WSP 037

History in the Making

“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six!”

Despite the Moonshot’s door being sealed, the occupants of the spacecraft could still hear the countdown happening outside—while the sound was decidedly muddled, the words were being shouted by enough people with enough intensity that the meaning was clear and unmistakable.

Jeh was in the pilot’s seat, her entire body facing directly upward and her hands gripping the controls tightly. Below her were the other three passengers. Blue was on the couch, as it was the only seat suited for her body type, and multiple straps were wound around her body in order to keep her affixed to it. It was actually quite a comfortable seat. Vaughan and Keller, however, were not so lucky, as they were not in need of an unusual seat type nor were they a pilot who needed a chair exactly attuned to their body. They got the basic chairs that were welded to the edge of the Moonshot. They had straps, yes, but the padding on the simple chairs left much to be desired, and they weren’t on flat “ground” either, given the spherical nature of the Moonshot’s interior.

Nonetheless, they were ready.

“Five! Four! Three! Two! One!”

“Hold on to your butts!” Jeh shouted with a laugh. She began to push her will into the multi-core drive. Orange sparks began to waft off the core of the Moonshot with impressive intensity.

“Zero!”

The Moonshot lifted into the air. Blue let out a shout of surprise as her stomach dropped from the sudden change in inertia.

“Oh, if that got you, you’re in for quite a surprise!” Jeh called down.

Vaughan coughed. “Perhaps you could focus more on the driving than providing witty commentary that will make us first-time space tourists nervous?”

“I can do both!”

Blue glanced out one of the windows, seeing the tops of the trees drop away from sight, leaving only Mount Cascade in full view, and even this rather quickly left her field of view. She could look at the downward window, but that involved craning her neck more than she would like. Plus, that gave her a sense of vertigo, looking sideways she could pretend like there was still ground beneath her feet and that the couch was stable.

“Remarkably stable,” Vaughan commented.

“You’re lucky you gave me time to practice,” Jeh called back down. “If I was just rushing up there we’d all be shaking around all willy-nilly and—” there was a sudden lurch in the Moonshot, making it rotate slightly to one side, making Blue’s already uncomfortable stomach do a flop. “And that, my friends, is a gust of wind! Little early for that, but what can you do? The wind blows where it wills.”

“Egh…” Blue groaned.

“Hey, is Blue doing okay down there?” Jeh asked. “I’m starting to feel like those noises aren’t good.”

“She looks like she’s experiencing the onset of seasickness,” Vaughan said, folding his hands. “Do you need a bag, Blue?”

“No,” Blue grunted. “…Not yet…” She took a deep breath and released it slowly. “I gotta get over this, you all need me up there to do the math. How are you going to know where you are otherwise?”

“Following your instructions!” Jeh said.

“And if something unexpected happens and you need to do some original math?”

“Uh… Hope Vaughan can do it?”

Blue snorted. “We don’t know if he’ll get seasi—spacesick or not yet. We’ve barely started!”

“Boats going through the Tempest are much, much worse than this,” Vaughan explained. “I think experiencing that cured my seasickness.”

“Ah, a journey I have never experienced,” Keller spoke up. “I look forward to, one day.”

“We can skip that entirely!” Jeh said. “Just come in from above!”

“Not even flying creatures can get over the Wall with any regularity…” Vaughan said, scratching his beard. “Huh, a trip is actually feasible.”

“Putting that on the list of things to do eventually,” Jeh said. “Anyway… uh… yeah Vaughan, I’m not sure I can get to orbit on my power alone, that might drain everything. A boost, please?” Jeh plucked a plast cable out of a little box. Inside was a Magenta-cone designed arcane wire, one that could transfer will up it easily. She tossed it down to Vaughan where he grabbed it. “Passengers, you might experience some minor turbulence in the handoff!” She turned a knob, making it so her will was only flowing into half of the drive’s cores, the rest of the will would come from Vaughan in the cable. Jeh was still entirely responsible for balancing, steering, and all the settings, but she could now rely on Vaughan’s will to provide some of the raw power required to get up. However, there was a fraction of a second where she was suddenly pushing on the Moonshot with half as much force as she had been previously, so Blue’s stomach got to rapidly move up and then down.

“Geeeeh…” Blue groaned.

“There are bags if you need them,” Vaughan pointed out.

“I know, I know, I’m trying my best here…”

“Ya should probably have it on ya anyway,” Keller said. “Gonna be a right mess t’ clean up if ya miss.”

Blue levitated a plast bag over. “Fine…”

“Is that good, Jeh?” Vaughan asked.

“Excellent!” Jeh called back down. “Don’t even feel tired anymore, I’ve got more than enough for this! Thanks!”

“You know just because you can’t see us doesn’t mean you have to shout, we’re not far away.”

“But I feel like an important announcer! Like… ahem! On your left, you see… sky. Normally we might start passing through some cloud but, eh, today’s cloudless and…” There was another gust of wind that Jeh stabilized. “…And so we are not going to have our vision suddenly be obscured by fluffy water.”

“So, what is going to happen?” Blue asked, trying not to think about the whirlpool she felt in her stomach and the slight burning sensation in her throat.

“Honestly? Not much,” Jeh said. “Looks like a windy day today but that’ll stop pretty quickly once we get going, and then we just… wait until we get to space.”

“Really? Nothing exciting?”

“Well the first time I went up I had to learn to deal with all sorts of things but, uh, now that I know what I’m doing, yeah, this won’t be very interesting for a while.”

This observation of Jeh’s turned out to be prophetic. Even the wind gusts, disruptive as they were, became less and less of an issue both because the air got thinner and because Jeh actively got more skilled in counterbalancing the Moonshot against them; with more experience came more control. They went higher, and higher, and higher.

Once the air became thin enough that wind was essentially a non-issue, Blue’s stomach stopped being such a pain, and she bothered to crane her neck to look down the bottommost window. The ground was so far below it didn’t even look like ground anymore, just patches of green and brown with wisps of white overtop of it. “…Huh… are we close?”

“I’m thinking an hour left,” Jeh said. “The sky’s not black yet, but I think we’re far enough that we’re not limited by the friction anymore, so our speed is going to keep going up! …At least, that’s what your calculations say, it’s hard to tell exactly what’s happening when you’re up this high, things only change slowly.”

Blue had to admit, the ground below did appear to be static and not moving away from them, but over the course of a few minutes, she realized it was getting further away. Deciding to look out the side window, she was shocked to already see a star shining brightly through the dark blue of the atmosphere. She watched, transfixed, as the dark blue was replaced with total blackness and even more stars. So, so many stars. There was nothing up here to block them; even though the sun was up, its light had far less power up this far.

The sight was one Blue had seen before many times, it was no different than a night sky on the ground in Willow Hollow. Yet, somehow, even though she was looking at it through a small window at an odd angle, it felt different.

“I think that’ll do…” Jeh said. “I’m going to cut the magic, hope you all are strapped down, it’s going to be very disorienting!”

“We’ve been strapped down this whole ti—” Blue had forgotten about her stomach lurches until that moment, but they returned in full force. In truth, Jeh did not completely cut out the magic in an instant, she released it over a few seconds, but it was still enough to make Blue feel like she was suddenly being thrown upward and dragged down by her straps. “Gah!”

“You are now free to unbuckle and move about! Try not to bang your head.” Jeh began the long process of unbuckling herself, since her seat was the most complicated. Because of this, Keller was the one who was out first. Immediately he started floating into the air.

“This… I have never felt anythin’ like this…” Keller said, quickly grabbing hold of one of the drive’s support bars so he wouldn’t go drifting away.

“We’ll be spending most of the trip like this!” Jeh said, beaming, as she finally wrestled herself out of her seat and pushed off, drifting to the outer wall near Keller. “Oh, wow, this is much cooler with more space to move around in! I can fly!” She pushed off the wall and waved through the supports until she bonked her head on the other side of the Moonshot. “Ow.”

Vaughan got out of the chair next. He was far less graceful than Jeh and unable to control as well as Keller. He started flipping around in the air, flailing—but he had a dumb smile on his face. “I’ve done it! Hahahah! I’m in space!”

“Yes! You’re in space!” Jeh cheered. “Welcome to space! We have… space!”

“Jeh, this is even better than I thought! I feel so… free!” Vaughan stretched out his limbs and laughed. “There’s nothing holding me down up here! I feel… young again!” He tried to jump in excitement but just bumped his head on the outer wall. “…Okay, maybe shouldn’t give in to the young feeling so readily…”

“Just wait until you get your space legs, you’ll be fine,” Jeh said. This time, when she pushed off the wall, she twisted herself around so she could actually land on the opposite wall, trying to spread her arms to balance. She didn’t quite succeed, slipping since the wall she hit was at a different angle than the one she started at, but she didn’t bump her head this time. “This is so fun! We need to make a very large ship that’s a lot lighter, one designed for just… moving in space!”

“A Starbloon…”

“Terrible name, I love it.”

