4-9-2019 Livewriting Output: Changeling Space Program (Patreon)

Here's what got written tonight.

CHANGELING SPACE PROGRAM

By Kris Overstreet

Chapter 15: Mission 22: We’d Be Really Happy With Any Data at All, Really

Seventeen days had passed since the immense, complex multi-stack Mission R4 had launched from Horseton and climbed into space through a massive ball of fire. Now the tiny remnant of that mission- the expanded capsule and the data container box- screamed through the upper atmosphere of Equus in a similar ball of fire.

That ball of fire happened to be on the other side of the planet, in the middle of the night. That didn’t stop tens of thousands of space tourists flocking into Horseton anyway, eager to watch via telepresence the return(374) of the first spacecraft to touch, if briefly, the surface of another world.

And with the tourists, and the self-important dignitaries(375), there also came the press, and all of them wanted an exclusive interview with the pony due to go up in another couple of weeks. That annoyed the pony in question, who wanted nothing more than to get back into the simulators and practice for said launch... and nothing less than to tell another woolly-headed reporter(376) for the ninety-second time her answer to the question, “Aren’t you afraid you’ll die out there in space?”(377)

Ironically, Cherry Berry found that the best way to be safe from any one reporter was to be in the largest group of them possible at once. Under normal circumstances the reporters would do anything in their power short of actionable assault to prevent their rivals from asking the great question that would deliver the all-important Scoop to the lucky questioner. But if that failed, Cherry could always pretend that the shouting from the reporters was too loud for her to make out any actual questions. 

And, of course, if the crowd of reporters was stuffed into a balcony row above you and separated by a hoofrail, and further prevented from shouting questions at you by flight control rules, so much the better still.

Thus Cherry Berry stood at the back of Horseton Space Center’s mission control room, watching along with fifty reporters and cameraponies and thirty-one VIPs plus Queen Chrysalis while the controllers monitored the fiery descent of Mission R4. “Steady on course for target periapsis altitude,” Warner von Brawn said from the bullpen. “No temperature alarms at this time.”

“How’s the apoapsis?” Occupant asked from his spot at the flight director’s station.

“Falling steadily,” von Brawn said. “Not as quickly as I’d prefer, though. We’re keeping an eye on it.”

The minotaurs had known when planning the mission that the Mission R4 capsule would return to Equus faster than any artificial object had ever traveled before- much faster than any prior capsule returning from space. The remaining fuel in the ascent tank after leaving Minmus hadn’t been enough for a fully powered deceleration into low Equus orbit, and so there had been no choice but to come straight down from Minmus. No abort, no second chances- nothing but a computer, a series of radio relays, a remote pilot, and an ablative heat shield stood between Mission R4 and destruction.

Knowing this in advance, the bulls had settled on a target altitude for descent, well within the atmosphere but nowhere near as deep as prior missions. As educated as they were, they admitted they were mostly guessing about the altitude. If the trajectory ran too deep, the heating from atmospheric compression would overwhelm the ablative heat shield and destroy the probe. If the trajectory was too shallow, the ship would pass through the upper atmosphere and back out into space on a week-long orbit which might even hit the moon on its way back out. Indeed, if the angle of descent was really shallow, the ship would be bounced out by air resistance and sent flying on a totally unpredictable trajectory, possibly even out of Equus space entirely.

Cherry Berry watched every moment closely because, in a matter of weeks, that fireball in the sky would be her. If Mission R4 got it wrong, well, they lost a Probodobodyne and a capsule and most of the scientific data gathered from Minmus. But if Mission 22 missed its target coming home, Cherry Berry would be incinerated, crushed, or sent on a week-long round trip out beyond the moon’s orbit, with no food left in the ship. Any of those outcomes, of course, meant a Bad Day. 

Cherry Berry did not intend to have a Bad Day, and the next step on her road to Not Bad Day Having was Mission R4’s safe landing and recovery. That, however, relied on the bulls having guessed correctly. 

“Coming up on predicted periapsis,” old George Cowley called up. “Of course we’ll come a bit below that, since we still don’t have good enough data to predict atmospheric forces on trajectory. But it should have dropped a lot lower already.”

Cherry Berry looked at the velocity reading on the telepresence projection. Mission R4 had been in atmosphere, technically, for four minutes already. But even with air resistance slowing it down, the ship was still going half again as fast as the next fastest mission, the one she’d flown with Princess Luna as passenger. 

“Descent rate just dropped below one hundred meters per second,” Cowley added. “Apoapsis five hundred thousand kilometers and falling.”

“That’s not fast enough,” Dragonfly muttered. “Ship stable on retrograde. Battery consumption zero point zero one percent per second.” 

Cherry Berry nodded. That was actually better than it sounded, since the electrical flow readout couldn’t go below 0.01%. The odds were good the power draw was even less than that. That gave the ship plenty of time either to land or to get out of Equus’s shadow and back into the sun, where its solar panels could recharge the electrical batteries.

“Ship still descending at about fifty meters per second,” Cowley said. “Decelerating steadily.”

“No heat warnings,” von Brawn called out. “All systems nominal.”

