Chapters Discovery [act 2]
Dr. Jackson moved with a certainty and purpose that really raised the question of whether he had been to the city before. Despite the low lighting, the emergency power having only brought the levels up from 'dark' to 'technically acceptable,' the many-years-dead decorative plants, and the overall chill that lingered and clung to everything, he just had an air of knowing what he was doing and where he was going. He did point out a few features to Floyd and the security officer that accompanied them as they walked, which were, in his opinion, quite interesting.
"Six flights of stairs wasn't that bad, now was it?" he said, only lightly winded from the effort. He never did slack off from the workout routines he adopted while serving on Stargate Command's flagship team SG-1. Habits formed after nearly a decade were hard to break. "Once Carter and her team get the full power working we'll have access to the transporters for getting around, though."
They walked past two hallways before taking a sudden right, following some cues neither Floyd nor the officer recognized. Daniel's thick composition book, its pages filled with handwritten notes, printouts, and more, probably helped, as he checked it occasionally during the walk. "Okay, assuming the layout of Shangri-La is not too different from that of Atlantis, the archives room should be right about," he stopped by a door and pointed, "here."
It was largely unremarkable, looking like every other door they passed, with the only addition being the plaque with strangely geometric characters cut into it. "A 'Holographic Interface Room,'" Dr. Jackson translated. He waved his hand in front of the door controls, frowning at the three crystals when they didn't respond. It took two more tries before the unit glowed and the doors slid open with a soft hiss. "The Atlantis team took to calling it the Archives Room."
The room was, at first glance, unimpressive. A single podium was attached to a low platform composed of multiple metal framed glass hexagons. He smiled in a bit of a nostalgic fashion.
"Uh... doc..." Floyd spoke up, interrupting his thoughts, "looks like someone was here before us..." Floyd pointed at the podium, a figure slumped against the back of it.
Dr. Jackson swiftly walked over to Floyd and the body. Be it the cold that had claimed the city, the minimal life support, chance, or all of the above, it wa still fairly intact. He made a face and scratched at his cheek. "Ooo, I was afraid of this. We don't know what actually happened to the Shangrians. Considering everything we know about the Ancients, we didn't expect to find anyone alive in the city, barring another time travel situation..." He looked up at Floyd and the officer, who were staring at him in confusion. "Ah, long story. But the point is, it looks like Shangri-La wasn't exactly properly evacuated before they shut it down."
"But what about the system lock out they found?" the security officer, Graiden, asked. "Wasn't that to keep people from getting in? Does this mean it didn't work?"
"It depends. Were they trying to lock something out, or lock something away?" Dr. Jackson replied cryptically. He pulled on a pair of gloves from one of his pockets, and carefully eased the body away from the podium. "The Ancients eventually suffered from a plague, and that's aside from their conflict with the Ori, and the war with the Wraiths. We know that eventually they gave up fighting and decided to focus on either living out what time they had left, or ascending. Even assuming the Shangrians left before the war started properly, the plague might have caught up with them."
He tapped his radio. "Jackson to Carter, come in."
"Carter here," the radio crackled.
"We found a body in the Archives Room. Might be one of the original inhabitants," Jackson said.
"You're not the only one," General Carter responded with a sigh. "Looks like we will have quite a bit of... housekeeping to do."
"Fun," Dr. Jackson said dryly. "Anyway, I'd like to have Mr. Hendrix get the system running here. How's power coming?"
"Not long now," General Carter said with a grunt. "It's our bit of good news. A full set of Zero Point Modules, low on power, but not depleted. Enough power for most of our needs. We could even fly the thing if we needed to. We'll have full power up in a moment." The lights flicked and with a low hum flared to proper levels. "And that moment is now. Nice work, Jonsson." Someone in the background said something the radio didn't quite pick up.
"We'll let you know what we find out," Dr. Jackson nodded.
"Keep in touch. Carter out."
Dr. Jackson sighed, shoulders slumping. He nodded at Floyd. "Well, just step up to the podium and put your hands on it. It should activate in response to your gene."
Floyd nodded, stepping up to the podium. He cast a glance at the body, placing his hand on the podium. The podium glowed, springing to life, and Daniel motioned for him to step down now that it had been activated. A faint glimmer caught his eye, and as he turned he noticed a necklace on the body. He knelt down, getting a better look; it was gold, inset with a purple star-shaped gem. He reached out, tracing his fingers over it. He winced, pulling his hand back, as he felt a bit of a sting.
"Yeah, you might want to be careful about what you touch when you have the gene," Dr. Jackson warned belatedly. "The strangest things react to it in the strangest ways. You might want to take a few meditation classes if you find things in the city start acting up around you."
"I'll keep that in mind Doc, thanks," Floyd spoke up, reaching out and carefully removing the necklace. "Is it uh... alright if I keep this?" he asked, holding it out.
"I'm going to say... maybe," Dr. Jackson said. "New alien city. We have an idea of what everything should do, but not what everything is , exactly." A certain Wraith tracking device came to mind. "Once we've gotten settled, we can have someone look it over to make sure it's not hazardous, but assuming you don't mind keeping the necklace from a deceased Ancient, sure.
"Oh, and before you ask," he added quickly, "a lot of things that were harmless for Ancients can be deadly for us. Not everything, but you can never tell at times. They were more advanced, both technologically and biologically."
"Joy," he said, placing the necklace around his neck. "Well, let's hope I don't hulk out or something..." He stood up, running a hand through his hair. "OK... this thing is on..." He moved over to the bag he had brought with him, quickly starting to set up a tripod. "I assume you know what I'm supposed to be doing here?" he asked, getting the camera ready.
A figure appeared above the platform. If it wasn't for the faint glow to their clothes and skin, one wouldn't think they were a hologram. Male, he was dressed in pale robes, his features looking on the indian side. He looked towards the podium with a weary smile. "To you who have found our city... I welcome you to the Kingdom of Harmony, Shangri-La.
"Long ago our people dwelled among the stars of another galaxy with our brothers and sisters. We learned, we explored, we progressed. But in time, a rift grew as our ideals and theirs began to differ. Rather than fall into conflict more than we already had, we gathered our like-minded allies and departed the galaxy of Pegasus to hide away from those with whom we could no longer agree.
"Our journey through the stars brought us to a new galaxy, one we called Concordia, in hopes that Harmony and Friendship would be our new legacy, not conflict and reprehensible actions. As were our ways, we planted gates anew, spreading new roads between stars for exploration and curiosity, but with no intentions of arrogantly seeding life as we and our brothers did in the long past. We landed here on the world we called Shambhala, intending to better ourselves and seek the paths of Enlightenment, Harmony and Happiness, but always waiting should our brothers turn their backs on the horrors they fostered in turn.
"To our surprise, life was already here," another image appeared, this one of a blue coated, horse-like creature, coming up to his waist. It had large green eyes, its mane and tail yellow. "We call them the amaquinae. When we first arrived here, they were just beginning to form a society. Seeing the potential they held, we taught them: how to read, how to write, how to build, and we have helped them spread amongst the stars." He threw his arms out to emphasize his point.
"We, in turn, learned from them how to influence the forces of the universe at will. Feats that we thought impossible without our technology or the efforts of one far along the path of ascension, their little ones could perform with ease despite being far from advanced enough to ascend." A glowing orb formed in his hand and he was flanked by an image of the concordia galaxy. "An ability developed due to the unique nature of this galaxy, it was one that once learned, allowed one to draw minute amounts power from subspace, and influence real space with it.
"Originally we called it 'Mastery of Natural Forces,' shortened to Mastery, known as magia as its original name was preserved, even as language shifted. Our star was ascendant, our futures, those of our own and of the amaquinae, was shining. But it was not to be." His expression fell.
"Once again, the origin conflict of our people has found us. We, the Shangrians, are succumbing to the Plague. Despite the efforts of our brothers the Lanteans and the Alterans, we have found no solution. Not even our own research in magicks has borne fruit. Our time has come. We have cut ties with our allies and withdrawn in seclusion into our great city, our shield raised to prevent others from potentially being infected and hid us away. We will die, and the great sickness will die with us, whether here or at our original home.
"To you who have found our city; you are our kin, descendants. Shangri-La, the shining city, is your birthright. I only ask that you learn as we did, spreading Harmony, advancing knowledge, and lending aid to those who need it. Until that day, our city shall sleep, a hidden wonder waiting to spread light and hope once more."
The man lowered his head and folded his arms. The shifting of his robe revealed the same necklace Floyd was now wearing just before the hologram faded away.
"That was something..." Floyd commented, looking up from the viewfinder of his camera. He touched the necklace, which seemed to shimmer a little at the contact.
"Jackson, you there?" Carter's voice crackled over the radio.
"Wow... I mean yes, yes I'm here," Dr. Jackson said, a bit distracted by the story and the implications. "Just checking, but we did prove that the only way to get the plague was from a living infected ancient, right?"
"As far as I recall. Anyway, we uh... have a situation here in the gate room, and I could certainly use your help. You might want to tell Mr. Hendrix to have his camera ready, this is big."
"And I'm guessing it can't wait," Dr. Jackson said with resignation. "So since the lights are on, any chance the transporters are working?"
"Sorry, Daniel," Gen. Carter's response came. "We have primary systems up and life support, but my team has only just started on translating the secondary systems."
"Of course they are," Daniel sighed. "We'll be up as soon as we can." The radio crackled as Carter disconnected. "Well, did you get all the footage, Hendrix?"
"Yeah, I got it," he said with a nod, dismantling the tripod. "This is all going to be a nightmare to edit... eh, that's future Floyd's problem." He slung his bag over his shoulder, hefting the camera up.
"You're taking this awfully well," Graiden muttered to Floyd.
"I'm still not convinced this isn't just some dream. I just hope I don't end up like those guys from 'Trollhunter '," he mumbled as they left the room, dreading the coming gauntlet of stairs.
"N-now is this really necessary?" Lyra asked one of what she assumed were guards, pointing a strange black object at her head. "We uh... come in peace?" She held her hooves up, trembling, and gave a weak smile.
"I am Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, and I demand to know what is going on!" Cadance glared, narrowing her eyes at the beings that had surrounded them, standing in front of the other mares protectively.
The two security guards standing between the three and the rest of the room kept their weapons carefully aimed, one of them tilting his head to speak into the block object on his chest. "Sir, they are speaking and seem agitated. Advise?"
The rest of the room was in a curious state. The two creatures that had been behind them had scuttled off, the section of the wall they had been working on having stopped glowing. The rest of their kind had drawn back and away from them, leaving the two almost-certainly-guards aiming what had to be weapons at them. They had a bearing more akin to the army or the military wing of the Wonderbolts than to the often-ceremonial royal guards. Shame they were left behind when whatever spell that was foalnapped them. Snatches of conversation came from around the room.
"...are intelligent! The indigenous life? But the city was clearly abandoned..."
"...don't make this be the wraith all over again. I left Atlantis to get away from that crap!"
"...the General and Dr. Jackson are on their way, keep working. See if this gate has a shield as well. And see if you can get a head start on whatever that thing is..."
"Teams three and seven are only a third of the way to the proposed points, no way we can interface the generators in time..."
"Do not fire!" That one made them jump. It seemed to come from the box on the guard's chest. Both their chests. "Circumstances are unknown at the moment, and treat them as such. Do not make the situation hostile. I'm pulling my team back to the gate room."
"Yes sir." The guards both lowered their weapons, though they did not put them away. The closer one motioned for the mares to move. "Step away from the device."
"Please," the other one added, a fleeting look of irritation, aimed at his companion, crossing his expression. "Could you step away from the device, please. Er, Princess Me-amoray Kay Denza, was it? We'll see if we can sort this out."
Cadance watched them carefully. "Stay close to me," she told the others as she moved to an empty part of the room. Lyra and Bon Bon followed quickly, with Bon Bon looking rather calm in the face of the situation. "And it's Mi Amore Cadenza." She snorted.
The guard could only shrug helplessly. He had never been in a first contact situation before. And this was definitely in top ten, maybe even top five first contacts the SGC had encountered. It was the downside of being in galaxies populated primarily with transplanted humans. Besides, he was just a security officer. He hardly had authority to make calls on something like this. "Well Mi- Princess Cadenza, I hope you don't mind waiting until our leaders arrive."
Names had been swiftly given to the areas of the City, for the sake of convenience. The Central Spire was mostly what they had explored so far. The layout of Stargate Operations in Shangri-La was almost identical to that of Atlantis. The large room that contained the stargate, a large open court of sorts, also contained the device the aliens had appeared from. The level above held an array of consoles and controls for the city. For convenience, the expedition members had already taken to calling them the Gate Room and Control Room.
It was in the latter that the technicians and scientist were trying their best to get Shangri-La's systems married to the interfaces and computers they brought from earth. The suddenness of the aliens' arrival was the major complication. They had not been in the city for long, far too short a period to get anything done. With the power only just being restored, and most of the systems still offline, what they could do was limited. Still, it would be for the best if they could gather what they could about what happened for the General to look over and access.
She was, after all, one of the greatest minds their world had to offer.
The awkward moment stretched on. The guards were unwilling to talk with the three for reasons of their own. The scientists, civilian members and others busied themselves with other tasks, trying not to stare too long. The Asgard were known to dislike being stared at. Humans were, too. For their part, the mares conversed in hushed tones they desperately hoped wouldn't carry too far.
"Lyra, you're the one with the interest. Any idea where we are?" Bon Bon asked, hardly looking flustered, though her eyes darted around the room. "Or what these ponies are? They obviously aren't ponies. But they don't look like minotaurs either. Or griffons. Or anything I can think of, for that matter."
"Nope!" Lyra said, a quaver in her tone. She pawed at the ground with her hoof. "W-wait..." She said, taking a look around, her eyes going wide. "Bonny... they look like the descriptions of The Teachers..." she said, almost breathlessly.
"The Teachers..? Didn't you do a paper on that back in school?" Cadance asked softly, not letting her gaze drift too far from the guards. Her horn glowed slightly as she covertly wove a subtlety spell around them. "I remember Quill Point wanted to throw it out for being based on myth but admitted it was well written."
"They said the same thing about Nightmare Moon and Discord," Lyra replied.
"Okay, but how? You're far from the first pony to touch the heart," Cadance hissed, trying to make sense of it. "How did we somehow end up mingling with your Teachers?"
Lyra thought about hard. "I... don't know. Maybe it sensed there was one pony who believed in them?"
"Hopefully we can get some answers," Bon Bon cut in, pointing at the door as a rather important looking figure walked in, flanked by guards.
"Are these them?" Carter asked, looking at the guards who were watching the equines.
"Yes, ma'am, this is uh... Princess Cadenza and her two comrades," one spoke up.
"Greetings Princess, my name is General Samantha Carter. May I ask how you got here?" Carter asked, trying to be as friendly and polite as possible.
'A military rank,' Cadance instantly thought. With her husband being a former captain of the guard, and she herself technically holding rank as a princess, she was moderately familiar with military structures. It made her somewhat uneasy, though she didn't let it show as she let the subtlety spell break. "We, that is myself and my companions, were investigating unusual activity in my nation's central artifact just before something teleported us here with a powerful spell."
"Well we certainly didn't do it," Carter said, looking toward the door as Jackson and his group came in.
"Is that a pink pegacorn?" Floyd blurted out, aiming the camera at Cadance, who didn't look happy at all, giving him a rather dirty look. Carter gave him one of mild reprimand.
"A horned Pterippus, or winged unicorn, depending on which mythology you look at it from," Dr. Jackson offered, his own gaze analytical. "I take it this is our emergency?"
"I'm an alicorn," Cadance snorted indignantly.
"Yes Daniel," Carter acknowledged with a nod, "This is Princess Cadenza and her two friends, who I don't think have been introduced yet."
"My name is Lyra Heartstrings and I'm an archeologist," she pulled Bon Bon close, "And this is my marefriend Bon Bon! She's a candy maker." She pulled away, gingerly stepping up to Carter, her head level with the woman's stomach. "Are you the Teachers?"
"The Teachers?" Carter echoed.
"Ah, I believe it's their name for the Ancients. You know, like ancestors, teachers of roads, gate builders, great ones," Dr. Jackson proposed softly. He cleared his throat. "No, we aren't. We know them as the Ancients. They did build this city though. And more like it, as well as a whole lot of other things that, I really don't have time to get into right now. They moved on though, reached a higher plane of existence. You could say we are their descendants though."
"But they did exist?" Lyra pressed, looking up at him with big eyes.
Jackson nodded, "I've met several, myself. Did you say you were an archaeologist?" A flash of understanding sparked in Dr. Jackson's eyes and he gave Lyra a smile. "No one wants to believe your theories on the Teachers?"
"No, I'm a laughing stock... but not anymore!" Lyra said with a smirk. "I was right and they were wrong!" She got up onto her hind legs, doing a little off balance dance.
"Lyra!" Bon Bon hissed, pulling her back onto her hooves, "This is no time for dancing!"
"You're just jelly." Lyra pouted, looking away.
Dr. Jackson laughed. "Believe me, I understand how she feels. I've been treated exactly the same way on my own planet. The feeling I had when my first theories were proven right? Still some of my best memories. And I've proven so many more since then. I have done a victory dance or two myself."
"Excuse me, General," Cadance cut in, "but I would like to know where we are at the moment."
"Well, the truth is, we're not really sure ourselves," Gen. Carter said. "We only recently occupied the city, and while we know how to run most of the systems, we haven't turned them on yet. Your visit was a bit of a surprise."
"How is that coming anyway?" Daniel asked, looking over at the techs who were busy with their computers.
"We just got the connection established, sir," the tech said, looking over his shoulder. "I'm going to try to bring up a status report on the city." He turned back to his computer, the keyboard clicking away as be worked. On one of the consoles, a diagram of the city appeared, with various lines of Ancient text around it. "Uh ma'am, you might want to see this," he said, waving Carter over.
"If you'll excuse me," General Carter said. "Daniel, if you'd take care of our guests?"
Dr. Jackson sighed and looked at the security officer. "Is the command office in the same place?"
"Yes, sir."
"Furnished?"
"Yes, sir."
"Okay then," Dr. Jackson nodded. "If you three will follow me, we can sit and talk for a while until General Carter gets things a little more sorted out."
"Stay close," Cadance instructed the other mares as they followed Daniel up the stairs and out of the room.
"What do you mean she is missing, Shining Armor?" Princess Celestia asked, looking down at her former captain of the guard. She had come to visit her niece, only to find that the princess of love had gone missing.
"There was something wrong with the Crystal Heart and Cadie went to investigate." Shining gulped softly. "She and two citizens vanished suddenly and without any trace."
"Shining Armor, I'm not upset with you," Princess Celestia said soothingly to her nephew-in-law. "I'm only concerned that my niece is missing. Did anypony see what happened?"
