Our First Steps

by Mrakoplaz

First published 4th of June, 2012

A tale of the Equestrian Space Programme, in the style of 50s science fiction novels. Poyekhali!

„In a secluded desert on the frontiers of Equestria, an eccentric genius works to bring the stars within reach of everypony. But can smiths and metalworkers who never made anything more difficult than ploughs or golden trinkets really make the dream a reality? Or has inspiration arrived a hundred years too early?“

Originally published on Equestria Daily (6-star), uploaded to FimFiction upon request.
Imported from GoogleDocs in order to preserve formatting (italics/etc.); this may have resulted in table-breaking and other various display bugs. Should you see such issues, please do not hesitate reporting them!

Welcome to the Cape

Trying to keep on her four hooves as the train wobbled left and right with ever increasing amplitude, Zvezda pondered two things. Firstly, why on Equestria would a weather control office be interested in such a common Earth pony like herself? And secondly, why did a long distance train not have chairs?

Inspecting her carriage further – For what else there was to do, after her magazine had long been read, and the countryside beyond the window had since vanished into naught but arid desert that stretched out in all directions? – she realized that the train was even more lacking in amenities than she had previously thought. Though the lack of such simple elements as a water fountain (or a door) had previously tipped her off that the voyage might be less than comfortable, upon a thorough investigation the carriage appeared not only spartan, but outright unfinished.

From her vantage point atop a wooden crate – the floor, a bare sheet of metal laid over the structural cage, had already grown hot enough to scorch her silver skin hours ago – she could see no less than five different joints that, instead of being properly welded, had been simply taped together. What made it worse, at least two of those were loadbearing. Those that had been welded were no better. From her ample experience of metalwork, Zvezda could see the typical tell-tale signs of rushed labour; The metal was warped from excessive heating, the filler material was unevenly spread, and the little bubbles running along its length revealed much about the many trapped air pockets inside. Some of these were so bad, they could even be considered works of art.

The other ponies on the train did not seem to mind much, though. Judging by the bored resigned looks on their faces, most of them had already made this journey several times. For some imperceptible reason, many of them were also wearing thick woollen hats, though the temperature in the carriage hovered steadily near boiling point. Some of them were even standing directly on the metal floor as they did so.

Thankful for the onboard air conditioning system – namely, the severe lack of doors – Zvezda desperately scanned her surroundings for another pony that seemed at least somewhat sane. Even discounting all the hat-wearers, the pickings were rather slim. There was a dark unicorn that had apparently renounced her hat for an even thicker leather coat instead. There was an earth pony that had, either willingly or unwillingly, been affixed to the ceiling with rope and left hanging there. And finally, there was an orange pegasus that, for reasons known only to her, had decided to board this train of the damned instead of simply flying to the destination. Considering the alternatives, she decided to try her luck with the pegasus.

Carefully making her way over the breadth of the carriage, making sure to neither touch any of the searing-hot metal components with any part of her body, or startle the cargo crates in any way (their markings were written in some coded alphabet, but the warning icons were obvious enough – black smoke and pony skulls), Zvezda managed to approach the orange pony, who seemed to be rocking back and forth with her eyes closed, constantly mumbling something to herself.

Wondering whether or not she had overestimated the pony's sanity, Zvezda coughed to garner her attention. Though the howling wind and squeaking wheels drowned out most sound, the pegasus nevertheless stopped rocking and immediately snapped to attention. Upon seeing her wild crazy eyes, Zvezda regretted interrupting her:

„I was promised a cape! An honest-to-Celestia cape! Seas, palm trees, beaches!” she screamed directly into Zvezda's face, almost hitting her with one of her legs as she gesticulated wildly to the lifeless wastes outside, „Does that look like palm trees? Does it? DOES IT?”

Somewhat taken aback by this outburst, Zvezda was nevertheless baffled: „Cape? What cape?”

„What cape? They said cape in the booklet! They even had a hoofing photo!” the pony screamed, proceeding to temporarily remove her face from Zvezda's as she fumbled through her saddlebags, eventually extracting a garish pamphlet. Remembering the quiet unassuming ad that had recruited her, Zvezda studied its many colourful exclamation marks with some interest:

„Want to push back records? Want to be at the forefront of weather control technology? Want to fly faster than the Wonderbolts? Soar higher than the stars? Well then, come to Cape Coltaveral!”

And indeed, there was a scene of a beautiful tropical forest, complete with smiling ponies flying all around. Off to the side, a few unicorns in lab coats were doing some sciencey things with blackboards. A few scattered testimonials of various ponies spouting meaningless marketing phrases sealed the deal.

„See? See?” the pegasus screamed, „If I ever see that recruiting stallion again, I swear I'll trample him! I mean, I graduated top of my class for this? No way! When I find whoever's responsible, I'll make sure to-” she continued, proceeding to spend the next few minutes detailing exactly how she would enact her revenge.

Meanwhile, Zvezda studied the pamphlet in detail. Something about it seemed... off. It was hard to describe, but the feeling was definitely there. By the time the orange pegasus got to chainsaws, she finally noticed it; The final testimonial, the last sentence; The message was written in a playful rainbow font, but the dot above the 'i' in 'astounding' was jet black, and slightly odd in shape. Interrupting the detailed tirade, she showed the dot into the pegasus' face.

„There. I'd need more time to be sure, but that looks like a microdot.”

That stopped her. „Mi-microdot?” a puzzled expression appearing on her face.

„Probably contains a disclaimer. Or ten of them, judging by that scene outside.”

There was a second of silence. Silence, followed by a bloodcurdling scream:

„How did you spot that? How could anyone spot that?!”

„Have you never seen a recruiting poster? They all do that. Name's Zvezda, by the way.”

Mention of her name seemed to derail the poor thing's single-track thought process. „Zvezda? That's... Aha! Stalliongrad, right?”

Zvezda sighed. Every. Single. Time.

„You westerners- There's more than one city in the east, you know! Sankt-Luneburg, if you must...”

„Okay, okay, sorry! It's not like geography was my strong point. Sheesh,” the pegasus replied indignantly, before immediately switching to cheerful: „Anyway, I'm Cherry! Cherry Skies! And I like-”

An ear-piercing scream of sliding metal suddenly turned Zvezda's existence into a torrent of suffering. Not even jamming her head against the crate and covering her ears seemed to help, as the rusting brakes of the train continued their unending assault on the senses. Of course, whether it was preferable to Cherry's voice or not was still undecided by Zvezda.

After what seemed like an eternity, the cacophony subsided, and the train was suddenly standing still. Getting back on her hooves and taking a look around, Zvezda couldn't see anything worthwhile outside. Still, seeing all the other ponies disembark, she decided to join them. Cherry, unfortunately, was in close pursuit.

Hopping off the train, Zvezda was immediately blinded by the noon sun. After a few moments of confusion, she regained her vision and scanned the horizon. Apart from the rail tracks, a few large concrete boxes half-sunk into the ground, and some peculiar rickety towers in the distance, there really wasn't anything more to this 'Cape'.

Not unless she counted the chaos, of course. All around, ponies of every kind – most wearing thick woollen hats – were unloading crates, carrying them into storage bunkers nearby. With some concern, Zvezda noted the casual way with which they haphazardly tossed boxes labelled 'EXTREME DANGER' about. A few others seemed to be working on the train, perhaps servicing it? But if that were the case, they were going the completely wrong way about it...

Despite the melting heat, a sudden chill ran across her back as she realized exactly what the service ponies were doing with their blowtorches. Slowly undoing every seam, they were taking the carriages apart, working piece by piece to deconstruct their only way of going back.

She had no more time to consider this, however, as she suddenly felt Cherry tug at her blonde mane:

„Look, look! New recruits! It says, 'new recruits', right there! That's us!”

Managing to tear her eyes away from the service ponies – mostly because her mane would be torn away by Cherry instead – Zvezda set out in the indicated direction and looked at the pegasus. She seemed awfully cheery for someone who had spent fifteen minutes carefully detailing every part of her chainsaw-laden revenge plan, and Zvezda inquired about exactly that:

„I mean, that's what I thought at first too, but look at this place! It's obviously a top secret research lab!” Cherry began, „Isn't this so awesome? Like, we're in the middle of the desert, doing secret magic experiments that'll make the Sonic Rainboom look like a beginner's trick! And I'll bet we'll all have awesome code names. I'll be Agent Fireblade! Oh, it'll be great!”

Zvezda had no words. Some ponies were annoyingly cheery. Some were terrifyingly sadistic. Cherry somehow managed to combine the worst of both worlds into one great mass of utterly unpredictable pony. Secretly, Zvezda hoped she wouldn't last long in this strange place.

They finally approached the row of small stalls Cherry had been gesturing to. As there was a queue of new recruits behind each one, Zvezda lined up to which looked the shortest (Cherry in tow, unfortunately). Glimpsing towards the front, at every stall a stern-faced pony in a thick leather coat, each one quite undistinguishable from his peers (or the one on the train) was working behind the desk, carefully peering over the documents of each candidate and comparing them with the contents of a large ledger, eventually sending them off to somewhere.

The queues moved fairly steadily, but between the sweltering heat and Cherry's one-sided 'dialogue', seemed to take far longer than they should have. Finally, she was at its head, and grabbing her papers from a side pocket of her saddlebags, dropped them on the blackcoat's desk. Studying them closely, he read out in a tired voice:

„Zvezda Horyova, birthplace Sankt-Luneburg, metalsmithing specialist?”

Confirming her name, she turned slightly to show the stallion her cutie mark; Two overlapping I-frames, with a star in the middle. After a satisfied nod, he continued to inspect the documents for a few more moments before putting them down, proceeding to drone out in the well-rehearsed voice of somepony who has said the same thing a thousand times before:

„After your orientation session in Stable II, proceed to your section overseer for detailed briefing. Don't forget to take a map of the facility and your assignment papers. Dismissed.”

Quickly seizing the necessary documents, Zvezda galloped out of sight before Cherry would be processed. As she darted between the concrete bunkers of the facility, the only thing on her mind was putting as much distance between herself and that mare as physically possible. Thus, it came of little surprise when her rapid sprint ended with an abrupt collision.

Shaking her head to reorientate herself, she looked to see what she had crashed into, only to be confronted with solid wall of identical stallions in thick leather coats.

„Sector and ID number, worker! We'll have you shipped out of here before you can say 'lift-off'!” the most imposing of the group commanded, towering over Zvezda.

Still fazed from the crash, her brain began parsing the request. Sector... number? Before she could respond, however, a weak voice pipped up from behind the solid wall of guard-pony:

„Comrades, comrades, that is good enough! Come now, let me see this 'assailant'.”

Grudgingly, the living wall split, letting an aqua-coloured unicorn of a small frame walk through. Stopping before Zvezda, she smiled as she studied her through a pair of cracked glasses, then turned back to the guard pony:

„Commissar, whilst I appreciate your concern for my safety, we cannot exactly afford to ship off skilled workers as soon as we receive them. Especially not after your last round of 'purges', yes?”

The commissar mumbled something unintelligible, and saluting, proceeded to help Zvezda back on her hooves. While doing so, however, he made sure to whisper a foreboding message into her ear: „We'll be watching you.”

That done, the security cordon withdrew to a safe distance, and the strange pony looked back at Zvezda:

„Excuse my security staff. This desert is such a tranquil place, and they have little to do. They certainly get... overzealous, at times.”

Despite not knowing anything about her, it was obvious to Zvezda the mare was in a position of high authority. Maybe even Chief Director? She made sure to respond fittingly:

„Of course, ma'am. You have my sincerest apologies for the accident, and I assure you-”

„Oh, don't fret it. The Cosmodrome is a busy place. As long as you're not carrying high grade explosives or fuel, a bit of crashing is fine,” she responded nonchalantly, then her face turned serious, „Watch out for ponies carrying fuel, though. I don't believe they've quite grasped what we're doing here yet.”

With a worried sideways glance at the storage bunkers, the pony bade her a quick farewell, then quickly retreated back behind the cordon of guards.

Looking at the strange group as they walked away, Zvezda sorted her saddlebags and was about to set out.

„There you are!”

Far too slowly, unfortunately.

„I've been looking all over the place for you! Anyway, check out this amazing assignment!” Cherry began twittering as she shoved a paper headed „Top Secret – For Your Eyes Only” right into Zvezda's face.

„Look, look! Test pilot! Oh, I can't believe I'll be flying one of those fancy new wingships I keep hearing about! I'll be the envy of everypony back in Sturmgart!”

Zvezda consolidated this new influx of information. Wingships, though a fairly recent development, did not require high-grade explosives, nor unstable fuels. In fact, they were little more than modernized balloons that could steer without the need for a pegasus to shift the winds. They certainly did not require test pilots to break speed records. And finally, though metal-wing manufacture was difficult, it did not require those elusive „Top-level metalsmiths experienced with high-pressure systems” that mysterious ad had sought for. There certainly were interesting things going on in this facility, and Zvezda got the firm feeling this job would be less boring than most.

As all these disparate puzzle-pieces floated through Zvezda's head, a new piece of information suddenly came crashing in, unsettling the whole picture:

„You're- You're from Sturmgart?” she asked Cherry, somewhat in disbelief that such a crazy pony could come from Equestria's most-efficient industrial zone.

„Next you'll be asking where's my accent and my Lederhosen and where I hid my vast industrial estates,” Cherry smiled, before continuing, „I mean, my family might own a weather factory or seven, but that's completely unrelated to my place of birth! Now come on, let's go find that briefing hall. I heard there'll be free food.”

Methods of Reaching Extreme Altitudes by Means of Pony Devices

Gathered in the high-roofed, but perfectly undecorated, briefing hall of Stable II, today's crop of new recruits waited. Looking at the cutie marks of those around, Zvezda already could spot the predominant technical bias. Smiths, metalworkers, architects, mathematicians. Even the assembled pegasi seemed to be very level-headed, with such talents as surveying, organization, or photography. Cherry appeared quite the exception here. Noticing Zvezda was looking at her, she smiled, revealing that her teeth were still full of half-eaten salad.

The murmur quietened down as a small aqua-coloured unicorn entered the stage. Much to Zvezda's expectations, it was the very same mare she had crashed into half an hour ago – though she was now wearing a new (and uncracked) pair of glasses.

„Fillies and gentlecolts, comrades all!” she began her speech, „I'm sure you have many questions about our organization. Why is our facility so secluded from the rest of Equestria? Why does a ''Bureau of Atmospheric Experimentation'' need so many technical non-pegasi? And how do they make the transport balloons so comfortable?”

„Those others got here on a balloon?” Cherry's jaw dropped, „The bastards!” she whispered.

„The answers to all these questions will become steadily apparent, very soon. For the moment, however, I'd like you to wait a minute longer and consider the following schematic. Roll slide, please.”

The lights of the briefing room cut out, and a projected engineering diagram appeared on a large white screen that suddenly dropped from the ceiling. After a few seconds, and after considering the large scale pony to the diagram's right, Zvezda realized she was looking at the cross-section of a common – if somewhat large – firework.

„This is your simple everyday solid-fuel firework that little foals so dearly love,” the Chief Director began, „It uses a few engineering tricks that are not immediately obvious, but nothing difficult. Next slide.”

This time, a parabolic trajectory appeared on the wall, with altitude and downrange distances labelled on the Y and X axes; A hundred strides in each direction.

„Again, a fairly straightforward boosted-projectile trajectory.”

„Straightforward?!” Cherry pipped up from the side, but was quickly silenced by the collective gasp the assembled ponies drew upon seeing the next slide.

Zvezda studied the new schematic. It was a firework. Well, several fireworks, stacked on top of each other, getting progressively smaller with height. There was also a considerable amount of reinforcing struts running along each one. While trying to check the schematic's scale, she noticed the performance statistics in the far left corner. Twelve tonnes mass, thirty tonnes thrust, one million ponypowers of peak output.

Blinking, she re-read the numbers again. 'High' was an understatement of the century, when compared to these figures. Nothing she had ever seen, not even the most amazing feats of locomotive boiler engineering, came within sight of such sheer, concentrated power. Why, just the amount of metal required to prevent buckling under these pressures would be...

Suddenly, Zvezda smiled to herself. It would be high, yes. Very high. But not infinite. And accounting for the size of that combustion chamber... why, yes, yes! Hard, incredibly hard to make. Top quality casting required. But not impossible.

She nodded to herself, her mind still quite blown; What the director was showing here was a proposal so far beyond conventional pony engineering, that no metalsmith in Equestria had bothered to even consider it. But now, some crazy pony had run the numbers – and they had come out just within reach of the possible.

The Director, satisfied that the ponies were now all sufficiently impressed, ordered the next slide. Again, it showed a fairly simple parabola... but the distances were greater. Impossibly greater. But a quick mental calculation confirmed they weren't fantasy.

„Unfortunately, these impressive diagrams remain, for the time being, just that; Diagrams. Roll film, please.”

A scenic shot of the desert outside covered the wall; Zvezda realized that it was a time-lapse shot as a small tower – perhaps three ponies in height – began growing in its middle, ponies jutting all around the frame as scaffoldings were erected and subsequently torn down. Finally, the tall firework lay assembled, and the time lapse switched to realtime. In the far edge of the shot, a single pony with goggles and a safety helmet pressed a large button on a small control box, then rapidly left the frame.

Rolls of white smoke began emerging from the bottom of the vehicle, slowly creeping over the desert sand, spreading to cover the entire viewport. Suddenly, a massive explosion threw the camera upside down.

The shot switched to another of these massive 'fireworks', even taller this time. Upon ignition, the vehicle lifted about ten strides off the ground, then spiralled suddenly and crashed back into the ground.

Another shot, another explosion, this time mid-flight.

And so the scenes dragged on. The constant explosions were certainly visually interesting – doubly so for Cherry – but there definitely was that faint subtext of despair about them. After the film finished, the Director was ready to speak again:

„As you can see, we still have quite a way to go in this line of research. That is where you come in. My recruiting agents have managed to gather the best craftsponies from all over the world. Our plans are bold, our methods untested; This I admit. But working together, I truly believe we can overcome any obstacle, push back the boundaries of science, and provide better living for everypony in Equestria!”

There was a fervent clapping of hooves against the ground, the solid concrete floor adding to the effect by amplifying the volume even further. As the lights turned back on, the Director again reminded the audience to check in with their respective department heads, then withdrew amidst even more applause.

As the assorted ponies slowly scattered from the room, already excitedly exchanging opinions about casting strategies and alloy compositions, one stayed perfectly still. Stopping in one of the hall's many doorways, Zvezda looked around to see Cherry standing utterly immobile in the middle of the room, legs quivering. Temporarily withdrawing from that amazing world of new possibilities the presentation had unleashed, she trotted up to Cherry's side.

„What's the problem? Too much awesome for you?” she asked playfully.

„Test... test pilot?” the orange pegasus managed to get out.

Oh. Right. Zvezda wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. Eventually, she softly nudged Cherry's side with her head.

„Don't worry. Unlike those other ones, yours'll have me on its design team.”

That seemed to cheer her up. Her legs stopped quivering, and turning to Zvezda, she raised her left foreleg: „Brohoof?”

„Brohoof,” Zvezda answered, returning the gesture.

Retreating from the podium, Wilhelmina wondered if that had really been the best way of introducing the project. Her recruiting officers had assured her that the explosions not only 'looked cool', but also immediately and succinctly outlined the recruits' goals; And yet the thought of showing this footage made her uneasy.

What if there were investigators from Canterlot present in the audience? All calls were monitored, and the remote location made it difficult to leak information, but the risk was definitely there. Wilhelmina did not want Celestia to know where all those millions of bits earmarked for 'weather research' were really going. At least, not before there was something to show for it. Seeing the Commissar waiting at the bottom of the stairs, she nodded to him:

„Drive up security around the site. I don't want any leaks,” she commanded, then quickly added „But don't overdo it. I don't want another blue salad incident, you understand?”

The pony saluted and, with a shout of „Jawohl, Stute-Direktor!” galloped off, his thick leather coat fluttering in his stead. How he withstood the heat, Wilhelmina had no clue, and she did not want to know. Still, the Commissar had proven himself a most dependable stallion, so she was willing to cut him (and his department) a little slack in clothing style.

After a brief refreshment, she left Stable II for a pleasant stroll through the entire facility, checking on all the new recruits. It was pleasant to see the mighty machine of the Cosmodrome slowly tuning into gear.

With all the equations invented, the initial calculations computed, and some minor groundwork now laid, it was finally time to really kick this project off. As much as she was looking forward to the science, however, she still had one last bit of annoying PR to prepare for. The first test pilots would arrive next Monday, and they would have to be treated to a most decidedly different introductory session.

Days at the 'Cape' passed rapidly. Though there were only a handful of experienced personnel, who were quite outnumbered by the sudden influx of new recruits, they nevertheless managed to wield the swarms of newbies with surprising skill. And as Madam Director was a firm believer in the 'sink or swim' school of didactics, the first launch was scheduled for the first Sunday in.

Easing her leg off the controlling pressure pad, Zvezda dropped the welding torch and took a few steps back, inspecting the seam she had just made. The joint was very good, one of her best, a clean even run with no bubbles. However, she was far less confident than she had been on the first day of her first apprenticeship. She usually made ploughs and carriage wheels, not rocket engines.

The long concrete workshop was sweltering with heat, and Zvezda took a small break to steal a few sips from the trough of water nearby. Despite its low roof, the facility was in fact several hundred strides long – enough for the entire rocket, and its still-unassembled components, to fit comfortably when laid on its side. A pair of tracks ran across the length of the hangar, to provide a means of removing the vehicle from the assembly building. Her overseer had joked (or perhaps related a bitter truth) that with the very first rocket of this size, they had no railway tracks, and couldn't get it out of the hangar; In the end, this forced them to completely scrap the whole thing and start over again.

A week earlier, Zvezda would have laughed at such a ridiculous failure, but with the rocket now slowly growing before her eyes, she had to give serious respect to those first ponies. Armed with nothing but a few vague sketches from an absolutely insane genius, and several untested equations, they were inventing a whole new industry.

Looking back at her joint in more detail, she noticed one of the two plates had a visible bulge in it; Annoyed at the poor craftsponyship, she looked around the workshop:

„Sara! Another one here!” she yelled.

„Coming, coming!” came back the exhausted reply. A few moments later, a visibly dirtied violet unicorn emerged from behind the other side of the vehicle. Trotting over to Zvezda, she inspected the buckled plate.

