MLP 40K: Trial by Fire

by Moosetasm

Chapter 1: Introductions all around

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The ancient tunnels were oppressively dark. Tracks squinted his eyes in a vain attempt to see more than the ten hooves of dim lighting provided by his plasma pistol. The darkness mocked his pitiful attempts at observation and responded by actually reducing the radius down to five hooves. He would have used his horn to light the way, but he was already almost at his limit carrying both the weapon and trying to reduce the weight of the tech-pony slung across his back.

Strands of his soaked raven-black mane hung limply in front of his crimson eyes, impeding his already poor attempts to see. Tracks could feel the dampness sucking the heat right out of him through his coat. His royal-purple fur had gotten drenched at some point during the panicked retreat through this brickwork labyrinth and the cold clamminess of the air around him wasn't about to let it dry anytime soon. He was even denied the normal body warmth of the individual draped over his back. More machine than pony, Hypodermic was both as heavy and as cold as the air around them, maybe even colder, and was threatening to drive Tracks straight into the waiting arms of hypothermia.

Tracks continued his painfully slow trot through the umbral passages when his ears perked up at a sound that drove a spike of terror directly through his heart. The sound was peculiar in its own way. It cut through the ever-present drip-dripping and the echoing of his own hoof-falls like Saint Pinkie Pie through a sweets buffet. One wouldn't normally consider such a cute chirp to carry with it a feeling of impending doom, but Tracks felt more than confident that the bowel clenching horror he felt was justified.

His feelings were vindicated when a small spherical ball of foal-blue cuteness emerged from a side passage. Tracks was fairly certain that he failed in his desperate attempt to not shriek like a little filly as the creature's adorable compound eyes locked onto him. It made another chirrup and danced its way through the air towards him on four thin, membraneous wings. Only when it smiled, revealing an absurd amount of tiny razor-sharp teeth, would any laypony realize the mistake they had made assuming the innocence of the globular manifestation of cuteness.

Tracks used his magic to swing the archaic, and thus of good quality, plasma pistol to face the monstrosity. The movement seemed exaggeratedly slow to Tracks. Everything he perceived had taken on a sluggish quality, like something immersed in axle grease, or like an action scene in those new, poor quality holo-pictures. The devilish creature, known to Tracks as a parasprite, was fluttering its way towards him with an inexorable lethargy. As he lined up the weapon's crosshairs with the monster he tightened his magic's grip on the triggering mechanism.

"Whirrrrrr-click." Stated the device. Tracks stared at the empty plasma pistol with a mixture of disbelief, hatred, and growing dread.

There were suddenly more chirps, trills and warbles as the radius of Tracks' vision cruelly increased to reveal swarms of the little horrors cordoning him in the tunnel. Time remained slow and he was able to appreciate every moment of terror that he felt at his impending demise. That it would be at the hooves of a thousand tiny mouths did less than nothing to improve his mood.

The swarm advanced cheerily. He screamed before they had even begun to feed.


*          *          *


Tracks woke up to his dimly lit room, his heart pounding like an infernal drum in his chest. His breathing was fast and sharp. Only after several moments, once he had tried to slow his exhalations, did he realize that he hadn't stopped screaming. As he changed the timbre of the sounds he was making, from a wounded howl down towards more of a gasping wheeze, he tried to focus on familiar objects in his room in a vain attempt to calm himself down.

There, the lamp, the hideous multicolor lamp on his nightstand that was a gift from Free Fall when they had visited that glassworks in Vitrum Hive. The chronometer next to it read 03:00, painfully early, in a ruby-red glow. On the wall, his trusty old holo-viewer, all it ever needed was good sharp hoof to the side to fix it whenever it acted up. His utilitarian and relatively unused dresser. On top of it the sleek, new, barely operative sound system that Able had gotten him when he had accidentally smashed his last one. Opposite the dresser was Devoid's old desk and chair set, made of real wood, from a real forest somewhere. His holster and the plasma pistol given to him by Sophic, his mentor, dangled from the backside of the chair. Then there was the dark, looming shape sitting on his desk in a predatory fashion...

