Flashpoint

Flashpoint

Chapter Six:

'Adventures in theory-crafting reality'

Twilight suppressed a sigh of fatigue as she teleported, dropping Kite and herself in the courtyard in front of her tower at the Keep. The Sun was just starting to dip behind the ridge to the west, painting the Keep and its grounds an ever-deepening shade of orange.

Kite looked over to her charge, and saluted. "If you need me, I'll be down at the…well, I guess it's a landing field, now, checking over the preparations."

Smiling, Twilight shook her head. "I think I'll try to head to bed early tonight. Make sure you get some rest, too."

"Yes, Princess." Kite nodded, and moved off.

Twilight made her way up the tower. As she entered, she wondered at the quiet darkness of the lower levels, but then she recalled that Spike was scheduled to be in charge at the Ponyville library for a week, starting today. 'I suppose feeling like he's grown up too fast is silly, but I can't help it. Really, I've kept him as an apprentice archivist for too long…once all this excitement is over, I should free him up...I know he’s hoping to get a position in Canterlot.’ She continued upward, and smiled as she found that the upper floors weren't so quiet: Rainbow Dash's snores were reverberating through the living chambers.

The pegasus was sprawled out on the oldest of Twilight’s reading couches, mouth gaping wide with each breath. Twilight silently regarded her friend for a moment, looking past familiarity to see the scars, and the occasional line of age--smiles mostly, but also worry and anger and a familiar stubborn scowl. Far fewer lines than one might expect in a pony pushing 50, but…

Twilight blinked, and realized she was being a little creepy, so she gently nudged Dash's shoulder. "Hey Rainbow, you know there's a guest room, right?"

Dash snorted, and woke with her usual militant abruptness. "Mmm…hey Twi. … Yeah, but this has always been the best couch."

Twilight rolled her eyes and turned to the fireplace. "It still smells like ashes. You and Spike being so stubborn about it is the only reason I dragged it out from the ruins of the old library. You're so randomly sentimental," she finished with a smirk.

"Pfft. You say ashes, I say it's smoked and well-preserved!" Dash flopped off of the couch and onto her feet, then stretched languorously. "So…w'sup? You gonna tell me about the monkeys and their crazy metal airship, or go all 'state secrets' on me?"

Twilight sighed as she stirred the banked fire back to life, then moved the kettle which had been at the edge of the embers to hang directly over it. "Humans, Dash, not monkeys. And I won't hide it from you--you'd be learning the truth before too long anyway. I mean, you are a part of the 'state', technically." She fixed Dash with an arch look. "But this is a secret, and I don't want you telling anyone else yet. I'll tell the other girls myself, next time I see them, okay?"

Dash's ears went back slightly at her friend's serious tone, and she nodded. "Got it." She sat down at the low table the room offered.

Her warning given, Twilight realized she didn't actually know where to start. Her ears cocked to random angles as she pondered it, then she ventured, "Um…remember those old fantasy novels I gave you, way back when…the ones by Reignlein?"

Dash blinked, then gave her a funny look. "I…I guess so? You mean the silly ones with the sex and the space...aliens?" Her irises shrank.

"Yyyyup."

Dash stared. "Twilight…how much sleep have you been getting lately?"

Rolling her eyes she responded, "I'm not crazy, Dash. Their arrival was the cause of that wild aurora two nights ago. Besides, you saw their ship…do you really think any race on Alfheim is capable of putting something that massive and uniform together out of metal?"

"Well…not that I know of." She sighed, then looked suspicious. "Hey, wait a minute. How could some of them speak Equestrian, then?"

Twilight's cheeks colored slightly. "Ehh…I might have cast a somewhat inadvisable translation spell on a few of us and them yesterday. It sort of…dumped the language parts of our minds in a pot, swirled them around, and then put 'em back." When she saw how Dash was looking at her, she hastily added, "I got impatient, okay? I…I really wanted to talk to them, and was a little scattered after that fight with the hydra." She avoided Dash's eyes by concentrating on removing the kettle, then pouring two cups of tea.

Dash, for her part, was silent as Twilight added one cube of sugar to her own cup, and three to the pegasus'. As Twilight brought these to the table, Dash cleared her throat.

"So then those were weapons I saw them carrying, and on their ship...?"

Twilight looked surprised, but she nodded. "They're quite formidably armed, even without the ship. Though they did need the ship to finally drive the hydra off."

Dash gulped, then stared down at her tea. "You…seem to be taking this in stride."

"Well…I don't think they mean us any harm. It's just a cargo ship, Dash--I even sampled some of their wares today, and I think we can do business with them, beyond just providing them friendly help with repairs, and they're going to let me have some of their library!" She forced herself not to go starry-eyed at the thought. "I know they have weapons, but so does every griffon or lycan ship we've ever seen..."

