Luna felt herself falling. Her wings refused to cooperate, and her magic only fizzled out every time she tried to cast a spell. She couldn't see anything other than black, and her ears rang incessantly. Her limbs felt cold and numb, yet somehow she maintained a general idea of where they were as they limply flailed about around her body.

She fell for what felt like hours. No matter how many times she tried to right herself, she could not find her equilibrium to slow her descent, and an impending sense of doom overtook her mind. A cold shiver forced its way down her spine, and she couldn't help but feel the ground quickly approaching. No matter how hard she tried to right herself, she only spun around and around in a dizzying dance of fear and peril.

Finally, there was light. Her world illuminated around her and she saw the ground as her body rushed to meet it at terminal velocity. There was no time to react, and before Luna could even think of moving her wings, her body made contact with the cold, hard ground. Strangely, the impact didn't hurt at all. There was no sound, no pain, no rush of movement or anything. She simply stopped. Then, without warning, her senses returned. She could hear and feel again. She was in control once more.

"Alright... That was far more perilous than I imagined..." Luna thought to herself.

Luna looked back and forth to get her bearings, and found herself in a strange white room. There were strange beds lined up in the middle of the room, and several medical machines lining the walls. The floor was checkered with white and blue panels and four rows of bright blue lights leading to the strange beds. Luna noticed a window on the far side of the room and made her way over to examine it. At first glance, it appeared to be completely blacked out, however, once she looked more carefully, she saw small speckles of light in the distance.

"Now that's a view I wished to never seen again." Luna thought to herself, the painful memory of her banishment stinging like a hot needle.

Luna turned away from the window and looked over the room again. She approached the strange bed furthest to her right to find that the top was covered by a glass panel, and there were several tubes connecting it to the medical machines in the room, as well as some other tubes running down into the floor, presumably running to more machines in another room. Luna reared back and propped herself up on the bed with her forelegs to look down through the glass. The inside looked comfortable enough, with the cushions and padding laid out in a body-conforming shape. After a moment, Luna noticed a nameplate on the pod she was looking into.

Roman Doss

Luna tilted her head as the words sank in. She quickly dropped from the bed and moved to the one to her immediate left.

Isaac Clarke

Luna moved to the next pod over and read the name plate.

Richie Vilovoy

Luna trotted to the last pod at the end of the room and read the last name plate.

David Lawson

Luna stared at the last nameplate for a while. Her mind raced to process just where exactly she was. As her thoughts raced, a sound caught her ear. The sound of voices... and footsteps.

Luna turned to see four humans as they entered the room. David was among the group, wearing black working boots and navy blue pants. He wore a black belt and a jet black shirt, with a logo the read "Nebula" in bright blue, fancy lettering.

"David!" Luna called out, her voice full of relief and excitement.

David completely ignored her call, and continued to talk with the other humans.

"David?" Luna called out again, slightly confused.

Again, no answer. He continued to walk forward and ignore her voice.

After a moment of deliberation, it clicked.

Luna silently gasped.

"That's what he wore when he landed in Equestria... This must be a memory then... his last memory before the crash..." Luna thought to herself.

The rest of the crew were wearing matching uniforms with David, and they all wore name tapes with bright gold lettering.

Roman was a tall, dark man with short, fuzzy hair, almost reminding Luna of a sheep's wool. Isaac was as light as David, and looked to be younger than the rest of the crew. His features were soft, and friendly, and his hair was buzzed down until it just hugged his scalp. Richie was slightly tanner than David, but not as much as Roman. He was easily the tallest of the group, standing at almost six and a half feet tall. Even David, who stood slightly above Celestia in stature, had to look up to speak to the massive human. He looked older than everyone, and had a small stubble on his chin. He had a certain stride about him that seemed to convey an air of utter confidence. As if he knew everything would be okay, no matter what.

As David and his friends made their way towards the strange beds, they conversed as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

"So, Roman, when we get back to Earth, are you gonna stay? Or are you gonna re-up for another trip?" Isaac asked.

"Hell no. I've already got enough money saved to last me the rest of my life. Besides, I want to live on a developed planet, thank you." Roman replied, his deep voice reverberating off the walls.