Tracks quickly hoofed the activation rune on the appalling lamp, causing the silhouette on the desk to resolve itself into the form of a jet-black stallion with a shock-white mane. The lean figure's cat-yellow eyes were regarding him with impassiveness. The aptly named, and not just for his appearance, Devoid was perched on his desk like a rapacious feline who was stalking a mouse. Tracks knew the black unicorn was well over a hundred years old, but countless juvenat treatments left Devoid's body looking like it was somewhere in its thirties.

"Bad dreams?" Devoid asked, utterly lacking in the sarcasm and rhetorical tones Tracks felt should have accompanied the words. Devoid had tilted his head to the side and seemed to be studying him like he was some kind of bizarre insect.

"What tipped you off?" Tracks had tried, and failed, to avoid injecting too much indignance into the question.

"Well, the screaming, for one thing." Devoid was still, as always, singularly immune to the moods of others.

"Why are you in my room?" Tracks said, feeling that it was as good a question as any to both shift the conversation away from himself as well as to address the proverbial pachyderm in the room.

"Twins kicked me out -" Devoid was quick to answer. That showed that he probably, and if Tracks' experience was anything to go by it was starting to look more like definitely, ignored how others felt as opposed to actually being ignorant. "- and I figured I could get some nice peace and quiet in here. Didn't figure on you still having those nightmares. Manducat again?" The lamplight reflected off of Devoid's eyes as he voiced the question, adding a new level of creepiness to his already unsettling gaze.

"They kick you out for the same reason I'm about to?" Tracks asked in the driest tone he could muster.

Devoid rolled his eyes and gracefully slid from the desk. "I see how it is, no love for -"

"Out." Tracks interjected, pointing a hoof at the door.

"Pfft." Devoid faced away and waved a hoof in the manner of dismissal. "You get one promotion and you start ordering everypony around..." He said as he began to slink towards the door.

"You -" Tracks could barely control his anger at the conceitedness. "- you -" He didn't care how ancient the old coot was. "- you!" He stuttered ineffectually.

"I know!" Devoid said triumphantly with a giant horse-apple eating grin on his face as the door slid open. "It's always about me, Me, Me!" He was fully out the door, which slid closed again before Tracks realized he'd just been played. Big time. By the master.

In the two minutes or so since he had woken up, he realized that both he and his sheets were drenched. He took a tentative sniff and gave thanks to Luna that it was just sweat. He didn't understand it, he hadn't had the nightmares for years now. He leveled his gaze back towards the door and realized he should probably lock the thing if he didn't want any more unexpected visitors. Now I could look forward to a new nightmare, Devoid. That particular thought actually made him chuckle. There were far more horrible things to dream about than Mr. Edgier-than-bismuth.

Tracks slowly extricated himself from the rapidly cooling dampness of the sheets. His hooves sank into the deep carpeting of his room and he took a moment to luxuriate in the softness to try and further calm his nerves. Despite the respite, he made the few steps to the door with a great deal of shakiness in his stride. He hoofed the locking mechanism. After double checking to make sure that it was indeed locked, he worked his way back towards the bed. His eyes glanced towards the bedside table and his mind dwelt upon what lay within. "No, I don't need it." He whispered to himself, willfully ignoring the flutter in his voice.

Tracks made himself busy stripping the bed, his shaky hooves making slow work of the job. When finally finished, he tossed the soiled linens into a pile on the floor, for dealing with at some nebulous point in the future. He opened the bottom drawer of his dresser and began to rifle through the spare sheets. He frowned. I haven't had to do this in years. He thought ruefully. Sheets in hoof, he made his way back towards the bed. Thankfully he didn't have to flip the mattress, he was in no shape to be doing any lifting. It was the work of a few more minutes to have the bed fit for sleeping in.

