the direction of one of the humans' face. I used my hooves, smashing into him. Great thing I knocked one of them out, now for the other one. I found a gun in the human's pocket, and I could use that to my advantage, only problem, speed.
I dodged the other human's attacks, dodging them right in the nick of time. The human backed up, ready to rush at me. The doors were open, so anyone could fall out, but at least I could fly. The human dashed at me, and he fell out the helicopter, but I caught it when it was going out. Don't know why I still had kindness in me. Strange to think about it.
The gunship and the other helicopters approached the tree, arrows started showering, things being catapulted. The gunship landed near the tree, humans in those robots came out, the battlefield getting more intense. I guess that was definitely a huge war. There were Na'vi everywhere. From what I could see, there were more than just the Omaticaya clan, more, a lot more.
They were just spraying arrows, also, some were all just riding ridiculous things and assaulting the helicopters that were on the ground right beside them. Then, some lots of strange creatures started emerging from the tree, destroying the humans. The next thing that happens is that I saw a Na'vi, riding some weird flying bird-like dragon thing. Strange to say the least.
He threw a few grenades or something into the airships, and they exploded, the airships also exploded, some people bailing out. Then, they went down into the tree. The battle was looking good for the Na'vi, and not so good for the humans. I could say that the Na'vi would be victorious, the humans were getting less and less airships and helicopters. They were going to lose.
One bad thing, the helicopter I was in got shot down, good thing, I'm not dead, I bailed just in time and went down to help the Na'vi from the ground. I saw Jake, helping the Na'vi and still having their trust. I don't get, how does that work.
Then, suddenly, a human jumped on him, in a robot suit thing and holding a knife. Jake was held down, not having enough energy to defend himself. He tried to escape but he couldn't do it. I tried to help, jumping on the human's suit, trying to get rid of that person. Too bad I didn't have the strength, that guy didn't even care.
I then realised that there was a button it, which I pressed out of curiosity. The suit opened up, the human not having a breathing mask meant that he would suffocate. Hey, I helped right?
Jake then lost consciousness, too bad I had no way to help. He must've been removed from his linking thing. The victory for the Na'vi seemed very close, the human's defeat was inevitable. I couldn't remember what happened later, I went unconscious, but I did feel and hear some very strange noises. Maybe it was just me, but it could be something else, it seemed creepy.
Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. 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.
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Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
Interlude: Trillions of Years (in the future)
Everypony got out of stasis, for me, looking at the mission time. The mission time that was expected was about 2000 years, but the counter read 2 trillion years, not sure how, but it was really that long. Everypony was surprised that the Galaxy Diver wasn't harmed by anything, strange but awesome. I checked the mission log, reading it.
+2176y 118d 1h 29m 54s Enter Alpha Centauri A's SOI
I complained, 'Fucking seriously, 2 trillion years, how does that work? That can't make sense, can't it?'
'Well I have no idea,' Dr. Whooves replied, checking the equipment.
'Hmm,' Flamerider thought, 'My theory was that we actually were in stasis for the 2 trillion years.'
'How is that possible though,' Ocellus asked.
'Yona thinks that it is possible,' Yona quickly shouted in front of everyone.
'Can you guys just shut the hell up,' Flamerider yelled. 'There is a chance we actually did it, the equipment looks to have not aged but the time did pass, ok, that's my theory, now don't discuss this shit anymore, my head's going to explode.'
Everyone agreed, and we then slowly but steadily waited, waited to enter Polyphemus' SOI that is. After a while, we were finally in, but we were in a hyperbolic orbit with a very low relative velocity to the actual planet as our orbit of Alpha Centauri A had a 1:1 resonance with the planet.
The next thing was to aerobrake in Pandora's atmosphere, which in this case was pretty thick, meaning that we had to spin the craft around like crazy to dissipate the heat. Pretty much everyone puked, only Flamerider and Lyra not puking. For some reason, even though coming in at interplanetary speeds, we didn't disintegrate and got into a stable orbit around Pandora, which on the first hoof looked a lot like Equestria in terms of the land.
Then, Sandbar put it in a very low orbit, just above the atmosphere, looking for a great place to land.
Planetshine's Space Odyssey Book 2
Interlude: I can see a rainbow...
Author's Note
In your tears as they fall on down
Interlude: I can see a rainbow...
I looked out, the ground all wet. Thank Celestia that it didn't flood inside the spaceplane debris, uh, our home. Derpy walked to me, also looking outside. The water was very reflective for some reason, should be the star but whatever, as long as it was drinkable.
I stepped outside, my hooves getting a bit wet, remember, I didn't have my flight suit on for the whole time after not having a helmet on, remember that. I wasn't very used to my hooves getting wet, but whatever, if it was wet, then it was wet, no words said. I looked to the left and right, also looking back. When I looked back, I realised something, a rainbow.
You know in Equestria, at the end of a rainbow would be a cloud, but that was later discovered to be a fake, as nopony has seen one. The sky wasn't very clear, in fact, it was mostly cloudy, though it didn't rain. I thought about something, something about the clouds. I then remembered something, as a pegasus, I could manipulate the clouds, which I haven't done in a long, long time.
I flew up, trying to get to the clouds. Something great was that the clouds weren't very high up, easily flying up and getting on top of the cloud layer. The other ponies were mostly sleeping, Derpy and I were the only ones up. Pegasus magic somehow worked in this place, quite strange actually, but I could grab clouds and even stand on them. I first sat on one of the clouds, looking at the view from up there.
Then I looked for the rainbow, also finding a rainbow pool. It was strange to find one of them, as in Equestria it was very rare, rainbows were made from light refractions. I flew over there, later sitting next to it, looking at it. I liked rainbows, like seriously, so I leaned a bit forward to look at it even better.
I lost my balance, and I tripped face first in the rainbow pool. I tasted it after some got into my mouth, absolutely shit. I flew myself out of the pool, heading back home, also grabbing a cloud at the same time. The cloud would be pretty useful for a temporary water supply.
