Flashpoint

Chapter Three:

'Side Effects May Include...'

Dizziness, Dry Mouth, Headache, and Fluency in Russian. Do not cast while operating heavy machinery.

Kite Shield glanced over at the bipeds as she turned away from her field medic. The strange people seemed to be finishing up their own triage, as all the injured had been carried back into the metal behemoth that the Princess had dubbed a ship. The one who appeared to be in command was now chatting with a few others, and looking the ponies’ way. Kite walked over to Twilight, who was frantically scrawling on a piece of scrap paper with a graphite stick.

“Uh...Princess?”

The only response was some muttering about metal fatigue.

“Twilight?” She tried a gentle nudge of her nose against the alicorn’s shoulder.

“I’d need to measure the specific heat…”

“Auntie!”

“Buh?!” The Princess finally looked up, and focused on her niece. “Do you realize how many shots that, that...repeating cannon thing fired? The energy there...the heat buildup! Even our best enchanted metals would melt or shatter…”

“Uh, yeah, that’s great and all Princess, but I think we’re about to make some new acquaintances…maybe you can ask them about it, if they’re friendly?”

Twilight blinked, then looked towards the bipeds, and her cheeks colored ever so slightly, “Right.” She blinked again, and looked back to Kite, “How are the wounded?”

“Not too bad. Truncheon took a good swat from the hydra’s tail that’ll leave a mark, but he’s in no danger. Valkyrie’s right wing got wrenched, so she’ll be hoofin’ it home.”

“Okay, good.” She glanced around, then nodded towards an area past Kite’s right flank. “We’ll stand over there, away from the worst of the mud. Uhh, how many of us?”

Kite just perked her ears towards her charge, and shrugged a shoulder.

“Maybe three is a good number? Grab a guard. A-an earth pony--a pegasus randomly hovering might freak them out a bit.”

As her niece went to fetch an extra guard, Twilight glanced at the bipeds, and tried to settle her nerves. 'Alright, come on. Diplomacy. I can do this!'

***

“Just the three of us, Captain?”

Olivia glanced to Lydia, then Anatoly, and nodded. “Yes. We’ve still got the perimeter guards as backup, and they’ve seen what we can do. In fact,” she shrugged off her PDW and set it on a discarded thrust assembly that was sitting nearby, “after seeing what they can do, I doubt these would do us any good anyway.”

The two officers glanced at each other, then followed suit.

“Captain, about these things they do. It was...non-possible.” Anatoly looked almost offended.

“Yeah, well... According to everything I know, the failure of the fusion reactors is pretty out-there too. At this point, I’m about ready to throw possible out the window.”

She glanced at the horses, and noted their leader had pulled away, and seemed to be preparing to meet them.

“Three,” Lydia commented, as two others joined the horse leader, “great minds think alike?”

“Mmm...I don’t know how well this can go, but with our eye taps recording everything...I don’t know, hopefully there’s a translation agent or something in the deep archives, and we can get started on opening up communication. Hell, maybe they’ve had contact with humans before...some of their equipment seems oddly familiar.”

“Yes, yes!” Anatoly perked up. “Their metal-work is seeming quite good! Would make repairs much faster and better if we can trade. Also…” he glanced around “...if we can relocate. This place make nice soft landing zone, but not so good for repairs.”

Olivia nodded, “Alright. Well, let’s see what we can do right now.”

They walked over towards the horses, and Olivia tried her best to project a calm, open demeanor. She almost blew it with a chuckle, as she drew near and recognized the almost child-like curiosity filling the Leader’s expression, and even body language. 'How can a horse look so damned...human?'

She tried to unobtrusively examine the creatures, seeing that they were actually very unlike Earth horses, seemingly built both sturdier and more flexibly, and with shorter faces, and absurdly large eyes. 'They’re also tiny. Not horses...ponies?'