Blue finally unstrapped herself and drifted into the air. Rather than allowing herself to drift around, she grabbed herself in her telekinesis. Under normal circumstances, this was an extremely advanced and difficult technique to pull off.

However, she was in space. She weighed nothing, and she knew by her calculations on the ground that it should be easy to levitate herself around. And it was. While all the others were experimenting with how to move in this weightless environment, she expertly levitated herself to the highest window and looked up at the stars, getting a greater field of view.

“Cheater,” Jeh said.

“You two have Orange, you can do this too,” Blue retorted. “So pretty…” While she was here, she decided to test the curtains. She was easily able to slide the sunlight-blocking cloth over the window frame, blocking any chance of sunburn. It was much easier to work with in weightlessness than it had been on the ground. In fact, everything was better now.

The Moonshot was designed to operate like this. Every edge could be the ground, every seat could be taken.

“And now the main event, you guys need to take a look at this!” Jeh came to the window that was currently pointed downward. “Have a look at this view.”

Vaughan and Blue drifted down, Blue quickly, and Vaughan slowly and awkwardly. But make it they did.

Below them was Ikyu.

All of Ikyu.

Blue mentally traced out a circle over Kroan, and then a circle over the part of Kroan she had been in over the course of her life. It was… tiny. Even if she counted the excursion into the Wild Kingdoms recently, that was hardly any of Ikyu’s surface she had seen herself. Now… she saw half of it. Fifty percent of people and places, give or take, were before her eyes right now.

Everything.

“I… wh…” Blue wasn’t sure what to call the feeling that was rising in her chest. It wasn’t nausea. Was it a kind of awe? But why? She knew what she was going to see while up here, Jeh had given her the pictures, and it wasn’t like Ikyu was visibly moving. It was exactly the same as the images. Except…

…Except she was actually here.

It didn’t make sense to her, but the sensation was real nonetheless. Jeh and Margaret hadn’t been kidding at all, there really was something up here. Something that couldn’t quite be grasped by the mind. This spoke to her on a level she wasn’t used to acknowledging, and it unnerved her slightly.

“It’s so much…”

“I’ve… felt this… before…” Vaughan said, eyes wide.

Jeh blinked. “You have?”

“The Guardian Spirit of the Tempest…” Vaughan said. “She…” He shook his head. “I can’t describe that, and I can’t describe this. But this sensation… it is greater. To see it all… even she is down there, I…” He let out a hearty, powerful laugh. “To think, soon we are going beyond even this! I…” he looked away from the window, turning to Blue and Jeh. “Thank you, both of you, for giving this aging man his whimsical dream.”

“Aww…” Jeh jumped forward and hugged him. This was extremely weird as the two of them flipped end over end until Vaughan bumped his head on one of the drive’s supports.

Keller placed his hand on the window.

“What about you, big guy?” Blue asked him. “What do you think?”

“…The world is fragile,” Keller said, pulling himself away from the window and adjusting his hat. “In a universe so big, who knows what lies in wait…?” He turned away, directing his gaze to the stars… and the moon. “We cannot be prepared.”

“What explorers ever are?” Vaughan asked.

Keller nodded his head slowly. “…I await our journey with… I dunno. It’ll be somethin’ though.”

“Yeah, well, it’ll be a few days yet,” Jeh said, moving back to her seat and buckling herself in. “Probably time to go back down.”

Blue’s heart skipped a beat. She had somehow forgotten that this was just a test flight, Operation Lunacy was actually scheduled for next week. They just needed to make sure everything worked, that they could make it to orbit, and that nobody freaked out.

Blue decided that, since she had managed not to puke, this mission had been a resounding success.

“You all might want to strap in, landing is generally rougher than going up! Because I have to aim at something!”

Blue sighed and returned to the couch, strapping in. “Here we go...”

~~~

The people of Willow Hollow were used to seeing Alexandrite around at this point. Sure, they still found him a little unnerving, but he was a common sight and he wasn’t all that imposing once someone got to interact with him just a little. Very few were the people who shrunk away from him instinctively.

This did not stop Willow Hollow from scattering and screaming when a full-grown dragon descended from the sky at the edge of the tent “city.” She was a truly beautiful creature with scales that were not only purple but sparkled like amethyst. Her eyes were larger than most people, and she was adorned with onyx-black armor. It was impractical for a dragon to have a full suit of armor, given their natural defenses and size, but a few select pieces had been forged for this elegant specimen, including a spiked helmet, clawed boots to accentuate her legs and her stability, sharpened wingtips, and a blade on the back of her tail. She also wore on her back a full carriage that was closed off, a lot more than the more traditional saddle with a lot of seats.

She looked wordlessly at the panicking people below and said nothing. She lowered herself to the ground, pressing her stomach as flat as she could possibly manage. At this, the doors to the carriage popped open, and a folding ramp made of a mixture of metal and white plast extended outward.

Via Kroan emerged from the carriage. She was dressed somewhat less extravagantly than usual, given the fact that she was out and about traveling and didn’t have access to the resources of the Palace, but she was still decidedly overdressed. Her hair had been heat-treated to look like four wings that emerged from the back of her head. Aside from the ornate wings, the rest of her hair was smooth, simple even. She wore a rather basic circlet with a Blue crystal embedded in it, appearing almost as a third eye, though it was much smaller than her actual eyes.

To the surprise of any who had seen her before, which was not all that many considering Willow Hollow’s location, she was not wearing a royal dress or any sort of gaudy feminine apparel. She was wearing pants. Granted, they were bright purple and sparkling, but they were pants nonetheless, and they were rugged too, filled with pockets. Her top was form-fitting and black, covering all of her exposed skin right up to the natural plast gauntlets on her forearms and the top of her neck. It was a slightly fuzzy material that absorbed most light with few reflections.

All of this was tied together, literally, by a white furlong* wrapped around her neck. A live one.

*Furlongs are fuzzy snakes. The translation is literal, they really are called “Fur that is long.” To confuse matters even further they are sometimes used as measurement as they are very docile creatures that, once they reach adult size, do not grow, so they can be marked like rulers. They are also extremely soft and are regularly hunted for their fur. If they weren’t so easy to breed they would probably be endangered.

“Behold!” a human shouted from behind her. “Your Princess, Via Kroan!”

Everyone in the tent “city” who wasn’t shocked into silence immediately bowed.

Via allowed the bowing to continue only for a few seconds before she raised her hand. “Rise, my subjects.” They all did so. Via gave them all a smile. “I’m so glad to be here. Today, we get to witness history! But you’ll hear about that in my speech later. For now… enjoy this wild event that has brought us all together.” She gave a signal to the man behind her, and suddenly four royal guards came out of the carriage. Two walked in front of her, two behind, as she descended the ramp. Other people trailed behind the main group, including the human herald, a few servants who were carrying suitcases full of Via’s belongings, and a few people in unique dress who were probably Agents of some sort or other.

Via waved to the people as she passed them, giving them winks, smiles, and well wishes. She even tossed some coins into the crowd every now and then, as well as knick-knacks and the occasional cookie. The people who were wary of her quickly stopped being wary, her demeanor was just too friendly and open. She may have looked like a stuck-up noble, but she didn’t look at them like that, and they had experience with that from the nobles who currently resided in the tent city.

“Your Majesty!” one of the nobles called. “Your Maj—”

Via gave the eager noble a warm smile. “Please wait your turn.”

“My turn!? Wh—”

“I must see to the most honorable first. There are people who are the entire reason you and I are here. No doubt we shall discuss whatever it is you are so incessant about eventually, but that can wait. For now…” She turned away from him without even waiting for a response. “The great Wizard Space Program!”

The crowd in front of Via parted to reveal Lila with Vaughan, Jeh, Blue, and Keller behind her. Lila bowed. “Your Highness, you grace us with your presence.”

Via nodded. “Thank you for coming to see me personally, Mayor Lila.”

“How could I not?”

Via smirked. “How could I not grace you with my presence? All that means is that I’m present, after all.”

Lila blinked. “Yes, of course… anyway, as you requested, the four who are to go to the moon.” Lila walked to the side, gesturing at the four behind her. Vaughan, Keller, and Jeh bowed.

“Hey Via!” Blue said with a wave. A second later she realized everyone was staring at her, even Via. With an embarrassed flush she bowed her head fast enough to ram it into the ground. “Uh, Your Highness, uh…”

Via stifled a chuckle. “Rise, the four of you.” They all did. “You four are going to make history today. Most would say you are fortunate to have my presence, but I tell you the truth—it is I who am fortunate to see this grand day.”

“You are too kind, Your Highness,” Vaughan said.

“I wish you safe travels, and the blessing of Dia.” Via lightly tilted her head to them in respect, though didn’t go for a full bow—such things were not proper, and while Blue could probably get away with messing up the procedure, she was the Princess and she definitely could not. “Blue, I apologize, but Tenrayce will not be able to make it. The Capital is extremely busy these days, and she has more responsibilities that require her direct attention.”

“It’s fine, at least you’re here! …Your Highness.”

It really would be so much easier to talk if there wasn’t the crowd around… but there’s probably not going to be much of an opportunity for that. “Agent Keller, anything to report here?”

“Nothin’ major, Princess,” Keller said. “I do think I could use some backup, I can’t do everythin’ the nobles want.”

Via shot a warm smile at the noble who had been trying to get her attention. He backed away sheepishly. She was not looking forward to whatever dumb thing he was going to demand. “I have brought sufficient resources, Agent, do not concern yourself with the town’s safety for the moment. Your primary mission is to the Moonshot and the mission. You are one of the four astronauts, that is your charge.”

“Astronauts?” Jeh asked.

“It is a new word that is going around the Palace to describe those who go to space,” Via explained. “I like it.”

“It does have a certain ring to it…” Vaughan said. “After all, not all of us are pilots anymore…”

“Anyway, shall we move to the launchpad?” Via asked. “There are not many hours before the sun is overhead.”

“Yeah! You’ll love it!” Jeh said. Blue nudged her. “What? Come on, she obviously doesn’t mind.”

Via chuckled, leaning down to be at eye-level with Jeh, something that would have been somewhat difficult in her “normal” attire. “Little one, your spirit is strong, and your fire great. I admire your enthusiasm and your devotion.” She pulled out a cookie and gave it to Jeh, to keep up the image. It was permissible to let the regal aura falter a bit when talking to a child. “I do not mind, but there are times and places for words of each and every kind. When you grow older, you will see the invisible structures around us all.” She leaned in and whispered. “But yes, they are rather stupid.”

She stood up, trying to look as though nothing had been said, turning to Willow Hollow proper. “Lead the way, astronaut Jeh, legend of the forest, wild child!”

“You got it! …Your Highness!” Jeh gave a thumbs up and started marching to the center of town.

Via walked after her, but made sure to do so at an angle so she could turn back to the noble. “Now, what is it you wished to say, hmm?”

“Your Highness, Agent Kelle—”

“Is one of the best agents we have and was specifically chosen for this task, enough so that the people of the Space Program willingly requested him for their mission. Think carefully about your next words.” Via’s smile didn’t falter. She didn’t wish any ill will to the noble, but he didn’t have to know that, and the tranquil smile had a way of making people nervous.

“Ahem. Agent Keller has been unable to keep up a requisite level of safety fo—”

“Has anyone perished or been injured?”

“No, but th—”

“Then his inability has not reached the point of being a problem, and even if it had, he has admitted himself that the arrival of this unexpected tent city has extended him beyond his ability. Reinforcements have arrived, my Agents will see to it that you are properly protected.”

“That’s not the point, Your Highness, the point is that he is disrespectful.”

“Oh, is that all?” Via chuckled. “My, I can’t imagine why.”

“Your Highness!”

“I am not reprimanding one of our best Agents because you annoyed him.” She waved her hand dismissively, indicating the conversation was over.

The noble grunted, sputtered, and tried to say something else, but one of Via’s royal guards elbowed him in the stomach. Groaning, he backed away.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Via whispered to her guard.

“He deserved it,” she responded, voice echoing through her plate armor.

“If you say so…”

“I do.”

Via chuckled. “Then I suppose it is so, guard.” With that, she turned her full focus on the short journey ahead. It occurred to her they could have landed at the launchpad… but that wouldn’t have been as much of a show, and the show was ultimately part of the whole thing.

