Perspective: Command (Hailey Markouski)

“We’re calling in our favour. The Chrysalis hive, which is the closest large hive to our own, has been killing our drones for too long. I want you to take out their Queen. If you do this we will be even. Their hive is located in whitetail woods by the train tracks on the western side. Be careful, they number in the thousands.”

Interesting, our debt to Queen Thorax will be cleared if we get rid of Queen Chrysalis? This will provide me with the perfect opportunity to start the infighting between changelings that I wanted.

The destruction of a major hive should, from what I've been told by Queen Thorax, cause a large amount of infighting while the other larger hives fight to fill the power void left by Queen Chrysalis' hive's destruction.

I redirect one of my infiltrators that was in the area to wander the area where Queen Thorax told me Chrysalis' hive is. I instruct it to allow itself to be captured but don't make it obvious it's doing so. Three hours forty-six minutes later it is captured and cocooned. I now have a fix on at least a storage area that is possibly near the hive.

I instruct the captured drone to make a full sensor sweep of its immediate area. The results come in and I finally have an answer as to why ground penetrating radar cannot find the hives. It appears as if the changelings are using some sort of natural resin that absorbs a wide variety of wavelengths. It must be secreted by a type of drone I have yet to see.

I update my battle plans to include instructions for my attacking force to capture any new types of drones and attempt to break their connection to the hive mind.

Based on scans of Apple Bloom when she was in medical after the mining incident I have developed a method of interrupting the link between the hive mind and a drone. I have based the initial tests off of a new model of drone, which I call the Model 2392 Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Revision 1.0) which was also based on scans of Apple Bloom.

I've made the colour of the "saddle" plate on it's back the same golden yellow colour as Queen Thorax's hive's. When I commit to my attack I will use drones marked with this colour as the only attacking force. This will make Queen Thorax's hive seem stronger than it really is, forcing her to rely on me for reinforcements if she ever gets attacked by one of the bigger hives.

I instruct the drone to catalogue any and all new types of drone and send me periodic updates. I will wait until I have determined what a combat drone looks like before committing to my plan.

******
Twenty four hours later I have finally catalogued four new types of changeling. From exterior scans I have estimated their functions to be menial labourers (the ones that secrete the resin), warriors (strangely i’ve never encountered one in a fight), the queen, and what I am tentatively calling praetorians based on the fact that they were escorting the queen.

I design and begin production of a new drone, the Model 2393 Assault Cyborg (Revision 1.0). I will be using these as the main assault force. I estimate I will be ready to assault the hive within five days of constant production.

******

Tuesday January 28th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 28th 15017 C.E.) 04:30

It is finally time to assault the hive. Something has been bugging me however. Through trial and error I’ve found a frequency that is not absorbed by the resin and mapped the entire “hive”. It’s made up of five chambers, one of which is full of strange crystals that emit waves of energy that I cannot identify. The other four are barracks and the queen’s personal chambers. What’s more? I’ve picked up 3476 changelings in this hive, but only 813 of them are warriors. The rest is made up of 2354 infiltrators, 292 menial labourers, 16 praetorians, and the queen. Since the Chrysalis hive is constantly fighting with the other hives there should be more warriors.

Nevertheless, I am going to attack the hive, the queen is there and I must destroy her. I transport my warriors to an isolated area of the woods near the hive and commence my attack.

My drones breach the hive and the fighting commences. The warrior drones are tougher than I had originally thought and I quickly start losing units. I analyse their battle strategy and upload new tactics to my drones. The new tactics work and I begin beating back the warriors. Before long I have gotten halfway to the queen. This is too easy.

I begin analysing their defencive patterns and find something interesting. The changeling queen seems to be diverting a significant portion of her praetorians and warriors to the crystal room. I take note of this oddity but focus on the queen. I am not very far away from the queen now.