Finally, she stopped at what she judged to be a reasonable distance, and when Lydia and Anatoly, came up behind her, she looked at the pony leader and nodded. 'Just need to get them to talk, so…'”Greetings. I am Captain Olivia Wrayburn of the TCS Caledonia,” she gestured back to the ship. “These are my officers, Lydia Harris, and Anatoly Ivanovich Dubrovsky. We’re...sorry about all the ruckus.” She paused, rubbing the back of her neck..

The leader seemed to smile at her action, and began speaking...

***

“Nnng. This is getting us nowhere,” Twilight groaned at Kite almost a half-hour later.

The bipeds had seemed to want a break, and had pulled back slightly.

Twilight sighed, “There seem to be surprising similarities in our facial expressions and even some body language, but I can’t pick out any real congruency with spoken languages I know...and I know most of them! There are certain fragments that almost remind me of one of the most ancient archaic tongues, but…” she shook her head, “I think I’m just hearing what I want to hear.”

Her niece looked confused, “So...what could that mean? Where are they from?”

“Well, I…” She glanced at the bipeds, who were talking between themselves, probably about the same things. “I’m not sure.” She thought back to her discussion with Spike only hours ago, and then blinked, “Wait!”

As her horn glowed, her right saddlebag popped open, and after a bit of shifting, The Diplomat’s Spellchest flew out. “I only glanced at this when it arrived, but I think I remember there being some sort of translation spell in here!”

She paged through the book, muttering to herself, “Dealing with hungry meat-eaters, Zebrican marriage rituals, shaking hands with the ephemeral...AHA! The Osmotic, Universal Communication-Helping spell!” She read through it, humming slightly. “Seems simple enough!”

Twilight’s horn was already glowing when Kite spoke, “Uhh, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“We’re never going to get anywhere at the rate we’ve been going! This will help a lot!” The Princess said distractedly, as she completed the spell forms in her mind, and committed them.

As she did so, the mild physical overflow from her magic acted to blow the book to the next page, and she glanced down at the red-outlined box at the top of it. “...Oops.”

***

Olivia sighed, and stretched. “Do you think we’ve got enough recorded? I’m running out of random things to say...I’m going to start reciting George Carlin routines.”

Lydia grinned at her. “That leader of theirs sure seems talkative. And she’s so clearly frustrated with the language barrier. Won’t she be surprised if we can get some real translations working quickly!”

Anatoly was staring blankly back at the ponies.

“Mmm…” she rolled her eyes, “I just hope we can find a reasonable agent when we get back. I’ve never really delved that deeply into the ship archives.”

“I’m sure there’s gotta be something,” Lydia opined, “I mean, I once found an old guide on programming in Java of all things. They just chuck anything and everything onto datacores these days…”

“Captain.”

Olivia and Lydia both glanced at Anatoly, then over to the ponies, where the leader was doing--whatever it was--while holding--no, levitating--a book.

“Oh boy.”

The tall purple one’s horn was glowing as the grass was kicked up in a wind around her, she seemed to be saying something to the pony beside her, before she glanced down at the book before her, and her face took on an expression of…distress?

There was a sudden flash as a wall of shimmering light appeared, expanding out from the purple pony. Olivia's hand instinctively went up to ward it off, but it passed right over her, and beyond. Out of the corner of her eye, she vaguely noticed that it stopped just before it would have encompassed the remainder of the ponies.

She was distracted, however, by a certain feeling...as if she had finally remembered a word that had eluded her for days. Then another word, and another. Then meaning followed--not just words and grammar but concepts, metaphors, a cascading flood of knowledge. She dropped to her knees, possibly with a scream, or maybe just a whimper, feeling like she might drown in a flood of language--it quickly grew too much for her, and she felt herself falling as everything went dark.

One word came to the front of her mind, right before she lost consciousness: ‘Equestria’.

***

Crewman Jones was pretty alarmed when the wall of shimmering light sprang out from where the Captain was meeting the funny-colored horses, in the distance. He was even more alarmed when he saw the three Caledonia officers drop to their knees, but then he noticed that the leaders of the horses were doing the same. He looked askance at the other two guards on his side of the ship, and raised his weapon slightly, but decided to wait and see.

