Chapter 20: The Catalyst

There was no dinner, no party, and no extended meeting with speeches and platitudes. That was not how the Alliance operated, and it never had been, as far back as the human era. Even as ornate and aesthetic as their world tended to be, their leader was a highly practical woman. She did not need to present calming ideas and promises of friendship; instead, she gifted pure power. Starlight was almost dazed by how simply and casually the Empress had granted her, essentially, a blank check toward the goal of defeating Thebe. It was unexpected, to say the least.

Starlight almost did not know what to do with a gift of such significance. The first thing she had done was order as much information as possible, and the Alliance had given her everything they had concerning Thebe regardless of its classification level. As much as she wanted to read it, though, without a functional omnitool it was impossible. A replacement had been ordered, but one meant for a pony was something of a rarity. It would take time to arrive.

As positive as the outcome of the experience had been, it had also been just as draining. As soon as Babylon’s hologram dematerialized, Starlight immediately felt her adrenaline decrease and her muscles weaken. By the time she had excused herself, she was on the verge of collapse. She returned to the garden deck only to find that the lights had faded, putting the forest into a night cycle. It was only then that Starlight realized that the weakness she felt was only a small symptom of how unnaturally tired she had allowed herself to become.

Synths did not sleep. Quatre most likely did, but from what Starlight could tell, she slept somewhere else. The forest had not been intended as a hotel, and as such there were no beds, save for some of the emergency blankets from Starlight’s ship that the mechs had brought to them. Starlight did not care. She undressed, covered herself in one of the thin, gold-colored blankets, and immediately slept.

She was so tired that, for a time, she did not dream. It was almost blissful, the capacity to rest without the shadow of her past looming over her- -but it did not last long. The nightmares came and came quickly. In this one, Starlight was sleeping in her own dream even as she desperately tried to wake. She struggled and turned, but some external force kept trying to shove her back into a state of mental void. For some reason, this was terrifying to her.

Then- -in the dream- -she awoke. Her eyes widened in terror and she took a breath, only to feel her lungs filled with the amniotic liquid that surrounded her. She coughed and tried to scream, but there was no way out. She was surrounded on all sides with glass and thick fluid, suspended in place by the agonizing implants imbedded in her spine.

She struggled, but she was too weak. Breathing became almost impossible, and she felt herself drowning. At the same time, she began to hear something. It started distant, as part of the fluid and sound of the machines her body was driving rushing in her ears and through her skull implants, but then it began to resolve. Starlight realized in her panic that it was voices.

Through the distorted, foggy world of her glass, she suddenly became aware of more tubes. The voices were coming from them. She screamed, trying to call out to them, and they heard her- -but their tone did not change. They were not screaming. Instead, they simply spoke. What they said was incomprehensible, but Starlight understood. When she heard their words, she realized just how much she wanted to stay, how much better it was in the tube.

This thought horrified Starlight more than anything, and she began to strike at the tube with her hooves. She was growing weaker by the second, though, feeling her life stolen away from her. Just before she collapsed back into the void, she saw a figure move just on the outside of her tube. The tube itself was translucent, and all she saw was a violet pony slowly passing by. Watching her.

That was when Starlight bolted awake. She was screaming, even though the only sound that came from her constricted throat was a quiet, squeaking hiss. She panicked for a moment, unable to see where she was through the thick darkness that surrounded her. Then she began to remember, and slowly sat up. She was breathing hard and sweating.

After a few moments of sitting in the darkness and trying to be calm, Starlight summoned her strength and forced as much concentration as she could into her horn. The strain was immense, but it did produce a result: a miniscule crackle of blue light from the tip, no brighter than a weak candle. The light was adequate for her to see somewhat, though. She was in one of the empty rooms off from the Antigone’s garden. Near her, Zedok and Jurneu were both asleep. Although they had initially fallen asleep distant from each other, the coldness of the room had caused them to involuntary moved together to where Zedok was using the white unicorn’s flank as a pillow. They both looked quite comfortable, and Starlight thought it was adorable. She just hoped that there was no violence when they woke up.

Beri and Sbaya, meanwhile, were nowhere to be seen. Starlight looked around for them, but as she did, a thought occurred to her. She was awake- -but the voices had not stopped.

She felt her heartrate suddenly increase, and she froze, listening. They were permeating the room from every side. For a moment she thought they might just be an unusual engine hum, but there was no vibration. They were definitely voices. What they were saying, though, was unclear. They might have been beckoning- -or weeping. It was impossible to know.

Starlight could hear them clearly- -perhaps, on some level, she always had heard them from the moment she stepped on the ship- -but they did not wake or disturb the other two sleeping occupants of the room. Starlight found that strange, and she began to wonder if the sounds were simply some kind of hallucination, a carryover from her dream.

Either way, she decided that there was no way she was going to return to sleeping. She felt as though she needed to walk, and carefully stood up. For a moment she paused as she stepped over her clothing, and then decided on a whim that she might as well not wander around an Alliance ship in her underwear. She took the minimum possible portion of her armor.

Exiting upon exiting into the forest, Starlight was surprised at how little she felt as though she were on a starship. The garden itself had seemed strange enough to begin with, but it was different at night. During the day, the artificial parts of the ship were still visible: the artificial lights and the walls of the room were always just at the edge of sight. In the dark, though, those elements seemed to vanish. There were just the trees, the ferns, the moss, and the sound of the insects. There was not even a hum of the ship’s engines or the feeling that it was moving.

It was almost frightening how real it looked. Even the air was cooler, and Starlight had some trouble seeing as she made her way down the dimly lit paths through the garden and toward one of the many doors leading to the remainder of the ship.

As she moved, though, she suddenly had a sensation of being watched. She paused, and a noise came from behind her. It was by no means loud, but the soft leaves of the ferns rustled as something dropped from above into them.

Starlight turned and her dim light rebounded at her from a pair of reflective eyes. She was almost shocked, even though she somehow already knew that it was Sbaya, who had descended from the trees above.

