Chapter 1: Stealth Is Not Enough
Chapter 1: Stealth Is Not Enough
“Stay vigilant 00 donut, and good luck.” –Nu
Staring down the long, steel gray hallway, I readjusted my posture and began walking.
Sneaking into the griffon occupied facility was easy enough. They might have keen vision, but their hearing is about as poor as anypony else. A knock-out spell to their spinal column was all that was needed to take the armed birds down. Considering their body mass, a spray ball full of sleeping gas wouldn’t have been as swift, and might have raised an alarm.
The layout of the facility was a labyrinth in of itself. I only had navigational blueprints of the facility contained in my hoof watch to guide me.
Only two more corridors...
Several offices lined the hallway with equipment panels strategically positioned for any maintenance pony to use. Security cameras hindered my advancement, having to wall hug dodging their field of view. Looking up, the ceiling was a massive network of cables and piping. Some brightly colored and labeled with warning tags such as:
WARNING HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS
and
HIGHLY FOCUSED ARCANE ENERGY DANGER!
No wonder the griffon separatists were attracted to this place, it has enough resources to make a balefire bomb!
I knew from my mission briefing that the facility belonged to Arcano Security, a defense contractor to Celestia’s Royal Guard. They specialized in personnel armor and reconnaissance devices, nothing close to weapons development. Nonetheless, this building had high strategic value. Even with several units dispatched to tighten security, the Griffons had the advantage.
The griffon separatists arose from a recent trade agreement between governments. The separatists did not agree that a free trade agreement should exist between griffon and pony kind. Some could say that a bit of ethnocentrism played a role.
Instead of causing a civil war, the separatists turned to terrorism. The capture of Arcano’s R&D facility was for a staging point against Canterlot. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough intel to determine their mode of attack.
Coming back to reality, I heard a couple of griffons from an empty management room on my right. A younger, mellow voice came from one of them:
“-Concentration of the toxin has been raised by 25%, we will have the final drones within the hour, Commander.”
My interest was piqued and I carefully moved toward the office. A gruff, clearly older sounding griffon spoke:
“Very good, this plan is already more lucrative than a nuclear winter…”
The second voice sounded very familiar. Seeking confirmation, I poked a hoof at my watch, enabling the voice recognition spell and it began to record while the older griffon spoke.
“Corporal, thank you for the update, you may return to your post.”
I clicked the spell off and let it upload the data for-
ANALYSIS COMPLETE
I smirked at the marvel of Rho’s engineering.
VOICE ID MATCH
2nd Cmdr. Baron Silverclaw
An image appeared on the watch’s holographic display. Baron was a middle aged, grey feathered griffon with several scars on his face and talons. My assumptions were correct, I had seen his face in the mission briefing.
He was also a dedicated war vet from another era, back during the griffon civil wars. His ideals were a relic and never once did he agree with the new trading treaty. Naturally, he would become the leader of the separatists. This, along with the fact that the corporal had mentioned something about a toxin being finished within the hour meant action was needed. Killing Baron wouldn’t entirely solve this.
Moving away from the doorway, I heard the corporal grab the doorknob. I reacted and stashed myself in the next available doorway.
He closed the door shut and began walking down the hallway from the direction I came. With haste, I emerged from the empty office and headed further into the depths of the facility.
Another turn brought me to a pair of heavy industrial doors labeled as “Chemical Research & Development Lab 02”. Several of the ceiling pipes that had followed me, terminated into this room. I stole a glance through the slit windows of the double doors to see four smock covered griffons with full beak respirators. One had a clipboard in his hands. All were standing around a glowing vertical viewing tank.
The tanks appeared to contain…Parasprites?
Come to think of it, Arcano had recently been developing cybernetic parasprites as recon drones. But the light coming off them would defeat their purpose of remaining hidden. What had they done to these drones?
I flashed back to the corporal mentioning toxins.
Could the cyber-sprites be a delivery system for a chemical/bioweapon?
The double doors were not airtight and lacked any warning sign requiring respiratory protection. Clearly, these separatists were jury rigging Arcano’s labs to create something they never envisioned.
Sliding through the doors, I noticed a pair of guards at the far end of the laboratory; another griffon was on my right at a counter typing away on a terminal. The guards were far enough away for me to remain undetected behind the snaking walls of equipment and pipes.