„Makes you wonder why there are so many, doesn't it, Vez?” she asked as a dim light surrounded her horn, and the metal plate slowly began falling into shape.

„I sure know that I've never made plates this thin for a plough,” Zvezda related, still fascinated by the sight of magically morphing plate, „Or made this many this fast.”

„You tell me,” Sara gritted through her teeth, drops of sweat flowing down her brow as she forced the metal into position.

„There, done,” she added, „Look, my whole life I worked in my parents' jewellery store in the tourist quarter of Manehattan, right? Ever since I was a little filly, the metal just flowed for me. I thought that's all I was going to do. Now, I'm making giant boomsticks that will revolutionize the life of every foal, mare and stallion in all of Equestria. Yay me.”

„The pay's good though, right?” Zvezda smiled. Sara could be a bit sour at times, but the sheer amount of effort she put into the project was nothing short of amazing.

The mare nodded, „Oh yes! Whether this stupid thing works or not,” she punctuated her sentence with an angry – yet weak and controlled – kick at the metal hull, „At least we'll finally be able to afford redoing that old facade. I tell you, that thing's falling apart!”

Zvezda suppressed the urge to ask why a jewellery store – in Manehattan of all places – lacked the money to redo its facade, and instead looked at the emerging vehicle. The Director's deadline was harsh, but they could probably meet it. With a miracle or two.

„Got another one, Sara!” came a shout from the other side of the hangar. Giving Zvezda one last look of desperation, she trotted off.

Seeing her run off, Zvezda found her assignment checklist and groaned at how many boxes were still left unticked. This would be one long shift...

„Wait, run this by me again,” Cherry ordered the technician, disbelief quite audible in her voice.

„Of course.”

„So, you're going to send me up in this balloon.”

„Yes.”

„You'll send it up so high that I'll have trouble breathing and my wings'll barely work.”

„Right.”

„And then, then you'll blow up the balloon part of the balloon.”

„Yup.”

„The one that makes it fly.”

„Uh-huh.”

„One question comes to mind. WHY ON EQUESTRIA ARE WE DOING THIS?” Cherry screamed in helpless rage. Something that was becoming very much commonplace in the Equenaut training complex.

„Look, after you've flown up into space and gone through re-entry, you don't want to just end that by getting smeared across half of Fillydelphia. That means you're going to have to jump out of the capsule, and do that while it's still high up enough for you to level out from the fall. That final step is what we'll be practising here tonight.”

Cherry considered the brown pony's words. They were reasonable enough, but this whole 'Test pilot' business has ended up meaning a lot more falling and a lot less flying than she would have preferred. In fact, this appeared to be about the only part of the program where she'd get to strut her wings, at least a little. And even here, it would be more of a glide. Lame.

Plus, as she watched the technician lock the straps that attached her to the basket – to emulate the various tangled oxygen and water lines that would be attached to her during a real flight, as he had explained earlier – Cherry realized nopony had yet explained just what that whole 're-entry' thing was about. It seemed to pop up a lot, but the tech-ponies had this peculiar habit of either suddenly remembering forgotten errands, or simply whimpering in terror and galloping away whenever she asked.

The last latch in place, the tech-pony locked the balloon's burner on full open, quickly set the spring-loaded timer on the explosives, then bid her good luck and galloped away, towards the observation post. Meanwhile, two assistant ponies let go of the tethers, and Cherry shot off towards the skies.

As the vehicle started on its slow ascent, Cherry tried wiggling around to check just how much the straps limited her movement. As it turned out, apart from the neck, she was pretty much locked in place. Making sure she could reach the foreleg release latch with her teeth – something that she really should have checked back on the ground now that she thought about it – she relaxed and enjoyed the evening air.

Evening was the best time in the desert, really; The sun's eternal glory had since gone down and stopped frying innocent ponies, but the temperature had not quite dropped to frightfully cold yet, as it would after midnight. Plus, especially at this altitude, gentle breezes blew past her face. It was pretty nice, actually, a welcome break from the the constant mechanics and astronavigation classes. Life was too short to spend hours calculating apogees and thrust coefficients and supermajor semiaxis inclinatures, that was Cherry's philosophy! The only maths a pegasus needed was percentages, and she knew hers off by heart.

Right now, she certainly could appreciate being about 50% warmer. The balloon had already ascended quite a way above the surface, and the temperature was dropping quite rapidly.

Craning her neck to get a glimpse of the explosives timer, she noticed it had already stopped ticking. Furthermore, a thin layer of frost was covering the detonator circuitry.

„Uh oh,” she said, somewhat redundantly.

As the balloon continued its ascent, Cherry was now getting seriously cold. The straps prevented her not only from leaving the basket, but also from curling up to conserve at least some extra heat. The burner had ran out of fuel a while ago, but the ground certainly wasn't drawing any closer. She was pretty sure she'd freeze before it came back down.

'Time', and passage thereof, were fairly alien concepts in the abandoned nightly skies. There were no clouds, no visible terrain features, nothing to judge movement by. The balloon simply continued to float, seemingly lost in space and time.

Feeling her joints stiffen, Cherry moved her neck about, trying the attachment latches again, for the umpteenth time. Of course they didn't release; They wouldn't, not without an electric signal from the main detonator. Cherry had no idea what genius thought that one up, but she promised to cause serious bodily harm to whatever pony was responsible, hopefully by the means of a welding torch; There were plenty back at Stable VII.

Another indefinite measure of time passed. She was cold. So cold. All feeling was lost from her hooves, and the senselessness was slowly making its way up her legs. Not that she minded too much, though. No feeling meant no cold.

Managing to lift her heavy head, she looked up, to find herself staring straight into the Moon. It was a beautiful sight, especially from this high up. It somehow seemed much bigger than back on the ground. Studying the subtle greys and whites that played across its alien terrain, she smiled. It would have been nice to walk upon its surface. But even so, this was definitely the highest she had ever flown. With just a bit of luck, higher than anypony else. Setting a record wouldn't be such a bad way to go, would it now?

The grin on her face widened as she continued to stare into the Moon. Luna, if you can hear me, promise me this. Promise me I'll die the highest-flying pony in all of Equestria.

Thank you.

The feeling of nothingness continued to creep up her legs. It had already reached her flank. But Cherry regretted nothing. Had she turned down that friendly recruiting officer back on campus, where would she be? Junior assistant cloud removal at best – let's face it, she never was that good at weathermaking. Spending the rest of her career chasing after those little cloudlets the real weather-masters couldn't be bothered to clean up. Perhaps even managing to find a nice stallion to settle down and start a cute little family with. That life would be long and peaceful, sure. But it wouldn't be a life for her. This way, though she wouldn't last, she has been given a chance to realize what had once been just a fantasy; To soar high above the limits of feeble pegasus wings. To touch the stars.

Or for the stars to touch me, it seems.

Whoa. That thought had come out of nowhere. Wondering what prompted her mind to think such a ridiculous thing, she suddenly noticed a pair of fireflies circling below her.

Fireflies? Where would fireflies come from?

One of them abruptly exploded in a brilliant flurry of coloured lights. Cherry was just about to pity the poor thing, before her cold-straddled brain managed to fully process the display.

Fireworks? The second one detonated into a similar pattern of light, confirming her suspicions.

And it wasn't just the two. All along the ground, more and more specks of light were rocketing towards Cherry. Most exploded before ever coming near her; Some flew past her to detonate somewhere higher up in the stratosphere (or was that the ionosphere?). Either way, with each subsequent salvo they steadily drew closer and closer.

What parts of Cherry's mind still worked were seriously impressed, both at the pretty visuals and the amount of effort the Cosmodrome was putting into saving one single pony. The entire crew must have been mobilized in order to get those fireworks shooting up that quickly, and only Celestia knew how many crates' worth of propellant would disappear into this one desperate attempt. And to add to that, she realized what a poor return-on-investment she was; For all her bluster, Cherry knew very well that her skill at mathematics was well below expectations, and that she simply didn't get astrodynamics. For the Director to try and organize such a vast rescue attempt nevertheless… she was touched, to say the least.

In only a few seconds more, one of the thousand fireworks managed to detonate exactly above her balloon, close enough to trigger a secondary explosion from the basket fasteners. Slowly realizing she was falling, Cherry heard the most beautiful sound in the world; a faint 'click' as the electromechanical relays in the fasteners triggered themselves, unlocking the release latches.

Her mouth numb from the cold, she slowly managed to undo the first strap; And soon, the second. As the basket tumbled through the air, spinning wildly in all directions, Cherry thought that this must be what a real return from space would feel like.

The rapid pumping of her heart managing to inject some life into her frostbitten limbs, Cherry continued working down the list of straps, faintly singing the brief ditty she had memorized to remember their order.

At last, she was free! With what little strength she had left, she kicked herself away from the spinning basket, finally soaring unbridled through the air.

There was one last snag – her wings. Though she tried as strong a flap as she could, her body simply lacked the strength to fly after being subjected to subzero temperatures for so long. She tried to stretch them out and attempt a controlled glide – or at least a slowed fall – towards the surface, but they simply would not hold, uselessly fluttering in the wind instead.

Seeing the ground approach rapidly, Cherry screamed:

„I am not going to die! Not now! Not after all that!”

Putting all her strength into the motion, she managed a single mighty burst of upthrust, then nothing. As she plummeted towards the ground, she tried to think of good last words. But the effort had been too great, and she promptly lost consciousness.

Wilhelmina watched the plummeting pegasus though her pair of binoculars. Though she had shown courage and willpower that was beyond most ponies, there was only so much a strong mind could do against the laws of physics.

Fortunately, she had planned for this contingency.

„Stage seven recovery team, GO!” she yelled towards the teams of ponies assembled below, then added her own powers to the mix. Though most unicorns weren't very good at general magic and could only perform highly specialized tasks, all could handle at least basic telekinesis, however weak.

The combined strength of the Cosmodrome's unicorns was now all being poured into a single action; Slowing the descent of the world's first Equenaut.

„Final... stage... GO!” she managed to utter, straining at the effort. The commissar relayed the order, and a pair of the facility's strongest pegasi rocketed off. The telekinetic efforts had managed to slow Comrade Cherry's fall sufficiently, and Wilhelmina watched as the two approached her, matched velocity vectors, grabbed her, and finally slowed down to land softly and safely back on the desert sand. Collapsing on the ground from the exhaustion – magic certainly was not one of the Director's talents – she gasped:

„Mission... successful.”

Star Walker

Nodding in thanks to the nurse holding the door for him, Geist entered the long hall of the sterile medical bunker, carrying a large bouquet of flowers in his mouth. The brown-skinned techpony stood in the doorway for a confused second, then shook his head to remove the short-cut black mane from before his eyes.

Having done that, it wasn't too hard to spot the room's only occupant amidst the rows of empty medical beds; And neither was it hard for the bed's occupant to spot him, he realized, as Cherry slowly lifted her foreleg and gave a careful, if not any less cheerful, wave to her personal techie. Though it was the wee hours of the morning, the pegasus seemed to be as awake as ever.

Trotting up to her side, Geist dropped the veritable banquet directly on her bedsheets.

„Aww, Geist, you shouldn't have! Where did you get these in the middle of a desert anyway?“ Cherry's cheeks flushed, restoring at least some colour to her faded face.

„Don't worry, it was nothing. A few of us tech-ponies got together and scoured the entire facility for anything green. You deserved it.“

The pegasus did not reply, opting to sink her face into the flowers instead. Though she was still just as cheery in her demeanour, it was painfully obvious to Geist just how much had that brief brush with death taken out of her. Her voice was weak, her movements slow, and what little could be seen of her underneath all those blankets was dangerously pale.

Taking a timid first bite out of the bouquet, Cherry nodded in satisfaction:

„Mmm, but these are good! Really good...“

A few seconds of silence followed; Whether it had been awkward or not, Geist couldn't quite tell. Nervously digging his foreleg into the floor, he cleared his throat and spoke up:

„Anyway, I just got back from the Accident Investigation Committee and wanted to-“

Feeble as her voice was, Cherry still managed to interrupt him:

„Oh my gosh! You weren't fired, were you?“

Geist stopped for a second, slightly taken aback by her concern.

„What? No no no, that's not it at all! One of the batches of wiring we imported was faulty – what more, a lot of them ended up in the rocket we're building right now. If we hadn't caught that, the whole thing would have gone boom right after lift-off. They're replacing them as we speak. The Director's just grateful that we found out in time, and that nopony died.“

„Glad to be of assistance,“ Cherry smiled, taking another bite out of the flowers.

„Still, I came here to... well, to apologize, really. I should have tested the stupid thing before sending you up in it. It's all my fault,“ Geist lowered his head, looking at the ground. He hadn't gotten any sleep ever since the accident, working day and night to discover its cause; And yet he felt horrible about the whole ordeal.

Feeling her hoof brush across his mane helped with that.

„Hey, it's okay. I'm still here, aren't I? The nurses say I'll be up and flying in notime!“

Geist looked back up, into her weakly smiling face. Though he certainly appreciated the emotion, he couldn't stand her smiling, not like this. Someone like Cherry ought to be full of life and energy, and to see her weak and subdued like this was simply heartbreaking. So, he looked back at the ground:

„You really don't mind?“

„Just remember: Before this, I had no chance. I was a guinea pig, testing the training program until the real 'nauts showed up. I might be pretty good at flying, but they'll also actually be good at maths and theory. Unlike somepony,“ Cherry chortled to herself, „But now, I have real experience. The Director'll know she can rely on me when things go wrong. That should help my chances. If anything, I should thank you!“

Somewhat surprised at such a level of cynicism (not to mention realism) coming from Cherry, of all ponies – perhaps the accident had changed her? – Geist uncertainly returned the smile, then reached back into his saddlebags. Extracting a thick yellow folder and dropping it right beside the flowers, Geist quickly changed the topic:

„Anyway, look what the director gave me as I left the meeting,“ he announced, quite the bit of pride in his voice.

„Star... walker?“ Cherry questioningly read out the folder's title.

„Yup,“ he smiled, dragging the suspense out a second longer, „The Director has just finished with the first draft. And she wants me to build the training simulator.“

Turning the cover card with his teeth, he stood back and let the orange pegasus first gloss over the technical specifications, then carefully inspect the sketch of the design.

„What you're looking at is a whole new era of Equestrian history. A revolution in engineering. Our first steps towards giving the stars to everypony.“

„Looks... like a ball. With some blobs glued on the side,“ she announced, the disappointment in her voice clearly evident. Despite his bombastic introduction, Geist really couldn't help but agree; Compared with the artists' impressions of futuristic space-planes and moon-landers that lined the corridors of Stable I, the first actual design was, quite frankly, a joke.

„I know it's not exactly glamorous, but right now, practicability comes first. With mass and heatshield concerns as they are, that sphere's going to stay. The blobs we can change, though. The Director may be a genius, but drawing certainly isn't one of her stronger skills,“ he chuckled, remembering some of those first attempts at rocket sketches.

Cherry nodded as she took it all in, then asked, „Heatshield?“

Geist gulped. He had been waiting for one of the other ponies – perhaps Redstone – to explain the concept of re-entry to her. Considering her current condition, he instead chose to skirt around the subject:

„Anyway, like I said, it's just the first draft. The first locomotives were just a hodgepodge of pipes and gearing too. It's going to get cooler with time.“

„One thing that'll to have to get cooler quick is the name. I mean, 'Star Walker'? Come on!“

„I – Uh. Hmm. Well, the Director's always on the lookout for suggestions. There's a box for them in Stable IV's canteen.“

„I'll make sure to drop by once those nurses let me out of here. At least I'll have lots of time to think 'till then. First off, it's going to need a lot more X's – it's not an experimental craft unless it has X's. Next, 'Walker' sounds like it's being piloted by an old granny; I'm a pegasus! I want speed! Something like 'Eagle' ought to do. Plus,...“ Cherry began excitedly twittering to herself. Leaving the summary page but taking the rest of the folder, Geist smiled and bid her a quick farewell as he retreated from the dreary medical wing. Finally, it was time to get some sleep.

Insomnia appeared to be a quickly rising trend amongst the Cosmodrome's design staff. 'Rocketing', one could even call it. Chuckling to herself, Wilhelmina gulped down another large cup of coffee as she searched through the stacks of papers that covered every square inch of the wooden floor.

„Where did I put that blasted... ah, there it is!“ she victoriously announced, telekinetically levitating a series of sketches on possible interstage designs out of the chaos below, before proceeding to shove them into Lyuka's face.

Her assistant, a green pegasus with a long, if badly kept and somewhat fuzzy blue-tinged mane, shook her head:

„I'm telling you, if our test data is anything to go on, that thing'll be undergoing enough oscillation to shake the capsule right off! We need to get a structural support in there!“

Dropping the paper, the Director slammed her hoof into her own face:

„And how are you going to fit it to the capsule? Drill a hole in the heatshield?“

„Well, yes, but-“

„Whoo!“ Will clapped sarcastically, „You just fried our country's first Equenaut! But hey, better that than risk a tiny chance of it wobbling, isn't it? Oh no, not the wobbling!“

Strutting around the quarters in frustration, Lyuka waited patiently for the Director to finish with her melodrama, before firing back:

„It's not going to wobble, it's going to shake apart! Unless you've magically solved the thrust variability problem while I wasn't looking?“

„Hmm... magically...“ Will pondered the idea for a second.

„Why, yes! All we need to do is find a unicorn whose cutie mark is dampening solid fuel motors! How obvious!“

„Not to mention one who can fly,“ Will conceded, „In-flight magic won't be an option until we've made a soft-landing capsule, one which doesn't require a mid-descent ejection. Until then, we're stuck with pegasi.“

„'Stuck with'? Do I sense magic-user privilege?“ her assistant insolently asked, wings flaring.

Will took a deep breath, „We're getting side-tracked in pointless bickering here.“

„You're right,“ the pegasus nodded, folding her wings. She then threw herself on the ground and lazily turned hooves-up, „Again.“

„It always starts off so well, doesn't it?“ the Director sighed, collapsing on the sea of papers next to Lyuka, „I get a brilliant idea, run to your office to get a second opinion, and before we know it's four in the morning and we're screaming murder at each other over something ridiculously simple.“

Turning around again, Lyuka fished out another sketch and laid it over the others, „Or something ridiculously hard, in this case.“

„Yeah...“ Will trailed off, then yawned and looked at the sketch with Lyuka, „There has to be a simple solution here, I know it. But we just keep missing it.“

The two mares continued to silently stare at the sketch for a few minutes, then Lyuka swore in frustration and, with an angry burst from her wings, sent the paper (along with many others) soaring across the room.

„Can't we just submerge the whole thing in water? That'd dampen it nicely,“ Will spoke the first random thing that floated into her head, as she watched the blizzard of floating sheets slowly settle itself back on the floor.

„Nah. Too heavy. We're over our mass budget as it is, and adding several tonnes of water isn't gonna help,“ her assistant replied almost absentmindedly as she stared off into the distance. Tracking her gaze, Wilhelmina followed it to the large poster tacked onto the wall; A profile view schematic of their current rocket design. The one that was being assembled right now in the confines of Stable VII.

„Do you think there's any point to what we're doing here?“ Lyuka asked, her gaze still distant, „I mean, we've built seven of these things, and they all just blew up. Some just rumbled on the ground, some flew a hundred hooves before shaking themselves apart, but they all. Just. Blew. Up. Here were are, talking about sending ponies into outer space and back, and we can't even get a simple rocket right!“

Will stayed silent for a while, mulling over what her assistant had just said. Eventually, she spoke up:

„The rocket's the hardest part. If we can get that right, the rest will all fall into place. We'll get prestige, funding, Celestia's respect- oh dear. Celestia.“

„Still haven't figured out how you'll tell her, huh?“ Lyuka asked with a sad smile on her face, „I'd say 'told you so', but I know all too well we couldn't have gotten this funded otherwise.“

„Gosh, what if she really is omniscient?“ Wilhelmina sunk her head into her hooves, „Maybe she's watching us right now, and just laughing.“

The green pegasus blinked:„...that doesn't really make sense. If she were all-knowing, she wouldn't fall for the trick in the first place.“

„Or maybe she just pretended to, so she could later hit us with a big fat punishment for even daring to trick her like that in the first place.“

„She's not like that,“ Lyuka retorted with hope in her voice, then added, „Plus, the deception wasn't all that big, right? I mean, 'Bureau of Atmospheric Experimentation' could easily be construed as meaning lots of things.“

„Too bad I explicitly claimed it was for weather research, then.“

„Oh.“

„Yeah,“ Will dryly nodded, then let out another lengthy yawn, „Sometimes, I really do wonder if it's all for nothing, though. You're right. Our heads are in the stars, but our rockets just keep failing.“

„The equations are right,“ she continued, „I've double and triple checked every last one. They all work. The gas flow dynamics, the expansion factors, the dynamic heating; It all checks out! And I still hold that putting a supersonic nozzle onto a firework was pure genius. But when it comes to putting theory to practice...“ she trailed off.

Brushing a few dozen papers away and slowly getting back on her hooves, Lyuka shook her head: „You know, you could have just published those in a book or something and be forever remembered for your contributions to pony science. But no, you had to run off and trick a goddess into funding your little toys!“

Despite the distinct annoyance in those last few words, Wilhelmina still knew her assistant supported her all the way. Their dream was shared; Just their methods sometimes diverged.

„I'll bring the stars to every single foal, mare and stallion in Equestria if it means surviving Celestia herself, mark my words,“ the Director announced resolutely. Deep down, though, she was not so sure.

I was born in the wrong damn century, she thought briefly to herself before collapsing from exhaustion. Bed, floor, lava pit, her mind was too tired to recognize the difference now.

Lyuka looked at the snoring Director with considerable respect. Her constant all-nighters, personal inspections of every workshop, regular morale-boosting speeches; That was one committed pony. She had even managed to avoid saying 'comrade' once this entire conversation, so more power to her.

Though Lyuka had been encouraging every time the topic was brought up, personally she was quite worried about the whole Celestia business. She knew her superior far too well. Unlike Lyuka herself, when confronted, Wilhelmina really would defend her dream to the bitter end, even against the gods themselves. And who knew how the gods would react? After all, the stars had belonged to them since time immemorial. Would their attempts be interpreted as insolence and rebellion?