***

"Owwww...seriously, who puts a warning label on the next page?!" Twilight held held a hoof to her head and dropped to her knees. She tried to glance around to see how the--humans were taking it, and noticed their Captain had fallen completely over, possibly unconscious. When she took in a glance at the ship and found herself wondering how the repairs on the thrusters were going, and if the hull was in one piece, she slammed her eyes shut.

"Princess...why do I know what pinkie finger is?" Kite sounded just as pained as she felt.

"Just keep your eyes closed and try to ride it out! The warning said the first bit is the worst, when the lexicons of everybody in the spell are all mushed together!"

"Good to know!"

Twilight nodded, then realized that hadn't been a familiar voice, and it wasn't speaking Equestrian...

***

Lydia groaned, hands still pressed against her eyes. The overwhelming press of information had stopped, and after a while--it could have been an hour for all she knew--she slowly peeked out between her fingers. The early afternoon sunlight was punishingly bright, but it wasn’t the worst hangover she’d ever had. She rolled off her side, and pushed herself onto her knees, thankful that this had all happened on a reasonably dry patch of land.

Glancing around, she saw that the--the ponies--were still looking rather incapacitated, Anatoly was starting to move, and the Captain was out cold. She moved over to Olivia and prodded her side, but it evoked nothing but a clipped snore. Throwing a nasty glare at the purple Princess, who had just started to move, she looked to Tolya, “How fares the Russian?”

He squinted at her from where he sat, arms resting on bent knees, and grunted, “Eh...is okay. Like bad night with ex-wife.”

Lydia chuckled, and shook her head, making herself wince. She then looked back to the ponies. The two guards--a sergeant and a Lieutenant--who had accompanied the Princess were at her side, helping her up. Oddly, the Princess looked the worst-off of any of them, apart from Olivia.

As soon as she was on her knees, the Princess looked to the humans, and Lydia couldn’t help but soften a measure upon seeing the look of sheer contrition on her face.

“I’m so sorry! I should have checked for a warning! I should have known a spell like that would have side effects!” She shook her head, then noticed Olivia’s sprawled form. “Is she okay?”

“She’s still breathing, at least,” Lydia responded, “but she’s unresponsive.” She prodded the Captain again, with no noticeable effect.

“Oh no…” She levitated the book to her from where it had fallen, and found the spell, then flipped to the red warning on the next page, and read it carefully. “Is...is she especially magically receptive?”

The human just stared for a moment. “Listen, uh...what do I call you, anyway, Princess?”

She blinked, then responded, “My name is Twilight Sparkle...just Twilight is fine.”

Staring again, she seemed to hold back a comment, then said, “Lydia. Lydia Harris. And listen, I,” she glanced at Anatoly, “we don’t really understand how you do a lot of what you do. We don’t have ‘magic’, we have science and technology. So, uh...I don’t know. Maybe the Captain could be ‘receptive’, I don’t even know what that means.”

Twilight’s ears pinned, and she looked back to the book. “Well, is she significantly older than you two? That’s the only other thing here…”

Lydia nodded. “She’s got about a decade and a half on either of us. Uh...about fifty percent older, that is.”

“Okay, well, it says an older, less flexible brain can be overwhelmed by the spell. It retreats to unconsciousness to protect itself, while the spell continues to work.” Ears rising, Twilight finished, “She should wake up with no ill results, though it may be a few hours.”

Lydia grunted, expression still showing dissatisfaction, and looked down at Olivia.

“Well...Captain would normally handle such things but, given current status…” The russian said as he straightened up, “I am ship’s engineer, not diplomat. Still,” he shrugged, “Is good to meet you, circumstances could be better. My name is Anatoly Ivanovich Dubrovsky, but…”

He hesitated, giving the princess an appraising look before his face broke into a smile, “You may call me Tolya.”

Twilight rubbed the back of her head with her hoof and smile sheepishly, “Well, to be honest… before all of this,” she said while gesturing to the regalia, “I was a librarian.”

