A/N: Testing week finally over. Got some time now.
Chapter 17
*Whir
"Five...Four..."
*whiiiir
One top of the giant Aperture facility, a large blue portal, half-a-mile in radius, opened up.
"Three...Two"
Underneath it, a humoungous two miles tall cylinder craft with a cone top blinked with lights running down its frame. Painted white with the Aperture logo running down its side, The newly crafted space rocket, the Pioneer-1, stood ready to begin its first mission: Deliver satellites into space, begin space station construction, provide a portal link, and investigate changes to the Earth in the past Thousands of years, .
...One...Engage!"
*SHRAAAAAKT!
Purple light glowed out of the hatch as highly-advanced laser-propulsion engines on the side and bottom of the craft activated. The giant craft ascended out of the facility. Its enormous mass pushed by many tons of propulsion force. The Pioneer-1 ascended into the sky and continued to gain height.
A nearby Pegasus bore witness to the giant craft. Rainbow Dash, on a routine, paused her training to the monstrosity in the sky. She had been trying to improve her speed to break her previous limits and become even faster. Normally, being the fastest flier in Equestria made her cocky, overconfident, and lazy. however, that title had now been limited to fastest Pegasusflier ever since she had witnessed the speed of the Aperture air machines. The ones known as "fighter jets" had easily reached speeds of a Rainboom and beyond.
The reason they did not emit the actual Rainboom was a mystery to Rainbow Dash. However, it did not matter as her title had been threated and her so easily left in the dust... or clouds as she would put it. Never in her life had her pride of supremacy been shot down so fast and hard. Now, she was determined to become even faster than them no matter what.
Now however, was a new craft. Its speed was nowhere near a Sonic Rainboom, but it was already impressive enough for a machine that big. Heck, to Rainbow Dash, it was impressive that the giant piece of metal could fly at all.
First, high speed aircraft to fly faster than her and now humongous heavy crafts that could fly!? She had to get a closer look.
With a twitching eye and a look of irritation, she blasted off towards the giant space craft.
As she got close, she could see thrusters emitting a purple glow. However, she did not smell the burning scent nor could she hear the loud, explosive ignition of the previous crafts she'd seen. She flew closer to the side of the craft until she was a leg's length from it. One of the science-cores inside the craft looked out in suprise to see a pegasus right next to the craft. Rainbow Dash looked through the window equally suprised.
After a few minutes however, Rainbow Dash noticed an interesting fact: the space craft hadn't stopped ascending. As they ascended to the upper parts of the Earth's atmosphere, Rainbow Dash began to have trouble breathing. Pegasi had evolved lungs to maximize oxegyn efficiency at high altitudes and a body system to counter the cold. However, the altitude she was at was pushing the limit for even the highest figthers.
She caught herself panting deeply, shivering severely, and her flight speed reduced.
'Just how far is this thing planning to go!?' she thought.
She looked up and found that they had ascended into the next layer of the atmosphere. At this point, she was sure she had broken world record of highest flight achieved. However, caught in her own self-proudness, her vision started to darken, her motion slowing, and her head feeling light. Ice began to form around her body.
In just a few seconds, her speed all but came to a snail's pace while the spacecraft continued to ascend, leaving her behind.
Rainbow Dash struggled with all her strength to try and push on but she could not go any further. As she flapped more vigorously, she felt her strength fading. She wondered why she could not ascend further till she remembered a lesson in flight school. At higher altitudes, there will be less oxegyn. And with less oxygen and other gasses, wings become less efficient untill there is no oxegyn left for them to flap. However, with less oxegyn means less energy, more exhaution, and eventually passing out.
"Ohhhhhhhhh buck," she said outloud as her vision became engulfed in black. The last thing she saw was the rocket leaving her behind. her last thoughts were hope that she would survive the fall back toward the ground.
*beep beep
"Oh what now..." said Morality in annoyance.
'Message from the Pioneer-1'
"Display," said Morality.
A hologram of one of the science spheres popped up.
"Yeahhhh uhhh... we gotta problem," said the science-core
"what is it," asked Morality
"One of the natives tried to follow the Pioneer-1 into space but passed out due to high altitudes. She is currently falling down towards the facility at high speeds." said the science sphere.
Morality sighed ", Well crap. I'll do something about it. Continue the mission as planned."
"Roger," said the science sphere as the connection was cut.
Morality connected herself with the immediate-response branch of the facility.
'Get me medivacs with gravity spheres.' she said.
At the Ponyville Power Grid center, Twilight Sparkle along with other electrical Ponies oversaw the modifications and improvement of the electricity supply. Although Ponyville was equiped with the latest of Equestrian generator technology, they did not have the funding to provide a sufficient amount and were prone to power outages.
Dozens of Engineer-bots worked their technology into the Ponyville power grid. Twilight had done studies of Pony knowledge of electricity but never had she seen a generator with such complexity and small shape.
The engineer-bots were building cubicle machines 6 feet in height. complex screens and computers attached to the sides and cables extended. The Eingineer-bots had modified their generators and connected them to the powergrid. The Engineer-bots had scrapped the original Pony-charcoal and lighting-cloud generators, deemin them "incompetent, outdated, and inefficient.". The Ponies however, were unhappy about the sudden destruction of their machines. Twilight's unicorn friend Lightning Spark expecially was mad.