Not able to push sleep back any longer, Lyuka hazily looked around her quarters. All these questions were better left for another day. Meanwhile, she was quite sure there was a bed underneath all these papers somewhere, but no matter how hard she looked, she just couldn't see it.

Deciding to simply follow her superior's example instead, Lyuka smashed herself into the floor beside the Director. She didn't dream of anything that night, like she hadn't ever since starting up this project; All her dreams were out there in the real world now.

Ad Astra Per Aspera

Hearing amazed gasps coming from the entrance of the workshop, Zvezda put down her blowtorch and looked around; A group of ponies in thick woollen hats stood in the entryway, balancing a large contraption of wires and tubing on their backs. Amidst all the thick cabling, she could discern two giant brass spheres, each one almost entirely covered in a jungle of densely-packed copper coils, the long black bars of control solenoids, and small clear jars filled with some unknown liquid; Zvezda usually prided herself on immediately understanding any machine or mechanical device she came across, but this? She tried tracing some of the connections and figuring out their purpose, but gave up a few moments later upon realizing their sheer number.

„So, what's that all about?“ Sara asked casually, cooling her fore hooves in the workshop's trough of water.

„It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before. So probably the control unit.“

„Control unit, huh? What's there to control? Doesn't this thing just go straight up?“

„No idea. But I do know that we were supposed to start mounting it this morning, and it's only arrived now.“

Chortling in frustration, Sara nodded knowingly, „So... more overtime for us?“

„Yup,“ Zvezda confirmed, watching the ponies as they carried the strange contraption towards the front of the rocket. The Director's schedule would be considered harsh even with a skilled workforce. For a team who were just blindly following vague schematics without the foggiest clue of what they were actually doing, or what their particular creation was supposed to do, it was rapidly turning out an absolute disaster.

„There, there... steady now... a bit more to the right, Blues...“ the workshop supervisor instructed a team of pegasi, as they lifted the strange device off the backs of the hat-wearing ponies and suspended it alongside the rocket's front, „Zvez, Ter, Flake, your time to shine!“

Trotting up to the device, blowtorch in mouth, Zvezda prepared to weld one of the contraption's four attachment points to the hull of the rocket, as was written on her daily to-do list; Though, to be perfectly frank, the exact wording had contained a lot more numbers and jumbled strings of letters, and it was only by staying up late last night and peering over the schematics that she actually knew what went where. Around her, two metalworking pegasi flew upwards, power cables trailing behind them, ready to affix the two points higher off the ground.

Looking back and forth between the control unit and the rocket hull, Zvezda paused uncertainly.

„Err, boss?“ she asked hesitantly, looking over to her supervisor. Meanwhile, the earth mare was quite busy micromanaging her pegasi to hold the device upright, and wasn't paying attention to anypony else.

„Boss!“ Terra added her voice to Zvezda's.

„What, what?“ she exclaimed in annoyance, „You ponies have a job to do here!“

„That's the thing. Just come over here and look,“ Zvezda gestured over to her assigned support.

Shaking her head, the earth pony slowly made her way over to her, uttering ample curses aimed at 'incompetent plebs'. Those ceased, however, when she reached Zvezda and saw the supports herself.

The control unit, and its many tubules, relays, and assorted clumps of wiring, was equipped with four wing-like supports that deployed outwards, designed to fit snugly into the inner sleeve of the rocket hull, whence they could then be welded with a minimum of fuss; Though constructing the rocket horizontally had made most tasks easier, this was the one exception where a vertical position would have been preferred, and this complex attachment system was designed to mitigate that. And it would have done, had the connectors not been stretching out beyond the hull, five extra inches in each direction.

„Oh, by Celestia's- somepony get me the schematics, NOW!“ the supervisor hollered in disbelief.

„Wait, so can we drop this thing now?“ one of the pegasi holding the device in place shouted back.

„No! Stay exactly where you are! And don't you dare drop it, otherwise it's coming out of your pay!“

Briefly glancing at the numerous and shiny (in other words, expensive) electromechanical components, the pegasi quickly redoubled their efforts, terrified looks on their faces. For once in her life, Zvezda was glad she had been born an earth pony.

Another engineer quickly ran up, dragging the long roll of blueprints behind her. Not even stopping to thank her, the supervisor quickly began studying the section of interest. After a few moments, she stamped her hoof on the prints, tearing them slightly:

„Says right here, inner sleeve, diameter sixty five inch exact! Somepony get me that measurement!“

Terra quickly grabbed one end of a measuring line that lay on a nearby table and flew up to the afflicted section. Likewise wanting to redeem herself in her supervisor's eyes, Zvezda quickly clenched the other end in her teeth and brought it up against the lowest point of the inner hull.

„Sixty five exact, boss!“ the pegasus yelled back after a bit of fumbling.

Breathing out a sigh of relief, the pony kicked the schematic away, damaging it even further:

„Not our fault, then. Everypony, as you were! Blues, carry the thing somewhere outside, will you? Zvez, Ter, since you ponies noticed it, go tell the Director. Meanwhile, I've got to go test those manoeuvring vanes.“

Zvezda and Terra exchanged annoyed glances, then both looked at Blue's team of pegasi, who were straining under the weight as they carried the ill-fitting device off. Seeing Terra quickly fly off before the supervisor reassigned her, Zvezda followed suit and promptly vacated the workshop.

The Director was in Stable I, enjoying a pleasant mug of coffee with the Star Walker simulator designers. That ended quickly when Terra and Zvezda tore into the room. After a bit of muddied explanation, they all galloped straight to the main assembly facility, pausing only to grab a few schematics and the head designer from the Electromechanics Department.

Comparing the blueprint with the control unit, Geist kicked the sand in frustration. Every single piece lined up perfectly. All the relays in the right place, all the dimensions correct, there was no reason why it suddenly didn't fit. Across to him, Lyuka was comparing the rocket's hull with the schematics provided by the supervisor.

„All good from this end,“ she reported.

Geist confirmed back, „Control unit's also perfect.“

„Of course it is,“ the sleepy-eyed electromechanics unicorn noted, still annoyed at being woken up this early in the afternoon. Her skin was extremely pale, probably the result of not leaving her electrics lab for weeks at an end, and her eyes were blinking uncertainly in the harsh light of the unfiltered sun. Geist tried to remember her name – Seq, Sagan, Sequin? Sequine, that was it!

The assembled circle of ponies shook their heads. A small distance away, the work crews were enjoying some rare time off, resting in the shade provided by the long squat structure of Stable VII and rehydrating themselves.

„The problem is, we're going too fast,“ the supervisor insisted once again, „Unless we loosen up the pace, my crew'll get worked to death for absolutely nothing!“

„I told you; We are already behind schedule. Celestia's inspection is due in four months, and unless we can present some considerable results for all that money, she will just shut us down.“

„You can't just hurry something like this! This prototype alone has far more components than, well, anything ever built! Unless we take some time out to test before systems integration, we're going to waste more time correcting our mistakes than we save by rushing!“

Lyuka pointed to the timetable that somepony had thrown on the sand, „Go through that. The whole thing. We haven't even started cutting metal for the Star Walker, Celestia's coming in four months, and you want us to go slower?“

The Director waved her aside, „Capsule and booster development can be run in parallel. The real problem here is that we need to successfully test the core stage design. Without that, we cannott test clustering, without which we cannot test staging, without which we will not even get the Star Walker off the ground.“

„Well, for a scaled-down test we could just forgo staging. If we do it right-“

„No. We do not need it to work reliably, but we do need it to look big and impressive, and a single stage does not do that,“ the Director shot back.

As the two began arguing about the semantics of the word 'impressive', Geist just groaned. Such discussion flew far above his pay grade. He just built the training sims. Going over the blueprints of the control unit once again, desperately looking for anything he might have missed, his eyes wandered over to the corner of the sheet:

'INERTIAL TRACKING AND STABILIZATION SYSTEM [ITSS] – rev. 24'

It couldn't be that. Buck no. The Director was far too organized for something like that to happen. But Geist was out of ideas. Taking one look at the bickering chief designers, he decided to instead discretely gesture to the workshop supervisor:

„I was just wondering; What revision are you on?“

The supervisor gave him a dumb look, „The latest, obviously. Twenty four. We're not that dumb, despite whatever the Director may think.“

„Okay, okay, just checking,“ Geist replied defensively, now completely out of ideas. Meanwhile, the electromechanics pony had suddenly snapped to attention. Lazily wondering over to Lyuka, she tilted her head as she studied the rocket schematics laid out before her. Finally, she announced:

„Twenty four slash a.“

This done, she fell back to her stupor. A stupefied silence fell over the crowd of designers.

Zvezda smiled as she sunk her head into a bucket of cool water. It was nice to finally have a break from the constant welding. The vehicle integration team had worked so hard over these last few days, significant swathes of her white skin were now becoming tanned from her constant exposure to blowtorches. Even so, the job was still far more interesting than making carriage wheels.

Continuing to hold her breath under the water, she wondered whether they were ever going to get a pony to outer space, and whether it would be Cherry. The mare's performance during the training accident had certainly increased her standing in Zvezda's eyes, but she was nevertheless grateful they weren't in the same work team, or even the same department.

A terrifying loud noise suddenly startled her, causing her to breathe in a large gulp of water. Kicking away from the bucket and coughing wildly, it took her a while to realize the alien noise was coming from the Chief Designer. She had never known ponies could even produce such horrifying sounds.

„Twenty four! I told you to work on twenty four! Did I say anything about 'A'? Did I? Did I?“

„When I woke up on Monday, there were two separate designs stuffed into my box! 24 and 24/a! Which would you choose?“

„If you weren't sure, why didn't you just ask me?“

„I would have, had somepony not been so busy working on pie-in-the-sky 'Starwalkers' that she couldn't make time for a five minute meeting!“

„When I am not sure about mega-million projects, I don't flip a coin, I ask!“

„Enough! Enough!“ Lyuka shouted, „Look, what's done is done. We can either play the blame game all day long, or figure out how to fix this thing. Now, how much has changed between the two revisions?“

„I redid the whole inertial navigation system,“ the Director said quietly, kicking the sand, „Then I realized there wasn't enough space, so I also had to enlarge the nosecone. The rest should be fine.“

„I don't suppose we can just take a saw and make the thing smaller, can we?“ Geist asked. Apart from an evil glare by the designer of the control unit, the question wasn't deemed worthy of comment.

„Well, we don't have time to redo the rocket. What's wrong with the old control unit?“ the supervisor remained adamant.

„I've added a second gyroscope. With only one, breakdown from oscillation is all too probable. With two, my system can detect one has failed and disregard it.“

Another evil glare from Sequine reminded the present designers who actually added the second gyroscope and worked out the details of the switching system, and who just ordered it to be done.

„Well then, looks like we'll just have to take that chance. For this prototype, at least,“ the supervisor decided, „There's not really another option, not with this schedule. Can you build us a 24/a version in time, Sequine?“

She gave her a third evil glare, this one much worse than the others.

„Obviously not,“ the Director said, „Well then, we will just have to take this one, swap the support struts, rip out the second gyro, and make it fit. Sorry Sequine, I know how hard you worked-“

The last glare was nothing compared to this. Its intensity actually made the Director stop mid-sentence. Quickly turning away, she instead faced the supervisor:

„Can you skip ITSS integration for the time being?“

„We still have to mount the nozzle and the winglets. If we do that today and tomorrow, we can put off control and nosecone integration until Saturday. If we skip in-workshop testing and move it to the pad overnight, it'll be there on Sunday morning.“

„A one day delay. We'll have to accelerate the countdown and skip some on-pad tests as well,“ Lyuka noted, „I'll have a revised checklist ready by tomorrow night.“

„It is decided, then. Sequine, make sure to have the extra gyroscope removed by tomorrow evening. The goddesses willing, we shall be launching this one on time, comrades!“

„I still don't like it. We're skipping too many tests, rushing too much,“ the supervisor pointed out, „Won't all this be for nothing if the thing explodes on lift-off?“

„Aside from the first and last segments, the booster's perfectly modular. All it needs to do is last until the first two have burned out. That will be more than enough to prove the design. Surely you can make it last for thirty seconds?“

„We still don't have any information about high-altitude conditions and engine burnout. If we want to test the Star Walker mock-up on the next launch, we really should consider-“

„Extra testing would be nice, but after the initial boost phase finishes we will have at least a few minutes to improvise our emergencies,“ the Director dismissed Lyuka's protests, „You can't improvise your way out from an explosion.“

„True,“ Lyuka admitted, „But I still wouldn't want to be the first pony to ride on that thing.“

On the other side of the complex, the first such candidate was still lying in her hospital bed. Staring at the ceiling and the rows of empty beds all day long, Cherry has had plenty of time to think. Ever since that training accident, in fact, she had been spending far more time withdrawn to that strange place behind her eyes than ever before.

Not that it was the only thing she did, of course. She had been graced with ample visits, starting with Geist and continuing on to include almost everypony on the Cosmodrome; Some fervently apologized for every rushed and skipped test they had ever made, others simply wished her to get better, and all came bearing gifts.

Groaning, Cherry looked sideways at the massive pile of boxes laid there. Flowers, chocolates, even a few cakes… she felt slightly sick as she looked at it now. It was all good, very very good, but despite the best attempts from the nurses to stop her, she had eaten so much she doubted she'd ever fly again. The 'Cape' was home to approximately two hundred ponies, and seemingly every last one could cook.

With a now-familiar ring at the door, Cherry heard another pony enter. Silently wondering what this one was bringing, and how much of it she'd have to eat to demonstrate her satisfaction, she turned around to see none other than her greatest enemy, Professor Redstone. The unassuming pale-yellow unicorn was trying to look innocent as he stood in the doorway, his comically large glasses and omnipresent saddlebags doing their best to conceal his true nature.

Cherry's eyes could see beyond such simple measures, however, and glimpse at the pure evil hidden deep inside. It was remarkable, really, how such a friendly-looking village pony could be the biggest single threat to the denizens of Equestria. As the Professor gave her a seemingly-casual, but in fact absolutely evil (in some way or another, at least) wave, Cherry steadied herself for a confrontation with this archfiend.

„Hi, Cherry! I was just coming back from lunch and figured I would stop by,“ he shouted as he approached. Her ears jumped to attention. Even his voice was evil – that thick Stutegart accent could not have possibly originated from anything but administrating secret slave camps in the east, or possibly running an illegal weapons plant. Or whatever it was these crazy Stutegart ponies did.

„I would have brought you something, but came late and tech-ponies had already cleared out salad bar. You would not believe how much these engineers eat. They leave only crumbs for poor mathematician!“ he continued, smiling as Cherry's eyes drilled into him. A likely story, she thought sarcastically.

„Anyway, I am here now, and was wondering how you are doing,“ he said, arriving to the side of her bed.

He probably spiked the hospital's water or something, and wants to know if I'm dying yet. Why else would he care about my health?

„I'm fine.“

Redstone nodded, and, with that evil smile still on his face, reached back into his saddlebags:

„That is good. I know it must be as boring as all hay down here, so I brought you some light reading to do. Figured you might want to catch up on this, as it will be only thing keeping you alive up there.“

Finding the book, he took it out and dropped it on Cherry's bedsheets. It was a thick dusty tome, titled 'The Beauty of the Oblique Ellipse: A short introduction to all things orbital'.

„One of my favourites!“ he pridefully gleamed.

So that's your game, eh? To corrupt me with more of your dark magicks. Well, I'll have none of it!

„Uh, thanks, Professor. I'll put it on the list.“

Nodding in satisfaction as he looked over the two tall stacks of books beside Cherry's bed, he added, „Good to see you working your way through those. Looks like we will have plenty to go over together once you are back on four hooves, yes?“

Cherry stopped smiling. Uh oh. He had actually expected her to read all those books? During her brief stay in the hospital, she had already managed to forget what little she had learnt so far, and he was expecting her to know more?

„Anyway, I am afraid I still have some ballistics equations to finish off, so I will have to leave you to your revisions. And remember, a question a day keeps ol' Redstone away!“

And with a burst of definitely-evil laughter, he was gone. Cherry waited long enough to make sure he definitely wasn't coming back, then resolutely tossed the book on one of the piles. Silly professor.

As she pulled in the blankets tighter, however, a niggling feeling remained in the back of her head. She tried to dismiss it as some more of Redstone's trickery, perhaps some subliminal hypnosis or something, but it only intensified.

She turned around again, but couldn't shake the feeling out of her brain. She tried stuffing her head deep into the pillow, covering up her ears with the blanket. Nothing seemed to help, however, and the Professor's words kept repeating themselves in her head:

„...it will be only thing keeping you alive up there!“

It wasn't true at all. She knew that. The mission plans were rather clear; All orbital manoeuvres were to be pre-computed back on the ground (probably by Redstone himself, Cherry scoffed). She wouldn't have to do anything more than simply open the envelope, read out the correct set of numbers, and punch them into the control unit. Plus, if that crazy electromechanics pony ever got off her lazy flank, even that would be automated. In either case, there'd never be any need for her to calculate orbital parameters herself; Outside of Redstone's chalk-encrusted lecture hall, obviously.

Then again. She looked around the long hospital room, and at her own body, which still lay pale from her bout with hypothermia. Cherry remembered the sheer and utter helplessness very well. That certainly hadn't been in the mission plan. And if even a short training scenario could go so awry, what about a real mission? If a circuit died, if something went wrong, she'd have nothing but herself and these equations to rely on; There'd be no rescue party coming in high orbit, and she'd just keep floating in that tin can, never coming home.

Exclaiming in frustration, Cherry finally gave up and grabbed the book from the pile. She examined its covers with severe scepticism. No book with the word 'short' in the title ought to be thicker than her leg.

Turning to the first page, she was immediately confronted by paragraphs and paragraphs of imposing and densely-packed microscopic text. Why didn't these physics books ever have pretty pictures? Or even just an editor? It didn't matter how stupidly written the book was, though. Not anymore. She wouldn't be that helpless again, no matter how many byzantine equations tried to stop her.

A few hours later, after the rest of the day's shortened shift had finished, Zvezda and the rest of her section returned to Stable IV. For once, they were tired slightly below what was considered 'average' around this crazy place.

The canteen was yet another dreary room of rough and unpainted concrete that seemed to be so prevalent about the entire complex. Zvezda had never seen such a type of construction before, and she was quite sure she didn't want to ever again. How they had come about in the first place still remained a mystery.

Loading an extra helping of apple pie on her plate, Terra was the first to speak up:

„Anyway, I was wondering, you know how we have that huge meeting hall over in Stable II? We should totally hold a get-together there on Sunday. I mean, you've all seen how huge that projection screen is.“

„You're right. It's gonna be a pleasant break from all this work,“ Sara joined in.

„Don't you think the Director will mind, though?“

„Look, Sunday afternoon, that huge joke of a rocket will shoot off into the sky. Either it crashes and burns, in which case she'll lock herself inside her office and sulk for the next week, or it works, in which case she'll be so happy she'll nod to anything,“ Terra explained her battle plan, „Either way, come evening there won't be anypony around to stop us.“

„That hall's pretty huge, though,“ Blues wondered aloud, „Maybe we can invite the rest of the crew too?“

„Hey, we can invite Cherry too! I'm sure she'll want to leave the hospital!“ Sara pipped up. Zvezda paused at the suggestion, but said nothing. Though the mare got on her nerves, she seemed pretty popular with the other ponies, so what was the problem? She could tolerate her, at the very least.

„Hey, the more the merrier,“ Terra announced between bites of her pie, „If we invite enough ponies, maybe we'll actually hit on someone who knows how the work the video projector!“

This prompted a round of laugher around the table, which Terra immediately followed up with a worried look: „Nopony invite those woollen hat wearing ponies, though. They freak me out.“

„Yeah, what's the deal with them? And all those 'security' stallions in black coats?“

„No idea,“ Sara shrugged, „They seem to have been here, since, well, ever. Did they build the place?“

„The other day, I tried going out for a walk behind the eastern labs,“ Zvezda related, „Out of nowhere, this huge stallion calling himself 'The Commissar' appears, and starts threatening me to back away in this completely ridiculous accent. I didn't know whether to run away or collapse laughing.“

„Oh yeah, that one! I know him! I've been seeing him talk to the Director. And follow her about,“ Blues interjected, „As in, a lot.“

„A lot a lot?“ Sara winked, and the present ponies giggled.

„No idea. But they do seem to know each other quite well.“

„I mean, they don't even dine with us regular ponies,“ Terra continued thinking aloud, „And their quarters are in an unmarked building on the other side of the site.“

„There does seem to be an awful lot of this cloak-and-dagger stuff going on here,“ Zvezda noted, „Like why all the head ponies never reveal us their name. Not even our supervisor told us hers!“

Terra nodded, „Or why the Director felt the need to lie on all our contracts. There's no 'weather research' going on here at all!“

„Eh, you never know,“ Blues spoke up, turning back to look at her wings, „Maybe something special happens if you send a pegasus up far enough. Like controlling half of Equestria's weather at once or something.“

„Or maybe they just don't know, and want to find out what happens,“ Sara pointed out, „I mean, it's a Bureau of Atmospheric Experimentation after all. And they are sending a pegasus up there, instead of, say, a unicorn, who'd be far more useful if this was just about rockets.“

„I don't know, Sara,“ Zvezda played idly with the last leaf on her plate, „The Director sure seems to care about her rockets an awful lot.“

„Yeah,“ Terra began, „She seems to care an awful about getting them as long and rigid as possible. I'm telling you, that mare has issues.“

„Well, of course she's getting frustrated! All these premature detonations...“

A few more jokes about the decidedly symbolic shape of the Director's designs later, the construction crews bid each other farewell and retreated to their bunks. Churning around in her bed, thinking about these dumb jokes, Zvezda idly began pondering how the future generations of ponies would regard their work. Would it rank amongst the first steam locomotive, the first weather factory, the Royal Palace?

A smile on her face, Zvezda haughtily imagined her photo printed in some boring history book a hundred years from now, a tiny portrait with a short explanatory sentence underneath. It was certainly interesting to think about. Even assuming she wasn't forgotten outright, all her personality, quirks, ambitions and dreams, would first get badly misremembered, then mercilessly compressed into a few short words, then attributed to some other pony.

Hopefully, they would at least manage to spell her name right.