"I guess…" Dash started, and then took a sip of her tea. She then shot a worried look at her friend. "They're bringing the ship here, aren't they?"

Twilight almost shot tea out of her nose, before blinking rapidly at the pegasus. "How did you know?!"

She snorted, then pointed at her forehead with a wingtip. "You should know better than anyone that I'm pretty observant when I'm in the air, yanno," she said with a smirk, then gestured towards a window. "Like, of the size of their ship, and the fact that the area your guys are clearing and leveling out is a good bit larger than that."

Twilight's blush was enough answer.

"I just…" Dash paused to collect her thoughts. "…I dunno. Call me paranoid, but I worry that the whole 'mind meld' thing might be messing with your judgement. We've run into magic that screws with ponies' minds so many times, even magic that seems like it should be harmless…" She shrugged.

“Well, I would hope with all of our experiences, I’d notice if something was wrong with us.” She rolled her eyes, “I mean, Kite still seems as wary and protective as her father.”

Dash shook her head. "I'm not even saying it would be malicious, or one-way. Maybe they're trusting you more than they normally would.” She grinned. “And we know that's fine, because we're totally nice and trustworthy, but for us…?" She trailed off, staring at the swirling of her tea leaves.

Twilight considered the statement with a slight frown, silently trying to evaluate her own mind. Finally she sighed, drawing Rainbow's gaze back upwards. "I get what you're saying, Dash, and…I guess it's possible. Hay, if anything they have good reason to mistrust us." She looked embarrassed again. "The spell…sort of knocked their Captain out cold for a few hours."

Dash gave her a sardonic look, and commented, "I guess that’s something good, no matter the cause. If they didn't attack you after that, they can't be too violent."

She snorted, arching an eyebrow. "Them being so forgiving of a certain pegasus' right hook is another good sign."

"Yeah…sorry about that."

Twilight shook her head. "You were just worried about me, and a bit addled. It's fine." She took a sip of her tea, and smiled. "I suppose I should be thankful you've gotten a lot more level-headed over the years--time was, you would have somehow gotten inside the ship, and half the crew would have been sporting bruises by the time I found you."

Dash smirked. "Yeah, well, nowadays I'd end up seriously hurting someone if I went off like that, so I gotta be more careful. Stupid magical canoodling."

"Ohhh, shush, you. There was always a responsible Rainbow Dash, deep inside you, waiting to come out!" Twilight winked at her.

"Riiight." Dash yawned, then rose from the table with a stretch. "Well, this responsible Rainbow Dash should get going before she stays the night and the patch-job on her house springs a leak."

"Oh right, let's get you that cloud…"

The pair went down to the supply warehouse, nudged the dozing night clerk awake, and retrieved a fair-sized chunk of structural cloud that was used for emergency support on some of the most damaged sections of the Keep. Dash nosed it out into the courtyard, hopped up into a hover, then turned back to Twilight.

"So, I really do hope I'm just being paranoid, but…that huge ship with all its weapons, sitting right here on your doorstep. Just…be careful Twi, okay?"

Twilight regarded her friend for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, I'll take some precautions." She smiled. "See you soon?"

"You know it." She swooped down for a hug, then scooped up the cloud and zipped off over the Everfree, towards Ponyville.

Twilight watched until her ethereal trail faded away, then glanced around the Keep grounds, now lit only by fireflies and crystals. She sighed at a brief thought of her comfy bed, then trotted off towards the 'landing field', in search of Kite.

--

Olivia rubbed her eyes and briefly entertained thoughts of her bed. ‘Too much to do, too little time.’ She sighed, and returned to the virtual pile of reports on her desk. Cryogenics were working fine. The spot reinforcements on the outer hull were nearly complete. Enough Gatekeeper turrets were now ready to party that she felt a little more secure, even if the Icarus turrets weren’t usable, though she’d still be happy to get out of this bog.

Aside from that, she’d been doing what she could to shift the ship towards a more-military footing: moving hidden ammunition stores into place, checking over guns that had only warded off dangerous debris for years, and beginning the slow process of prepping the axial gravity gun to go back online. It was only made more trying by the continued presence of Stone Wall, but she’d made sure someone was always keeping him out of the way during anything sensitive.

‘And he has proved useful in other ways. I still can’t believe he straightened that lateral support by himself...’ She briefly pondered how useful the Equestrians could be in warfare, but then stopped, feeling guilty. It dawned on her that she didn’t want to see these people exposed to some of the horrors of humanity. Despite their obvious experience with combat--those weren’t toys the Princess’s guards were carrying--they seemed relatively sheltered. ‘Maybe that’s just because they’re so adorable at times.’

A chime blew up her already derailed train of thought, and she blinked before switching a screen over to show Lydia and Anatoly standing outside her office. ‘Hmm...’ She keyed the door open.