“I see you’re still awake,” said Starlight.

Sbaya stared at Starlight, her expression unchanging for a long moment, and then she raised one of her hands. It flashed with a dim blue light that seemed almost liquid, and she produced a tiny, glowing singularity. Although small and dim, its light was enough to make seeing her more possible. She released the sphere, and it floated free of her hand, drifting around like a tiny blue firefly.

“The cycles here are still wrong,” she sighed. “Besides. On Parnack, I am generally nocturnal. Most of the game can be hunted best at night.”

“Were you hunting, then?”

Sbaya seemed unduly surprised by the question, but shook her head. “No,” she said. “There is nothing here to hunt. That, and none of it is mine. I am only a guest here.” She paused. “That does not explain why you are awake, though.”

“I couldn’t sleep. I figured I needed a walk.”

Sbaya’s expression only grew more serious. “You can hear them too, can’t you?”

Starlight’s blood ran cold. She tried to remain composed, but she saw from the slight movement in Sbaya’s eyes that she had already noticed Starlight’s reaction. “Yes,” she said, seeing no point in lying. “But I just thought they were in my head. A piece of my dream following me for a bit.” She paused, and swallowed, finding that her mouth seemed unduly dry. “But you can hear them?”

Sbaya nodded slowly. “Yes. It is not the first time. When you are alone in the wilderness- - hundreds upon hundreds of miles from the nearest city- -and the forest suddenly falls silent, you can hear them then. Anybody who cannot is a fool.” She paused, looking up at the trees and listening. “These though…these are different. Not wandering spirits or things left behind by eons…they are so much closer. And what they’re saying…I can’t describe it…”

“Like their sad,” said Starlight, closing her eyes and listening to them as well, “and in pain…but that there is no reason to change that state.”

Sbaya’s eyes widened slightly. “Yes. Speaking to themselves, accepting. But not to us. We are not meant to hear them.”

“Can all asari hear things like that?” asked Starlight. “Can your mother?”

Sbaya shook her head. “Mother is a descendent of warriors. I am a descendent of hunters. I hear better than she can, even if I am not as strong.”

“But then what am I?” asked Starlight. “I’m not a descendent of either.”

“No,” said Sbaya, considering. “But from what my mother has told me of you, and what I have seen with my own eyes, I think perhaps you are the descendent of something else more powerful than either.”

Starlight was not sure what that meant. “I’m going to find them,” she said, turning. “I have to find them.”

She suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. “No,” said Sbaya. “Please don’t.”

“But they’re calling…”

Sbaya shook her head, and then took her hand away. “I told you. They are not speaking to us. We are not meant to know where those voices are coming from. I don’t know how I know…but I know something very bad will happen if you find those spirits. Just let them speak, and let them be.”

“Sbaya,” said Starlight, “I can’t do that.”

“You don’t have to go,” said Sbaya, more firmly. She seemed to stiffen, and her formerly catlike stance instantly became awkward. “In fact…there is another room off this one. One with no one in it. If we went there, we could be alone, and we could…” She fidgeted slightly, unable to finish the sentence.

“Sbaya…what are you trying to say?”

Sbaya shifted again, then stood up straight and looked Starlight in the eye. “Starlight, I want you to take my virginity.”

Starlight inhaled so sharply that she pulled some of her saliva into her lungs and began coughing. Despite being painful, it was probably for the best- -if she had not been choking, she might have burst out laughing as a defense against the pure awkwardness of the situation.

“Wha- -what?!” she managed to say.

“You clearly heard me. I want you to make love to me.”

“Sbaya, I don’t know if- -”

“Let me finish. I know, it seems rushed, and I’m probably insulting you by asking, but…I can’t help myself. My mother has told me so many stories about you, how strong you are or brave- -but I didn’t realize it until I saw you for myself. What you can do, how your always in control even when things seem so bleak…even with how much you’re hurting…” She stared at her feet and kicked at a small stone. “I just…I never even left Parnack. But when I did…there’s so many feelings I’m having. So many confusing feelings. When I look at other asari. When I look at you.”

“I’m not insulted,” said Starlight. “And it’s not that you’re unattractive, or that you’re not a nice girl…but I’m not a lesbian. I’m just not into women.”

Sbaya looked at her, her eyes pleading but serious. “I’m asari,” she said. “We look female, but we’re not. Not really. I don’t think of myself that way. If you want, think of me as a young boy. That’s closer to the truth.”

“I…” Starlight found herself stammering. This was an unexpected turn of events, but, really, it was not all that different from Jurneu offering himself to her- -except that it was. It was easy enough to tell Jurneu to back off; it was obvious that he was something of a pervert. Sbaya, though, really meant what she was saying. Starlight could see it in her eyes and hear it in how nervous she sounded.

It was impossible though, for a number of reasons. The main reason was that Starlight was not nearly as experienced as Sbaya probably thought; the only pony she had ever made love to had been Sunburst, and that had been centuries earlier. Even with her powerful position, she had just never bothered with stallions- -or even thought about doing such things with an asari, especially one who was the daughter of one of her closest friends.

“I can’t do that, Sbaya,” she said, turning around. “I just can’t. Please don’t hate me for it.”

Sbaya offered surprisingly little resistance. Over her shoulder, Starlight saw her look extremely dejected. “Oh,” she said. “Okay.”

The girl took several steps back and then leapt silently into a high tree, vanishing into the darkness. The singularity she had produced quivered for a moment, and then went out. Starlight sighed, knowing that she had made the right choice but feeling terrible. She stayed for just a moment, and then turned, finding her way through the darkness by the strange and distant sound of voices.

Synths did not sleep- -but with that said, as Starlight moved through the ship, she increasingly wondered if they did not have a state like it. The entire place was silent. She saw no one, save for an occasional mech marching by. It was almost frightening: the world of the ship remained the same. The artwork was the same, the architecture the same, even the light as harsh and bright as usual. There were just no synths.