Minus Ten and Counting

Somewhat nervous the entire workshop was watching her, Zvezda nevertheless grasped the welding torch with her mouth and pushed its long electrode against the metal hull of the rocket. Confident everything was prepared, she readied her foreleg on the small control pad that lay on the floor, then slowly increased pressure on it.

The torch sprang to life, electric current beginning to flow from the wall socket, into the electrode, through the metal shell of the rocket, then returning through an affixed clamp. Sparks started flying everywhere, and Zvezda was again very thankful for her darkened goggles. Smoothly running the torch alongside the length of the seam, she slowly moved her head inwards to keep the electrode's tip pushed up against the metal as the rod consumed itself.

Finally, the seam was complete, and amidst loud cheers, Zvezda lifted her leg off the pressure pad and took a step back to inspect it. No bubbles, no oxidation, filler evenly spread. Finding that acceptable, she spat the torch back on the ground and turned around victoriously. The entire workshop sprang into celebration, hooves impacting the concrete floor while the supervisor began singing a rather off-key rendition of the Ballad of the Metalpony.

As Sara, Blues, and Terra rushed forward from the audience to congratulate her on a job well done, Zvezda allowed a confident smile to creep up on her face. Unless the Director suddenly managed to pull out new rocket parts of out nowhere, this would be the last weld she'd make for an entire month. The balloon back to Manehattan would arrive on Monday, and she'd finally get to spend her fat paycheck. There was still some paperwork to finish off, but for now, party!

Having finished butchering the old metalworkers' melody, the supervisor cleared her throat and let the workshop fall silent:

„I must admit, team, when I first saw that big pile of components back in Stable VI last week, my first thought was, 'There is no way in hay we will ever put that together on time'. But, as the days went on and I saw you put your skills to practice, I slowly grew more and more confident. Though we've hit some setbacks along the way, you ponies soldiered on through them and proved me wrong. I salute you.“

The assembled crews began fervently clapping their hooves against the ground again, but the supervisor quietened them and continued:

„What you are doing here is something amazing. Something never before attempted by pony hooves. Though coming from common backgrounds, you've nevertheless managed to pick up revolutionary assembly methods, apply them to problems never before solved, and built something, well, magical.“

Another applause, another silencing:

„Although you've all done a great job, there is one pony in particular I must thank. Would you be so kind and come up next to me, Sara?“

Gasping with surprise, Sara looked around to her friends. Seeing them smile back, she uncertainly made her way up to the supervisor's side.

„Sara, your unyielding dedication to the project is something that amazed even me. No matter how many unexpected problems there were, how impolitely we asked; You were always willing to do your best. Therefore-“ the supervisor paused for dramatic effect, „-In honour of your efforts, we are dedicating this rocket to you!“

On command, two unicorns levitated a small plaque up to the hull, where it was welded to the metal by a prepared pegasus. The small sign read:

„Core cluster sounding vehicle (rev24) – Unit VIII ('Sara Goldhooves')“

„Here's a second copy to put up on the wall and show off with,“ the supervisor winked, handing the plaque to Sara, before turning back to the rest of the workshop's crew: „Now, I know you all deserve it, so there's a small buffet waiting for you in Stable IV. I was going to hold it right here, but the Director insisted that drunken ponies and tin cans stuffed with high explosive don't mix.

Anyway; Vehicle Assembly Crew, dismissed!“

As they left the workshop, Zvezda turned around for one last look at their creation. It seemed... disappointingly small. Considering all the effort and overtime they had put in, all their sweat and tears and waking nights, the final rocket wasn't actually all that big; Perhaps six pony-lengths from puffy nosecone to stubby nozzle, and two pony-heights in diameter. Still, it was much bigger than any of those previous fireworks shown in the archive footage, so Zvezda was satisfied.

Turning around again to catch up to her friends, she caught sight of the hat-wearing ponies approaching, presumably to tow the rocket to the launchpad. Not particularly wanting to be left alone with them – doubly so, given the quickly disappearing daylight – she galloped off towards Stable IV.

„Three, two, one, fire!“

Nothing happened.

Exclaiming in frustration, Lyuka took her hooves off the firing console and ran back to the launchpad. The sun had long since gone down, and the launch crew were left trying to work by the weak light of several lamps that lay strewn about the site.

The rocket was still a way from the pad, but it was approaching rapidly, and Lyuka really did not want to have another delay. Trotting up to the pad base, she complained:

„We could have just used a fuse to light the thing, but no, the Director wanted a nice and shiny electric igniter!“

Her horn glowing as she levitated bundles of cabling and capacitor jars around, Sequine replied:

„Other designs much smaller. This one too big. Needs electrics.“

„I know, I know,“ Lyuka sighed, „But it just seems that with each launch, we're using five new groundbreaking technologies that had never before seen the light of day. No wonder it all keeps blowing up.“

The air around them clicked as Sequine repeatedly tested new connections, broke them up, then spun the components around again for a new attempt.

„First, weak metal. Then, shaking itself apart. Last time, lack of stabilization,“ Sequine casually recounted whilst levitating hundreds of individual components in a large spinning sphere above her head, „Should be good now.“

„Yeah, right. Everytime we're sure we got absolutely everything perfect this time around, a new problem appears out of thin air and the stupid thing just explodes. It's just, no matter how much we try, this whole thing just seems too hard for ponies, you know?“

„Not rocket. Igniter. Rocket will blow up. Igniter works,“ Sequine clarified, gently lowering the ball of tightly knit components into a prepared shallow pit which would serve as the base of the launchpad.

Rolling her eyes, Lyuka trotted off back towards the firing console. Pressing the ignition key, she jumped back as a bright shower of sparks momentarily blinded her.

While her vision recovered, she considered the strange pony's words. Rocket will blow up. Igniter works. Judging by their track record, she was probably right. Depressed, Lyuka tried the igniter again to ensure it wasn't a fluke, making sure to shield her eyes this time around.

Satisfied the ignition system was reliable, Lyuka inspected the strange unicorn. She was just standing there, utterly immobile, a faint dumb grin of satisfaction on her face.

„Aren't you ever depressed?“ she shot off in frustration.

„Why? Director buys room, food, all wires and relays I want. Is nice here.“

Some ponies had very low expectations. Shaking her head, Lyuka powered down the console, then crossed another line off her checklist.

Cherry woke up, bathed in cold sweat. A second of terrified confusion followed as she scanned the alien surroundings; Then her brain switched back on. She had finally managed to persuade the nurses to let her out of the hospital, on the condition she stays in her quarters the entire time until full recovery.

Whether it was the new surroundings or the upcoming test launch, this was the third time she had been torn from her sleep this night.

It was always the same dream: Sitting inside that small capsule, all suited and connected up, the countdown rolling along normally... then the warning lights would flare up. She would pound on the entry hatch, repeatedly hit the abort and ejection buttons, and nothing would happen. She'd spot Geist behind the small round window, working furiously to get her out of there. Then, somepony'd shout „Fire! Fire on the pad!“ the cabin would fill with choking white smoke, and a tremendous explosion would jar her awake.

Getting off her bed to get a jug of water from her fridge, Cherry thought about it. All this worrying was stupid. All those attempts were test flights. Test flights are supposed to blow up, so that the real thing doesn't.

Then again, that hated part of her brain would say, The Director has had a perfect 100% failure rate. She's skipping tests, rushing at every opportunity, and hasn't yet begun cutting the metal for the capsule you'll go up in. Even the training programme is a deathtrap!

Sipping on the refreshing cool water, she tried to make counterarguments. The only convincing one she could come up with revolved around the upcoming launch. And as rumour had it, even the ever-optimistic Director was expecting that to fail spectacularly.

Throwing the rest of the jug's contents into her face, Cherry puffed. There was no way she was getting any more sleep tonight. Looking around to glance at the clock, she noticed it was still three in the morning. Plenty of time, then.

Lighting the small lamp on her desk, Cherry got some paper and put it on the table. Grasping the pen with her mouth, she stood immobile for a while as her brain arranged itself, then began:

„Dear ma, pa,

I'm sorry I didn't write since leaving the Academy. I know you must be worried, and I wish I've done this earlier. I know you still don't approve of my decision, but I don't care anymore. I just want us to be family again.

Life's been busy here at the facility (I don't think I'm allowed to even write its codename here). Training, tests, more training, more tests – they are big on tests, these ponies. I never even dreamed of doing something like this, but that makes it all the more exciting! They are doing some incredible things here, and I just wish you could come and see your Cheery in the middle of it all. Maybe sometime in the future, when security isn't so tough.

How is little Rosie? Has she started flying yet? Tell her big sister's missing her so much!

Anyway, I just wanted to you know everything's going well, and your little filly is safe and sound.

Lots of love,

Cherry“

She read the letter over again. Yeah, that would do.

Turning the light back off, she left the paper on the desk and returned to bed. Maybe she'd send it off in the morning. Then again, she thought, remembering her father's last words as he slammed the door on her. Maybe she wouldn't.

Tumbling into the kitchen, Zvezda uncertainly veered from side to side as she tried to find the sink. Some crazy pony had somehow smuggled several barrels of apple cider onto the Cosmodrome, and now the entire vehicle assembly team was paying the price.

Synapses firing slowly, it took her about ten seconds to realize the light was on. It took her a further ten seconds to notice the busy pink pegasus in the middle of the kitchen, furiously working on something.

„Te- Terra?“ Zvezda slowly got out, „What are you doing?“

„Preparing some popcorn, duh,“ came the incessant reply.

„Popcorn?“

„Well, yes. Think about it, it's gonna be a great fireworks show. And all the assembly crews get their paychecks tomorrow. If I show up there selling popcorn, I'll become a billionaire overnight!“

„Sounds good,“ Zvezda blinked slowly, „Mind if I join in? I wouldn't mind having a million or two.“

„Sure, no problem. Just find me some apples. Can't make corn without apples.“

It took several further seconds before the web of logic completed itself in Zvezda's mind:

„Apples? Sure. Just wait a bit, I need to use the sink.“

The Chief Director paced around her quarters, stealing the occasional frightened glance at the massive schematic pinned up on the wall, then turning away quickly before her eyes have had the time to spot any glaring mistakes. She was convinced there were still at least a dozen of them, just lying there, silently laughing at her. But it was all too late to fix them now.

As she went through this routine, she mumbled to herself.

„The real thing'll have a redundant control system; So it won't matter if this one veers off course and explodes.“

„The nozzle is just an experimental design, we can always go back to the old model. Granted, that one blew up on the pad, but we can work around that.“

„We've remixed the new fuel grain, so it shouldn't ignite prematurely anymore. There's nothing that can go wrong.“

„It's just a simple test of the modular booster rings. If they work, it doesn't matter if everything else crashes and burns.“

„It doesn't matter.“

She paused in her tracks for a while. Self-deception was a surprisingly difficult thing to pull off consciously.

Geist turned peacefully in his bed. His mind still full of ideas for the Starwalker simulator, it wasn't too surprising that his dreams revolved around galloping back and forth through a long corridor, constantly flipping random switches on the walls. Every so often, candy would drop from a trapdoor in the ceiling, and he'd stop to devour it all before running back to the switches.

Mumbling something incomprehensible, he snored once, then carried on as before, a wide unworried smile on his face.

The time was finally here. The rocket towered proud on the launching platform, having been painstakingly erected there from the horizontal position by teams of hung-over and sleep-deprived pegasi early in the morning.

Circling around it for what must have been the thousandth time today, Lyuka scrutinized every last square inch of the vehicle's hull. Both above and below her, her teams of pegasi were doing the same, or at least trying to.

Trying to concentrate on the rough metal skin, Lyuka noticed it was slowly sliding out of focus. She shook her head and looked at it again. Slightly better. Wiping the sweat off her forehead, she idly wondered when was the last time she drank something. Probably yesterday lunch.

„Boss, please! This thing isn't getting any better the more we stare at it!“ a blue pegasus above her pleaded, hovering uncertainly above Lyuka.

„Have you checked the nose seal yet?“ she snapped back.

„Yes! Five times now! Five! I know this is our biggest rocket yet, but that doesn't-“

„Well, go check it again!“

The pegasus stopped, considered her words for a few seconds, then simply gave her Equestria's most flippant salute and flew off towards the rocket's tip. Turning to the towering vehicle again, Lyuka suddenly noticed a single grain of sand had become embedded inside the tiny separation ring between two protective plates. Blowing at it, Lyuka was satisfied to see it disappear.

Suddenly, the rocket emitted a terrible creaking noise. Shocked by its volume, it took Lyuka a few moments to remember she was still in the air. Quickly levelling out before she hit the ground, she demanded:

„What was that? What? Report, now!“

A tired Wilhelmina sounded back from the ground:

„It's just the rocket, L! The metal's expanding in the heat!“

Oh yeah. That was the third time today, wasn't it? Lyuka re-focused her eyes again. Silly brain, getting tired so quickly.

„Don't you think we've done enough testing? If we leave it any longer, the batteries will run out and we'll have to swap in new ones! Again!“

„The batteries!“ Lyuka suddenly screamed. Rapidly ascending towards the vehicle's top, Lyuka uncovered a small access panel at the base of the nosecone. Quickly stamping the small button hidden underneath it, she verified this lit up the small lightbulb positioned nearby. She was just about to let out a sigh of relief, when Wilhelmina interrupted:

„L, that is enough! By the authority of Chief Director, I hereby declare the pre-launch hold complete! Crews, final report!“

„But what about the-“

„Now!“ the Director screamed. Lyuka was about to object, then one of her subordinates shoved her hoof into her open mouth. Too tired to resist, she simply resigned herself to hovering idly.

„Manoeuvring system pressurized!“ shouted a pegasus from the opposite side of the nosecone.

„Confirming no leaks in segment joints!“

„Roll program loaded.“

„Let's go already, then! Everybody, vacate the pad!“ the Director commanded, herself proceeding to gallop away from the rocket.

„Aerial photography crews, in position!“ the pegasus covering Lyuka's mouth voiced the order for her. Saluting, Lyuka's team of pegasi flew off upwards. With an evil glare to the assistant director, the subordinate removed her hoof, then followed them off.

„Film crew, start rolling!“ the Director commanded. A pair of earth ponies stationed beside the launch console began playing with their large device.

Lyuka took one last look around. The launch pad stood alone in the middle of the desert, a fair distance from the rest of the Cosmodrome. The only physical connection between the two was a pair of rail tracks, running from the massive iron gates of Stable VII to the firing pit.

In a large semicircle around the pad, the entire population of the Cape had gathered for the big event. She spotted that two enterprising ponies had opened up a stand offering salted popcorn, but they didn't seem to be getting much business. The mere sight of salt suddenly made Lyuka realize just how thirsty she was.

What ponies weren't in the semicircle lay positioned at various strategic positions in the desert and the sky, intently watching the vehicle with telescopes and cameras. If – when, Lyuka corrected herself – the rocket failed, their photographs and observations would provide valuable data. Hopefully.

Glancing for one last time at the unpainted metal grey cylinder of a rocket, Lyuka gritted her teeth and landed in the sand next to the Director.

„Any last words, Chief Designer?“ she asked sarcastically, remembering those hopeful long-winded speeches that had been held before prior launches, whose idealism had always rang so bitter after the inevitable failure.

„Just get on with it,“ she snapped. And with a nod to the launch announcer, it was off.

„Sounding rocket eight, the Pad Führer has given final confirmation,“ the pony spoke through her megaphone. Lyuka could see Wilhelmina grit her teeth at the nickname, but not say anything; Presumably not wanting to delay a moment longer.

„Commencing launch in T minus thirty seconds.“

Readying her hooves on the ignition console, the Director began inhaling deeply.

„T minus twenty five seconds.“

With a dim glow surrounding her horn, Sequine disconnected the last few cables from the nosecone and levitated them outside the blast radius.

„T minus twenty seconds, guidance is internal.“

A green bulb lit up on the firing console.

„T minus fifteen seconds. Ignition capacitors confirmed charged.“

The noon sun had been ceaselessly boring down on everypony the entire day, unbearable in its intensity almost the entire time. The sand was scorching her green skin. Even so, Lyuka began shivering with cold.

„T minus ten.“

They had skipped too many tests. Rushed too fast. It was all too clear to Lyuka.

„Eight.“

There was nothing left to do now. Nothing but pray. Judging by the sheer number of silently praying spectators, Celestia would probably be getting a headache right about now.

„Seven.“

The anticipation was unbearable.

„Six.“

How long would this one last? Five seconds, ten?

„Five.“

„Four.“

„Three.“

Screaming in a sudden release of all her pent up frustration and rage, the Director slammed the ignition switch with her face. At the last millisecond, Lyuka remembered herself and tightly sealed her eyes.

Even then, the effect was incapacitating. A flash so bright, it penetrated her eyelids. A blast of hot air rushing outwards, showering her in sand. A harsh roar of pure white noise, deafening her. Even the very air around them seemed to be shaking itself apart.

Despite the omnipresent assault on the senses, Lyuka smiled. At least this particular failure would be far more spectacular than ever before.

Blinking rapidly to get her vision back, Lyuka observed the aftermath. The launchpad was simply gone, the ignition device and support cranes turned into molten slag. The surviving cables were on fire, their thick plastic insulation releasing poisonous black smoke. The service crews would have their work cut out for them.

That was for later, however. She quickly looked upwards. Somehow and against all expectation, the vehicle was rising fast, riding atop a mighty ball of searing white fire and thick black smoke. Once upon a time, the sight would fill her heart with excitement. Now, it was just exhausted pessimism.

„T plus five seconds! Begin roll.“

Unbelievably slowly, the vehicle began turning to its side, almost royal in its fiery grace. Stealing a quick glance at Sequine, Lyuka wasn't surprised to see an impossibly smug grin on her face. The one she always had.

„T plus ten seconds. Complete roll.“

Despite the announcement, the rocket kept turning. Five degrees past the target, ten. Based on previous flights' bitterly earned experience, past fifteen off the flightpath meant a fatal tumble and catastrophic structural failure.

There we go, then. Should've kept that backup gyro. I hope you're happy, Director.

Yet, Sequine's smug grin remained. Dumb crazy pony.

„T plus fifteen. First segment burnout, second segment ignition.“

With another bright flash, the rocket's exhaust flared, and the vehicle immediately jumped back to its intended heading. The grin became a singularity of smugness.

„T plus twenty. Flight path is nominal, vehicle altitude should be past two thousand strides.“

The rocket quickly shrank in the clear blue sky. Soon, all that remained visible was a glistening speck in the desert sun, and an exhaust plume of black smoke. The sight reminded Lyuka of their previous, smaller, attempts. The ones that exploded.

„T plus twenty five. Mach one.“

A faint thunder could be heard. The plume of black smoke behind the rocket kept expanding rapidly, and now completely obscured the rocket. A few seconds later, it flared again.

„T plus thirty. Second segment burnout.“

The Director mumbled in relief. At least the test wouldn't be a total failure now. Still, nopony took their eyes off the rocket. All wondered: How high would it go?

The roar was just a faint whisper now, the exhaust plume a tiny black circle in the massive azure sky. Lyuka raised one of her eyebrows. Everything was failing so badly, not even the explosion managed to arrive on time.

„T plus fifty, approaching max Q. Mach two! I don't believe this!“

The crowd began cheering, the scattered „You go, girl!“ and „Hay yes!“ barely audible amidst the stampeding hooves. A minute of powered flight would be something unprecedented. Lyuka just stared at the faint dot.

What do explosions do on their time off anyway? Have a cup of tea? Hurry up, mister!

„Holy horseshoes, sixty seconds! We got it! We finally-“

A distant pop, and the black plume went up in a flash of light.

„Max Q,“ the launch announcer stated emptily. A sudden silence fell upon the crowd, leaving Lyuka's ears ringing.

She dimly stared at the slowly expanding cloud of debris and black smoke, nodding in quiet resignation.

Took you long enough. Almost had me convinced, mister! Show up on schedule the next time, will you?

Shaking the hot sand off her skin, she turned towards the Director.

„Told you. Let's go pack.“

Will did not respond. Noticing something strange, Lyuka shook her head again and blinked repeatedly.

The Director was indeed smiling. Looking around in confusion, she turned around to Redstone. He was also smiling. Looking at the assembled work crews, they all had that same dumb expression on their faces. The vehicle assembly teams, the fuel grain specialists, the ground crews, every last pony apparently mad.

Lyuka scoffed. Did everypony simultaneously suffer a sudden catastrophic brain failure from heatstroke? Explosions were bad, not good!

A lone pony somewhere in the distance began stomping her hooves against the ground. Gradually, more and more ponies joined in, until the lone clap grew to a deafening applause that almost rivalled the original roar of the engine.

The same engine that's now falling towards the ground in a billion tiny pieces. Has everypony gone insane?

She turned back to Will in bewilderment. She looked at that dumb smile again. Their eyes met for a second, and suddenly she knew. She understood.

Looking up towards the sky, Lyuka considered the slowly expanding ball of black smoke. Yes, in the grand scheme of things, it was utterly laughable. Whole months of back-breaking laborious efforts from over a hundred ponies, endless nights spent correcting schematics and rewiring faulty connections, literal rivers of coffee, all spent for a mere sixty seconds of powered flight.

On the other hoof, who cared? Lowering her gaze, Lyuka once again scanned the crowds of cheering and applauding ponies. They had been born peasants. Librarians. A few as pampered nobles. Ponies that had expected nothing more out of life than a steady supply of food, a nice family, and hopefully enough money to buy a few shiny trinkets. Perhaps a few would go on and become engineers, maybe even building a bridge or a skyscraper that would stand for a hundred years, leaving their mark on history that way.

And yet, here they were. With nothing but their hooves, they had managed to construct a mechanical beast that had broken the speed of sound in twenty five seconds flat, that had soared three times above the limit of the highest flying pegasus, that far exceeded any show of magic. Their little tin can had just single-handedly broken every single flight record in the entire history of Equestria. And it was just a prototype.

Lyuka compared a few numbers, ran a quick mental calculation, then, after double-checking, smiled back at the Director. Their design was perfect. It only broke up because it was too good; The fuel mix must have been even better than they had thought. In either case, the real rocket, carrying a payload and extra stages, would be far heavier, not reaching half this speed; Not before it got high enough for the air pressure to drop to near-nothing. It wouldn't break up; It would work.

She nodded to herself. They had a long way to go yet. Clustering, staging, navigation, re-entry, recovery, the list was too long to count. But they've truly made their first step.