~~~

The hustle and bustle from the moment Princess Via arrived to the actual launch of Operation Lunacy was intense. Virtually everyone who had been camped out in the tent city made their way to the launchpad after the princess, completely filling every nook and cranny around it. There was hardly a place for anyone else to stand and still get a good view of the Moonshot.

And what a view it was. The metallic sphere had been cleaned the day before and was currently reflecting the sun’s light in every direction. Four of the exterior control knobs held it a short distance off the ground, while the other four pointed up into the air, each of the knobs reflecting light in much the same way as the central sphere. Some described the effect as a sort of halo, or a glow. It seemed a good sign.

The launchpad itself had been barred to people save for those who needed to be there. Blue, Vaughan, Jeh, and Keller were currently standing around the Moonshot. Blue and Vaughan were continuing to check and examine the Moonshot for any possible mistakes or problems, even though their checks had been performed dozens of times. Jeh was waving to the crowd and cheering with them—even going so far as to lean down to sign a few autographs, even though her idea of an autograph was to just claw something with her bear mitts. Keller was, as always, watching. Since it was out in the open he was currently smoking, getting the last little bit in before he was confined inside the Moonshot and really wouldn’t be able to do that for an extended period of time.

A podium had been erected at the edge of the launchpad. The moment the sun was directly overhead, Lila jumped on top of the podium. “Greetings, citizens!”

This got some of the crowd to quiet down, but by no means enough to make a speech.

Seskii, from her position at her specialty kiosk she’d somehow managed to set up in the middle of the crowd, rolled up a tube of paper into a cone shape and held it to her mouth. “The Mayor’s talking! Shush!” The thundering boom of her voice startled most everyone there, which was exactly what it was supposed to do.

“Thank you, Seskii,” Lila said, clearing her throat. “I am Lila, Mayor of this small town of Willow Hollow, for those of you visiting. When I became mayor, I did not expect to be host to a crowd of this size, even though we already had the beginnings of the Wizard Space Program. It has been an interesting journey, to say the least, from the small beginnings of a fun passion project to a government-funded expedition to the far reaches of our understanding. Dia has blessed our efforts in more ways than I can count, and grown us in many ways through the obstacles we’ve had to face on the way. But now we have before us a monumental occasion—history in the making! The four standing behind me, these four astronauts, are about to go on the longest journey anyone has ever undertaken. They will leave Ikyu behind and go to the moon.” She looked up in the sky. The sun was high, and the moon was up as well, showcasing itself as a pale crescent. She pointed her paw up there, grinning. “All the way up there. In a few days, they will see a section of creation that we could only speculate about.”

There were cheers. Lila let them have it—after all, she didn’t have any more to say, she was just the opening act. When they calmed down, she flicked her tail. “Now, I’m just the cat who was put into this position by chance, really. There’s someone here far more deserving of seeing our intrepid explorers off… everyone, give your respects for Princess Via Kroan.” Lila bowed her head and jumped off the podium as Via walked up to it. There was immense applause, cheers, and a lot of bowing, though it was very disorganized.

Via held up her hand, indicating that she was going to speak. She gave the crowd a huge smile. “Mayor Lila was right. This moment is history in the making. Discovery brings about change. Long ago, my ancestors came to this land from across the sea, finding it a very different place from what we know today. It took a long, long time… but eventually, the results of that are the Kingdom you see before you today. Had they not braved the ocean, we would not be standing here—who knows, perhaps there would be no Kroan, and only Wild Kingdoms! Then, more recently, there was the great Captain Zanzibar and his crew, plunging through the Wall of the Tempest to find an entire civilization within—not to mention the discovery of the Angler Hegemony deep beneath the waves! Those who explore find amazing and wonderful things, things that shape the world.”

She pointed up at the moon, grinning. “And now we, we Kroanites, go to the moon. I often find myself wondering why we’re going to the moon rather than exploring, I don’t know, the entire southern continent that’s below us that nobody knows about past the desert. Why we don’t go around the world to the far side? I have no doubt that we will do those things, but those things… those are still Ikyu. If you really wanted to you could conscript a dragon and take the long, treacherous journey.

“But one place you can’t go, one place we didn’t think we could go, was the moon. The heavens themselves, inaccessible to mortals, beyond our reach or understanding. The domain of the Great Crystalline Ones of old. But now, those doors have been thrown open to us—us, the Kroanites! There have been no others. We are the first to launch something into orbit! We are Kroanites, we will lead the world into a new era as we push the boundaries of what everyone thinks is possible! We shall rise higher, we shall spread further, we shall dig deeper than anyone has ever even stopped to consider!”

There were cheers. As they cheered, Via turned to the astronauts.

“You four, your names will go down in history. Perhaps they will be remembered more than mine. I will be a footnote, the Princess who gave this speech, the younger sister of a future King. A footnote in the annals, while you… you extend beyond that. You are the first. The great wizard with a dream, the unicorn who refused to bow to everyone’s expectations of her, the child of the forest, and the man who has proven himself to be greater than his heritage.” After this, she gave them a slight bow. The crowd gasped, but they understood—this was one of the few moments where such an action could be warranted.

Vaughan was the only one who shuffled his feet awkwardly at Via giving them such respect. The others didn’t even look all that surprised.

Via stood and returned to the crowd. “Remember this day well. All of you here will be asked about this day by your children and grandchildren. When you travel across the skies in the future ships of Kroan, remember their humble beginnings as simple dream in a town that almost nobody had ever heard of. This is where it all began. So, without further ado… I declare, the launch shall commence! Go to the moon, my intrepid explorers! Fly through the heavens to unknown destinations, and return to us safely!” She raised her hand and quickly lowered it.