The engineer laughed, “Ah, it seems we all have to adapt to situation we were not expecting.”

***

Lydia turned away from the medical team, who were watching over Olivia as a volunteer unicorn levitated her back towards the ship. Dr. Pritchard had agreed that the Captain seemed to be in reasonable health, so they could only trust Twilight’s--or rather, her book’s--claim that she would awaken unharmed.

She shifted her attention in time to hear Anatoly say, “So, you mean to say, is based on force-carrier particle interaction? We have study this, but requires high energy particle accelerator.”

“Well, we’re able to induce a resonant graviton wave, causing whatever object it’s focused on to levitate in the direction of our choosing,” Twilight replied. “It’s really an application of the gravitoweak cascade effect, since all direct magic is based on weak nuclear force modification.”

“Interesting…is not familiar effect, but implies with proper application of containment field, cutting array emitters could be modified to-”

Lydia noticed the earth-pony guard--introduced as Stone Wall--had a glazed look in his eyes. She looked over, and briefly met the gaze of the Lieutenant--Kite Shield, and they shared an unmistakable look that said “nerds,” before Lydia stepped up beside Anatoly, getting the attention of the two and breaking their technical conversation.

Twilight glanced around, her ears flattening. “Ah, sorry...how is she?”

“Physically, she’s fine. The Doc’s going to run a few more tests inside, then just let her rest.”

Nodding, Twilight said, “I’m sorry, again, I was just getting so frustrated-”

Lydia waved a hand to cut her off, “It’s done. And I’m sure the Captain will agree that being able to talk to each other will certainly speed things along, here.” She shifted her attention to Tolya, “In the meantime, while she's incapacitated, as the senior most officer I'm assuming command.”

Tolya simply nodded.

Twilight glanced between the two of them, then said, “Right. Um…I have to ask, though it seems pretty clear at this point...are you really from another world?”

“More than one world, even! Well… two worlds, hah!” Anatoly laughed.

The Princess grinned, “This is so exciting! We’ve had so many stories and theories about alien life, but I never thought we’d meet anyone from the stars.”

Lydia chuckled, and rubbed the back of her head. “Well, really you’ve just been stories and theories for us as well. This is the first world with intelligent non-human life we’ve ever encountered, or really any advanced life at all. Mostly it’s just been slime molds and plankton out there.”

Twilight huffed at that, then said, “So, hmm...what brings you to Alfheim?” She looked askance at the ship as she continued, “This...doesn’t exactly look planned.”

“We’re a cargo ship, making a routine run.” Lydia picked up a slight shift in Tolya’s posture at this statement, and thought, 'just play along, Russian'. “We had some trouble…”

Anatoly coughed, “Ah yes, we lost lock on navigational beacon during cut-in, ship jumped to random destination, and we end up here. Jump into atmosphere, reactor failure, crash landing, much chaos.”

Lydia blinked and turned to the engineer, “Reactor failure… power failure. Cryogenic freezers… Tolya how long will the reserve power hold?”

“Is not problem, now with solar backups deployed. Question, though.” He looked back to Twilight. “...though perhaps long shot. Are you knowing reason for fusion reaction failure?”

“Fusion? What do you mean by fusion?”

“Is controlled fusing of Helium-3 nuclei into Helium-4, using magnetic containment. Reconnection rate is… off, and possibly other things. Is not supposed to be possible.”

Twilight took on a faraway look for a moment, saying, “I...I understand the principle, though we’ve never built anything like that. I’ve got no idea what could be having that sort of effect, it’s all based on fundamental values.”

“That is part that is… terrifying. Problem seems to require different fundamental values… if that is case, is surprising our atoms even hold together,” he explained.

Lydia gave them both a skeptical look, before asking Twilight, “What about your,” she waved her hand vaguely, “magic...stuff. Could there be some sort of field from that, interfering?”

Twilight shook her head, “No, magic is generally short-range, and directed. There’s nothing in the area that would have the effect you’re talking about, and certainly nothing in the upper atmosphere, not to mention even magic usually doesn’t play around with things like fundamental constants.”