"The guards that were with her did, as well as several civilians," he nodded, motioning for her to follow him. "I have them in one of the meeting rooms, unless you want to visit the Heart first."
"Yes, that would be for the best," Princess Celestia mused. It wouldn't do for her to appear bearing down on her subjects expecting them to hold all the answers. She may even learn something from visiting the heart, though she was far from an expert in its capabilities, even before it vanished with the city, letting the fog of both time and the curse have its way with what she had known.
"It would be best if we avoided making a fuss over this. Our ponies are likely already stirred up by the disappearance of their princess." It was most fortunate it was the Heart itself involved, making it less likely for anypony to jump to darker fears rapidly. "A bare minimum escort. You and I only if at all possible."
"Of course," he said with a nod, moving through the hall. "Maybe it was a trap left by Sombra?" He wouldn't put it past the tyrant to booby trap the one thing that could kill him.
"It was one of my fears, yes," Celestia admitted as she followed Shining, her longer strides easily matching his pace without seeming to be more than a stroll. "But the Heart has been used at least twice since the empire's return, not to mention the steady influx of positive emotions from the crystal ponies. Any enchantment he left behind should have long been eroded by the constant exposure to light and love magics, the antithesis to his abilities."
"According to a few witnesses, one of the ponies taken said something about the Heart being connected to a place called 'Shangri-La.' Does that mean anything to you, Princess? Nopony in the Empire seems to know anything about it."
Celestia's brow furrowed. The name stirred something in her, a memory long forgotten? A fillyhood tale perhaps? Her mouth opened, then closed hesitantly. She walked in silence for a few more steps. Shangri-La. That name was important for some reason. "I'm not sure, Shining Armor. Perhaps a discussion with my sister might yield results."
"Hopefully we'll find some answers from the Heart," he said as they came to it. It was still pulsing, with the strange transparent screens floating around it, "Those appeared right before they vanished." He nodded to the guards who had taken up positions around the Heart. "Nopony knows what the writing means."
The Princess stared at the characters in mute shock. For a fleeting moment, an image came to her. Somepony scrawling characters much like those on a board on a morning so very long ago, then it was gone.
"Princess?" Shining Armor asked a little worriedly, seeing her staring at the Heart. "Are you all right?"
Celestia blinked once, twice, three times in total before she recovered. Her expression was troubled, but she studied the writing some more under Shining's worried gaze. "This mystery... may be deeper than I feared," she admitted. "This language... scholars tend to call it one of the more obscure forms of unicorn cuneiform for the older dialects, but the truth is, it is far older. If I recall, it was old when I was but a filly... I fear I may not even recall how to interpret this fully." There were a few words she could still recognize, but not enough.
The Empire had always been a mystery, even before Sombra somehow worked that curse to muddle the knowledge of it. But this raised more questions than anything had since Discord himself ruled. "Shining Armor, has anypony used magic in this area since they vanished?"
"Not that I know of," he said shaking his head, "What are you thinking, Princess?"
"I'm thinking of finding them," Celestia said simply before igniting her horn. A brilliant gold light flared, obscuring everything with it's brightness. It lasted for a few seconds before Celestia let it fade to a dull glow around her horn. As it did, colourful contrails wavered in the air, winding around all those present, some thick and strong, other wispy and fading. Celestia's eyes darted from one rippling band of colour to another.
"How far will you be able to track them?" he asked, his eyes moving from contrail to contrail, "They could have been taken anywhere, even across the continent." He frowned at the idea, wondering just who or what they were dealing with.
"Give me a few moments Shining Armor, and I shall find out." She intensified her spell, trying to find Cadance's aura. An alicorn's magic trace wasn't hard to identify. What worried her was that it wasn't where it was supposed to be. There was a small void in the area around the Heart. To use a mundane analogy, it was as if someone washed a slate with a cleanser. It was easy to find the traces of what was used, but what had been there was missing. The contrail of her niece's magic left to the Heart, then it was gone, a haze of magic she didn't recognize replacing it. "Shining Armor." She turned to look at the stallion.
"Yes?"
"Send for my sister, I believe this mystery will require the both of us."
"We have good news and bad news, General Carter." Despite not having the most experience with Ancient technology, Devon had found himself working with the team setting up and interpreting the consoles for the city. It was the way it worked out in the isolated bases and expeditions. They picked members who were adaptable over just simply skilled. Just being capable and having the gene got him assigned to connecting a few laptops to terminals. Of course, he wasn't the one reporting to her; that was one of the more senior technicians.
"Let's start with the bad news," General Carter said to the short and somewhat mousy woman. "Wilson, right?"
"Yes ma'am," Wilson smiled. "The bad news; because we were running a few diagnostics on the device when it activated," she motioned subtly in the direction of the conference room, "it's now locked up mid-process, and it looks like one or two of the receiving crystals might have gotten damaged in the process."
"Receiving crystals?" Carter said, looking up from the tablet she had been given. "So it's a transporter?"
"Part of the good news ma'am. We figured out it's a type of Ancient transporter device." Wilson paused. She looked down at her own tablet. "Should I continue the bad news?"
"Go ahead, Wilson," Carter nodded.
"Well, we've started getting preliminary readings from the city's sensors now that power is flowing again. The shields are running at minimal power."
"Please tell me we aren't at the bottom of an ocean," Carter said, closing her eyes and shaking her head. To be fair, Daniel had told her there were more sunken city legends than just Atlantis.
"No ma'am," Wilson quickly responded.
"A glacier isn't much better," Devon murmured. Realizing that Carter overheard him, he quickly added, "ma'am."
"So we are on a glacier?" The general wasn't exactly thrilled with that news.
"And somewhat in it," Wilson continued. "There's a buildup of ice around the city's substructure and around the shield. The city itself has only reported minor damage, so that's part of the good news. The rest; the environment is more or less habitable. Acceptable levels of oxygen and all the other required gases. The temperature is around five degrees fahrenheit, though."
"So going outside isn't recommended," Carter murmured. "Anyone else have anything of importance?"
"We're picking up some weird gravitational anomalies but we won't know more until we get more systems online," Wilson tapped away at her computer, "You may want to have a look at the gate ma'am, seems they changed a lot from the Pegasus network."
"The gate will have to wait for now," Carter admitted. It was their only lifeline back home at the moment, but there were other priorities. She said as much, "While being able to dial Earth is important, particularly for morale, so are other things. Suitable living quarters for everyone, for instance. Atlantis survived months without being able to make contact. A few days aren't going to hurt us.
"And then there is the matter of our unexpected guests. And if more will show up." She flipped through the information on the tablet and brought up the preliminary report on the device. "As cruel as it might sound, it may be a good thing that the device was damaged. It buys us time to get settled and figure out what's going on."
"Agreed, General," Bowers said, having finally made his way back to the control room.
"I may be able to help out with who they are," Floyd spoke up, having been reviewing the footage he had so far. "I know you can just go down to the archive room but I think this can save the trip." He clicked away at his laptop, bringing up the recording of the hologram, pressing play and turning the laptop for her.
It was mostly in silence that they watched the recording. True, the camera didn't give the hologram its full justice, but it was sufficient to get the point across. Soon most of the people in the control room where enthralled by the footage. The 'wow' factor was clear on their faces, though Carter and Bowers were clearly putting some serious thought into the matter.
"So that's why Dr. Jackson was asking about the plague," one of them commented.
"So the lockdown was more an internal safety measure? Okay, check the access logs again, we have a better idea of what to look for," another said, turning back to his station.
"You do fast work," Carter complemented Floyd.
"Thank you ma'am," Floyd said with a smile, "But most of it is just luck." He turned the laptop back toward himself, "Going to be a pain to edit though. Also, I'd like to set up interviews with some of the crew when everything is settled, if that's alright?"
Carter's smile momentarily had an edge to it, but it faded quickly. "That shouldn't be an issue." He nodded, busying himself with his work.
"This is really the Teachers' city?" Lyra asked, looking out of the office, her eyes wide. "This is awesome!" She squeed, clapping her forehooves together, a big smirk on her face. "Please! You've got, got to tell me everything!" She bounded over to Daniel, placing her hooves on his lap. "Please?" She asked, giving him her best pouty face. Pony eyes were notorious for emotional manipulation, usually by foals on their parents.
"Lyra!" Bon Bon hissed, biting onto her marefriend's tail, pulling her away from Daniel. "You're embarrassing us!" She spat out her tail, glaring at her. "I'm sorry, she gets weird when she's this excited." Lyra stuck her tongue out, crossing her arms.
Inwardly, Daniel was glad that the other... mare stopped her friend. She was better at the eyes than Vala was. Even if he kept being reminded of himself from a decade and a half or so before. The terminology was interesting. Amaquinae called their females 'mare.' The translation must have taken some liberties. "'Everything' would take a bit too much time. The history of the Ancients, the Teachers as you call them, goes back some tens of millions of years. This city, for example, should be at least ten thousand years old, being very conservative. Likely more."
"Wow..." Lyra said, her eyes widening at the thought of so much history.
"Ten thousand years?" Cadance echoed with a gobsmacked expression. "That... that makes it far older than Equestria's recorded history... even older than most of our stories... pre-Discordian..." She lost some of her royal bearing as she looked about the room, no longer caring about the guards that had followed and stood just inside the doors. "But this place... it looks more modern than even Canterlot!"
Daniel raised an eyebrow and took a few mental notes. Canterlot? Did Moros once visit? Questions for later. "We tend to have the same reaction. The Ancients were basically The Race . The most powerful and advanced race for countless millennia. Even during their decline they were still a force to be reckoned with until they all, for the most part, ascended."
"Do you want to know anything about us?" Bon Bon asked, "You don't really seem to know anything about us, hay your guards couldn't even get the princess' name right," she pointed out, sitting next to Lyra.
"I think an exchange of information is a wonderful idea," Cadance agreed, "Since you've already told us about these...Ancients why don't you ask us a question? It would be wise for us to get to know each other."
That offer certainly caught Daniel off guard. He wasn't used to dealing with such candid individuals. Of course, an offer of a question didn't necessarily equate a promise of truth. Worse still, a dozen questions lay at the tip of his tongue. She called herself a princess. That implied a monarchy. Would her nation rise up against them for inadvertently holding an heir to the crown hostage? What significance were the horns? The amaquinae from the recording lacked them. Much more the wings. How exactly had they ended up in the city?
"Alicorn," he said, choosing a different question. "You called yourself an alicorn. The word is part of my people's mythology, but I don't think it means the same thing. What is an alicorn?"
"Alicorns are among the rarest types of ponies, and they have the attributes of all three of the tribes: the strength of an earth pony, the wings of a pegasus and the magic of a unicorn. There are only three in the world, myself, my aunt Celestia and her sister Luna, though I was originally a pegasus," Cadance explained, giving her wings a flap for emphasis.
"I'm just a unicorn and Bonny is an earth pony." Lyra pointed out, hopefully to make the point clearer.
"Now that's interesting..." Daniel said, his eyes slightly vacant as he processed the new information. Such as 'pony.' "Unicorns, at least horned horses, are fairly common in Earth mythology. There are also winged horses, well, one. Pegasus was the son of Poseidon. The commonalities... you call the Ancients 'Teachers.' That must mean they had an influence on your society as they did in ours, though in our case their mark is a bit more obvious." Daniel had stopped paying full attention to the trio as his thoughts raced. "Of course. The Shangrians didn't have a war fighting. They must have had more opportunities to travel back to Earth than the Lanteans did. And... wait..."
Daniel blinked and looked curiously at Cadance. "Did you say magic?"
"Yup!" Lyra chirped, her horn suddenly becoming surrounded by a golden glow. A nearby long dead plant became surrounded by the same glow, floating up into the air. "Tada!" she proclaimed proudly.
Daniel's face ran through a gauntlet of expressions. Raised eyebrows gave way to an attempt to point with his finger, then a tight lipped moment, before he licked his lips and scratched his cheek. He attempted to point again, but a pout aborted it halfway, and he had to settle for an open mouth stare. It wasn't that that sort of thing wasn't possible. For crying out loud, he had done it before when Merlin advanced his state of evolution, not to mention all the things he pulled off when ascended, but... magic?
"I take it your kind can't use magic?" Cadance asked, noticing his expression.
"I used to say there was no such thing as magic, but considering all I've seen, I just gave up." Daniel shook his head slowly.
"Oh, that sounds horrible," Lyra placed the plant back on the ground. She moved over to him, getting up on her hind legs and giving him a hug.
Daniel just blinked, looking down at the green unicorn that was hugging him. "Why are you uh... hugging me?"
"Because you looked sad," Lyra answered simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "And the best way to get rid of sadness is with a hug!"
"I think that's enough, Lyra," Cadance said, pulling Lyra back gently. "Sorry," she said with an apologetic smile. "Ponies are very um..." she gestured with her hooves, "affectionate. Anyway I believe it's our question: how did you get here?"
"Well..." Daniel quickly assembled and censored the standard spiel. Considering the amount of experience they had doing that, it was little more than a beat. "We are explorers. My people are called humans. We come from a world called Earth. It was the first world the Ancients, the Teachers, settled when they came to this side of the universe millions of years ago. My people are actually the second evolution of their form. When they ascended to a higher plane, they left a lot of their history, knowledge and technology behind.
"Humans are a curious race. A couple of years back we found the Stargate, a device able to send you across thousands of lightyears in an instant. The large ring you saw was a Stargate, most likely the only one on the planet. The, er, Teachers made them and put them in at least four galaxies."
"Forgive me but, that seems a little hard to believe," Bon Bon said, frowning. "You're telling me that a whole race ascended into alicorns? That seems very far-fetched."
"Alicorns? Uh, no. An energy based existence of remarkable power," Daniel explained a little. "Knowing them, a few might be listening to us now. But they never interfere with the lower planes. It's 'beneath them' and against their 'rules.' A bit of a pain, to be honest."
"But you said they ascended," Lyra pointed out, "And alicorns only come from ascension."
"She's right, like I said, I was originally a pegasus," Cadance reaffirmed.
"Possibly a case of the same name for different processes," Daniel frowned. "I have ascended myself and I know for a fact I didn't get hooves and wings."
"Too bad, you probably would have made a great looking stallion," Lyra teased only to wince when Bon Bon socked her in the shoulder.
"I believe you have the floor," Bon Bon said rather flatly, glaring at her marefriend.
"Right," Daniel said, narrowing his eyes slightly. "Let's go with this one, Princess Cadance, who is the queen of your kingdom?"
"Queen?" Cadance asked, the concept seeming rather foreign to her. "I don't believe Equestria has ever had a queen. I'm not sure about the Empire, we're still piecing together the Empire's history."
"So your culture's highest government figure is a princess. Not the strangest structure we have encountered. There are tribes where their most important leader is simply the 'Big Man' or 'Chief Chief.'" His hands, having been waving in the air, slowly lowered, the realization sinking in. "Which would make you one of your nation's rulers."
"Why don't we just give a run-down of Equestrian history?" Lyra asked. "Then you can share your people's history!" Lyra smiled, wagging her tail like an excited dog.
"I really don't think that's the best idea, Lyra," Bon Bon interjected.
"As much as I would enjoy that, your friend's right," Daniel said, setting his hands on the table. "Right now, it's more important to build a rapport between us while we see how we can get everything sorted out. To become friends, as it were. After, we can foster a proper relationship between our people, establish trade and perhaps an exchange of knowledge."
"You'll find that ponies are very easy to make friends with, it even saved us from extinction," Cadance said. "Anyway, I do believe that it is our question. Who is the leader of your people?"
"Locally? That would be General Carter," Daniel said easily. "You met her. She is the leader and commander of the Shangri-La Expedition. I head the Science and Research Department and represent the civilian population. Colonel Bowers is the military commander. Dr. Jaun is our Chief Medical officer. You'll likely be visited by her sometime soon. Talking about the leaders of our world is a bit more complicated, and not particularly relevant this far from home."
Daniel had long since learned how to read people and their body language. He later learned how to apply those skills to the Goa'uld, the Asgard, the Tok'ra, the Unas, the Serrakin and even the Wraith. The Amaquinae, the ponies, were a bit different, but a lot of the cues were the same, their eyes particularly expressive. The ears and tail provided even further clues, and he was beginning to pick up on what they meant.
Lyra looked extremely fascinated with everything he was saying, hanging on to every word, her tail and foreleg twitching occasionally as she gave him her rapt attention. She was like a student in a particularly interesting class of her favourite subject. Bon Bon was listening keenly as well, but she was more reserved. He recognized the calculating look she thought she had hidden behind her expression. There was more to her than he had been told.
The princess' attention was polite and adequate. Though she didn't exactly hide her expressions and her reactions seemed honest, he could tell that there was some rather serious thought going on in her head, maybe more so than Bon Bon. It reminded him just a bit of Dr. Weir, to be honest, a comparison that reflected favourably on the princess.
"I think it would be best if I send a message to my aunt," Cadance said, nodding her head. "Do you have some paper and a quill?"
"Well, we've moved past quills, but I'm fairly certain we are unable to mail a letter. If we could, we would just send you back instead," Daniel said, raising his eyebrow.
"Humor me," Cadance commented, giving him a smile. Lyra had a similar expression on her face, though hers was more the smirk of someone who sees a joke coming and knows someone will be the victim.
"Well, no harm in that. Give me a moment." A pen was no issue. There was one in his top pocket. The paper was a bit trickier. He flipped through his book, looking for a blank sheet, but failed. A quick check of his pockets did eventually find a spare yellow pad. Tugging a leaf free, he slid them over to her.
"Thank you," she said, lifting both in her magic, scribbling away for a moment. Her horn sparked, the paper reduced to ash by a bright green flame, the ashes twirling around flitting out of the room.
Daniel watched her display, expression fairly stunned. Before he could voice his reaction, the ashes quickly returned and the sheet reformed.
"Well, horseapples," Cadance cursed, glaring at the sheet with disdain..
"I take it that was magic?" Daniel said, noting three things at once. The display really did seem linked only to their biology, and she was very precise with her telekinesis. He had never tried writing with his telekinesis when he possessed it, but he had heard Rodney McKay had been able to type on multiple computers at once with his. At the moment, there really was no word aside from 'magic' than he could think of to call it. And finally, her choice of swears. He noted it away for later study.
"Just what exactly was that supposed to do?" he asked.
"Send a message to my aunt," she said, sighing a little. "Looks like that idea is moot."
"I don't know what to say," Daniel admitted. He had been in this position before, both the side of the one cut off and the one who might help, but it never got easier, only easier to not be too despondent over. "Don't worry. Our people would rather have friends than enemies, and friends provide aid when needed.
"You did come at a bad time, before we were properly settled in, but we can still provide you a place to stay until we can get everything working." Daniel paused, remembering something he found in his search for the paper. He pulled it out and set it on the table, eliciting surprised reactions from not only the ponies, but the security officers as well.