I finally breach the queen’s defences but before I can get to her all of my warriors suddenly die in a large magical explosion. I analyse the pattern in which my drones died and find that the explosion originated in the crystal room. I immediately start getting reports of the explosion from my drones in the surrounding towns. I reassure them that everything is fine and that I’ve got everything under control. With that out of the way I get into contact with Queen Thorax and tell her the “good” news.

She is initially ecstatic when I tell her that Chrysalis is dead. However, when I recount what happened in the hive I can sense a great amount of fear over the hive link. When I finish my explanation of my attack she tells me that what we thought was a hive was in fact a love storage facility. They are incredibly rare since the crystals required to make them are very hard to come by and also very unstable. That magical explosion was from one of Chrysalis’ drones purposely destabilizing the crystals.

Even more concerning, Queen Thorax can’t think of a reason why Chrysalis would personally visit the facility since they are dangerous and purposely put far away from the hive because they might explode. The concentration of infiltrators however makes a lot more sense now because they would have been ferrying the love between the hive and the facility or dropping love off.

Most concerning of all however was the size of the facility. If the facility had almost 3500 changelings, how big is the hive? Or better yet, why would a prideful Changeling Queen suicide like that? I understand that destroying 2362 of the 5000 drones I committed to the attack would definitely be a major blow to any living hive mind that has to grow them, but to destroy them at the cost of her own life?

No, that just doesn't match up with the profile I've made of Chrysalis based on my encounters with her drones (Which, if her drones are anything like Thorax's, are a reflection of her personality). I must be missing something. I dedicate a processor to going over every last scrap of data from the battle, as well as all of my encounters with her drones, to find what I'm missing. I also begin drawing up battle plans. If this isn't the last I've seen of the Chrysalis hive I don't want to be caught off guard...

******

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)
Tuesday January 28th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 28th 15017 C.E.)
Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)
Scheduled wakeup time reached (07:00): Resuming previous session
Previous session resumed. Handing over control to local AI

******

I wake up and stretch. This week’s been good. Aside from the incident with Command being infected, nothing bad has happened at all this week. I guess we’re about due then.

I get out of bed and head downstairs. Mom’s sitting at the table eating breakfast, just simple cereal today. I pour myself some corn flakes and add some milk. Mom smiles and asks what my plans are for after school today, I just tell her I’ll be doing the usual and trying to get my cutie mark. I feel kinda bad about lying to her, but I don’t think “We’re going to visit Apple Bloom’s hive!” would go over too well.

Mom tells me to be careful, seeing as last Friday we kinda blew up a tree stump thinking it would get us our tree stump removal cutie marks. Applejack was not pleased with us, telling us we could have hurt ourselves and not to try it again. She ended up telling Sweetie Belle’s parents and my mom. We were grounded for the weekend.

I finished my breakfast, said goodbye to mom, and headed to school. When I arrived at school however, I noticed that Apple Bloom was looking very nervous. When she sees me she immediately requests a private conversation using her nanites.

I fork off a child process to deal with the outside world and open a secured ad-hoc channel to her nanites. “Something’s really wrong.” She begins, a hint of fear coming over our link. “A truce has been called by all of the other changeling Queens, and they’re discussing something, but we weren’t included in the discussion! There’s never been a truce before! What do you think is going on?”

“Has anything significant happened that might have scared them?” I ask.

“You mean besides Queen Markouski destroying Queen Chrysalis and her love storage facility?”

That’s news to me. “I didn’t know she did that. When did that happen?”

“How could you possibly not know, it must have involved a large portion of your hive’s forces to accomplish that!”

“Operational security, we are only told what we need to know during opps like that, obviously I didn’t need to know about that, seeing as I wasn’t involved. Just a second, I’m going to ask her about it.” I open a new standard priority connection to Command. After a few picoseconds Command accepts my request.

“What can I do for you Scootaloo?” Command asks.

“I was just told of a truce being called by the other changeling queens to discuss something, possibly related to the destruction of Chrysalis’ love storage facility, but Apple Bloom's hive wasn't included.”

"I see... It’s possible some of their spies saw my drones commencing the attack. I was using a new type of drone in the attack, it may have them worried. I am already looking into this development. Was there anything else you needed?”