As Starlight moved through the Antigone, though, she began to realize why. The ship was far larger than she had initially suspected, consisting of multiple decks of concentric circles and later oblong curves that centered around the middle forest and, later, the rear end of the bridge. A starship of this size in Equestria would have had a crew of at least two hundred ponies, or perhaps even three hundred. From what she gathered, though, it was actually staffed with less than thirty.

The apparent emptiness of the ship was only compounded by its confusing layout. Starlight often found herself passing the same painting or holographic plant or moving a level up or down without intending to. As she circled and recircled, she began to feel more and more anxious. The hallways were designed in such a way that they were always curving. It was always impossible to see too far ahead or to know what was around the next corner. Starlight assumed that this was to prevent the use of ranged weapons should the ship ever be boarded, and no doubt the synths did not mind the curvilinear design- -but to Starlight’s organic mind, it was strangely ominous.

The voices continued, though, and Starlight followed them. Sometimes they would stop, and she would stop with them, standing perfectly quiet and trying to listen. Then, when they returned, she would change directions and start toward them again.

As she listened, she began to realize that they were not actually voices. She conceived of them that way simply because they were external to her. What they truly were was far more difficult for her to comprehend. They were not words, or real conversations, but they were not true thoughts either. To Starlight, it was- -as strange as she knew it sounded- -what dreams would sound like from the outside if they were audible.

For a time, Starlight was going in circles- -not just because she was lost, but because the sounds she heard seemed to change directions, always coming from different parts of the ship. Or nowhere at all- -or everywhere at once. In time, though, she found herself standing outside of a large blast door. Her ability to read the complex language of various colored dots that made up the written form of Terran Proper was limited, but she knew enough to be able to know that this was the engine room- -the exact place that Quatre had told her not to enter.

Because of Quatre’s warning, Starlight paused for a moment. She knew that she had the option to turn back. There was no reason for her to go in; if she chose to, she could simply return to the garden, lie down, go to sleep, and try to forget that Sbaya had propositioned her. Starlight was fully conscious of her decision- -and succumbed to curiosity. She opened the door and went inside.

Unlike the main hallways, the engineering area was dark. Starlight’s eyes had grown so accustomed to the extreme brightness of the various corridors that for a brief second she was blind. It took nearly a minute for her eyes to adjust, and when she did she found herself in a large room that she imagined was ring-shaped. She immediately began moving to her left. She supposed that the actual engine was somewhere in the center of the ring, on the other side of a wall- -so that any toxic effects the reactor might have on her would be attenuated so long as she stayed in the outer engineering sector.

As she moved, she became aware that the shape of the engineering room was not unlike that of the garden sector. In fact, there was a strong possibility that it shared the same space on the ship, forming the lower part of a sphere that housed the garden in its center and the bridge at its apex. To Starlight’s right, there were a number of small offshoot rooms that were connected to the main reactor through a series of conduits that ran radially from the center. Starlight was not sure exactly what purpose they served, but the architecture of the ship was bizarre- -and yet somehow familiar. It closely resembled the way early quants were linked into their housings to power Equestrian ships.

Starlight had initially assumed that she would eventually cross all the way around engineering, as in her mind it was likely round. After a few minutes of walking slowly through the near-darkness, though, she realized that the actual situation was different. The circle contained a control room- -and as soon as Starlight heard voices emanating from it, she ducked behind a doorway leading to the nearest of the outer rooms.

“Well, Lester,” said one of the synths. “I’m sure of it this time. I definitely have a brain tumor.”

A second synth with a nasally voice replied. “You can’t possibly have a brain tumor! How many times do I have to say that? You’re a synth!”

“Your mother is a synth.”

“Of course she’s a synth! And she’s YOUR mother TOO!”

“Oh. I forgot. See! A Tumor!”

The nasally synth- -apparently named Lester, which was such a ridiculous name for a synth that Starlight almost burst out laughing- -started to groan. Or weep.

“You probably have one too,” said the other. “I mean, why are we standing around in the dark? That was your idea, after all.”

“And it’s a good idea! It saves power! And besides. It’s not like they can see.”

“I can’t see. Because tumor.”

“No, you can’t see because it’s dark. And you CAN see.”

“I can see that you’re weird for turning out all the lights. Why are you so weird, Lester?”

“Because I don’t eat enough fiber,” he muttered.

“But we’re synths. We don’t eat.”

“My point exactly.”

The pair continued to bicker, and as they did, Starlight moved past them. She was initially going to move around the control area, but when she passed the main door to the central area, the voices suddenly spiked. For a moment, it seemed like they were screaming at her. What they were screaming was unclear, but whatever was making the sound seemed to see her.

It was not the synths, though. Their conversation had devolved into Terran Proper, and they were now basically screaming. Taking advantage of their distraction, Starlight slid toward the large access door and, before she realized what she was doing, found herself entering the central engine core.

The inner area was more brightly lit, but not by much. Most of the light was generated from the exceedingly complex array of conduits and lines that led from the reactor to the equipment surrounding the room and, eventually, to the offshoot rooms surrounding the engineering ring.

The reactor itself was most peculiar, though. Most mass-core starships had a single, large core, usually consisting of a concentrated unit of element zero. Equestrian ships tended to use quants, which were crystalline matrixes. This ship, though, seemed to have five individual reactors. Each one consisted of a metal column about five meters high and less than one wide. They were generating a prodigious amount of energy, but Starlight found them oddly silent. The voices were loudest hear, to the point of being deafening- -but there was no hum of an engine, even though Starlight was sure that the ship was moving.

A thought suddenly occurred to her. A single, horrible, impossible thought. It immediately rose to the point of being a near obsession, a fact that she knew could not possibly be true- -but one that she had to confirm, regardless of the cost.

It took her several minutes to find the internal interface for the system. What it showed her, though, was not useful. It was all output waveforms and efficiency parameters relayed in the least user-friendly way possible. The readings themselves were incredible- -far higher than any modern Equestrian ship with a similarly sized core- -but to Starlight, they were useless.