"Is that..." Bon Bon sniffed the air to make sure the large rectangle was what she thought it was, "chocolate?"
"I've made a few good friends doing this, including meeting my father-in-law," Daniel chuckled slightly at the fond memories. "Took to keeping one on me a few years ago. It's become something of a tradition with me. Of course, it's missing the wood fire, but I think we can skip that detail. Would you mind sharing this with me?"
They glanced at the Cadance, who nodded with a smile. "I, we, would be honoured."
Daniel unwrapped the candy, broke it in four, and the new friends shared the confection. "It tastes..." Bon Bon searched for the right words, "old."
"Well if you work as a confectioner I suppose you'd be used to higher-quality chocolate than this," Daniel laughed. The ponies joined him. Everything really might be okay.
Discovery [act 3]
"So, this is the Stargate, huh?" Lyra asked, looking up at the strange device with a look of awe on her face. "I don't remember anything like this from our legends." She let out a sigh. "We lost a lot of knowledge during the Discordian era..."
"Discordian, discord, chaos I take it?" Daniel commented. "We've encountered more than a few situations where we believe a gate was buried and lost. Even our own world buried our gate and forgot about it for a few thousand years. You're taking this rather well. Better than I thought you would."
"Live in Ponyville long enough and you get used to stuff like this. I mean we had Nightmare Moon, Discord himself, that Ursa Minor. About the only thing we didn't have were... Changelings..." she said with a shudder, images of her time as a brainwashed pawn coming to her mind..
"Why does it have cutie marks on it?" Bon Bon asked, pointing to the symbols on the ring.
"Looks more like parts of cutie marks to me," Cadance said, rubbing her chin.
"Cutie marks?" Daniel glanced at them, and quickly came to the logical conclusion. "Is that the name for the... markings on your bodies?"
"Yes, that's right," Cadance nodded, "they represent what a pony is good at and only appear when a pony discovers his or her special talent."
"I got mine when I realized my passion in life was making candy," Bon Bon added helpfully. "Not sure why they're on this thing though." She reached out, poking the gate cautiously.
"Is that magicite?" Lyra asked, pointing at one of the chevrons. "I don't think I've seen magicite ore that well crafted."
"Uh, magicite?" Daniel asked. He didn't even bother to question the 'appearing' part.
"The stargate is one of the most perfect devices ever made," a new voice cut in. A short, dark skinned woman, only about five feet tall, joined them. "Almost thirty metric tonnes of naquadah, lovingly shaped, formed, and arranged into these amazing rings. Did you know the oldest known ring is over 50 million years old? And it still worked perfectly! Despite being frozen in ice! And then someone let it get blown up!"
Daniel sighed as the woman glared at him. "Let me introduce you to Jasmine Iwu. She is the head of our engineering department and one of the greater minds when it comes to the mechanics of ancient technology. And I'll remind you, I was ascended at the time."
"Exactly! You could have stopped Anubis from blowing up the third oldest work of art known to mankind!" she fumed. "Instead you just hung around and watched!"
The ponies just watched, not sure exactly what they were talking about.
"Iwu, I was ascended. I was bound by the others and their rules. I couldn't just interfere on the lower planes like that! I don't know why you keep bringing it up!" Daniel said, starting to sound a bit frustrated himself. "But I'm going to assume you didn't just come over here to do this."
She grinned. "Okay, you got me. We finished the diagnostics on the gate and the device these three adorable ones came from."
"Adorable?" Cadance asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'll uh... take that as a compliment."
"What did you come up with?" Daniel asked, clearing his throat. "I'm going to assume this network is based on the Pegasus network correct?"
"Pegasus network? No," Jasmine said, stroking one of the chevrons tenderly. "This darling seems closer to the original milky way setup with some flavour and flare of its own. Only 28 symbols. She can revolve like the milky way gates and has that satisfying chevron locking, but does the same 'chasing lights' that the pegasus network does.
"They got into the gate database, and the network is the smallest one so far, aside from the few placed in Ida, which makes sense since this galaxy is smaller than the other two." She nodded with satisfaction. "The transporter reminds me a lot of the one Merlin and Morgan le Fay made. The bad news is that since they triggered it prematurely while it was under diagnosis, they fried a few of the relays. The control crystals are fine, though. We can replace the relays with a little bit of manufacturing, the issue is the resource. Don't have any."
"What exactly do you need?" Cadance asked, "We might be able to help you find it if you can provide a map."
"It's a bit more complicated than that," Jasmine responded. "We are getting our systems online, and the little bugs are starting to show in it. A City Ship might be made of strong stuff, but they are still pretty fragile. All those years in this block of ice with its shield on the lowest level?"
She shook her head slowly and Daniel tried to get her back on topic. "Do we have the means to fix it? Or at least get these three home? We brought the jumpers. So long as it's in this solar system a jumper can take them."
"Jumper?" Lyra asked.
"Jumpers, yes," Jasmine agreed. "Just not the way you are thinking. The Jumper Bay actually has a small fleet, so we'll have to eventually return Atlantis' pair, but the outer doors are jammed. Ice damage to the mechanism. Not a complex fix, but one that will take time.
"And princess, it's far too cold outside to go alone. Plus, the ground is permafrost. We don't have anything that can mine through it for the ore we need," Jasmine unstrapped her tablet and tapped away at it as she spoke. "The techs and control room prospectives did a couple scans of the surroundings. The mountains we are in don't have what we need either."
"But?" Daniel asked. If there was one thing working with Jack taught him, it was that there was always a but.
"But," Jasmine smiled, "They produced a list of three planets that, according to the database, should have what we need relatively close to the gate and easy enough to collect."
"Well, that was easy! When do we go?" Lyra asked cheerfully.
"I don't know if that's really a good idea, Lyra," Bon Bon said, rubbing her chin. "They have more experience with this stuff."
"Are we talking about... going to another world?" Cadance asked a bit uncertainly.
"Through the stargate, yes," Daniel said.
"Not right away," Jasmine added. "We need most of our personnel for getting the city and the expedition in gear. So far they have only cleared general areas, and it's calling for more manpower than we expected." She gave Daniel a grave expression. "They've been finding a few more bodies in the well secured areas. Doesn't seem like everyone was able to ascend their way out of this one."
Daniel closed his eyes sadly. After a moment, Lyra gave him another hug.
"Ponies hug a lot," Cadance explained to a surprised Jasmine.
There was a twinkle in Jasmine's eyes before she suddenly hugged Cadance. "Ha! Hugged an alien and a princess in one go. Two things to cross off my list."
Cadance giggled a little, hugging her back. "You can just call me Cadance, all my friends do."
"Anyway, General Carter would like to meet with you a little later about the distribution of forces," Jasmine said. "And she also wanted me to let you know that if you've finished your little tour, they found and cleared a mess, and the first proper meal in Shangri-La is ready, even if it's mostly military rations at the moment."
"Food sounds good, I'm starving," Lyra said, licking her lips.
"We would be most thankful for anything you provide us." Cadance said, bowing her head a little, pulling away from Jasmine.
"I could go for a nice hayburger right about now," Bon Bon said, blushing as her stomach growled rather loudly. "S-Sorry..."
"Hay burgers? Well, we can't promise you that ," Daniel said, trying to picture that meal in his head, and also visualizing the agricultural practices and techniques they would employ. "But we can at least guarantee that it would be vegetarian and kosher."
"What's kosher?" Lyra asked, tilting her head curiously.
"It's... ah..." Jasmine faltered.
"It's a cultural standard of food preparation. Something 'kosher' has met the requirements that some religions hold to," Daniel explained.
"You don't have to go out of your way for us," Cadance said, waving a hoof dismissively, "A few salads should be fine."
"It's no trouble," Daniel said, beginning to lead them out of the gate room and towards the cafeteria a few floors down. "There are a few people on the expedition who request kosher or vegetarian meals for various reason."
"I am one of them," Jasmine added. "The SGC ensures that everyone is properly fed and watered."
"Well then, I eagerly await our meal," Cadance said with a smile, following after the two, Lyra and Bon Bon staying close to her.
Shining Armor was worn out by the time he was finally able to close court. The news that the Crystal Princess had vanished had spread, and with it, a strong feeling of unease had permeated through the city. It was only the fact that the Crystal Heart was what whisked her away that kept unease from blossoming into full panic. The population was already having issues adapting to being a thousand years displaced. But that was behind him now. All he had to do was keep from succumbing to the despair nagging at his own heart, and everything would be just fine.
Absolutely fine.
He walked a bit faster. With Princess Celestia already out of the castle, Princess Luna had too many duties to simply up and leave Canterlot, so it wasn't until well into the evening that she finally arrived. Having easily picked up on the urgency, she disembarked before her night guards pulling her carriage even attempted the final approach, instructing them to land and put the carriage away before teleporting directly to closest balcony to the private areas of the castle.
"SISTER!" Luna called loudly, her volume managing to rattle a few windows without actually making it to the 'Royal Canterlot' range. She pointed a hoof at one of the startled guards. "You there! Tell me where I may find my sister!"
The guard, a bit confused from seeing all four major members of the nation's royal family on what should have been a normal day, could only point a hoof. Luna nodded and galloped off, her stride covering large lengths of the hallway with ease.
It was at that speed that she barreled into Shining Armor. Or rather, into the shield he reflexively cast once he realized something large was charging towards him. Even so, she sent them both crashing to the ground, though to his credit, his shield didn't break.
"Er... greetings Shining Armor," Luna said, looking the stallion with a sheepish look on her face. "I uh... apologize. In my excitement I was not looking where I was going."
"No, it's fine Princess Luna," Shining said, stifling a groan. "Do you ever play hoofball? Or spar with your guards, any?"
"Yes I do. And we are family, Shining Armor, I insist that you not be so formal with me," Luna said, getting to her hooves, "Now, I believe we are trying to find dear Cadance."
Shining Armor nodded as he got up himself and pointed Luna in the right direction. "That's right. Prin– Ce... Aunt Celestia is resting in one of the sitting rooms." He wasn't quite comfortable with dropping titles all together. 'Aunt' was as casual as he was comfortable with. "She was waiting for your arrival."
"Then we should make haste and not keep her waiting much longer," Luna said, trotting off again. He sighed, quickly catching up with her, cursing Luna's longer legs, though he did wonder if Cadance would grow to the size of either of the two elder princesses.
They found Celestia surrounded by books, two empty teapots on the table, a third beside her, sitting on the cart in easy reach. She was too engrossed with the book she was reading to notice the duo's entrance. Shining Armor looked at Luna awkwardly. "She has been at it for hours."
"Truly?" Luna asked surprised.
Shining Armor nodded. "She tried maybe six different spells after the first one failed, before she calmly requested that I see to the Crystal Court and retired here. A few minutes later, she had the castle staff running in circles because she was teleporting from room to room collecting all these books."
"I see..." Luna took a few steps toward Celestia, clearing her throat. "Sister, I have come as you have requested."
"Luna..." Celestia said softly, looking up at the two. "Did I perhaps make a mistake?"
"What mistake would that be?" Luna asked, moving over, taking a seat beside her sister.
"Was it too soon? Did I force our niece into her role before her time? Is that why the Heart chose to take her away from us?" Celestia's voice was calm and even, but behind her gaze, her will was shaking. "Perhaps it was hubris, after watching Twilight grow into a strong mare, I just assumed my niece too was ready for the next step."
"None of this is your fault." She spread her wing, draping it across Celestia's back. "Now Tia, have you found anything in these books that will help our search?"
Shining Armor, feeling like the third wheel in the room, busied himself with putting some order to the books Celestia had cast aside. He did his best to remain unobtrusive as the princesses, his aunts, shared a moment. The cup of tea floated over to Celestia, caught up in her magic, and she took a meditative sip.
"Perhaps you are right, I'm merely letting fears colour my thoughts." Celestia exhaled slowly. "Tell me, what do either of you know of the Empire's origins?"
"I only know as much as you do sister," Luna said, tilting her head. "Though considering you have been delving into all these books, I imagine your knowledge has surpassed my own these past few hours."
"I'm afraid I don't know much either," Shining Armor admitted. "We have been spending our effort on learning what the Empire was before Sombra took over, and doing our best to bring it and the crystal ponies up to modern standards. And Sombra destroyed the records in the library and scrambled all the books as part of his curse. It's going to be months, maybe years, before we get it fully reorganized."
"I haven't learned much more myself," Celestia admitted. She waved a hoof at the books. "I recalled what Sombra did when he banished the city. The power of that spell, it must have been something he crafted for months for it to cloud even our own memories. I have searched these for clues, any hint of the origins of the Empire and the Heart itself, in hopes it would explain what happened to Cadance, but nothing..."
She didn't share her fear that it might have been one last lingering curse from Sombra, mostly because the evidence was against it, but the thought was still there, gnawing at her.
"Did you find anything on Shangri-La?" Shining asked, looking at all the books.
Luna blinked a little, scrunching her muzzle up. "That name... it seems so familiar... but I do not remember where I heard it..."
"It was one of the clues I searched for, but I found nothing of it either," Celestia sighed heavily. The fleeting memory of her early lessons came to mind. "No records in these books, no evidence from the heart, no trace from my magic. The only real clue are the characters seen on the heart, but they are older than we are, sister."
"There has to be some clue," Luna insisted with a frown, rather irritated that faded memories were dancing at the edge of her mind and yet unable to be recalled, "Perhaps a more thorough search of the library?"
"I am fairly competent in a library myself," Shining Armor added with a weak smile. "It's impossible not to be with Twilight Sparkle for a sister and Twilight Velvet for a mother."
"Then let us away!" Luna declared, getting to her hooves.
"Yes... it would be for the best," Celestia said, finally smiling. "But first, it's time to lower the sun and raise the moon."
"Oh yes..." Luna said with a sheepish smile, "Let us complete our duties." She moved out onto the balcony, lighting her horn, waiting for her sister. Celestia moved out after her, grasping the sun in her magic, gently sending it below the horizon as Luna coaxed the moon from its slumber.
In all the years and on all the worlds that Stargate Command had been operating, they had only met a handful of truly alien species. Thanks to the efforts of the Goa'uld in the Milky Way, the experiments of the Lanteans in Pegasus, and the gate network to allow for ease of migration, the human species was one of, if not the most populous race across multiple galaxies.
The Asgard, Unas, and perhaps the Wraith outside of armour were about as alien as the SGC personnel had seen. Additionally, most of the people on the Shangri-La Expedition had had zero interaction with any of those species; the first was now extinct, the second was rare even on the few worlds they inhabited, and the last considered humans to be simple prey.
To the large group of certified space explorers, the ponies were the best thing they had laid eyes on since first seeing the stargate activate in person. While the ponies were not mobbed, most people being too professional to do so, there was a lot of interest directed at them. Lyra was energetically babbling to anyone who would spare an ear, and a few who wouldn't, her endless curiosity far from sated. Cadance, with a smirk, and Bon Bon, whose expression could only be termed "resignation," followed, more often than not issuing apologies on the part of their companion. Jasmine followed, ineffectively attempting to serve as something of a buffer.
"They are handling this better than I hoped," Daniel admitted to Sam, walking from one side of the room. "I did make sure they were seen and could interact with people, but it's as if something about them just makes people more willing to open up, to trust them."
"I heard Iwu call them 'cute,'" Sam chuckled. "And she's apparently not the first person to use that word for them."
"Did I tell you Lyra hugged me?" Daniel asked with a small smile.
"Really?"
"Twice in fact. Her reasoning? I was sad." Daniel cast a glance at the unicorn in question. "She uh... she reminds me a lot of myself. Seems so long ago, doesn't it?"
"We've done a lot since then," Sam agreed. "Some of us more so than others."
"Yes, yes we have." He looked at the ponies again, watching as they ate. Lyra and Cadance used their magic to levitate their utensils, while Bon Bon somehow held hers with her hoof. "I am really glad this first contact is going well, so far at least. You know they call themselves 'ponies?' They even refer to their females as mares. I think they're the basis of many of our uh... equine based legends."
"It's amazing how jaded being a part of the Stargate Program can make you." Sam sighed, shaking her head slightly. "Is there any part of mythology that isn't based on some alien species or technology?"
"Most likely our legends come from the Shangrians that visited Earth. I doubt any of the ponies actually came to Earth," Daniel said, stroking his chin.
"We've been able to surmise the origins of the Pegasus humans based on mitochondrial DNA, proving they did come from earth stock, so who knows what could have happened," Sam pointed out, watching Cadance entertain a few questions. "Stranger things have happened."
"True," he said, nodding his head, "I can only imagine what their culture is like. Just from these three, I can tell it has its similarities with ours, which is no surprise given their interaction with the Ancients. In fact... I do believe this is our first encounter with a sapient quadruped species."
"The first with fur, too," Sam agreed. "You know, we never did meet a furling."
"Jack's still waiting for us to find one," Daniel said with a smile, "There is one thing I am worried about. Cadance is a princess, and her people may assume that we've uh... kidnapped her..." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "That's going to be an issue..."
"Well, it wouldn't be the first time we kidnapped the leader of a people," Sam tried to joke, but Daniel's expression clearly told her she failed. "Sorry. Hopefully she will only have good things to say about us."
"I think the chocolate helped, it always does. I think it's safe to say that we can secure an alliance or at least friendly relations."
"One of our better first contacts," Sam agreed. "Still, it's amazing to think a hooved species evolved a tool using society. Even with the Ancients assisting."
"I'm no biologist but I'm pretty sure Earth equines can't move their bodies like these three can."
"Humans have a wider range of motion in our limbs and wrists than chimpanzees do, so maybe it's something similar?" Sam offered. She watched as the small group around the princess broke out in laughter, idly wondering what set them off. "I really wish I could lower the shield and get a jumper out there to get a look at where they are from. "
"Jasmine said the outer bay doors were frozen shut. If someone can find a map in the database they might be able to tell us where we are. It's a long shot, but it could be worth it."
"I'll see what we can turn up," Sam nodded.
"Shall we?" he asked, gesturing to the equines.
Sam picked up her tray with its less than appealing MRE, and nodded. "Lead the way."
He grabbed his own tray, heading over. "Mind if we join you ladies?"
"General Carter!" Lyra waved excitedly despite being right before her. "Sure! Come sit! We were just sharing stories about school. You humans go to school for a really long time, don't they?"
"I take it you don't?" Daniel asked, taking a seat next to the excited unicorn.
"Not nearly as long," Cadance replied. "Foals don't seem to stay in school as long as you do, or spend as much time there once they are grown and earned their cutie mark."
"So... getting their cutie mark is a sign of maturity?" Daniel cast a glance at Cadance's mark. "If it's not rude to ask, how did you get yours?"