“More reports?”

“Among other things,” Lydia said as the two stepped inside and sat down. She glanced over to Tolya, then continued when he said nothing. “I’ve got the gun we burnt out carving up the hydra working again. That puts all of the dorsal and lateral guns online...ventral is another matter. Won’t know just how bad it is until we’re out of the muck, but my gut says we’re coming out of this with no spare parts left, and probably still not at full capacity.”

“Hmm...could we use locally produced parts?”

Lydia looked thoughtful. “I don’t know, but I’m a little skeptical. The parts we’re likely to be short are the big ones...do you really think they’d forge a cannon barrel for us?”

“...Maybe not.” Olivia sighed, and shook her head. “Hopefully everything else will go smoothly and it won’t matter once we get back home. Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Lydia said, “I had a couple of guys run the recordings from last night through the Astrogation system, and, uh…”

Olivia raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I know it’s not actually possible these days, but if I didn’t know better I’d say the system got upset with us. It has a few weak guesses for where we’ve ended up, but it objected to a bunch of different things in the night sky, and then it saw that weird moonset you mentioned earlier, and...well, it basically ragequit.”

“Great.” Olivia sighed. “It won’t be easy getting home if we can’t figure out where to point the directional beacon antenna.” She looked over at the Russian. “You’ve been unusually quiet, Tolya. Ideas?”

He looked blank for a moment, then glanced at Lydia before saying, “Once main power online, could rig up gravity gun for orbital launches, send up satellites. More viewpoints much better for Astrogation, yes? Gives parallax, can discard near-field...”

“Hmm, good call. Both of you get some people working on the satellites, so we’re ready for launch when the mains come online.” She squinted at him as he nodded absently. “What else, Ruskie? You seem out of it.”

“Mmm, yes.” He looked uncomfortable, then started, “First thing is APU...is pretty well fine-tuned now, just down to grid-search of last few decimals.”

Lydia ventured, “Isn’t that a good thing? Or wait...you said the reaction might be less efficient here?”

“No, no, this is thing: reaction is vastly more efficient. Power output ranging fifty to seventy percent above standard, depending on load level. Is…” he paused, then fixed Olivia with a look “...is running smoother than ever before...than any reactor, ever.”

Olivia crossed her arms. “So, what? You’re saying this weird field here is making it work better?”

He shook his head vigorously. “Is epiphany I have, yes? I look at equation Princess gives, I work out details, I see how reactor is behaving…” his fists clenched “...is like this is how things should be.”

Olivia glanced at Lydia to see a mirror of her own bemused skepticism, but before she could say anything, Tolya pressed onwards.

“I even look at implications for standard model, from what Sparkles says about weak force. Allowing for interdimensional parity conservation is...is beautiful. Fills in holes that even pre-Eschaton systems could not.”

“Wait wait wait,” Lydia said, waving her hands, “what exactly do you mean by ‘this is how things should be’ and ‘beautiful’? What are you implying here?”

Tolya fell silent, then nodded. “I have begun to think that perhaps it is here, near Alfheim, that laws of physics are unchanged. Is simpler, cleaner, more efficient, more elegant. But implication would be that everywhere else--everywhere humans have been--laws have been tampered with.” He looked vaguely angry. “Either way, is unsatisfying. Disturbing.”

Olivia and Lydia both stared at him for a long moment, then Olivia gave him a worried look. “Are you feeling okay?”

“No.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “That is other thing. Or rather, I feel good, but this is making nervousness." He made a vague gesture before he continued, "You know I said during APU ignition, that what I did, what we did, was impossible, yes?"

"Um...right. Doing all of that math, getting it working in minutes?"

"Not just math, but seeing what math meant. I am competent engineer," he smirked, "perhaps more than competent, but I am not theorist or savant. Is taking years of school, practice, experience to become good."

Lydia ventured, "Okay, but...couldn't you just have gotten lucky? You don't need to be a savant to have the occasional moment of clarity."

"Yes, yes, is possible once in while, da? But these things I speak of: the elegance of plasma here, the simplicity of standard model, weak force interactions--ë moë! I have never even studied particle physics! Yet is easy, now. Everything...is easier." He rubbed his temple, looking agitated.

Holding up a hand placatingly, Olivia said, "Alright, so, something's strange...could it have something to do with Twilight's translation spell?"

He shook his head. "Is also first thought; but, I think is not just me. I see same thing in LaForge, maybe also in others. Different in details and intensity, da? But same."

Feeling a headache coming on, Olivia rubbed at her eyes again.

Lydia glanced between the two of them, then spoke up, "I...I want to say something, but it brings to mind a worry that's been stewing in the back of my mind for a while now." When she saw she had their attention, she continued, "What I want to say is that we should ask Twilight about this tomorrow." She crossed her arms. "And what I worry is that I...and maybe all of us, are trusting these ponies too much, too easily."