In the skies above, Cherry fluttered about in excitement as she watched the cloud of burning metal drop back from the heavens.

She ought to be worrying, screaming helplessly, grimly pondering her own future fate. She might end up in such a cloud, after all. She should be monologuing in angst right now!

And yet she wasn't. Despite some parts of her brain trying to scream at her, Cherry wasn't paying any attention to them. Why should she? Everything had gone wrong for this rocket. The assembly crews were inexperienced, the fuel mix experimental, half the control unit got cut out. And yet it managed to fly faster than the world's best pegasus. By the time it was her turn, Zvezda and Geist and everypony else would have gotten it just right.

Or maybe this one was just dumb luck.

Shut up, brain.

Surprise!

Weeks passed. The development teams enjoyed a pleasant vacation away from the Cosmodrome, coming back fresh and ready for a new schedule. Whether it had been luck or not, the unexpected – however slight – success of the last launch had sent morale soaring everywhere, and the work crews returned to the Cape genuinely excited for their next assignments.

Which was good, for this next attempt would be the most significant yet; Not only was the unprecedented technique of clustering to be tried in practice for the first time, it would also be the first launch with a payload – a prototype shell of the first-generation Starwalker, intended to put some of the Director's ideas about heatshield design into practice.

That is, assuming they could ever build the stupid thing in the first place.

With a deep sigh, Wilhelmina surveyed the array of test articles that lay prepared in the middle of the lab, suspended from the ceiling via thick steel cables; Each a five-by-five plate of thick rough metal; Each of a slightly different colour and texture; And each last one badly burnt and half-molten, with large gaping holes where the metal had completely wasted away.

With the Commissar menacingly standing to attention at her side, the Director faced down the head metallurgist, looking at her over the top of her spectacles. The brown unicorn stood her ground, but it was plenty obvious she was afraid.

„You told me you would have this alloy ready for use in half a year. That was eight months ago,“ Will slowly began, choosing her words and body language carefully for maximum impact, „Our entire schedule depends on finalizing the heatshield composition as soon as possible. Without it, the entire Star Walker project is on indefinite hold. Now, what do you have to say for yourself?“

The terrified unicorn could barely speak, but a provoked assistant saved her:

„The requirements you gave us are insane! They call for ninety five percent purity! Ninety five! That's utter madness!“

„Well, I suggest you try something new, then. And quickly. I allocated a significant portion of our budget to your lab, provided all the expensive beryllium and aluminium you asked for, but now I'm expecting results.“

„What do you think we've been doing all these months? Look, there is only one alloy known to ponykind that even approaches your ridiculous requirements, and guess what? The same properties that make it resistant to heat, also make it extremely difficult to produce! We've spent half a year trying to figure out a way of separating the chlorine out with magic; We've tried a dozen different methods, and unless there was a revolution in metalworking while we weren't looking, we're never going to get this alloy purified fully. The technology just doesn't exist!“

„Well, what do we suggest we do, then?“ Wilhelmina insisted, „The equations are clear. Unless your heatshield can withstand four thousand degrees peak and three thousand degrees sustained, for five minutes, then our brave equenaut's going to end up as cinders. It's as simple as that.“

„And unless this alloy's ninety five percent pure, it can't do that!“

The two mares stared each other down; Each behest by the laws of nature, neither able to back down.

„There is... one other way,“ the chief scientist interjected, breaking up the staring contest as all eyes snapped to her. Judging by her slow, careful tone, the Director got the feeling she wouldn't like this suggestion.

„We... could, theoretically, fulfil those requirements at our present eighty percent purity... if we made the shell thicker. Instead of one and a half inch, use two and a half. It would still ablate dangerously during peak load, but with the extra material it should be able to hold.“

Wilhelmina's hunch rang true. She didn't like the news. Especially after a brief mental calculation.

„So you want me to cut half a tonne of mass from the capsule?“ she incredulously began. The rocket design already teetered at the limits of the impossible as it was, and adding another half a tonne of payload was simply out of consideration. Hence, if the heatshield suddenly got heavier, the other systems would have to become lighter, by an equal amount.

The head scientist shrugged. Will stared at her for a few seconds more. It was bad, but it was their only option. Make the avionics and life support half a tonne lighter; Or give up.

„Fine,“ she snapped bitterly, turning around for the door. What else was going to go wrong with this infernal capsule?

„Velocity, Twenty seven thousand hooves per second. Altitude, one hundred fifteen miles. You are go for second orbit.“

Shuffling about in the confined space of the simulator, Cherry very carefully began pulling at a cord hanging from a metal box above her head, taking great pains not to rip it off. The cardboard ceiling of the mock-up bent inwards dangerously, but did not collapse. Inch by inch, she slowly increased weight on the string, until an audible click of a relay confirmed the system's activation:

„Spacecraft instrumentation visual assistance and guidance system, enabled!“

A single small bulb on the ceiling slowly warmed to life. Privately, the orange pegasus wondered who came up with these ridiculous names.

„Checking bus A,“ she announced, squinting her eyes as she tried to observe the dial, „Oh, for Celestia's – Abort test!“

„No can do, cadet! You are floating over a hundred miles above the surface. No aborts there!“ Redstone's resolute voice commanded, speaking from just behind the black curtain that their mock-up used for an entry hatch.

„I know, I know, but just look at this thing! Who thought it was a good idea to put the most important reading on a tiny little dial right next to a huge glowing bulb?“ Cherry complained, still in disbelief the Chief Designer had managed to miss such a glaring error.

Then again, she had seen the blueprints for herself too. Some things just weren't obvious until they were tried in practice.

„Well, somepony did, and now you have to deal with result!“

„We are going to change this for the real thing, right?“ she asked, trying to figure out a way to get the reading. Without the bulb, the capsule was too dark, and with it, the glass cover of the dial simply reflected its glare, completely obscuring the measuring needle, „I mean, I literally can't see what it says. Am I supposed to just guess?“

„Geist, write it down!“ the professor snapped to his side, then turned back to Cherry, „We still continue test, though!“

„While we're at it, I can't actually hit the hatch release. There's a big stupid box in the way. And I'm pretty sure I'll need to open the hatch as some point,“ she continued, demonstrating by trying to extend her hind leg, only to be blocked by a large wooden plank that seemed to have no other purpose but to restrict her movements, „What's the point of practising on a mock-up if the real thing's gonna be completely different?“

„You learn improvise! Now get on! Continue procedure!“

In frustration, Cherry kicked a large metal cylinder attached to the side wall; To her surprise, it broke off its loose screws, tipped over, and made an enormous racket as it split its contents of random nuts and bolts all over the capsule's interior, as well as its only occupant. Flinching as a particularly heavy screw hit her on the head, she wondered what the purpose of this particular 'system' was supposed to be.

The ruckus was enough for even the otherwise stoic professor to interrupt the test and poke his head in through the hatch curtains. After briefly scanning the chaos inside, and seeing Cherry covered in assorted metal components, he demanded:

„Good heavens, what page of ops manual are you on? Page twenty says 'Check voltage', not 'Destroy flight computer'!“

„That's not a flight computer, it's a big box of rusty scrap metal! Why is it here?“

„Well, we don't have flight computer. Is not built yet. Is not designed yet. So we use mock-up. Good enough, no?“

„No!“ Cherry screamed, rubbing her head, „And what's that thing for, then?“ she banged on a wooden box that hung off the ceiling, appearing to have no other purpose but to provide pain whenever she hit her head on it.

„Is oxygen regenerator.“

„No, it's a banana crate! It even says 'bananas' on the side! What kind of simulator is this?“

„Look, Star Walker uses three hundred fifty six separate system, yes? Of those, two have reached prototype stage: Hatch handle and cooling fan. We are doing best we can.“

„But what's the point of training in a mock-up if it's nothing like the real thing?“

„Is supposed to be psychological test; You alone in dark capsule, suddenly I come up with problem, you must work to fix it. Also test if you memorized control panel yet.“

Cherry scoffed at the plan, „But why should I memorize the controls if they're completely unusable? I'm telling you, this whole thing needs a major redesign!“

As if to punctuate her point, the entire warning panel lit up at once, ablaze with red and yellow bulbs. A few seconds later, the master alarm began ringing. It only took a few moments more before something outside snapped, there was a creaking sound, and the entire front wall of the simulator broke free of its rickety supports and fell outwards, hitting the ground with a loud thud.

Poor Geist, the thought ran through her head as she remembered her favourite insomniac techie, He worked so hard on this thing. Too bad it's utter rubbish.

„Well, at least we have learnt something,“ Redstone dryly noted, idly looking on as the hangar's panicking tech-ponies began swarming around the mock-up, desperately trying to rescue as much of it as they could before its wood-and-cardboard structure completely disintegrated, „Use more tape next time.“

Standing in her office, Wilhelmina looked at the latest stack of progress reports in disbelief. It seemed as if the entire Cosmodrome was falling apart around her. Messages of disastrous setbacks were coming in from the vehicle assembly teams, propellant mixing plants, the Star Walker complex, even Sequine's electromechanics department. And to add insult to the injury, Lyuka's liquid engine laboratory had gone up in green flames during an experiment. Everything, from the research notes to the prototypes of combustion chambers, had burnt down to the ground; And somehow, the room's atmosphere had gotten replaced with hydrofluoric acid in the process. She didn't think the lab would be usable ever again.

Rolling her eyes over the description of the accident – Just because liquid halogens are highly reactive does not mean you immediately have to try igniting two tonnes of the stuff! – Will was suddenly torn away from her paperwork as an exhausted Lyuka crashed open the door to her office, made a small loop in the air, and landed roughly on the red carpet before the Director's desk.

Looking over the frame of her glasses, and noting her frizzy blue mane was still bleached yellow in places from that chlorine fire, Wilhelmina gave her an inquisitive look:

„What is it this time? Did you burn down your new lab already?“

The pegasus dug her head out of the carpet, still breathing rapidly. Eyes wide open, she screamed:

„Worse! It's Celestia! Celestia's on her way here! Right now!“

A stunned silence befell the room; „The... the schedule says-“ Will barely managed to get out before her assistant gathered enough breath again:

„The schedule's a joke! She's making a surprise inspection of the entire facility! She's on her way here right now!“

Possible scenarios began running through the Director's mind. Primary approaches, backup plans, contingency scenarios, estimated percentages of success, degrees of failure. One crucial variable was missing.

„How soon?“

„Her vanguard just landed in the main courtyard!“

That collapsed the tree of available options significantly. Nodding in acceptance, she quickly commanded:

„Tell the commissar's stallions to throw together some refreshments in Stable IV. Then fly straight to Five. Make sure Sequine stays in her basement, that the labs look pretty, and that the projection room has the film; As per plan Celestia/Three. Oh, and make yourself presentable – you look awful.“

Checking against a mirror to ensure she was prim, the Director rapidly left the room, leaving the ruffled pegasus in her stead. As she walked through the halls of the administrative bunker, she could plainly see the word had already gotten out; Panicking ponies were rushing through the corridors, dragging out impressive-looking pieces of equipment, carrying records to be shredded, or simply galloping to hide themselves behind locked blast-doors; Those last ones were probably the smartest of the lot.

Emerging through the main door of Stable I, Wilhelmina could see that Celestia's cavalcade was already landing. A few of the golden flying carriages were already on the ground, their armoured crews emerging to secure the perimeter and set up their small orchestra. In the distance behind them, a few last ponies were still running for cover, desperate to not be seen for the entire duration of the visit.

Squinting in the desert sun, the Director inspected the incoming fleet of vehicles. There were at least ten still on the horizon, all approaching rapidly. Either the Princess of the Sun had brought far more guards with her than usual, or she was being accompanied by a royal entourage. In either case, foreboding news.

Seeing the carriages manoeuvre in for final approach, the Director wondered what might have prompted this surprise visit. Perhaps one of the vacationing ponies had talked? The Commissar had done everything in his power to allow only reliable ponies to leave, but even that stallion had his limits.

Regardless, what had happened happened, and a strategy was already developing in the Director's mind. She just needed to smooth-talk the Princess for a few more minutes until she got the details mapped out.

The largest carriage began descending rapidly, the shining figure of their leader already clearly distinguishable. Wilhelmina gulped. Smooth-talking a goddess. Easy.

The landed orchestra began playing the royal fanfare, having timed it so precisely, the crescendo was reached just as the wheels of Celestia's carriage touched down on the desert sand. Even the Director was left impressed by such a degree of co-ordination..

Seeing the carriage rolling up to her, she took a deep bow. The scorching sand was uncomfortable, but this was the ruling goddess of all of Equestria, after all.

The wheels came to a stop, and Wilhelmina saw a shining silver hoof, clad in a brilliant golden slipper, sink slightly into the sand before her.

„How good to see you again, madam Director,“ a warm motherly voice spoke from above. Getting back on her hooves, she stared at Celestia' royal figure; Overreaching any mortal pony in height, wings slightly outstretched, her imposing pose was one of power. Yet her eyes and subtle smile spoke deeply of her true nature.

Or at least, what Wilhelmina hoped was her true nature:

„My princess. It is an honour to have our research facility graced by Your presence. Please excuse our unpreparedness, but-“

„It's quite alright. I know my visit was rather unexpected – don't worry about making a bad impression,“ Celestia beamed with all the power of the sun, „In my years, I've often seen ponies stretch themselves excessively for a royal visit, preparing huge banquets and so forth. I simply did not want to put such a strain upon you.“

„Most noble decision, my lady,“ the Director began, quite sure that wasn't the real reason. She paused as she glanced at the other landing carriages, „And what of your retinue?“

„Oh, just one of my students, and some of her friends that decided to come along. She is a great magician, but is still intrigued by the technical sciences. I thought she'd be most interested by your work here.“

„Of course, your highness. I've ordered for some light refreshments to be assembled, but I fear it might take a while for them to get organized. You must be tired from your journey.“

„Don't worry, Director. In fact, I myself am rather eager to stretch my legs after all that sitting,“ she said, again with a wide smile on her face. Privately, Wilhelmina wondered just how much cold calculation lay beneath all those warm gestures.

The remaining carriages landed, and a multicoloured group of six ponies disembarked. One purple and one white unicorn, a pink and an orange earth pony, and two pegasi of blue and yellow. All that was missing was a token male, and the rainbow of political correctness would be complete.

The group excitedly chattered amongst themselves as they walked, flew, or, in the case of the pink pony, hopped up to the Princess. The purple unicorn at their head was looking around, appearing most interested by her surroundings:

„Wow, thanks again for letting us tag along, Princess! I've never seen buildings like this before!“

Celestia surveyed the squat concrete bunkers that littered the area:

„It's just some old royal grounds, Twilight. Centuries ago, we built them here for a magical experiment that needed doing. I must admit, Director, your ponies have done a fine job with the restoration. I never thought I'd see this place live again.“

„Must have been some magic. I can still feel its traces around,“ Twilight noted. From her side, the pink pony bounced happily:

„And I can still smell them!“

As the group laughed, the Director gave the pink pony a questioning look. She never knew Celestia kept a court jester. Suddenly, the blue pegasus sniffed, then spoke up:

„Actually, me too. What is that funky smell?“

„Ammonia for the perchlorates. Our vats are at full capacity right now.“

„Perchlorates, hmm?“ Twilight pondered the word for a while, then snapped to attention, „Wait, aren't those dangerous?“

The Director barely stifled a laugh:

„You will see in no time, miss. Now, are you ready for the grand tour? We will begin with the heart of our complex; Our research labs.“

Celestia discretely turned her head to Twilight, „See? I told you this visit would be educational.“

„Educational? Aww heck, nopony told me that!“ an earth pony at the back of the group complained, drawing giggles from the others.

„And nopony certainly told me that there'd be all this sand ruffling up my hooves. Oh! I think some got into my hair!“ the group's other unicorn began, a most disdainful look on her face.

„Quiet, gals, I told you both. But you just had to tag along, didn't you?“

„I merely thought a 'royal research facility' would be far more dignified, perchance even staffed with some fine nobility. Instead-“

„Now there, Rarity,“ the Princess' soothing voice interrupted, „Don't be so hasty to judge. The Director right here is the first daughter of the esteemed Magnus Brown, are you not, Wilhelmina?“

„Yes...“ Will sighed, always embarrassed when her past was brought up.

„Oh, my,“ Rarity began, and quickly trotted up to the Director's side and took a small bow, „My most sincere apologies, countess. I have read all about your family's great past. Isn't your father still the mayor of Zäumberg?“

„We don't really talk much anymore, I'm afraid.“

„Oh, and what a pity it is. Great, great, pity. Say, have you read what happened at the last Landesrat meeting? Such insolence. Why, I could hardly believe it myself! I think Freiherrin Haugwitz was acting most inappropriately, don't you?“

Ugh. This was going to be one long tour.

„Anyway,“ Wilhelmina loudly announced as they passed through the bunker's entrance, silencing Rarity's long-winded political tirade, „This is Stable V, where most of our exciting technologies are tested and developed. Though they usually originate from either my or my assistants' desks, it takes teams of specialists and fully equipped laboratories to flesh them out fully.“

„Say, Director,“ Twilight – probably the student Celestia had talked about, judging by her sincere interest, as well as lack of participation in the inane chatter taking place further behind – trotted up to her other side, opposite Rarity, „This is all very nice and all, but you still haven't quite explained what you're actually doing here.“

For the briefest millisecond, Wilhelmina stopped in her tracks. She could swear she could feel the Princess' gaze burning a hole in the back of her neck. Resuming her walk and clearing her throat, she began:

„Apologies, I assumed her highness had informed you. Here at the Bureau of Atmospheric Experimentation, our original mission remains the same as ever; Developing revolutionary new methods of large-scale weather and climate manipulation.“

„Hey!“ the blue pegasus shouted, suddenly appearing right over the Director's head, „You brainiacs aren't trying to build some fancy new machine to make all us pegasi jobless bums, are you?“

Laughing nervously, Will continued walking along the corridor, „Of course not! We are simply trying to come up with more efficient and centralized methods using technological approaches. Natural ability remains important-“

„Damn right!“ the pegasus hollered.

„-But there are some distinct physical limits to it. For one, no matter how great a flier you are, it is quite impossible to climb above a certain altitude using only wingpower. We considered using balloons, but it turns out, even those have their limits, however big they are. To fly higher, you need something revolutionary.“

As they came up to a heavy blastdoor set into the side of the corridor, Will gulped. She had intended to use the other entrance to the bunker, the one that did not pass by Lyuka's old lab, but with Rarity's incessant babble bearing down on her, she had forgotten herself. Was bringing this pony along another of Celestia's devious plans, perhaps? She tried to pick up the pace and distract the group from the steel vault door:

„We had studied many technological means of reaching the extreme altitudes required to conduct our experiments. In our long studies, we've managed to stumble upon a particular kind of vehicle, a rocket. Think of it as a large firework, except it doesn't explode at the end.“

Not on purpose, anyway, she mentally added as she glanced at the large imposing door.

„Lyuka F., Liquid Engines Department?“ Twilight questioningly read out from a small sign beside the door, then turned around to the Director: „Can we take a look?“

Realizing the group had stopped in their tracks, the Director turned around, and noticing the pink pony was already prying away at the vacuum seals, urgently shook her head:

„I'm afraid that whilst studying the last batch of possible fuels, namely inter-halogenic compounds, our labs experienced a... uh... well, let us simply say we will all live a lot longer if nopony opens that door. Ever.“

Though Celestia raised her eyebrow at the statement, the group as a whole – and after a bit of panicked gesturing, even the royal jester – decided to forgo any further questions and instead rapidly move on. After a hurried walk through zigzagging concrete corridors designed to dissipate any advancing explosion, they arrived at a new door, this one far less massively imposing, but still quite bomb-proof. As the Director came to a stop before it, the pink pony crashed into her from the back.

„I must remind you again, please do not touch anything once we've entered, and don't disturb our scientists,“ Will repeated, throwing open the wide doors to the lab. The ponies quickly all jumped back, then peeked out from behind Celestia's towering figure.

„Don't worry, this one's safe,“ Will tried to reassure them. Nevertheless, they weren't convinced until she had stepped in the lab herself; At which point, they all rushed in and began scrutinizing everything in sight.

Visuals-wise, the scientists had done a pretty good job at getting the lab this prepared at such short notice; Instead of the usual caskets of clear liquid and barrels of toxic white powder, the benches were stacked with coloured and bubbling water of every sort, each giving off exotic sweet smells. The scientists were also all looking sufficiently scientific, each wearing a labcoat and thick goggles. Overall, Wilhelmina was satisfied.

„While Lyuka's department investigates revolutionary liquid-propelled engines, here in Lab C we are trying to approach the problem from an evolutionary perspective instead. We are taking the classic firework design, and applying chemistry to come up with fuels far more powerful than common black-powder.“

„Like those perchlorates earlier!“ the purple mare remembered, intently studying some sketchings of various oxidizing agents on a small blackboard in the corner.

Nodding, Will suddenly froze up as Celestia idly wandered up to her, that infernal warm smile still on her face.

„Director, all this is extremely nice, and apologies if I'm rushing you, but you still haven't quite explained just how all these 'revolutionary' and 'evolutionary' methods actually work. You talked about fireworks earlier, but could you perhaps elaborate?“

„Of course, your highness. Would everypony be so kind as to follow me to the next room, where a short video has been prepared for you.“

„A movie!“ the pink pony squealed, extracting her head from a vat of coloured liquid.

„Pinkie!“ the purple mare suddenly screamed, „Did you just stick your head in that?“

A vigorous happy nodding as her reply, the unicorn shot a terrified look to the Princess:

„We need to get her to a hospital, now!“

„Don't worry, Twilight,“ Celestia responded with a calming smile, „I don't think those are perchlorates.“

„If they were, your friend wouldn't be jumping about so happily. Or at all, for that matter,“ one of the nearby chem-ponies uttered under her breath, looking on in revulsion as Pinkie bounced all around her precious lab, knocking over beakers and unsettling volatiles. Once again, Wilhelmina was extremely thankful for having moved all the actual propellants to the nearby storage shack.

„Anyway,“ the Director began, urgently funnelling the ponies into the adjacent projection room before they stumbled on something that was actually dangerous, „Onwards with our tour.“

As per the emergency plan Celestia/Three, the adjacent room had been furnished with a video projector and several scale models of the Cosmodrome's designs – those got a few quizzical looks from the group, but they quickly seated themselves as the lights dimmed and the film began rolling.