His task complete, he unexpectedly found himself opening the drawer of his bedside table with an unsteady hoof. He looked upon what lay within with a mixture of longing and revulsion. Tracks slowly, weakly reached into the drawer and stopped himself short. "I... don't have to." He said to himself. His hoof haltingly began to withdraw before stopping again. Tracks grunted with effort. His mind warred. He knew that he did not need it. But he wanted it, badly. The shaking in his limbs increased. "Just... a little..." His hoof reentered the recesses of the drawer and emerged with the item of his obsession.

"Gah!" Tracks exclaimed as he disgustedly threw the object across the room. It impacted the wall with a clatter and fell to the carpet. He sat on his haunches, looking at his trembling hooves. What am I doing? He thought as he looked across the room at the auto-injector, sporting a vial of blue tranquilizer, and cursed himself for worrying about whether he had damaged it or not. He was a mess. At least he hadn't blown a bunch of holes in the wall like Sophic did yesterday, right before she had -

He knew why he was on edge, why the nightmares had returned. Sophic had made him an Interrogator. He was - what was he? He'd said he was honored when she had made the announcement to everypony. When she had assigned him his own agents for his first mission. Of course he had graciously accepted, she had gathered all of the ponies in her vast staff together for the news. How could he possibly tell her that he didn't think he was even close to ready for something like this? How?

After a few minutes ruminating on that particular thought, Tracks realized that he had somehow ended up laying on the floor shaking. It took him a moment to realize he had blacked out. The auto-injector was floating next to him enveloped in the crimson aura of his magic. He looked at it quizzically. He hadn't even realized his own horn was aglow.

The injector hovered slowly towards his neck and he made no effort to stop it. The hiss-click of the device performing its function barely registering in his mind. The shaking ceased as the familiar warmth spread to his head and then to his limbs. His body relaxed and he felt both his heart rate and his breathing begin to slow. He attempted to roll himself up into the bed but, between the exhaustion from the nightmare and the sedative, all he managed to do was plant his face into the side of the mattress. Great, made the bed for nothing. He thought as he drifted back into unconsciousness.


*          *          *


Early the next morning the rays of one of Celestia's many suns shone into the main foyer of the Inquisitor's suites. Things were illuminated in that specific level of brightness that causes the eyes of the newly awoken to flare with pain. Faded tapestries of great heroes and saints from across Equestria hung upon the walls. The marble floors conducted sound rather well and the echoing sounds of several of Sophic Fortune's staff could be heard as they trotting to and fro on various, seemingly inexplicable, errands that kept the whole complex from falling into uncleanliness and  disarray.

Free Fall tapped a hoof impatiently while standing at the base of the large staircase that dominated the center of the large room. Her emerald-green eyes were sweeping around the foyer in what she was starting to think was a pointless attempt to find that lazy oaf Tracks. There was no chronometer in the vast room but she knew that he was supposed to be there over an hour ago. She shook her forest-green mane in disbelief, causing a few stands of the sky-blue stripe to fall down into her cyan face. She used one of her wings to brush the errant strands back into place. She knew he had a lazy streak but this was ridiculous. He was the one who had wanted to meet her after all. With a sigh of disgust, she started trotting towards the hallway that would lead her to the suite's private landing-pad.

"Missing your coltfriend?" Devoid whispered, behind her and far too close for her liking.

She responded by wildly bucking her hind legs and yelping in surprise. Devoid swiftly dodged in such a manner that he somehow ended up side by side with her, one foreleg draped over her withers. She didn't even wonder anymore how he managed to do things like that, apparently he was just a natural at making ponies uncomfortable. Free Fall's look of shock was quickly replaced with one of annoyance. It was met with one of wry amusement. Free Fall groaned, she wasn't in the mood for Devoid's antics, not right now.