Blue tried to say something in thanks, but the roar of the crowd was far too loud. Via giggled and winked at Blue, gesturing that she should probably get in the Moonshot. Blue rolled her eyes and waved to the Princess before setting onto the ramp, but she stopped for a moment and turned back.

There, at the front of the crowd, were the major players of the Wizard Space Program. Suro and Lila were standing together, tails intertwined, beaming at the four of them like they were their children. Seskii was cheering and waving her hands excitedly. Margaret had a quiet happiness about her, she did not move with excitement, but she nodded curtly with elegant grace, wordlessly wishing them safe travels. Mary had her hands pressed together and was clearly nervous but she couldn’t help but smile. Big G was standing to the side, giving the astronauts an understanding, but subtle nod. Alexandrite spread his wings and let out a roar, launching a small burst of water into the air in celebration. The people around him started complaining immediately after this, but he didn’t care, the time had called for it.

The four astronauts made it up the ramp and through the door. Blue closed the hatch with her telekinesis, and both her and Vaughan turned cranks to completely seal the door shut. The sound outside cut dramatically—enough that the four of them could hear each other talk.

“Okay, here we go…” Vaughan said, taking in a sharp breath.

“Strap in!” Jeh shouted as she jumped into the pilot’s seat.

“History in the making…” Blue said, shaking her head. “Via really hyped us up, didn’t she?”

“I do not think there was much exaggeration in that speech,” Keller said.

“That’s… you know what, I’m going to worry about that later.” Blue started strapping herself in on the couch. “Everyone in?”

“Yep!” Jeh said. “Time to give them the signal…” She pulled out a Purple crystal and created a flash of light above the Moonshot. Immediately, the shout of “TEN!” came from outside. “NINE!” It was suddenly a lot louder now that most of the crowd understood what was happening. “EIGHT!”

Vaughan made sure his scepter was secure. He was visibly a lot more nervous than he had been during the test flight up. “SEVEN!”

“Getting cold feet?” Blue joked.

“SIX!”

Vaughan grinned. “Not at all. It’s just…”

“FIVE!”

“My dream was crazy.”

“FOUR!”

“And now we’re going beyond.”

“THREE!”

Blue looked out the side window, hoping to see the moon, but she couldn’t at this angle. That didn’t bother her much, they’d have plenty of time to look at it closely soon enough.

“TWO!”

“We’ll go beyond even this, Vaughan,” Blue said.

“ONE!”

“The stars beckon…”

“ZERO!”

“Hold on to your butts!” Jeh shouted. This time, she took off from the launchpad faster. Blue’s stomach dropped and the nausea began, but somehow it seemed like an insignificant concern. She’d been through this before, she could go through it again.

After all, it would all be worth it… whatever the moon held, it would be more than they could ever imagine.

~~~

Once they reached the height that was where the satellite had been orbiting, Jeh cut the engine and allowed everyone to float around. “Okay, Blue, you’re up!”

Blue nodded, unlatching herself. She floated over to the navigation station, which was a glass table overtop one of the windows. There was a drawer in the “floor” below the table, though Blue was having a hard time thinking of that as down right now. Opening the drawer, she took out some paper and measuring tools, placing them on the table where she latched them in place with built-in clamps. She pulled out her pre-prepared diagram of Ikyu and the Moon. “Okay Jeh, I need you to point the window at Ikyu… turn slowly, we don’t want to jostle.”

Jeh did as asked. As she rotated the Moonshot, those who were affixed to the ground or seated felt a slight force pulling them to the edge, while Blue, who was levitating, had to manually correct her position so the ship didn’t just move the “floor” out from “under” her. The window clearly showed Ikyu, though not in its entirety, as it was still too visually large to be seen through both the window and the table.

No matter, all Blue needed was the visible curvature, and that was easy to see. She measured it, recorded it, and determined their distance from the surface. “Okay Jeh, the moon now.” Jeh did as asked. This was mostly a formality, as they hadn’t moved enough for the moon to visibly change size, but Blue wanted to keep detailed records. They were going to triangulate their position this way. “Okay, the sun now.”

Unlike Ikyu and the moon, Blue wasn’t actually going to measure the visible size of the sun since they had no idea how big the sun actually was. No, instead, the sun was there to provide a reference point for their position, which would manifest as a line drawn through the sun and the moon, and another line through the sun and Ikyu. With this, she could determine their position. Which was… a dot basically right on top of Ikyu at the moment, but it would be much more useful when they were in the vast void between Ikyu and the moon.

“All right…” at this point Blue consulted the star chart as well as her orbital flight plan. She determined the exact direction they needed to go. She levitated the page over to Jeh. “Okay, Jeh, find this star, then push the drive at maximum directly at it for four minutes.”

“You got it, boss! Strap in!”

Blue levitated herself back to her couch and strapped in. “All right… Vaughan, you watching the loop?”

Vaughan glanced at a Magenta loop on the wall that flashed through a full cycle every second. “Yep. I’ll let you know when we’ve hit time.”

“Good.”

“You all ready?” Jeh asked.

“Yes!”

Jeh let out a crazed laugh. “And now… it’s time to go further than we’ve ever gone before! Goodbye, Ikyu!” She put the drive on maximum pushed forward. Everyone was pressed into the “ground” and had to deal with the intense force for the next four minutes.

“Geez… good thing we don’t have to do this the entire trip…” Vaughan muttered.

“Most of the trip will be spent drifting,” Blue offered. “Doing nothing but taking measurements and waiting.”

Keller pulled out the transmitting device. “This is Agent Keller. We are on our way int’ the depths o’ space. Ya probably won’t hear from us again until we get back, Benefactor. All is going well at this time, no signs of any problems. Keller out.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot we needed to do that,” Vaughan said with a chuckle.

“That’s why I’m here,” Keller said with a tip of his hat.

“I thought you were here to spy on us?” Jeh asked.

“That too.”

There were a series of chuckles as they blasted further and further into space.

~~~

Blue had found that it was most comfortable to place herself directly above the glass table, placing herself so it appeared to be in front of her, like she was doing all her calculations on a wall. She was adapting the best out of all of them to moving around in weightlessness entirely due to her attribute. She could fix her body in any orientation and handling objects with her telekinesis was simple, even the ill-behaved and awkward liquids were easy for her.

She looked at the trajectory she had just plotted. They had moved at a shallow curve away from Ikyu, as expected. They hadn’t moved really far though, so she wasn’t entirely sure if they were exactly on course yet or if they would need to correct. At the very least, though, their distance from Ikyu was visible, simply looking out the window revealed that the globe was much smaller than it had been during the first measurement. That said, the windows currently had the curtains drawn over them so nobody got sunburned, the interior was currently lit by Purple lamps.

Blue folded her back legs across each other, trying to focus on her work—except annoyingly she couldn’t do that anymore as she’d just finished it, she needed to wait to take another measurement. She let out a huff. “So far, we’re on track.”

“Yes, on track…” Vaughan said, absent-mindedly as he crossed and uncrossed his legs, bouncing one of them up and down nervously. Earlier, this had prompted him to float into the air without realizing it, so he was now strapped to a chair by choice.

“Everything’s good, in the clear, we just have to… wait.” Blue said. She wanted to tap her hoof on something but that would just send her moving and she did not want to strap herself in right now. She was floating, free, and… don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it…

“This is ridiculous!” Jeh shouted, waving her arms. She kicked off one of the walls and drifted over to one of the storage hatches in the wall. She popped it open and took out a plast bag. “Look, it’s not that bad, you just…” with her back to them she proceeded to relieve herself in the bag, zip it up, and then turn around. Despite trying to put on a confident, self-assured face, she was still a little red in the face. “Tah-dah, nothing to it!” She let the bag drift in the air while she put her hands on her hips. “Come on, we all knew we were going to have to do this, we even designed for it and everything, so deal, stop tormenting yourselves over there.”

“Hmm, ya all need to relieve yourselves already?” Keller asked, raising an eyebrow. “I could have gone a few more hours.”

“Some of us might have tiny bladders,” Jeh said with a huff. She pulled a couple more bags out of storage and threw them toward Vaughan and Blue. “This is the price of space exploration, you two.”

Both of them looked nervously at the bags.

“Get on with it!” Jeh waved her arms.

After the shouting order, the two of them did. They were less… graceful about it than Jeh was, and some of the mess had to be taken care of with telekinesis and Orange, but the embarrassing fiasco was over quickly. At the end of it, Blue rammed her face into the couch and Vaughan’s face was bright red.

“Perhaps y’all shoulda gone through trainin’ on this first,” Keller suggested.

“Training for going to the bathroom in space, how ridiculous,” Jeh muttered as she gathered the bags and drifted over to waste storage. “Watch you fail and spray everything everywhere when it’s your turn.”

“I’m too lucky for that.”

“Ha hah.” Jeh popped the waste hatch open.

Either Rina or Rona beamed at her from behind the hatch. “Hi!”

Jeh stared at her blankly.