Olivia looked at her thoughtfully.

"I mean, they're cute, right? And they helped us against the hydra, sure, but...even if she didn’t mean it to, who knows how that crazy translation spell could be affecting us? And as far as trust, well Twilight’s only one of their, their-"

"Rulers slash demigods?" Olivia interjected.

Lydia waved affirmatively at her. "I mean, maybe I'm just being paranoid, and even hypocritical given how much we're hiding from them, but..." she sighed "...honestly, this magic crap scares me, and now the Russian is saying even more peoples' minds may be getting messed with..." She shook her head, trailing off.

Tolya shrugged. "Is strange, yes, but...not really detrimental, da?"

"Not yet," Olivia added, then sighed. "I get what you're saying, Lydia, but...at this point I don't think we have a choice. Whatever's happening, everything that's going on...we need help to get back home, at the very least somewhere to do our repairs, and it's not like we have other options: we're smack-dab in the middle of Equestrian territory." She shook her head. "I'm not going to turn down extra help, either--not with a war on."

Lydia looked at her helplessly for a tick, then nodded.

"That said, stay vigilant. Both of you keep looking for signs of more people being affected mentally, and report any new symptoms." She glanced between them, then nodded towards Tolya. "I will ask the Princess about it tomorrow, but only mentioning what you've experienced. We'll see what she says." When they both acknowledged this, she asked, "Anything else?"

Tolya stirred. "One thing. I have Bishop checking over results because he is not seeming affected mentally so far, but is looking like we could move ship under APU power."

Olivia stared at him. "How is that possible?"

"Multiple things. APU output seventy percent greater at high draw, gravitronics seem to operate more efficiently here, atmosphere should be good for thrusters..." He shrugged. "Is choice. We would have plenty capacitor margin for move by tomorrow, noon. Charge for main reactor ignition, not for two more days, or three if we move. Would be easier with shore power, but..."

"But we’re not likely to get that. Still, if we move, we could be doing other repairs while that charge is building..." She stared at the ceiling, then nodded. "If Bishop confirms, prep for the move. I'll have to ask Twilight to see if they're ready, but I think it would be best to get out of here if we can."

--

Twilight sighed, and sank into her bed, letting out a very un-princessy yawn.

It had been a few hours work, but any slight worries that Rainbow Dash’s words had dredged up were now thoroughly quashed. The combination of Kite’s skill at her own improvement of her father’s shield spell, and Twilight’s knowledge and power, bolstered by ancient buffers and foci still buried throughout the Keep’s grounds, had made for a defense Twilight was proud of. Once active, she doubted even the human ship’s formidable weapons could breach the perimeter around the landing zone, and in a pinch she could easily expand it to act as a defense against outside attack by the humans.

In her heart of hearts, she didn’t believe she’d ever have to use it against Olivia or her ship, but twenty-five years of missions and diplomacy had taught her how little her own beliefs could matter to some situations. It never hurt to have contingency plans.

--

Olivia lay in bed, still looking thoughtfully at the datapad in her hand, the ship systems status readout scrolling slowly down the small touchscreen. A big, wide universe, and this was where they ended up.

She knew the statistics. The dynamics that governed a blind jump were pretty simple: you moved until you passed close enough to a significant gravity well. Most likely, that would be a star, and you’d end up dead before you had time for a single coherent thought.

It’d been done before, and the ships like Minerva had been lost because of it.

It had been an order of magnitude less probable that they’d emerge near a planet. And they found themselves near, not just any planet, but a living, breathing, intelligence-bearing world? Somehow, they had found themselves in a place where they could get help, and where the rules were just different enough to stack the deck in their favor. And it happened by pure coincidence.

Or had it been?

Tolya’s theory about this world, and the laws that governed it, had raised some very uncomfortable questions for her. Questions that would have to be addressed sooner than later, questions that one purple pony princess in particular might be her best source for the answers to.

She keyed her tablet to transcribe her voice, and send the text to the crew. “Tomorrow, it’s likely we’ll be moving the ship to a safer location for continued repairs. This location will have many more of our new friends in the vicinity. Your best behavior is expected. In the event of any misunderstandings or confrontations, all system interfaces will be capable of calling a translator. Delay and deflect until such a person arrives. I know you’re all worried, but with this unexpected help, Caledonia should be spaceworthy within a couple of weeks at the outside. We’re going to get home.

Good night.”

That would do, she figured. Letting her head touch pillow and be done with a hard day was the better course of action from here out, but Tolya’s warning from earlier in the day kept coming back to her. They were better than they had been. She felt it too. Not in particle physics or manually calibrating a reactor.

She just felt better, better than she had in years Since before Russia, or the Moon.