My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

Mission Log – Phoenix Day 22

Okay, I finally fixed Xingguang's broken computer. It didn't take much effort actually - it didn't take long to find a unicorn here to take the computer apart so I could show the purple princess what the keyboard relay switch looked like, so she could Make a copy and replace the damaged part under the zero key. But it took three whole weeks...well...it's because we have been busy with other things during this time.

I still feel a bit uncomfortable seeing the title of the diary changed from "Sun Day" to "日". However, this is just one of many reminders; a solar day is a day on Mars, and the reason why "solar day" is replaced by "day" is that I have left!

Every day I realize again and again with a jolt: I am no longer on Mars. In the past two weeks, I have been in an alien world - a good kind of world, where I can walk around freely outdoors without wearing a space suit, and the leaves are swaying in the gentle and dustless breeze. Their songs are beautiful, and a dragon in a tuxedo serves you breakfast.

(I'm not kidding about the dragon in the tuxedo. There really is one. He's about a third the size of Fireball. Starlight said his name was Spike, and by the looks of it, seeing him was almost like meeting someone dressed in the same suit. The light blue unicorn in the wizard's outfit is just as excited...Sorry to go off topic).

Anyway, the last time I wrote my log, I was still helping with the final pre-flight inspections. You probably know what happened next. This launch went a little off track. A bit of magic went awry, a bit of human technology went awry, and a lot of imagination and communication failed to survive the test. So the final combined result is: we are trapped in deep space where TM can't be further away, trying to clean up the mess bit by bit, and then start from scratch to launch a second charge towards the target.

But the good news is that the Pony Space Program has detected the magic energy fluctuations generated - it has nothing to do with those boosters, they are too far away from our life-support system; the source is actually our small unexpected super Lightspeed interstellar journey. Sixty-four billion times of teleportation spells finally allowed them to obtain enough data and locate the approximate range of our universe. They first sent out a detector and experienced three failed jumps before finally discovering us.

But then it took them a while to get to our rescue. When they first arrived in our universe, they appeared roughly where they were in their original world—extremely low Earth orbit. They only stayed briefly, long enough to find our location and send a message. After that, they jumped back again and spent a few hours in the magic-filled home world across a vast void of more than 100 million miles. Finally, they jumped back to our zero-magic environment, almost bumping into us.

Obviously the docking port of their spacecraft does not match that of the Phoenix. They have a solution for this: use the claws of a giant crane to grab us whole, and then jump directly back to their universe. Once there, the ponies could use their spacesuits' own thrusters - which they had not used even once during their time on Mars - to transfer en masse to their mothership. In the context of psychiatrists discussing patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), this is an impressive experience...

"Mark, are you wearing your communication crystal?" Starlight Glimmer asked.

"Yeah, just... ah." Mark subconsciously patted the chest of his space suit, and then suddenly remembered, "I can't explain why, it's probably a habit; I don't have a battery now. We had to put it back in In the propeller, remember?"

"Mark, you have arrived in our universe now," Starlight said with a smile, "Put on your helmet and speak some pony language."

"What." Mark, who had half of his helmet on his head, was stunned when he heard this, "You actually want me to say a few words in your language this time. And, if it succeeds, no matter what I say, No matter what kind of dirty words you say, you can hear them in every house.”

"Maybe they are listening now." Starlight pointed to the headphones she was wearing and said, "That's it."

"Okay... okay," Mark reluctantly agreed, muttering to himself, "One small step for personal embarrassment, one giant step for human diplomacy." He put on his helmet to complete the seal and activated the life support of his space suit. The system (immediately issued a warning to him that the carbon dioxide filter element was saturated - MD, he should have brought some spare parts if he had known better), carefully recalled all the fragments of words that had drifted into his ears when the ponies were chirping privately in the past few months, " Communication check... I'm Mark Watney. Take me to meet Princess (butt)."

There were bursts of laughter on the channel, and then a deep female voice spoke. According to Mark's understanding, it was to the effect, "Don't worry, Princess Butt is ready and looking forward to meeting you." There was another slightly younger person beside him. Voice, laughing hysterically and barking.

"Okay, it's done," Mark muttered, "Are you happy now?"

"Be optimistic, Mark," Starlight comforted, "At least this time you technically didn't say anything bad."

"Really? Then what are they laughing at?"

"Uh... change the vowel sound of the word 'your' in our language to a tune, and it becomes the conjunction 'but'. The syllable at the beginning of the word also..."

"Starlight, this is a rhetorical question."

"Check the space suit." Fireball, who had been idle for a long time on Mars, finally waited for his time to shine. Of course, he must seize the opportunity to show off his skills at home. "Is the pressure normal?" After everyone has confirmed the seal and pressure After it cleared up, he ordered, "Mark, listen up. There is a small gap between the handrails of the Phoenix and the ladder of the Harmony. The crew members on the spacecraft will guide us there. We use our own jetpacks. Wait until I tell you Just hold my arm. We have me on one side and we'll take you on the other side. Just hold on and stay calm, okay?"

"Of course," Mark said indifferently, "I have also trained for space walking before."

"Okay," Fireball asked, "how many times have you walked through it?"

"Almost once." Mark admitted in frustration.

"Yeah. Then just hold on tight and stay calm."

After two rounds of airlocks, all six crew members moved outside the Phoenix cabin. After everyone came out, there were three figures floating around the Phoenix waiting for a long time, and the push packs were already in place. Mark was briefly envious of their bright, clean and flawless spacesuits, which shone in the sun. Unlike the Phoenix crew members, who were weather-beaten, dusty, and covered with mucus patches, they were also the only fragile barrier between them and doom. A sharp contrast.

Two of them looked like either ponies or changelings - their helmet visors were so brightly reflective that their faces couldn't be seen clearly; the third one was wearing a space suit with a pair of hands - or at least something on his forelimbs. Three fingers and a thumb. Judging from the concise and concise words of pony language that the other party pointed at Mark and then exchanged a few words with Fireball, this person was probably a male.

"Alright, Mark," Fireball switched back to English and said, "Follow me to the handrail. The gryphon whose name we call will come to help us after we climb to the top of the Phoenix."

It seemed that it was a gryphon.