Wesley trotted out of Princess Celestia's chamber fuming. At first she had denounced his powerplant and his engines as rediculous, and he had tried to stay calm, but when safety procedures were brought up, he had exploded.
"The safety procedures for this project would be quite rigorous, you know. A megaspell is nothing to play with." she had said.
"Do you think we are a herd of incompetents?" his voice had hardened.
"No, I-"
"If you think for one SECOND that we don't know what we are doing, why in your little sister's name did you let us design the damn thing in the first place? Why didn't you just discredit me and my team and send us home with no space program, no funding, and no design for the first space capable ship in Equestrian history? Why would you do that if you think we can't understand the safety procedures involved?" His eyes went wide in shock as he regained control. "Sorry, Princess. I am rather... invested in this project. I don't want to see it fail or shut down. Hell, Luna designed the power source."
Celestia nodded once. "Alright, you have your funding. If it does not work, we will have the first museum piece for attempts at space flight."
"Won't fit in your museum." he chuckled.
"We will find a way."
The princess drove him mad. She would present questions, push buttons until a pony snapped, then she would decide based on his or her explosion. He sighed, keeping moving, three scrolls poking out of his saddlebag, two were designs, and one, the authorization he had come to Canterlot for. Now to find a construction site. Splendid Valley? Too many diamond dogs. Everfree was too inhabited by wild animals and vegetation. Cloudsdale wouldn't be able to support a space port. Ghastly Gorge would be perfect to build a ship in. Support it against the walls and construct it so that the supports fall away when the engines start pushing it up. Wesley smiled, speeding up a bit to catch his train to Ponyville, to the ponies who would be able to help.
He needed someone able to build his megaspell power plant, and that someone could be Twilight Sparkle, if she accepted. The design had been completed by Luna herself not a week before, every binding spell, every bypass, carefully constructed to get the most power with the most stability. ESP 01 would fly, with his engine and Luna's power plant. Even if it was registered as ES 357790
The grey colt suddenly ran into a bluish column in his distractedness, falling flat on his rump. "What the... Oh! Princess Luna! I'm sorry!" He bowed hurriedly as soon as he looked up and found a smirking alicorn.
"Tis no issue, Wesley. Remember what we told you when you left our sister's guard." She cracked a smile, motioning for the stallion to get to his hooves.
"You told me to shoot for the moon, and that even if I missed, I would land among the stars."
"We must admit, we did not expect you to take it so literally." Luna's grin widened.
"You challenged me. I couldn't resist." Wes grinned in return.
"We believe you have a train to catch, Mister Quill." Luna chuckled, waving him off. Wesley smiled, saluted, and continued on his way.
Author's Note
Here you go! Tell me what needs fixed and I'll fix it. As for the rest, not sure how to tackle it.
Wes, as his friends called him, stepped off the train, looking around the pleasant little station before walking to a map of the town. "Let's see, I need to hit the library, stay away from Cake's, and also hit Town Hall to get the local building permits..." he muttered to himself, scanning the map over and picking out the locations of his stops. "Might also want to hit Carousel Boutique for an aesthetics consult." And that's where he started towards, ignoring everything not immediately in his path, and somehow avoiding a certain pink earth pony.
He skidded to a stop in front of a round multilevel building, one that employed various shades of purple and pink with some white, all in a tasteful manner. The sign above was a ponequinn run through with a twirling rod, much like a carosel horse. "This must be the place..." The grey colt sighed, barely winded by the run, and he stepped towards the door, pushing it open with a jingle from the bell overhead.
~~~
Rarity's eyes widened at the bluprints a strange Earth pony engineer lay before her about five minutes later. "I need an aesthetics consult. Remember, weight is a huge issue with this." he said, his grey coat shuddering as he tried to cover his awkwardness.
"Of course! I must say, I have never worked on something quite so... large before." She looked up, her horn glowing a light blue as several small bits of wood gathered over the blueprints, forming a miniature model of the ship, minus decks, outer hull, and engines. "How big did you say this was?"
"Let's just say Ghastly Gorge may be a no fly zone for a while. We're building her braced against the walls." The engineer smiled.
"Exact dimensions, darling." The white unicorn looked at the bluprint, and then at the model she was constructing, scrapping it for something larger, easier to examine.
"Five hundred and fifty trots long, by two hundred by sixty. Five decks, crew of fifteen." The engineer pointed out the dimensions in the bottom corner. "This may be a somewhat all-consuming project, but there is no tangible deadline, yet. I do have the funding from Canterlot to build this, and repay you for missed opportunities from the project. The structural base, however, is finalized, as is the build process. You will have to work around it."
"I am a dressmaker, Mister Quill. I have to work around wings, horns, and sometimes both. One space ship will be a challenge, yes, but I can see why you would want it looking its best. You say this is the first?"
"Princess Luna certainly thinks so, Miss Rarity."
"Well, first off, if weight is such an issue, you are using far too many engines. Seven? Four hover engines and three main drives, it appears." Rarity's model was starting to take shape.
"Ah, yes, ma'am. What would you do?"
"Well, my first thought is to pull two of your drive engines and all of your hover engines out, placing those two drive engines on wings, much like a pegasus, so that they can pivot and act as the hover engines."
"In that case, I may want to pull all of my engines and mount four on a rotating bracket, like so." Wesley grabbed a sheet of paper and a pencil and quickly drew up the idea. "Independent joints for each engine, so that they can compensate for winds, along with landing gear mounted to each engine's cowling."
"No, no, no, that will not do at all. This ship should be a thing of beauty, not of hard lines and strict engineering guidelines. One fixed hover engine at the rear, one fixed main engine at the back, two pivoting engines near the front, and the bridge should be after a graceful neck. I can build a shield spell to protect it when it re enters the atmosphere."
"Wait, how did you know about reentry?" Wes asked, cocking his head. It should have been obvious to him, as almost everyone in Canterlot knew about the pegasus who could travel faster than sound.
"Rainbow Dash once flew too high. Poor thing blacked out for lack of air. Coming down, she managed to burn her mane. Fortunately, she woke up before she could hit anything." The unicorn cocked her head in return. "Oh, you are not from here, am I correct?"
"Yes, you are. Still, a shield would be a good idea, but I think I shall see Twilight Sparkle about that. And the device powering those engines. I do believe we can work with your redesign, but have a preliminary model to me soon. I will draw up new blueprints, and once we have the site scouted, we can start construction. Would you happen to know where Miss Sparkle is?"
"Check the library, darling." Her voice was barely audible as she carried the blueprints and her model away, mumbling something about serious design flaws.
