A safe distance away from the mothership, Izzy Moonbow cut the thrusters and applied the braking mechanism. She grasped the steering handles and pulled gently to the right, the Butterscotch rotating as the reverse thrusters ground its momentum to a halt.
Now sitting in space distantly parallel with the Equestria, Izzy turned her head to look upon it, awed even from so far away by the enormous, crystalline worldcraft. Were she closer, she'd have been right alongside Bridlewood Floor, the middle of the three residential levels, where she was born and where she'd grown up. Ever the explorer, she was one of the few from Bridlewood who’d actually visited the other floors, and one of even fewer who’d made friends there. She’d developed something of a casual rivalry with Zephyr Floor’s fellow fighter captain Zipp Storm; meanwhile, she’d been going on a number of dates with Maretime Floor beverage vendor Sunny Starscout, the two set to attend a New Year’s ball in a few hours’ time.
That cosmopolitan experience, paired with her talent behind the controls of the Butterscotch, had helped make her an ideal candidate to test a Bridlewood Floor-designed invention that could prove huge for the fighter fleet.
As something of a tinkerer herself, Izzy often felt more kinship with those inventors than her fellow pilots. The Butterscotch was an older-model fighter, inherited from retired captain Alphabittle. It had taken a lot of work to bring it up to the fleet’s current standards, but Izzy felt an odd kinship with her craft, a warmth that could only be found in a machine that had gone through wear and tear before being restored. It was hers, inside and out. Sometimes it was easier to talk to than her fellows aboard, though right now she didn’t feel like saying much.
Perhaps that made it a bit ironic for her to be testing out advanced tech on a ship Commander Haven had called an ancient relic, but Izzy didn’t see it that way. After all, isn’t it easier to gauge the performance of something new against something tried-and-trusted than one that had barely entered service? (There was probably a counterargument to that, but she didn’t really care.)
Izzy turned her head to face forward, staring out into the space ahead of her for a moment before looking down at the control pad, off to the side of the steering column. She tapped it, then scrolled to the list of flightpaths, a set of pre-programmed tracks designed for field tests such as this. All were named for the Seven Legends, figures of their homeworld from centuries past that had first discovered and wielded the geodes now used to grow worldcrafts like the Equestria.
If she were Captain Storm, she’d surely go for the throat and select the Rainbow Dash, a notorious course filled with breakneck loops and sudden corkscrew turns. Izzy was one of the few others who’d pulled it off, though she’d felt dizzy for some time afterwards. Not the best choice for today. Nor was the Sunset Shimmer, a dramatic downward spiral that eventually shot straight upwards. The Pinkie Pie, which could shift itself at random, was right out, at least at this stage.
After a moment, she settled on the Twilight Sparkle. It was only fitting; the famed scientist of yore had been an idol of hers as a girl, and some of the new tech had been derived from studies of the geode associated with her.
She entered her selection, sending out a signal that summoned a series of numerous shining blue oval gates that formed the layout of the course in space. Once everything was in position, she drew a deep breath and opened the side compartment. Reaching inside, she pulled out the new tech.
Referred to as “Project Unicorn” after it became clear what the end result would look like, the conical gadget Izzy now held very much resembled a horn. Around the bottom was a strap, which Izzy placed around her head, the bottom of the device now placed against her noggin. Once she’d fully secured it, she felt the technology come to life, a brief sensation like a mild static shock indicating it was now syncing itself to her brainwaves.
She closed her eyes, relaxed, and breathed.
Suddenly, she felt the reach of her mind expanding. Her arms weren’t merely pressed against the sides of the cockpit anymore. They were moving further and further outwards – no. No, it wasn’t her growing, it was everything else shrinking. She was now outside the ship, feeling it become smaller and smaller until, suddenly, it was entirely within her grasp.
As if the Butterscotch was merely a large toy in her hands.
She opened her eyes. She was still in the cockpit; nothing physically had changed. But she could still feel the ship in an entirely new way, like something she was physically clutching.
The inventors and Commander Haven had described the phenomenon as a “field” created by the horn, something that would project itself around the entirety of her fighter and give her complete control over its movement. A bit like levitation, theoretically. But description and sensation were two very different things.
And now she could really, truly, feel it.
“Alright,” she said, possibly to the craft or possibly to the horn; she wasn’t completely sure which. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
The first step was simply to try moving the fighter. Not activating the engines, not propelling herself into the course just yet; just getting a sense of how literal her mental grasp on the ship was. She took her eyes away from the viewport, keeping herself entirely focused on that sensation of the ship in her hands. Carefully, she tried grasping the right wing; she felt the softest of shudders as the vibration pulsed through the Butterscotch. Once she felt it stabilize, she took that same spectral hand and, keeping the wing pinched, lifted it up.