"Well yeah, but it's gonna be another two hundred years at the very least before we come back to Horizon V. You think they won't have the rest of the planet colonized by then?" Isaac pressed.

"Isaac, if they have the whole planet colonized in two hundred years, then there would be no point in moving there. It'd just be another Earth. Crowded and ugly. We just witnessed the last open air and ocean we're ever gonna see." Richie chastised.

"That doesn't even make sense, man. Even if they had an astronomically high birth rate, it would take way more than two hundred years for them to turn Horizon into another Earth." Isaac defended.

"Did you fail history or something? Earth's population jumped over 4 billion people in less than a hundred years. It's not only possible, it's almost certain." Richie retorted.

"What do you think, David? Horizon becomes a second Earth or it stays pure and clean until we come back?" Isaac asked, directing everyone's attention to David.

"Eh, I don't care. It could go either way for all I know. Especially since we have the technology to terraform worlds now. It doesn't really matter to me. By the time I settle down, we'll probably be landing on a whole new planet." David said with a scratch of his chin.

"Oh, right, I forgot. You're gonna be the 'oldest man in the universe'" Richie replied with air quotes.

"Hate to burst your bubble there, David, but your body does age while you're in cryo. It might only be a couple years, but still, you do enough trips, and you'll have slept half your life away." Roman chastised.

"I only plan on maybe five or six. Besides, no one else is gonna be crazy enough to do it. I could easily break a world record. Or two." David replied.

"Yep, and none of us would be alive to see it." Richie chimed in.

"Haha, you guys could always join me," David said with a hint of enthusiasm in his voice. "We could be the oldest dudes in the galaxy, as a team."

"Maybe in another life, man." Roman replied.

The group approached their respective beds and pressed a sequence of buttons on the side of the machines. After some mechanical whirring and strange beeps, the glass panels opened to allow access for the humans to lay down.

"These must be the 'cryo-pods' David told me about..." Luna mused.

"Time for the looooong nap, boys." Richie announced.

"Hey, who wants to read a bedtime story?" Isaac called out.

The group shared a hearty laugh at the joke before settling into their pods. Each human pressed a series of buttons on the inside of the pod before the glass closed down and sealed them in. The hiss of air pressurizing inside of the pods filled the room, and then all was silent... for a moment.

Before Luna could even think of moving, an explosion shook the room, and Luna was knocked off her hooves from the force of the blast. The cabin immediately began to depressurize, and Luna barely managed to grab the nearest pod to prevent herself from being cast out into space. The deafening sound of air rushing out of the ship into the vacuum of space blocked out all of her senses and she tightly closed her eyes in fear. Then, it stopped. Luna swiveled her head back and forth to see what ended such noise. All was quiet... and then the alarm sounded.

David's pod was the first to open, and he groggily rose from the bedding to see the room in total disarray. He noticed the scorch marks on the entrance door and the alarm lights filling the room with a red hue after a few moments of waking up.

David's eyes slowly adjusted to the new lighting, and his senses quickly came back to him. After a moment, he realized the situation, and quickly hopped off the bed. He looked to his comrades for a moment to see their pods opening and their heads beginning to rise from the bedding. David rushed out of the room to see the extent of the damage as the rest of the group woke up.

Luna immediately galloped after David as he rushed to the command deck of the ship. Two strips of bright flashing red lights illuminated the dark hallway as she tried to follow David. He led her through a maze of corridors and blacked out hallways until arriving at a large steel door. Luna's hooves came to a screeching halt, and she eyed the large door with curiosity for a moment. The sound of frantic tapping caught her attention, and she turned to see David desperately typing into the keypad next to the door. Luna tilted her head as she observed, before the sound of metal grinding on more metal raked at her ears, and she turned to see the large metal door slowly swinging open. Only a moment later did she hear the sound of more footsteps approaching from behind.

David quickly rushed into the room and sat down in the captains chair. He quickly pressed yet another sequence of buttons and the room magically illuminated. If it weren't for the current situation, Luna would have marveled at the technology. Her attention, however, was drawn to the screen David was frantically tapping and swiping on. After a few seconds of swiping, David came to what appeared to be a blueprint of the ship, and he quickly mashed more buttons, changing the angle of the ship several times over.