The silent footage was of the last launch, and as the towed rocket rolled into frame, Will began her narration:

„As I said earlier, we had decided to base our design on a simple firework. Except, of course, much bigger.“

While she spoke, the onscreen rocket was erected into launch position and prepared for launch.

„Those scientists you saw earlier managed to come up with a particular propellant – using a mixture of powdered asphalt and potassium perchlorate – which is double the intensity of the blackpowder you'd find in a normal firework.“

The film cut to a molecular diagram of their fuel, then to a short scene where a sample of the propellant was ignited in a lab.

„Lyuka's ongoing experiments could give us even greater efficiency, of course, enough to even reach what is called 'orbit'; A state of perpetual falling, wherein one is moving sideways so quickly that by the time you would have hit the ground, you'll have missed it. This means you literally break free of our planet, of gravity, of the atmosphere. Something ponies never even dreamed of. Quite an interesting concept to ponder, I believe.“

A small animated diagram replaced the view of the lab, and the audience watched on as the basic principle of orbital motion was explained. To bring the point home, a photograph taken thirty miles above the surface was shown, clearly displaying the bright blue sky of their world gradually fade into a black starlit void. The altitude was such, even the curvature of the ground below was becoming noticeable.

It was blurry, it was overexposed, but it was the first such picture to ever be seen by pony eyes; An automated nosecone camera on the last flight had miraculously survived the explosion, having been shielded by the massive bulk of the control unit, and though most of its film compartments had been smashed open, their teams still managed to recover this one picture.

As the ponies watched in silence, taking their time to fully appreciate the sheer scope of the idea (or just look at the pretty picture), Twilight hesitantly interrupted:

„I... I'm not quite sure I can express the coolness of this quite enough, madam Director. But what does it have to do with weather control?“

Wilhelmina smiled back, „As is obvious when you consider a firework, rockets consume an incredible amount of fuel, incredibly quickly; And when you add more fuel, you make the whole thing heavier, so you have to burn it faster to compensate. Thus, even our biggest designs cannot keep going for more than ten minutes. As spending hundreds of tonnes of rare chemicals on a few minutes of flight would be utterly wasteful, we instead opted to reach orbit, whence we can conduct high-altitude weather experiments for weeks on end, never using any fuel.“

Seeing the mare nod in satisfaction, she continued on with her presentation:

„While our teams work on resolving the few last issues with Lyuka's design, however-“ such as the minor 'sets steel on fire and fills the lab with hydrofluoric acid' bug, „-we have decided to do a few practical tests with solid fuels first, just to verify our equations work.“

The film cut back to archive footage of their last launch.

„To actually reach 'orbit', we will require both methods; Liquid for its high efficiency, solid for its significant thrust. What follows is a demonstration of the solid fuel booster.“

The footage finally came up to the final countdown, and the camera shots began switching rapidly – nosecone close-up, shaky aerial view, a slow-motion detail of the nozzle – as the massive firework ignited and shot off into the air, accompanied by much applause from Pinkie and a few scattered gasps from the others. Nervously glancing at the Princess, Will had to admit the constant subtle smile on Celestia's face was the most brilliant poker face ever.

The film followed the rocket as it ascended into the skies, switching angles and cameras, eventually becoming a faint speck even at maximum magnification. The recording cut to black precisely one second before the explosion; Wilhelmina had made sure of that.

As the lights came back on and the ponies applauded, Celestia turned around to Will:

„Director, a private word with you, please?“

Oh dear. This was it. As she took what might have been her last steps on this planet, she couldn't help but notice the smile on the Princess' face wasn't quite as gleaming as before.

Sealing the reinforced door tightly behind them, the Director turned around and faced Celestia. Her imposing form towering over her, Wilhelmina was nevertheless surer than ever that whatever might follow, she'd have no regrets.

„You have promised me great things, madam Director,“ the Goddess promptly began – the usual warmth now quite gone from her voice, „To revolutionize Equestria, to bring about great benefits for everypony, all via the amazing power of technological advances – and yet here you are, spending countless millions on little more than entertaining fireworks. That budget could have gone to feeding the poor, new roads, better healthcare. I know you're trying, and that you mean well, but your Bureau is simply burning through bits like there's no tomorrow, and has only pretty explosions to show for itself.“

There was a big lump in Wilhelmina's throat. Celestia must have heard of the launch failure, then. But she wouldn't get banished. Not now. Not after so much progress. They were so close!

„Have you ever wondered, my highness-“ she began her carefully prepared speech, „-why there are so few earth ponies in our history books? We read all about the amazing exploits of great unicorn magicians. But the earth and wing proletariats?“

„I can think of ten famous ponies straight away,“ Celestia brushed her aside, „And what does this have to do with-“

„Yes, ten,“ Wilhelmina continued, a large part of her brain not quite comprehending she had just interrupted a goddess mid-sentence, „And how many of those just happened to be in the right place at the right time? And how many were actual philosophers, artisans, scientists?“

„You repeat the same tired fallacies that 'revolutionaries' had been trying to use against me for millennia. I am sorry, but they were wrong. Earth ponies are essential to society, many are rich landowners, and unicorns do not rule the world,“ Celestia recounted in the warm, yet tired voice of an old teacher who has been faced with the same naïve question a thousand times before.

Wilhelmina was most surprised by her patience; Hopefully, this particular speech would bring a new twist on the ancient claim:

„You are right, earth ponies bless the land, and are respected for that. They are good apple farmers, wheat farmers, rock farmers. Why should they bother with anything else, after all? Leave the dreams to the unicorns. The dirt is good enough.“

„Except, of course, for all the famous earth pony scientists, and writers, and inventors. I am not quite sure where you are going with this.“

„Apologies, your highness. But consider: How often do you hear of such ponies? Rarely, and for a very good reason: All they have are hooves. No magic to levitate and manipulate delicate clockwork with, to handle several objects at once. While a unicorn can write thousands of words every day with ease, an earth pony has to clumsily handle the pen with her mouth.“

Will could see Celestia was already ready with a thousand rebuttals. She was an immortal goddess, after all – she had seen it all, heard it all, and given every matter ample consideration. And yet, in her infinite magnanimity, she was nevertheless letting the Director speak for herself, without interrupting her. Most thankful, Will pressed on, praying she had thought everything through:

„Same with pegasi, really. Why spend months trying to master the laws of electrodynamics, when you're never going to be as good at handling the components as a random unicorn across the street? Forget penning a masterpiece or preparing a brilliant new invention, all you need is a strong pair of wings, and you can make a great living thoughtlessly shifting clouds about. If you're particularly adept you get a job robotically running the machinery of a weather factory, or just become a good smith; But that is as engaging as it gets, and while it is skilled work, it is not inventive work.“

Guessing that Celestia's patience was probably wearing thin by now, Wilhelmina mentally scolded herself for not taking the time to shorten her speech, then continued:

„Like I said, it's not impossible to be a writer if you're not a unicorn, but without telekinesis, every intellectual labour becomes ten times harder. And since you can live by manual labour anyway, why bother trying? Leave the thinking to the horn-blessed bourgeoisie.“

That was enough for even the Princess. She resolutely interrupted Wilhelmina:

„If you pulled your head out of Trottski's old dusty book, Director, and looked at the real world for a second, you'd plainly see it's nothing but seditious lies. As the recent royal census all but proved, wealth distribution across all three races of our society is normalized. We are not all equal, I do not deny that, there are the rich and there are the poor, but all are given equal chance at the start, no matter their birth.“

„Apologies for the imprecise language, Princess – I was talking about a bourgeoisie of the intellectual,“ Wilhelmina quickly clarified herself, „There are individual exceptions, but in the big picture, ninety per cent of our society's artists, philosophers, and scientists have been unicorns. That has always been the case, and now that this system has had millennia to entrench itself, it is more oppressive than ever. Growing up a smart earth pony or pegasus, not only are you pressured by your friends, by your family, but you do not have any role models to look up to either. So why take the seemingly impossible plunge, when you can just go with tradition? And bury your dreams under a mound of earth.“

„Don't try to deny this, Princess – I've seen it happen to a dozen of my friends, every last one a brilliant mind, and every last one eventually resigning itself to a simpler life. Lyuka is the only one that pulled through. It's real, it's right now, and nopony's doing anything about it.“

There was a deliberative pause as Will stopped, trying to clearly formulate her next words. Celestia, meanwhile, took it as the end of her grandiose speech. With a faint sad smile, she began in her sweet voice:

„Wilhelmina, you must realize, I understand all that. Though I admit you've understood Trottski's real argument far better than most who attempt to interpret his work, and possibly better than his own essays, I must ask: What is there to do? Earth ponies aren't unicorns, nor are pegasi – that's just how the world is. I can't change it, nopony can. All we can do is each take our roles, and do what nature says we're good at. This natural order of things cannot-“

The Princess paused. There was a small break in her poker face. Then, her sympathetic sad smile turned into a real one:

„Oh, I see. How clever.“

She understands!, Wilhelmina almost screamed in joy. Meanwhile, the goddess continued:

„Using technology, to break up the natural order. Doing something far greater than any known magic allows for, and doing it without magic,“ she recounted softly, almost for herself, „Allowing anypony to touch the stars, to do something magical, no matter how they were born.“

Yes! Yes! Exactly!, Will thought, nodding along to every sentence. Celestia gleamed at her with a playful smile:

„Your idea is good, but there is one flaw. Why no publicity? How do you intend to give role models and inspire every last pegasus and earth pony in all of Equestria, when it's all kept secret?“

Will's smile disappeared off her face as fast as it had appeared. There was a brief terrified silence. Would this be the end of it all? Then, Celestia just... laughed:

„I suppose you just weren't sure if it would work, and didn't want a public failure.“

The Director nodded quickly; Yes. That will do.

Celestia then smiled, and mischievously winked at her.

Oh buck. Does she know I just made this whole speech up?

„Regardless, now that you do, I fully expect every last pony on this planet to know all about your next launch. That footage is going to run on every last cinema screen in Equestria.“

She's probably one step ahead, Will realized, She knows you've made it up, and she doesn't care. All I said is still true, no matter if it's my real reason or just a nice side-effect. Why waste a good cause?

Then again, maybe she just wants everypony in Equestria to see your failures publicly, and punish you that way.

Regardless of any internal speculation, there was only one external action left to take:

„Of course, your Majesty,“ Wilhelmina took a deep bow.

„Anyway,“ Celestia turned around, and suddenly the Director, taking her eyes off the Princess for the first time since the conversation began, realized the group of five ponies had been silently listening in this entire time, „I think this conversation has answered all my questions. We could be leaving now, unless...?“ she paused, eyeing the assembled team of ponies.

„Oooh, ooh!“ Pinkie bounced up and down, „Can we stay behind? Please? Pretty please?“

„Oh?“ Celestia seemed somewhat surprised, „You want to do that?“

„I just can't wait 'till we start liberating the earth and air comrade-proletariats by amazing feats of technostakhanovite labours!“ the pink pony bounced, „While wearing funny hats!“

Wilhelmina froze mid-movement. Her ever-active brain suddenly began charting out all that might go wrong if this pony stayed here for more than a few hours. The list was exploding at an exponential pace. Terrified, she managed to get out:

„I... well... the facility is quite at its capacity for the moment. And adding new bunkers could take months. Not to mention the paperwork-“

„Awwww... Pleeeeeeeease?“ Pinkie made her best puppy-dog eyes at the Director, „This place sure needs more parties!“

No. Just no, the Director shuddered as she remembered some of the Vehicle Assembly Team's recent hijinks, More parties is quite the opposite of what this place needs.

„Now there, Pinkie Pie,“ Celestia interjected, „I am quite sure you could help the program even back in Ponyville. Maybe put your... cooking... talents to use?“

„Oh, what a great idea! I'll make all sorts of space food! Space cupcakes, space drinks, space sweets, space pies!“ she hopped in response.

Thank you, Goddess! Disaster averted.

„Hang on there a minute. Where in hay is Rainbow Dash?“ the other earth pony looked around, prompting the Director to do a recount. Of the royal retinue, there were indeed only five ponies present. Where was that sixth one?

Slowly swinging open the door to the projection room, the group peeked in. Rainbow Dash was silently sitting there, watching the rocket take off on what must have been the hundredth replay by now. Her eyes seemed to be in a trance as the vehicle ascended on a shining column of blazing fire, a controlled explosion whose sheer power made gravity huddle away in fear. As the rocket slowly disappeared into the sky, she glanced quietly at her small wings.

Noticing the other ponies peeking in, Rainbow quickly dashed up to the Director:

„How much do these cost? I want one! I need one! Please? Please? Pleeeeease? I'll take up a second job! Just let me join up!“

Celestia and the Director exchanged amused looks, remembering the annual budget of the facility. Rainbow looked on, hope in her voice:

„Maybe take out a loan?“

„Perhaps the Director can arrange something?“ Celestia's voice suddenly cut through, just a hint of playfulness in her voice.

The smile disappeared off Wilhelmina's face. She looked at the pleading pegasus. She looked back at Celestia.

„Won't you, Director?“ the Princess asked again. Despite the friendly tone, Will felt distinctly threatened by the question. It just seemed to have that unspoken 'or else' hanging off it.

„Well...“ she played for more time, eyes alternating between Dash and Celestia. Maybe she was reading too much into the Princess' words. Maybe it was just an innocent question.

Then again, maybe it was not. Who knew what Celestia's real motives were in all this? After all, even Wilhelmina herself would agree her impassioned argument hadn't been the best; It simply was the only one she managed to think of. It might have worked for a smaller venture, but a multi-million project really did need a better reason besides 'role models'.

The Director was not willing try her luck again. Not after so much. She had just about managed to save the Cape. Were she to suddenly lose the funding now...

She studied the pegasus again. Ever since Vera had failed her physical, the Equenaut corps had been one short. And if this really was the Rainbow Dash... Wilhelmina distinctly remembered reading about her during past research; That sonic rainboom she had performed at the Best Young Flyer Competition marked the first time such a phenomenon had been captured clearly on high-definition film, sending ripples of excitement throughout the Equestrian scientific circles. So there was that to consider. And she did seem like the sort who'd be popular enough with the public... maybe it wouldn't be such a disaster after all!

„Well, that was a disaster,“ Will promptly stated, kicking the door closed behind her, then proceeding to throw herself on the carpet of Lyuka's office.

„Why? You saved the program. Isn't that all that matters?“ she asked, leaving her sketches and flying over to the Director.

„Yeah, but now we'll have to go public,“ Will uttered the last word with disgust, „All interviews and freedom of the press and paid overtime. How am I supposed to do what I want if it's not all kept secret?“

„You know, paid overtime might not be such a bad thing-“ Lyuka discretely began, but was cut short:

„We're doing science here! If people start poking around, who knows what they'll find!“

„Hey, at least we'll get a bigger budget, right?“

„At what cost! I bet those crazy journalists will just get in the way. 'Should uneducated workers really be handling deadly chemicals?','What happens if that rocket full of liquid fluorine explodes above a populated area?'. Stupid paparazzi.“

„You know, if we actually had the extra bits to afford new fuel tanks instead of constantly reusing the old ones, that trifluoride might not have caught on fire, and our lab would still be usable!“

„Budget schmudgets. We got by on chump change so far!“

„Yeah, but now that we're planning on sending a mare to outer space, don't you think-“

„If we run enough on-pad simulations, we can keep the test flights to a minimum. Besides...“ the Director began, laying out her argument. As soon as she finished, Lyuka shot back with her own, and so their dialogue bounced back and forth, slowly escalating both in volume and language.

This will be a long night, some resigned neuron at the back of her head fired, Again.

Rainbow tightened the last strap of her saddlebags, just about ready for her departure. She had made sure to memorize the route Celestia's cavalcade took as it was returning to Ponyville, and would now fly all through the night to retrace it. The Director had given her some papers saying something about a 'ferry balloon' a week from now, but that was the way for engineers and sparkling brainiac unicorns, not Rainbow Dash!

Leaping into the air, she shot through the doorway of her cloud home and took off into the nightly skies. Doing a few loops and spins to stretch her wings and warm up for the long journey ahead, she eventually slowed to an idle hover, then turned around to get one last look at Ponyville, peacefully asleep far below.

She had already bid goodbye to all her friends, and they would come visit frequently enough; Nevertheless, it was a strange experience, leaving her home for so long and so alone.

She looked up at the starry sky. This whole thing was a strange experience. With determination in her eyes, she picked out one star from the hundreds above, then began accelerating towards it. The cool night air rushing past her face, her rainbow mane and tail fluttering in the wind, she tried to pick up the pace, her heart beating faster and faster as she put all her strength into her wings.

And yet, no matter how hard she tried, the star refused to approach any closer.

Levelling out from her steep ascent, she swooped her wings outwards in one smooth motion and began to effortlessly glide, far above the clouds. She looked at the ground below; Once, the height would have seemed considerable to her; Now, it was nothing.

Closing her eyes, she saw the rocket launch into the skies before her. She saw the one blurry photograph it had taken; That familiar azure horizon, gradually fading away with altitude, until it disappeared into nothing. The green surface of their world so far below, its curvature already becoming clearly visible. Her friends probably saw it as nothing more than a pretty picture; Twilight as an impressive feat of technology, Celestia most likely as a waste of bits.

But for Dash, that photograph had reached out and stirred something deep in her heart. It didn't just represent the greatest adventure of all time, though there certainly was be plenty of that. No.

For all her bluster, Rainbow had always thought of herself as a down-to-earth pony, as strange as that might sound for a high-flying pegasus. She wanted nothing more out of life than a clear sky, a pair of good wings, and some good friends to cheer her on.

Being able to fly for the Wonderbolts and being admired by ponies all across Equestria would be amazing, true. But not once had she actually believed it was really going to happen; Ambitious as she seemed, she was actually rather pleased with her life so far. The occasional dragon, parasprite invasion, or flying competition made things exciting, she had an easy (and well-paid) job, and had already found the best friends of her life. It just couldn't get any more awesome.

And now, all out of blue, this just appeared. The chance to be the face of a revolution, to be written about in history books, to have little fillies a thousand years from now sit in a classroom and hear, „Today we'll talk about Rainbow Dash, the first pony in history to ever leave our small world and explore the great unknown.“

It was unreal. It was too much, too suddenly. Things like this didn't just happen. Not for ponies without magic, not for ponies like Dash. Was this all a dream?

A confident smile appeared on Rainbow's face as she gazed upwards into the heavens. She knew it wasn't. Her saddlebags were far too heavy for that, the night air far too cold. It was real.

Obviously, it wouldn't be easy. There'd be other candidates competing for the first flight, and Twilight, though she had spent the entire journey back calculating trajectories and bonding energies, still wasn't quite sure an efficient enough engine could ever be built.

Rainbow did not care. If there was something she was good at, it was competitions. Now that she had been given the opportunity, she'd become the first mare in space, and nothing would stop her. No other pony, no silly law of physics.

Nothing.

Songs of the Space Age

„ONWARDS TO THE STARS! – PRINCESS CELESTIA GIVES SPEECH OF THE CENTURY

In a grand announcement before the annual open-doors session of the Assembly, her Royal Highness, the esteemed Princess of the Sun, has announced the beginnings of an unprecedented public venture:

'[...]During my millennia on the throne, I have seen many things. With great interest, I watched the construction of the great transcontinental railway. I was there when the first weather factory produced its inaugural snowflake. With these very ears, I have heard the very first stroke of a steam engine. And yet, no matter how many hundreds of these amazing developments I had seen, the next one would never cease to surprise me. Listen to me now, citizens of our great kingdom, for I will speak the honest truth; My magic, my power over the heavens, pales to nothing compared to you. Your sheer inventiveness, your unbounded creativity, your constant drive to make things better for everypony; You are the real gift of this land. Not some ancient princess sitting on a dusty throne.

I am humbled that you have granted me the chance to watch this once rural and medieval kingdom blossom into something quite incredible. A land of industry, of growing economy, of safety. We have defeated disease. We have forever abolished famine. Millions of ponies are free to spend their entire lives in happiness, confident their basic needs will always be met; And it is all thanks to you.

And yet, we cannot rest idly on our hooves. Now that our next meal is forever secure, it would be all too easy to just lay our talents to rest and live out the rest of our lives in passive comfort.

No. That way lies the road to boredom, to slow decadence – to downfall. Make no mistake, citizens; Though we live in a golden age, it is more important than ever that we never let our great culture decay to depravity and baseness.

With grand words should likewise come grand actions, and hence I put forth to the present Assembly the following: To ensure the everlasting prosperity of Equestria, to firmly train our sights beyond just the next meal, we should – nay, we must – keep pushing ever onward. But with all the continents of our world mapped, all the seas sailed, all the peaks scaled; Where can we go next?

There is only one way to go from here, my little ponies, only one way to go. Just yesterday, I have observed a great new facility spring to life; In the far western deserts, the best metalsmiths and mathematicians of Equestria gather to build the future. Together, they will work on exploring the final frontier, the last reaches untouched by pony hooves; They will bring the stars to Equestria.

But they cannot do it without your help. Space exploration is a costly and risky endeavour, and might not pay off immediately, I cannot deny that. Despite this, I ask you; What would we be now, had we never taken risks funding uncertain scientific projects? A loose scattering of small rural villages and stone castles, nothing more.

That is why I ask the Assembly to join me on this great adventure. By diverting just a small portion of each county's annual budget, we can accomplish something never even dreamed of before. The benefits are too numerous to count, the advances in technology that will follow too fantastic to predict.

We had come a long way since the ancient times, and now stand on the edge of a revolution. To back away now would not only be unwise, it would throw away all our ancestors had ever stood for.

Thank you.“

Putting the paper back down on her desk, Wilhelmina remained silent. Ever since her encounter with Celestia, she had been dreading something like this would happen; That the Princess would not only announce the project publicly, but that she'd do it with such grandeur and pomp to break even the most disinterested pony from her stupor. All the eyes of Equestria would be watching their every move now.

Right. No pressure, then.

Meanwhile, in the canteen of Stable IV, Zvezda had just been reading a very similar article, also containing a transcript of the speech. Taking a bite out of the still mostly untouched salad on her table, she continued:

The proposal was immediately met with a five-minute long standing ovation, then unanimously voted into law by all active members of the Assembly. Bowing in thanks, her royal highness had this to comment:

'By royal decree, from this day forth and effective immediately, ponies should no longer think of the sky as the limit. As this ambitious programme will prove, there are no bounds to what we can accomplish, if only we try.'