"I got mine in somewhat unusual circumstances," Cadance admitted. "It was after I proved able to not only resist the dark magic powered by hate, greed and jealousy, but also an affinity for love energy."
"Love... energy?" Carter asked, raising her eyebrow slightly, "What exactly is love energy?"
"It's one of the most powerful magic forces in all of Equestria!" Lyra gushed excitedly.
"Lyra!" Bon Bon chided, glaring at her marefriend.
Lyra wilted sheepishly. "But it is..."
"She's not wrong," Cadance giggled. "Love is in fact one of the more powerful magical forces. A pure expression of both magical and emotional energies, united into one." Her horn glowed pale blue, a few pink hearts drifting from it before popping like soap bubbles. "It has a natural restorative effect and counters dark magics. Harmony magic is one of the few that are more powerful."
"I see," Carter said, nodding her head, "Princess, if you wouldn't mind, would you allow our doctors to do some tests? Nothing invasive, we just want to make sure neither of our peoples can get the other sick."
"Would that be the Doctor Juan, you mentioned earlier Dr. Jackson?" Cadance asked.
"Yes, that's correct," Carter said with a nod, "I know Dr. Juan would love to get to know you."
"Sure, meeting new ponies is fun," Lyra said, waving her hoof dismissively, more interested in examining the utensils they had been given.
"Couldn't Dr. Jackson do those tests?" Bon Bon's tone had a slight distaste to it at the word test.
"I'm flattered but I'm not that kind of doctor," Daniel said, pausing his meal, "Though if you want me to be there during the tests I don't think Dr .Juan would mind."
"What kind of doctor are you?" Bon Bon asked suddenly. "You said we were an archeologist like Lyra is?"
"I'm a doctor of archeology and linguistics," Daniel explained. "Doctor means more than just medicine to us." That bit of information surprised him, he would have thought Lyra had their version of a Ph.D., though Cadance did say their children didn't go to school as long as humans did.
"Really? Hmm... Doctor sounds like one of the old words for The Teachers," Lyra commented, looking up, the fork floating in her magic.
"Doctor comes from Latin, 'to teach,' Latin itself being a derivation of the Ancients' language," Daniel prattled off. "A good portion of our languages are actually based on the languages of other races, most notably the Asgard, Goa'uld and the Ancients."
"Thanks to The Teachers and the Age of Revival after Discord, most ponies speak Equestrian, which is based on the Teachers' Tongue. Our languages must have so many parallels!"
Bon Bon sighed, covering her face with her leg as Daniel and Lyra got going. "It's nice that Lyra found someone to talk to about those things, but I think that they've both forgotten that the rest of us are here."
"Daniel gets like this sometimes, and it's rare that he finds anyone who can keep up with him. An alien who can? He's like a child with a new toy," Sam chuckled, stirring her food, somewhat grateful for the distraction.
Cadance giggled as Lyra and Daniel's discussion got even more animated, the pair seeming completely oblivious to those around them as they discussed the more obvious marks the ancients left on their respective cultures. "Do you think his cutie mark would have been in ancient history like Lyra's?"
"Cutie Mark?" Sam asked.
"Oh! You weren't there for that explanation," Cadance held her hoof to her mouth before quickly explaining.
"I see," Sam said, looking at the images in a new light. "If that's how they work, then almost certainly. I have never met anyone as passionate about history as Daniel."
"You might have now," Bon Bon smiled fondly before she blinked and turned her attention back to Sam. "But we're getting distracted. What sort of tests are we talking about?"
"Nothing too invasive," Sam promised. "A simple battery of tests to determine your health and learn a bit more of your biology. Assuming the techs were able to get the infirmary online, which they should have since it was one of our priority tasks and they have had all this time, it should pass quickly."
"I can't speak for them but I will submit to these tests as a show of good faith," Cadance said, slipping into the diplomatic training Celestia had painstakingly drilled into her head, "Then perhaps we can discuss this 'stargate' of yours."
"Well... if the princess is okay with it... so am I." Bon Bon nodded, giving Cadance a quick glance, narrowing her eyes a little.
"I understand your concern," Sam admitted, thinking back to the times when she and her team were the ones on the other side of the table. "To be honest, this has been far more casual than our standard means of operation would call for. My people fully intend to stay for a while, and I would much rather we have a welcoming relationship with the locals. Your safety and wellbeing, Princess Cadance, is just as important to me as that of any member of my team."
"Thank you General Carter," Cadance said with a smile, "I know you'll get along swimmingly with my aunts."
"And they would be alicorns as well?" Sam asked.
"That is correct, though unlike me, they were born as alicorns." Cadance explained, "They have been ruling the nation for centuries."
"What are they like? If you don't mind me asking," Sam asked. Based solely on the three ponies present in Shangri-La, Sam suspected that their rule was far from the standard set by the Goa'uld in the Milky Way, but she wanted to get it from the horse's mouth... so to speak.
"Celestia is very approachable, very maternal. She is also, how did Shiny put it?" She tapped her chin. "I think he called her a troll. She likes to play pranks. As for Luna well... she only returned about two years ago, so she's still transitioning to modern life."
Sam instantly thought of Egeria, though the similarities were fleeting to nonexistent. "She considers her subjects as... family?"
"She sees all her subjects as her 'little ponies'," Cadance said with a giggle. "She's very informal once you get to know her."
Sam nodded slightly, idly listening to Daniel and Lyra as they shared their experiences with their respective academic communities. "How long have you been ruling?"
"Only for the past month or so, when the Empire returned," Cadance admitted with a sheepish smile, "Celestia however has been ruling for the past thousand years."
"The meeting with her will be an interesting one," Sam mused. As pleasant as Cadance was, the fact that she was still being held against her will still weighed on her mind. "I heard you tried to make contact with your aunt and failed?"
"She tried a faefire spell, but it immediately returned," Bon Bon said, speaking up.
"Something was blocking the spell," Cadance admitted. "I'm not sure what, but the spell rebounded and just sent the letter right back to me."
"Without knowing how your magic works, I would hesitate to speculate, but it's possible that the shield protecting the city is what is keeping your magic from working," Sam proposed. It made sense. The ancients were known for adding precautions to new dangers. Like the countdown and gate lock-out and destiny, and the ATA requirement. If magia, or magic was as common to the races on this planet as the video and these three suggested, it was quite likely that they came up with countermeasures.
"So we really are stuck here, then?" Cadance asked with a sigh, "Shiny is probably losing his mind with worry." Cadance groaned, letting her head fall onto the table, looking a little tired.
"Stuck for now at least," Sam admitted. As much as she would have liked to lower the shield, if at least to allow Cadance to make contact with the other leaders of her nation, the state of the city didn't allow it. City ships depended on their shields not only for their defensive needs, but for structural integrity. The buildings that composed most of the city ships, although extremely artistic and far stronger than their delicate looks would imply, were still susceptible to damage.
Many of the buildings were encased in a shell of ice that would likely collapse in on the city itself once the shield was deactivated. At the present time, Shangri-La's shield was operating in a manner similar to the jumper's passive field or Aurora class warships shield; a field contoured to the city's structure itself. The current plan was to expand the shield to full size, rather than that thin layer, forcibly shattering the ice and pushing it, and likely much of the ice pinning the substructure, away.
However, Sam had put that plan on hold until she could get her teams to run full diagnostics on all ten emitters. They had been running, albeit it at low power, for thousands of years. If even one emitter had a fault in the change over, the damage done to the city by the ice might prove crippling for months, years to come, even. Atlantis still dealt with the lingering side effects of damage from micrometeorite strikes it suffered years before, and that was even with the city's self repair functions working at it. In fact, Rodney had listed those same damages in his report on why Atlantis was almost stranded between galaxies on its return to Pegasus.
Sam was determined not to let her city suffer that kind of avoidable damage just to accomplish something faster. She smiled a little. Only a day and she was already considering Shangri-La hers. It helped that Shangri-La was remarkably similar to Atlantis in layout, more so than any of the other city ships they had discovered. It brought back fond memories. Perhaps, if they did move the city, she could have them land on the sea somewhere. She could be the one to invite Jack over to fish for a change.
"General Carter?" Cadance's voice startled Sam from her introspection.
"Oh, what?" Sam blinked in surprise, before smiling. "I'm sorry, I got a bit distracted. And you can call me Samantha."
"Samantha," Cadance tried the word on her tongue before shaking her head with a chuckle. "Well, 'Samantha,' your people really do have odd names."
"We think the same, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza ," Sam laughed.
"Any ideas why?" Bon Bon asked.
Lyra and Daniel both turned with a smile. "We were just talking about that..."
Discovery [act 4]
"Don't touch anything!" the familiar warning came. The speaker was a somewhat heavy-set man, his mass more from thick bones and exercise than flab. Donald Thorne was one of the more decorated engineers on the expedition, and he wasn't about to let his team fall into simple pitfalls. "You know how the Ancients were. No telling what some of this stuff will do. We are just mapping out the city, matching rooms, locations and purposes with what they send us!"
"Yes, ma ," the call came back. It wasn't that the advice was bad. Only that they had heard it every third door they opened. Considering the slow progress in translating the city's system and weeding information from the database, all they had to work with was the rough outlines of the sections.
"This one looks like another suite of rooms," Jane Faroe, the only female on the team, reported. "Five rooms this time and what might be a closet."
"Is it a-"
"No, it's not a transport booth," she sighed, rolling her eyes as she checked off the list.
"Alright. Looks like this sector is a good area for general population." Thorne nodded. "Anything better than what we found so far? We still need to earmark someplace as the diplomatic quarters."
"The suites on the 74th floor still top the list. This one isn't bad though," a seedy male said, slipping out from one of the rooms. Despite his appearance, Calvin Higgs had proven to be a worthy SGC member for four years running now, particularly in matters of logistics and diplomacy. "Got their own bathrooms. Tubs, not showers. Everything on this level is more spacious too. Might be better for our new friends than the ones on 74th. More width, less height. There is a transport booth not three minutes away, and a large atrium that Newman says was once a green room."
"How else would you explain the amount of dead plant material?" Newman said slowly. Though their military escort, he dabbled in botany after spending six months assigned to an off world research team working with various plant species. He was also known for his measured speech.
"Enough chatter, people," Thorne called, waving a hand in the air. "We still have the other half of this sector to check. It looks like it's another block of rooms, possibly secondary labs, but we need to make sure."
As the team moved down the hall, a small ball of fuzz stirred, sprouting wings. It opened its eyes, revealing two green orbs. It buzzed its wings, gazing around the room, a hungry gleam in its eyes...
The infirmary wasn't exactly a hub of activity, but the medical staff still had work to do. Stocks of medicines and other supplies needed to be stowed away, equipment needed to find new homes, space needed to be organized and arranged and a few bandages needed to be handed out for the bumps and bruises a few expedition members had gotten. Someone had more or less ordered Hendrix to the infirmary to get himself assessed, as a precaution against the off chance he did get something from the body he encountered. When he was cleared, they kept him around. As he had been warned, having a gene tended to get you volunteered to be a living power switch.
"Anything else you need turned on, doc?" Floyd asked, sitting down on a chair, having been passed around a few times in the past hour. He ran a hand through his hair, glad he even had the chance to sit down.
"I think you can take a breather, Mr. Hendrix," Dr. Juan, a rather grizzled yet jovial-looking man, assured him, looking up from his clipboard. "You've saved us a lot of time today."
"I'm just glad I didn't get any weird space plague," Floyd responded as he fiddled with the amulet, which glowed faintly. "I really need to get this thing looked at."
"They could probably get a look at it when they get the science labs running," Dr. Juan nodded. "There's not much the equipment here can tell aside from confirming it's not giving off harmful radiation of any kind."
"Well, it did shock me..." Floyd responded, giving it a bit of a shake, which didn't really do anything, "Eh, I'll figure it out..." he said, shrugging a little.
"The shock didn't seem to do any damage to you that I could detect, but I put you down to have further blood work done. Mostly for the record." The doctor set his clipboard aside and gave an easy smile.
The doors to the infirmary hissed open, admitting a curious group. Led by Dr. Jackson and accompanied by Jasmine Iwu, the three alien visitors, at least one of them giddy with excitement and curiosity, trooped into the room.
"Ah! Dr. Jackson! And our guests!" Dr. Juan beamed at them. "You must be here for your checkups!"
"Dr. Juan, may I introduce Princess Cadance and her companions Bon Bon and Lyra," Daniel smiled. He motioned the mares towards the doctor. "This is Dr. Juan, head physician for our expedition."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, doctor," Cadance said, giving a slight bow. "I understand you're to run a few tests?"
"Nothing too complicated," Dr. Juan said jovially. "Or too invasive. They were kind enough to focus on getting the infirmary's systems more or less on their feet, so the medical scanners are working fine. The worst will be dental checks and taking a blood sample."
"I'll go first," Bon Bon said, moving over to Dr.Juan. "Test away!" She couldn't exactly let the princess go first, not until she was sure it was safe.
"Excellent, excellent!" Juan motioned for Bon Bon to follow him to the waist-high medical scanner. It was a rectangular device, bearing the typical aesthetics of ancient technology: a body somewhere between metal and stone, the top a translucent crystalline substance that had some give in it, so it was less like a solid surface and somewhat like a padded one, with an arm hanging over it. It was long enough that even a tall man could lay on it without issues.
"We can start with the easy one! Can you climb up and lay on the scanner please?" Juan requested.
Bon Bon, who was at eye level with the table, reared on her hind legs and pulled herself up, laying with her legs tucked underneath her. "Is this good?"
"Perfect," Juan said. He typed a few keys on a nearby computer, causing both the table she lay on and the arm the hung over it to glow. "Don't mind the light," he said absently as the arm slowly made its way down the length of her body. "It will be done in a bit."
Bon Bon watched it intently. "What's it doing, exactly?" She didn't feel anything, but it had to be doing something.
"To put it in simple terms, it's taking pictures of your body both inside and out, and using them to give me a better idea of your general health," Juan replied. "Of course, there are some things that it won't tell us, and some things that I prefer to find out the old fashioned way, but it's a wonderful place to start."
"So its like an X-ray machine?" Lyra asked, looking at the machine, "Like, it shows bones and stuff?"
"Oh no, it's an Ancient X-ray machine," Daniel quipped. "There's a difference."
Juan chuckled softly and shook his head. "Well, I can't say how advanced your people's radiology is, but to compare this with one of our X-rays would be like comparing a black and white photo to one of those new 3D Blu-ray movies."
"They wouldn't exactly know what that means," Daniel pointed out.
"Right. Still, the information this machine gathers is more than just what your bones look like," Juan said as he read the information. "It can tell me what your bones are made of, map out blood vessels, show me organs..."
"Oooh... can I see?" Lyra asked, trotting over to him, her hooves clopping on the floor softly.
"Sure," Juan shifted enough to let Lyra see the screens. Daniel, after a moment, joined them. Bon Bon's scans were displayed, accompanied by a mix of English and Ancient text. Of course, it was medical English and Ancient, which was more or less its own language. The images had little resemblance to the mare on the scanner; just faint outlines with differing details, one showing bones, another showing organs in various colours, a third showing a network of red and blue blood vessels.
"Well, I can only assume this is natural, but I've never seen such a high level of naquadah in a biological system. Even higher than the Goa'uld," Juan commented.
"What's naqublag?" Lyra asked, looking up at Juan curiously.
"I think he means a type of alicor," Cadance spoke up, "It's a rather common mineral. Most living beings have it in their systems, it helps to conduct magic."
"We call it naquadah," Daniel said. "It's one of the cornerstones of our more advanced technology. The stargates are made out of it."
"And you say its common?" Jasmine asked. "Exactly how common?"
"Common enough that unicorn horns are made out of it," Cadance said, tapping her horn gently, "The raw version is mostly used in the construction of magical artifacts and in more mana intensive spells."
"Fancy yourself a doctor, princess?" Juan joked, comparing Bon Bon's results with the standard for a human.
"Oh no, but it's my job to know the details," Cadance said with a grin. "At least that's what my aunt always says... and I picked up a few things when I foalsat Twilight."
"Excuse me, princess? Is it alright if I record this?" Floyd asked, having taken out a camcorder, though it was off at the moment
"Medical records remain private and are kept primarily between the patient and her medical practitioners," Juan politely chastised. "I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask you not to record this, as important as it may be."
"No prob, doc," Floyd responded, taking the battery out and putting it on the table. "Maybe an interview later, princess?"
"So, uh, what do the tests say?" Bon Bon asked suddenly shifting the conversation back to herself, "Anything I should be worried about?"
"As far as I can tell, you are perfectly healthy," Juan aside after a moment's contemplation. "The system, which I assume is matching your records with what it has in its database for your species, is coming up with all greens. Green is good, by the way," he added as an afterthought.
"That would be fine," Cadance smiled softly at Floyd.
"Me next! Me next!" Lyra chirped, hopping onto the table as Bon Bon slid off, all the while wagging her tail with a bright smile. She lay down, giving Juan the happiest smile she could.
"Calm down, Lyra, it's just a medical exam," Bon Bon scolded, rolling her eyes. "I mean really, you get so weird sometimes."
"Stop trying to bring me down!" Lyra shot back, sticking her tongue out playfully, "Besides, you've never complained about my... enthusiasm." She gave a seductive smirk, her eyes half-lidded.
"Lyra!" Bon Bon hissed, her eyes going wide and her cheek fur actually turning red.
Cadance couldn't help but giggle, bringing a hoof to her mouth. "You two are adorable, you know that?"
Juan chose not to comment. "Would you rather go through the full test, Miss Bon Bon, or let Miss Lyra have her go on the scanners first?"
"You can uh... let her go." Bon Bon said, looking away, letting out a cough as she tried to hide her blush, getting Lyra to snicker at her marefriend's discomfort.
"Well, you have already climbed up, Miss Lyra," Juan smiled. She smiled back, adjusting her position and laying down. The machine started up more quickly the second time. Juan did have the gene, but it was an artificially activated one, not natural, and near the lower end of the chart. He didn't have that knack or connection with the devices those ranked higher did.
Lyra's readouts started popping up and Juan hummed thoughtfully at them. "It seems the naquadah, ah, alicor you called it? Well, it's far more concentrated in you than in Miss Bon Bon. Mainly in the skull and primarily in the horn, with the rest of your body having comparatively trace amounts. Miss Bon Bon's readings had high levels cross the entirety of her body."
"Oh, that's easy," Cadance spoke, "Each tribe uses their magic differently. Earth ponies like Bon Bon are the strongest and have a deep tie with nature. Unicorns can directly manipulate their magic via their horns, and Pegasi use it in their wings, and can use it to control the weather."