The rest of David's group rounded the corner and entered the room, drawing Luna's attention away from the screen.

"David, what the hell happened?" Richie demanded.

"I'm finding out right now." David quickly replied.

After another moment of swiping, David came to the screen he wanted, and made a large swiping motion, making the image appear on the larger monitor to the side of the room. The top of the screen read "Damage Report".

David and the crew scanned the image for several seconds before Roman finally found something.

"Right there! In the fuel room." He said, pointing to the starboard section of the ship.

"Looks like an asteroid. It punched right through our shields and ruptured one of the fuel canisters. That must have been the explosion that woke us all up." Isaac noted.

"It depressurized the entire starboard section of the ship. The bulkheads on levels three, four, five, and seven are completely spaced. The reactor is working overtime to keep the engines running. If we don't do something fast, we could have a mini nuke going off in our basement." Richie explained.

"How the hell did an asteroid even hit us? We specifically chose our flight plan to avoid that." David wondered out loud.

"It doesn't matter. What matters now, is how we deal with it. David, you stay here and monitor the condition of the ship. Let us know if anything changes. Roman, you're on reactor duty. See if you can cool it down. Use the liquid nitrogen if you have to. Isaac, you're on fuselage repair. Get a suit on and get out there to fix it with the plasma torches. I'll be with the fuel tanks, making sure none of that shit goes off on us." Richie ordered, with a calculated determination.

"Roger."

"Got it."

"On it, boss."

The rest of the humans ran out of the room, leaving Luna alone with David. He quickly swiveled in his chair to look at another screen, leaving Luna to stare at the damage report alone. She inspected the schematics closely before a flashing red light appeared on a different level of the ship.

"Now that doesn't look good... I hope David notices this." She said, turning to look at David.

After a few seconds of digging, David procured a headset from a compartment under the screen, and began talking to his comrades.

"Rich, this is David, you copy?" David asked.

"Roger." Richie's static voice responded just loud enough for Luna to hear from her position next to David.

"Roman?"

"I'm here."

"Isaac?"

"Yeah, still getting my suit on."

"Alright, we're all on the net. If you guys see anything, call it up. I've got almost no power up here, but I'll divert what I can from noncritical systems to wherever you need it." David said, his steely gaze focused on the screen in front of him.

"I've never seen this side of him... He's so focused... He's usually a big, goofball of a stallion." Luna thought as she watched David work.

David directed his friends on what area's needed repairs most desperately, and diverted power to open doors whenever someone needed one open.

"David, I need you to divert some power to Level Seven, Section B, door Five A." Richie called over the net.

"Hang on... just a sec... no, it's no good. That door's circuits are fried. Can you reroute?" David replied as he tapped at the screen.

"Uh... what about One C?" Richie asked.

"Let me see... Okay, I can get it. It should be opening now." David replied.

"Roger, thanks."

"David, can you give me some power at the reactor? I can't move the liquid nitrogen without the crane." Roman called.

"How much power do you need?" David asked.

"How much can you give me?"

"Bro, I'm operating with less power than Apollo Thirteen here. After the explosion." David replied.

"Shit. Well give me what you can. Maybe I can get at least one of these damn tanks to the reactor." Roman answered.

"On it. Just... a... second... and... done. Rich, you'd better move fast. That door is gonna close on you in one minute and I don't know if I can get it back open once it's shut." David announced.

"On it."

Luna was completely transfixed on the marvelous display of communication and brotherhood she was witnessing. She couldn't help but admire the teamwork and efficiency of the human crew. Most ponies would be too terrified at the prospect of death to move so quickly and without question. Sadly, it only made her pity David more.

More than once, Isaac or Roman cracked a joke, making even David laugh despite the harrowing circumstances they all faced and for a while, everything seemed to be working out well. Isaac managed to seal the breach in the ship's fuselage, Rich was able to secure the fuel and keep it from exploding, and Roman was even able to bring the reactor's core temperature down several hundred degrees. Everything seemed to be going well... until the second explosion.