“Can you back up? It’s going to be a little awkward—”

“—gmemm oumma heef,” came a second, very muffled voice deeper in the waste container.

Jeh backed up as requested, still not sure how to respond to this. As she did, both of the Sourdough twins slowly removed themselves from the storage container. Neither of them were any good at dealing with weightlessness, as they toppled and wobbled the moment they emerged, but they still maintained their cute, innocent smiles.

“…What are you two doing here!?” Blue shouted. “This… I can’t even…”

“Well…” one of them began.

“…see, we’re here to witness history!”

“Can’t pass an opportunity like this up.”

“Whatever’s up there could very quickly be classified.”

“And we wanted to see it.”

“Also, this will definitely get our names in the history books.”

“And, since we’re cute adorable kids, you won’t charge us with anything nasty!”

“Isn’t that right, Agent Keller?”

Agent Keller scratched his chin. “These kids are good. They knew the perfect place to hide, too.”

“Oh yes, it wasn’t that hard to predict,” one of them said.

The other nodded. “You would all want to avoid relieving yourselves as long as possible due to embarrassment—”

“—so we had the largest amount of time hidden in the waste compartment!”

“And we’re waaaaay too far out to go back now, aren’t we?”

Blue frowned. “It would be… an annoying strain on the drive to turn back, we’d have to open the doors multiple times, and… Keller, politically that would be a mess, wouldn’t it?”

“Might delay the launch by another week or more, and they’d demand much tighter security.”

Blue sighed. “You two. I am not happy about this at all. This is not okay. This is bad.”

“But you can’t—”

“—do anything about it!” Both of them giggled in unison.

Blue facehooved. This prompted her to fly backward and hit her head on a metal support.

“So… they get to go with us to the moon?” Jeh said.

“Looks like it,” Vaughan said with a chuckle.

“YAY!” Jeh said, pulling the twins into a tight weightless hug. “This is going to be so much better with you two here!”

“No, this isn’t funny, this is putting children in danger!” Blue pointed a hoof at Vaughan.

“Well, they want to be here…”

“They’re being stupid!”

“Actually it took a lot of planning for them to get here, it seems,” Vaughan said.

“We’re going to have to ration food now! Check our water resources more carefully! We—”

One of the Sourdough Twins pulled a bag out from under the folds of her dress. “We have bread.”

Blue stared at the bag.

“We’ll share,” the twins said in unison, winking.

“…The government might not press charges but I’m sure Lila’s going to have a thing or two to say to you two…”

“Oh, we know,” one said.

“But even business reprimands are definitely worth this.”

“The twins who snuck onto the first trip to the moon!”

“Imagine the legacy.”

“One more step towards our goal.”

The two of them giggled and high-fived. They had forgotten they were weightless and proceeded to fly off in opposite directions from the force.

“Anyway, this does show somethin’,” Keller said. “In the future, check every hatch before launch.”

“I thought we did,” Blue muttered.

“The Moonshot had been sittin’ there for hours.”

Blue glared at the twins. “This ship is too crowded now…”

One of the twins rubbed her head, trying to deal with the pain of bonking her head on the wall. “Yes, well, we can be useful too. Now more of you can sleep at once, we can manage the air restorer!”

“Yeah!”

“Might as well put them to work,” Vaughan said.

“They want us to appreciate them!” Blue hissed. “We…”

“There’s no reason we shouldn’t.”

Blue, sagging in defeat, returned to her couch and started grumbling incoherently.

The six-man crew drifted further and further into space…

~~~

The Moonshot was now cramped; it hadn’t exactly been roomy beforehand. It had been designed to house four people reasonably, and the pilot’s seat technically made it so there could be five if one sat down in the middle all day long. But now there were six.

Jeh had discovered really quickly that she was somewhat antsy because of this. This surprised her—she’d been inside the Skyseeds and those had basically no room in them at all. But unlike the Skyseeds, she couldn’t just start spinning the Moonshot around to exercise her control over the situation, that would press everyone into the walls and throw things around. She had other people to be concerned about. For the first little bit of the trip, she had started whipping herself around the gyroscope her pilot’s seat was on, but Vaughan had eventually warned her that she could wear out the bearings if she overdid it. So she just… sat there. Sometimes on her head, sometimes on her side, sometimes she hung from the chair and groaned. At least Jeh had a reason to be in the Pilot seat, most of the time, where there was plenty of room to do this, and she was small.

Blue did not have such luxuries and she was having the next-largest amount of trouble. She was getting twitchy. She wanted to splay herself out on the couch, but that would require actually strapping herself in and asking anyone else who might have been on it to move. Currently, Vaughan was on it, but he was sleeping—both him and Keller were, though Keller was inside of a sleeping bag strapped to what Blue was currently trying to think was the “ceiling.”

Blue did her best to occupy herself, but she kept bumping her rump and her horn into the beam frameworks. Her attempts to arrange herself in a position that this never happened made her neck hurt when she tried to work on the table where she charted their current position, and she wasn’t about to just stop doing that. It was proving to be a very good distraction…

At least until one of the Sourdough Twins came over with a wet rag, using it as a mop, spraying mist into the air and kicking up the black dust that was starting to accumulate from the constant use of the air restorer.

“Ugh…” Blue groaned.

“You would rather we cleaned it now,” the gari said. “It can’t be good to breathe this stuff in.”

“You are kicking it up into my face.”

“Yes, well, at least it’s getting cleaned, hmm?” She continued her mopping job, which continued to spray little water droplets into the air that continually floated around. The other Sourdough twin was going through with a bucket collecting these on the other side of the Moonshot. She also currently had the air restorer strap on her, taking the weight off the others.

Blue hated to admit it, but while the twins were making things cramped, they were making themselves useful. They made it so sleeping in shifts was easier, they were great at cleaning, and that bread… had been quite delicious.

Still, this was going to be a nightmare to sort out later, so Blue still felt she had the right to be ticked off. Plus, someone had to make it known to them that this was a dumb idea. Jeh was happy they were there, Vaughan was too soft, and Keller seemed far too relaxed for the entire situation. It fell to her and she was…

…She wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing, but she wasn’t going to approve of them. That was for sure. Blue decided to stop thinking about this and get back to calculating the results of the last measurement. She knew where they were, roughly, but the path they were taking… it was starting to look different than the path she had expected them to take. She would need more data. Should she ask for more measurements? No, it hadn’t been long enough yet.

“Jeh, we’re getting a little warm,” one of the twins said, wiping her brow.

“Oh it!” Jeh said, holding up a Blue crystal and applying it on one of the knobs outside the ship Blue couldn’t see. It took a few minutes, but the Moonshot became noticeably cooler. “And there ya go!”

“Thanks!” the twins said in unison, continuing their cleaning of the Moonshot.

“…And now I’m booooored again,” Jeh groaned.

“I can have you take another measurement?” Blue suggested.

“But we just did that,” Jeh grumbled, flopping over the side of the pilot’s seat like a fish. This actually took some effort to do considering that all of them were currently weightless, and such a flop would have normally just made her float away from the chair. “Maybe we can play cards?”

“Do you want to try to get everyone around the same tiny table?”

“Or tell stories or do magic or something.” Jeh took out a Red crystal, throwing it from one of her hands to the other. “Actually, that’s right, I don’t think I’ve shown you guys what fire looks like in space! It’s not normal!”

Blue raised an eyebrow. “How is it not normal?”

“Spheres! Look, just watch…”

“Make sure to make it small—” either Rina or Rona said.

“—we don’t want to be breathing in lots of smoke!” the other finished.

“Yeah yeah, I’m just burning the air, don’t turn your hair into a nest…” Jeh pointed the Red crystal at a spot between her and Blue. “Just a little spar—”

Instead of a nice, small, controlled flame, there was a sudden burst of heat that radiated out from the central point, coursing through the air. There were no flames on this heat, it was just a spherical shell of translucent glowing orange that spread through the air. It spread slower than a normal explosion would, but it was still far too quick to react to before it reached Blue and her papers. She let out a scream of panic, both in seeing her carefully made charts catch fire, but also in the fire starting to catch on her coat. She tried to drop to the ground and roll, but this was impossible in her current state, and…

…and then her brain was scrambled and she had a splitting headache, but nothing was on fire. “What?”

A rather panicked-looking Jeh was holding a Green crystal so tightly it was cutting through her mitts into her hands. “Ehe… I… The fire’s never done that before…”

“Maybe ya shouldn’t be lightin’ fires in a spaceship,” Keller grunted, coming out of his sleeping bag. Vaughan, meanwhile, was still sleeping soundly.

“But I lit fires before! They just became glowing spheres that generally snuff themselves out!”

“You’ve never been on a trip this long,” one of the Sourdough twins said.

“Something has changed.”

“I think it’s the black dust.” The twin who spoke held up her rag.

Blue raised an eyebrow. “But Jeh just lit the air on fire, I don’t see any of it in the air.”

“Since when do ya see normal dust?” Keller asked.

Blue blinked. “W-well, I… I hadn’t thought of it aerosolizing, but… yes, we have been breathing it in…”

“We’ll need to be careful with heat,” one of the twins said.

“And be extra dutiful in cleaning!”

Keller nodded. “Good thought. Although, so long as we have Jeh quick on the draw with that Green talent o’ hers…” He tipped his hat. “Worst that’ll happen is some mental damage.”

“Unless none of us can breathe,” Jeh pointed out.

“Oh, well, that’s what the extra air tanks are for, right?”

“Well… yeah. Speaking of…” Jeh glanced at the pressure gauge on the wall. The level of water in the tube was still within normal levels, it meant the air pressure was fine. “Looks like we haven’t lost any air yet.”

“That’s good,” Blue said, sighing in relief. “At least that’s going right. But from now on…” She glared at Jeh. “Let’s not do crazy experiments just to see out here, shall we? It’s dangerous.”

“Hey! I didn’t think it was an experiment! And none of you stopped me!”

Blue clicked her tongue. “True… I guess we all need to be more careful.”

“And need to keep everything cleaner!” the twins said in unison.

“Yes, it is possible we owe ya much,” Keller said. “Who knows how much worse it would have been without ya?”

Blue groaned and went back to her work. “…Jeh, let’s take a position measurement.”

Jeh let out a nervous chuckle before hopping back into the pilot’s seat. “You got it!”