"Get lost, you old coot." She said, while shrugging him off with her wing. She knew if she even bothered to mention or, Celestia help her, deny his comment that she could expect him to tease her for the rest of the day. She turned away and began to trot away but he said something that stopped her in her tracks.

"Oh, too bad, I thought you might want to know where he was."

Free Fall very slowly turned to face him. Her face betrayed a hint of the anger she felt as she thought of the myriad activities Tracks could be engaged in rather than bothering meet her. She would have tried to grab Devoid by the lapels if he had ever actually bothered to wear clothes. She settled for getting muzzle to muzzle with the jet-black stallion and growling. "Where is that lazy sack of manure?"

Unaffected by her threatening stance and positioning, Devoid graced her with his trademark feline grin before speaking. "I'll only tell you if you promise me something."

"I won't rat you out Devoid -" She stated emphatically. "- now out with it."

"No, for once I don't care about that." He began. "I want you to promise me you will give Tracks your support, however and wherever you find him."

She looked at him with a quizzical expression. "Why?"

"He's been under a lot of stress, new promotion and everything. He needs your support, not your ridicule." Devoid said.

Now the look of confusion had become one of disbelief. "Oh, you care so much about him now? When did you become Mister Congeniality?"

His look became one of mild annoyance as he began to explain. "I'm not doing this to be nice." She frowned at his condescending tone, he was talking as one would to a foal. "I just don't want to go out on our maiden voyage of a mission and have our new boss be such a nervous wreck that my life gets threatened." He eyed her expectantly. "Well?"

"Where is he?" She asked.

He locked eyes with her, as if he somehow could detect intent with just a glace. She was pretty sure he couldn't. Pretty sure. Apparently satisfied, he answered. "Locked in his room, since about 0300 last night."

She didn't waste any more time talking to Devoid and, using her wings for an extra burst of speed, took off like a shot towards the housing units.


*          *          *


Able Body stood, decked out in full olive drab carapace barding, at the main entrance of the foyer. The earth pony mare watched the little drama unfold between Devoid and Free Fall with only mild interest. Knowing Devoid, he was probably teasing her about something, most likely that crash landing a few months back. Everypony knew it had been unavoidable, but if anypony knew how to salt a wound, it was him.

As long as he doesn't end up over here. She thought to herself as she watched the cyan pegasus take off towards the living quarters. She looked back to where Devoid had been, unsurprised that he had somehow vanished in the moment she hadn't been looking. She began to carefully scan the room in hopes of spotting the old sneak so he couldn't get the drop on her. She was interrupted when she heard two cheery voices calling her by her former Equestrian Guard rank.

"Hey! Sergeant!"

"Hey! Sergeant!"

Able turned to face the speakers, though she didn't have to in order to recognize the origin of the greetings. Rank always walks on the left, my right, File will be on my left. She mentally reminded herself as the two peach colored mares that were the Twins approached. They both wore periwinkle blue uniforms, the colors of the Inquisitor's personal security force, which contrasted well with their straw colored manes in the morning light.

Able removed her helmet, allowing her burnt-umber mane to spill out across the cinnamon coat of her neck. Her brown eyes met with the pink of their eyes as she addressed them in turn, nodding her head to each as she said their name. "Rank. File." They both smiled at the greeting, which meant she had not gotten them mixed up. She found that they did not get angry when other ponies mixed them up, they were completely identical, but they loved when ponies took to time to figure out who was who.

"We have the equipment requisition forms -" Began Rank.

"- that you requested for the mission." Cheerily finished File, reaching back into her saddlebag and producing a data-slate.

Some ponies thought that the Twins' manner of speaking in unison or always finishing each others sentences was kind of annoying. Able had always just considered them a single pony, capable of doing double the workload. She also thought it was kind of endearing, in its own way. If they were unprofessional about it, she was sure she'd have issues, but the two siblings were so close, separating them would probably ruin them both.