But is this really the best course of action? And how will such a grand project be funded? We consulted our political expert, Professor Neighsson, for answers to these questions:

'Some ponies had raised objections about just where the money for this great venture is supposed to come from. I wish to bring their attention the fact that the Princess had discussed the matter with the Assembly in a subsequent proposal, and eventually arrived at the decision to cut back Equestria's internal security budget; A department full of dark secret projects that have been put into place decades ago, most of which, quite frankly, waste ridiculous amounts of money on quite insane pie-in-the-sky experiments, and which almost never succeed in their goals. All in all, I commend her royal Highness on this difficult decision, and predict the programme will undoubtedly provide an immense stimulus to the metal-working and scientific sectors of our economy, as well as convince entire generations of the wonder of scientific progress. Equestria, Ad Astra!'

Of course, not all are satisfied with this new direction. Faced with a project of such sheer revolutionary intensity, some members of the public remain intensely sceptical of its feasibility. One of them is Josh, a crotchety old stallion that shouted at us from the front porch of his dilapidated dusty house, apparently having nothing better to do, as he has no job and lives on welfare:

„Ah don't know about you, but goin' to the stars seems awful dodgey to me! The sky snakes are gonna eat them all!!“

To refute these and other similarly unsubstantiated claims, a representative of the Royal Academy of Sciences has issued the following thoughtful analysis:“

A very large blot of coffee covered up the entire next paragraph. Irked, Zvezda looked across the canteen table in annoyance, and stared at Sara cravingly gulping down an entire mug of coffee in one go:

„Hey! I was reading that!“

„What do you have there, anyway?“ Blues casually asked from across the table, then, noticing the title of the newspaper, burst into tears of laughter, „Canterlot Daily? Really? You read that stuff? Wow. Just, wow. I mean, I thought you were-“

„It's a great source of entertainment, you have to admit,“ Zvezda quickly interrupted the laughing pegasus, „I don't know how they do it, but the way they put their own spin on things, without actually having to resort to lying, is really quite amazing.“

„Oh. If you're laughing at it, I suppose that's okay,“ Blues shrugged, wiping the tears from her eyes, „But I know some who read those articles sincerely! Honestly, everypony, it's fine to admit that even Celestia screws up once in a while!“

„That's it, though. That right there's a hard one to accept. At least for some,“ Zvezda noted between more bites of her morning salad, „When your ruler has so much power over your life, you want them to be perfect.“

The other mares nodded in quiet agreement. From across the table, Terra looked up from her own paper, probably a far more trustworthy one; Zvezda certainly knew there were plenty of those to go around, but she was equally convinced none could match the sheer hilarity of Canterlot Daily:

„Hey, Zvez, does it mention the Duchess of Hackney at all? She brought up some good points after Celestia's speech.“

She didn't even have to look at her copy, knowing the paper's ideological bent far too well for that:

„Nope.“

„Hmmph. What does she say? I'm interested,“ Sara asked, finally putting down her mug. Meanwhile, Zvezda did a double take. Did she really just drink all of that in one go?

„She basically questions the whole thing. Says directly spending the money on schools and education would bring a far greater benefit than, and I quote, 'This most circuitous way of going about things'.“

„She's got a point, you know,“ Sara began, discretely levitating another full mug of coffee from an adjacent table towards herself, „Sure, it's all pretty cool, but I don't really know why we're doing this. Shooting millions off into the sky.“

„Shh. If others hear you, they might start asking the same thing!“ Blues theatrically hushed her, „And then we'll all be out of a job!“

„You will all be out of a job unless you hurry the hay up and get to the hangar right this minute, ladies!“ the voice of their boss suddenly came out of nowhere, jolting all the ponies out of their morning stupor.

Rapidly stashing the newspaper under the table before it could raise any more questions, Zvezda looked around to see the Supervisor standing in the doorway of the canteen, fuming with rage. She then slowly turned her gaze upwards, to the large clock hanging from the corridor ceiling. Swallowing, she turned back to the doorway; The Supervisor was nowhere to be seen.

A few last hurried bites later, the ponies were all galloping to the workshop at full speed, paying little heed to any unfortunate passers-by or doors that got into their way.

„Right, now that we're all finally present, here are your daily assignments,“ the Supervisor menacingly glared at the group of four mares for a few seconds, then continued, „Terra, we still need to test the integrity of the clustering nodes. All two hundred sixty eight of them.“

„Blues, it seems like the Commissar intercepted some of my procurement paperwork and censored out every incriminating detail. That would normally be fine, except he decided to include the serial numbers and quantities of every single part I happened to request. I need you to make him stop doing that.“

„Zvezda, Sara, the delivery company messed up yet another shipment. I'm seriously going to have to talk to whoever's supposed to be in charge of delivering mail around here. Meanwhile, though, it's going to be your job to make that crate of half-inch rivets we got fit into the third-inch holes on the winglet assembly.“

They disdainfully looked at the Supervisor. She shrugged, „What can I say? If you want to pick off the list for yourselves, don't come fifteen minutes late. Now, get moving!“

Grumbling, they all slowly left for their assignments. Of course, upon arriving at the rocket, Zvezda and Sara discovered that not only had the delivered crate been loaded with the wrong size components, it also had inexplicably been shipped to the Equenaut training complex instead.

Idly trotting across the length of the Cosmodrome and enjoying the shade provided by the tall concrete bunkers that towered around them, the sight of a lone pegasus reporter snapping pictures off in the distance resurrected their breakfast's discussion:

„Seriously, there's no way ponies are just going to accept this, no matter how many articles Canterlot Daily publishes,“ Sara began as the two mares continued alongside the stone path, „I don't know what the Director said to Celestia, but by going public, she's just condemned this place to a slow painful death of steady budget cutbacks. The public will see us continuously fail and slowly lose interest. As opposed to a quick death by royal mandate. Not much of a win either way, really.“

„The Assembly did seem to like it, though. Some might've abstained, but nopony directly voted against.“

Sara scoffed, „Would you vote against an omnipotent goddess that controls the sun and can banish you in the blink of an eye, no matter how crazy it was?“

„Come on, Sara! The Assembly doesn't just rubber-stamp everything. Remember that huge cautionary speech the Duchess gave?“

„Whatever. Just look at it from the point of view of an ordinary pony. A rock farmer living all her life in some rural hellhole; Ponyville or something. Compared to getting bigger subsidies, this whole thing must look like a giant waste of bits.“

Zvezda began composing her reply, then seized up as a familiar dark shadow passed directly overhead. Oh no, don't let her see us here, not-

Sure enough, all it took was a few more moments, and Cherry's excited cry sounded from the sky. Immediately glancing around for places to hide, Zvezda was nevertheless unable to react quickly enough to the orange pegasus, who dropped to an idle hover at her side mere seconds later:

„There you are! I haven't seen you girls for ages around this place! How have you been?“

„Fine,“ Zvezda uttered, still considering various means of escape.

„Great! What brings you away from the training complex, anyway?“ Sara beamed.

„Nothing! Just on my morning flight, stretching my wings after a long sleep in bed, getting ready for training, you know!“ Cherry smiled, „Say, you girls coming to the big thing tonight?“

„Big 'thing' tonight?“ Zvezda repeated questioningly, pausing briefly before the gears in her head had clicked, „Is this another of those exclusive Equenaut-only 'things' that us common plebeians do not even have to apply for?“

„What? No it is n-“ the orange pegasus began, then fell silent for a while, „Wait, I think you're right, actually. I've never realized that before!“

„Sure you haven't,“ Zvezda sighed, wondering how much longer this pleasant conversation was going to go on for.

„It's so unfair, isn't it? I mean, you girls do all the real work around here, but we get all the nice perks! I've got to ask Redstone about this, right away!“ Cherry declared, causing a sudden lump to appear in Zvezda's throat. She then padded the two mares on their backs, „Don't worry, I'll make sure you get front row tickets! Right next to me! Oh, it's going to be great!“

And just like that, she was off. Looking at the orange pegasus quickly shrink into the morning sky, Zvezda pondered the likelihood of Cherry's success at towing them off into one of those stupid exclusive dinners or something. It was uncomfortably high.

„Press conference, I guess,“ Sara noted, „After that huge speech yesterday, every reporter in Equestria must be rushing to reserve tickets here. We've seen one so far, but come evening, the whole place'll be crawling with them, mark my words.“

„Well, hopefully they won't pay too much attention to us simple ponies,“ Zvezda sighed again, absent-mindedly kicking a rock along the desert path, „This job's hard enough without cameras scrutinizing your every move.“

„Say what you think, but I sure wouldn't mind an interview or two. Cherry's right. We're the girls who actually do all the work around here. We should be in the spotlight getting press conferences, not the equenauts!“

Arriving at the entrance of Stable IX, Zvezda was taken aback by the sheer size of the crowd that had already gathered outside. She never doubted there'd already be a few early arrivals, but this many? Zvezda tried to guess at their number. Hundred? Hundred fifty? That was almost the size of the all the assembly teams of the Cosmodrome. Absolutely preposterous.

One reporter standing at the back of the crowd momentarily glanced in their direction, yelled something, and before the two mares knew it, they were being swarmed by a group of at least two dozen frenzied journalists, all coming from the far back of the crowd, and all desperate for scoop; Every one of them armed with elaborate hairstyles, bulky cameras, and expensive voice recorders. Zvezda veered uncertainly as her senses were bombarded with bright flashes and rapid shouting:

„Can you tell us anything about the Equestria Seven?“

„How soon before the first launch?“

„Do you agree with Duchess Hackney's statement about-“

„In five words, how would you describe-“

It was all too much, all too sudden. The unending barrage of stroboscopic camera flashes, each of a slightly different colour and intensity, a fact undoubtedly stemming from the cheap electrolytic jars they used; The two dozen different brands of reel-to-reel voice recorders the reporters carried; The immense range of perfumes and scents they wore; The sheer multitude of colours and movement being jammed before her eyes.

Zvezda's brain was desperately racing to process and consider every one of these details, to analyse their meaning and then stow it away under the correct section of her memory, as it always had when confronted with a new device or situation. But flooded with such a torrent of sensory inputs, it couldn't keep up, and her world began to slowly dim as-

„ENOUGH!“ Sara screamed, managing to silence the reporters in one fell swoop, „We're just delivery crews! Not engineers! Now go pester somepony who actually knows about these things! Shoo, shoo!“

Seeing the crowd rapidly scatter, she turned to Zvezda, concern in her eyes:

„You okay, Vez? You looked kinda iffy there for a sec.“

Zvezda shook her head. No longer flooded with a constant stream of new information, her brain was now catching up at categorizing the already encountered experiences, considering every one of them. She repeatedly blinked, trying to clear her mind of all the shoddy cameras and kitsch hairstyles that now filled it.

„Don't worry. I'm fine,“ she reassured her friend; apparently quite unconvincingly, judging by Sara's continued expression. A brief bout of embarrassed silence followed.

„I... thanks for clearing them away,“ Zvezda uncertainly began, then smiled in apology, „Sorry for screwing up your one chance at an interview.“

„Don't sweat it. All that matters is that you're alright,“ Sara waved her off, then gestured to the large crowd surrounding the main entrance of Stable IX, „Now, say we go around and slip in through the back?“

„Sounds like a plan.“

Slowly opening her eyes, Lyuka ineptly stared at the blurry world outside. It was bright, far too bright, and the brightness was hurting her eyes.

Groaning as she rolled over in the bed, she pulled her sweat-soaked blankets closer in. Her head was filled with a million tiny splinters, all repeatedly stabbing at her fragile brain from every conceivable direction.

Blinking again, she considered the unfamiliar ceiling.

Huh. That's strange.

Hearing a nearby noise, her gaze quickly shot sideways, and her eyes tried their hardest to focus on the vague shapes occupying the room. Though not succeeding fully, she still managed to identify two particular blurs.

Are those a... oh dear. They are.

A pile of empty brown bottles with illegible writing occupied the floor besides the bed – which, as Lyuka was slowly realizing, was little more than a hard mattress tossed on a concrete floor – and behind them, in the distance, a tall stallion stood behind a table, writing something down.

Unknown room. Ear-splitting headache. Empty bottles. Good looking stallion.

Uh oh.

Forced into action by this influx of data, Lyuka began iterating through the large gaps in her memory, trying to piece together exactly what had happened; The greater picture was obvious enough, yes, but some highly critical details, such as the identity of that particular stallion, were still missing. Lyuka might have been a little wild at times, but even she had standards, dammit.

Now, what had happened yesterday? Celestia had given the speech. Hardly a reason to go partying, unless-

Hang on a second... Oh no. Don't tell me that is – Are you kidding me? Seriously? HIM?

Lyuka's eyes had finally focused enough to recognize the stallion's black leather coat and tall woollen hat. Were she more in control of her body, she might have screamed in anguish.

The Commissar? Of all the stupid ponies on this Cosmodrome, why would I-

Wait. This did not make sense. Even if she had been drunk enough to try and hit on the Commissar, why would he ever show even the slightest interest in returning the gesture? His only concern for such activity remained strictly limited to its potential for security leaks.

No. There must be some other explanation for all this, Lyuka thought. She prayed.

As more of the world slowly drifted into focus, she looked around once more, and, with her eyes stopping on the familiar bell of her experimental exhaust nozzle prototype, everything suddenly fell into place.

These weren't the Commissar's living quarters; This was her lab!

Leaping off the mattress – the one, as she now remembered, she had brought in after too many nights of falling asleep on the cold concrete floor – she looked again at the opened brown bottles. Hydrochloric acid, from the reactivity tests yesterday. She glanced at the time. Ten in the morning. No wonder her head hurt so much, she has had less than three hours of sleep!

However, all that still left one question unanswered. She uncertainly looked at the Commissar. The tall stallion was standing behind her desk, a thick marker in his mouth, meticulously blacking out every line of some oddly familiar documents...

„Just what the hay do you think you're doing?“ she screamed, suddenly recognizing her research notes. Pausing in his destructive labours, the Commissar dropped the pen and shrugged:

„Censoring classified information. What else would I be doing?“

„Those are my research notes! I need those! For my work!“

„Journalists will tour lab in one hour. I must secure all classified information and-“

Lyuka pointed to the door, „Out.“

„But state secrets-“ he confusedly began, only to be cut short again:

„OUT!“

She didn't know if it were her blood-shot eyes, the utter mess of a mane standing on her head, or her terrifying scream. Either way, the Commissar promptly saluted, then began a hasty retreat through the door.

Locking the blast-hardened hatch after him, Lyuka dropped back onto her mattress. Who cared about the press, her sleep was far more important.

Meanwhile, Zvezda and Sara had managed to navigate into the equenaut complex through the back door, recover their shipment, and slip back out again without encountering a single reporter; Or anypony at all, for that matter. The entire bunker seemed eerily silent, with the only sounds coming from the direction of the main entrance.

Returning to the main workshop, the two mares then began their arduous task of attaching the winglet assembly to the back segment of the rocket, all with incorrectly-sized rivets.

Installing rivets was a complicated enough procedure in the first place, requiring one pony to hold the bucking bar up against one side of the planned joint, whilst the other positioned and triggered a pneumatically-powered hammer from the other side; And to make this ridiculous procedure even harder, the heavy recoil of their air-hammers also meant, that, unless one wanted to shatter all her teeth at once, it couldn't be held with the mouth, and had to be levitated by a unicorn instead. All in all, Zvezda deeply despised whoever had invented the fiddly little things, and desperately wanted to go back to the all-welded construction of their last rocket.

Unfortunately, impractical as they were to install, rivets were also the only existing method of sufficiently strong and lightweight enough construction that did not require large amounts of electricity. Meanwhile, the workshop was working to a schedule, and their new design was to be five times as complicated as the last one; Quite literally five times, as the new vehicle would consist of a cluster of five of the old rockets stuck together via strong steel supports, then ignited all at once.

To manage such an increase in workload within the strict schedule, the assembly process had to have been ruthlessly optimized, all waste and inefficiency eliminated; This meant all of the workshop's welding torches were constantly in use, attaching the heaviest and most critical joints together, thereby leaving the assembly of other systems to simpler methods. Zvezda, given her talents, would normally have been assigned to one of the welding teams, but the Supervisor must have gotten up in a seriously bad mood today.

Of course, all of these complaints about riveting applied to the most ideal situation; When the rivets were the same size as the holes, and the pneumatic hammers worked. Neither of which was the case today.

Her horn glowing bright, Sara screamed in frustration as she repeatedly smashed the air-hammer onto the hard concrete floor of the workshop in vain attempts to repair it, possibly under the old adage of „If it doesn't work, kick it harder“. On another day, the sight would have deeply amused Zvezda, but today she felt only pain as she tried to push the large rivet into the thin winglet component with her teeth, the metal refusing to budge in response.

After a few more minutes of fruitless activity, the two mares gave up and, exhausted, lifelessly slumped up against the cold metal hull of their workpiece. The rocket segment was still on its own, an isolated cylinder of sixty-five inches diameter and one hundred inches of length, fresh from the factory, lying in a distant corner of the workshop. Unfortunately, the schedule called for it to be attached to the rest of the rocket by tomorrow evening, and to accomplish that, the winglets would absolutely have to get mounted today.

„This whole joke costs millions of bits to make, but they couldn't spare a few hundred on a single working compressor?“ Sara complained, still breathing rapidly from the exertion.

„Or, you know, they could've just bought more welding torches,“ Zvezda wished aloud, flexing her back and yawning, „Either way, it's a pretty good way of making sure we never oversleep again.“

„True enough,“ Sara smiled sadly, then looked around, „Speaking of Mrs. Cranky, I haven't seen her since we came back from Nine. You?“

Ah. That would explain why she wasn't screaming at them for abuse of workshop equipment right about now. Zvezda shook her head in response.

„Want to sneak back to Four for some coffee?“

„Sure.“

After a few more minutes of lifeless leaning, they managed to gather enough energy to get back on their four hooves and carefully make their way over to the workshop's massive doors. As Sara carefully peeked outside and checked the coast was clear, Zvezda took one last glance at the metal cylinder.

A warning light suddenly lit up in her head. Her mind screamed at her. Probably not good signs. Surprised, she took a long careful look at the rocket segment, mentally cross-referencing every detail with the copy of the blueprints inside her head. The outer plates arrangement, the unbroken texture of the propellant filling, the position of the winglet adaptors; Everything was... perfect.

Huh? What's wrong with that?

„Come on. Let's go,“ Sara pulled her away from the rocket, and the two quickly galloped across the open yard. Zvezda shook her head. She really needed some coffee.

„Anyway, mister Silbervogel-“

„Geist, please.“

„-Geist; What can you tell us about your job here at Cape Coltaveral?“

The brown earth pony smiled as he looked into the face of the reporter, a voice recorder held under his mouth. Turning around, he gestured across the long hangar, where the seven equenaut candidates were each sitting in a spinning acceleration couch, rapidly flipping switches and toggling buttons as their training units continued to revolve faster and faster, bulbs of various colours glowing around them.

As a large crowd of reporters took pictures of the exercise, or shouted over each other in attempts to pry more information out of Redstone, Geist stood in a distant corner of the room, alone with the single reporter. Looking at the scene again, he silently thanked Celestia for not giving him the professor's place, just this once.

Suddenly realizing the journalist was still waiting for his answer, he cleared his throat and began:

„Essentially, I am chief mechanic for the Equenaut training programme. My responsibilities include both the planning and construction of various-“

„So you built these things?“ the reporter interrupted. Seeing him nod, she quickly followed up:

„Could you perhaps explain what they're doing there, then? It looks quite... pointless. Just spinning around and pressing random buttons.“

„Well, at first sight, that's certainly what it looks like,“ he chuckled, „But our calculations have shown quite clearly that, upon take-off, the equenaut pilot will be subject to many strenuous accelerations and rotations. This means we need to test each candidate's ability to concentrate under such harsh conditions. Basically, we've had them memorize a checklist, which they then have to replicate while the seat spins faster and faster. Each testing unit also contains a specialized electro-mechanical recorder, which logs the precise time and position of every single keypress. Once the test is finished, we can go over these paper tapes and compare-“

„So, you have access to the performance records of the Equestria Seven?“ the reporter, who appeared to be dozing off during Geist's technical exposition, suddenly regained her focus. An uncertain nod was all that she needed.

„Can you tell our readers who's looking most promising, then?“ she asked, adding a wink, „Who'll be going up first?“

Geist, remembering Redstone's earlier lecture on confronting the press, suddenly became very fearful for his job, and quickly shook his head:

„I... err... not really, no,“ he slowly began, stalling for time until he hit on a workable excuse, „At least not yet. The flight's going to put incredible strain on both the mind and body of the pilot, and until we have done some serious testing we cannot-“

„As head mechanic, you must have spent plenty of time with the equenauts. Can you tell us anything, how should we put it, 'interesting', about any of them?“

„We... the Cosmodrome cannot release any personal informa-“

The reporter violently stamped her hoof, „You're not exactly giving me much to go on, here! Come on, the readers want all the juicy stuff! Do they drink? Is one of them lesbian?“

„This is ridiculous-“

„You'll have full anonymity. 'Trustworthy insider source' and all that.“

„I... I honestly cannot-“

„I'll make it worth your while,“ the reporter winked again, producing a small bag of bits out of nowhere, „Here's a hundred. Now come on, spill the beans. What's the deal with Dash's mane? What brand's colour does she use? Or,“ the reporter suddenly gasped in excitement, „Is she an illicit-“

„Lady, that's quite enough!“ Geist quickly stopped her, kicking the bag of coins back, „I don't know what's more insulting; That you're asking these questions in the first place, or that you're trying to bribe me with such a pitiful sum of money.“

For a few seconds, tense silence filled the air as the two ponies stared at each other.

„Fine. Have it your way, then,“ the reporter snarled, scooping up her money, „I'll find somepony else who'll talk, you bet your flank! And just wait 'till you see the headlines tomorrow! 'Overpaid engineers stuff their faces while poor foals freeze in the streets of Manehattan'... you'll regret ever messing with the press, I promise you that!“

As she retreated back towards the rest of the crowd, uttering ever more horrible things, Geist sighed in relief. As if that headline would ever convince anypony.