~~~

“…Something’s not adding up,” Blue said.

Vaughan, Keller, and one of the twins were awake at that moment, though given how still Keller was sitting on one of the supports one could be forgiven for thinking he was asleep. Vaughan was busy with his own work, adding details on his map of the moon—it was significantly larger now and the telescope could find a lot more features. This left the sole aware twin as Blue’s only real audience.

“What’s not adding up?” she asked, putting down a star chart she was looking at, more out of boredom than anything—everything was clean at the moment, she didn’t have anything to do.

Blue glanced up at her, considering calling Vaughan over… but no, he had his work, and it probably would help to start talking about it aloud. “Okay, so, this is the trajectory map…”

The gari nodded, eagerly absorbing the information.

“Now, in red here is the trajectory we were supposed to take based on our initial conditions. The black line with a lot more wobbles in it is the trajectory we are actually taking.”

“They’re not the same.”

“Exactly. And that’s a problem.”

She put one of her fingers down on the trajectory map, measuring the difference to be half that of her finger. Then she moved her finger over to Ikyu and found that such a distance was larger than all of Kroan. “It doesn’t look big, but it’s really big.”

“We expected to be off, but not this off,” Blue said. “The last few kinks in our path was me trying to get us back on track, but as you can see… all it does is change how fast we curve around, we’re still moving at a shallower curve than we should be.”

Rina or Rona crossed her arms, thinking. “Well, we must misunderstand something, right?”

“Uh… yes, right.”

“Then we need to start eliminating possible options for misunderstanding so we can figure out what the real problem is, and fix it.” She ran her fingers through her hair, clearly thinking hard. “How accurate are our measurements?”

“More than that.”

“Are we sure?”

Blue huffed. “Of course we’re sure, we know how objects look from a distance, and there’s not even any air out here to bend the light…”

“Are we sure space doesn’t bend light really, really slowly?”

Blue let out a chuckle and opened her mouth to tell the girl how silly that was. Then she stopped and closed her mouth. There had never been any accurate measurements in space, and the ones they’d done had all been close to Ikyu, where such effects might have been minimized, if there were any. If space really did have some kind of refracting property…

“Okay, so, that means it’s at least possible. How could we tell if that’s what was happening?”

“…If there was some sort of light bending, the measurement of the distance to the moon would be incorrect…” Blue flipped a page in her notebook and started scribbling a diagram furiously. “Now, regardless of if there’s an effect or not, both Ikyu and the moon would experience it. Since both Ikyu and the moon are growing and shrinking at reasonable rates, it must be a uniform effect, if it’s anything… and… right!” Blue picked up her pen and tossed it into the air. “We are applying force to our craft, and how fast we end up going depends on the mass. Even if we don’t know how far it is to the moon for sure, we do know roughly how much force we have applied.” Blue pointed at the kinks in the trajectory. “It’s only on the long scale that these paths diverge, we do still end up going the same directions at the same expected rate initially. If the distance to the moon were measured incorrectly, we would see a discrepancy in our instantaneous speeds there, but we don’t.”

“So the measurement of the distance to the moon is accurate.”

“Yes! Or, well, close enough, there’s always been a large margin of error on that measurement. But that margin of error wouldn’t explain the behavior we see in the paths which… aha! Here’s another reason! The paths are following different shapes than what I expect!” she pulled out a sheet of paper she’d drawn previously and showed the paths she’d traced out. “They’re still ovals, but they’re offset. A distance measurement error wouldn’t shift it like this.”

The Sourdough twin nodded, smirking. “Then our measurements are at least accurate enough, and since your plots are consistent, the error doesn’t lie with your calculations either, we really are on these trajectories. So… what does that leave?”

“You are too smart for your own good.”

“We did prepare for this mission, you know.”

“Yeah, well…” Blue glanced at the sleeping twin, tilting her head. “It really is odd just talking to one of you.”

“Sometimes it’s better for us to be in two places at once. Now, focus, we want this mission to succeed so we should figure out this issue. What else could be causing this?”

Blue frowned. “Measurements are fine… there could be some extra force out here we don’t know about, like… some kind of ‘space wind?’ Except… no, that would result in a drift in one direction, this one applies no matter where we are, it seems, so… that means…” She pulled out a sheet of paper that showed her equations for the downward force and orbital shapes. “Something in the equations is wrong.”

“How do we find out which one?”

“We perform… a test! On the simplest case…” Blue circled the equation for circular motion. “We see what it takes to force the Moonshot into a circular orbit and take measurements then, and we can work backward to see what’s going on. So…” She picked up a crumpled-up ball of paper and threw it at Vaughan.

“Wh-what?” He looked up from his moon map.

“When you’re done with that, we’re going to need to alter course and take some measurements. Something’s funky and I’d rather not crash into the moon because of it.”

“Oh, well… I was almost done anyway. The big circle with rays on it is most interesting, but I think we still need to get closer.” He quickly scratched some lines in his book and drifted over to the pilot’s seat, strapping himself in. “Okay, so… where to?”

“We’re gonna need to push quite a bit for this one…” Blue gave the instructions. Vaughan eased into the course correction so as not to wake anyone—though, since all the sleepers were literally strapped to the walls in their sleeping bags, this might not have mattered much. The Moonshot slowly arced its trajectory away from its gradual spiral toward the moon and settled into a circular orbit over about twenty minutes. The only reason this was so simple was because they had intended to circularize their orbit just before arriving at the moon anyway, so their gradual spiral was geared to allow such things.

The difficulty arose when the orbit that was supposed to be circular wasn’t.

“Okay, yeah, something’s up…” Blue said as she performed another set of calculations from the new data set. “We’re too fast, it looks like…”

“Are you guys doing cool space stuff without me?” Jeh asked, crawling out of her sleeping bag.

“Not anymore,” Vaughan said, letting out a large breath of air as he unstrapped himself from the pilot’s chair. “She’s milking me dry…”

“I am not a slave driver,” Blue deadpanned. “Though, yes, you can trade with Jeh.”

“Awesome!” Jeh hopped into the seat. “Okay, what are we doing?”

“We’re trying to circularize the orbit… here, slow us down by…” Blue gave another set of instructions.

In the end, it actually took several hours to get the orbit right, but after a lot of pushing and prodding, they were in a circular orbit around Ikyu.

Blue did not believe the speed she was measuring.

“This is… so much less than what we were expecting…” Blue said, furrowing her brow. “But since Ikyu is pulling us in, doesn’t that mea…” Blue’s eyes widened.

“Oh, I think she just got it,” one of the twins said. Both of them were awake now, Blue hadn’t kept track of which one was the one she’d been talking to.

“Look at those wheels turn!” the other twin added.

Blue took out a sheet of paper. She plotted on it three points. Satellite. Moonshot. Moon. On one axis was distance from Ikyu. On the other was speed.

She drew a curve through them.

“Oh. My. For the. It was right in front of us the whole time!” She rammed her face into the table, which prompted her to launch back into the pilot’s seat.

“What was?” Jeh asked, poking her head over the back of the pilot’s seat.

“The moon isn’t moving slower than expected because it’s big, it’s moving slower because it’s further away! The force of Ikyu goes down the further out you go!”

Vaughan grumbled form his sleeping bag. “Some of us are tryin’ to nap here…”

“But Vaughan, I figured it out!”

“…Okay, I’m curious…” Vaughan poked his head out of the sleeping bag only for Blue to ram a diagram into his face.

“The moon isn’t weird at all, we just made a mistake in assuming Ikyu’s pull was constant everywhere! It goes down with distance!”