The ship rocked and Luna heard a chain of explosions from down the hallway. The force of the first explosion threw her off her hooves and knocked David out of his chair. The sound of rushing air quickly followed, and before Luna could even process what had happened, more alarms blared and the room was once again bathed in a red hue. Luna scrambled to her hooves to find David already back at his post, yelling into his headset.

"Guys! Are you okay?! Respond!" David barked into the mic.

"What the hell was that!?" Came a static voice, nearly completely droned out by the alarms.

David looked back at the damage report to find the oxygen cycle room was completely bathed in red lights and warning signs. He cursed under his breath as he looked back at his monitor.

"There was a fire in the oxygen cycle room! I didn't catch it! We just lost life support! The whole bow of the ship is getting spaced! The bulkhead doors aren't responding! I've got no power here either!" David responded, his voice slightly panicky.

"Roman, how's the reactor? We can deal with everything else as long as that thing doesn't go nuclear."

"Reactor's... fucked! That explosion... a hole... fucking coolant! We... get out of here now!" Roman called, his voice coming in especially poorly.

"FUCK! Everyone get to the escape pod, NOW!" Richie's voice rang out through the static.

David didn't wait for another second. He practically jumped off the chair and sprinted out of the room with Luna trailing close behind.

David ran through the many corridors of the dying ship as fast as his legs could carry him with Luna galloping alongside him. The constant shaking and rocking of the ship threw them both off balance multiple times, knocking David off his feet more than once.

Hallway after hallway passed in a seemingly never-ending maze, and before long, Luna was winded and lost. She barely managed to keep pace with David as he jumped over debris and ducked under fallen support beams. The whole while, the sound of explosions in the distance filled her ears, pushing her to keep moving, no matter how much her lungs burned.

"This is what I get for eating all of that late night pudding..." Luna thought to herself as she ran.

Finally, David turned into a corridor and ran to a massive doorway. Upon arriving, he frantically pressed a sequence of numbers into the keypad, and after a few moments, the motors in the door spun to life, and the air lock slowly opened. David quickly clambered inside as the door was still half way open, with Luna following in behind.

David immediately began prepping the escape pod for departure. He entered a combination of numbers into the keypad and flipped several switches, causing the screen to illuminate a bright red. David quickly moved from one side of the pod to the next, and began prepping the flight computer for launch. He was so preoccupied with the computer, that he didn't notice the straining of the motors on the air lock door.

Luna turned her head at the strange whirring noise, and saw smoke fuming from the air lock door. She quickly ran to David's side to try to get his attention.

"David! The door!" Luna shouted.

David simply couldn't hear her. He continued on with his prep for another minute before a strikingly loud metallic snap filled the air. He turned to the air lock door to see it slowly sliding back down its rails and closing.

"Shit!" David shouted.

He quickly turned on his heels and sprinted to the door. He grabbed the handle and tried with all his might to push the steel door back up. Luna stared in awe as David struggled valiantly to hold the door open. Another second passed, and voices were heard coming down the hallway.

"David!"

"Hold the door!"

"The ship's gonna blow! Let's get the hell outta here!"

"I... Can't.. hold it!" David shouted back as the door inched further down.

David's friends sprinted faster than Luna had ever seen a human move before, and the sound of their footsteps grew louder as they grew closer. She peered under the door as it crawled downwards to see them closing the last twenty feet... then fifteen... then ten... *SLAM*

Luna fell back onto her haunches as the air lock door slammed shut in front of her. David fell to his knees and panted heavily. Only a second later there was a banging on the door, and Richie could be seen looking in through the glass window on the airlock door.

"David!" Richie called out.

"One of the motors died! I don't think... I can't open it!" David shouted through heavy breaths.

A look of legitimate fear crept onto Richie's face for the first time, and Luna saw the color drain from his face. For the first time, the most head-strong man she had ever seen, looked terrified.

That look, only lasted for a moment, and a new look found its place. A look of determination.

"David, listen to me. There's a mechanical override on the control panel to your right. I need you to open it up, okay." Richie said as calmly as he could.