Smiling, Able hung her helmet off of the side of her barrel armor plate and then took the proffered data-slate. She sat on her haunches and hoofed through the list of equipment she had ordered for the new Interrogator's first mission. She double checked everything just to make sure, she hadn't worked with Interrogator Tracks before and didn't feel like getting off on the wrong hoof by missing even the most insignificant piece of equipment. When she felt satisfied with what she saw on the slate, she pressed her hoof to it for verification.

The Twins, who had been watching her with interest as she perused the slate, smiled in unison when she hoofed the slate back over to them. File took the slate and placed it back in the saddlebag from whence it came. Strangely enough, since the Twins were some of the busiest ponies on all of the Inquisitor's staff, they hadn't immediately run off after getting her hoof verification. Instead they eyed her with something she could only imagine was curiosity.

"Is there something else I can help you two with?" Able asked expectantly. The Twins shared a look that somehow managed to combine elements of mild embarrassment with the still present curiosity.

"We were just wondering -" Started Rank in a quiet voice.

"- oh! How exited you must be!" Exclaimed File.

"About what?" Able asked, genuinely confused.

"Oh, you can't fool us!" Rank said with a wry smile.

"Yeah, you have to be feeling it!" File added.

"What are you two talking about?" Able blurted, completely nonplussed.

The twins shifted their gaze from her to each other. A complex series of facial expressions and eye movements ensued for a brief few seconds before they both returned to looking at her.

"You can't seriously expect us to believe that you aren't even the slightest bit anxious-" The twins had started talking rapidly in tandem and Able knew better than to look back and forth as they spoke. That was one way to get an ursa sized headache. She just focused halfway between the two, which wasn't so hard, seeing as how they were always side by side. "- about getting to be in on the ground floor -"

"- of a brand new Inquisitorial retinue!" They both practically squealed in unison.

The Twins continued to look at her with unbridled enthusiasm for several increasingly uncomfortable moments.

"I..." Able paused as she thought about it. "I hadn't really thought too much about it until now. What do you mean, ground floor?"

The Twins looked at each other again, then back at Able. Then they began speaking in tandem again. "You have to know! The first ponies an Inquisitor goes on a mission with are the ones that have the closest bond with them throughout their career! Just think!"

"You're gonna be best buddies with an Inquisitor! We're so jealous!" They squealed together again.

Able put hoof to chin, she did not exactly know what to think about that. There were always rumors that the only thing that kept the Inquisitor ponies from going insane over their, sometimes centuries, long careers was the ponies they kept around them. But she had never thought of this assignment as anything other than just another assignment for Sophic. She never thought she would be working under another Inquisitor, or that she was expected to be friends with them. She didn't even know the Interrogator very well now that she tooke time to think on it.

"Hey!" The Twins had shouted, tearing her from her reverie.

Able looked up, mildly startled. "Wha?"

Two pairs of pink eyes narrowed as they stared at her. Able was worried that she had somehow offended them. This belief was quickly squashed, however, as Rank and File gave her two friendly smiles.

"Oh Able." Rank said.

"You had no idea, did you?" File asked.

Able shook her head from side to side in the negative.

"Don't worry about it." Said Rank, placing her left hoof on Able's withers. "Being in an Inquisitor's inner circle -"

"- will be the best thing that ever happened to you!" File smiled warmly and placed her right hoof on Able's withers.

They made an odd sight for a moment, had the Twins actually been one pony, the gesture would have been a hug. They stood there for a few more moments, exalting in each others presences. When the Twins had finally let go of her, Able was feeling in much higher spirits about the whole thing. They both gave her a wave and headed off towards whatever random set of errands awaited them.

Able watched the Twins leave and then decided to go to the target range. She was already a crack shot with her tartarus-gun, but practice made perfect and she wanted to make sure the machine spirits of her weapon were cooperating before leaving for the mission. She grinned as she went down her rapidly shrinking mental checklist of things to do before leaving. Preparedness was always a guardpony's friend, especially in Inquisitional work.