As the fighter suddenly began to tilt 45 degrees, Izzy felt herself shift in her seat, in spite of her safety straps; still, she found maintaining her grip surprisingly easy, despite the distraction. It seemed that, once established, her hold on the wing could only be broken by choice. She decided to take the experiment a bit further. Keeping the craft in place, she grasped the other wing with her left pseudo-hand, then rotated even further. Soon, she’d turned the Butterscotch completely upside-down, without any loss of control or feeling of strain – the benefits of her phantom hands not being attached to any wrists.
She could feel the horn humming against her forehead as she reoriented the ship. Now back where she started, she looked at the track layout before her.
The Twilight Sparkle took the form of a sine wave, with six ups and six downs, which then switched into an upward helix. In exercises and shows, the track was often paired with the Sunset Shimmer, with Twilight’s helix weaving around Sunset’s vertical climb. The duet was a staple of the new year's festivities, and Izzy had piloted both tracks in past celebrations, without the aid of the gates. A part of her felt silly for using the gates now, but, then again, this wasn't a public performance, and the fewer things to consciously remember during the test, the better.
The more she considered it, the more she realized this was even more of an ideal test track than she'd thought.
If successful in its goal, the horn Izzy bore would prove not merely innovative, but outright revolutionary. The Reaction Control System – tiny rockets mounted along the exterior of spacecraft to allow for maneuvering in a vacuum – was certainly impressive on modern fighters, and Izzy had put a lot of work into keeping it well-maintained on the Butterscotch. Reaction speed from the RCS thrusters had improved noticeably even in Izzy’s own lifetime. But with the complete control over a craft’s movement that the Project Unicorn field provided, those thrusters would barely even be necessary; a pilot would exert complete control over reactions, allowing for incredible ease of movement even at odd angles and shifting directions. The Twilight Sparkle had a lot of both, and successful completion of the track – potentially in record time – would certainly illustrate that point.
Still, a part of her wondered if she should have started with the Fluttershy track…
Bah. No matter. Izzy was already committed. She steeled herself, taking a moment to ensure her mental grip on the wings was in place, then reached forward with her physical right hand, set the timer, and pressed the fuel injector button on the control pad.
“It’s New Year’s Eve. Let’s make some fireworks,” she thought aloud, trying to determine whether it sounded as cool in reality as it did in her head.
The engines came to life, rocketing her directly through the first gate. Resisting the habit-induced temptation to grab the steering column and pull forward, she instead felt through the field, pushing down on the wings from behind as the succession of gates started to angle upwards. The Butterscotch tilted vertically, smoothly following the pathway up the hill – more smoothly than she’d ever experienced before. Grinning giddily, Izzy moved the craft back to level as she reached the top, then began pulling up from the rear to point the fighter downwards as she descended.
She repeated this five more times, the sine curves getting larger each time, yet the movement through each felt almost effortless.
Now she was at the bottom of the helix, which was a trickier endeavor, as she had to keep the ship consistently at a diagonal orientation in order to stay within the gates as she ascended. The tightness of the curve was known to put a bit of strain on a fighter, and Izzy could feel it in her phantom hands. Regardless, she held firm, holding herself back from applying the brake. She still had it well in control.
And as she continued passing through the glowing blue shapes, she couldn’t help but marvel out loud.
“This is how a unicorn flies…”
Could unicorns fly? Izzy wondered. What would you call a flying unicorn? I should ask Sunny, she knows lots of trivia like that–
Suddenly, Izzy realized her grip had started to loosen, and she was now veering far too close to the gates, her left wing an inch from clipping it. What would happen to the field if a wing snapped off, Izzy didn’t know, and she desperately did not want to find out. She immediately refocused, pinched down firmly on the wings and pulled away to the right – nearly overcorrecting in the process, having to shift to the left to avoid damaging the other wing on the opposite side. She gently applied the brake, slowing down enough to get herself more concretely back on track, and continued upward through the remainder of the helix.
Guess there is a limit to how distracted you can be with the field. Noted.
As she exited the final gate at the top, Izzy leveled out and brought the Butterscotch to a full stop, switching off the timer. She took a moment to relax as she reached up with her actual hands and undid the strap on the horn, feeling the world shrink back down as the field withdrew into the device. Stashing it back in the compartment, she sat and reflected.
The good news was, she only nearly crashed while using the new technology.
The better news was, the device had performed nearly exactly as described and expected.
The best news was, while she didn’t have the record books memorized, she’d almost certainly broken at least her personal best time for the Twilight Sparkle, even with the incident at the end.
There were already a few touchups she could think of to help make the Butterscotch more suitable for Unicorn-field-piloting, but overall, it was a pretty resounding win. And perhaps a rather fitting one – what better way to ring in the New Year than a successful test of next-generation technology?
And as she took hold of the steering system once more and began to turn towards the Equestria, she was already imagining what it’d be like to test the field with the Pinkie Pie next time.