"That's interesting," Daniel commented, half to himself as if he were only voicing a theory as it came to him. "Peak physical capabilities and increased awareness and empathy of and with the environment, telekinesis and energy manipulation, and control over weather... those are all abilities we've documented various near-ascended beings performing. No wonder the Ancients were surprised when they first met your people."
"And that's just ponies," Cadance said, "Most of the races of our world have a connection with magic."
"Races? As in... not just ponies?" Floyd asked, raising his eyebrow.
"There was a slight reference to other races in the recording," Daniel nodded. He looked curiously at Floyd. "You didn't notice it?"
"Not really," Floyd said, shaking his head. "Can you tell us about them?"
"Certainly," Cadance said with a smile, "there's the zebras, the griffons, the yaks, the buffalo, the dragons, the deer, and the horses."
"And minotaurs, the old kentaur empire and the changelings," Lyra added helpfully.
"That's... quite a lot of races," Daniel managed. He recalled the issues the SGC had just trying to get the Tok'ra, Jaffa and humans to get along. This sounded impossible in comparison, yet it had worked for thousands of years apparently.
"There are also two other groups of ponies, both of which joined Equestria after its founding: the thestrals, and more recently, the crystal ponies," Cadance piped up. "There may be more, but we haven't met them yet." She turned to Juan. "Is it my turn?"
"I think the doctor should finish the tests on me first," Bon Bon said, as she moved over to look up at Juan. "I'm ready when you are, doctor."
"Tell me, what does your medical science include? Do your people draw blood?" Juan asked. He motioned to one of the nurses. "That's what we will need to do for the last tests."
"Yes, we draw blood," she said with a nod, holding her hoof out. "Other than that, I can't really help. I'm a candy maker, not a doctor."
"You at least know the concept," Juan reassured her. The nurse appeared at his side with a push cart filled with equipment. Juan himself reached for a wheeled chair. "Now, I'll need to take a few more vials that I normally would. Still far before what I estimate would pose a threat to your health. The same goes for all of you," he added, including Lyra and Cadance in the conversation. "If only because you are the first of your race we have encountered, and we will need to perform a wider suite of tests on it."
"That's fine, doctor," Cadance said with a nod, "I trust it won't be anything too invasive, I hope?"
"It will involve a needle in one of your veins, which the scanner already identified, and letting blood pressure fill the different vials. After that, we'll perform the tests on them at a later date." Juan held up one of the vials as an example.
"Allow me to go first," Bon Bon said, still holding her hoof out, smiling at him.
"Will you be comfortable in that position?" Juan asked. "It can take over a minute to draw the quantity we need, and you can't be moving around while it's being done."
"I'll be fine doctor, I assure you," she said with a smile, sitting on her haunches much like a dog. She held her arm out, wincing a little as the nurse stuck her with the needle, surprisingly getting it right on the first try, even with the alien anatomy, taking her blood. They filled nine vials altogether, Juan deftly swapping out one for another with practiced efficiency. The needle was removed and quickly replaced with a cotton ball they tied down with a strip of bandage.
"First sample of blood from an indigenous species," Juan smiled happily. "I'll have so much fun studying this."
"Me next?" Lyra asked, sitting up much like a human would, letting her hind legs dangle off the side of the table.
"Well, if you would climb down," Juan suggested, "one of the nurses can take your blood and we can have the Princess scanned."
She nodded, hopping off the table and trotting over while Cadance took her place. The same nurse that assisted Juan with Bon Bon softly gave her instructions and started on drawing her blood.
"Shall I remove my regalia?" Cadance asked, gesturing to herself.
Juan considered the question for a moment before he gave his response. "I would advise you to do so. While the scanner can operate through clothing, I'm not sure what, if any, effect your regalia and crown would have on it."
She nodded, letting her horseshoes fall to the floor and placing her crown and necklace on a nearby chair. "You may test away doctor." Bon Bon frowned as the monarch disrobed, looking rather uncomfortable.
Daniel noticed her discomfort, but didn't directly comment on it. "Bon Bon, would you watch over Princess Cadance's regalia until she is ready to don it again?" Bon Bon nodded, gathering up the horseshoes then trotting over and placing them on the chair with the rest of the regalia.
The scanner took longer to work on Cadance than it had on the other two, but in time her results were added to the database as well, though her scans were more complex than those taken of Lyra and Bon Bon. Daniel tapped a finger at one line that came up in ancient, slipping through the translation program completely. "It seems alicorns really are considered further along the path to ascension than that average person. Er, pony."
"How so?" Cadance asked, tilting her head.
"Well, I don't know," Daniel admitted. "There are a lot of factors that I admittedly don't remember, and don't fully understand. Juan and the other doctors would have to give this information a full analysis before we can get a real answer."
"If we can get such an answer," Juan added. "There are some things that our understanding of science still cannot make heads or tails of. Perhaps it has something to do with being able to express the traits of all three tribes at once."
"I can tell you, it was weird when I first ascended, I kept using too much force with my hooves and my magic surged whenever I was suddenly surprised," Cadance spoke, rubbing her chin. "And I was still a filly at the time."
"It might be something we study for a long time," Juan remarked.
"MALP telemetry reads viable atmosphere," the gate technician announced into the radio as the gateship lowered itself gently from the bay on the top level, coming to a hover just before the gate. "Looks to be before daybreak planetside. No immediate evidence of civilization in the vicinity of the gate. No radio frequencies detected either."
"Copy that, command," Major Marshal replied. There were seven people in the jumper: Major George Marshal, the officer in charge of the team, Captain Wendy King, their primary pilot, Captains Jason Samson and Frederick Anderson for additional military might, Doctors Moriah Hill and Michael Moore to properly identify and supervise the collection of the resource they need, and finally, Devon.
As a military officer with both training on the science and research side and high ratings on jumper simulations, Bowers assigned him to the team as a support officer. Carter took over the line. "The database indicates that this world should be uninhabited, and the surface rock should have high amounts of the mineral we need so you shouldn't have to dig much to get it. Between the jumper's sensors and the ones Dr. Hill has, you should be able to get enough of the pure mineral we need and be back before long. Our best estimate places it within fifty miles of the gate, but no other planet was more promising."
"Understood, General."
"Good. While our guests might not be a burden, and they don't have an issue being in our care, it would be best for diplomatic relationships that we restore communications with them as soon as possible. Jumper 1, you are clear for departure."
"We'll be back before you know it," Marshall replied. With that, the jumper slipped through the event horizon.
Carter watched the MALP's feed as the jumper emerged from the other side and arced to avoid the tree line as it went to a spiraling ascent so it's sensors could have better range. "Shut it down. Redial in an hour to check up on them and to retrieve the MALP."
"Understood, ma'am," the technician said, shutting down the gate.
"Ma'am, I got a report that team 6 has finished their assessment of the emitter. It's operating within acceptable margins at 94%," another told her.
Carter nodded absently. Things were falling into place. That was the seventh of ten emitters checked. One needed a few minor tweaks, but those were being taken care of, and the other three were good so far. The chill air had warmed to a more moderate, though still cold, temperature as the life support did its thing. The musty smell of age and time had also been cleared away. It still wasn't pine fresh, or the faint salt scent of Atlantis, but it was a major improvement either way. Things were looking up.
"Command, this is Thorne," the radio crackled. "We have something... interesting to report."
She should have know better. She hid her sigh. "This is Carter. Go ahead, Dr. Thorne."
The peach coloured ball of fluff with too-big orange eyes floated in the air on two pairs of buzzing wings, chirring happily at the team and trying to nuzzle Higgs, who was doing his best to ward it off with a pen. "What do you want from me? Jesus!"
"We found... something alive. About the size of an apple, flying, I think four legs, round with huge eyes," Thorne reported. "It has an interest in Higgs for some reason."
"Something alive? In a city that was sealed for thousands of years?" Carter's voice, though level, still had a tone of bemusement to it. "Does it seem dangerous?"
"It seems..."
"Cute?" Faroe offered.
"... Cute," Thorne grunted.
"God dammit!" Higgs yelled as it ducked under his waving pen and nuzzled at his chest. Faroe laughed as he chased it away, fumbling at his pocket.
"It definitely has a thing for Higgs," she said, joining the conversation. "Hey, you got anything on you that that thing wants?" she asked, looking at the fuzzball as it nuzzled Higgs' pocket.
"Only thing I got on me that it might want are some protein bars," Higgs complained, managing to catch the critter between his hands, careful not to pin it's delicate wings. It smiled at him, chirping happily.
"Try not to antagonize it," Carter instructed. "We've dealt with seemingly harmless entities that turned out to be dangerous when provoked before."
"Think our guests know what it is?"
"Would they?" Higgs asked, eyeing the creature carefully. "We found it in the city, after all. Could be another ancient experiment." Faroe walked over and deftly picked his pocket. "Hey!"
"Just getting it what it wants, Higgs," she said, wagging the protein bar she took. The creature stared at the bar and chirped rapidly. "General, any objections to feeding it? It seems to have an interest in the protein bars, and it should be plenty hungry after all this time..."
Higgs grumbled, not happy about the theft. The creature chittered, nipping at the packaging, looking up at Faroe with pleading eyes.
"I don't see why not," Carter said after a moment. "Thorne, how far along is your progress?"
"We've mostly completed this section, ma'am. It's clear and habitable, though the large atrium we found could use some new horticulture and landscaping," Throne said promptly. "Sizable living quarters for the most part."
Faroe eagerly opened the wrapper and held it out to the creature. It made short work of it, chomping off big bites and swallowing with little chewing, much like a bird would.
"Okay, Higgs, Faroe, take the creature up to the biolabs. The team should be mostly set up there," Carter directed. "Thorne, you and Newman can finish the assessment before returning. We should have cleared enough living space for most all of the expedition to at least find a place for the night."
"Understood ma'am, Thorne out. Alright, you heard the General, let's go," he ordered.
"Come on cutie, let's see what you are!" Faroe said, gently guiding the creature onto her shoulder, patting it. It nuzzled her hand, cooing softly.
Leaving Thorne and Newman to their task, Faroe and Higgs retraced their steps, heading to the transport booth they located earlier in their search. Higgs was content to no longer be the subject of the creature's attentions, casting wary glances at it as it rode on Faroe's shoulder, buzzing happily as she continued to feed it pieces of food.
"Are you sure you should be feeding it so much?" Higgs asked. "Aren't you afraid it will, I dunno, pop?"
"That's ridiculous," Faroe chided. "What sort of critter could do that?"
"The Priors' beetles ate until they killed themselves," Higgs commented harshly.
"I doubt this little cutie could do that," Faroe said, rolling her eyes, "What if this little guy is some lost pet? He's probably been so lonely here." She fed the little thing the last piece of the bar, smiling at it.
"Lost pet, just hanging around for a few thousand years," Higgs muttered under his breath. The sad part was that it was still far from the strangest thing the SGC had come across. Not even the strangest that year. He waved his hand in front of the sensor when the arrived at the transport booth and motioned for Faroe to step in first.
She got in, petting it. "Oh come on, it could have been hibernating," she argued, giving the little fuzzy thing a scratch on the head. It chittered happily, buzzing its wings.
The booth filled with the white flash as it transported them up and across the tower. "Fine, I'll give you that. Maybe they wanted a pet that could live as long as they did. Doesn't mean I have to like it."
"Oh come on, how can you hate this little guy?" she cooed, giggling as it nipped at her fingers.
Higgs looked at the peach ball with wings, blinking its too big insect eyes at him and chirring. "It's not that hard. Bug eyes aren't supposed to blink."
"Maybe it's not a bug," she argued. "It could be some weird mammal."
"Maybe we should leave that for the biologists to decide," Higgs retorted. "Either way, I don't like it."
"Scared of a tiny little fluff ball?" she asked as they moved through the corridors, keeping an eye out for anything else.
There were more signs of activity in that section of the city, from crates and storage containers to other expedition members going about their business, a few casting curious glances at the pair. Higgs kept focusing straight ahead. "You're not going to change my mind."
The HUD unobtrusively marked the major terrain shifts between the data from the database and what lay before them as the jumper ate up the distance between the deposit field and the gate at a leisurely cruising speed. Trees and stark rock vanished outside their view as Captain Wendy smoothly piloted the craft over them. Numbers along the right edge of the display shifted as they tracked various variables.
Altitude, velocity, temperature, drive output, field strength, dampeners, Devon mentally labeled. His side dash was taken up with the tablet linked to the system, the rapidly updating map steadily rendering as he gave it commands, the ancient systems leaping on his thoughts.
"How long until we land?" Dr. Hill asked from behind him. "The mineral traces are steadily increasing."
"Just another minute or so," King answered. "Any particular spots we should be looking for?"
"Caves or silt deposits would be best," Dr. Moore called out from where he was fiddling with the equipment packs sitting in the middle of the jumper's rear compartments, paying particular attention to the small drone reminiscent of the Mark I MALPs. "I'd rather we didn't have to dig if we can avoid it."
"I'd rather we not walk through mud if we don't have to," Marshal added wryly.
"I hope it's a cave, always wanted to go spelunking," Devon chuckled, looking up from his tablet. "I never had the chance as a kid, we didn't have any caves."
"Either way we'll have to carry it back to the jumper," Marshal smirked. He laid back in his seat behind King, more or less relaxed considering the nature of the mission. "Not a bad draw for our first off-world mission."
"If the remote works as planned and the terrain allows, we can load it up and just drive it back to the jumper." Dr Moore seemed to have done all he could or wanted to and left the supplies alone.
"I really hope it works," Devon said, returning his attention to his tablet, "I'd rather not have to carry large chunks of rock. How much do we need exactly?"
"We don't need a large amount to repair the transporter," Dr. Hill admitted. "The relays won't take much palladium hydride to be replaced. Purity would be the main concern about how much we gather, but we decided it would be best if we got as much as we can on this trip."
"Ah! Here we go!" King called, "you wanted a cave, well you got one." She cast a glance at Devon, smiling. "You bring your mining helmet?"
"It's better than mucking through the mud," Devon laughed as the jumper started it's descent. "How many things use this mineral? I hear about naquadah, trinium and neutronium a lot, I don't remember palladium."
"Palladium hydride ," Dr. Moore specified, if somewhat stuffily. "It, like with carocev and olesian ore, is one of the lesser known components that are used in different parts of ancient and asgardian technologies. They don't normally suffer wear or get seriously damaged often, but when they do you just have to replace them."
"The big three dominate the resource market, but it's still good to have the others in your supply," Dr. Hill added. "Case in point: the damaged transporter. The fix is little more than pulling out the damaged relays and replacing them, but we need the palladium hydride to manufacture it. Once we have it, it should be working again in a day or two."
"Whenever you are finished with your lesson," King interrupted suddenly. "We've landed."
"You heard the lady," Marshal said. "Time to go look for our hidden treasure."
"So..." Lyra started with a casual drawl. With the aid of security officer Carter sent along, Daniel was escorting the three ponies to the rooms that had been set aside for them... and he had been expecting this. "Now that we've been checked out by the doctor and all..."
"You can't go through the gate," Daniel said, skipping to the end of her proposal.
"Hey! Who said that was what I was going to ask you about?" Lyra pouted, tossing her mane in a show of affront. "I don't appreciate you jumping to conclusions."
"I... uh... can I go through the gate please? " Lyra pleaded, trotting sideways so she could look at Daniel as she did.
"Lyra," Bon Bon said with a somewhat strained expression. "Just let it go."
"You know, I'd like to go through it as well," Cadance said with a large smile on her face. The idea of going to other worlds was something she didn't want to pass up if she had the choice.
"Come on, doc. Can you really say no to these guys?" Floyd commented, having tagged along to get Cadance's interview.
"Perhaps later, when our people and yours can officially begin relations," Daniel continued, sticking to his response. With Princess Cadance missing from the perspective of her nation, allowing her off world on top of that would be a disaster. "Besides, we've only ever used this gate twice. We know nothing about this galaxy."
"But that could be forever!" Lyra whined. Their escort hid his laugh with a cough as she stomped her hooves.
"Lyra, don't you want to go back and rub it in everypony's face that you were right?" Bon Bon asked, trying a different tactic. "You can come back and go through their gate after."
"Can't we just, I dunno, go for a five minute trip or something?" Floyd asked, scratching the back of his neck, "You can send Bowers and me along to make sure they stay out of trouble."
"Yeah! Well be on our bestest behavior!" Lyra agreed, nodding her head up and now, giving a big smile, her biggest actually.
"General Carter ordered gate usage limited to emergencies," the escort chimed in. "Right now the only mission approved was to attain the resources to repair the transporter."
"It will possibly be a week or more before we are ready to establish regular gate usage," Daniel continued. "Between sweeping, clearing and securing the city, which is a massive endeavour on its own, allocating space for all of our various departments and living space, simply finding accommodations for you three took a few hours, and general unpacking; ensuring your safety offworld, particularly yours Princess Cadance, is not something we are quite able to do at this time.
"I've been shot at on far too many supposedly 'safe' worlds to count. And we only have a couple thousand year old database to judge from." Daniel shook his head slowly. "At the moment, only the safe return of you three ponies can ensure a proper relationship our new neighbours. A pleasure trip through the gate will have to wait until much later."
"I am flattered that you are so worried about my safety, but I can hold my own quite well," Cadance spoke up, "I was able to keep Sombra out of the Empire for days with my shield."
"I won't question that, Princess Cadance, but we have seen shields which held back an entire ocean for ten thousand years get pierced by enemy weapons in a matter of hours," Daniel commented soberly. His thoughts flashed to some of the things he had seen on SG-1 and what the Atlantis Expedition encountered. "And that isn't considering what we may find in the city itself. The last city ship we populated had so many hidden dangers that we stumbled across them years later."
"You really kept Sombra out for days?" Lyra asked, a bit of awe in her voice.
"I did," Cadance said with a hint of pride, "but keeping a shield that big up for that long is exhausting, I passed out several times and eventually, I just couldn't keep it up anymore. Thankfully, Twilight and Spike were able to find the Crystal Heart in time."
"That sounds rough," Floyd commented, trying to picture the scene on his mind, picturing some horrible demon horse attacking a herd of child-friendly ponies.
"It was the second worst time in my life," Cadance responded.
"Maybe you and the Princess can talk about that as part of your interview," Daniel suggested.
"Sounds like a plan," Floyd said with a smile, absentmindedly fiddling with his amulet, which glowed faintly at his touch.
Cadance smiled as well, though she did glance at the amulet with fleeting interest. "Thank you again. You've made this far less troubling than it could have been."
"Think nothing of it," Daniel said dismissively, "Anyway, here is your room, princess." He came to a stop, opening the door for her.
"This is gonna be like a sleep over!" Lyra said excitedly, quickly rushing into the room.
"Lyra! You're supposed to..." Bon Bon started in a belated attempt to stop her friend. She sighed before finishing lamely, "let the princess go first."