“Periapsis!” Cowley wheezed. “Ship is now gaining altitude, repeat gaining altitude! Apoapsis prediction at three hundred ninety thousand kilometers and falling.”

A bit of muttering came out of the observation gallery. Cherry ignored it. The ship going back up wasn’t a failure, not yet. The ship’s velocity, and the resulting predicted apoapsis, that was the important factor. And so far, that sounded almost on schedule. Three hundred ninety thousand kilometers- two hundred fifty thousand miles- was roughly the distance to the moon, which meant, worst case scenario at this point, an orbit of less than six days. The important thing was, that was now the only Bad Day on the table. The ship obviously hadn’t skipped off the atmosphere. It wasn’t going to burn up either- not with the heat shield functioning as intended and the ship continuing to decelerate. 

“Continuing very slow ascent,” Cowley said. “Ship continuing to slow. Predicted apoapsis below two hundred fifty thousand kilometers.”

On the telepresence screen the fireball and shock wave continued unabated, unchanged so far as the outside observer could tell. But the numbers next to the display told a different story. The ship flew only a little faster than an ordinary orbital flight now, and its speed continued to decay more and more. The display flicked over to the map readout; where the ship’s trajectory had once looked like a rubber band at maximum stretch, it now looked like a goose egg- shrinking down to a duck’s egg, and from there to a chicken egg. 

“That bird’s coming down,” she said, and then jumped at the racket of camera shutters clicking and flash bulbs going poof. She didn’t know it yet, but “That Bird’s Coming Down” would be the headline of two of Equestria’s major newspapers... and, thanks to microphones in the gallery, a sound clip on absolutely every television newscast covering the event.

But if she didn’t know, she also didn’t care. Once she’d recovered herself, she walked over to the control room doors and left, not looking back. She’d seen the important part- important from the viewpoint of Mission 22, that is. She didn’t care about the parachutes opening or the actual final spot of splashdown(378). Mission R4 had survived and come down at the target altitude... and Mission 22, which would be virtually identical to R4 on reentry, would do the same. 

So, that question was answered. Now Cherry needed to get back to work making sure Mission 22 got far enough in its flight to have that safe landing.

Footnotes:

(374) Or destruction. There is some cross-grained bit of most intelligent minds that, when watching a dangerous endeavor in progress, anticipates its failure as much as its success, if not more so. Or to put it another way: even if nobody wants a train wreck to happen, almost everybody wants to be there to see it when it happens.

(375) And a couple of actually important dignitaries, though their presence must be considered coincidence rather than by design.

(376) Since there are no sheep in the Equestrian press, this epithet, otherwise to be deplored, may be safely used.

(377) This is a question asked by reporters of astronauts in every universe that experiences a space race. The astronauts never give an honest answer, and the reporters don’t expect an honest answer, but they keep asking it. Possibly, if the Dumb Question Constant of the Multiverse were more closely studied, we would have a better understanding of how reality is structured than we do now.

(378) The South Luna Sea, well east of Hosstralia. Recovery teams had been stationed from Braylon all the way to Farthest Reaches southwest of the Forbidden Jungles, just in case. But the recovery ship had been stationed off the Adequate Barrier Reef, because Lucky Cricket had drawn that station out of a hat, and Chrysalis knew when to back a winner.

“Twilight Sparkle announced a launch date for their pink monster,” Chrysalis said.

Cherry didn’t look up from her work. Horseton’s Summer Sun Celebration festival had ended with the dawn; daylight this far south was too hot to allow for much in the way of festivities. And since the changelings were only interested in the holiday as a source of either food or souvenirs, it hadn’t taken much persuading on Cherry’s part to get the simulators up and running again. So, as she asked, “When?” she continued flipping switches back to their launch settings inside the test capsule. 

“Two weeks from now,” Chrysalis said. “Four days after your launch. She said it would be a simple orbital mission to test the launch and landing systems.”

“How are they getting the ship up?” Click... click... click.

“The princess had this huge orange fuel tank built,” Chrysalis said. “I don’t know how she did it, but she actually managed to make that ship of hers even uglier to look at. Anyway, the fuel tank pumps fuel to the ship’s onboard engines. That, plus eight of our Thumper solid fuel boosters, are supposed to get that thing into orbit.”

“What do the bulls and Goddard think about it?” Click... click... click.

“I haven’t asked them yet. But if Miss Smarty Goody-Two-Shoes Twilight Sparkle thinks it’ll get to orbit, I suspect it’ll get there somehow or other.” Chrysalis frowned at that thought. “I don’t know why it is things always work out for you ponies, somehow or other.”

“The magic of Harmony,” Cherry muttered. Click. “You ought to give it a try.” Click, click, clack. “Done. Do you want the next session?”

“Some creatures strive for perfection, pony,” Chrysalis replied smugly. “But some of us were merely born that way. Take all the time you need.”

“Says the pony who isn’t going,” Cherry muttered.

“Pony?” Chrysalis asked. “Now what have I done to deserve such a terrible insult as that?”

“I don’t know,” Cherry replied. “Maybe you should ask your lawyer for the current list? Occupant, I’m ready on this end!”