What she did find, however, was a large mechanical handle. She found herself reaching for it, but pausing before she pulled it. Once again, she was faced with a choice- -her last choice.

She pulled the handle. The response was almost immediate, arriving as a series of metallic clunks as the systems within the ship engaged. Then, after a brief pause, the metal casings around the reactor cores split and retracted, filling the room with brilliant blue light and revealing the glass tubes beneath.

Starlight initially covered her eyes with one hoof, shielding herself- -so she thought- -from the light. When she forced herself to lower it, though, her mind stopped. The very thing she had known from the start- -and the very thing she had believed could not possibly happen, ever- -stood before her. She wanted to scream, but no sound came out.

In each of the tubes, suspended in liquid, was a naked human woman. They were not wendigoes; their bodies, though thin and pale, were not the gray, mutated bodies of the evolved humans. These humans retained the appearance of their ancestors, complete with long, flowing, dark hair. The only difference was what they were suspended by: the extensive metallic implants imbedded in their spines, linking their biotic power directly to the ship’s system. The Antigone was powered by human Cores.

“Impressive, aren’t they?” said a female voice from immediately behind Starlight. She cried out and spun around to find Quatre staring at her from the shadows. She was dressed in a slightly less formal but still highly Roman-like version of her uniform. Her face, as it had been in the conversation with Babylon, was completely covered with a thin transparent cover, and through it Starlight saw her smile, although only slightly.

Without a word, Quatre crossed the room to the nearest of the tubes where the woman within was floating, comatose. Quatre gently lifted her hoof and pressed it softly against the glass. It was not loud enough to produce a tapping sound, but the woman inside still tremored slightly, as if she were aware of a familiar presence.

“They’re clones,” she said at last. “Genetic replicas of a human named Oriana Lawson. I knew the original. She was…defective. They have since improved her substantially.” She looked over her shoulder at Starlight. “It is actually impressive, really. The entire human species is extinct- -except for these, the ones we make. The last pure humans in existence.”

“You…you bitch…” whispered Starlight. She wanted to scream, but even forming such simple words was almost impossible for her from her pure shock and rage. “You KNEW…”

“Knew? Of course I knew. It’s my ship.” Quatre sighed. “But I told you not to come down here for a reason. Because I’m familiar with your record, and I knew that you would react emotionally instead of logically.”

“Logically?!” spat Starlight, leaping over the controls and monitors near her and approaching Quatre quickly. “LOGICALLY?! What am I supposed to think, Quatre?!” She pointed up at the nearest Core. “This- -this- -you built CORES! This technology, it’s banned! I should know, I HELPED BAN IT!”

“Banned in Equestria, perhaps,” said Quatre, her voice calm as though she could not understand why Starlight was reacting with such vigor. “But not in the Alliance. We are free to use them if we so desire.”

“But- -but WHY?! There’s no reason too! You have mass-cores, quants, every other conceivable- -”

“For the same reason YOUR people used Cores for millennia. Because they work, and they work well. These are not like the Cores you knew. Our scientists have made so many modifications. We’ve overcome so much. Not only is their power output factorially higher than traditional mass-effect engines, but they produce it with a reactor of substantially lower size- -and without generating any excess heat.”

Starlight almost gaped at how calm Quatre was being, as if she were giving a sales pitch. “You have no idea what they are, do you?”

“Of course I do,” said Quatre, suddenly appearing to lose her patience slightly. “YOU are the one jumping to conclusions. You are being unreasonable!”

Starlight took a sudden step forward, but Quatre did not step back. She glared into the unicorn’s eyes. “I am not the one being unreasonable here.”

“Yes, you are,” sighed Quatre. “It’s not like we went out and captured the humans. They are clones. Built in a laboratory. Grown from pluripotent cells and incubated with element zero. The earliest implants are installed by the time they are the size of a bean.” She pointed at the nearest clone. “They aren’t ever born. They are developed to adulthood over ten years. They have never walked, never seen, never spoken. They are born unconscious, and they die that way.”

“And is that supposed to make it okay?!” screamed Starlight. “They’re people, Quatre! They have rights, like you and me! They are our equals! Don’t they deserve a chance at life too?”

Quatre sighed and shook her head. She stepped away from the tube. “You don’t understand. Your mind, it’s so…” She groaned, exasperated, and then turned around suddenly. “Have you ever seen what happens when you try to take one out of the tank? Hmm? Tell me, Starlight, what do you think happens to them?”

“They’d be scared,” said Starlight, drawing from her own experience, remembering when SHE had been taken out of her tube so many years ago. “Confused. They wouldn’t know where they are, or what they are supposed to do.”

“Oh no,” said Quatre. “That is an understatement. A massive one. If you forcibly pull one out, they flat-out panic. They’re not designed to be conscious, not meant to ever be completely born. They cannot talk, or stand, or speak. All they do is scream. Then they try to get back in the tube.”

“No,” said Starlight, shaking her head. “No, that’s not right.”

“It IS. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen them tear themselves apart trying to get back inside. And if we stop them…they just die. We’re not sure why. Medically, they’re fine. They just...stop.”

Starlight felt her eyes dart to the Core in the tank. Floating there, speaking- -or thinking. The resonance of her mind. A woman who would never be born. “You’re monsters,” she said to Quatre. “You’ve taken away their capacity to live…just to power this ship…”

“This ship? Oh no. Not ‘this’ ship. All our ships, save for the Hyperion and Dis Pater.”

“All…all of them?”

“Is it really so unfair?” mused Quatre. “Or are you really that biased? Humans built machines out of metal and computers to do their bidding. Is it so unreasonable that the synths could built machines out of flesh to do theirs?” She paused. “And besides, it’s not as though they’re really people. They don’t feel pain or need to live. They’re just machines. Part of the ship.”