*          *          *


The private landing pad and hangar for the Inquisitor's section of apartments was located on the opposite side of the spire as the housing units. Thankfully the pony that designed this particular hive spire realized that launching and landing aircraft next to where ponies would be sleeping would result in all kinds of problems. The rockrete pad could accommodate just about any light atmospheric craft, and could even handle some of the smaller space landers as well. The odor of promethium and engine oils permeated what little air there was at this altitude in Bashkir Secundus' atmosphere. Miles below spanned the rest of the hive complex, hidden in the vitreous clouds of millennia worth of planetary pollution.

The attached hangar held all of the Inquisitor's various skimmers, chariots, and orbital shuttles. One particular craft, an Equila lander, stood out from the rest. All of the other craft, including a few other Equilas, in the hangar were colored the same periwinkle blue as the Inquisitor's security forces. This Equila was painted in shades of light grayish mulberry. The raised portions were a moderate sapphire blue and had stripes of both moderate violet and brilliant rose. Anypony who wasn't a purebred hateratick would recognize the holy colors of Saint Twilight Sparkle. This vessel also had many more armor and component patches, as well as other signs of the craft

A lone red robed tech-pony worked reverently on the Equilla. Of what little was visible from beneath the robes, one might discern that the pony beneath had once had a full coat of steel-gray fur before upgrading to actual steel plating. Two glowing red artificial lenses replaced what had once been the pony's eyes. The lower half of the pony's muzzle was nothing but a mass of tubes and wires. Instead of a mane and tail, the tech-pony had bundles of cable and wiring. As with most tech ponies, once augmentation had passed a certain point, the pony's gender became unknowable and, quite frankly, irrelevant. Despite that, most ponies seemed to refer to Pinion as a "he" and "he" didn't care enough to correct them in their ignorance.

What set this particular adept of the Equestris Marecanicus apart from many of his fellows was the set of wings he possessed. Not wings of flesh and blood, for those would have been replaced long ago. These wings were of a curious design, quite similar to the Equila that the tech-pony was working on. There were intakes and thrust vents and ailerons. The wings were definitely masterworks of the Marecanicus arts and while very rare, they were by no means unique.

Pinion had just completed the rituals of maintenance and repair on one of the Equilla's landing struts, the panel closed and the wax seal stamped and hardening, when his audio receptors picked up the sound of feathered wings cutting through the air. He accessed his internal cogitator and accessed the storage files that he kept for comparison to similar sounds. Their cogitator was 15% complete analyzing the sound when Free Fall landed heavily in front of them.

"Pinion, I need you, right now." The cyan pegasus blurted.

If he had been susceptible to normal pony emotions, Pinion would have sworn aloud in binary. He had work to do, and his internal cogitators calculated an 80% chance that whatever Free Fall needed him for "right now" had nothing to do with preparing for the upcoming mission. Pinion cancelled the audio analysis and set 90% of his cogitator compute cycles towards formulating proper responses to try and convince Free Fall to go waste some other pony's worthless, well, less precious than Pinion's at any rate, time.

He started the verbal chess match with his standard opening. "I apologize to you Free Fall. I am in the middle of -"

"It can wait!" Free Fall fervently exclaimed, quickly launching herself airborne with a quick thrust of her wings. She then swooped around to Pinion's rear end and planted her two forehooves on it in an attempt to push the tech-pony in the direction of the landing pad and, if Pinion was correct in his interpretation of standard Free Fall logic, over the edge into a terminal velocity plummet, ending with impact on one of the hive structures miles below.

Pinion didn't even have to plant his hooves when he turned to look at the struggling pegasus. "I weigh in excess of a quarter tonne, you are not going to be able to move me like this. Your organic memory must be faulty. You have tried this before and were unsuccessful."