The Princess thought for a moment more, then looked doubtful, “Does this mean you’re stuck here?”

Tolya waved the thought away. “No, no, is flexible reactor. Should be able to reconfigure in a day or so. Is problem, however, hull and thrusters require repairs, plate replacements…”

***

Kite Shield stirred from simply observing the humans, to state, “Yes, your hull plates...we’ve actually got one of those back at the Keep, if we can manage to dig it out of the crater it made.”

The Russian looked at her with some alarm, “Is nobody hurt, yes?”

“Not by that one, but how many others did you lose on your way down? I can see several missing sections just from here.”

Lydia cleared her throat, “Ah, some of those were lost in the accident that threw us off course.”

'Sure they were...and what about that scarring that I can’t help but think looks like weapons damage?' Kite just nodded. “When we get back we could see if any other plate sections have been found in the area-”

Twilight interrupted, “But if not, I’m sure we could figure out suitable replacement materials.”

Kite smiled, saying, “Yes! Since you’re a cargo ship, you must have something of value in your holds to exchange.”

Lydia shot her a guarded look, while Twilight just looked exasperated. “Maybe, Kite,” she said, then smoothly turned to Lydia, “but I can also use crown funds to take care of it, in the interest of good relations!” She paused, and then grinned widely. “Of course, that said, there’s one thing of great value I know you hold, and that’s information.” Her eyes sparkled as she finished.

Kite managed not to roll her eyes, as Lydia nodded. “Yes, I’m sure we can offer quite a bit of that, though I’ll let the Captain decide the specifics. I know we’ll need certain information ourselves, particularly star charts. Depending on how far we are from home, it could take quite a bit of work for us to be able to lock on to a suitable navigational beacon.”

With another grin, Twilight said, “I can certainly provide star charts! I’m a bit of an astronomer myself, and I have quite a collection of maps and historical data.”

“Excellent.” Lydia glanced at Tolya. “The other thing we need, and somewhat urgently, is a landing zone.” She gestured back towards the ship. “There’s a good bit of her we can’t repair until we get her out of this muck, and even though we managed to drive it off, I’ll feel a lot better if we can get away from that monster…”

“Mmm, yes.” Twilight looked worried. “That hydra’s going to be pretty peeved when he finishes growing his new heads in a few days…”

The humans just stared at her.

“Hmm.”

Kite blinked, as the Princess turned to her.

“Kite, do you think the eastern clearing, where the old gardens and ballroom were, could fit the ship?”

'She wants to put it next to the Keep?!' That’s too close to home... Kite stared blankly as she processed the question, then looked to the humans, and finally their vessel. “M...maybe? We’d have to remove the ruins of the ballroom, but those were slated for demolition soon anyway. If we had the exact footprint...”

“We can provide that,” said Lydia, “if you’re sure you want us so close to home.”

Kite snorted at the echo of her own thoughts, then raised an eyebrow at Twilight, who shrugged it off.

“It’ll be fine! That will make trade negotiations easier, and besides, there’s no other clearing that wide nearby, and it would cause a lot more distress if we had you land out in the plains nearer to Ponyville…”

Kite sighed, but then found herself nodding in agreement. “It won’t take long for us to clear what’s in the way.”

Tolya spoke up, “Will still need to get main power online to move ship, is no rush on your end.”

Noticing the return of the unicorn guardspony who had transported their Captain, Kite gave her a significant look as she rejoined the rest of the guards. 'I wonder if she saw anything...interesting.'

“Well,” Twilight said, “if we get back to the Keep tonight, we can get some ponies started on clearing the field, and I can teleport back and have those star charts to you first thing in the morning!”

The humans merely stared for a moment, before Lydia ventured, “...teleport?”

The Princess was nodding in a satisfied manner, when Kite spoke up, “Uh, how many can you take with you now, Ma’am?”

Twilight looked thoughtful. “Hmm, only one over that distance...Stone Wall!”