I moved with light steps behind the griffon at the counter. With a mellow glow of my horn and a tap to his back, he slipped into unconsciousness. I gently lowered him to the ground to minimize any sounds. Turning around, I made my way to the other griffon scientists at the tank of cybersprites.
Another step. Another step. While keeping my calm, I inched ever closer. I readied my horn and…
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.
All four griffons fell to the ground with adjoining thuds.
One of the guards coughed.
Damn.
The guards mumbled but from my perspective, they remained stationary.
I neared one of the tanks and investigated the pipes meeting them. One was a hoof-wide, red pipe and an explosion warning tag with hazard lines down the length of the pipe. This pipe went straight to the ceiling and stemmed all around the lab, back out to the hallway.
Confirming with my watch, the blueprints revealed that this particular gas pipe spread throughout the facility. Supposedly it was the heating fuel for most of the facilities experiments.
Perfect.
Reaching into my suit pocket, I pulled out a small satchel charge disguised as a coin with the gleaming faces of Celestia and Luna on either side. I gave it a click and levitated it underneath the tank next to the red pipe.
Standing back up, I straightened my bowtie and made my way toward the door. I put a hoof on the knob when suddenly…
“Ey! You! Identify!”
I looked over my shoulder to find one of the guards standing at the bodies of the griffon scientists. He began to draw his gun. I burst out the door and galloped down the corridor.
Security alarms roared as I flew down the corridor. I could hear the stomps of armed griffons coming down on my position.
Nearing a junction in the hallway, I spotted a door labeled as “Stairwell: Roof Access”. I almost knocked the door down and I flew up the flight of stairs. Baron’s forces were not two flights below me when they began to fire up the stairwell.
Sparks from the shots rang out behind me. Another level up and I was at the roof door. Only to find it locked with a spell matrix.
Not a problem.
I gave my watch another tap and a green beam shot from the watch. A second later, the lock was overridden and the door swung open. I passed through and locked the door behind me.
Running out onto the gravel cover roof top, the crisp mountain air breezed through my mane. It was almost dusk.
DI-DANG.
The door busted off its hinges, griffons erupted and lined up in firing position. I turned around They cocked their guns and were about to let loose. They instead, split and Baron walked out between them:
“Well, well, well, would our suited guest like to introduce himself before being blown to oblivion?”
I responded with:
“The name is Mane, Con Mane.”
Another tap to my watch and…BEEP
The whole building began to shake violently, several explosions cascaded throughout the levels.
“Well Commander, I’d love to stay and chat but you seem to have a timely demise awaiting you”, I remarked.
I threw off my suit’s jacket revealing Rho’s special toy, the arcane levitator pack. A quick focus of my magic into the device levitated me with great speed and precision.
“FIRE!”
A volley of gunfire rained in my direction, but I was already out of reach, hovering away from the facility.
In the distance I heard, “DAMN YOU MANE!!!”
Boom
I cocked my head back to see nothing but a green fireball erupting from the facility, glowing all the nearby mountain ridges.
I flew west toward the sunset, back to Canterlot.
“Some say that you can start anew. Unfortunately, that was never the case for me…”
END OF CHAPTER 1
Chapter 2: Our Professions are our Masks
Chapter 2: Our Professions are our Masks
I arrived back in Canterlot right as the sun hid itself behind the horizon. The city lights began to come on, and when they do, they are bright. Bright enough to be seen from space, perhaps it is as bright as Las Pegasus. The magnificent spires of Canterlot Castle skimmed the edge of the atmosphere. Overall, it was a beautiful skyline.
Out of the crowd of buildings, I spotted Cosmos’ headquarters. Disguised as a modest office building, it hid a valuable organization within its steel walls and glass panes. It was placed away from the castle to make it less of a target in the chance of an attack.
I gently floated down onto the roof with the levitator pack controlling my descent. Once I landed, I trotted over to the rooftop door and knocked.
One...Two…Three…
I put an eye up to the peephole and place my left hoof on the surface of the door. A narrow red laser ran over my retina while an RFID scanned an ID chip in my hoof. BEEP.
Access Granted
The door slowly opened. To the untrained eye, the door looked to be a relatively thin door; however this door was a couple hooves thick. I stepped through with the door creeping shut behind me. I began to head down the stairwell.
The security system logs every entrance and exit, so it was no surprise when Nu’s voice came over my watch.