"No, it's fine," Cadance giggled. "She really hasn't changed much since we were foals."
"Hey Daniel! How do you work the sho-Yipe!" Lyra yelped suddenly as the sound of spraying water started up. "Cold, cold, sweet Celestia this is cold! Nevermind! I figured it out!"
"I'll try to keep them out of trouble." Floyd saluted Daniel, walking into the room to set up his camera.
"Have fun, Hendrix," Daniel said with a little wave. "But not too much fun. Call if you get lost when you're done."
"Okay, state your name for the camera please," Floyd instructed as he framed the shot. It hadn't taken him long to set up and get rolling. He had decided to start with Cadance first, who was sitting on her bed, wearing a soft smile.
"My name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza but my friends call me Cadance," she responded, adjusting her wings.
"Alright Cadance, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself?"
"Sure! What would you like to know?"
"Well, you said you used to be a pegasus, could you tell us a little about that?"
"Oh certainly!" She flashed a smile, clearing her throat, "I'm an orphan, I was found in the woods as a baby by an earth pony family who took me in and raised me as their own. When I was about twelve a pony named Prisma, jealous of the villagers, used a necklace to steal their love."
"She stole their love?" Floyd clarified, raising his eyebrow.
"Yes, and I went to confront her. I managed to reverse her spell and return the love to its rightful owners and turn Prisma away from her horrible ways. At that moment, I was transported to a very strange place. It was empty and the filled with mist. I met Princess Celestia there and she adopted me as her niece. She cast a powerful spell and returned me to Equestria, but as an alicorn."
"Huh, you should talk to Dr. Jackson about that, he'd probably find it interesting."
"Because of his past experiences?" Cadance asked. "Or curiosity?"
"Probably both," Floyd cleared his throat, "Can you tell us about your country? You've mentioned an Empire before and an 'Equestria,' would you mind sharing anything about them?"
"It's something of a difficult topic to explain, but I'll do my best," Cadance said. She looked pensive for a moment as she organized her thoughts. "Equestria is the largest pony society in the modern age. My aunts have been leading it ever since Discord was defeated, and it has prospered. The Crystal Empire, on the other hoof, was a small colony in the far north, as far as we have rediscovered.
"It seemed to have been much larger than it is now, but shortly before Discord's rule it seems like it declined, and after Discord's reign, though he focused more on the south, it never recovered." Cadance closed her eyes. "At some point about a thousand years ago, a unicorn named Sombra took it over and enslaved the crystal ponies. We don't know how long he ruled, but when my aunts found out, only one city remained, the one around the castle and the Crystal Heart.
"They tried to free what remained of the empire from him, but failed. We don't know how, but he somehow cursed the entire empire, and it was lost until just a few years ago." Cadance shuddered, her feathers ruffling somewhat. "Everything about him seemed like hate. Hate and greed. The Crystal Heart seemed to destroy him when crystal ponies and I connected with it. Part of his curse affected knowledge of the empire, which is why it's been about impossible to find out what exactly happened during his reign, and the ponies that were under him… it's clear they were scarred. We don't want to force them to remember just because we are curious."
"I see," Floyd nodded, tapping the amulet as he thought up his next question, "Discord. Can you tell me about him?"
"Discord, he's probably one of the few beings in existence with enough magic to rival my aunts," Cadance admitted. She lit her horn and let the blue glow add to the room's lighting. "Being an alicorn, I have much more power than any unicorn, earth pony or pegasus, far more than I did before I ascended, but I'm still weaker than my aunts are. He is a draconequus, the spirit of chaos and disharmony, and in some ways he's even more powerful than they are.
"Actually," she said, looking over the Bon Bon and Lyra. "They might be able to tell you more. When he escaped his prison he was most active in Ponyville."
"I'll keep that in mind. Now, you probably already talked to Doctor Jackson about this, but what can you tell us about your aunts? Just so the leaders back home know what to expect when they can finally meet."
"Hmm… Well, I might not be the most impartial of sources but I'll try," Cadance admitted with a giggle. "I've known Aunt Celestia far longer than I've known Aunt Luna, so I'll start with her. For the last era she's been the ruler of the majority of ponykind. She is… harder to describe than I realized, honestly. She's been as much a mother to me as she has been an aunt, and when she calls others 'her little ponies,' she really means it. But that doesn't mean she looks down on any of the other species. Equestria has long had good relationships with the minotaurs, zebras and griffons and she makes sure to keep those connections amicable.
"Aunt Luna is still coming out of her shell and finding a new place for herself, but there are times when she can be a bit more forceful in negotiations than aunt Celestia, mostly because she's adjusting to the modern climate." Cadance smiled a bit ruefully at a particular memory. "But her political hooves are just as firm as her sister's. A minotaur trade minister thought he could play her for a foal, but she proved him wrong in short order."
"What exactly happened?" Floyd asked, gesturing for her to continue the story.
"It started out simple enough. Aunt Luna had just started running her court again when minister Bronzed Bond thought he could weasel the deal in the minotaur's favour. Aunt Luna didn't even need a minute before she saw through his intentions. She is a master subtle dealings, having to aid ponies through their nightmares and difficulties at night, and when he couldn't just talk her into going his way, he tried bullying her." Cadance winced in sympathy. "Aunt Luna's voice can be quite... impactful when she lets loose."
"She's also amazing at Nightmare Night!" Lyra piped up with a bright smile.
"Nightmare Night?" Floyd asked, moving the camera to her.
"It's a night where ponies dress up as scary things and go door to door for candy! It was made in, I don't want to say honor but uh… how would you guys describe its connection to Nightmare Moon?".
"Tribute?" Bon Bon offered. She had been hanging back, unobtrusively keeping an eye on the other three.
"That works," Lyra agreed. She warmed up to the subject. "It started from the idea that the spirit of Nightmare Moon might escape on that one night of the year. The idea of costumes was so she would pass you by as she looked for victims. The candy was to give her something to eat so she didn't get too curious.
"The original cause was far darker," Lyra admitted when as she continued. "When Nightmare Moon was first sealed, ponies were always afraid she would break out. So for a while nopony would leave their homes at night in some places. Others would only leave if guards were around, or disguised at somepony, or something else. Princess Celestia eventually stomped down hard on the fear, from what I read, being distraught that ponies were still afraid of Luna's night, so it mostly died out. It came back sometime later from parents using it to discipline foals."
"Huh..." Floyd commented, rubbing his chin, "Sounds like a holiday we have back on Earth called Halloween. The original belief was, during the fall, the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead would thin and on one night a year, it became so thin that spirits could freely walk the world. People would dress up as monsters to either trick the spirits into thinking they were one of them or scare them away completely."
"Really? That's amazing!" Lyra did a little trot in place. "Nightmare night takes place in the fall too. The Teachers really must have had some influence on both our societies. After a certain point, coincidences become a pattern. I might get a stained glass window for this!"
"Don't get overly-enthusiastic," Bon Bon quickly chided.
"But the thing I want to know is, who is Nightmare Moon?" Floyd asked, trying to get them back on topic.
The conversation between Floyd and the ponies continued on for a while, shifting from topic to topic as the conversation flowed naturally. Eventually Floyd had to cut it short, having filled up his tapes, and it was getting rather late.
"Doc is going to love going over all this stuff." Floyd disassembled his tripod, placing it back into his bag. "It'll probably make his week." He zipped it up, dusting his hands off. "Well, good night ladies." He hefted it over his shoulder, moving over to the door.
"You too Floyd!" Lyra smiled, waving. "This was a lot of fun!"
"Yes, fun," Bon Bon said, eyeing Cadance who had been trying to hide her yawns.
"Hopefully we'll be able to go home tomorrow." Cadance stretched out, letting her shoes clatter to the floor. "I'm so worried about Shiny…" she sighed, removing her regalia, placing them on the night stand.
Bon Bon, who seemed to have taken it upon herself to act as Cadance's handmaiden, was the last one by the door when Floyd left. The door shut on her slightly frowning face, leaving Floyd alone in the hallway.
"What's gotten into you Bonny?" Lyra asked, looking at her. "You've gotten all frowny." Lyra slid off her bed trotting over to her. "Is everything ok?"
Bon Bon stared at the door in silence before sighing. "No, no it's not, Lyra."
"What's wrong?" she asked, pulling her into a hug, "You know you can tell me anything right?"
"Lyra, I know this is an amazing thing for you, finding out about an entire city of The Teachers, meeting a whole new kind of pony, it's a great adventure," Bon Bon huffed frustratedly. "But not only are we dependent on these humans' goodwill, but Princess Cadance is tied up in it too! I've done things like this, and they don't normally turn out well. The only one who tends to make these situations work out is Daring!"
"You're worrying over nothing Bonny." Lyra rolled her eyes. "Everything will work out fine. Just try and enjoy it okay?"
"That's generally when everything goes to Tartarus," Bon Bon grumbled.
"Bon Bon, Lyra is right," Cadance spoke up, adding her own opinion. "You don't need to make more stress for yourself than you need to."
"But Princ-"
"Cadance," Cadance correctly gently. "Just Cadance is fine. As wondrous as this place has seemed, the humans here don't seem that much different from us ponies. And they are trying to get us home just as much as we want to get home."
"Yeah!" Lyra added with a smile. "We'll all be fine!" she nuzzled Bon Bon’s cheek, pulling away and heading back to bed.
Bon Bon still looked reluctant, but Cadance giggled, smiling at her. With a sigh, Bon Bon at least made the effort to put her concerns behind her. Despite the soft bed and covers, she found it harder to relax there than she did even when hunting the escaped bugbear.
In spite of Dr. Jackson's parting remark, the route back into the other occupied areas of the city wasn't a difficult one. Like Atlantis, the more residential areas of the city were connected with wide passageways that made Floyd's walk to his room that much easier.
"And he said it would be hard." Floyd smirked to himself, opening up the door and heading inside. He placed his bag on the floor, stretching his shoulders out. "Nice place…" he mumbled to himself, taking in his surroundings.
In terms of temporary housing, it wasn't a bad room. Good enough to keep even when they expanded the cleared areas of the city.
"Eh… I could use a shower." He pulled his shirt off, moving to the bathroom. He blinked, noting a small ball of fuzz on the sink. "The hell?" he asked, reaching out to touch it.
The ball of fuzz shifted when his finger poked it. Two startlingly blue eyes revealed themselves just before a mouth opened and teeth clamped on his digits.
He shouted out a string of choice obscenities, flailing his arm around and smacking the thing against the sink until it released his fingers. "The hell?!" he asked, clutching his fingers, looking at it.
The small creature was dazed, but it shuddered, as if shaking itself. It licked the trace of Floyd's blood from its jaw and brought its transparent wings to life, the buzz and it's chirr combining into a hum as it darted towards him.
"Gah!" he darted away, running out of his room, still clutching his fingers. "Doc! We have a problem!" he shouted, racing around turn after turn. He had no idea if the doctor was even in this section of the city but he figured the shouting would bring someone running.
It was a big city, and Dr. Jackson had a lot of responsibilities that were keeping him away from potential rest the moment, but the yelling did attract the attentions of others. A few doors slid open after Floyd raced past them, their confused occupants more than interested in what was driving someone to disturb the peace. Most of them were unaware of the discovery Thorne's team had made, so the sight of a man and a flying pink ball that seemed steadfastly attracted to him only confused them further.
Someone must have called up to the control room about the issue, for it wasn't long before the radio crackled. "Hendrix, what's going on?"
"Some thing just… bit… oh come on…" He came to a stop, his eye twitching. During his run, he had moved into one of the unexplored sections of the city. Lying there, at the end of the hall was a skeleton, his bones covered in more of the fuzz balls. "We have a very, very bad problem…" he spoke softly into the radio, taking a few slow steps backwards.
"We have a list of them," the voice called back. There were a lot of gate room technicians, it was just one of many Floyd didn't yet know. "What did you find?"
"How about a swarm of hungry fuzz balls?" He kept backing up, praying to whatever deity was listening that they didn’t wake up. Unfortunately, he forgot about the one that was chasing him. It buzzed up behind him, sinking its jaws into his shoulder. He swore, smacking it away, before freezing up. The smell of blood wafted over to the sleeping creatures, all of them opening their too-big eyes, wings buzzing. "Please tell me we have a flamethrower?" he asked, rapidly back up, panic starting to set in.
"Swarm of hungry... Oh, so there are more of those things that they found?" the person on the other end of the line sighed. "Toss them a candy bar or something. They seem to calm down if you feed them. Though, I'm not sure if it would make them swarm you more or not."
"One of them just bit me twice… and I found a swarm of them surrounding a skeleton… uh… I think they smelled the blood…" The fuzzies, now that they were fully awake, seemed to lock eyes on him. They buzzed their wings, rising up as one, darting toward him. He turned on his heel and ran, losing himself rather quickly in his bid to escape the swarm.
"They what?" There was stunned silence. When the radio sounded again, it was a call for security teams.
"That doesn't help me at all!" Floyd shouted, not even bothering to actually use his radio. Up ahead he spotted another skeleton, this one picked clean as well. The skeleton was useless but the pistol-like weapon wrapped in its bony fingers was looking rather useful. Floyd dove for it, losing his radio in the process. He landed on the floor with a thud, groaning softly. Shaking himself out of it, he wrenched the weapon away from the skeleton.
"Please work," he begged before rolling onto his back, aiming what he hoped was the business end down at the swarm. The weapon hummed to life under his touch, various pieces of it lighting up. The swarm was descending on him as he fumbled, trying to find the trigger. It stung his fingers, but didn't seem to do anything more. One last desperate check finally caused the weapon to discharge, a burst of electricity erupting from the barrel. The swarm, which had almost reached him, was quickly fried, the roasted bodies dropping to the ground smoking. Floyd collapsed to the ground, too relieved to care that his radio was going off.
"You know," Devon commented as he chipped away at the cave wall laced with streaks of gold with his pick. It had been a while before the doctors found a suitable deposit, and he hadn't been thrilled to find that the cave exploration turned into mining. "I never imagined I would visit another galaxy, only to moonlight as a prospector." The chunk of rock finally broke free under his attentions, and fell to the ground to join the other chunks that he and the others had been chipping free.
"It could have been worse," Dr. Hill commented as she examined the rocks, placing the ones that made her standards separate from those that didn't. "We lucked out finding deposits that are so easily accessible. I was afraid we would have to use the C-4 to get to the usable palladium sources."
"As entertaining as that would have been," Marshall spoke up, returning from the most recent load he had carried to the jumper, "I prefer not having had need to use our C-4 supplies yet. Where are Doctors Moore and Anderson?"
"Exploring the cave a bit more," Devon said, a trace irritated. "Moore asked me to help Dr. Hill collect supplies while he did a rough assessment. Anderson accompanied him for safety."
"Dr. Moore suspects that there might be a larger palladium deposit deeper in the cave," Dr. Hill chuckled, amused at their team's youngest member's mood. "While we can get enough palladium from the trace deposits in the cave wall, we could potentially mine this location."
"And send the excess back through the gate to give the IOA something to be happy about," Marshal commented dryly. A short distance behind him, the remote that trailed him clamoured to a stop. "How is our progress?"
"With all that Lt Manley has dug out, we should have more than enough to get the transporter back online, with enough leftover to make replacement components for at least a few more things. If we need to, that is," Dr. Moore replied quickly.
"Thank god, my arms are killing me," Devon groaned, setting the pick down. He blinked and quickly added, "sir."
"No need for you to be self conscious," Marshal smiled. "I'm a bit worn out myself hauling all that rock back to the jumper." He pulled out his radio. "Moore, Anderson, come in."
There was a delay before slightly distorted voices responded. "This is Dr. Moore. Go ahead, Maj Marshal."
"I hope you've gotten enough spelunking in," Marshal said, frowning at the frying on the connection. "We are going to be packing it up."
"With all due respect, Major," Dr. Moore responded, his irritated tone carrying over even with interference, "we can easily put in a few more hours and collect a much larger supply for our stores."
"I'm not debating that point," Marshal calmly responded. "But at the moment Dr. Hill assures me we already have enough to repair the transporter and possibly a few more jobs of the sort in our future. Getting our royal guests back home is the priority. We can always come back later."
"I... suppose," Dr. Moore reluctantly agreed. "Very well."
"We'll meet you at the jumper, sir," Anderson added, his own voice no clearer. "Maybe thirty minutes, based on how long it took us to get this far."
"Excellent." Marshal cut the connection and raised an eyebrow at his companions. "Thirty minutes?"
Devon merely shrugged, a sentiment Dr. Hill shared. With nothing further to do, and the official order to pack it up, they cleared out everything they could and needed. Packing up their light sources and tools before loading up the remote with as much as it could hold, they manhandled the rest out of the cave back to the jumper.
Their task was only just beginning back at the jumper, though. They not only had to get everything back inside, but also account for all the ore they collected while still leaving space for the human cargo. It was an experiment in space management for them all and before they knew it the thirty minute window had come and gone with no sign of their missing two members.
"Beginning to think we should go look for them, sir," Captain King called out from the cockpit. "They might have gotten lost down there."
"And what's the keep us from getting lost as well if they did?" Dr. Hill comment as she ran her sensors over the samples, making the best of the time by ranking the chunks based on purity. "You can always try the radio if you're worry about them."
"Anderson, Moore," Maj Marshal tapped his radio. "How long?"
"Sorry, sir," Anderson's voice came back, sounding a bit short on breath even over the slightly frying connection. "We took a wrong turn."
"Told you," Capt King smiled softly from her side. Beside her, Devon chuckled silently.
"There is some weird green... stuff on the walls though..." Anderson continued. "We are backtracking now. Just a few minutes more."
"Don't take too long," Maj Marshal sighed. "We are burning daylight as it is."
"Moving as fast as we can, sir," Anderson responded.
"I'm collecting a sample of the residue for the biologist to take a look at. They will like that," Dr. Moore added.
Maj Marshal shook his head slowly. "Next time, remind me to give them a ball of string and some chalk."
"Sir, you might want to put the cloak up," Samson's voice cut in suddenly. The last member of their team had been on watch duty. "You've got two locals heading in your general direction. More ponies, if you'd believe it."
Capt King, after a sharp nod from Marshal, took the recommendation, quickly hiding the jumper and it's occupants from sight, the door closing. The Major's expression had turned stern. "Are you getting that, Anderson?"
"Copy that, sir, orders?"
"Hold position for now," Marshal replied without much hesitation.
"They will be on top of you shortly," Capt Samson reported tersely. "Two unicorns, I think. They are smaller than the one in the city."
"Foals?" Devon offered questionly.
"Keep out of sight and maintain position, Samson," Marshal ordered. "Anderson, Moore, keep in the caves." Both parties responded with affirmatives. "Everyone else, sit tight."
