Of the skies and stars

Of the skies and stars
By
Kippershy

Prologue: To the stars...

Mission command gave the green light, everything was set and ready for the lift off. My fuel tanks were full and the lines cut free. Structural integrity was strong and the stars were shining clear, a beacon of hope for us all.
Though their voices jammed the airwaves with outgoing radio signals, an intense calmness filled the atmosphere.
We were on the brink... and our time to ascend was now.

A voice called me over the radio, beckoning my name. "James. Confirm once more that the intercom system is working cleanly, please."
A small smile broke apart as my lips opened, a light sigh slipping out of my throat.
"Yeah, I'm all clear this end, command." I replied.
"Okay, check life support systems on your internals."

Tapping the buttons on the faceplate of my helmet, a screen came up on the inside of my visor. Another tap of a button and the reading confirmed that my suit had plentiful supplies of oxygen for the mission at hand.

"Check, all good command."
"Okay, good." The voice on the other end paused for a moment, the sound of shuffling papers lightly filled my ear from the other side of the conversation before the next question was uttered.
"What about external life support? Is the shuttle giving out between required and optimal levels of oxygen?"

Looking down at the sensors and dials ahead of me, I confirmed this to be the case. Everything truly was set.
As far as I knew now, there was nothing essential, that had to be checked. There was just one last thing...

"Any last words before your successful launch, James?"
Successful launch... yeah. Moral was high and so were the expectations, but I had no doubt in my mind that it would indeed be successful. It had been a long time since the likes of the Challenger accident... our methods and designs had gone through a series of incredible improvements and safety had jumped to astounding levels since.
I had no worries at all.

My pause held for a moment too long, though command were happy to give me a nudge.
"James, you're going out to space on the first mission of its kind and you have nothing to say? Ha. There's got to be something, right?"
Giving a nod in response, even if it would never be seen, I answered.

"I'm sorry. I was just thinking about what an honour this is. To be chosen as the only man... the only one who needs to go out and do this. It's a surreal experience and I can't thank everyone enough. To all those who can hear my voice right now, to the elderly whom watched Apollo Eleven soar unto the stars to reach the moon and to the children who will watch this on TV and witness the splendour of such a momentous occasion... It was you who did this. It was you who gave me the strength to accept the task and it was you who gave us all the chance for this to happen. Humanity is the patron saint of this flight, because no one person alone made it possible. You all did."

The sound of clapping came from over the communication systems, the room full of technicians and scientists alike all on standby for if a single system went wrong, for if anything failed to do its job.
Over the roar, a calm and confident voice spoke now.

"James, this is the president of NASA speaking. I wanted to speak to you personally, thank you for your inspiring words and your sacrifice to make this mission possible. We look forward to seeing your communications, from the very first to the very last and even the full report when you get back. It's an exceptionally large task you've accepted, you're going beyond the line of duty to find out things very few others with the skill would ever even consider doing. On behalf of the rest of humanity, we thank you for your courage."

Oh yeah, that was right. This whole mission was to test out the possibility of the hyper-warp drive on an upscaled level and its affects on the human body. We'd figured out the technology for a miniature version and proved that it worked, in theory.
Now though... now we were testing it for real, and there was few who knew the system inside and out and had the physique that entering space demanded for healthy living in extended periods out in space.
My mission was only going to be brief for me, though we had no clue how it was going to work out on the exterior.

Would the trip go faster than time would allow? Or would it put me into what was essentially cryogenic stasis? All our tests had given the answer we'd presumed, that it would defy the laws of motion and warp through the speed of light... but now was to find out for real.

If the mission was a success, I'd be five years older but have reached the closest neighbouring galaxy. If the mission was a failure, it would be a form of slow suicide. My supplies would last me well over a decade and a half with ease, part of the reason why I was to make the trip alone was to ensure this fact. It would be a lonely journey though, for all contact with earth would cease once I had broken past a certain distance and communication signals would be too slow.

This would be my last true chance to speak to everyone that I'd ever loved, hated, feared... known.
Once more, I took a deep breath and pressed the button to publicly communicate.

"People of earth... creatures of earth... plants of earth... forces and objects of earth. These are the things I leave behind, these are the things I risk never seeing for myself again. The feeling that I will never see any of you again does concern me, though I trust in the work me and my colleagues have been doing enough to risk it all. You are all amazing, each and every one of you. It is my one desire that if there could be one moment of peace... one moment where we all join together and set aside our differences, that this be that moment as we come to realise how special we are."

Pausing for a moment, I regretted my inability to wipe the tear from my eye as it trickled down onto my cheek.
"I do not pretend that world peace can come from a man entering the stars, though all the same, it is my wish that we could spare a single moment to realise this. Some believe we came from an almighty creator, others believe in evolution and adaptation. I do not seek to question nor change your beliefs, only, I say this; no matter what you believe in, we have advanced from civilisations that hardly knew even the most basic medicine or maths to ones which are capable of scientific feats that none may have even dreamt of just one hundred years ago. We are all special, even if we choose to ignore it. I love you all."