David quickly nodded and moved to the panel. He quickly unscrewed the metal plate on top and opened it, revealing a motherboard with several wires connecting it to the other electrical components on the door.

"Alright, I need you to cut the blue wire on the fourth connection bridge. Right under the power hard-line conduit." Richie commanded.

David quickly found the wire in question and pulled out his knife. He cut the wire in an instant.

"Okay, now I need you to cut the yellow wire in the purple block at the top left." Richie said.

David cut the requested wire.

"Okay, got it." He quickly replied.

"Alright, now cross the wires and cycle the power. That should reroute some juice from the pod to the last motor and at least get this door halfway open."

"Okay... got it." David said. "Try opening the door!"

A mechanical whirring filled the air once more, and the door began to slowly rise. Three pairs of hands wrapped around the bottom of the door and pulled with all their might to help the door along. David was quick to join while Luna watched intently. The door slowly rose, one inch, then two, then three, until it was just high enough to crawl under.

"Grr... Isaac! Go!" Richie called out.

Isaac moved to crawl under the door, but right as he got his leg under, the motor sputtered and began to die, quickly allowing the door to fall back down. Before Luna could even gasp at the impending amputation about to happen, Roman released his hold on the door and pulled Isaac out from under. David and Richie released their grips just before the door slammed down and shut.

"Ah fuck! The motor died! There's not enough power! Fuck!" David cried out as he punched the panel.

Richie thought for a moment before he came up with an idea.

"Alright, David. There is a way we can manually open this thing. I need you to-"

A massive explosion ripped the hallway open to the empty vastness of space, and all three humans flew out into the void in the blink of an eye.

David was knocked onto his back by the shock wave, and took a few moments before he rose to his feet. His breaths came quickly and shaky, and as he looked through the glass, he saw the massive hole and the blackness of space. He began to hyperventilate, and he screamed at the glass.

"No! NOO! NO, GOD NO!! RICHIE! ISAAC! ROMAN!" David screamed as he pounded on the glass, tears already streaming down his cheeks.

Luna stared in abject horror. Her eyes widened, and her lips trembled as she witnessed the moment of David's loss. The death of his only friends. Tears streamed down his face, and he fell to his knees, all the while screaming their names.

David fell back into a sitting position against the control panel. He held his head in his hands and sobbed. Luna hesitantly moved to the window to see what was left of the craft. Rearing back on her hind legs, she peered through the glass to see the spacecraft in its dying moments.

After a few moments, an automated voice filled the escape pod.

"ESCAPE POD AUTOMATED LAUNCH SEQUENCE ACTIVATED. ALL LIVING SOULS ON BOARD. LAUNCH IN 3... 2... 1... LAUNCH."

The pod harshly shook as it was jettisoned from the ship and began to fly away. After only a few seconds, the entire vessel turned into a brilliant blue light, and exploded. The shock wave immediately slammed into the pod, flinging it off course and into the void.

Luna's world faded to black, and before she knew it, she was thrust back into the waking world.

Luna awoke with a start, and she panted heavily as she recollected everything she just witnessed. She took a moment to calm herself down before turning around to the clock to see the time.

3:00 AM

Luna looked over to a large bed to her right, finding her sister sleeping soundly. She breathed a sigh of relief and rose to her hooves, almost tripping over Midnight in the process.

"Oops... Sorry about that, Midnight." Luna whispered to the graphite unicorn.

Luna quickly moved to her sister and gently nudged her awake.

"Mmmh?" Celestia murmured.

"Sister, wake up." Luna quietly ordered.

"Isit sun time?" Celestia managed to respond as her eyes slowly opened.

"No. I have returned from the dreamscape. I need to talk to you about David. Now." Luna whispered.

"Oh... Alright." Celestia said, slowly rising from the bed.

Several of Celestia's joints popped as she stretched and slipped off the bed onto her hooves. Luna quickly ushered her out of the room and into the next room over.

"What did you find, sister?" Celestia asked, still groggy from just waking up.