For a moment, Starlight seemed to lose her connection to the world around her. She only knew that she was moving. Then she felt soft pony flesh under her hooves, and she pressed down with all of her strength. Quatre was amazingly weak, and her body crumpled to the floor. Although she tried to resist, there was nothing she could do to stop Starlight- -now screaming wildly- -from slamming the weaker unicorn’s face repeatedly into the floor.

“You bastards!” she shrieked. “YOU BASTARDS! Why- -WHY?! HOW DARE YOU!”

Starlight felt Quatre trying to resist, and heard her making high pitched sounds, but she kept beating her, feeling things inside her body crack- -until she realized that Quatre was struggling for her life. In horror at this realization, Starlight suddenly leapt off the other unicorn. Quatre was still breathing, but her breath was far from even. For a moment, she did not move- -but then rolled over. Starlight saw that the inside of Quatre’s mask was covered in blood coming from her nose, and that there was a large spiderweb crack in her faceplate.

Quatre saw the crack, too, and her eyes grew wide. “My- -my mask!” she said, grasping at it. “I’m fractured! The nitrogen!”

“I’m sorry,” said Starlight. “I- -I didn’t mean to- -”

“Hey!” called a voice behind her. Starlight turned suddenly to see the pair of synth engineers entering the room. They immediately saw Quatre lying on the floor, beaten and bloodied, and their eyes widened.

“She’s attacked the Supervisor!” said the larger of the two as both opened their omnitools. “Stop her before she- -”

He was interrupted as his chest suddenly burst open. The force was great enough to lift him off the ground, and he was held suspended for a moment, his mechanical plating bent outward from wthin.

“Ack!” he cried. “A TUMOR! See, Lester, I told you!”

“That’s not a tumor, you idiot, it’s- -” He cried out as a similar injury struck him. “Oh crap!” he said as he was lifted off the ground. “I just had a brand-new chest plate installed! And for some reason I’m actually enjoying this!”

“Weirdo,” replied the other.

Behind them, the air seemed to distort as Beri’s tactical cloak faded, revealing the fact that she had punched through both of their bodies. She then slid them off of her, both forced into unconsciousness from the damage to their principle power couplings.

“Berry!” said Starlight, both relieved and angry. “What the hell?!”

Beri suddenly lifted her hand, projecting an omnitool. She fired a beam of light. Starlight, in a panic, dodged, although she quickly realized that she did not have to. The beam struck Quatre, and she cried out as her body erupted with orange sparks and she partially collapsed.

“My legs!” she said, sounding on the verge of tears. “I can’t- -what did you do to me?!”

“I overloaded her nervous system,” explained Beri, quickly approaching Starlight. Her voice sounded strange, but Starlight was not sure exactly why. “Her entire body is integrated into the ship’s systems. Now she can’t call for help.”

“Beri- -BERI!” Starlight stepped in front of the cyborg. “I’m not going to ask again! What the HELL are you doing?!”

“Getting you out of here,” she said. “We have to leave. Now.”

“You just attacked two synths and one of the ship’s ranking officers!”

“After you very nearly bludgeoned her to death. Starlight, do you realize what you just did?”

“I’m sorry! It was an accident, I don’t- -”

“It wasn’t an accident,” said Beri, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Star, but you just declared war on the Alliance.” Starlight’s jaw dropped, and Beri looked up at the Cores. “But really, it isn’t your fault. After seeing this? They weren’t going to let you out of here alive.”

“But…but they promised me help,” she said, her mind racing. “They were going to help me hunt Scootaloo, and Thebe…”

“Thebe? What? Starlight, come on! You’re not that thick, are you? Do you really think they want to FIGHT Thebe? They want the technology. For themselves. It’s the last piece of their plan. What they need to win the War.”

“But…but…”

“I knew I should have killed you,” said Quatre, breathing heavily. “A Spectre...can never be trusted.”

“You will be quiet,” said Beri, slowly and carefully, “or I will tear your horn out. Do you understand?” She turned to Starlight. “I need to get you out of here.”

“Out of here,” repeated Starlight in a daze. She looked around the room. “The Cores,” she said, suddenly coming- -at least partially- -to her senses. “Can you get them out?”

“Cores?” Beri looked up at the containers, and then stepped over to one. She knocked hard on the glass, and the Core winced. “This is a centimeter of transpinite,” she said. “This room must weigh more than the rest of the damn ship…but these tubes are strong enough to withstand an atom bomb and be fine. I can’t break through them.”

“If you remove them, they will die,” warned Quatre.

“Hmm,” said Beri. She stepped over to Quatre and grasped her horn, hard. Quatre screamed. “You were warned. Say goodbye to your organ.”

“Berry! STOP!” cried Starlight, shuddering at the sight of an organ she knew to be extremely sensitive being treated so harsh, and at the idea of one being torn out.

Beri looked at Starlight and her optics shifted. “Fine,” she said, throwing Quatre to Starlight. “Take her. She will be a hostage. I highly doubt they will try to shoot through her.”

Starlight’s mind was still racing, but she knew that Beri was right, at least on some level. She had messed up, and done so badly. She wanted to run, to get out- -and she felt herself following Beri, pushing a badly weakened Quatre along in front of her. She knew what they were doing was wrong, but in her shocked state, she could not think of what else to do. The only thing she knew was that if she got to her ship, everything would be okay.

They left engineering quickly. Outside, the ship did not seem to be on any sort of alert, but it was quiet. Really, it was the same level of silence that Starlight had seen before, but now it felt so much more ominous. She wanted the sound of klaxons and warning sirens, but there were none.

“Please,” begged Quatre. “I…I have to slow down. My medication…”

“Shut up and walk faster,” said Beri, slapping the unicorn’s rump and causing her to squeal. Starlight grimaced. She did not like seeing Quatre hurt. It was not just that she looked like Twilight, but that, really, she had done nothing wrong. Beri seemed to not care, though.

“I don’t like this,” said Beri. Part of her cybernetic surface shifted, and she reached into part of her torso and produced a narrow, almost flat Zetan pistol.

