"Griffin, you ready?" I asked, my finger on a large red button between the two of us.

"Roger." Griffin said to me, locking in his final straps.

"Houston, this is team Lunar Republic, we are all checked and ready, proceeding to launch." I said through my headset.

"Roger that Republic, skies are clear and mamma sends wishes."

I pressed the button, and then very rapidly, the two of us put our helmets on, I could feel the several thousand gallons of rocket fuel below us begin to ignite.

"T minus ten."

"Nine" said Griffin.

"8...7...6...5...4..3...: The mission control head voiced through our communication headset.

"Two." Griffin help his control levers.

"One."

We pushed our throttles forwards, sending a pillar of flame and fuel out of the bottom of the rocket, a tremendous whooshing sound was made as we cleared the tower.

"We have liftoff of Lunar Republic, tower cleared, God Bless boys!" the mission control team had said.

"Griffin, set speed to increase util point of exit." I said, making sure pressure was being maintained.

"Once this baby hits 8800 miles per hour, we're gonna see some serious friendship." he said, evoking a laugh form the two of us.

"Griffin," I started, relaxing my grip on the controls, what will we do when we make it to Equestria?"

"We'll do as were told, and then return home." he said, he was stone faced.

"What do we have here?" I said, muting the headset I was wearing.

"Listen, I know, but we have special duties, we're the first humans to travel through another universe!" Griffin threw his hands into the air.

"For God's sakes Griffin, we've spent all of our money on this project, our families left us because we tried to do this, we have nothing!" I shouted, losing my cool for a moment.

Griffin looked down at his controls, a flashing green light appeared beside the speedometer. He focused on the speed for a moment and then leaned over,

"Captain, speed is 8500 miles per hour."

I immediately switched on my headset, "Houston, speed is green, approaching travel speed."

No response.

"Houston, do you copy?"

After a few moments of silence, we heard a voice call back,

"Roger republic, speed is green, engage slot one thruster."

"Check, slot 1 away." Griffin spoke into the headset.

"Speed is approaching travel zone, speed is 8750 miles per hour." I relayed back to earth, Griffin and I tightened our seat belts, this should be fun.

"Engage thrusters two and three, talk to you when you touch down on the rock." Houston's final message spoke.

"Alright Griffin, get ready." I said.

"We've got fifteen seconds."

I put my finger over my forehead, and moved it across my chest and to my lower abdomen.

"Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

"Ten seconds." Griffin said, the two of us grabbed our controls.

"Go!" I yelled, we hit our Travel switches, the ship was engulfed in a green flame and the area of space around us seemed to turn to a orange-pink color. Time literally slowed as the two of us hit the speed of light and even more, we crossed dimensions.

"Griffin?" I looked over, he was just as confused as I was.

Silence was not common, but true silence happened just them, maybe the silence of space, of the dark void.

"Parker?" his voice seemed distant.

And then everything caught up to itself, including an earth-like planet we were zooming towards at nearly mach 13. I reached over for our reverse rockets.

"Dammit, I can't control her." I yelled as we entered the planet's atmosphere.

"ARRRGH" Griffin yelled as he pulled back on his lever.

Red lights were flashing everywhere, beside the speed and heat, the pressure, everywhere.

"Engine temperature, 22,000 degrees!" Griffin panicked.

"How fast are we going?" I said as the two of us prepared to stop the rocket we were on.

"3,000 miles per hour."

I pulled up on the controls, sending us towards a highly populated area, well, an area filled with buildings. The two of us looked at the town and at each other, this was now a life and death matter for more than just us.

"Griffin, drop, I'm dropping the Communication link." I said, and released the cargo y booster rocket.

"Roger." Griffin ejected out of the rocket. The speed in which we were going was approximately 600 miles per hour.

"ARRGH!!!!" I pulled the rocket into an arch, the engine went critical, and the rocket exploded with a huge explosion, and a resulting fireball.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

BOOOOOMMM!

I looked back at the ship, and instead there was a huge fireball, debris was flying off of the initial explosion.

"NOOOOO!" I half yelled, half choked.

Some of the burning debris was heading towards me and the cottages below me, I knew I had to stop it before it burned down the city. The communications probe had landed safely on the edge of town, I started to yell form my descending parachute.

"FIRE, EVERYPONY! FIRE!"

I could see the lights that weren't turned on because of the explosion light up, thousands of ponies were running around the streets, several of what looked to be firefighters were preparing for the burning debris to hit the town.

Some pegasi flew by, carrying clouds to fight the fire. I noticed that the explosion had grown dimmer, but the ship was falling towards the ground, the flame trailing behind it. Parker had to be dead, there wasn't anyway someone could've survived that.

I landed and started taking off my oxygen suit, as I knew that the air was clean here. I ran to the telecommunications probe, after a brief check, I locked it down and placed it in a power save mode.

I turned to see several Canterlot guards aiming their spears at me, with out hesitation, I unholstered my pistol and fired several rounds into the air, which preoccupied them enough to let my sprint by them.

I sprinted towards the castle, but before i reached the palace, a large, dark blue alicorn grabbed hold of me arm, pulling me out of sight.

"Silence Earthling, we would not like to cause thee harm."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

I was hanging from my seat, my suit burnt off of my body, yet my skin and underclothes remained perfect. I noticed I was hanging about twenty five feet above the ground, I just let myself hang there, unaware of what to do next.