Free Fall's eyes narrowed. Pinion's heads-up-display started flashing a warning. Based on fur ripples, pupil dilation, and the sound of grinding teeth, Pinion's cogitators had calculated that there was a 90% chance that Free Fall was about to commence in some sort of physical violence to coerce his assistance. Pinion blessed that his body was above such lowly functions as sighing, as the act of giving in to Free Fall now surely should have elicited a large one.

Instead of risking the safety of Free Fall and the Equila lander with a confrontation, Pinion calculated how he could most quickly expedite this little side task. "I will assist you Miss Fall." Free Fall stopped pushing and Pinion was able to start walking back toward the suites. "Let us go quickly so that I may more quickly return to my duties here." He spared the shocked looking pegasus a look. "Unless you do not wish for every last system on the Equila to be in working order when we leave for the mission." They galloped away together.

It took exactly 3 minutes and 23.48 seconds to reach Free Fall's destination. The needlessly vibrant colors of the housing units always proved distracting to Pinion's higher functions. He never could understand why ponies seemed to want bright colors everywhere, all it did was detract from what one was doing. The housing area of the Inquisitor's apartments was done in pastel shades of blue and green. If his visual acuity wasn't over 300% more precise than normal pony vision, he was sure that Free Fall would have actually blended in to some of the hallways with her cyan coat and striped green mane.

When they finally came to a stop, he scanned the door number. Pinion's databanks showed that this room belonged to his new immediate superior, Interrogator Tracks. The display suddenly jumped the chance of this task being mission related to 87%. Until Free Fall spoke. "Ok Pinion, I need you to override the lock and get us into that room."

5% chance of mission relevance. Blinked his display. It was a good thing Pinion didn't have facial features or autonomic body responses anymore. The sudden shift would have had his mouth hanging agape if he still had one. He turned his artificial eyes upon Free Fall before beginning to speak. "I will not assist you in breaking into the Interrogator's quarters for whatever mischief you undoubtedly have planned."

Free Fall narrowed her eyes again, and Pinion's readout flashed an alert for another high probability for a possible violent outburst. "It's not for a prank, you Cog Head!" Free Fall screamed, swinging a foreleg and impacting one of Pinion's head plates with a hoof. "He's locked in there! I need you to help get him out!" Now she was rubbing her most likely, 62% chance, bruised hoof.

With the probability of this action being mission related now teetering at 54%, Pinion did what Pinion always did and acted towards the most probable scenario, however small the lead was. A mechadendrite removed itself from his red robes and connected to the data-port next to the door. It was a simple matter for him to re-task the security machine spirits into maintenance mode and an even simpler job of finding the proper access code out of the billions of possible permutations.

The lock disengaged 7.8375 seconds after Pinion first engaged the device. The door slid open with a standard pneumatic hiss. Free Fall pushed her way past him and into the room. He heard her suddenly give a sharp intake of breath followed by another series of insistent demands. "Get in here right now! And close the door behind you!"

Pinion entered the room with an increased degree of care, just in case Free Fall was trying to do something untoward in the room. Pinion's eyes scanned the room for only a moment before focusing on the semi-prone form of Interrogator Tracks. Free Fall was standing nearby with a shocked look on her face. One of his mechadendrites whipped out and, due to a minor miscalculation which had nothing to do with emotional shock, struck the door panel at about 278% of the required pressure required to do so, causing the door to hiss closed. Pinion's advanced optics and auditory arrays went to work measuring vital signs and other physical indicators. The data was run into his central cogitator, which began to run calculations as to what could have possibly happened.

Pulse low, respiration shallow. Body position... rear legs splayed out behind subject, barrel is at a 79% incline to a bed, one foreleg stretched forward and up onto aforementioned bed, the other laying along the base of the bed. Left eye closed, right eye partially open with fully dilated pupil and signs of crusting around the edges. Mouth is open, tongue is lolled out on left side, significant drooling has occurred and subsequently dried on muzzle and neck. Auto-injector near subject, contains empty vial. Chemo auspex array detects trace amounts of aerosolized medical tranquilizer type mt-638462. A full vial of mt-638462 contains 10 times the Admanestratum's recommended dose.