“Not so fast, Occupant!” Chrysalis glared her subject into immobility, then poked her head into the capsule. “Don’t you have anything to say about the launch date?”

“Not really,” Cherry said. “Who’s going up?”

“Rainbow Dash and the pretty princess herself,” Chrysalis said. “Sparkle hasn’t even trained as an astronaut, and she’s going up! If she wants to be a tourist, she should buy a ticket!”

“I don’t think she’s going as a tourist,” Cherry said, strapping herself back into the test capsule’s flight couch. “She’s going as a last-resort escape system.”

Chrysalis froze. “Yessss,” she said quietly. “Rainbow Dash is too valuable a pilot to sacrifice on an untested ship... yes, I can just about see it... I wonder-”

“Don’t even think about sending a sabotage team to Cape Friendship,” Cherry said. 

“And how will you ever know if I did, pony?”

“In order for it to work, you’ll have to send changelings from the space program. Changelings who know what to break and how. I know pretty much all of them, Chrysalis. And from me they keep no secrets.”(379)

“They would if I ordered them to.”

“They’d try to if you ordered them to.” Cherry gave the straps one good tightening yank and concluded, “Do you really think they’d succeed?”

Chrysalis grumbled, “I was just saying it was an idea,” and pulled her head out of the capsule. 

The hatch shut with a slightly unnecessary bang.

Footnote:

(379) Cherry had been around the changelings at the space center long enough to figure out she didn’t actually need to question them about anything. When they thought they were among their own kind, changelings gossipped. Changelings didn’t chew the fat, they masticated the adipose tissue. And after more than a year of being not just a constant presence but a person of some authority within the program if not the actual hive, Cherry Berry had been mentally filed by the space program changelings as “one of us.” As a result, Cherry Berry had had a lot of practice in forgetting a lot of things she never wanted to know.

“Hey, look! It’s Cherry Berry!”

Cherry groaned. With the run-up to her launch, Horseton had been filled with space tourists, beyond the ability of the changelings to confine to the guided tours.(380) She couldn’t walk between buildings in the space center anymore without at least two interruptions to sign autographs. But, since she thought of herself as a polite pony, she smiled, signed the autograph books, posed for the photos(381), and then politely excused herself.

But no sooner had she gotten free of one family than-

“Hey! Oooh! Excuse me! Excuse me!”

Two grown stallions galloped up to her. One was wearing the adult-sized Cherry Berry Brand Aviatrix Helmet (with Flight Goggles!) and a T-shirt saying I Rode the Fun Machine. The other stallion mainly wore a face that spoke eloquently of the depths of his embarrassment that he knew the first stallion.

“Excuse me, miss,” the stallion with the helmet said. “We’re looking for Cherry Berry! We heard she was here today! Could you tell us where she is?”

The other stallion groaned, reached up a forehoof, and slapped the first stallion in the back of the head.

“Owww!” The first stallion looked at the second. “What was that for?”

The second stallion stabbed a silent hoof at Cherry.

“Oooooooh,” the first stallion said. “You’re right.” Looking back at Cherry, he said, “I totally apologize. I forgot my manners. Would you please tell us where we may find Cherry Berry?”

Stallion Number Two groaned a little louder and administered a slightly harder wake-up tap to the back of Stallion Number One’s head.

“OWWW! Hey, I apologized!” Stallion Number One moaned. “Whaddya trying to do, mess up my helmet?”

Stallion Number Two gave Cherry a perfect See What I Have to Put Up With look, then reared up, lifted the cheap souvenir hat off his friend’s head, and plopped it on top of Cherry’s head. 

Somewhere in Stallion Number One’s head, the penny dropped.(382) “Oooooooooh,” he said, “you mean she really is-”

“Just get your stupid autograph,” Number Two grumbled, “and leave the poor mare alone.” Then in a kinder voice he added to Cherry, “Sorry about this. Good luck on your mission.”

Footnote:

(380) The large numbers were helped along in no small part by the simple fact that most of Equestria had no idea just how hot Horseton really was in summertime. The owners of both Horseton’s brand-new hotels, the old tavern and inn in the original village, and the changelings who rented out the unoccupied astromare quarters for special guests had no inclination whatever to pass on this information... at least not until the nonrefundable charges were in the bank, in the safe, under the mattress, or buried in a mayonnaise jar out back between two cypress trees.

(381) Cherry still didn’t quite know how she felt about the cheap little fake aviator helmets with goggles the gift shop had begun selling to the foals and fillies who visited. Four times she’d marched into the shop to demand they be taken off the shelves as having nothing to do with actual space flight, and four times she’d been silenced by the young ponies eagerly trying them on and making woosh woosh flying noises. After the fourth time, when one of the whoosh whoosh fillies was a pegasus- trotting along the floor on her hind legs, spreading her forelegs like wings, and going whoosh whoosh along with the other kids- she’d given up. But she still wanted to say something every time she posed alongside a pony wearing one of the things...

(382) If you choose to imagine that the metaphorical penny inside Stallion One’s skull left echoes when it hit, the author will not try to convince you otherwise.