"James, It's time. The mission preparation is complete. Preparing lift-off sequence, ignition sequence to commence in T-minus 10... 9... 8... 7.."
My thoughts turned to that of the wife I would leave behind. I supposed now however, that she was no longer my wife though.
We had parted amicably, both knowing what the mission would do... how long we would be apart. We both understood and agreed it would be best, in either case.
"4... 3... 2... 1... Lift off!"

The rocket engines erupted with power, the noise filling the air even in my soundproofed cockpit with an almost deafening thunder as they burnt the liquid oxygen they contained.
The ascent was slow at first though quickly the power of the boosters caused the shuttle to rise with intimidating acceleration.
Within seconds the gleaming night sky had gone from something high above even from the view of my cockpit to what I almost felt was something I could touch and hold if I just tried hard enough.

Mission command screamed in joy as the boosters successfully detached, now the primary engines were firing up and my speed had increased even further higher on the scale, pushing further as I climbed.

I broke free from Earth's atmosphere without even the slightest of hindrance, the mighty Celestia One carried me safely to the skies and the stars. Out of the gravitational pull we rode, towards the point where mankind's greatest feat would either be achieved or I would die a lonely, broken man.

"My name is James Mane." Kind've funny, how everyone would put on a stereotypical Mexican voice when they were casually messing around with my name... "James Mang" they would call me. Now there was no-one... no-one to call me James Mang any longer.
"I am about to find out if intergalactic travel is possible for the human race at the current time... this is my journey."

I stopped the recording. I didn't feel like continuing further, the opening message was enough for now.

Four years... five years passed without a trace. Before my eyes the calendars on the computer systems traced my time, I couldn't have known in any other way. Having left the earth, there was no more day and night cycle. My body kept a routine of when to eat, exercise and sleep by itself, however.
Communications with earth had stopped before even the first year had ended, apparently. Though during that time, they'd made sure to compile as much entertainment material onto my systems as they could possibly process. I had libraries that amassed millions of books to choose from, hundreds of thousands of films and shows old and new.
The music must have been just about every album ever released into the mainstream media and even some of the higher quality indie bands that some of the engineers had suggested.

On top of that, some brainiac computer engineers had been able to program a complex imitation of artificial intelligence, though I found the conversations we had often leant to the same topics and responses in the end. I supposed there was only so much you could program a computer to do... they didn't work like the organic brain. They had their hard-wired limitations and we had ours, though the directions we went in were completely different to one another.

I supposed the greatest gift of all about it, was that there was never any irrational paranoia and distrust. Not once.

Looking out of my cockpit, I saw something strange. A planet we had never noticed before, blue and green like earth. I'd distrusted my eyes, it had to be something other than what I was seeing. I wasn't due to see a planet for at least another year!
Even as I rubbed my eyes, looked away and checked the computer systems, it remained there.
Looking back at the ominous sign, I couldn't help but wonder.
How had we missed such a large object before? We couldn't have.. my mind was playing tricks on me was all!
And yet, even the computer systems told me it was there.
And suddenly an alarm went off...
It was pulling me in.

It was somehow pulling my ship in, closer.

Scrambling back to the controls I checked all the gauges and read outs, though everything told me the same. Engine pressure was fine, structural integrity was the same as ever, fuel reserves were well within reasonable amounts and the auto-pilot hadn't strayed off course...
Panicking, I ran my fingers across the control board, switching on everything from RCS to thrust control to avoid the catastrophe that would unfold unless I could regain my course.

Nothing worked.

The ship was going to be sucked into the planets orbit, or worse, the atmosphere itself. Muttering my prayers as I did what little I could, I watched the altitude go further down.. down... down.
I didn't know what to do. There was nothing I could do.

"This is James Mane... and if you can hear this, the Celestia One has been caught in an unforeseen circumstance. The ship has been caught in a planets gravitational pull... I don't think I'm going to make it. I'm sorry."

I looked down at the planet as the descent began. I knew now that breaching the atmosphere was going to happen without a doubt. I was going to die... alone. On a planet I knew nothing of, no less.

Accepting my fate, I had no time for tears. Instead, I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable as I prepared all landing systems in hopes that perhaps I wouldn't die by burning in the crashed ruins of my ship.

So, Kippershy here with a new fic!
Human in Equestria -- but I don't plan to bring ANY of the FiM cast [canon, anyway] into the story or even give reference to the "mane 6".
Hopefully it'll be a fresh new approach, though we'll see.

Ha, I know which genres to pick oh so well, right? Start with FoE and move on to HiE.