Tensions were high as they all waited, but in time the two ponies appeared. It was pretty clear Devon's guess of foals was spot on, their proportions clearly off from the adults back on Shangri-La, and their faces youthful, as alien as they were. They both lacked marking on their flanks as well. Even from inside the jumper it was easy to make out what they were saying.
"I really don't like this," the cream coated and slightly smaller of the pair said as they looked around fretfully, red mane bobbing. "Mother always said not to come here unless it was earth-blessing..."
"What mother doesn't know won't hurt," the other, having a matching mane colour but with a chocolate coat, said firmly. "We just want to see if we can get a blessing too!"
"But what if the mantis gets us?” the smaller one asked, a hint of fear in his voice. It was easier to make out their gender now that they were closer.
"Sir, they might walk right into the jumper," King murmured. "Just because we are cloaked doesn't mean we are out of phase."
"I heard the mantis isn't real. It's just something they made up to scare foals from wandering!"
"Like what we're doing?" he asked, even more fearfully than before. "I changed my mind! I-I don't mind not having a blessing! Can we go home now?"
"Skitter-leaf," the girl taunted, turning on him with an air of bravado.
"Yes!" the colt agreed, nodding, tears in his eyes. "I'm a skitter-leaf. A big nose one! Can we go now!?"
"The engines," Devon said quietly.
"No way! Not till we get a blessing!" she said firmly, stomping her hoof.
"What?" Marshal asked, eyes on the scene taking place outside.
"I just wanna go home," the colt wailed. "Before mother realizes we snuck away from morning chores!"
"You're not leaving me here, and I'm not leaving!" His sister grabbed his tail and started dragging him, heading directly towards the jumper.
Devon put a hand on the console, and for a brief moment the jumper responded to his impulses, the drive pods whining to life. The effect was immediate. Both foals started screaming and literally high tailed it out of the clearing the jumper was parked in. The others stared at Devon.
"Sorry sir," Devon swallowed. "I figured scaring them before they could find the jumper was the best bet. And they already seemed skittish… They were kids, sir."
"Sir, looks like the two of them are gone, ran all the way out of range," Samson reported over the radio.
Maj Marshal nodded slowly. "Good thinking, lieutenant. Anderson, Moore, it seems we are in the clear. Continue outside. Jumper is waiting. Samson, keep up your watch in case they come back."
"Yes sir!"
"Not so uninhabited after all," Dr. Hill commented.
Maj Marshal sighed. "That's for Gen. Carter and Dr. Jackson to handle. We already have one first contact to deal with."
"From what we can tell, the internal body structure is remarkably simple, with a large portion of its cells being undifferentiated, and a good portion of the rest being pluripotent," Dr. Heyman, head biologist for the expedition, reported. He was down in the new and still-being-organized biolabs, but was in contact over the city coms. Gen Carter, along with Dr. Jackson who had been dragged from his workstation where he was poring through the database, were both in the medical bay where Floyd found himself for the second time in less than a day. "It not only makes them extremely adaptable, but also prolific, voracious and able to consume just about anything organic."
"And what does that mean for us?" Dr. Jackson asked. "And what was with the swarm that attacked Hendrix?"
"Well, from what I could tell, these creatures are willing to consume anything organic, but will normally settle for non-living or plant matter. However..." his voice trailed off a bit. "Apparently they undergo biochemical shifts depending on certain external stimuli and conditions. In this case: shifting from omnivorous to almost solely carnivorous."
"Can you describe what they looked like again?" Gen Carter asked. "To compare it with the sample we have."
A bright flash filled the room, as Cadance and the other ponies appeared in the room.
"There was screaming, is everything alright?" Cadance asked, her eyes going a bit wide when she saw Floyd, who was sitting on a table as one of the medical staff stitched up his shoulder.
"They can teleport?" Dr. Jackson asked, staring at the trio of ponies as they swarmed around Floyd.
"Sorry…" Bon Bon gave a sheepish smile. "I tried to tell them that everything was fine but they just had to see for themselves..."
"It wouldn't be the first time we encountered a being able to teleport, Daniel," Gen Carter commented, keeping her cool despite the sudden arrival. "You used to be rather fond of it yourself."
"Right," Dr. Jackson said slowly, shaking his head. "Anyway. Remember when I said we don't know what surprises might be left in the city for us? Well, we found one!"
"What?" Cadance asked, leaving Floyd to suffer Lyra's cuddles. "Nothing too dangerous I hope."
"Dangerous? Yes," Dr. Jackson said, looking in Floyd's direction. "Too dangerous? We don't know."
"We can't be sure," Gen Carter added.
"I would hedge my bets on 'too dangerous'," Dr. Heyman spoke up. "On their own an individual is not that much of a threat, for all their voracity, but combine that with their swarming and ability to asexually procreate once they have amassed enough biomatter by ejecting a mass of rapidly maturing totipotent cells? It's potentially as devastating as R-75 proved to be if not controlled."
Dr. Jackson leaned closer to Gen Carter. "Ah, which one was that again?"
"Prior Bug," she whispered. "How's Hendrix?"
"Aside from needing a few stitches, he's fine," the nurse said. "Nothing strange in his blood work or in the traces of residue on his skin. No turning into a bug for him either."
"That sounds like…" Bon Bon looked up at Dr. Jackson. "These… things, are they small, big eyes, four insect wings?"
The human eyes in the room turned to her. Gen Carter was the one to break the silence. "I take it you've heard of these before?"
"They're called parasprites," Bon Bon started, nodding her head, "They normally inhabit the Everfree Forest but sometimes a few wander out. By themselves, they're harmless but if you feed them enough they puke out another one. They've been known to eat whole regions out of food. They aren't normally carnivorous unless they have no other food source."
"Oh Faust," Lyra pipped up, sitting in Floyd’s lap, "I remember those things, it was a nightmare!"
"Great, so this galaxy has its own prior bugs, and they come with wings," a new voice grumbled over the com. "New galaxy, same old problems."
"If you don't mind, General Carter," Dr. Heyman took over, "my team and I will focus on devising an insecticide that will work on them. At least the first of the two we have doesn't seem to have the carnivorous traits."
"You don't have to hurt them!" Lyra hopped off Floyd's lap, looking at them in horror.
"Parasprites can easily be corralled by music," Bon Bon added helpfully, "Usually big band music."
"So, sorta like the Pied Piper?" Floyd guessed. "I think I could manage to do something like that."
"Oddly specific," Dr. Jackson murmured, softly enough that it could be mistaken as a comment not meant to be overheard. He clasped his hands together with a wry smile. "Okay, so do we have band music around?"
"We can lead them pretty much anywhere in the city with the intercoms," Gen. Carter contributed to the subject. "Assuming we can find a place to contain them. And music they would follow. I don't know about you, but I left my concert track back in Colorado."
"Well, it doesn’t have to be big band," Cadance shook her head, "Any sort of music will do as long as it has a good rhythm. If you can get them into one location I can deal with them."
"Deal with them?" Dr. Heyman asked after his prolonged period merely listening. "How do you propose to do that?"
"Crystallize them," Cadance said simply. "Well, not really, but I can trap them in crystal until they can be release back into the Everfree."
"Really? You can do that?" Gen. Carter said, true interest sparking in her eyes. The nurse treating Floyd's wounds raised an eyebrow, having only heard secondhand about the so called magic of the ponies, teleportation entrance notwithstanding.
"I may have to protest the last part of that plan," Dr. Heyman interjected.
"If you're worried about the parasprites, don’t be." Bon Bon shook her head. "They’ll go into hibernation very quickly, and judging by how long these ones have been here, I think it's safe to assume they can handle being encased in crystal."
"The crystallization is hardly, well, not my primary concern," Dr. Heyman said to Bon Bon, a slight hesitation as he amended his initial response.
"No way you're letting those things back into the wild!" the second voice spoke up again. Heyman's voice could be heard indistinctly as he tried to shush her. "I don't care if you've seen their type before, these buggers are a couple thousand years out of place with the rest of the ecosystem! Do you know what kind of- HEY!"
"If you would," Dr. Heyman said, apparently taking back control. "Gunter is right though, if you can contain them, it's best we keep it at that, at least until we can safely determine how to dispose or relocate them."
The three ponies just stood there silently before bursting out into laughter.
"T-the ecosystem hasn’t changed in a thousand years! We ponies take great pride in the maintenance of our weather." Cadance giggled, putting a hoof to her mouth. "Honestly, I’d suggest not bringing that up with any pegasi, they’d be rather insulted with what you're implying."
"Weather smeather! I'm talking about introducing an unknown number of potential carnivores into an established biosphere!" Gunter was clearly not speaking into whatever they were using down in the lab, just talking loud enough to be heard. Nor did she seem to care about the weather comment, whether from indignation or the grapevine reports on what ponies did was her secret. "Species displacement! Over predation! Ancient diseases! Extinction of competitors! Cats and Dogs living together!"
"Well, that's why we’d put them back into the Everfree," Lyra spoke up, "The only time we ever have problems with them is when one slips out. Do you have any idea what that place is like?" She asked, her eyes widening ever so slightly.
"Why don’t you tell us, so we can stop yelling at each other." Floyd rolled his eyes.
"The weather does what it wants, the animals fend for themselves, it's a madhouse!" Lyra shuddered, as if those were the most horrible things ever.
"Oh, that's horrible," Dr. Jackson sassed dryly. His expression turned apologetic when Gen. Carter frowned at him. "Sorry. Now, biology and weather might not be my focus, but that sounds normal."
"As hard as it may be for you to believe, no other civilization, or planet that we've been to has that level of control over their environment," Gen.Carter picked up.
"There was the touchstone on Madrona, but even… that..." Dr. Jackson found himself on the receiving end of another one of Gen. Carter's frowns. "Nevermind. Not important."
"That sounds... horrible. Not knowing if it’s going to be a bright sunny day or a snow storm..." Lyra shuddered even more. "At least since Twilight came to Ponyville we’ve been able to get winter wrap up done on time..."
"We’re getting off topic," Bon Bon cut in, "There really isn’t a problem releasing them back into the Everfree considering what else lives there. Manicores, cragadiles, timberwolves... and I think an Ursa Major and Minor live there..."
Gunter snorted in derision, loud enough to be picked up. "Someone clearly knows nothing about biodiversity."
"Dr. Gunter! That's enough," Gen. Carter said firmly.
"General! They eve-"
"I said enough. For now, we will focus on corralling and containing the parasprites, as they call them." Gen. Carter took control of the situation. "What we do with them will be decided later. Heyman, I'd like you and your team to continue your work. Call it a plan B. In the meantime, I'll see if the control room can find a way to determine how many of these we have to deal with. Dr. Jackson, I'd appreciate if you could ensure all of our teams are back in secured areas."
"Yes ma'am," Dr. Heyman acknowledged.
"I can see if they found any good places to direct them to as well," Dr. Jackson added.
Gen.Carter merely nodded. "Mr. Hendrix, I want you out of danger for this. You've already gotten yourself wounded. If you are up to it, I'd like to put you and Lyra in touch with our communications team and see if we can't find something that might bait our little bug problem."
"I can do that... there's bound to be something in the thousand songs I brought with me..." he muttered something to himself in a language other than English as the nurse dabbed a cotton swab on his wound.
"Good," Gen. Carter responded. "I know it's late people, and we already had a fairly long day, but it doesn't seem as if it's ending yet."
"Just tell me where you want me." Cadance nodded, a determined look on her face.
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. What We Do In the Dark [Part 1]
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. What We Do In the Dark [Part 2]
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"... and we can see from the comparisons of the architecture in the Castle of the Two Sisters, the Ruins of the first establishment of the unicorns before the union of the three tribes and the newly rediscovered Crystal Empire, there is a shared underlying commonality that cannot be explained considering what we know of their individual societies."
Three images, illusion based magnifications of the photographs positioned on the table, were projected on the wall as the excited presenter continued her spiel. "My research on the matter continues to point to the idea that some outside influence worked its way into these cultures."
She cleared her throat before continuing. "Some of our oldest existing legends speak of a race of beings that descended from the stars, arriving in a massive flying city of stone and crystal, just as ponies were beginning to build society. Our ancestors called them the Teachers, as they taught the early ponies how to read, write, and so much more!"
"Miss Heartstrings," a weary voice spoke up from the dimly lit seats.
"Yes?" She gulped, turning to look toward the speaker.
"As interesting as your tale me be, it remains just that, a tale," he said. His horn glowed, and the lamps in the room flared to their brightest, chasing the shadows to the corners. Prince Blueblood tapped a hoof on the folder before him. "All your 'evidence,' and I use the term rather lightly, is anecdotal and depends on flimsy logic, old mare's tales and, dare I say, whimsy."
"Everypony said the same thing about Princess Luna and Nightmare Moon!" she countered. "The same goes for Discord. For Faust's sake, we had forgotten about the Empire until it reappeared."
"You forget, Miss Heartstrings, that while the more common versions of those legends were mare's tales, Nightmare Moon's return was foretold in prophecy, and there was the little fact of Auntie's face being emblazoned on the moon for a few centuries," Prince Blueblood shook his head. "Discord was imprisoned and under Auntie Celestia's watch, and the last remnant of the Empire was in her care as well. Solid evidence. In contrast, you have a few artistic stylings that are far more likely to be coincidence?"
"I know I can find evidence!" she protested. "I just need funding. With that, I know I can find something, maybe even the Teachers' city itself!"
"Regardless, Miss Heartstrings, I cannot in any good interest pledge the support of the Royal Expeditionary Society to your project." With that, he motioned to his aid, who started to gather the paperwork. "Personnel or funding."
Blueblood's statements seemed to be a trigger, the other ponies in the room, at least the ones who stayed for the entire presentation, also started packing up, making similar sounds of withholding support.
"I... understand, Your Grace," Lyra said with a sigh, bowing her head. "Thank you for your time." She turned away, quickly packing up her materials, a dejected look on her face. She pulled her saddle bags on, quickly trotting out of the auditorium, hoping nopony would call her crazy.
"Hold up, Lyra!" Bon Bon caught up before she could get too far, a supportive smile on her face. "Well, it wasn't that bad this time around. Nopony started laughing, for one."
"Thanks Bonny," Lyra said, giving a weak smile. "You know... maybe they are right... maybe it is all just coincidence..."
"Or maybe it isn't," Bon Bon said, giving Lyra a supportive shoulder bump. "Nopony's ever going to know unless somepony finds out. Maybe a cute mare with spunk?"
"Bonny..."
"Fine, I'll be good," Bon Bon giggled. She was still cheerful though. "We still have our trip to the Crystal Empire to look forward to. Didn't you say Princess Cadence was an old Canterlot High classmate of yours?"
"She probably won't remember me," Lyra said, waving her hoof dismissively, "I was always that weird filly who sat in the back of class. But you're right, maybe this trip is exactly what I need." She gave a bigger smile, nuzzling cheeks with the other mare.
"And you can put this let down behind you," Bon Bon nodded. She fished a paper sack from her own saddlebags and offered them to her companion. "Chocolate is the first step to recovery."
"Trying to fatten me up, huh?" Lyra asked, taking the bag in her magic. "I'm watching you, missy."
"Sassing? See, you're better already," Bon Bon teased.
Lyra giggled, shaking her head. "Are we all ready for the trip?" she asked, excitement bleeding into her voice. "I can't wait, Bonny! All that history!" She squealed, clapping her forehooves together like a school filly.
"Bags packed and everything," Bon Bon confirmed. She had made sure of it the night before while Lyra was distracted with preparing her presentation. "We just happen to have a few more hours to waste before our train leaves."
"Hmm... any ideas?" she asked, looking around. "Donut Joe's?"
"I heard Pinkie Pie recommends him, so he has to be worth it. I've never had a chance to try his donuts," Bon Bon admitted. "And maybe we can go to the museum after. You can tell me all the things they got wrong again."
"We always do that," she said, tapping her chin. "We could see if that new candy factory is giving tours. I bet you could steal their secrets," she teased with a playful smirk.
"You always know how to show a mare a good time," Bon Bon laughed. "Come on, let's go steal some candy secrets."
"Hay yeah!" she cheered, intertwining her tail with Bon Bon's. The two of them trotted off toward the candy factory, laughing all the way.
The air was buzzing with barely contained energy. Men and women checked and rechecked the equipment stacked and palletized in the rooms and hallways. Conversations in a dozen different languages filled the air. Technicians wove between them, all with purpose and and intent. It made navigating an onerous task for the male pair.
It was subtle, but people seemed to defer to the woman with the short cut blond hair as she reviewed manifests and reports. When they approached, she looked up at them and smiled. "Daniel, General!"
"Hey, Sam," Daniel said, looking a bit put out by the greeting. Beside him, General Jack O'Neill raised an eyebrow.
"General?" Jack greeted back. "We talked about this."
"Sorry, Jack," Samantha grinned. "I'm just a bit excited about this!"
"I can tell," Jack nodded. "So... are we there yet?"
Samantha hid a half sigh, looking away from Jack. Daniel merely nodded. "Hmm. Good call back."
"Why thank you," Jack said proudly. "I do my best. So, what's the hold up?"
"Well, this is a splinter group of Ancients we're talking about," Daniel said, looking at the currently inactive gate. "Who knows if they booby trapped their gate."
"Gotta love those ancients," was Jack's response as he rocked on his heels.
"Not to mention that the Concordia galaxy is a bit further from us than Pegasus is," Samantha added. She quickly started warming up to the topic. "We want to make sure our first connection is as efficient as possible. If we don't, we risk drawing more power from the ZPM than we need to. Look at it this way, the wormhole might not be in real space, but it can still be af-"
"Carter!" Jack held up his hands in a warding fashion, a slight look of panic in his eyes.
"Give us a few more minutes," Sam said, sharing a smile with Daniel.
"Don't worry Jack, we'll be fine," Daniel said. "And you have to know how long I've been wanting a chance to spend an extended time in Atlantis. Now I get a city of my own, Shangri-La." He said it almost longingly. "Possibly even the Shambhala. A group that left the Pegasus ancients after a clash of philosophical beliefs. Who knows what those ancients could have discovered since then. Without the threat of the Wraith, their society, culture, knowledge could be vastly different from what we have found in the Ancient Databases here in the Milky Way and Atlantis."
"Easy, Daniel," Jack wagged his finger at him. "You're drooling."
The intercom crackled to life. "Generals Carter, O'Neill. Doctor Jackson! We are almost ready to begin the dialing procedure!"
"Well, seems it's almost time," Jack said into the silence that formed in their little group.
"Jack, it's just going to be a year," Daniel said, laying a hand on his best friend's shoulder. "And we are taking a ZPM with us. We will be able to keep in touch."
"Just... be careful, okay? I don't need you ending up stuck halfway across the universe," Jack responded, the thought of his friends ending up like the Destiny expedition weighing heavily on his mind.