The earth pony--who could very well have been dozing off--jerked to attention, staring at his princess. “Yes! I mean, yes?...Ma’am?”

“I’m going to leave you behind here, to provide assistance, now and when we get back tomorrow. It’ll help me keep a fix for the return teleport, too.” Twilight grinned at him.

Stone’s pupils shrank a bit, and he glanced nervously at the tall bipeds and their hulk of a ship. “Er...assistance?”

“Oh, just lend a hoof wherever you can!”

As the hapless guard paused, clearly trying to think of some way out of this, Kite pondered objecting to the Princess’s order, but instead studied the humans’ reactions from the corner of his eye. Anatoly looked like he was holding back laughter, while Lydia appeared to be on the verge of objecting herself. 'He could learn a lot if he stays behind…'

Kite cleared her throat, getting everyone’s attention. “You might be wondering what use he could be to you, but for one, all of my guards are well versed on the flora and fauna in this region. As well, if you’ve any heavy lifting or such that needs doing, you might be surprised at how strong an earth pony can be.”

Lydia considered it, then turned her gaze to the stallion and raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m fine with this if you are.”

Stone Wall stared at her for a moment, then glanced back to his princess and his lieutenant, before he coughed, and nodded, looking stoic. “I’ll do my best.”

Kite nodded. “Go tell Quarter the situation, and get some rations.”

After he saluted and moved off, the four remaining diplomats finished working out a few details…

***

They were well away from the crash site, slogging through muck and air that felt like pea soup, making their way back to the Keep, before Twilight spoke. “Well?”

Kite blinked, almost tripping over her own hooves, then looked over. “Princess?”

“You're sharp, Kite. What are your thoughts on Alfheim’s first visitors from space, and how do you think things went? Beyond the whole accidentally-giving-us-all-headaches-and-knocking-out-their-Captain thing, I mean.”

Kite started to speak, then ducked her head. “Mmm…”

Twilight nudged her gently. “Come on. Don’t hold back, I need your point of view.”

With a sigh, Kite spoke, “Though we’re obviously very different, I’m pretty amazed at some of the similarities between our people. Like you said, some of their facial features, reactions, even the gestures they made with their hands are astoundingly close to our body language.

“With the spell adding to that...well, I’d put money on them hiding something. Or a lot of somethings. I’m sure there were untruths in their story of how they got here, and I just don’t know how deep it goes. I think I believe that they didn’t intend to travel to Alfheim, but beyond that...

“I don’t pretend to know anything about space travel, but still, the amount of weaponry on their ship seems excessive, I could swear that some of the scarring on the hull looked like weapon damage, and they acted well-trained when fighting the hydra. I guess I find it hard to believe that they’re just a cargo ship...or it makes me wonder what exactly their cargo is.”

Twilight looked askance at her niece, studying her for a moment, but eventually just said, “Anything else?”

Kite huffed, and hesitated, before adding, “While I understand your logic, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with having them so close to home. Even their handheld weaponry frightens me, and the stuff on their ship…” She shook her head. “I felt a couple of shots glance off of my shield. I'd only be able to block direct fire from that thing for a few seconds, even at my best, and that was just one gun on emergency power!

“I just...Princess, I hope your excitement over what we could learn isn’t making you gloss over how dangerous they could be.” Kite looked to the ground, just watching her steps...and hoping she hadn’t overstepped her bounds.

Twilight was silent for a few moments, as she hopped over a fallen tree in their path, then continued on. Finally, she chuckled. Kite gave her a bemused look.

“Kite, I know how I can be sometimes, getting caught up in things. I mean, it's hard not to be excited when this could be the dawn of a new age for our people, if we handle it right!”

“Ah...but that’s what I mean, M’am.” Kite shook her head. “I worry that you’re expecting it to turn out like some fantasy book, like we’re going to be dealing with some utopian civilization, but I doubt any utopia would field a cargo crew so well-armed.”

Twilight nodded. “No, I get what you’re saying. But while I may have read a few too many fantasy space-travel novels, I think you’ve not read enough.”