“Wait,” said Starlight. “You had a gun this whole time?”

“Of course,” said Beri, as if it were obvious. “I have several. The wendigoes weren’t smart enough to take them all.”

Beri immediately took pointe, moving through the curving halls. A gun, though, was just about the worst thing to have in an Alliance ship. Because of the way the hallways perpetually curved, it was impossible to get a clean shot at a distance of greater than five meters.

“Starlight,” called a voice. It echoed through the hall, and Starlight immediately stopped.

“Marc Antony,” said Quatre, sounding so relieved- -or calling out to him very, very weakly.

Almost as if on cue, the synth commander appeared, walking briskly but carefully down the hall, flanked by a pair of female synths in military garb, each holding a large singularity rifle. They stopped at a distance from Starlight, and although Beri pointed her Zetan pistol at him, he ignored her. He instead focused exclusively on Starlight. He looked more disappointed than anything else.

“You found us quickly,” said Beri.

“Yes, because I’m not an idiot,” he said, still not taking his eyes off of Starlight and Quatre. “Starlight,” he said, trying to sound calm. “I’m not sure why you are doing this, but everything is still okay. I have not yet reported our situation. I don’t even need to. If you just give her back.”

“Giver her…back?”

“Four. Give me back Four. That’s all I want. You can do what you want from there, I don’t care. Just give her to me.”

“Don’t listen to him, Starlight,” said Beri. “It’s a trick. As soon as we give her up, those two are going to perforate us.”

“You wouldn’t be perforated,” said Marc Antony. “You would be completely vaporized. But I’m willing to let this all pass, chalk it down to a misunderstanding. Just please, please return her.”

Starlight looked him in the eye. “This ship. It’s powered by Cores.”

His eyes widened slightly, but he did not hesitate with his response. “Yes. Yes it is.”

“And you think, somehow, that things can go back to normal? While you have them trapped in there like that?”

“If you want them to, yes.”

“No.”

Marc Antony sighed. He gestured to one of the synths at his side, a tall female with dead-looking blue-green eyes. “Take them down.”

The synth nodded and stepped forward- -but then immediately turned to her left, pointing her singularity cannon directly at Marc Antony’s head. She pulled the trigger- -and it just clicked.

“Of course,” he said, holding up a small mechanical device. “It would be awfully difficult to shoot them without your firing module.”

The synth’s eyes widened, and she shifted her weight suddenly, moving to slam the butt of her rifle into Marc Antony’s chest. Despite his smaller size, Marc Antony was far faster than her and dodged the blow easily. The synth brought the weapon back for another swing, but Marc Antony grabbed it. He crushed it in his hand, causing a small detonation as it burst apart, knocking the synth holding it backward. Her hands had been consumed in the blast, and the stumps of her wrists were trailing long streams of green blood.

“You see,” he said, taking a step forward and ramming his fist into her chest. Her surface, which should have been metal and ceramic, deformed as if it were gelatinous, pouring more green fluid onto his hand. “The thing about being a synth is that I can tell when someone else is a synth. Or when she is not.”

He tore his hand free, and it pulled with it a mechanical device that Starlight immediately recognized as a respirator. It had been imbedded inside the synth woman.

The woman stepped back, her eyes suddenly alive as she gasped for air. As Starlight watched, her body shifted, distorting into a shorter version of herself: that of a dark-haired human woman, a replica of Jack.

“Disgusting,” said Marc Antony, grimacing at the changeling blood that now covered his left hand. He gestured toward the other synth. “Eliminate her.”

Chrysallis, though wounded and quickly asphyxiating, attempted to charge her green-colored biotics. She fired a bolt of energy, but it deflected off the approaching synth’s shields. Chrysalis then leaned forward onto the synth, but was pushed back. When she fell, she partially splattered, her body losing its form and becoming almost liquid.

“Eew,” said the synth. “It touched me…” She raised her rifle, pointing at Chrysalis. It was then that Starlight saw the small metal and tech-field device attached to the back of the synth’s neck.

The charge immediately went off, sparking with tech energy and causing the synth to release the most horrible distorted scream as her mind overloaded. She convulsed in place for a moment, dropping her weapon, and then slumped.

“What the hell?!” cried Marc Antony. “Martha, what’s wrong- -”

The synth suddenly stood up and blinked. “Program overwritten,” she said in a highly distorted and distinctly male voice. “Control established.” He looked around the room, somewhat confused, until his eyes fell on Starlight. “Oh. Hello Starlight. It is good to see you again.”

Starlight suddenly recognized the voice. “Armchair?”

“That is not incorrect,” he said, shrugging. As he did, he collapsed to the floor, sweeping out a foot and kicking Marc Antony’s legs out from beneath him. As the smaller synth fell, Armchair produced a tech sword and attempted to plunge it into Marc Antony’s chest. Marc Antony responded by igniting an omnitool that took up his entire right arm and projecting a tech barrier. Armchair’s tech sword bounced off it, shattering, and Marc Antony modulated the barrier, breaking its surface geometry into an unstable fractal pattern. The resulting explosion knocked Armchair back and gave Marc Antony time to jump to his feet, just as a small army of mechs were arriving.

“Kill them!” he said. “Kill them all!”

Starlight saw Beri raise her pistol, but she acted faster. She leapt onto Quatre and wrapped her foreleg around the gray-violet unicorn’s neck. Quatre immediately began struggling, but her resistance was even weaker than before. Starlight gripped her tightly and felt Quatre’s struggling increase as she panicked as ceased to be able to breathe.

Marc Antony’s eyes went wide. Looking at his sudden change of appearance, Starlight immediately felt horrible. He was not responding in a programmed way, or for appearances sake only. For the first time, Marc Antony’s expression looked genuine. He was truly terrified, and Starlight realized that she was strangling a pony that he loved dearly.

“No! Stop!” he cried. “You can’t do that!”