"With regards to the magical damage, I'm afraid those results are inconclusive. I'm not sure how, but I found myself in a particularly important memory of his. I found no sign of magical damage there, although... I admit I was quite preoccupied with what was happening in his memory. Before I could search elsewhere, I was forced out of his mind and back to the waking world." Luna explained.

"What happened?" Celestia pressed.

"Well... I now know why he feels so guilty about his friends." Luna said.

"Go on." Celestia replied, seeming to completely wake up at the news.

"Their ship was hit by an asteroid. David and his friends tried to fix it, but as soon as it looked like they would be alright, there was a massive explosion, forcing them to abandon ship. I followed David the whole time... He was the first one to the escape pod, but something went wrong once he was inside. The door closed on its own, locking his friends out. He tried so hard to hold it open, but it was too heavy, and he failed..." Luna trailed off.

"What happened next? Sister?" Celestia asked, noticing Luna's downcast eyes.

"His friends made it to the door, and tried to tell him how to open it... but it didn't work. As they were talking, there was another explosion, and they were just... gone. Just like that. Their entire lives led to that moment, and in an instant, they were gone. It was horrible, and I don't think I can stand to see David like that again. I saw his memory exactly as he remembers it... Even his nightmares do that moment no justice." Luna replied, somberly.

Celestia was quiet for a few moments while she thought over Luna's words. Her brow furrowed as numerous possible ideas flowed through her thousand-year-old mind.

"So that's what happened to him." A new voice said.

Both Luna and Celestia whipped their heads to the door to find Midnight looking at them both, sadly. She fell to her haunches and her eyes dropped to the floor as the princesses quickly closed the distance between them.

"Midnight? How long have you been awake? How much did you hear?" Luna asked, her brow furrowing in concern.

"Since you stepped on my hoof... I heard everything..." Midnight replied.

"This is a difficult situation. Please, let us keep this between ourselves." Celestia said with a hint of concern.

"Of course, princess." Midnight replied. "What are we going to do?"

"I'm not sure... Sister, you found absolutely no trace of magical damage anywhere?" Celestia asked.

"I did not find anything conclusive. The outside of the ship was nothing but blackness and I only saw the rooms David was in. However, after seeing his memory... I'm beginning to think Doctor Whinny may have been right. Most ponies would be lucky to come away from that as mentally sound as David is.

"Is there any way you could search again at a later date?" Celestia asked.

"I... could... however, delving into one's consciousness takes an extraordinary amount of magic and energy, and I'm afraid that I don't have the strength to do it again for at least another week. Lifting the moon will even be challenging in that time." Luna admitted.

"I didn't realize it was such a strain on you..." Celestia said, remorsefully.

"Midnight, I hate to say this just as much as you hate to hear it... but I'm not sure I can feasibly continue to search in David's mind for magical damage. There is still so much of his consciousness that I haven't seen, and taking time to do this whenever I have the strength will most definitely interfere with my duties as the princess of the night."

"I... I understand... David doesn't come before Equestria... Is... Is there anything else we can do?" Midnight asked, her tone barely concealing her sadness at the news.

"I believe the best option at the moment would be to help him confront his guilt and overcome it like Doctor Whinny suggested... Then again, now that we know exactly why he's kept the circumstances of the crash so secret, I don't think he'll be willing to open up about it very easily..." Celestia admitted, woefully.

"He believes he is directly responsible for their deaths... I honestly can't blame him for not wanting to discuss it." Luna responded.

A sad silence filled the room for several minutes before Midnight finally spoke.

"I think I might be able to get through to him."

"Are you sure? I know you're in a relationship now, but these are deep wounds we're talking about, Midnight." Luna said.

"I understand that, princess, but if I'm being honest, I think I'm the only pony that David will talk to about this." Midnight replied, with determination in her voice.

"Very well. How do you plan to do it?" Celestia asked.

"I just need some alone time with him." Midnight replied.

"Done." They royal sisters replied, together.

Can you guess who Isaac is based off of? Anyways, here it is guys. I know you've probably been wondering exactly what happened on that ship, so here's your answer. I hope you guys like this one. It was a struggle to make sure everything worked out well.