“No, that was it, thank you Command.”

“You’re welcome Scootaloo.” Our conversation done, Command cuts our connection.

I turn my attention back to Apple Bloom. “Queen Markoski believes it may have something to do with the drones she used in the attack, we’ve never used that type before, and one of their spies may have seen them. She didn’t give me any reason as to why your hive would be discluded from the meeting though.”

I can feel Apple Bloom's apprehension over the link and send her comfort. I have a feeling we're not being told everything but I don't voice those thoughts. I have a feeling I know what type of "new drones" Command used and neither Apple Bloom nor her hive will like it. I feel a sense of grim satisfaction. Just one more nail in their coffin if they betray us.

Our conversation over, I sync myself with my child process and we head inside. I quickly find my desk and pull out some parchment and a quill, readying myself for class. Mrs. Cheerilee comes in and we all settle down. She seems even more chipper than usual, if that’s even possible.

“Alright class, today I have a very special announcement! Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Captain of the Guard Shining Armour have announced their wedding!"

This news causes me to perk up. The captain of the guard is getting married to the princess of love? Lucky guy. I can hear my classmates murmuring at the news, some of them quite excitedly.

I file this new information away for later as Mrs. Cheerilee begins her lesson. Today it's history, specifically pre unification racism and why it attracted the windigos. Considering I was an earth pony Sergeant by the name of Barrel Cracker at the time the "windigos" first showed up, I think I'm pretty well versed in the problems of the period. Sadly I was scheduled to die at the teeth of a windigo early on so I didn't get to see the ponies finally put aside their differences.

I wonder what Princess Celestia's reaction would be if she ever discovered that the entire attack was a meticulously planned fake, and that the only ponies that died belonged to pure infiltrator families?

I am brought out of my musings by the school bell ringing. Checking my internal chronometer I realize I just zoned out for the entire time up until recess.

I join Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle at a picnic table and pull out my lunch. It's a simple lunch consisting of a daisy sandwich, apple juice, and an apple from Sweet Apple Acres.

"I wonder who Princess Mi Amore Cadenza is, I don't think I've ever heard of her." Sweetie Belle suddenly says.

"She's the princess of love. Shining Armor's one lucky stallion." I reply, causing Apple Bloom to perk up.

"Princess of love?" She asks.

I give her an odd look. "You feed off of love and you don't know about the princess of love?" I ask in a hushed tone, for Sweetie Belle's benefit.

"Well, no. We are a small hive after all, we're more focused on survival than information gathering."

"Oh, well since neither of us knows anything about her can you tell us more about her?" Sweetie Belle asks.

I look between the two of them. They both have hopeful looks on their faces. I sigh.

"Alright fine, Princes Mi Amo--" I cut myself off. Something just occurred to me.

"Hey girls, I just realized something, the princess's wedding wasn't supposed to be announced for another few months."

"What do you mean?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Based on what we know of the bride and groom, we projected that they would wait until at least until this year's second spring. This is way too early, something's wrong."

"It's possible Shining Armour has been replaced." Apple Bloom pointed out.

"Why not Princess Mi Amore Cadenza?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"It can't be her, we're limited to about a 10 to 15% change in size, princesses are more than that. The only one who'd be big enough to replace her is a queen, and no queen would be stupid enough to purposely put herself in harm's way. We're easily replaced, a queen is not."

"Ok so, worst case scenario, Shining Armor has been replaced, what can we expect Apple Bloom?"

Apple Bloom thought for a moment before saying "Well nopony would notice that Shining Armor was missing, even after the wedding, since he'd just have the missing memories given to him when they let him go. What we need to worry about is what the hive that's replaced him is going to do with all that love."

I winced at that thought. "I'll let Queen Markouski know." I sighed. "Girls, I have a feeling something bad is coming our way..."

Author's Note

Well, I'm not dead...

But they are!
This chapter is another reason I'm reclassifying the story, mature is for mass death. Why did I think this story was E rated originally?