Vaughan, half-asleep though he was, could still recognize this as huge. “That…”

“That changes everything about orbital dynamics and is the entire reason our trajectories have been so bad but, but, look at how neat that curve is! So smooth! So regular! I can use my fancy new math to figure out how everything changes! Hah! Oh, you’re all so lucky I did this before we came up here, these calculations will just take a few hours not a few days! Hah!” She pulled out a large notebook and immediately started scribbling furiously in it.

Rina and Rona clapped excitedly. “Good going, Blue!”

“Yes, thank you, now everyone rest easy knowing your circular orbit is going to stay circular while I figure this out exactly.”

Keller frowned. “This sounds like a major change t’ the flight plan…”

“Oh, believe it or not, this makes it much easier. The most difficult part was going to be getting to the moon without crashing into it because we’d want to naturally go at a different speed! That’s not the case anymore, we’ll be going more-or-less the same speed when we arrive! Hah!”

“Frontier science!” Jeh cheered.

“Anyway, uh, ahem.” Blue coughed. “Sorry about being so loud Vaughan, you can go back to sleep now, this will take a bit.”

“Me? Go to sleep now? In the middle of this excitement?”

“Still sorry.” Blue flicked her ears back.

Vaughan grinned. “You’re forgiven. Now finish those calculations so we can get back on track.”

“Right!” Blue hurried back to her notebook. “So, let’s see what kind of relation this actually is…”

~~~

“I don’t trust this,” Wyett said.

“You never trusted anything,” Tenrayce added.

“You don’t trust this either.”

“Yes, but my observation still holds.”

The two of them were headed into the forests surrounding Axiom… with a full contingent, including a middle-aged yellow dragon, several wizards among whom was Pepper, and a mixture of royal guards and standard soldiers. They even had the Red Crystalline One J’ar’x, who was unable to levitate herself without burning people so she was being dragged along on a wooden platform mounted on top of four crab-like creatures—they were animals, not spirited, though a smaller crab-creature sitting on top with J’ar’x was a spirited, the only known of his kind. He communicated entirely in clicks only a select few of the company could understand.

Tenrayce was one of them.

“You sure?” Tenrayce said, turning to glance at the crab.

The crab clicked once again.

“It really is a rigid that we’re going to meet then.”

“I really don’t trust this…” Wyett grumbled.

“Mavrick’s attribute is reliable for sensing most rigid activity at—”

“I trust him just fine and you know it. I don’t trust going out here for this meeting.”

“We still do not know what the plague desires.”

“But it’s never communicated. It’s been extremely subtle or extremely violent. It never speaks, only the puppets it torments speak.” He wrung his hands. “I can’t believe Dad approved this…”

“We all discussed it.”

“Mom and Via weren’t there.”

“Would that have changed anything?”

“No.” Wyett crossed his arms. “Still, both of us are being put in danger.”

“Hence the army, obviously.”

“The plague’s smart. It has to realize that by not barring an army, we would bring one…”

“Which implies the purpose is not to assassinate us. Which leads us to the far more interesting question: what does it want?”

“It can’t be anything good… Perhaps it wants to negotiate our surrender…”

“Doubtful. Even our worst estimates show that it can’t have that many forces in Kroan, the difficulty of supporting rigids outside the Shinelands severely limits the number it can operate.”

“Then what could it possibly want!?”

“I have no idea,” Tenrayce said. “I am… very curious.”

“Mmmm…”

“Hey, Wyett?”

“Yes?”

“Cheer up, try to relax. Maybe not now, but…” Tenrayce sighed. “Look, since it’s me saying this, you know I mean it. You’re pushing yourself to the breaking point, you need to find a way around it. Let your wife do more for you—or try to do more for her sake, I don’t know. I’m not… good at knowing what to do there. But I know you need… something.”

Wyett looked at his sister in shock and then sighed. “I… I know, I’m not well. But I…” He looked down at his hands, which were shaking. “I’m not sure how to be anything else.”

Tenrayce put her hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know either, but I know I’ll help however I can. The rest of your family will as well.”

“I’m just so…”

“Afraid and angry?”

“…Yes.”

“Even I can tell that.” Tenrayce shook her head. “It’s not a good place to be.”

“I… I know. It’s getting… exhausting. But I don’t know how to do anything else…”

“I really wish I could help you…” Tenrayce folded her arms. “Going off what Mom and Dad taught us, I think… you should just be more open about those feelings with everyone, and not hide behind shouting about policy? Maybe? I… I’m just extrapolating here.”

“…I think I’ll talk to Via about it.” Wyett nodded his head. “She just seems to… get this.”

“Dumb as a rock, pure as a dove. I do hope she’s enjoying the launch. If it hadn’t been for this meeting, I would be there.”

“Politics are always getting in the way of what we want to do most.”

“You still want to be a bard?”

Wyett laughed. “By Dia, no! That would be just so… silly, at this point.”

“Interesting.”

“What do you mean, interesting?”

“Oooh, doubly interesting, you don’t know what I mean.” Tenrayce smirked.

“Tenii!”

Tenrayce’s laughter increased, and Wyett couldn’t help but chuckle himself. For a moment, all the strain of the situation melted away from the Prince and the Princess.

That moment did not last long enough.

There was a loud crash. A shout. A scream. A scream that both Wyett and Tenrayce recognized.

“Mom!?” Tenryace called out in shock. “Everyone, move!” She took off in a run.

“What’s Mom doing out here!?” Wyett shouted.

“She was on a hunt, could have been here!”

A few of the soldiers were of races faster than the Kroans, and so they overtook their charges, forming a circular ring around them. They would have made a more complicated formation, but there was simply no time—the scream had been close.

Even running through the forest with wild abandon, they could still hear it. The screams. The clank and creak of breaking metal. A wild howl that most would have thought was a wild animal but the Kroans knew was the battle cry of their mother.

They did not arrive at the scene of the battle. The battle came to them. Red blood and black oil spewed all over as Queen Riikaz fell through the canopy, physically wrestling a Ch’eni’tho that was missing three of its limbs, and given the sparking from the stumps those losses had been extremely recent. One of Riikaz’s legs was twisted at a decidedly unnatural angle, and one of her shoulders was clearly dislocated.

She nonetheless, with the dislocated arm, rammed a dagger right into the Ch’eni’tho’s core. However, she was using her other hand to hold on, and the Ch’eni’tho had one of his remaining legs directly above her head. The rigid no longer had any awareness to push the limb forward, for death had already come—but the two of them slamming into the ground took care of that. The knife cut right through the Queen’s forehead and dug a significant distance into the ground.

“No!” Tenrayce shouted, surrounding the entire area in Green magic, undoing the last moment. The skewered leg was removed from Riikaz’ head and the wound healed over in an instant. Tenryace stopped short of restoring the rigid, allowing her mother’s knife to remain embedded in its center.

Tenrayce ran to the form of Riikaz. “Mom! Mom! I’m here, I’ve got you, I’ve…”

Riikaz’s eyes were open. Her head showed no sign of the injury. She was even breathing.

But her eyes did not lock onto anything.

She did not react as Tenrayce kneeled down to her, cradling her head in her hands.

“Mom… what… I…” For once in her life, words failed the Princess. Just a moment ago she had been laughing with her brother, and now, it… her mind tried to come up with a way to categorize what was happening, but even simple assertions were too much for her. Any moment of analysis was left by the wayside, replaced with the present, unavoidable, dominating image of her mother’s blank face in her hands.

She was frozen.

She would never know if she would have been able to pull herself out of it, for Pepper came up. Tenrayce barely reacted to her… until she lifted up Riikaz’ hand and chopped it off in one swift motion.

“What are you doing!?” Tenrayce screeched with righteous indignation, ready to bring the fury of the whole Crown on Pepper for daring to do such a thing.

But then the part of the hand in Pepper’s grip turned to purple sludge.

“What…?”

Pepper threw the scythe into Riikaz’s heart. The previously unresponsive body suddenly became a writhing mess… that melted into amorphous purple sludge in a manner of seconds. Even the rigid did the same.

“Shapeshifter,” Pepper said, kneeling down. “This was all a ruse.”

“A… a ruse!?” Tenrayce’s sorrows were instantly replaced with anger. But she could think with anger. “Who would go through such lengths and why!?”

“I don’t know. I do know that this shapeshifter is dead. My attack should not have been able to do that, this was probably a suicide mission.” Pepper grimaced. “Dia, why do people do such terrible things?”

“Because of some kind of benefit, that’s why. They wanted us to think our mother was dead, if only for a moment, and…” Tenrayce paused.

Wyett was missing.

And so was the dragon.

She didn’t even need to ask. He had run off and taken the dragon.

The dragon was the fastest way back to Axiom. He would arrive long before she did no matter what.

“No… Wyett… Wyett!”