"I know exactly what happened." Stated Pinion. Free Fall gave a look that did not register properly in his cogitation database. It must have been a neural error in Free Fall's brain, because Pinion's calculations placed the look on her face as equating to complete incredulity. He continued, undaunted, with his analysis. "It is clear that somepony has tried to assassinate the newly promoted Interrogator."

Free Fall's eyes widened, but not in the manner of understanding shock that he was expecting. When she opened her mouth, the words that came forth were not the words of praise and gratitude that Pinion had been expecting either. "He's using tranqs again, tin head! That's his auto-injector!" She shook her head violently from side to side, sending her forest green mane whipping back and forth. "Idiot!" She kicked Tracks in the side, eliciting a small groan from the unconscious unicorn. "You're an idiot too!" She yelled at Pinion, jabbing a hoof in the air in his direction. "Get out! I'll deal with this! And if you tell anypony else what you saw in here today, I will make sure you never see nor speak again!"

He calculated that there was a 93% chance that she meant what she said, as well as a 76% chance that she could carry out the threat at some time in the future. Pinion turned around and exited the room in a manner that was as swift as possible while still technically considered emotionally detached and casual.

It took Pinion 7 minutes and 4.63 seconds to return to the hangar and the Equila. He was thankful to be getting back to work. The entire ordeal with Free Fall had eaten almost 15 minutes out of his busy schedule. He was about to open a fresh panel when his audio receptors detected a barely audible noise. He spoke without looking towards the noise. "Devoid, I am busy."

The jet-black stallion materialized from behind one of the landing struts of the Equila, specifically the one Pinion had just finished working on. "Just got one little thing for you, tech-pony. Then I'll be out of your cables."

"I only foresee a 20% chance of that being true." Pinion said. It was actually 6%, but Pinion had documented over the years that Devoid tended to monopolize on his own bad image and would purposefully harass him if he was given any number below 15%.

"I need to know if you can safely remove the memory from this." Devoid said while holding out a data-slate in one hoof.

Pinion looked at the wreck. It seemed to have suffered several close range las hits. One of his eyes remained focused on the slate, the other looked at Devoid. He knew better than to question where he'd gotten it or how it had gotten shot, there was a 65% chance that Devoid would completely fabricate a response and a 45% chance that he would instead state that he had somehow found it while either fornicating with Pinion's long dead mother or that he had found it in the equally improbable location of the inside of Pinion's own posterior.

Several snaking mechadendrites carefully took hold of the slate as Pinion got a better look at it. As he analyzed the device he spoke his findings. "Damage to the casing is severe. The machine spirits are dormant but I believe the memory circuits to be intact. The power source is still active and could theoretically short the entire device out." He looked up at the seemingly uninterested Devoid. "There is a very high probability that trying to recover the memory module will ruin both it and the device."

Devoid suddenly looked directly at him. Somehow, Pinion felt things he shouldn't have been able to. Knots in a stomach he had long ago replaced, chills ran down a spine made of steel and wiring. "Do it."

Pinion performed the rituals of preparation several times before moving onto the more complicated rituals of maintenance and data retrieval. The spirits of the data-slate were angry and mischievous due to the damage that had been wrought upon the device. Several of his attempts at the prayers were left completely unheard, others were met with an angry spark, or a flicker of random activity on the ruined slate's screen. After a harrowing 11 minutes and 31.89 seconds of invocations and entreaties he was able to deliver the final benediction to the device. And in one mechadendrite, he held the intact memory module.

He hoofed the small device over to Devoid. All Pinion wanted now was to get back to his maintenance. He turned away from Devoid and spoke. "Now please, leave me be. I have work to do." When he turned back around to see if Devoid was going to acknowledge the statement, he saw that the jet-black stallion had vanished. Pinion got back to work, glad to be rid of the troublesome pony.

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