"We'll be fine," Sam promised, echoing Daniel's earlier statement. "You have all of homeworld command to worry about. We'll take care of these people."
"We won't do anything you wouldn't," Daniel added with a wry smirk. One that died when Sam and Jack both raised eyebrows at him. "I'll... I go check the thing..." he pointed in a vague direction. "The thing over there. Holler if you need me," he said before wandering off.
"That does not inspire confidence," Jack stated frankly.
"Alright, people!" General Jack O'Neill declared. The last minute details had been set in place and dealt with. Expedition members were crowded in the gate room and most of the halls branching from it. Hands were either on or near pallets and handles, ready to get them moving. On the level above, the two jumpers on loan from Atlantis were ready to take off at a moment's notice, in case Shangri-La's hangars were empty.
"How the hell did I get roped into this?" a rather squirrelly looking young man asked as he fiddled with a camera. "I could be making movies, but no..."
"Same way I did?" a dark skinned man behind him spoke up. "Right and/or wrong place at the wrong and/or right time?"
"Yeah well at least we're making history, right?" the young man said, hefting the camera onto his shoulder. "Name's Floyd, Floyd Hendrix, nice to meet you," he said, holding his hand out. "You uh... ever been through that thing before?" he asked, gesturing to the gate.
"Devon Manley," he said, returning the shake. "And... twice. Once to go to one of the research stations on a moon. Once more to come back. It was wild."
"You went to the moon?" Floyd asked, looking at him incredulously. "That's insane. I'm glad all I gotta do is record stuff..." he mumbled, getting the camera rolling. "What they got you doing?"
"A moon. A moon. Don't ask me the name. Some code with more numbers and letters than I care to remember," Devon said, shaking his head. General O'Neill, in his customary fashion, didn't talk long, and was all too happy to turn the attention to General Carter and Doctor Jackson. "I'm a technician with the RCAF. Well, from them. With the SGC now. Geomatics."
"They got me right out of film school," Floyd started. "Some government program. Thought it would look good on a resume, didn't think I'd end up in some crazy space odyssey."
"Did they test you for the gene?" Devon asked. "I overheard this guy from the Atlantis expedition mention that they wanted as many people with the ATA gene in the first few groups going through to help wake up the city and keep it from thinking we were bad news."
"They gave me some kind of test, I think it came back positive but they didn't say much after that," Floyd said with a shrug, sweeping the camera around. "I take it it's something important?"
"Like a security key for a lot of tech they expect to find on the other side of the puddle," Devon grinned like a happy fool, thinking about some of the stuff he had gotten to read about the Atlantis Expedition in preparation from this one. He only half listened as Doctor Jackson spoke about humans continuing to live up to the expectations of being the Fifth Race. "There aren't many of us, so expect to be called around to serve as a door opener or power switch a lot. There’s a gene therapy treatment to try and give it to other people, but it only works half the time."
"Joy," Floyd said with a snort. "Always happy to help. I just hope they don't seize my footage when this is all over. I want something to show for this."
"Walter!" General O'Neill's voice yelled. "Dial it up!"
Floyd turned to the gate as the inner ring started to spin. "Show time?" he asked, zooming in on the gate with his camera.
"Chevron one encoded!" CMSgt. Walter Harriman called over the alarms that were ringing as the inner ring made its first stop, marked by one of the orange points glowing, a faint tremor originating from the gate as it engaged. Walter continued to announce each chevron as the gate worked, the slower process borne from the home brewed system only causing breaths to be held as anticipation built.
"Chevron seven encoded!" Walter called, excitement clear in his own voice as the inner ring started it's final rotation. Not since Eli Wallace was brought to Icarus had a gate room been that primed and tense.
"Wait for it..." Devon whispered, similar phases being voiced by the less stoic members in the room.
"Chevron eight... locked!" The report of a dozen pounds of C4 going off would have paled in comparison to the explosion of sound that erupted from the room when the wormhole formed with its brilliant blue-white kawoosh before settling into the rippling shimmer of the event horizon. It took a while for the noise to die down, but when it did, General O'Neill was ready.
"Shangri-La Expedition, you have a stable connection," he announced. "You're clear to move out. Send the MALP."
"Anything I should know about before going through?" Floyd asked, casting a glance at Devon.
"Security teams 3 and 5, on the ramp, go through if the MALP reports viable conditions," General Carter ordered.
"Um..." Devon, to be honest, hadn't been on any real live missions through the gate himself, but he tried to remember everything he could from the videos Doctor Jackson made and all the reports he read. "Don't touch anything, slow down if lights start turning on, and you might want to brace yourself for the first step. A couple million light years is a doozy."
"I'll keep that in mind," Floyd nodded, watching as the security teams were given the go ahead and moved into the wormhole.
"We're all clear!" General Carter called, "Please proceed through the gate In an orderly fashion!"
"This is it, Floyd," Devon said, grabbing his allotted bag and the supply cart he'd been given and moving with the flow of people. "Hope you packed everything, because we won't be back for a while."
"Trust me, I brought everything but the kitchen sink." Floyd set his camera on a cart holding the rest of his equipment. "I guess I'll see ya on the other side?" he asked as they approached the gate.
"Sooner than you think," Devon replied. Figures vanished into the gate at a steady rate, and in short notice their turn came. One step through the shimmering portal spanned millions of light years, starting on earth and ending with an abrupt stop on the other side. The excited babble of voices was silenced for an instant, replaced with somewhat hushed sounds of awe and amazement interspersed with authoritative voicing barking commands and directions.
"Okay, that was the worst thing ever..." Floyd groaned, putting his hand over his mouth. He moved off to an empty corner, sitting against the wall to let himself recover.
"I heard the first time they did a cross network dial it hurled General O’Neill out," Devon grinned, seemingly oblivious to the little plumes his breath was causing in the cold air. "This one was absolutely pleasant in comparison."
Lights were still in the process of slowly coming on around the room and individuals spread out from the gate, partially in curiosity and partially as a requirement as more and more came through. Glass, crystal and silver-grey stone seemed to be the materials of choice, from the floors, patterned with glass and stone in some places, to the stylized pillars and the tall, though dark, windows reaching to ceiling height above.
"Keep it moving, people!" the loudest voice yelled. The voice in question belonged to Colonel Bowers, the officer put in charge of the expedition's military forces. Technically, he was second in command, with General Carter being above him, but he still oversaw the flow of people for the moment from his vantage point on the second level. "Don't worry about where you are right now! Find an empty spot and park there and keep the area around the gate clear!"
"Jesus, it's cold," Floyd mumbled, pulling on the jacket he had brought. He fiddled with his bags, pulling out a small camcorder. He flipped it on, scanning around the room.
"It's not that bad," Devon insisted. Already the room was getting slightly warmer, if only from the still increasing volume of people milling about in it.
"Hey... the gate's different," Floyd commented. "Should we let someone know?"
Devon, having been more interested in looking around the room on a whole, finally turned his attention to the gate itself, a pensive expression forming. "Huh, kind of reminds me of the Pegasus gates. They must have upgraded. Aesthetics, maybe? Ancients changed styles a lot over the millennia. You should take a peek in the jumpers we got. Two completely different control panels."
"Sounds annoying," Floyd said, getting to his feet. He absentmindedly placed a hand on the wall, only for it to light up with a holographic display. Floyd let out a yelp, jumping away from it, his eyes wide.
"Yeesh, Floyd, you're a natural, probably stronger than I have," Devon commended him, putting a hand on his new friend's shoulder as he tried to make sense of the characters scrolling across the screen. He wasn't fluent in ancient, but he could pick out a few words here and there. It was one of the reasons why he actually got approved for the expedition. "Let's see... matrix... array maybe? Yeah... I got nothing really."
"What did you do?" Fortunately, there were others who were fluent. Carter and Jackson materialized out of the crowd, likely having been checking likely places for controls and interfaces. The latter of the pair stepped around them. "Excuse me. Hmm... Seems like the city is starting to reestablish connections and bringing a few of its subsystems online." He glanced at Floyd. "Good work."
"Uh, thanks?" Floyd said, giving a sheepish smile. "I'll, uh, keep up the good work..." He stepped away from the wall, making a point not to touch anything else.
"Wait," Carter said, reading a bit more of the text on the screen, "It says something about a...'Crystal Heart,' any idea what that is?" she asked, turning to Daniel.
"... What? We've been here all of five minutes. It's going to take me a bit of time before I can start making proposals about what folklore and legend might have some grounding in the Shangrians' activities." Daniel sounded more amused than annoyed. He rubbed his chin for a moment, before he started talking again. "I can't really think of anything off the top of my head. Perhaps it was their name for the ZPM?
"Ah, Crystals were linked with enlightenment in buddhist culture, and from what we can tell the Shangrians had some influence on the development of human society in that regard. It's possible that Oma either knew the Shangrians' tradition or was one herself before her ascension. The 'heart' is often used to refer to the center of something, the core. Crystals are also known for purity. Ah, let's see, some traditions mention that Crystals promote good cheer and banish sorrow and misfortune. That they are... symbols of Peace, Wealth and Posterity." He was really starting to get into it, making hand motions and sweeping gestures, stuttering and stumbling over his words at times due to his rapid pace of speech.
"I thought he said he had 'no ideas,'" Devon whispered aside to Floyd.
"Hmm... Shangri-La and Shambhala are believed to be the same location. It was stated that a future king, er, ruler would vanquish dark forces and usher in a new age in their traditions as well. A Golden Age often refers to enlightenment. Right! Ancients in general needed to be 'enlightened' to achieve ascension, again, as Oma taught. Crystals were often used both for protection as well as for supporting the proper mindset for meditation. Perhaps another site like the 'Cloister' in the Pegasus galaxy..."
"We can figure this out later," Carter said, glancing around, "We should head down to the ZPM room, see how much power we're working with." She paused for a moment, "And somebody find a window, I want to know where exactly we are."
"Sorry, General," Bowers said, having come over to see what had attracted the attention of his superiors. "My team has yet to find a window that's not completely obscured from the outside, even with someone with the gene with them to get the lights on and doors open."
"The exterior doors are sealed as well," another security officer added. The last of the expedition team had come through the gate, then the two ‘puddle jumpers,’ small, short-range Ancient spacecraft designed to fit through a Stargate, drifted through slowly, settling on the ground, while people moved hastily to give way.
"General!" one of the science team members called out, coming over in a jog. "We are getting the systems online. We haven't interfaced our computers with them yet, but it seems as if the city is under a minor isolation lockdown."
"Oh, that's lovely," Carter sighed. She nodded at Floyd before turning her attention to the team member. "What did you find?"
"Voluntary quarantine it looks like," he said. "We'll know more when we get the computers up. We seem to have full access, so we know it wasn't the automated safeguards."
"And, as for where we are?" Jackson chipped in.
"Um... in an ancient city ship?" was the hesitant response. Daniel frowned at him and narrowed his eyes. "Um... I'll get right on that!"
Carter shook her head slowly, but tapped her radio. "Stargate command, this is the Shangri-La Expedition."
"Reading you loud and clear Shangri-La," came the response, "Everything good on your end?"
"All expedition personnel and equipment have arrived safely and in one piece. We've arrived in what, as far as we can tell, is a fully intact City Ship. Systems seem operational, even if it is a little bit nippy at the moment," Carter added with a small chuckle. She was back to business in a moment. "From what we can tell, there is at least one active ZPM in the city, though we cannot tell more until everything is brought fully online. A team will be heading down to the ZPM room soon, but between the ZPM we brought, our naquadah generators and an intact city, power won't be our major issue."
"General," a technician interrupted softly, handing her a tablet.
"Thank you," Carter said as she skimmed it. "Everything looks good on our end, Stargate Command. Assuming you have no last minute instructions for us, you may cut power to the gate."
"Roger Shangri-La, General O'Neill sends his regards. Good luck." With that, the gate powered down, the wormhole cutting off with a sudden 'whoosh.'
"Well," Daniel said, moving up next to her, "Looks like we're on our own now." He adjusted his glasses, "I'm going to try and see if I can't find the archives, you heading to the ZPM room?"
"Sounds like a plan," Carter nodded. "Bowers, have your men secured enough space that we can start moving people out of the gate room and into halls and so on?"
"Yes ma'am," Bowers nodded. "We've cleared three floors down, and up to the jumper hangar on the level above us. We have enough space to start shifting equipment and people around. We haven't found living spaces yet but..."
"But we just got here," Carter agreed. "I'll check on the power, Daniel will check on their history. Lets see if we can't get a better idea of where we are, and set things up for ourselves."
"You want to take the camera guy or should I?" Daniel asked, gesturing over to Floyd, who was checking his equipment.
"You'll likely need someone with the gene to get the archives running, if Atlantis' set up holds true," Carter said.
"Alright then, I'll call you when we have something," he said with a nod, walking over to nab Floyd.
"Oh, it's so amazing Bonny!" Lyra squeed, walking down the street with a spring in her step. "Everything is so shiny!" The locals didn't even seem all that bothered by her, just smiling at the unicorn's enthusiasm.
"I knew the Crystal Empire was made of crystal and read the reports and all," Bon Bon started. She was looking around just as bright eyed as Lyra, though without the squeeing and bouncing. "But I didn't expect everything to be actually made of crystal."
"It's so pretty!" She smiled, taking a moment to look around. "This is real living history Bonny, an archaeologist's dream come true." She let out a small sigh. "Come on, let's go see the Crystal Heart!"
"Not wasting any time, are you?" Bon Bon giggled. She took her tour book from her saddlebag and flipped through it. "I think it's kept at the base of the tower, in the center of the city."
"That shouldn't be too hard to find," she said, rubbing her chin. "You know, the crystal ponies are very welcoming, it's a lot like Ponyville," she commented, moving toward the tower.
"They're definitely not like Canterlot ponies," Bon Bon agreed. She made a slight face at the memories. "Too many of them are just snobs and look down on everypony else for no good reason."
"Oooh!" Lyra squealed. "There it is!" She pointed in the distance, a glowing chunk of crystal floating above the ground ahead of them. She rushed over to it, letting out a delighted coo as she looked up at it with wide eyes.
The Crystal Heart, the central object to the empire's culture and society floated serenely at the base of the palace between two crystal spires, turning slowly. It seemed to glow slightly, lit from within. A hoofful of crystal ponies were making their way through the area, giving deference to the Heart, though apparently jaded to the wonder it was inspiring in its visitors.
"Wow, it's even prettier than I thought it would be," Bon Bon admitted.
Lyra trotted over to the Heart, staring up at it in awe. "And to think... This was all but forgotten..." She paused as the Heart gave off a green glow, and after a moment, strange screens appeared around it, unknown characters crawling along their surfaces.
"Connection to Shangri-La reestablished. "
Lyra just blinked. It was some variant of the old language. The other ponies around them looked at the Heart with uncertainty, seemingly ready to panic.
The glow in the Crystal Heart increased, building into a steady pulse of blue-white light that rippled outward along the crystal roadways and out to the outskirts of the city. A slow stream of symbols crawled within the Heart itself, seeming to fall from the top of the crystal and vanish into its depths. Lyra's eyes widened as she recognized it, at least somewhat.
"Bonny," Lyra said with budding excitement. She placed a hoof on Bon Bon's shoulder and started nudging her rapidly. "Bonny... Bonnybonnybonny! I know that symbol!"
"W-what?" Bon Bon said, her voice quivering slightly.
"I've seen the symbol, or at least some like it before!" Lyra actually didn't seem to hear Bon Bon's response. "It was on the west wall mural in the Everfree Castle! The room they found the Elements of Harmony in! There's a tablet fragment in the Royal Museum with it too!"
"And what does that mean?" Bon Bon asked, feeling Lyra's excitement rub off on her. "Do you know what's going on? It doesn't look like they do," she said, gesturing to the gathering crowd. "And that's a-" She was cut off by Lyra grabbing her and kissing her. The kiss was done and over with and Lyra started skipping around the area.
"I was right! This is too much to be a coincidence!" Lyra sang out as she danced.
"Make way for the princess!" A loud voice called out over the din of the crowd. The mob of ponies parted, allowing Princess Cadance passage, flanked by a pair of guards.
The princess paused, surveying the scene, her eyes locking on Lyra. "Lyra? Lyra Heartstrings? I haven't seen you since high school!" She rushed over, giving the surprised unicorn a hug. "How have you been!?"
"I'm uh... g-good, Your Highness..." Lyra replied sheepishly, giving the princess an awkward smile. "And um... this is my marefriend Bon Bon."
"H-hello Your Highness..." Bon Bon stuttered, bowing her head quickly.
"That really isn't necessary," Princess Cadance insisted, looking a bit embarrassed. She gave Bon Bon a lovely smile. "I would love to talk and catch up more, but I felt something odd with the Crystal Heart a moment ago."
"The Heart, it umm... it put up these weird screens," Lyra said, pointing at it. "Not only that but it has some form of ancient Equish all over it."
"The Heart... did what?"
Lyra nodded. "The dialect was odd but... I think it was talking about some place called 'Shangri-La.'" She rubbed her chin. "Does that mean anything to you?"
Princess Cadance was still a bit taken aback by the fact that the Heart had several screens floating around it. "I guess that would count as odd..." She cast a look at Lyra. "You read ancient Equish? You always did like history."
"It's not quite the same as ancient Equish..." she said, moving over to the Heart. She pondered it for a moment before reaching out to touch it.
"Lyra... do you think that's a good idea?" Bon Bon asked, a worried frown on her face.
"Relax Bonny, nothing is going to happen," Lyra said, putting a hoof on the Heart.
The Heart glowed again, building from the point she set her hoof on. She just watched in wonder, watching rather breathlessly. Magic swelled and a stream of light washed over not only Lyra, but Bon Bon and Princess Cadance as well. There was a humming sound, followed by a flash and the three of them were gone.
"W-what just happened?" Bon Bon asked, looking around in a daze. They certainly weren't in the Empire anymore.
The light deposited them in a large room in front of a tall pillar. A small gem resembling the Crystal Heart, save for being only one tenth the size, was set in it, the glow it had having quickly dimmed. Another telling feature was the room being occupied by strange bipeds, garbed in what could be a uniform.
A pair of startled technicians, crouched before an exposed crystal tray and fiber wiring, could only stare at the three in confusion and shock. It was the same device Floyd had inadvertently activated shortly after arriving in the city, set in a small nook in the gate room. As Atlantis lacked the feature, someone decided it was worth looking into while the General got the city off emergency power.
"Hopman... what did you do?" one of them asked, eyes fixed on the three life forms that appeared.
"I swear to God I didn't touch anything that could have caused this," the technician stammered when he found his voice. He had only been searching the programming, not activating it further.
"Um... Hi," Lyra said with a strained smile, waving a hoof at them.
"Somebody call security!"