~~~

King Redmind stood in his personal chambers, looking at a picture on the wall. It was a painting of his wife’s village in the Wild Kingdoms. Her people were warriors who may have held a lot of territory and had much influence, but they chose to live simpler lives. Their houses were simple single-room huts made of whatever materials could be found; in this case, wood and straw. The trees towered above the huts, and the sun cast many beams upon the land below. And yet, the sun was not the dominant feature of the painting, that was the massive bonfire right in the center, around which the shapes of gari and greater unicorns were dancing, represented in the painting as little more than shadows. And yet, their joy was clear.

They were so different from the “civilized” land he ruled. Some days he entertained the idea of, after leaving the Crown to Wyett, taking his wife and going to live a simpler life for the rest of his days. A far-off dream, to be sure, and the Kingdom would have to be stable for him to allow himself such a luxury… but he could hope and pray that, one day, it would come.

A sudden sadness came over him.

“So… it is not to be,” he said aloud, looking up at the ceiling.

Then Wyett kicked the door in with bloodstained eyes, tears rolling down his face, and a sword in his hand.

Redmind was prepared for this. Ever since Wyett had been confirmed to be a singer, he had been mentally preparing himself to possibly fight his own son. He never went anywhere, not even in private, without his sword—and he was far more experienced with the blade than his son was. He met his son’s blade with his own and pushed him back.

This fist clash was all Redmind needed to know that his son was not being controlled right now. A controlled assassination would not have the subject flailing wildly, bawling, and screaming in deep, primal rage. He was being extremely sloppy in his swordplay and didn’t seem to care that he was leaving himself so open.

Redmind could have easily killed him with but a single strike.

“Wyett, what has happened to you?” Redmind asked as he nearly effortlessly swatted Wyett’s blade to the side.

“This is all your fault!”

“In a sense, yes, but surely we can talk this out rather than resorting to violence?” Redmind asked. “Son, I love you very dearly.”

“That doesn’t change what you’ve done!”

“Wyett, Wyett… please, stop.” Redmind could not keep the tears out of his own eyes. “You’re hurting me plenty already, surely…”

“This kind of pain doesn’t stop you from hurting everyone else! You are going to run this country into the ground! This entire family is in danger because of you!”

Redmind started to get a sinking feeling in his stomach as he batted Wyett’s sword aside again. “Wyett… what has happened?”

“She’s dead! Mom’s dead!”

Reldmind felt as though a sword had been driven through his heart. He stumbled back, hitting the picture on the wall and knocking it to the ground.

He didn’t even feel when Wyett’s sword actually plunged into him.

“I… should never… have let her… go…”

Wyett flicked the blood off his sword. “You… you… after all this, only now you can see that you were wrong!?”

Redmind was no longer even looking at his son. “Riikaz… my wild flower… oh Riikaz…” He coughed up blood, but it was as though he didn’t feel it.

“You knew full well that you were risking all of our lives! You knew it! You… Listen to me! Listen to me!”

Redmind’s head slumped forward and he stopped moving. But then, suddenly, he took in a sharp, haggard breath, and with great effort lifted his head to look Wyett in the eyes.

“W-w-wyett… I… forgive you…”

That was all the strength the King had left. Suddenly, he broke out into a smile before slumping over, not to move again.

Wyett stared down at the form of his father. His entire body shook. He turned to the side and threw up the contents of his stomach and proceeded to fall to the ground with so little control that he bruised his legs and cut a gash on one of his arms.

He pulled his knees to his chest and just… breathed.

Staring at his father.

He remained like this until Tenrayce came in.

She stood there, motionless, for several minutes.

“…I prayed, and prayed, and prayed that you hadn’t,” Tenrayce said, eventually, through her blubbering. “Begging Dia that you wouldn’t. That you couldn’t. That he would…”

“Tenii—”

“You don’t get to speak, murderer!” Tenrayce shrieked. “I should kill you right here, right now! An eye for an eye, a life for a life! I bet you’d even let me!” She pulled out a Red crystal and pointed it at his head, starting to heat it up.

Wyett made no move to resist.

With a scream, Tenrayce threw the crystal to the ground in front of Wyett, shattering it and sending multiple shards into him.

“That’s what they want!” Tenrayce shouted, throwing her hands into the air. “That’s what they want. They want the cycle of revenge, they want us to tear each other apart from the inside, that was the whole point! The whole freaking point! We’ve been played! Well, I refuse to be played any more!” She grabbed Wyett by the collar and pulled him up, pressing him against the wall. “Listen here, King, you get to live. Life with the guilt that you killed your own father for no reason. Mother isn’t dead.”

Wyett’s eyes widened.

“That was a shapeshifter. A trained shapeshifter. One who knew exactly how to act to make it seem genuine. A shapeshifter designed to debilitate me so you could run off and commit patricide! You were used and you have fallen to them. You were the link they exploited.”

“I…”

“SHUT UP!” Tenrayce shrieked. “Listen. Very. Closely. You get to live. You get to be King. Despite every fiber in my being telling me to rain justice upon you, to declare to the masses what you’ve done, I’m not going to do it. As far as everyone is concerned, there was just an assassin. One that you dispatched. You get to be the hero. But you’ll know the truth, and I will know the truth. And you are going to do everything I say. I will not let us be strung up like puppets in a show! I will outthink them and ensure that Kroan persists. They want to take us out, they think they can set us against each other… they’re wrong.” She threw Wyett to the ground.

Wyett could only look up at his sister with terrified eyes.

“Get up, King.”

Wyett stammered to his feet, using a wall as a support.

“You are going to do exactly as I say from here on out. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes…”

“Good.” She turned away from him… and proceeded to break down. “Oh, what are we going to tell Grandma? Mom? Via?”

Wyett paused. “…We can’t tell them the truth. Via… would break.”

“Obviously. Grandma wouldn’t, but I’m not sure what her reaction would be. And Mom…” Tenrayce paused. “Mom is going to go on a crusade of vengeance, as her people’s code dictates.”

“But…”

“If she knew it was you, she wouldn’t carry it out on you. But. We can’t have her know.” Tenrayce pressed her hands together. “C-R’s group is responsible for this, I am certain. This doesn’t match the rigid plague and Shimvale doesn’t have access to shapeshifters as far as I know, and even if they did, how would they have known how to mimic the rigid plague’s behavior? This was far too subtle… We will set Mom on the true villains.” Tenrayce started laughing. “They won’t be able to stop her! Mom…” She heaved and slammed her fist into the wall. “Mom is going to bring them all down…”

“Where… where is Mom?”

“I… I don’t know.” Tenrayce frowned. “We just assume when she vanishes like this that she goes hunting, but… it has been a while. She…” Tenrayce groaned. “Never mind, I know exactly where she is… Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Tenrayce kicked her foot into the wall, noticing that there was blood on it. “We need to get our story really straight here, Wyett.”

“…You tell me what it is.”

“You know the basics. Right now, we need to… think of a plausible way for an assassin to accomplish this that doesn’t implicate you…”

“…I’m a singer. Say security failed. Ask the others to figure out what story to spin to the masses to avoid revealing the song. It will explain… my… state.”

Tenrayce looked at him. For a moment, her gaze was soft. Then it hardened. “That would certainly do it…”

“What… do I tell Hyrii?”

“The same lie we tell everyone else. You don’t want her to think her husband is a cold-hearted killer, do you?”

Wyett whimpered.

“Thought not.” Tenrayce ground her teeth. “…Let’s start with how the timeline works, the troop that saw the shapeshifter are witnesses, and we can’t get rid of them…”

~~~

SCIENCE SEGMENT

The force of gravity on the surface of Earth is constant.

The moment you get all that far away from Earth, however, it becomes very obvious that the force is not constant. In fact, that force is exactly GMm/r^2, where G is the gravitational constant, M and m are the masses of the two bodies involved, and r is the distance between them. In most cases we care about, one mass is significantly larger than the other one. This is even true in the case for the Earth and the moon, the Earth is around 80 times more massive!

From rotational motion, we know all circular motion is due to a constant force pulling toward the center, and that force is equal to mv^2/r, where m is the mass of the smaller object in this case.

So, we set these two quantities together. GMm/r^2 = mv^2/r. Well, note that the smaller mass is on both sides, so we can divide it out. GM/r^2=v^2/r. We can also divide out a factor of 1/r, since it’s on both sides, giving us GM/r = v^2.

So the velocity of a circular orbit is the square root of GM/r. Granted, Blue doesn’t know this since she doesn’t know the law of gravity, but what she does know is that there is a force produced by Ikyu, and that it’s changing with distance. She will rather quickly be able to find at this point that it scales according to 1/r^2, and that the Moon’s speed is more or less exactly what it is expected to be for this change.

However, she was originally right to assume that large things in space move oddly, it’s just that the moon is not large enough with respect to the Earth! If the moon got significantly larger we would not be able to say that it was moving in a circle around the Earth, but fortunately in space we only rarely run into situations where there isn’t one mass that is much larger than all the others. The moon around the Earth, the Earth and planets around the Sun; all have roughly circular orbits and speeds.

Now as we know technically every orbit is an ellipse and not a perfect circle, but it’s close enough for this calculation to be pretty accurate.