Having fuelled up with some aviation-grade caffeine, Zvezda and Sara spent the next three hours steadily chipping away at their work. As Sara slowly moved from one mounting hole to the next, using her magic to enlarge each and every one, Zvezda stripped down and reassembled the entire pneumatic hammer, discovering the small pressure regulator cap had gotten lodged in the closed position.

„You know, this is the one problem that you could actually have fixed by just hitting it against the wall,“ Zvezda idly noted in amusement, breaking the past two hours of silence.

Except for the two mares, the workshop was now completely devoid of life, with the primary assembly crews having left for their lunch breaks half an hour ago; Zvezda and Sara wouldn't normally skip lunch, but they had taken too long in retrieving the crate, and would have to hurry up to get all the rivets installed in time.

The pair spent the next ten minutes in more blissful silence, upset only by the subtle creaking of metal and Zvezda's repeated tests of the air-hammer. As she verified the piston was working for the last time, she thought again about the rocket, and wondered why she just couldn't shake that feeling of wrongness out of her head. She had glanced at the segment frequently during the past few hours, and made certain that every single component was exactly where it was supposed to be, that every single seam was perfect, that the metal was smooth and unbuckled; It was all good, so why did it feel so wrong?

Her thoughts were interrupted as the large doors of the hangar suddenly came sliding open. Exchanging worried glances, both mares jumped on their feet to investigate the intruder. It was a blue pegasus, wearing an elaborate hairdo, sunglasses, a pair of bulky saddlebags, holding a camera as she suspiciously looked around; Obviously a journalist. Even disregarding the camera, nopony living here had such well-combed hair.

As she began taking pictures of the workshop and the massive half-assembled booster, Sara took a concerned look at Zvezda.

„I can handle one,“ she smiled back. Nodding at each other, the two then quickly galloped up to the reporter:

„Ma'am, this is a restricted area!“

„Why?“ the reporter screamed in disbelief, ascending closer to the ceiling where she couldn't be caught, „Why do you have so much security everywhere? Why don't you let anypony see the rockets? Or the labs? You're more than happy letting the tabloids take all the pictures of the equenauts they want, but not one single pony has bothered to tell me anything scientific about the giant spaceships here! Is it really so evil of me, just trying to run a factual article?“

Once again, Sara and Zvezda glanced at each other, this time with far more uncertainty. The reporter seemed to be almost in tears at the end of her tirade. This was no Canterlot Daily employee, that much was for sure.

„We're just assembly workers, sorry,“ Sara quietly began, „We can let you take the pictures, I guess. But can't really say much about what it all is. Or how exactly it works.“

The reporter seemed to pick up interest at those words. Flipping a switch on her saddlebags, a reel-to-reel recorder began spinning up to life on her back as she descended and approached the duo:

„So, you don't actually know what you're working on here? They don't tell you?“

„Well, not really. We mostly go off the blueprints and don't ask quest-“ Sara began, but was promptly cut short by Zvezda, who sensed a potential disaster brewing:

„We know all the theoretical principles. The action-reaction engine, the expander nozzle, so on and so forth,“ she quickly iterated over what little she knew of the rocket's operation, „We just don't know all the details – say, the precise aerodynamic characteristics – because that needs lifelong experts.“

„Of course,“ the reporter smiled innocently, then flew up to an unassembled segment of the rocket and ran her hoof over the sandstone-like material that filled the entirety of its interior. Snapping a picture, she continued, „So, this is the solid propellant?“

Trotting up behind her, Zvezda glanced at the rocket and nodded, „Yeah. Like I said, I specialize in metalworking, so I don't know its exact chemistry, but-“

„You assemble this rocket here, then? How? With those?“ she suddenly changed the topic, pointing to the rack of welding torches on a nearby wall. Zvezda could sense these questions were being oddly specific, but had no choice except to nod.

„Arc welding, yes? Using electricity and consumable electrodes. Only used in small-scale lab tests before.“

„Yes. The Cosmodrome employs plenty of revolutionary-“

The reporter quickly faced the rocket again, „So, you assemble the individual segments with the propellant already cast into them? Using electric torches?“

Oh buck. Zvezda suddenly realized just what story the reporter was playing at here. She quickly scrambled for damage control:

„It's all grounded! The workshop takes utmost care when handling fuelled components. And the ignition temperature of the fuel is so high it cannot possibly be triggered-“

„You say 'cannot', but it is theoretically feasible, no? If sufficient care isn't taken, this rocket could blow up in everypony's faces? Like a big firework?“

„The- the energies for space flight are so high, that-“

„Thank you for your time,“ she beamed at Zvezda, cutting her off in the middle of her sentence and completely throwing off her train of thought.

As Zvezda tried to get her mind back in order, the reporter turned around to Sara. Seeing the confounded look on her face, she quickly took a picture, then continued:

„As for you, don't worry. Once the public hears of this, we'll do our best to get this sweatshop closed down. You have my word.“

And just like that, she was gone.

„Sweatshop?“ Sara got out, the puzzled expression still on her face.

„If you're already sceptical of the programme, that's what it might look like, I guess,“ Zvezda shrugged, „She probably talked to a few of the other girls too. Hired under false pretences, forced to do overtime with no extra pay, handling dangerous substances with little education... that dumb look on your face sure didn't help.“

„Oi!“ she shouted, „I just work the metal! I've never even heard of an 'action-reaction engine' before you said it. Or 'ignition point'...“

Pausing a bit, she took a worried glance at the rocket, then added, „And just because you figured it all out doesn't mean I have. Has that rocket really been fuelled this entire time and nopony's told me anything about it?“

„That's why the supervisor spent the entire first day talking about good safety procedures! Why she kept insisting all the time we can't overheat the joints! Did you really think all that yellow filling was just ballast?“

„I didn't know, all right? Maybe the fuel would only become explosive after you've mixed it with some chemical at the pad or something! I just thought the heating would warp the metal! And I certainly didn't think we could all blow up with a single mistake!“ Sara shouted, then stared at the rocket again, „You'd really think they'd tell us we're working on high explosives here.“

„Well, no matter how you frame it, rivets can't blow anything up,“ Zvezda gave up, yawning, „Come on, we have a lot to catch up on.“

Grumbling, Sara slowly returned to their explosive workpiece. Zvezda was about to follow her, then, realizing something, did a second take on the large and almost finished booster lying at the centre of the workshop; Six of its seven segments were already welded together, only awaiting the final piece that the two mares were still working on. She studied the structure for a long time, then closed her eyes. No warning lights, no hunches, no nothing. Huh.

Mumbling something about ghosts, Zvezda trotted off to their workpiece. Using the straps provided for that purpose, she firmly attached the bucking bar to her hind leg, wearing it like a clunky metal sandal.

As Sara lifted the air-hammer and levitated the first rivet to the joint, Zvezda firmly pressed her hoof against the metal. Sara positioned the air hammer directly against the other side of the joint, then, with a click, fired the pneumatically powered tool, smashing the rivet against the bucking bar, the small piece of metal deforming on impact and becoming irreversibly latched in place.

Zvezda flinched at the recoil, then, removing her hoof, moved an inch to the right and pressed her hind leg up against the next joint in line. They had about a thousand of the stupid things to install.

Zvezda sighed as she went through this ridiculous practice. She just knew a unicorn had invented these. Or, perhaps, an anomalously educated dragon. Either case, someone who wasn't stuck with hooves!

Though the sun had since gone down, Cherry was flinching at the light. In the tall briefing hall of Stable II, the seven equenaut candidates were proudly standing side by side, all wearing their reflective space suits and posing for the hundreds of cameras that unceasingly flashed at them; Their grandeur further enhanced by the rather insignificant figure of the Director standing off to their side, looking most mundane when compared to the row of shining pegasi.

Cherry glanced at herself with pride. The gleaming silver suit she was wearing was nothing more than a mock up, the first trial of the first version of the first prototype. Literally every system required for a space suit was still missing, from the cooling water inlets to the wing seals, and their helmets were yet to be elevated from the status of sketches lying on the Director's desk.

Nevertheless, one couldn't tell that from a simple glance, and its reflective silver surface and dozens of zips definitely looked most space-agey, not to mention very cool. Cherry was most pleased with the design.

„You've been hearing about them the whole day. You saw them train, watched as they went through strenuous exercises designed to stretch their bodies and minds to the very limits,“ the Director spoke into one of the many microphones prepared at the front of the podium, „But finally, here they are, ready to answer all your questions! Fillies and gentlecolts, I give you... the Equestria Seven!“

For the first time since they had entered the stage, the barrage of camera flashes ceased, instead replaced with a thunderous applause. Cherry smiled, and, with the other equenauts, took a deep bow for the audience. She felt at the top of the world.

All the training, the late nights spent looking through boring textbooks, the constant verbal abuse by Redstone and his ridiculous training schemes, were all finally starting to pay off. She had never particularly wanted to be a superstar, but this wasn't empty fame, oh no. She wasn't just some pretty model, or a singer who just happened to have a nice voice. Instead, she was one of Equestria's finest, one of the best pegasi on the entire planet, being rewarded for skill and determination instead of simple luck. Quite simply put, it was the best moment of her life.

Soon thereafter, the applause died off, and a hundred hooves shot up into the air. The Director pointed to one of them, seemingly at random:

„Joey Flatsides, Hoofington Post. A general question for the Seven; Faced with such scepticism from all ends of society, do you really think this project can succeed? Is it really possible for a pony to fly into space?“

The Director took a breath, but then stepped back and turned to face the equenauts. It was all on them now. The pegasi glanced around at each other. Cherry hadn't really been expecting such a loaded question right off the bat, and wasn't quite sure she could answer it properly, at least not without ample potential for misquoting or out-of-context mangling. And judging by the looks on the others' faces, the rest of the corps wasn't either.

A deep blue pegasus with a short azure mane, standing on the very left of the line, cleared her throat and stepped forward. Cherry smiled to herself. Bliz always had been at the forefront of the group, and tonight was no exception:

„Personally, I think that's a very silly question. The best minds of Equestria stand behind this space programme, ponies whose match this world hasn't met for a long time. And remember, even Celestia herself has personally blessed this project. I say to our neighsayers; Look at the light bulbs in your home. That electric oven you use daily. You don't question those, and yet they run on the very same mathematics as our rockets. Just think about that for a second. Thank you.“

„Next question, please. Yes, you, the mare with the yellow mane.“

„Amber Wright, The Royal Herald. Another question for the Seven; You're all very aware of the sheer risks involved. Nopony can even guess at the dangers that will await you up there. What drives you to disregard all that, and fly anyway?“

„Like I said before, the best minds across the planet have gathered to work on this project. We cannot fail,“ Bliz started off. To her side, Rainbow Dash stepped forward:

„You're talking to the best fliers in all of Equestria here. If anypony can ride these things up to space and come back alive, it's us.“

„Who, me? I'll be going last. They'll have six flights to make it work right, so I don't worry,“ Ala joked, drawing a laugh from the audience, „Seriously though, those ponies are geniuses. I'm sure the first flight will be just as safe.“

„I was born in a small village north of Haliflanks. Insignificant little place, not on any map you'd find. We didn't have much money, but my parents worked the clouds day and night to put me through the Academy and give their little filly just a chance at better future than they themselves could ever hope to have. I'm doing this for them.“

„This is the greatest adventure of our lives, maybe of our entire history. I'd be a fool not to try.“

Cherry, standing near the end of the line, nervously examined the huge assembled audience. She glanced around. No matter how convincing she had tried to be, Redstone simply wouldn't allow for Zvezda, Geist, or any of the others to be present here, alternating between 'Are you mad?' and 'No. Just no.' every time she asked. She would have brought them along anyway, but they weren't in the canteen or any of their rooms. Swallowing, she began:

„Every morning, I see the ponies who build the rockets that will take us up. I hear them talk about possible improvements over breakfast. When I go to sleep, I can see their lights still on, working their flanks off to ensure the ships are in the best shape physically possible. Even when we have lunch together, they bring over a few schematics to study up on. They're my friends, they're working their hardest, and I know they won't let me down.“

„I think the others have said it all, really,“ Scud, a pink pegasus with a long flowing blonde mane, proudly finished off, „We're the best, we're backed by the best, and we're going on the best adventure ever. What's not to like?“

„Strong words there, coming from the Equestria Seven,“ the Director nodded approvingly as the audience applauded, „Next question, please? You there!“

„To Ala – you said you'd be going up last. Who will be the first?“

„I was just joking,“ she laughed, then continued, „There are still a lot more tests to go through before that can be decided. But I think it's plenty obvious I'll be going up first.“

„Miss Dash, any comment on that?“

„I think Ala is quite right; I think it's plenty obvious I'll be going up first.“

The room exploded in laughter as Ala jokingly slapped Rainbow's head with one of her wings. After the uproar had quietened down, another reporter got her turn:

„Ruchka L. Krasnya, Only Pravda,“ a crimson pegasus announced from above the crowd, „This one's aimed at 'Bliz' Shepard; You talked about how your rockets operate on the same physics as an oven, or a light bulb. While that is undoubtedly true, and there certainly are similarities, wouldn't you agree that our knowledge of such high-energy situations is far more limited than of the kitchen?“

„Thanks for that question, Ruchka, I'm glad you asked,“ Bliz smoothly began, „I admit I wasn't particularly clear on that part of my argument – I certainly did not want to suggest building a rocket was on the same level as building a refrigerator, or any such similar appliance. My point was this; When you hear a mechanic talk about the physics inside a fridge, the heat exchange pumps and cooling mediums, you don't doubt her one bit. And yet, when we start talking about going to space, your faith suddenly vanishes, even though it uses the same theoretical approaches, even though the equations powering our rocket are exactly as trustworthy as those powering a fridge. I know that it's a hard concept to wrap your head around, but going to space with technology is no less possible than keeping your food cold for an entire week without magic – something our ancestors would have regarded as equally impossible.“

„Thank you for that most eloquent explanation, Bliz. Next question!“

„Another one for miss Dash; The Director refused comment, but perhaps you will reveal this yourself. Since you are technically a 'civil servant', what kind of salary will you receive?“

„Not one bit more than my old weather job. Surprised me too, actually. I'm kind of hoping for some magazine deals now. Hint hint,“ Dash winked, drawing another laugh from the audience.

„A question for Cherry Skies,“ a reporter shouted, causing her to snap to attention, „Shares of Skies Precision AG have already jumped thirty per cent from today's opening value, and are still trending upwards. Can you give us any comment on that?“

Cherry, suddenly realizing her father would be opening the evening papers about this time of day, paused uncertainly. Being a public celebrity was quickly becoming harder than she had ever expected.

Rolling around in her bunk bed – the lower one, obviously, as when they had first been shown their room, Sara had used magic to hold her back while grabbing the top bunk for herself – Zvezda still couldn't shake that rocket segment out of her head.

Of course you can't! You've been working on the thing the entire day! Makes perfect sense.

That's what she told herself, at least. But she knew it wasn't true.

She thought back to the sight of the half-assembled vehicle. That strange feeling, that hunch she got upon looking at it. That was the reason.

Zvezda scowled to herself as she remembered it. She knew how her own mind worked. She knew she was much better at spotting details than most other ponies. That's what made her a good metalworker, after all; Whilst a normal pony might glance over a minor imperfection in a weld as something inconsequential, Zvezda's brain would make sure to carefully consider its severity and possible modes of failure. She saw all the little things.

She didn't get 'hunches'. Such imprecise feelings were for other ponies.

What's a hunch supposed to be, anyway?

A warning light from the subconscious, maybe? Yes. A cry of attention, desperately trying to tell the conscious mind it had missed something. Silently, Zvezda wondered about that massive intelligence hidden inside her head, never accessible, but always working. It was amazing to consider, really, a mind which never stopped running, always controlling the million little things inside her body, plugging away through the night, discretely slipping her conscious mind ideas when she ran low on inspiration; Those sudden flashes of genius, seemingly coming out of nowhere, were each the product of a vast intellect ceaselessly working day and night.

And now, that intellect was trying to tell her something. Zvezda thought about it. If a normal pony got a 'hunch' when Zvezda would have seen the problem right away...

There was something there. She was sure of it. Balancing just on the edge of perception, barely visible, but most definitely there, and most definitely wrong.

Quietly getting out of bed and putting on a thick coat by the dim moonlit, she managed to slip out into the corridor without waking Sara. One quick trot through the cold desert later, she was standing at the doors of Stable VII.

Just as she reached for the door, a tall stallion in a dark leather coat interrupted her:

„Halt! What are you? Saboteur? Or spy?“

The thought of him guarding the workshop had crossed Zvezda's head. Fortunately, she had a plan:

„Commissar!“ she put on her most desperate voice, „Thank Celestia I found you! Some strange ponies are trying to break into the research labs! Hurry!“

The guard pony's ears straightened up, and with not so much as a 'thank you, worker!', he was gone. Zvezda smiled. With the sudden influx of unauthorized journalists and visitors touring the Cape without any special permission or oversight, the Commissar's normal paranoia must have been whipped up to ridiculous extremes. All it took was a little push, and...

Smiling, she entered the dark hangar. Grasping a small torch in her teeth, she turned it on and trotted over to that very same booster segment she had spent the entire day working on. Angling the light better in her mouth, she closely examined the imposing metal cylinder. Its cold grey sleeve was still perfect, as she had already verified many times today. Similarly, the sandstone-like propellant that filled the cylinder in its entirety was flawless, its rough texture glistening in the shaking light of the torch. There was nothing wrong.

Of course, that could only mean one thing. Zvezda realized it now. If the perfect module felt wrong; That meant all the others, the ones that didn't 'trigger' anything, must have been somehow imperfect. Including their last rocket launch, and including the ones that were being assembled right now.

Quickly moving the torch over to the mostly-assembled booster, she began studying its every detail. All the seams were nothing short of perfection, each painstakingly welded together with great effort and love, the filler element flowing and devoid of any bubbles. Unlike the earlier attempts, the metal skin was quite smooth, direct proof the forgemasters had gained plenty of experience on the last rocket and could now churn out masterwork by the roomful.

Moving the torch up again, Zvezda stared at the unfinished end of the rocket, the place where the end segment would be attached tomorrow (or possibly today, depending on the current time). The propellant also looked as normal as ever; A solid filling of rough sand, cast in place, taking up the entire interior of the rocket.

She approached it. Everything else was good, so this must have been it.

Hearing shouts outside, her ears snapped to attention. The Commissar must have seen through her admittedly poor trickery, and would be bringing the entire security detachment back with him. For a second, Zvezda wondered whatever had made her do such a stupid thing in the first place – probably her chronic lack of sleep – then dropped the thought and concentrated on the rough yellow material.

Too late. The door smashed open, and two dozen dark figures appeared in the entryway, shining torches into Zvezda's eyes.

„Step away from that rocket, worker!“ the Director's commanding voice boomed through the cavernous hangar, „Commissar, advance!“

„Wait!“ Zvezda screamed, „Look at this! Look!“

The advancing stallions ceased in their gallop, and turned to the Director. Intrigued, she carefully made her way over to Zvezda, flanked by security and stopping a safe distance away.

„Explain yourself, worker,“ she said coldly. Zvezda gesticulated wildly to the cast propellant:

„Look at this! Just look!“

„I am not coming one step closer until you explain yourself. Commissar, take-“

„I mean these cracks! Can't you see them?“ she shouted to the Director, running her hooves across the surface of the propellant, „It's full of them. Tiny little cracks. They're not on the segments fresh out of the factory, but they are all over the assembled ones.“

„That is irrelevant, worker! Such-“ the Commissar began, but was cut short by the Director, who proceeded to slowly approach the rocket, not saying a word. After running her head an inch above the propellant's surface, she turned away, blinking at Zvezda in disbelief:

„How did you ever notice this?“

„Call it a hunch,“ Zvezda beamed, „I think I even know what's causing it! The propellant is cast into the ring segments, then hardened and shipped here. When we weld two of them together, the metal heats and expands unevenly, stretching and squishing the propellant with it!“

The Commissar approached closer, then glanced at the booster, „But they are so small. This is huge rocket. How can this matter?“

„When we ignite the rocket, the propellant burns slowly from one end to the other, like a candle,“ the Director began, „The thrust of the engine depends on the rate of burn.“

„And cracks?“

„Normally, the fire only burns the fuel mass in immediate contact; But when it hits on an air pocket, it ignites all the propellant lining the sides of the fracture, a much greater surface area than a contiguous surface. That gives you sudden and unexpected jolts in the burn rate.“

„Hmm... did you not say last rocket explode from unexplained acceleration?“

„Exactly! I based everything off the theoretical rate of burn. If these fractures were on the last rocket as well...“ she trailed off, then looked back at Zvezda, „How did you know of all this?“

„I didn't. I just thought something was wrong, then saw the cracks,“ she shrugged in response. The Director briefly laughed at such candour, then nodded approvingly as she surveyed the rest of the rocket:

„However you did it, this discovery changes everything. If you hadn't caught it, the next rocket would accelerate too fast and break apart again, just like the last one. You just saved us a few million bits, worker!“

Zvezda smiled uncertainly. Now that this strange 'hunch' was off her mind, she was quickly starting to realize just how tired she was.

„You work Vehicle Assembly, correct?“ the Director resumed, „How would you like a promotion, worker? We need to get Star Walker prototyping underway, and that job requires the best metalsmiths in Equestria. From what I've seen of you here, I think your talents are being wasted just welding parts of rocket together. What do you say?“

Zvezda's instincts jumped at the proposition. But there was one important detail stopping her:

„With all due respect, Director, I don't think I can just accept this. The job is interesting, but without my friends, without Terra, and Blues, and Sara, I just don't think I'd-“

The Director's ears jumped to attention, „Sara? That unicorn you ponies christened our last rocket after?“

Seeing Zvezda nod, the Director looked first at the rocket, then back at her:

„You know what? You just saved us from major public embarrassment and entire months of our time and budget. You four can get the job, why not. Report to Lab F in Stable V tomorrow, nine hundred hours and not a second later. I'll finish up the paperwork before going to bed, so don't worry about that. And, again, you have my thanks, worker.“

Leaving Zvezda behind, the Director walked off at a brisk pace, flanked by the retreating security guards, and already mumbling of new models for burn rate estimation under her breath.

Meanwhile, Zvezda considered this new development. There was one detail in particular that jumped out at her: She'd get to wake up a whole two hours later.

Oh yes.

A dumb smile on her face, she slowly left for her quarters in Stable IV.