“Good evening Double oh Donut, file a report and meet for debriefing at 0800.”
“Understood, a nice talk over breakfast perhaps?” I suggested.
I could imagine her smirk when she said, “Perhaps we can, but until then, good night.”
“Good night.”
I clicked off the watch and proceeded to crew quarters.
The next morning I went up a few floors on the elevator to Nu’s office. A good night of sleep rejuvenated my mind and charisma. The door opened up to Nu’s secretary, Scarlet Letter. She was a young, amaranth coated unicorn by all accounts, attractive. I approached her desk and greeted her.
“Good morning, Ms. Scarlet.”
She looked up from her work and brushed back her purple mane; moving a single red strand from in front of her eyes. She smiled a radiant smile.
“Why good morning Con! I take it you did not take home any souvenirs from your mission?”
“Well, I may need a tailor, but no scratches worth mentioning”, I responded jokingly.
“That’s great to hear! I’ll go ahead and send you in.”
She buzzed Nu.
“I’ll see you later Con.”
I politely nodded and went through the double doors into Nu’s office.
It was well furnished, a few planters her near the windows. Shelves and cabinets lined the walls. The main centerpiece of the room was Nu’s desk, which was meticulously carved with exceptional workmanship. The top of it was adorned with several objects including the equestrian flag.
“Good day, Double oh Donut, can I get you something? Coffee? Bagel?” Nu offered.
What? No donuts?
Despite my disappointment, I requested for some coffee.
Nu backed away from her desk and walked over to a cluster of shelves that held a coffee brewer. I could smell the fresh coffee scent across the room while Nu began to pour.
Nu was a marble-grey colored earth pony with a short brown mane She had some age to her, but not enough to be called middle-aged. Most of those years, she was a brilliant intelligence analyst who served on the Royal board of advisors for the Princesses. Her cutie mark was proof of her talents, being a small magnifying glass overlaying streams of numbers.
Some of her envious colleagues joked that her cutie mark should make her a private detective for ponies back in her home city of Trottingham. Despite the jealous banter, she remained resolute in her work. This eventually led her up the ladder to being the leader of Cosmos.
She turned around and extended a hoof with a freshly brewed mug of coffee. I floated it over and toke a quick sip. Satisfied, I looked up. She began to speak:
“Excellent work with the Griffon Separatists. Did you discover what their plans were?”
“For their grunt like behavior and crudity, they have a way with modifications. They altered Arcano’s cybersprites as a bioweapon,” I responded.
She glanced back at her desk at her monitor, and took another sip of coffee.
“I see, and destruction of the facility was accomplished. Our gents in PR have released a cover story saying it was a catastrophic laboratory accident.”
“One large insurance bill for Arcano,” I remarked.
“Double oh donut, with all the property damage that you have done over your career, you’re fortunate that Equestria even has the funds to pay for it all,” She rebutted with stern eyes.
Touché.
She sat back down in her desk.
“For the time being, that is all Con. I will contact you once your next assignment comes up, you are dismissed.”
I nodded and set the half-drunk coffee mug on her desk. I trotted back toward the door and cocked my head back.
“Thank you for the coffee.”
She acknowledged, “Anytime.”
I pushed the door open and proceeded down the elevator.
Morning.
The weather was truly nice, mild and sunny. I had picked up a few flowers while walking down 7th Avenue. It had been atleast a year since I visited Canterlot Memorial Gardens, in my opinion it was a little too long.
Either way I was pleased to see that Mom and Dad’s graves were still in good condition, the lettering was still very legible.
In Memory of
Pepper and Monique Mane
I gently floated the flowers in front of the headstone and gave a moment of silence.
“Mom, Dad, It’s me, your oddball son.” A sentimental smile came over my face.
“I know it has been a decade, and both of you would probably tell me to move on. But, I still miss you all the same. Everything is still well with me and I hope both of you have been resting peacefully.”
A light breeze rustled through.
“Thank you again for everything.”
Bzzz. Bzzz.
I slowly turned away and looked at my watch. Scarlet had sent a message that Nu requested me. I looked back down at my parent’s graves and closed my eyes. The sounds of the cemetery were very tranquil.
I took a slow, deep breath and turned around, leaving the cemetery. Returning back to reality.
“You’ve got to let these things go, life still goes on.”
END OF CHAPTER 2