“How long do you think she can last?” asked Starlight, squeezing Quatre’s neck more tightly. As she did, she saw Quatre’s horn ignite. Starlight immediately felt pink-violet magic slash at her body, cutting against her armor and into her exposed skin. The wounds were deep, but Starlight’s armor protected her from most of the injuries.

Seeing this sent Marc Antony into a full panic. “No! Four, stop! STOP!”

“Let us pass,” said Starlight. “Let us pass, and I let her breathe.”

Marc Antony paused for a moment, but then gestured to the forces behind him. “Hold position,” he said.

“Sir,” said the nearest actual synth. “We can’t- -”

“Hold position, damn you!”

The synth, taken aback by Marc Antony’s sudden outburst, nodded and stepped back. Starlight, her hooves still on Quatre’s neck but loose enough to let her take a few ragged breaths, started walking backward. Beri did as well, pointing her pistol at them, prepared to fight. Armchair quickly grabbed what was left of Chrysalis: a hard, egg-like structure the size of a football.

When they were out of sight, Marc Antony turned to his soldiers. They took a physical step back, unaccustomed to seeing a synth with as advanced a face as his in such a state of fury. “Find the others,” he said. “Kill them and bring me their severed heads and genitals. Cut off the others. Kill them as well.”

“Command-Supervisor,” said one of the soldiers. “Does that include the High Priestess?”

“She took…my waifu,” said Marc Antony through gritted teeth. “After what she did? To me, the alliance between us and Equestria is over. Terminate her. Get the Supervisor back.”

“Yes, Command-Supervisor,” said the synth, immediately commanding his mechs to reverse course.

“Please,” said Marc Antony to himself as the others rushed into action. “Get her back. Before it is too late.”

“We need to get the others!” cried Starlight. She was almost completely out of breath, in part from running and in part from the fact that she was now almost completely carrying Quatre. “Zedok, Sbaya, Jurneu, we have to get them out of here!”

“They’re on the ship,” said Beri, firing several rounds backward, causing the hallway to erupt with blue light. “We just need to get there and get off this shithole!”

“That may be difficult, considering that the bulkhead ahead is closing,” said Armchair.

“What- -oh shit!”

Armchair was, in fact, correct. A large bulkhead ahead of them was moving to shut. Beri lunged forward, summoning a burst of speed that Starlight would not have thought possible even for her. She grabbed one side of the thick metal and pulled, straining her entire body against the force. The metal deformed under her grasp and slowed but did not stop.

Understanding the importance of the situation, Armchair set down his egg and grasped the other end of the bulkhead. He used his synth body to pull in the opposite direction, and with a plume of sparks and a loud metallic groan the door stopped.

“Move, move!” said Beri. “I can’t hold this forever!”

“I probably can,” said Armchair. The door suddenly shifted under his grasp. “Actually, no. No I cannot.”

The gap was already tight, and Starlight barely fit through.

“You too,” said Beri, gesturing with her head toward Armchair. He smiled and picked up Chrysalis before shifting to the far side of the door with Starlight.

“Here,” said Beri, reaching out with one hand toward Starlight. Starlight opened her hooves and Beri dropped a deep-violet crystal into her grasp. For Starlight, the identity of the crystal was obvious: it was the core memory facet of a quant.

“What is this?” she said.

“What they recovered from the Theban quant. Get it to Agrostation Six! Go!” She pointed in the direction of the hallway. “The main hanger bay is that way!”

As she said it, a barrage of singularities struck the door, pounding into the metal and in one place cutting through it completely and nearly hitting Armchair in the head.

“What about you?” said Starlight, suddenly realizing what Beri had been intending to do the whole time. “Oh no,” she said. “No, you can’t!”

Beri’s face momentarily flashed to her turian hologram, and she smiled. “I told you,” she said.

Before Starlight could stop her- -not that there was even anything she could actually do- -Beri released the door. Armchair was not strong enough to hold it, and it slammed closed, nearly taking his fingers with it.

“NO!” screamed Starlight, pounding at the door. “Beri! Get back over here!”

“Unfortunately, that is not possible,” said Armchair, picking both Starlight and Quatre up with one arm and cradling Chrysalis’s egg in the other. “We have to go. There is not much time.”

“No, we have to go back for her!” cried Starlight.

It was too late, though, and she was pulled away toward her ship and away from her friend.

On the far side of the now sealed and locked bulkhead, Beri turned to face her enemy.

“So I’m going to go out facing the Alliance,” she said to herself. “Well that’s unexpected. But with anyone else it would be unfair.”

The synths were advancing, and Beri raised her pistol, firing several shots directly into their shields. The shields were modulated for high-velocity projectiles, not Zetan plasma. The shields stopped part of each blast, but a substantial portion also made it through. The synths largely ignored it, advancing and drawing their swords.

One lunged at Beri. He moved with speed that would be impossible for an organic lifeform, but Beri countered with greater speed, striking him in the shoulder and crippling his sword arm. She then grasped the wounded limb and slid the blade of the sword through the next synth’s torso. The blow missed her core processor or reactor, and she struck out at Beri. Beri blocked, absorbing the tremendous force of the blow into her frame. Her internal systems registered severe damage to her compensatory kinetic systems, but her skeleton was still holding.

She twisted the blade and drew it out, shoving the synth back with her foot. Several mechs tried to rush her, but she swung the heavy blade, cutting their fragile bodies into pieces. The sword was far heavier than she was accustomed to, though, and before she could draw it back to defend herself, another synth struck.

This one was more advanced than the others. He slid his hand straight into Beri’s chest as if he knew what was inside her, and where. Beri Felt his digits tearing through her biological support systems, severing the lines that fed artificial blood to what was left of her brain.

Light flashed through her vision as the synth suddenly drew his hand out, pulling with it an organic mass drenched in pale yellow-orange fluid and coated in wires and implants. With a sadistic grin on his face, the synth closed his hand around the organ he had removed, forcing Beri to watch the destruction of her own brain.