“Buh?”

The Princess smirked, then sighed, her ears flattening. “Not every book like that has things turn out well. There are plenty of stories where space travelers come to conquer and enslave, or bring strange and terrible diseases. Plenty of authors have applied their imaginations to thinking up ways this could all go wrong, or ways outsiders could try to use us for their own purposes.”

She looked down, before continuing, “I mean, over the years I’ve seen so many ways that people from our own planet try to use each other. There’s no reason to expect that people completely foreign to us will necessarily behave any better.”

Kite frowned as Twilight fell silent, not used to hearing such realism coming from her aunt. “So, then...why?”

Twilight glanced over, then lightly hip-checked her niece, and smiled. “We can’t expect that they’ll behave well, but we can hope. Sure, they’re keeping secrets, but that’s only natural with strangers. We just have to hope that things turn out well, and do our best to make friends!”

“...And if it all goes to Hel?”

The Princess nodded, looking determined. “We plan ahead for that contingency. Speaking of which…” She grinned widely “...after you get some ponies started clearing the landing site, I’ll need your help setting up some strategic shields around it, just in case things get out of hand.”

Kite raised an eyebrow, then sighed. It was going to be a long night.

***

“What about the cryostatic fluid from the sleep pods? If we filled the jackets with that stuff-”

“Nonono, terrible idea, too cold, metal cracks...” Anatoly shook his head vigorously. “Who can say how long we are here? Should be plenty of fluid, but to take some? Does not sit well.”

Lydia stared at him for a moment, then sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. But dammit...’Liv had me get Icarus online, but those guns were never meant to be fired in atmosphere. We’ll get one shot and the gas expansion will blow the things apart. I need Gatekeeper more functional.”

“Mmm, mmm…” Tolya nodded, and thought about it, his gaze wandering.

He glanced first over to his ground team, who were refitting one of the last damage thrust assemblies. Satisfied, his gaze wandered to their ‘guest’, who had been directed to stand by with the nearest guard, Jones. They seemed to be chatting about something, getting along reasonably well.

He looked back to Lydia. “What about shorter bursts? How long to cool between, quarter-second of fire?”

She shook her head. “Almost thirty seconds, not really useful...hmm.” She raised an eyebrow. “Can we get at least a little power to a bunch of the Gatekeeper capacitors?”

“Ehh...will be a little inefficient to redistribute, and slow down charging for fusion ignition, but yes, it can be done.”

“Okay. I think I can work up a staggering logic for the entire system. There’ll be sectors with more coverage and less, but there’s enough guns to keep up a pretty good rate of fire, if all of them take turns.”

Tolya nodded. “Innovative. You think like Russian!”

She smirked, then added, “I’ll work up a list of turrets. Just give me...two bursts’ worth on them. I don’t want to slow the charging down too much, it’d be better if we can just get out of here before something else nasty comes along.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Before I forget…” Punching a few commands into a tablet, she threw him a worried look. “...I’m changing every command code I have access to, so sync up with me. As useful as the translation spell was, I don’t like the fact that the Princess was diddling around with our minds, and I’m worried about possible security breaches. I’m sure the Captain will agree.”

They each reset their security codes until Lydia’s paranoia felt slightly assuaged, and then Lydia nodded, and turned to leave.

“Errr…” Tolya hesitated.

“Hmm?”

“What about our little workhorse?” He jerked his head towards Stone Wall, who was nodding and grinning at something Jones had said.

“Oh.” She rubbed her eyes before saying, “Can you use him?”

“Hmm, perhaps. Would like to check ventral bracing, see how badly landing warped things, reinforce if necessary. Could put this ‘earth pony strength’ to test, yes?” His eyes glinted mischievously.

“Heh, sure. Just don’t break him, he’s on loan.” She waved, and walked off.

Author's Note

Alamais Notes: Thanks to ScyStorm for Valkyrie and Truncheon, and Arcshod for Stone Wall.

Jersey Notes: TOOK LONG ENOUGH DIDN'T IT!?!?!?