"I was told that these things were gonna introduce their ways of electricity production. Not destroying ours!" said Lightning.
"Come on Lighting," said Twilight ", I've seen them do many amazing things. I mean sure it wasn't nice to make scrap metal out of our generators but give it a chance atleast."
"Oh I'm giving it a chance," said Lightning ", But how could their TINY little machines be more efficient than our top-notch charcoal nor lighting-cloud generators!? I have been working electricity for years and there is no way something not even half the size of our machines could produce more!"
"Ready!" said the Engineer-bot at one of the machines.
Another Engineer-bot holding a case walked in front of the machine, and layed down his case. On each side of the case there was a symbol of a yellow circle with a black dot in the center and three black triangles pionting to the middled. Twilight had no idea what it meant.
The Engineer-bot opened the case and inside were a dozen glowing blue cubes seven . Twilight trotted foward to get a better look but was halted by an Engineer-bot.
"Do not come any closer. We are dealing with highly radioactive materials," said the bot.
Radiation? They were using radioactive materials to produce power? Twilight had read about radioactive materials but they were only discovered by pony scientists in the past 30 years. It was a new concept and Ponies did not have much understanding of it nor any use. She did know that the material emitted some sort of dangerous magic towards the body.
A hatch opened on the machine and the Engineer-bot stuck the blue cube into the opening and closed the hatch. He flicked a few switches and buttons.
"Hmf," said lighting Spark ", Just watch, there is no way this could work."
An Engineer-bot turned to Twilight ", Now'dere ponies. Witness the glory of efficient electricity!"
The Engineer-bot at the generator grabbed a lever and pulled it down. With a whir, the machine came online. On the main screen, it read: "Power at 100%'.
"Wha-," said Lighting Spark. his horn briefly sparking. As an electrical engineer pony with a
The Engineer-bot flipped another switch and power surged into the Ponyville Powergrid. The entire center's lights and computers light up at full power.
"Power production is at 73% and rising!" said one Pony checking the meters.
"73!?," said Lightning Spark ", We can barely even manage 60!"
"Its still rising!" shouted another pony ", power production at 87% and rising even faster!"
"What!? cut it off! if It reaches over 100% then-"
*BOOM!
Sparks flew everywhere as the entire powergrid overloaded and exploded. Monitors and meters exploded. Machinery sparked and wires blasted out. Throughout the town, lightbulbs,
Twilight and Lighting stood side by side jaws dropped.
The Engineer-bots on the other hand looked unimpressed.
"Well... guess we set it too high," said one bot ", looks like it couldn't even handle 15% output."
"15 percent!?" gaped Lightning
"Well...," said an Engineer-bot ", Scans show that we jus blown away all electronics in the town... guess we'll have tah rebuild the entire powergrid and provide new electronics. Good buisness atleast."
"B-b-b-b-b-but" began Lighting
The Engineer-bots stared at him. They sighed
"Well looks like we'll have tah educate this laggers on what we'd be usin." said an Engineer-bot.
"Educate?" asked Twilight who was immediately thrown out of her shock from hearing that word ", Omigosh! Pick me! Pick me! I wanna go first!" she said like a child. Twilight ran off to join the Engineer-bots while Lightning kept standing in place. The shock on his face undying.
In space, one could look down upon the Earth and gaze on the beauty of the planet. No one had come into orbit for many years until now.
'Orbit achieved'
The Pioneer-1 slowed its ascension to a halt as it reached orbit.
'Light Space Turrets deployed'
On the sides of the ship, hatches opened and Aperture turrets were released. These turrets however, were designed for space use. Their red eyes were on a spherical frame instead of an egg-shaped one. Instead of legs, they were equipped with ion-thrusters. Instead of bullets, they carried rapid-fire laser guns.
'Construction bots deployed'
Following the turrets into orbit, more spherical bots were released. However, these bots had an Engineer symbol on their white shell and instead of guns on their arms, they carried a multitude of robotic arms and tools.
'Satellites deployed'
The Smaller hatches closed and bigger ones opened up to allow a few dozen or so satellites the size of small houses into orbit. The satellites, like the other bots, were spherical and equipped with ion-thrusters. On its sides were two long arms of highly efficient solar-panels. Each was equipped with an array of sensors, scanners, cameras, and a few other tools. Some satellites were custom manufactured to serve as long range telescopes to observe deep space.
'Mining vessels deployed'
Following the satellites, were equally-sized mining vessels. The vessels were a white rectangular prism shape instead with a mono-eye on the front. It was equipped with laser propulsion similar to that on the ship, but with more speed and hyper-drives to travel long distances quickly.
'all unis deploy plasma shields'
Around all units including bots, turrets, satellites, vessels, and the Pioneer-1, a glowing blue shield appeared but soon became transparent, then invisible. The shields were to protect the units from harmful space debree and attacks but would allow unharmful mass to pass through.
'system-check: complete'
'All units proceed to designated task'.
Once the order had been sent, Turrets surrounded the Pioneer-1 and its construction-bots and stood at a stationary gaurding position.
Satellites spread out to reach equidistant points around the Earth, Construction-bots began building the basic frame of a new space station. Mining vessels charged up their drives and hyper-jumped to the Asteroid belt right beyond Mars to collect resources. Science Cores on the Pioneer-1 oversaw all operations.
Soon, Aperture would have uncontested space control.
To Be Continued
A/N:Well thats all for now.