Beri began to slump, and the synth threw away the only organic part of her that had remained. He then drew his sword. Before he could strike, though, Beri rammed her fist directly through his core reactor. His face twisted in agony as he detonated from within, blasting both Beri and several nearby mechs backward.

The explosion took the synths off guard, and Beri pressed her advantage. She picked up two of their own weapons and began firing into the group, shredding through mechs and driving the synths back. Not only did she force them to retreat, but she began advancing.

Just when she thought she was winning, an orange beam of light cut through the crowd. Beri’s diagnostic systems immediately registered several critical overloads. The effect was strange. It was not exactly painful, and yet still profoundly uncomfortable. Her hands became weak, and she dropped one of her rifles. She took two steps forward before she finally dropped to her knees.

The synth commander marched through the crowd, ignoring the damage around him. His right arm was completely encased in an Alliance omnitool, and Beri understood. Very few individuals would have the capacity to overload her protective software. He was one of them.

Marc Antony paused, standing over her. Beri tried to rise to attack him, but she found that her mind was beginning to grow hazy. She was not sure how exactly to go about standing up. Marc Antony seemed to realize this, and he looked around the room at the several wounded or dead synths around him. When he spied the remnants of Beri’s brain, his eyes suddenly darted back to her.

“Why are you still fighting?” he asked, posing it as though it were a serious question, as if he really wanted to know. “You’re already dead.”

Beri projected her holographic face and smiled mockingly. “I know,” she said. “I think I have been for a long time now. I was just waiting for a good stopping point.” She paused as her internal connection registered that Starlight’s ship had successfully activated, and then watched as the lights flickered and the ship shook violently as she mass-jumped directly form the hanger bay.

“Sir!” said one of the synths, who by this point was simply a torso crawling across the floor.

“I know, Michael,” said Marc Antony. He pointed his omnitool at Beri. “A shame, really. Such a waste of a good body. But then again, I don’t really care.”

He activated his omnitool. Beri’s body had no defense against what he did to her, nor did she feel a need to pose one. Her mind flashed with colors and the VI keeping her functional lost alignment as all her systems burned out from the overload. The last thing she was conscious of was a feeling of relief, followed by nothing. Her body slumped to the side, and she was dead.

Starlight collapsed on the deck of her ship just as it was mass-jumping to safety. As she did, she saw Zedok descend on her, medical kit in hand. Far down the central hallway, she saw Jurneu leaving the bridge.

“Damn it, Star, what the hell did you do?!” cried Zedok. “You’re bleeding, bad!”

“It’s not a problem,” said Starlight, standing up weakly. “Jurneu, where did you jump us to?

“About four planets from Palavan, there’s no way they’ll…” he trailed off and his eyes widened as he looked up at Armchair. “Um…I do believe you were followed.”

“What?” Starlight looked over her shoulder. “Oh, no. That’s Armchair.”

“Armchair- -ARMCHAIR?” said Zedok, her eyes lighting up. “Armchair, is that you in there?”

“Marginally,” he said, shrugging. “You don’t have to worry about the synth, though. In order to infect her body, I had to format her primary personality construct. Unfortunate, really. I will have to write a very sad letter to her children.”

“Zedok!” said Jurneu, suddenly. Starlight turned, her breath catching at the sound of urgency in his voice. She saw him standing over Quatre, who was lying on the floor limp- -and surprisingly still. “She’s not breathing!”

“What- -oh hell!” Zedok immediately left Starlight and moved to the other pony. She ran a diagnostic scan, and Starlight saw her expression harden. “Goddess,” she whispered. Then, more loudly, “she’s in cardiac arrest! Get her mask off!”

Jurneu pulled off Quatre’s mask, and a surprising amount of blood came out. Starlight almost vomited when she saw the unicorn’s eyes. They were bloodshot, wide, and empty.

“Damn it, Star, what did you do to her?!” cried Zedok.

“I didn’t- -I didn’t mean to- -”

Zedok closed her omnitool and put Quatre on her back. “I’m going to have to do this the hard way.” She immediately began performing chest compressions and CPR.

“Jurneu, get Sbaya, prep the medical bay. She still has brain activity but we’re losing her fast!”

Jurneu moved quickly, but for Starlight, the world seemed to move in slow-motion as she realized that she had most likely killed an innocent pony.

Some time later, Marc Antony sat in his command chair, watching space through the large transpite window, tapping his foot anxiously. It all felt wrong. Without her there, the bridge was too big and too empty. That emptiness only reminded him of what had happened, and what he had been forced to do.

A synth approached him from the side, a male named Ernest. According to the secondary officer hierarchy, he was next in command after Four.

“Sir,” he said. “The planetcracker fleet has been assembled on the edge of the Council neutral zone. We have received orders to fall back and join the formation as part of the defense force.”

“And what is their final jump-point?” asked Marc Antony, even though he already knew. He had always known.

“Thessia,” said Ernest, his voice flat and monotone. “The formation will be led by the Hyperion.”

Marc Antony’s eyes widened and he leaned forward suddenly. “The Hyperion? You can’t mean that she’s leading the battle herself?”

Ernest nodded. “She is.”

Leaning back in his chair, Marc Antony looked out at the window again, finding himself wondering just how insane Babylon actually was. “And when is the attack going to take place?”

“On her order,” said Ernest. “Not until then.”

Marc Antony chuckled, even though he was on the verge of tears. “She’s waiting for the alliance to dissolve,” he said. “That’s what her goal was. This whole time…”

“Sir?”

“Not your concern,” said Marc Antony. “Mine. All mine.” He stared into the blackness of space. “But if I lose her…then there won’t even be any point.” He paused for a long moment, and Ernest began to walk away. “I’m sorry,” whispered Marc Antony. “Four, I’m so sorry…”

Author's Note

You either die a hero or live long enough to be eaten by a space-cannibal and cloned into an army of biological batteries powering an entire fleet of spaceships driven by blonde robots.